The world as we know it is coming to an end. I knew it was all a mistake, the Internet. Now there is not one room in the entire world that is not connected to a computer. My father told me growing up; "A master at a computer could easily rule the world." I remember those words to this day thinking I wish he were wrong.
Present day (2898)
"Rave wake up."
"I'm up, I'm up. Go put on some coffee, I cant be late for work again."
"The coffee is done, go get it yourself. You should take a shower, you need one."
"Get off my back Star, I know what I need to do. It's just another day."
"I'm sorry, but I've been having these weird feeling lately."
"Yea like what?"
"It's hard to explain. But I just feel like something bad is going to happen to you Rave."
"Well don't. There is nothing to worry about."
Rave gets out of bed leaving Star behind. He walks across the room, quickly glances in the mirror and sees his shaggy black hair, and red eyes look back at him on his way to the bathroom. He closes the door and runs a shower.
Meanwhile Star sits on the bed for a minute, wondering what her feelings have been about. She gets up and heads out of the room. Star crosses the cramped living room into the kitchen. She pours herself a cup of Jo, and hears the shower turn off.
Rave quickly gets dressed in a black suit and heads out to the kitchen.
"Star could you pour me a cup?"
Star quickly pours him his cup, and hands it to him.
"Thanks. I'll try to get home early tonight; I know it's your birthday. I was hoping to take you to dinner. I'll call if I'm going to be late.
"I knew you wouldn't forget. Are we going somewhere nice?"
"If I told you I would ruin the surprise."
Rave finished his coffee, and set the cup down on the counter. He walks over to Star and kisses her on the cheek and says, "Have a nice day, and happy birthday." Rave opens up the door and heads outside. Rave's office is just a couple blocks away so he walks to work when it is nice.
Rave arrives at his office and instantly notices something different about the giant room split up by small cubicles. All of the computers have vanished. This is odd the room probably as big as a football field equally with these small cubicles each with a computer, a main printer for every fifteen cubicles.
"Rave come here now!!"
"What boss?"
"Have you noticed what's missing around my office?"
"Well it's not really your office."
"I don't care, answer my question."
"There aren't any computers here."
"That would be it, do you know why?"
"Well..."
"Don't answer that, there aren't any computers around here because someone allowed a virus into our computers."
"Well it's not my fault. I upgrade our systems daily, constantly making my own programs to add and protect us."
"Don't go making excuses for yourself. Isn't your job to keep hackers, crackers, and all the other freaks out of our system?"
"When we be getting our computers back, so I can start work again?"
"Rave you're not a bad kid, but I have to suspend you for the next week util we do find the ones responsible, and get our computers back."
"Whatever, I was thinking about quitting any way."
Rave started walking away down the long pathway towards the elevator when his boss came up with something to say, "Rave, when you do come back make sure this doesn't happen again, or a suspension will be the least of your problems." Rave turned around and gave a hard look at his boss, and stepped into the elevator.
It had started pouring as soon as Rave got home, and Star had gone to work. Rave looked out of the window above his desk, the rain was hitting the pain hard. He went to the fridge opened a Fuze and headed over to his laptop. He sat down and flipped his computer on. Immediately the screen flashed green with the words, "Try to catch the one who is about to ruin your life." The lightning flashed and Rave flipped the computer off, and back on, the massage was gone. Now being a little curious Rave checked all of his files, and programs, they all checked out. All of his documents, viruses, firewalls, and anti-virus programs he had created were there. Not one was stolen. Even his newest one The Elite-Mor was untouched, or atleast to its appearance. Rave opened this file and the screen read, "Sorry this one is mine."
Rave doubled, and tripled checked his file, and all of the older versions of his Elite-Mar, they all were gone, not one was left. He shut off his computer, and walked over to the couch and plopped down. "He has started a war, and now I'm going to have to end it." Rave thought to himself. After an hour of thinking on the couch Rave went back over to the computer, and ran a quick virus, and systems check. Nothing was wrong, the only he tampered with was his newest virus, The Elite-Mar. Being a chief programmer at Misutech; he had to know how to build just about everything. And part of building anti-virus programs, along with firewalls, you had to know how to build powerful viruses to test the programs on. This newest virus, could wipe out a whole computer system with just one open of a file. All the person had to do was put the virus on the computer, and it would find away to open itself, even if it meant tricking you. The virus would instantaneously start copying the files, and save them to it's programming, and then destroy them. So the files would have seemed to just disappear. The virus is undetectable to even the newest ant-virus, and firewalls.
Rave had been making a new anti-virus program for the Elite-Mar, when Star burst in, and shouted at Rave, "What the hell are you doing home, haven't you been watching the news?"
"No"
"Well why the hell not, there seems to be something reeking havoc on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange). They say all their prices, amounts and everything are just disappearing."
"What?!?!" Rave shouts as he
turns on the T.V., and switches it to the news. The news anchor had
just stared on the report. "Whitehouse officials have no idea of
what's going on in New York, The computer network has just
shutdown, within just hours the stock system was gone, during
trading." George W. Bush comes to the podium at the Whitehouse and
starts to speak, "We do not have any evidence to who, or what is
causing the stock exchange to fail. We also have no proof or nor do
we believe that this is a terrorist attack on this city again. I will
make another statement when we know more." President Bush steps
down from the podium and the news anchor comes back on, "We will
keep the public up to date on this story as it develops, with that
here is Dan Sturad with the sports..."
"Star, I need you to
sit down for this. You know how I've been working on a new virus,
The Elite-Mar?"
"Yes"
"Well, it was stolen, but some punk, its gone. Along with every save before it."
"Rave, this is bad."
"I know, I think it's my virus that crashed the NYSE."
"Rave this is really bad!"
"I know, but there's nothing I can do until I create an accurate anti-virus for it, I might have to use our other house in Borneo, and keep working on my anti-virus for this, without it, I will have no way to stop this punk."
"You might want to leave tonight, ill go get the keys, and some supplies from our storage container."
"You'll have to go to an Internet café to get my ticket, my laptop is on the fritz."
"Don't worry about it Rave, it'll all be fine soon, you'll see.
"Thanks Star." He kisses her on the cheek and whispers to her "Be careful."
"I'll be back in a little bit, get packed, and eat something."
Star grabs her car keys and opens the door the moonlit driveway. She walks down the steps, and gets into her car.
Rave hears her leave, and goes into their room, and pulls out his suitcase, and starts to pack his cloths. He knows that Star will pick up the other things he needs.
Half an hour later Rave is done eating and it's nearly eight o'clock and he hears Star pull back into the drive, he grabs his suitcase and his laptop. Rave greets her at the door, gives her a nice big hug, and reassures her that everything will be all right. He says goodbye, and walks toward his car, it's a cold moonlit night, with a chilling breeze running across the back of his neck. He gets into his car and pulls out of the drive. A couple of tears stream down his face and he wipes them away, and waves goodbye to his only friend, his family, and his wife.
