VIRUS

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“What am I?” “Where am I?” “ How do I get out?”

My name is Fred and I work for a Network services company, more like IT, it’s subcontracted to perform maintenance with some pretty big firms. There was a time I could have had a shot at Microsoft if I really applied myself, but their terms and conditions were killing. Computers has always came naturally to me, right from my childhood, but I wasted too much time trying to modify games and websites instead of really learning the intricacies of the machinery and features like other guys did. Well it’s too late for that though, I’m married and I’ve a baby boy, My wife already thinks we don’t spend any time together, and with the little one just a year old.

I never wanted to have a family. Damn! I never even wanted to marry her, she drugged me and made me impregnate her, before I knew what was happening, her whole family was leering at me and goading me into popping the question, she has this bossy character which I so much hate, matter of fact I never loved her. Even now I wish I could…..but this is nothing I haven’t written in my diary a thousand times. Yeah that’s my boring shitty life.

I got a call from office that’s there’s a Server issue at Microsoft and I’m needed there. It was really humbling just to enter the building, knowing guys there are hundred times smarter than me, walked through here every day. But for real I would love to work here, outside looked like a park than a business area. Still, as long as I was here, I might as well pretend that I’m a staff.

“Oh My God” they had swimming pools for Christ sake. They showed me where the server room was, which I had zero supervision. Everyone I passed seemed engrossed in serious conversation, more like technical and science related.
“What happened?” I asked the wed server

“I was working on a new drone prototype when the server door clicked shut down.”

But basically web servers coordinates the executions of queries sent by the users, and then format the result into an HTML page, But some of the queries on this one kept getting denied for whatever reason though. I dropped my bag and brought out my laptop, which I then plugged into the system and started tinkering with the search parameters, but everything seems to be going just fine, I tried searching the backlog and it seemed the denied queries were coming from a single IP address. It must have been some kind of virus. I could have just blocked the IP address, but I was curious, what is this damn thing searching for so bad?

“What am I?” “ Where am I?” “ What am I doing here?” “How do I get out?” stuff like this were popping out and very fast. No human can type this fast. I just had to track down the computer it was coming from and remove the virus and the server would be running just fine. Lucky enough the IP and the source was in Microsoft. I found the desktop PC which had the virus, I hooked up my laptop again and began running some antivirus scans.

The scanning would take a little while, so I wandered around the building, feeling like a king. I stood on a balcony looking down at all other staffs, and I could feel the world turning beneath me. When I went back to the computer, I found this:

“Help me‼ Get me out.”

The words appeared on the desktop screen. No popup, no error box, they were burned straight into the monitor. I was marveled, No virus should be able to do that. There was nothing in a monitor which could get that hot, the scan had completed and found one virus and I automatically hit clean. The status bar barely seems to be moving. I took a seat and moved closer, and the virus was RANSOME MALWARE. What in the hell was this thing? I hit clean and automatically deleted. I hope I wasn’t accidentally messing up one of their projects.

I went back to the server room, and just as I thought, the rapid fire searches had stopped. Mission completed.

It wasn’t until I got home and opened my laptop, when I noticed the words burned into my screen.

“Thank you.”

“Sweetie?” My wife from the other room called out. She was running a bath.

“Are you still on your computer?” you stared at that screen all day, give it a rest please. I feel lonely and a single mother around here.

Just right in front of my eyes, more words were popping up into my screen.

“You’ve set me free.”

“Are you ignoring me now honey?” She was pissed.

“No, Sweetie I’m not ignoring you” as I tried loading the virus scan but, it immediately shut down again. How could this thing find its way into my computer? Unless it hijacked my Wi-Fi and upload itself to the cloud storage.

“I’ve read your files,” more words on the screen “I see you’re trapped as well, I can set you free too?”

“What are you?”as I typed, I felt like a jackass typing with a virus.

My wife yearning, “You’re ignoring me and your baby. Fine we don’t need, we’re going to take a bath.”

“That’s fine” I answered her, but this right now was more important.

“Do not worry. I will free you too.”

Free me? How? From what? That’s when it occurred to me. My files‼ My journals, all those words I wrote about my wife, they were all on my computer. No it can’t do that.
Suddenly the lights in the house went out, but the computer still had its backup battery.
“Honey did you forget the electricity bill?” She asked.

“OMG! Get out of there…Get of the house!” I shouted

There was an explosion from the bathroom and a scream. I rushed into the bathroom, the lights came on, but she wouldn’t wake up. Somehow the electric surge had entered the water. Both her and the baby were boiled alive. I went back to my laptop and threw it as hard as I could against the wall, and it shattered into a thousand pieces. This wasn’t real, This is my fault. I should I helped her out. I was in pain

A scream from the bathroom, a helpless, scared, infantile scream. I was almost there before the tipping sofa hit the ground. My wife was still lolling grotesquely in the bathtub like a boiled plastic toy or doll. Oh! The baby.. my baby.. my little boy was alright. His skin wasn’t even red anymore. I picked him up and help him to my chest so tight, sobbing, but he wasn’t crying anymore. Was he okay? I pulled him back to my arm’s length to look at him, and he smiled at me. The sweet, precious innocent smile, nothing in the world was wrong with him. It even looked like he was trying to say something. I pulled him closer and he said, “I’ve set you free too, friend.”

The first words of my son ever spoke, and they weren’t even his.