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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Science Fiction
- Subject: Science / Science Fiction
- Published: 02/11/2015
It was when Jason Burrell found a part-time job at a local computer store that he first became intrigued by the hint. He had managed to gain a placement at university to study for a degree in information technology. However, he had to wait for a few months before the opening tutorials commenced. He saw this as an opportunity to try to earn a bit of money before devoting himself to his studies, and with the electronics qualifications he had already gained in college he found no difficulty in being eagerly accepted on a short-term basis by the local branch of a national computer retail chain.
He did well in this temporary job, demonstrating computers to customers and answering their questions with accurate and not-too-technical information which they understood, and advising them on the best software to purchase for their needs. The store manager told him that there would always be a job for him there after university if he could not get accepted by NASA, which was his ambition.
But the hint puzzled him greatly. It might have been an accident, or it might have been some kind of sly deliberation, he could never decide. The hint came from a very elderly man in an expensive overcoat who appeared in the store one Monday morning and began to gaze around like someone who had never seen a computer before. In fact, his expression and body language seemed to be saying: “Where the blazes am I? Why am I in this place?” He looked convincingly like a fish out of water. From a basic sense of sympathy more than sales acumen Jason strolled towards the old man to see whether he could offer any help, like directions to the library or the bus station.
As Jason drew near, the elderly gentleman stared at him and then drew himself up with an imperious expression on his seamed face. “Is this a shop?” he demanded. “Do you work here?”
“Right on both counts,” replied Jason in a soothing tone. “This is a computer store – we sell desktops, laptops, E-pads, you name it, plus a huge range of software programs to suit every need. Did you want anything like that?”
“That depends,” snapped the old man. “What date is it?”
Jason was taken aback at this rather strange question. “It’s May 5th, Monday,” he answered almost automatically.
“No,” the gentleman tutted irritably. “What’s the year?”
“What…? Jason’s eyebrows did exercises.
“The year! The year! It can’t be that difficult a question, even for a computer salesman, surely?”
“The year is 2014,” stated Jason blankly, then, just in case, adding irrepressibly with a lopsided grin: “AD.”
“Of course it’s AD,” snapped the man. “It couldn’t be BC now, could it?”
“No, of course not,” soothed Jason, wondering whether he should call for help.
“Of course not,” mimicked the elderly gentleman in agreement. “They didn’t have many computers BC. Except Archimedes of course.”
“You… “ Jason hesitated, not wishing to annoy the man further, “…you think that Archimedes had a computer?” He looked around quickly to see if any other members of staff were within calling range. He was beginning to think that he might need some medical help to deal with this.
“Of course he had a computer. Have you never heard of the Antikythera mechanism, recovered from a wrecked ship of the First Century BC off the Greek island of Antikythera? It’s a rusted lump in a museum. Amongst other things, it could track the complex elliptical orbits of all the planets of the solar system, including those which hadn’t been discovered then. That was Archimedes’ computer. My boy, you should have seen what it could do when it was plugged into an electric point!”
“Electric point,” repeated Jason flatly. “In Syracuse, Sicily, between 287 and 212 BC.”
The old man suddenly seemed to notice Jason with his full attention. “You know when Archimedes was born and died, and his home town? I’m impressed. In fact, very impressed. What’s your name, son?”
“Jason Burrell sir,”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen sir.”
“And this is 2014? Not many young men of eighteen in 2014 would address a perfect stranger with the honorific ‘sir’, I’ll wager. I like you, Jason Burrell. You have raised yourself from the gutter of mundane shopkeeping into my field of mental appreciation. Do you have such a thing as a demonstration computer already switched on and active? Perhaps I could show you something else you won’t believe, to add to Archimedes’ computer and electrical points.” He chuckled.
Jason never knew why he accepted the stranger’s request instead of advising him to leave the store before he called security.
“Sure -- we have the latest models operating over there,” he pointed at a row of smart computer tables each of which bore a keyboard and flat screen displaying changing sequences of colorful screensaver images. The old gentleman led the way. Somewhat baffled and uneasy in mind, Jason followed close behind. By luck it was a weekday and the store had only just opened for the day, so they were alone in the showroom. Jason mentally shrugged, thinking he may as well go along with what was developing. The old man seemed polite, if perhaps a little irascible and possibly insane, but was probably harmless. The situation held, perhaps, a certain entertainment value.
“You seem to know something about computers,” Jason remarked as he conducted the old man toward the tables. This was part of his salesman spiel -- probably the worst part, copied from a used car salesman he had once encountered who always buttered customers up with the same compliment about their knowledge of used cars immediately before ripping them off with a lemon.
“Even if what I know doesn’t agree with your own rigid perception of history and reality?” asked the man with a friendly but sly smile.
“Who am I to argue with a customer,” Jason replied glibly, deciding to make the most of things since the store was otherwise empty and he may as well do something to pass the time. “After all, one should live and learn, I suppose.”
“Indeed -- providing one recognizes knowledge when one encounters it,” replied the man enigmatically as they approached the computers, linking his fingers and flexing them at arm’s length with a crack of knuckles. He indicated a particular model. “May I?”
“Be my guest,” invited Jason, half amused, half baffled.
The old gentleman sat down at the keyboard and mouse pad. “Is this one connected to the internet?” he asked.
“It certainly is,” replied Jason, trying hard to sound jovial and light-hearted. What he was thinking was more along the lines of: “Why the heck am I letting this old idiot touch the equipment?” Then he reflected that perhaps this was what was sometimes referred to as a crisis of conscience?
To his great surprise, the old man’s fingers skittered across the keyboard like a pair of tap dancing spiders, leaping to the mouse to make a few clicks. The familiar on-line internet home page immediately appeared on the screen.
“That was pretty slick,” admitted Jason in somewhat grudging admiration.
The elderly character gave a brief chuckle. “’The quickness of the hand deceives the eye’, as the old saying has it,” he muttered. Jason was trying to decide whether the chuckle was creaky like rusty hinges due to age or due to being a little sinister. Possibly both. As he watched, the man rapidly typed in what looked like a complex sequence of alphanumerics and conventional symbols.
“Is that a proper internet website address?” enquired Jason doubtfully, stooping forward to study the code.
“My boy, the internet is the tom-tom’s of Neanderthals,” answered the old man softly. “I am attempting to link your stone-age computer with the Phishingnet.”
“The what?”
“The Phishingnet.” He dabbed a finger at the “enter” key. The screen went black.
