A story close to cyberpunk, published in 1991. Hunting viruses requires much more sophisticated equipment than guns, cartridges and game bags. A voluminous case with a set of floppy disks and optical disks, a powerful personal computer, a modem for connecting to the nearest computer network from any telephone, a radiotelephone for operational communication... But the hunter’s most important weapon is his experience. Knowledge of the habits, lifestyle, methods of camouflage and hunting of terrible predatory animals that from time to time attack peacefully grazing herds of computers - this cannot be replaced by any, the most complex and universal program. The country is preparing to launch a hypernetwork. And then something suspicious is happening in one local network of a small town. What if criminals are honing weapons for the hypernet? The Department inspector is on the trail...In addition, in 2002, the novel “Bite of the Techno-Rat” based on this story was published.