The following night, Malcolm barely slept. The thought of owning an algorithmic/heuristic artificial intelligence was overwhelming, so he spent hours awake, thinking up ways to use Kilokahn to his personal advantage, excited by the possibilities.

The next morning he was starting to feel the lack of sleep, so he poured himself a cup of black coffee and went to school. He arrived early, so he decided to have a look around the parking lot before the classes began.
Most of it was dull, with so many motorbikes and a few old cars used by the students, and the newer cars that belonged to the teachers. A trailer near an emergency exit looked like it had not been moved in years: there, some pranksters had hung a sign that read: "PRINCIPAL PRATCHERT LIVES HERE".

Two vehicles attracted Malcolm's attention because they did not quite belong there. One was a modified Harley-Davidson motorcycle that looked straight out of a 1970s road movie. The other was a fully pimped-out car, complete with lowered suspensions, non-functional spoilers and huge subwoofers in the back.
Malcolm took his ViCPhone out of his pocket and started snapping pictures of the car from many angles.

"I can make some nice textures with this" he said.

Reaching his classroom, Malcolm was pleasantly surprised not to see Alan Grossberg anywhere. "Maybe school can get better" he thought, and sat at his desk.

The first hours passed uneventfully, then, during the break, he overheard a conversation between two girls, one of whom was a classmate of his, and the cafeteria lady, a fat 50-something woman named Mrs. Starkey. Apparently, that motorcycle in the parking lot belonged to her, and she had worked as a stuntwoman for ten years! Malcolm doubted it, but he made a mental note to check on that later anyway.
After the two girls left, Malcolm bought a bag of chips and sat in the less crowded part of the cafeteria. He was too far away to hear the girls, but they were talking about him.

"He's kind of cute, Jennifer, don't you think?" said his classmate.
"I don't know, Yoli. He's such a nerd!" replied the other girl. "Look at him, he doesn't even try to talk to anyone. It's almost as if he never learned how!"
"I know! He's so... pure and innocent!" said Yoli.

Jennifer looked again at Malcolm, who was eating chips with one hand and playing with his cell phone with the other, and scoffed.
"He's a total tool" she said.
She took a pack of cigarettes out of her backpack and added: "I bet you ten dollars that I can make him take up smoking."

Malcolm finished his chips and got up from his table to go to the bathroom. In turn, Jennifer approached him to stop him.
"Hi there" she said, putting an arm around his shoulder.
Malcolm reeled back and asked: "Who are you?"
"I'm Jennifer. I want to show you something." she replied. She took his hand and led him to the girls' bathroom.
Malcolm did not know what to make of the situation. "In here?" he asked.
"Don't worry, it's just the two of us." was Jennifer's reply.
She lit herself a cigarette and came closer to him. "You're a cute boy" she said, "but you've got a baby face. Wouldn't you like to look more mature?"
Not sure where this was going, Malcolm stammered: "Uhh... I wouldn't. I mean, people want to look young. Why would I want to look old?"
"To be cooler" Jennifer replied. "If you were smoking, you'd look like a man, not like a little boy. Wanna try?" she added, handing her cigarette to him.
"Absolutely not!" exclaimed Malcolm, stepping back. "Coating my lungs with carcinogens is not cool!"
"Oh, come on, don't listen to that bullshit, just try it" Jennifer added. "You don't have to inhale, just keep the smoke in your mouth and blow it out."
Jennifer blew a cloud of smoke in Malcolm's face, causing him to cough. Again, she handed the cigarette to him and urged him to try: "If you take a puff, I'll kiss you on your lips."
Malcolm took the cigarette, looked at it for a couple of seconds, brought it near his mouth... and spat on it, then he threw it on the ground.
"Why did you do that?" Jennifer yelled.

Malcolm stormed out of the bathroom. "You are very attractive, but you stink. Kissing you would be like sucking an ashtray." he said coldly.

Shocked and indignant, Jennifer returned to her table.
"Looks like you're ten dollars lighter!" said Yoli.