“You seem to have switched it off,” pointed out Jason.
The man sighed rather theatrically. From a pocket he pulled out a business card and held it out to Jason. “This may prove of interest later on,” he stated. Then, before Jason could study the card; “I wonder if I could ask you for a pencil and notepad? I can’t see any on these desks.”
“Sure,” said Jason wearily. He was fervently wishing he had never got so involved with this eccentric time-waster in the first place. He walked around a software package display stand to where his own desk was located and returned with pad and pencil. It took him less than ten seconds. When he came back, the old man had gone. Startled, Jason quickly searched the showroom from end to end. The door to the mall outside had not opened. He dropped to his knees and stared around through the tubular metal legs of the stands and tables. Nobody. Jason was most definitely alone in the showroom.
Perplexed and thoroughly baffled, he looked at the business card he had been given. He read it. Then he read it again. Then again…
#
Pythagoras
23 Temple Street, Samos
Mathematician, Scientist, Philosopher
‘The Universe my Theorem; Geometry my Angle’
labyrinthsite: ULY/TAS:bby??%rt^8$#~??&
#
Jason’s mouth gaped. As he raised his eyes from the card they fell upon the computer screen the old man had been using. Exactly as his eyes focused on it, the blank screen flickered into life and displayed an ordinary typed message. Jason peered closely to read it.
It said: “Many thanks for the use of the computer, Jason Burrell. Here’s a hint for you. Don’t be content with the World Wide Web also known as the Internet – look instead for the Universal Labyrinth, known for short as the Phishingnet. Another hint; ul/zzpy/9**^%$&£=6g~#<+”
Prompted mainly by the certain fact that there was no way the man could have reached a door and left the store in the few moments Jason had taken his eyes off him, and the equally certain fact that the store had suddenly been demonstrably empty except for himself, Jason used the pencil and pad he had fetched and carefully jotted down the message that had been left for him on the screen. Then, as an almost instinctive measure to ensure the information could not be lost and that he had not made any slight error in writing it down, he highlighted the screen message, copied it with a right click of the mouse, opened his email page, pasted the text on an email and saved it under “drafts”. This would ensure that he could access it on his home computer if he wished.
He knocked at Derek Wayne’s office door and opened it. Derek was the store manager who had given him the job. “Can I have a word please, Derek?”
“Sure,” replied Derek at once, looking up from some paperwork. “You’re alone on the floor aren’t you? Give me a few minutes and I’ll come out.”
When Derek had joined him in the showroom Jason asked him the question that was now seriously playing on his mind. Derek Wayne was not merely a computer geek, he was a super-geek. He designed computer systems for town and city administrations and for scientific foundations and according to rumor was soon to be offered a seat on the board of the company they both worked for. He was also a nice guy and a capable and efficient administrator. If anybody could shed a light on Jason’s puzzle, it was Derek.
“Have you heard of the Phishingnet, or Universal Labyrinth?” Jason asked him. Derek stared at him thoughtfully.
“Do you mean the so-called ‘Hidden Internet’?”
“No, I know about that -- the huge underground internet based on untraceable servers and member’s own home computers running in a secret anonymous worldwide system. The Phishingnet is something else. It seems to exist independent of the internet altogether and can only be accessed by using some pretty strange code characters.”
“Well,” mused Derek, “I’ve never heard of it. Sounds like just a bunch of geeks setting up another anarchist web network. My advice would be not to get involved.”
“Sure,” replied Jason. “Thanks.”
At home in his room after work, while his parents were watching TV downstairs, Jason opened the email he had saved and copied the peculiar “ul” address and saved it. Opening his browser, he pasted it in, then hesitated. He could not help wondering whether he was about to unleash some kind of Pandora’s Box. But he had state-of-the art anti-virus and defense systems. Besides, the computer in the store which the strange old man who claimed to be Pythagoras had used had not shown any signs of infection or anything else that might be wrong afterwards. With a decisive jerk, he clicked the mouse button and activated the line of unusual keyboard symbols.
The screen flickered a couple of times, there was a pause of perhaps six or seven seconds, then a white page appeared. At the top of the page was the simple message: “You Have Found the Universal Labyrinth” and beneath this in smaller print, the sentence: “Caution and wisdom is advised. Please be aware it is risky to link directly to worlds and continua which are known to be ambivalent to Phishingnetters. Please be aware that importing alien species or the sale of national monuments to alien visitors via Oh-Boy! may not be legal in your local administration. All financial transactions should be made using Paybacktime Pal.”
Jason stared and blinked. Beneath the writing was a single typical and normal-looking virtual oblong button in orange with a shaded border to give a 3-D effect. In the oblong was the single word: ENTER.
Slowly, his mind strangely numb with a sense of screwy unreality and common sense disbelief, he moved the mouse until the cursor arrow was on the centre of the virtual button. He blinked again, then forced himself to click the mouse. The screen flickered briefly and a new image appeared. It consisted of a normal-looking text box for typing in, set within a strange piece of logo artwork. Across the artwork in fancy lettering was the wording: “Boogle, the Phishingnet Search Engine”.
Feeling more and more like he was in some kind of dream, Jason slowly forced himself to type in the text box the words “Pythagoras, 23 Temple Street, Samos” exactly as they appeared on the strange old man’s business card, thinking just to see what might turn up as a result. Then he hesitated for a long time, summoning up all his nerve. Then he clicked on the screen “search” icon. Instantly he vanished like a bursting soap bubble. There was a loud “pop” as air rushed into the space he had so suddenly vacated.
From Jason’s point of view, it was his room which vanished around him. That same instant, he found himself in blinding sunlight on a dusty unpaved road running through a township of mud-and-stone houses without any glass in windows and where some of the houses had white stone pillars supporting front porticos. Since he was still in the sitting position but minus any chair he fell onto his back but managed not to bang his head. Standing up and rubbing his bruised derriere, he realized that he was right outside the front of a particular house. Shocked, frightened and entirely baffled, he walked unsteadily to a large paneled wooden front door. There was no knocker. In some degree of panic, he forced himself to bang loudly on the door with his knuckles. It just seemed like the logical thing to do.
After several long moments the door was opened. An elderly woman in a white toga or robe stood there staring at him with a frown. “Yes?” she demanded imperiously, frowning with her entire face as only an elderly woman can.
“I’m… I… that is… I don’t…” he stammered, then managed to pull himself together. “Where am I?” he whined pathetically.
