The day was coming to a close as the young man walked into his apartment door. A sigh came out bas he reached to put his jacket up on the hanger. The day was over, and man was he glad. The night was almost upon the city, and the moon had just begun to shine in the open curtains across the room. His apartment was a little messy, but whose wasn't when you had to work all day? He had already eaten before coming home, so he simply walked over and collapsed on the couch. Finally relaxed, he thought. But as quick as he sat down to relax his muscles; he realized he had work to do.
"I've gotta put that up on the site before everybody starts complaining." He said to himself. "Those kids on there are so impatient..." He smiled this time. Even though they could really bug him, he loved the site he ran and the topic. TPPC: one of the most played Pokémon games and websites on the entire net. He started the site over ten years ago, and now it's grown to something much larger than he ever though it would have been. He was proud of his work.
On the website he was Shrimpy, a name he had grown so accustomed to hearing that he would respond to it in real life if somebody yelled it out behind him. He had plenty of help on the website from the other moderators and assistants. Many had come and gone, but many have been with him on the site since the very beginning. It was approaching that time of the year again: Golden Day. The day where the site went crazy. Servers go down, people complain, site crashes, the usual stuff that happens when the traffic gets high. But each year it is always worth it. But what he was doing tonight had nothing to do with Golden Day. It was an all new aspect to the game that he was introducing. This new program would revolutionize the gameplay on the site.
He at last pulled himself up from the couch and moved over to the computer desk, where he silently pulled up the internet tab and put his USB drive into the computer. As happy as he was for the program to get installed, he was tired and wanted to go to sleep. He entered the password to his account and began to check around for a little first. Everything seemed to be going well. After a few minutes he logged back out and began to edit the site. The program was placed into the website script. He looked over the code to make sure all things would go smoothly. Nothing seemed out of place, and nothing seemed written wrong. Without another worry he clicked the option the save, closed the editing, then logged back into the account.
This new program would automatically generate the golden day pokemon without his knowledge, and then a computer bot would post the clues on the forum, leaving him to sit back, talk to players, and enjoy more instead of working. It also re-adjusted the leveling up values and set the bar of 'un-tradable' levels to 3000.
Well, at least that's what it should have done.
He logged onto a test account to check the program validation. Mewtwo was what the program decided to be the new golden. Everybody will like that, he thought to himself. He messaged Kife to tell him of what was about to test. Kife helping on the other side made things go a lot easier, instead of him logging in and out of test accounts.
"I need you to go online and created a trade to this account for my Golden Mewtwo, make sure everything will go over smoothly in trading." The first message said.
He created the trade and waited for a few minutes. Bleep. A reply. He checked his inbox.
"Alright." One second." Kife's reply came.
He waited another minute, then checked the account. Still nothing. Golden Mewtwo was still there.
Another minute. Still nothing.
Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed. Nothing happened.
He finally messaged back: "Where are you?" it said.
No reply. He shrugged. He got up to get a glass of water. As he made it the kitchen his phone began to ring. He ignored the glass of water and walked over to the phone. If was Kife.
But why would he call him? He wondered. At last he picked up the phone and answered.
"Yea what's up?" He answered.
"I think your Golden Mewtwo is mutating." Kife's response came.
Shrimpy was confused. "Mutating? What do you mean?"
"Just go look on the computer." Kife said.
Shrimpy didn't complain or comment; he just walked back over to the computer. The screen was open to the Golden Mewtwo test account, so he just hit refresh. The screen flashed back to an updated box. Everything was still there. Even the Golden Mewtwo.
Only this time it was not at level 5.
It was at 5000.
"What in the hell?" He said out loud. "That shouldn't happen."
"Beats me." Check the code, man." Kife replied.
"Alright…" He said in response as he slowly clicked the phone off and began to work. He quickly logged into the editing and began to read through the code. Nothing seemed to be wrong with it. How was this happening? He continued to search, but still nothing showed its face. An hour, two had passed, but still nothing. He looked back over at the test account.
Golden Mewtwo was now at 12000.
"Holy…" He said out loud. Before he could begin to search again, something else flashed onto his screen.
VIRUS.
That was all.
Without knowing what to do, all he could think of was to lean over and turn the computer off. He pressed and held down the button on the computer.
Nothing happened. The words VIRUS kept flashing on the screen. Without hesitation, he leaned down further and reached for the plug and jerked it from the wall.
The computer was still on.
Before he could do anything else, the computer screen began to glow white. It continued to get brighter over time, slowly, until he could not see anymore. The flash hurt his eyes so bad he was forced to cover them with his arms. The flash seemed to last forever, but it finally came to a close. As the light settled, he regained his sight slowly, until at last he could see again. When he opened his eyes, nothing seemed out of place, well, except for the computer being unplugged but still on, of course. He looked around. Everything was quiet. Nothing in his apartment appeared to have been moved or damaged. He slowly began to walk over to the computer.
That's when the explosion came from outside.
He hit the ground without a second thought, glancing out the window to see what was happening. The building beside him was crumbling to the ground. He could hardly hear anything other than the building.
And the screams.
He had no idea what to do at this point except to hide. To stand there. To run away. He had to get out of there. He grabbed his phone and a suitcase, quickly threw some clothes in it, along with a few other things he would need. Finally he ran over to the computer and grabbed the hard drive sitting on top of it. This was a small TPPC storage with vital information on the website. This was his site, and his problem. He had to fix it. But for now, he had to escape with what information he had. He finished packing the suitcase, and then ran out the door.
Just as he expected, people were fleeing desperately already to get away from the explosion. He ran with them, scared for his life, though not in fear. He was a few stories up, so he just decided to take the stairs, as he didn't want to risk the elevator in this chaos. With the rest of the crowd, he made his way down the stairs, through the lobby, and outside. By now the crowd was thinned in the lobby, as it was much larger, but as he ran towards the door, the crowd picked back up, and he fought desperately through the door. One glass door had already been broken down, and the other wide open. People were fleeing through both.
At last he made it to the outside. People were running in the streets in utter madness. It was a scary sight, one of the scariest sights he had ever seen in his life. Could anything be scarier than this? He thought as he turned around, only to find out that it could.
A Golden Mewtwo stood in front of him, and, from the look on its face, it had no intention of letting Shrimpy get away.