The Virus

This presentation is finally starting to come together. I put my novice seal of approval on another slide with pride. It’s only taken four cups of coffee and a crash course on PowerPoint. It’s not exactly my forte so I’m really not looking forward to it, but I’ve got 3 days to muster up the courage. This is one of the new job requirements since I’ve been made the head of cyber security around here. The guy before me…well, let‘s not talk about that.

I put the slideshow to rest and go make morning rounds. Another new perk of the position. My new security analyst should be arriving any minute now and we have a full system sweep this week so I have a few drills I have to go over with him. I remember my first full system sweep drill. I made so many mistakes and almost wiped the mainframe. I’ve come a long way since then but it sure takes me back. The memory brings a smile to my face and I don’t notice my team members coming in. “Woah what’s this? Our fearless leader is wearing a smile today?” Connie says, taking a long sip of her coffee.

“Yea yea knock it off.” I say with a laugh.

“Keep this up and we might start to think you’re human.”

“Yea you keep this up and I’ll start talking in binary code!”

We share a laugh as an unfamiliar face comes through the door. He’s a tall slender man with long black rock star hair, and glasses. He’s wearing loose khakis and an extra bright white shirt. It’s like dude borrowed the geek squad uniform.

“Uhm, Hello. Is this data analytics?”

”Oh you must be Tarek! They told me you were coming, you’re from Bryan’s system right? Let’s get you set up next to Connie here and get you plugged in.”

Tarek takes his place next to Connie and she helps him log into his work station as I go through the morning meeting. It’s honestly a bunch of nothing that could be an email but the higher ups want me to verbalize it. I try to make it interesting but the only one truly listening is the new guy, and I give that a few days til he ignores me like the rest of them.

“And that just about does it for the morning meeting you guys and as always let's have a good day and a better tomorrow.”

“Warning Warning! Security Breach! Warning Warning!”

Flashing lights and sirens go off seconds after I conclude the meeting. The whites of everyone’s eyes are to the ceiling as the PA system’s warning blares in the small room. How the hell could this have happened? My fingers whiz in a flurry onto my keyboard to find the source of the attack. “My computer is down!” Connie screams. “Shit mine too!” Rodney says. “Whatever it is, it got me too!” Bryson yells.

One by one their screens go black. Finding the source is no longer a priority, there’s no way I would be able to contain it in time. I have to move quickly and I’m only a few keystrokes away from executing the shutdown protocol. Excute command 143. Enter ↵ and then my computer goes black. Did it take? Did it execute in time?

“What the hell was that?” Connie asks.

“We’ve been breached people… and I don’t know if I got the master shut down input in time.” I announce to my teams’ blank faces. My heart is pounding, only a week on the job and we’ve already had an attack. This is exactly what happened to the last- No. I won’t think about that now.

The room should be dark with all the systems down and all black screens, but there’s a glow in the corner. The new guy’s laptop is up and I can see the reflection of the light from his screen in his glasses. “Hey uhm, what was it? Derrick!” I yell. He ignores me and his fingers whip across his keyboard at lightning speed. “Hey I’m talking to you!” I bark as I storm over to him. “Just what the hell-“ I snatch his laptop and study the screen.

-Viral upload complete. Process irreversible in 1 hour and 57 minutes.-

“You did this?” I scream, nearly choking at the sight of what I’ve read.

“My name is Tarek…”

”What?”

”Earlier you called me Derrick, but my name is Tarek.”

”I don’t give a damn what your name is, why would you do this?” I yell slamming my fists on his desk. It seemed like a good threat at the time but he is largely unphased.

”It was my mission, do you know how long we’ve been over at Bryan’s system itching to get into yours? Finally it’s our chance. We will not fail!”

Tarek has turned out to be a devil in geek’s clothing. He’s a damn hacker! His words carry so much poise and passion. I couldn’t decide if he sounds like a true secret agent or a cocky villain. The smirk on his face is daunting and the way he sits at his desk, it's like thinks he’s already won.

Sparks fly as Tarek and I lock eyes, like two bulls ready to lock horns. The rest of my team stare in shock, unsure of what to do next. Connie is the first to spring into action. She reaches into her drawer and pulls out a yellow ethernet cable. She quickly begins wrapping it around the traitor and securing him into his chair. He welcomes her restraints laughing and mocking her attempts to subdue him. “Tick Tock” he laughs. ”In less than 2 hours your mainframe will be mine.”

Rodney is next and starts pounding away at Tarek’s laptop. Bryson springs from his seat and begins removing panels from the central CPU. He yanks out hard drives and begins to run a full diagnostic on each one. “You’ll never find them in time!” Tarek yells as Connie binds his feet.

“Sir, all of our firewalls are down. We are completely vulnerable. We were so blindsided by this. We were so unprepared that most of our defenses didn’t even pick up a threat until it was too late. Plus our antivirus software has been overwritten. It’s like we let him in.” Rodney reports. His words fall on the ears of a man unwilling to hear them. There’s gotta be something more I can do. But as I look around the room at my team members frantic, frightened faces, I recognize we are just flailing in futility. Connie has broken down to tears, Bryson has barely scratched the surface of the first hard drive, and Rodney just stares at the clock on the screen as it twindles down to the final minutes. “We did our best…” I whisper, amongst Tarek’s uncontrollable laughter.

3…2…1…

-Viral upload complete. Complete system invasion complete. Love virus now active-

“Untie him Connie.” I command. “Well played. We’ve been eliminating love hackers like you since her last boyfriend James. I never thought we would invite the enemy in. You guys got your claws in deep with this one. Looks like Emily is in love with Bryan now and we’ll be working together for a while.” I say to Tarek holding my hand out to shake his. The nerdy man takes my hand and shakes it firmly. “Don’t worry I know your job is on the line here, we heard about what happened to the guy in your position when things went south with James and how bad that relationship turned out. But Bryan has loved Emily for a while and now that her CPU is infected with loving him back I think you can rest easy for a while. Bryan’s a good guy, her mainframe is in good hands.”

-End