“Oh dear,” tutted the woman. “Another one!” Then, wearily. “Come inside.” She held the door open. As if in a trance, Jason entered. To his mild surprise he was not in a room. Instead, the door had opened into a walled garden where pots of shrubs graced a gravel floor set with paved paths. Fountains splashed in stone-rimmed pools and elegant marble statues stood here-and-there amongst ornamental flowering bushes. The house proper was on the farther side.
The woman pointed to a marble bench. “Sit down!” she commanded. He did so and she sat with him. “Now tell me,” she continued, “what year are you from?”
Jason was by now beyond wonderment. “2014” he replied worriedly. “Where am I?”
“And where are you from?” demanded the woman remorselessly.
Suddenly feeling a surge of anger coupled with self-righteousness, he answered tersely; “Well, I’ve a feeling I’m not in Kansas any more!”
The elderly woman suddenly smiled and Jason noticed that she was actually beautiful in her own way; she must have been a looker in her younger days. “Well, at least you got the quotation word-perfect,” she remarked. “Most people misquote the movie by saying ‘I don’t think I’m in Kansas any more.’ You are in Samos, young man, and the year is 500 BC. I think you are probably looking for an elderly man called Pythagoras. You probably met him somewhere near a computer terminal, am I right?”
This simple acknowledgement of recent facts from a person who knew about The Wizard of Oz and computer terminals did much to calm Jason’s agitated state of mind. He smiled back. “You got it in one!”
“Well,” she continued, “I am Mrs. Pythagoras, and it is usually me who has to sort out the predicaments of my husband’s waifs and strays from other times and other worlds while he goes gadding about enjoying himself! What is your name, young man?”
“Jason. Jason Burrell, mam. And -- and I’m new to all of this! I never knew this kind of thing could happen. I never heard of the Phishingnet before, only the internet.”
“Of course,” she replied gently. “You come from a primitive time where computers have only been around for a few generations.”
Jason looked slightly askance. “Pardon me Mrs. Pythagoras -- but you said this is 500 BC –- that is a much more primitive time than 2014!”
“Well, no, not really,” she replied gently. “You see, it will not be until the year 2056 when theoretical physicists discover that time actually runs backwards, not forwards. When that discovery is made, it will explain lots of things about the Big Bang which puzzle the cosmologists of your period.”
“But how can time be running backwards?” spluttered Jason indignantly. “I was born, then I grew up, then I started work – this is a logical sequence of moving forward in time!”
“Ah, but only from the experiential point of view of the person who is imprisoned in retrograde eventuality. A goldfish thinks their bowl is the universe and the world outside is a strange dimension.”
“Look,” said Jason very politely. “May I speak with Mister Pythagoras please? I need to get back home. I need to find out how to do that.”
“Well, he’s not here right now, but he’s due back this evening sometime. He’s out giving a lecture on Mars.”
“You mean he’s telling ancient Greeks about the planet Mars?”
“No, I mean he has gone to the planet Mars to give a lecture on ancient Greece.”
Jason gave up. “Can I just wait here for him to get back?”
“Of course you can. I can understand your confusion. Come into the house.”
Jason followed her across the courtyard into the main building. Inside it was primitive but clean. Wooden couches had brightly died woolen covers; the floors were flagstones; the walls had painted frescos; the occasional marble statue added a hint of affluent grace; ceilings were supported by wooden beams. Mrs. Pythagoras left Jason in a room he mentally classified as a lounge while she went to arrange a meal.
Perhaps she should not have left him alone.
Driven by curiosity, Jason began to cautiously explore. He did not know why, it was some deep instinct. Treading quietly he moved along corridors and looked into rooms. This was made easy by the fact that, inside the building, there appeared to be no such thing as doors, merely door-sized openings. Everything he saw was plain and simple, the homespun furnishings graced here and there by elegant marble statues. Then he walked past an open door-space at the end of a corridor and stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened in disbelief. The room appeared to be a home office. There was a computer inside it.
Jason’s mind boggled. He approached the computer. It was a desk-top model. Everything which, in all his previous experience, had always been made from plastic and metal, was here made from finely carved and polished marble. But there was a normal screen. A normal-looking wire ran to a marble electric wall socket. And it was switched on. The screen bore the image of the same Boogle Phishingnet search engine that had caused him to be transported to ancient Greece. There was a marble keyboard with marble keys and even a marble mouse with a normal wire. The keyboard even had a standard “qwerty” key arrangement. The lettering was English. The numbers and symbols were normal.
This patch of normality in a primitive setting jolted his mind. It suddenly dawned on him that Mrs. Pythagoras had been speaking to him in modern English and with an American accent. It was so normal he had not questioned it until now. This was 500 BC. Modern English only evolved somewhere around the end of the 15th century, the American accent only began to form in the 17th. What was going on here? And a working polished marble desktop computer? There was an ornately carven and polished marble bench to sit on. He sat down and twitched his fingers, his mind reeling.
Then he sighed resignedly and started to type into Boogle. His words popped up normally on the screen: “Where am I?”
After a brief flicker an answer appeared. “You are here.”
He typed: “Where is here?”
An answer appeared. “You are currently inhabiting Einsteinian spacetime with a quantum uncertainty factor estimated as What The Fu**!!!???”
Frowning, he typed: “How can I get home to the USA in the year 2014?”
Rather to his surprise an answer appeared. “In order to return safely to your home at 1050 Del Paso Blvd. Folsom, Calif. it is necessary to enable Phftt, or Phishingnet Forward Travel Time capability. Since forward time-travel is recognized as a Causation Violation, it is necessary to first ensure that your computer’s anti-virus protection is temporarily disabled. Look for the Wall of Death icon on the screen, right click & select the ‘Disable Wall of Death’ option. Then sit in front of screen (you must be within two metres or closer), type-in your home address and the exact date you are aiming for. Clicking ‘Enter’ will transfer you instantaneously to your home chair, exactly as you came to where you are now. Unless otherwise required (see options), you will arrive exactly 20 seconds after you left.”
Jason digested this. “Finally!” he thought. “Some useful information.”
He peered at the multitude of unfamiliar icons on the screen. The ‘Wall of Death’ icon was conspicuous and consisted of a small cartoon of a wargames-type battlement with a stonework skull and crossbones carved on it. He clicked on it.
The screen turned bright red. Wording appeared in a downward list of options.
“Dimensional Anti-Virus Control.”
“Anti-Virus is Enabled.”
“Update Anti-Virus (All Updates Are Up To Date At This Time)”
“View Virus Log.”