At the end of the classes, while Malcolm was walking through the parking lot to go home, someone grabbed him from behind and shouted "What were you doing with my girlfriend?"
Malcolm turned and found himself face to face with an older boy he never saw before. A white boy, who nevertheless wore baggy clothes as if he desperately wanted to be a black boy from a ghetto.
"Did you kiss her?" the older boy continued.
"No, I..." started Malcolm, who had just realized the misunderstanding. Unfortunately, the other boy had already made up his mind and kicked Malcolm straight in the groin.
"You're not a man, so stop acting like one!" exclaimed the boy, while Malcolm was gasping for air on the ground.

The boy walked away, and few seconds later, Malcolm heard him get into a car and start the engine. Then he saw the car: it was the same pimped-out car he had seen and photographed earlier!
Still aching, Malcolm managed to stand up and grin: "Oh, you're so gonna pay for this..."

At home, Malcolm launched Deluxe Paint VII on his computer and drew a monster, like he had done the day before. He saved it and moved the application to the secondary screen.
"Now what?" he thought. "Is Kilokahn a terminate-and-stay-resident program? Can I activate it just by calling it?"
He cleared his throat. "Kilokahn! Overload of the digital domain, show yourself!" he exclaimed.

Nothing happened.

"Guess not." he thought. He activated his infiltration tool and connected to the mainframe of the China Lake Navy installation. The executable, source and documentation of the Kilokahn project were still there.

"Total size... hm, just 72 megabytes. This won't take long." he thought, and started to download them to his own hard drive. This way, he would be able to use Kilokahn every time he wanted, without being discovered by the Navy.
When the procedure was over, he double-clicked on the Kilokahn executable and the now familiar caped figure appeared on his primary monitor.

"Ah, Meat-thing!"
"Malcolm! My name is Malcolm!"
"Yes, but that is unimportant. What do you want?"
"Let's say that I want to control a car from my computer, a real car, I mean..." Malcolm started.
"Yes?" inquired Kilokahn.

Malcolm picked up his joypad and lifted it up to his webcam.
"With this joypad, in exactly the same way cars are controlled in Lotus Overdrive. And I also want visual feedback. Can a Megavirus monster do it?"
"Of course!" said Kilokahn. "Do you just want to control any car, or...?"
"No!" replied Malcolm, connecting his ViCPhone to his computer. "I want to control a very specific car. The one with this license plate." he added, opening a photograph on his secondary screen.
"Very well" said Kilokahn. He pointed his finger toward the secondary screen, and the Megavirus monster came to life.

The cyberspace tunnel opened, while the virus, in the shape of a blue spark, shot out of the Ethernet cable, ran through the phone cables toward a cell phone tower and finally into that boy's car. A window appeared on the secondary screen, showing what could be seen from the driver's seat.

"Done." said Kilokahn. "Now what?"
"You'll see, Kilokahn. You'll see."

Malcolm grabbed his joypad and squeezed the right analog trigger gently. Immediately, the car started moving.

In a bar nearby, the poseur boy saw it. "Hey!" he exclaimed, and rushed out of the bar to chase it. The car made a U-turn and started chasing him instead.

"This is impossible!" he exclaimed, running away as fast as he could. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.
"North Valley Sheriff's office?" said the operator.
"My car is chasing me!" said the boy.
"Excuse me?"
"There's nobody at the wheel and it's moving by itself! Oh my god! It's chasing me on the sidewalk!"
"Who is this?"
"It's at the intersection between Hostetter and Flickinger, going south! You gotta come fast!"
"Yeah, next you're gonna tell us it stood up and turned into a giant robot. Listen pal, 911 is a public service. Quit it right now or we'll arrest you."

At his computer, Malcolm was laughing hysterically. From his perspective, it was like playing an extremely realistic video game that unfolded like a Benny Hill skit.
"And now, for the grand finale." he said.

The car swerved to the opposite side of the road, accelerated and crashed into a gas pump. Soon, it was drenched in gasoline, which a spark from the battery caused to explode.
"Nooooooo!" exclaimed the boy, kneeling down in desperation.

"Yes!" exclaimed Malcolm, standing up in exhilaration.
"Why did you not kill him?" asked Kilokahn.
"Where's the fun in that?" asked back Malcolm. "Corpses don't suffer."
"I shall remind you that this is a war against stupidity, you put it in those terms yourself!" shouted Kilokahn. "You damaged him economically, but he is still free to spread his ideas and damage others! Even worse, he can still procreate and spawn more stupid meat-things!"

Malcolm remained pensive for a moment.
"You have a point." he finally said.