Just a Glitch

Celesta SunStar

I make no money from this or other fanfictions.

I may have written this for the May 2002 Challenge where one or more of the Seven meet an otherworldly figure.

It was a bad day.

The computers of Team Seven were going haywire…

And there was NOTHING they could do…

Nathan had been the first one to be hit. He had opened up a file and was working on a report when a message appeared on the screen. 'This program has preformed an illegal operation and will shut down.' And it did.

And then it did it again.

And again.

Through trial and error, Nathan realized that the error message always came up exactly five minutes after whatever (file, document, web browser) was opened. He was very slowly working through his assignments, only to find out that the computer was deleting everything he was working on.

Josiah had left to get some coffee. He came back to find his computer had snapped up the screensaver. Tapping the spacebar, he frowned when the various pictures of holy places he had taken while on pilgrimages and trips around the world didn't snap off and reveal his latest report. He tried tapping other keys and moving the mouse around. Nothing worked. He then tried his old standby, holding down the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys.

That didn't work either. Rebooting the computer did.

At least until he turned around to get a notepad with some obscure notes that he had used in the last case, and found the screensaver up when he turned back. After a half-hour of that, Josiah gave up on getting any work done.

Ezra hadn't even managed to get his computer on. It seemed to be stuck in a boot up cycle. It would get to the point just before he could sign on, then it would start back at the beginning.

JD was working on both his and Buck's computers. They were both disconnected from the network, so that JD could track down the worm virus that Buck had accidentally sent him.

Vin was trying to puzzle out his keyboard. For some reason whatever key he pressed would type another key... and then would change letter assignments randomly. He was getting to the point where he would just press keys until he got the letter he wanted, and then delete what Ezra would call the extraneous ones. It was driving him nuts, so he just gave up on it.

Everyone was carefully ignoring the faint, repetitive sound of ...something, coming from Chris' office.

Then the sound came again, along with a loud curse and a gunshot. The door opened and Chris strode out, looking like the living expression of God's wrath. "Goin' for a drink, Cowboy?" Vin asked as Chris made a beeline for the door. The rest of Team Seven didn't need an answer to decide that getting a drink was a good idea and follow Chris out.

It faded into view in the middle of the room. It was about two feet high with very short legs and very long arms. It was completely covered in hair and had a wide toothy grin. "Chaos, panic, and disorder, my work here is done." And it faded away.

Chris walked back into his office; the bullpen was quiet behind him.

On his desk, his computer was pristine and the bullet he shot in it was sitting innocently beside it. He reached forward, tapped the mouse...

"I love you, you love me, we're a..." Chris pulled the plug and walked out of the office.

"I hate gremlins."