“View Virus Dungeon.”
“Purge Virus Dungeon”
“Disable Anti-Virus (Unwise).”
Jason hesitated only an instant, then clicked Disable Anti-Virus. After a pause of maybe three seconds, a box opened on-screen: “Anti-Virus Disabled. R.I.P.” A few more seconds and the now familiar Boogle Search Engine screen appeared again. Taking a deep breath, Jason carefully typed in his exact home address and the correct date and year. Then he stabbed the “Enter” button. He tensed himself, waiting for something to happen. Then he got sucked into the screen headfirst, with great speed, his feet disappearing last. The surface of the screen re-formed as his shoes vanished. All that was left on it was a message box bearing the cryptic legend: ‘t-mail message sent’.
A nanosecond later Jason was propelled out of his own desktop computer screen in his home study. He landed awkwardly spread-eagled face down across his wheeled swivel chair, which promptly carried him with some momentum to crash headfirst into his wall bookcase. He staggered to his feet amid a shower of falling books, holding his head. Despite the pain, he was overjoyed with the relief of realizing he was back home again. He could even hear the distant sound of his parent’s TV downstairs. A glance at the wall clock showed him that the time was less than a minute after his earlier unexpected departure. He turned to face his computer screen, which looked normal. “I did it!” he breathed in wonder. “I got home OK! I worked it out right!”
Exactly as he whispered those words, the screen turned bright red and started flashing. A loud buzzer began to beep on-and-off. Then a series of messages started flashing on the screen: “Warning! Urgent Action Required! Virus Attack! Virus Attack! Anti-Virus Disabled! Warning! Urgent Action Required! Recommend Enable Anti-Virus Immediately! Virus Attack!”
Jason hurriedly stooped over his computer and began to locate the icon of his state-of-the-art anti-virus system. Even as he leaned close, the screen shattered in his face like a breaking window. Fortunately it was plastic, not glass. As he automatically reeled back something began to crawl out of the broken screen as though it were the end of a dark tunnel from nowhere. Jason gasped in horror and froze, like a rabbit before a snake.
The thing oozing itself out of the screen and into his study consisted of a large bunch of hungrily groping black and crimson tentacles, dozens of them, like a snake stampede. Behind them came a hideous head with several soulless popping eyes like black pool-balls. The tentacles appeared to grow from the place where a mouth ought to be, but a certain eager and repulsive slurping sound indicated that a mouth of some kind was in there somewhere.
Jason’s horrified paralysis lasted only an instant. Then instinct took over and he recoiled backwards, away from the oozing, advancing monstrosity. The room was filled with a stomach-churning sound such as might have been made by a bath full of energetic eels and threshing catfish. Jason managed to pick up a wooden chair which stood against the study wall. Swallowing hard and abandoning hope, he thrust it legs-first at the creature like an old fashioned circus lion tamer. Multiple thrashing tentacles seized the chair and turned it round, jabbing the legs back at Jason. He was sure he heard the thing emit a growl from some orifice or other. He jumped back and flattened himself against the wall of the room, looking round desperately for anything that could be used as some sort of a weapon.
The next moment a bright light flashed out of the broken computer screen, highlighting the ghastly Cthuloid creature from behind, even as more of its amorphous body heaved itself through the frame like a frenzied slug, defying dimensionality by being much larger than the small space it was crawling through. Jason blinked at the intense flash and when his eyes opened a microsecond later he saw Pythagoras standing there beside the desk.
There were many things Jason wanted to shout at Pythagoras. What actually came out was simply “Help!”
Pythagoras raised his left hand as an intended calming gesture. He also raised his right hand, in which he clutched what looked like an ordinary aerosol spray can. Taking aim, he sprayed a brief squirt of mist at the nightmare creature, which immediately curled all its tentacles about itself, squeezed all its ball-like eyes tightly shut, emitted a horrible gurgling noise and oozed rapidly backwards through the broken computer screen. In seconds it had vanished.
“I came as soon as I could,” the old man explained apologetically. “I had to stop and search for my spraycan of ‘Viro-B-Gon’. It’s a 23rd century product you can buy over the Phishingnet, using Oh-Boy.” Jason was speechless through combined shock, terror, relief and gratitude.
“Tell you what,” said Pythagoras encouragingly, “I’ll just leave the can here for you, shall I? You probably won’t need it again, but it will be reassuring to know it is in reach. It’s guaranteed to eliminate all known computer viruses throughout time and space or your money back, and double your money back if you get eaten.”
Finally Jason’s mind made touchdown again on the surface of reality.
“You…” he stammered, “…you… you mean, that thing was only a computer virus?”
Pythagoras grasped the wooden chair that lay on its side, turned it upright and sat on it back-to-front, legs straddled, so he could fold his arms on the chairback. “I’m afraid so,” he nodded reflectively. “Not one of the simple little rogue program codes of your time, of course, like your 230 Dead As Storm virus, or your Sasser Worm, or Nimda, or Melissa, or Code Red, or Morris Worm. I recognized that one as a Lovecraft Trojan from 2035. It’s a nasty one. The first thing it does is to persuade you to disable your anti-virus. An infected computer system can take weeks to clean up without the spray-can. It’s very difficult to completely eliminate it, especially if it eats the operator. It’s self-replicating. If it’s not treated immediately it shows up, it can destroy your whole computer system, and, indeed, your whole civilization. Well my lad, I must be going. It’s been nice talking to you.”
He withdrew a small mobile pad from his coat pocket, peered at it briefly and tapped a few touch-keys. Hesitating, he looked up again at Jason. “I hope I’ve at least managed to open your narrow perceptions upon a vastly greater universe of possibilities and alternative realities. It may do you some good. Oh -- my wife sends her love.” He touched a final key and instantly vanished.
#
A few days later Jason had recovered himself enough to go back to work. As he walked into the showroom he was met by an anxious and very fretful Derek Wayne. He also noticed several technicians kneeling and stooping amongst the computer equipment. Masses of electronic innards were strewn round the floor.
“Jason,” greeted Derek Wayne. “We’ve been hit!”
“Hit?” queried Jason
“I mean, hit by a computer virus. There’s a really nasty new one going round the world. Computers are dying all over the place. It’s called Doom Metal One. We think it is a malicious cyber-attack on western civilization, engineered by an enemy government. Nobody can stop it!”
Jason held up the spray can of Viro-B-Gon. He snarled. “Just let me at it –- and when I’ve fixed it, I want a seat on the board!”
END
THE PHISHINGNET(Peter Mills)
It was when Jason Burrell found a part-time job at a local computer store that he first became intrigued by the hint. He had managed to gain a placement at university to study for a degree in information technology. However, he had to wait for a few months before the opening tutorials commenced. He saw this as an opportunity to try to earn a bit of money before devoting himself to his studies, and with the electronics qualifications he had already gained in college he found no difficulty in being eagerly accepted on a short-term basis by the local branch of a national computer retail chain.
He did well in this temporary job, demonstrating computers to customers and answering their questions with accurate and not-too-technical information which they understood, and advising them on the best software to purchase for their needs. The store manager told him that there would always be a job for him there after university if he could not get accepted by NASA, which was his ambition.
But the hint puzzled him greatly. It might have been an accident, or it might have been some kind of sly deliberation, he could never decide. The hint came from a very elderly man in an expensive overcoat who appeared in the store one Monday morning and began to gaze around like someone who had never seen a computer before. In fact, his expression and body language seemed to be saying: “Where the blazes am I? Why am I in this place?” He looked convincingly like a fish out of water. From a basic sense of sympathy more than sales acumen Jason strolled towards the old man to see whether he could offer any help, like directions to the library or the bus station.
As Jason drew near, the elderly gentleman stared at him and then drew himself up with an imperious expression on his seamed face. “Is this a shop?” he demanded. “Do you work here?”
“Right on both counts,” replied Jason in a soothing tone. “This is a computer store – we sell desktops, laptops, E-pads, you name it, plus a huge range of software programs to suit every need. Did you want anything like that?”
“That depends,” snapped the old man. “What date is it?”
Jason was taken aback at this rather strange question. “It’s May 5th, Monday,” he answered almost automatically.
“No,” the gentleman tutted irritably. “What’s the year?”
“What…? Jason’s eyebrows did exercises.
“The year! The year! It can’t be that difficult a question, even for a computer salesman, surely?”
“The year is 2014,” stated Jason blankly, then, just in case, adding irrepressibly with a lopsided grin: “AD.”
“Of course it’s AD,” snapped the man. “It couldn’t be BC now, could it?”
“No, of course not,” soothed Jason, wondering whether he should call for help.
“Of course not,” mimicked the elderly gentleman in agreement. “They didn’t have many computers BC. Except Archimedes of course.”
“You… “ Jason hesitated, not wishing to annoy the man further, “…you think that Archimedes had a computer?” He looked around quickly to see if any other members of staff were within calling range. He was beginning to think that he might need some medical help to deal with this.
“Of course he had a computer. Have you never heard of the Antikythera mechanism, recovered from a wrecked ship of the First Century BC off the Greek island of Antikythera? It’s a rusted lump in a museum. Amongst other things, it could track the complex elliptical orbits of all the planets of the solar system, including those which hadn’t been discovered then. That was Archimedes’ computer. My boy, you should have seen what it could do when it was plugged into an electric point!”
“Electric point,” repeated Jason flatly. “In Syracuse, Sicily, between 287 and 212 BC.”
The old man suddenly seemed to notice Jason with his full attention. “You know when Archimedes was born and died, and his home town? I’m impressed. In fact, very impressed. What’s your name, son?”
“Jason Burrell sir,”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen sir.”
“And this is 2014? Not many young men of eighteen in 2014 would address a perfect stranger with the honorific ‘sir’, I’ll wager. I like you, Jason Burrell. You have raised yourself from the gutter of mundane shopkeeping into my field of mental appreciation. Do you have such a thing as a demonstration computer already switched on and active? Perhaps I could show you something else you won’t believe, to add to Archimedes’ computer and electrical points.” He chuckled.
Jason never knew why he accepted the stranger’s request instead of advising him to leave the store before he called security.
“Sure -- we have the latest models operating over there,” he pointed at a row of smart computer tables each of which bore a keyboard and flat screen displaying changing sequences of colorful screensaver images. The old gentleman led the way. Somewhat baffled and uneasy in mind, Jason followed close behind. By luck it was a weekday and the store had only just opened for the day, so they were alone in the showroom. Jason mentally shrugged, thinking he may as well go along with what was developing. The old man seemed polite, if perhaps a little irascible and possibly insane, but was probably harmless. The situation held, perhaps, a certain entertainment value.
“You seem to know something about computers,” Jason remarked as he conducted the old man toward the tables. This was part of his salesman spiel -- probably the worst part, copied from a used car salesman he had once encountered who always buttered customers up with the same compliment about their knowledge of used cars immediately before ripping them off with a lemon.
“Even if what I know doesn’t agree with your own rigid perception of history and reality?” asked the man with a friendly but sly smile.
“Who am I to argue with a customer,” Jason replied glibly, deciding to make the most of things since the store was otherwise empty and he may as well do something to pass the time. “After all, one should live and learn, I suppose.”
“Indeed -- providing one recognizes knowledge when one encounters it,” replied the man enigmatically as they approached the computers, linking his fingers and flexing them at arm’s length with a crack of knuckles. He indicated a particular model. “May I?”
“Be my guest,” invited Jason, half amused, half baffled.
The old gentleman sat down at the keyboard and mouse pad. “Is this one connected to the internet?” he asked.
“It certainly is,” replied Jason, trying hard to sound jovial and light-hearted. What he was thinking was more along the lines of: “Why the heck am I letting this old idiot touch the equipment?” Then he reflected that perhaps this was what was sometimes referred to as a crisis of conscience?
To his great surprise, the old man’s fingers skittered across the keyboard like a pair of tap dancing spiders, leaping to the mouse to make a few clicks. The familiar on-line internet home page immediately appeared on the screen.
“That was pretty slick,” admitted Jason in somewhat grudging admiration.
The elderly character gave a brief chuckle. “’The quickness of the hand deceives the eye’, as the old saying has it,” he muttered. Jason was trying to decide whether the chuckle was creaky like rusty hinges due to age or due to being a little sinister. Possibly both. As he watched, the man rapidly typed in what looked like a complex sequence of alphanumerics and conventional symbols.
“Is that a proper internet website address?” enquired Jason doubtfully, stooping forward to study the code.
“My boy, the internet is the tom-tom’s of Neanderthals,” answered the old man softly. “I am attempting to link your stone-age computer with the Phishingnet.”
“The what?”
“The Phishingnet.” He dabbed a finger at the “enter” key. The screen went black.
“You seem to have switched it off,” pointed out Jason.
The man sighed rather theatrically. From a pocket he pulled out a business card and held it out to Jason. “This may prove of interest later on,” he stated. Then, before Jason could study the card; “I wonder if I could ask you for a pencil and notepad? I can’t see any on these desks.”
“Sure,” said Jason wearily. He was fervently wishing he had never got so involved with this eccentric time-waster in the first place. He walked around a software package display stand to where his own desk was located and returned with pad and pencil. It took him less than ten seconds. When he came back, the old man had gone. Startled, Jason quickly searched the showroom from end to end. The door to the mall outside had not opened. He dropped to his knees and stared around through the tubular metal legs of the stands and tables. Nobody. Jason was most definitely alone in the showroom.
Perplexed and thoroughly baffled, he looked at the business card he had been given. He read it. Then he read it again. Then again…
#
Pythagoras
23 Temple Street, Samos
Mathematician, Scientist, Philosopher
‘The Universe my Theorem; Geometry my Angle’
labyrinthsite: ULY/TAS:bby??%rt^8$#~??&
#
Jason’s mouth gaped. As he raised his eyes from the card they fell upon the computer screen the old man had been using. Exactly as his eyes focused on it, the blank screen flickered into life and displayed an ordinary typed message. Jason peered closely to read it.
It said: “Many thanks for the use of the computer, Jason Burrell. Here’s a hint for you. Don’t be content with the World Wide Web also known as the Internet – look instead for the Universal Labyrinth, known for short as the Phishingnet. Another hint; ul/zzpy/9**^%$&£=6g~#<+”
Prompted mainly by the certain fact that there was no way the man could have reached a door and left the store in the few moments Jason had taken his eyes off him, and the equally certain fact that the store had suddenly been demonstrably empty except for himself, Jason used the pencil and pad he had fetched and carefully jotted down the message that had been left for him on the screen. Then, as an almost instinctive measure to ensure the information could not be lost and that he had not made any slight error in writing it down, he highlighted the screen message, copied it with a right click of the mouse, opened his email page, pasted the text on an email and saved it under “drafts”. This would ensure that he could access it on his home computer if he wished.
He knocked at Derek Wayne’s office door and opened it. Derek was the store manager who had given him the job. “Can I have a word please, Derek?”
“Sure,” replied Derek at once, looking up from some paperwork. “You’re alone on the floor aren’t you? Give me a few minutes and I’ll come out.”
When Derek had joined him in the showroom Jason asked him the question that was now seriously playing on his mind. Derek Wayne was not merely a computer geek, he was a super-geek. He designed computer systems for town and city administrations and for scientific foundations and according to rumor was soon to be offered a seat on the board of the company they both worked for. He was also a nice guy and a capable and efficient administrator. If anybody could shed a light on Jason’s puzzle, it was Derek.
“Have you heard of the Phishingnet, or Universal Labyrinth?” Jason asked him. Derek stared at him thoughtfully.
“Do you mean the so-called ‘Hidden Internet’?”
“No, I know about that -- the huge underground internet based on untraceable servers and member’s own home computers running in a secret anonymous worldwide system. The Phishingnet is something else. It seems to exist independent of the internet altogether and can only be accessed by using some pretty strange code characters.”
“Well,” mused Derek, “I’ve never heard of it. Sounds like just a bunch of geeks setting up another anarchist web network. My advice would be not to get involved.”
“Sure,” replied Jason. “Thanks.”
At home in his room after work, while his parents were watching TV downstairs, Jason opened the email he had saved and copied the peculiar “ul” address and saved it. Opening his browser, he pasted it in, then hesitated. He could not help wondering whether he was about to unleash some kind of Pandora’s Box. But he had state-of-the art anti-virus and defense systems. Besides, the computer in the store which the strange old man who claimed to be Pythagoras had used had not shown any signs of infection or anything else that might be wrong afterwards. With a decisive jerk, he clicked the mouse button and activated the line of unusual keyboard symbols.
The screen flickered a couple of times, there was a pause of perhaps six or seven seconds, then a white page appeared. At the top of the page was the simple message: “You Have Found the Universal Labyrinth” and beneath this in smaller print, the sentence: “Caution and wisdom is advised. Please be aware it is risky to link directly to worlds and continua which are known to be ambivalent to Phishingnetters. Please be aware that importing alien species or the sale of national monuments to alien visitors via Oh-Boy! may not be legal in your local administration. All financial transactions should be made using Paybacktime Pal.”
Jason stared and blinked. Beneath the writing was a single typical and normal-looking virtual oblong button in orange with a shaded border to give a 3-D effect. In the oblong was the single word: ENTER.
Slowly, his mind strangely numb with a sense of screwy unreality and common sense disbelief, he moved the mouse until the cursor arrow was on the centre of the virtual button. He blinked again, then forced himself to click the mouse. The screen flickered briefly and a new image appeared. It consisted of a normal-looking text box for typing in, set within a strange piece of logo artwork. Across the artwork in fancy lettering was the wording: “Boogle, the Phishingnet Search Engine”.
Feeling more and more like he was in some kind of dream, Jason slowly forced himself to type in the text box the words “Pythagoras, 23 Temple Street, Samos” exactly as they appeared on the strange old man’s business card, thinking just to see what might turn up as a result. Then he hesitated for a long time, summoning up all his nerve. Then he clicked on the screen “search” icon. Instantly he vanished like a bursting soap bubble. There was a loud “pop” as air rushed into the space he had so suddenly vacated.
From Jason’s point of view, it was his room which vanished around him. That same instant, he found himself in blinding sunlight on a dusty unpaved road running through a township of mud-and-stone houses without any glass in windows and where some of the houses had white stone pillars supporting front porticos. Since he was still in the sitting position but minus any chair he fell onto his back but managed not to bang his head. Standing up and rubbing his bruised derriere, he realized that he was right outside the front of a particular house. Shocked, frightened and entirely baffled, he walked unsteadily to a large paneled wooden front door. There was no knocker. In some degree of panic, he forced himself to bang loudly on the door with his knuckles. It just seemed like the logical thing to do.
After several long moments the door was opened. An elderly woman in a white toga or robe stood there staring at him with a frown. “Yes?” she demanded imperiously, frowning with her entire face as only an elderly woman can.
“I’m… I… that is… I don’t…” he stammered, then managed to pull himself together. “Where am I?” he whined pathetically.
“Oh dear,” tutted the woman. “Another one!” Then, wearily. “Come inside.” She held the door open. As if in a trance, Jason entered. To his mild surprise he was not in a room. Instead, the door had opened into a walled garden where pots of shrubs graced a gravel floor set with paved paths. Fountains splashed in stone-rimmed pools and elegant marble statues stood here-and-there amongst ornamental flowering bushes. The house proper was on the farther side.
The woman pointed to a marble bench. “Sit down!” she commanded. He did so and she sat with him. “Now tell me,” she continued, “what year are you from?”
Jason was by now beyond wonderment. “2014” he replied worriedly. “Where am I?”
“And where are you from?” demanded the woman remorselessly.
Suddenly feeling a surge of anger coupled with self-righteousness, he answered tersely; “Well, I’ve a feeling I’m not in Kansas any more!”
The elderly woman suddenly smiled and Jason noticed that she was actually beautiful in her own way; she must have been a looker in her younger days. “Well, at least you got the quotation word-perfect,” she remarked. “Most people misquote the movie by saying ‘I don’t think I’m in Kansas any more.’ You are in Samos, young man, and the year is 500 BC. I think you are probably looking for an elderly man called Pythagoras. You probably met him somewhere near a computer terminal, am I right?”
This simple acknowledgement of recent facts from a person who knew about The Wizard of Oz and computer terminals did much to calm Jason’s agitated state of mind. He smiled back. “You got it in one!”
“Well,” she continued, “I am Mrs. Pythagoras, and it is usually me who has to sort out the predicaments of my husband’s waifs and strays from other times and other worlds while he goes gadding about enjoying himself! What is your name, young man?”
“Jason. Jason Burrell, mam. And -- and I’m new to all of this! I never knew this kind of thing could happen. I never heard of the Phishingnet before, only the internet.”
“Of course,” she replied gently. “You come from a primitive time where computers have only been around for a few generations.”
Jason looked slightly askance. “Pardon me Mrs. Pythagoras -- but you said this is 500 BC –- that is a much more primitive time than 2014!”
“Well, no, not really,” she replied gently. “You see, it will not be until the year 2056 when theoretical physicists discover that time actually runs backwards, not forwards. When that discovery is made, it will explain lots of things about the Big Bang which puzzle the cosmologists of your period.”
“But how can time be running backwards?” spluttered Jason indignantly. “I was born, then I grew up, then I started work – this is a logical sequence of moving forward in time!”
“Ah, but only from the experiential point of view of the person who is imprisoned in retrograde eventuality. A goldfish thinks their bowl is the universe and the world outside is a strange dimension.”
“Look,” said Jason very politely. “May I speak with Mister Pythagoras please? I need to get back home. I need to find out how to do that.”
“Well, he’s not here right now, but he’s due back this evening sometime. He’s out giving a lecture on Mars.”
“You mean he’s telling ancient Greeks about the planet Mars?”
“No, I mean he has gone to the planet Mars to give a lecture on ancient Greece.”
Jason gave up. “Can I just wait here for him to get back?”
“Of course you can. I can understand your confusion. Come into the house.”
Jason followed her across the courtyard into the main building. Inside it was primitive but clean. Wooden couches had brightly died woolen covers; the floors were flagstones; the walls had painted frescos; the occasional marble statue added a hint of affluent grace; ceilings were supported by wooden beams. Mrs. Pythagoras left Jason in a room he mentally classified as a lounge while she went to arrange a meal.
Perhaps she should not have left him alone.
Driven by curiosity, Jason began to cautiously explore. He did not know why, it was some deep instinct. Treading quietly he moved along corridors and looked into rooms. This was made easy by the fact that, inside the building, there appeared to be no such thing as doors, merely door-sized openings. Everything he saw was plain and simple, the homespun furnishings graced here and there by elegant marble statues. Then he walked past an open door-space at the end of a corridor and stopped in his tracks. His eyes widened in disbelief. The room appeared to be a home office. There was a computer inside it.
Jason’s mind boggled. He approached the computer. It was a desk-top model. Everything which, in all his previous experience, had always been made from plastic and metal, was here made from finely carved and polished marble. But there was a normal screen. A normal-looking wire ran to a marble electric wall socket. And it was switched on. The screen bore the image of the same Boogle Phishingnet search engine that had caused him to be transported to ancient Greece. There was a marble keyboard with marble keys and even a marble mouse with a normal wire. The keyboard even had a standard “qwerty” key arrangement. The lettering was English. The numbers and symbols were normal.
This patch of normality in a primitive setting jolted his mind. It suddenly dawned on him that Mrs. Pythagoras had been speaking to him in modern English and with an American accent. It was so normal he had not questioned it until now. This was 500 BC. Modern English only evolved somewhere around the end of the 15th century, the American accent only began to form in the 17th. What was going on here? And a working polished marble desktop computer? There was an ornately carven and polished marble bench to sit on. He sat down and twitched his fingers, his mind reeling.
Then he sighed resignedly and started to type into Boogle. His words popped up normally on the screen: “Where am I?”
After a brief flicker an answer appeared. “You are here.”
He typed: “Where is here?”
An answer appeared. “You are currently inhabiting Einsteinian spacetime with a quantum uncertainty factor estimated as What The Fu**!!!???”
Frowning, he typed: “How can I get home to the USA in the year 2014?”
Rather to his surprise an answer appeared. “In order to return safely to your home at 1050 Del Paso Blvd. Folsom, Calif. it is necessary to enable Phftt, or Phishingnet Forward Travel Time capability. Since forward time-travel is recognized as a Causation Violation, it is necessary to first ensure that your computer’s anti-virus protection is temporarily disabled. Look for the Wall of Death icon on the screen, right click & select the ‘Disable Wall of Death’ option. Then sit in front of screen (you must be within two metres or closer), type-in your home address and the exact date you are aiming for. Clicking ‘Enter’ will transfer you instantaneously to your home chair, exactly as you came to where you are now. Unless otherwise required (see options), you will arrive exactly 20 seconds after you left.”
Jason digested this. “Finally!” he thought. “Some useful information.”
He peered at the multitude of unfamiliar icons on the screen. The ‘Wall of Death’ icon was conspicuous and consisted of a small cartoon of a wargames-type battlement with a stonework skull and crossbones carved on it. He clicked on it.
The screen turned bright red. Wording appeared in a downward list of options.
“Dimensional Anti-Virus Control.”
“Anti-Virus is Enabled.”
“Update Anti-Virus (All Updates Are Up To Date At This Time)”
“View Virus Log.”
“View Virus Dungeon.”
“Purge Virus Dungeon”
“Disable Anti-Virus (Unwise).”
Jason hesitated only an instant, then clicked Disable Anti-Virus. After a pause of maybe three seconds, a box opened on-screen: “Anti-Virus Disabled. R.I.P.” A few more seconds and the now familiar Boogle Search Engine screen appeared again. Taking a deep breath, Jason carefully typed in his exact home address and the correct date and year. Then he stabbed the “Enter” button. He tensed himself, waiting for something to happen. Then he got sucked into the screen headfirst, with great speed, his feet disappearing last. The surface of the screen re-formed as his shoes vanished. All that was left on it was a message box bearing the cryptic legend: ‘t-mail message sent’.
A nanosecond later Jason was propelled out of his own desktop computer screen in his home study. He landed awkwardly spread-eagled face down across his wheeled swivel chair, which promptly carried him with some momentum to crash headfirst into his wall bookcase. He staggered to his feet amid a shower of falling books, holding his head. Despite the pain, he was overjoyed with the relief of realizing he was back home again. He could even hear the distant sound of his parent’s TV downstairs. A glance at the wall clock showed him that the time was less than a minute after his earlier unexpected departure. He turned to face his computer screen, which looked normal. “I did it!” he breathed in wonder. “I got home OK! I worked it out right!”
Exactly as he whispered those words, the screen turned bright red and started flashing. A loud buzzer began to beep on-and-off. Then a series of messages started flashing on the screen: “Warning! Urgent Action Required! Virus Attack! Virus Attack! Anti-Virus Disabled! Warning! Urgent Action Required! Recommend Enable Anti-Virus Immediately! Virus Attack!”
Jason hurriedly stooped over his computer and began to locate the icon of his state-of-the-art anti-virus system. Even as he leaned close, the screen shattered in his face like a breaking window. Fortunately it was plastic, not glass. As he automatically reeled back something began to crawl out of the broken screen as though it were the end of a dark tunnel from nowhere. Jason gasped in horror and froze, like a rabbit before a snake.
The thing oozing itself out of the screen and into his study consisted of a large bunch of hungrily groping black and crimson tentacles, dozens of them, like a snake stampede. Behind them came a hideous head with several soulless popping eyes like black pool-balls. The tentacles appeared to grow from the place where a mouth ought to be, but a certain eager and repulsive slurping sound indicated that a mouth of some kind was in there somewhere.
Jason’s horrified paralysis lasted only an instant. Then instinct took over and he recoiled backwards, away from the oozing, advancing monstrosity. The room was filled with a stomach-churning sound such as might have been made by a bath full of energetic eels and threshing catfish. Jason managed to pick up a wooden chair which stood against the study wall. Swallowing hard and abandoning hope, he thrust it legs-first at the creature like an old fashioned circus lion tamer. Multiple thrashing tentacles seized the chair and turned it round, jabbing the legs back at Jason. He was sure he heard the thing emit a growl from some orifice or other. He jumped back and flattened himself against the wall of the room, looking round desperately for anything that could be used as some sort of a weapon.
The next moment a bright light flashed out of the broken computer screen, highlighting the ghastly Cthuloid creature from behind, even as more of its amorphous body heaved itself through the frame like a frenzied slug, defying dimensionality by being much larger than the small space it was crawling through. Jason blinked at the intense flash and when his eyes opened a microsecond later he saw Pythagoras standing there beside the desk.
There were many things Jason wanted to shout at Pythagoras. What actually came out was simply “Help!”
Pythagoras raised his left hand as an intended calming gesture. He also raised his right hand, in which he clutched what looked like an ordinary aerosol spray can. Taking aim, he sprayed a brief squirt of mist at the nightmare creature, which immediately curled all its tentacles about itself, squeezed all its ball-like eyes tightly shut, emitted a horrible gurgling noise and oozed rapidly backwards through the broken computer screen. In seconds it had vanished.
“I came as soon as I could,” the old man explained apologetically. “I had to stop and search for my spraycan of ‘Viro-B-Gon’. It’s a 23rd century product you can buy over the Phishingnet, using Oh-Boy.” Jason was speechless through combined shock, terror, relief and gratitude.
“Tell you what,” said Pythagoras encouragingly, “I’ll just leave the can here for you, shall I? You probably won’t need it again, but it will be reassuring to know it is in reach. It’s guaranteed to eliminate all known computer viruses throughout time and space or your money back, and double your money back if you get eaten.”
Finally Jason’s mind made touchdown again on the surface of reality.
“You…” he stammered, “…you… you mean, that thing was only a computer virus?”
Pythagoras grasped the wooden chair that lay on its side, turned it upright and sat on it back-to-front, legs straddled, so he could fold his arms on the chairback. “I’m afraid so,” he nodded reflectively. “Not one of the simple little rogue program codes of your time, of course, like your 230 Dead As Storm virus, or your Sasser Worm, or Nimda, or Melissa, or Code Red, or Morris Worm. I recognized that one as a Lovecraft Trojan from 2035. It’s a nasty one. The first thing it does is to persuade you to disable your anti-virus. An infected computer system can take weeks to clean up without the spray-can. It’s very difficult to completely eliminate it, especially if it eats the operator. It’s self-replicating. If it’s not treated immediately it shows up, it can destroy your whole computer system, and, indeed, your whole civilization. Well my lad, I must be going. It’s been nice talking to you.”
He withdrew a small mobile pad from his coat pocket, peered at it briefly and tapped a few touch-keys. Hesitating, he looked up again at Jason. “I hope I’ve at least managed to open your narrow perceptions upon a vastly greater universe of possibilities and alternative realities. It may do you some good. Oh -- my wife sends her love.” He touched a final key and instantly vanished.
#
A few days later Jason had recovered himself enough to go back to work. As he walked into the showroom he was met by an anxious and very fretful Derek Wayne. He also noticed several technicians kneeling and stooping amongst the computer equipment. Masses of electronic innards were strewn round the floor.
“Jason,” greeted Derek Wayne. “We’ve been hit!”
“Hit?” queried Jason
“I mean, hit by a computer virus. There’s a really nasty new one going round the world. Computers are dying all over the place. It’s called Doom Metal One. We think it is a malicious cyber-attack on western civilization, engineered by an enemy government. Nobody can stop it!”
Jason held up the spray can of Viro-B-Gon. He snarled. “Just let me at it –- and when I’ve fixed it, I want a seat on the board!”
END
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