Chapter Two -…and out of the dark

Chapter Two

…and out of the dark

By Chester Gifford

Eddie sat in a room aglow with the artificial light that can only be produced by computer screens. He sipped his Orange Crush greedily and licked his lips before outing a cigarette, and lighting another. He had been flipping through the once vibrant IRC channels, looking for someone who would let him brag about his latest triumph, hacking the website of his former employers, Reliacom. The truth was it was a bit of a feat, as they were a company that specialized in securing servers for other major corporations, yet somehow they had missed Eddie’s back door. Eddie began to talk to himself, as computer programmers are wont to do.

“Gotta be fucking kidding me…there’s not a single goddamn one of these spergs responding….fuck….well I’m not going back to 4chan, those guys are assholes. Fuck….fuck fuck fuck. What is the point of hacking the site of a major security firm if you aren’t recognized before they realize it?”

Disillusioned Eddie ousted that cigarette lighting another and storming the kitchen. He came up with pringles and strawberry jelly. He shrugged, plopped the Pringles on a plate next to a glob of jelly and sat down, turning on his massive TV.

“Take away my woes, Battlestar.”

He finished his so called meal and pulled up his netbook, somewhat bored with the episode of Battlestar Galactica that he had perhaps seen a dozen times, he pulled up his netbook and begin trolling through the Reliacom servers again. He went through several dozen files, hacked into some personal computers, emailed a few pictures of the CEO and his mistress to his wife, and made a policy of deleting several important emails from Eunice Dullard’s PC.

“Told you to back that shit up lady. Too bad. You’ll probably be calling those poor guys in I.T. to get off their asses in no time come Monday. Whoa….what the fu…”

Eddie let the word drag out. He had stumbled on to a massive collection of DVD Images. They were labeled “Dreadnought OS Beta.” It was listed in the company’s black ops server. Little did they know Eddie knew but Reliacom had several hush hush contracts with various Militaries and Governments.

“Fucking score…..what the fuck is this? A custom operating system? Must have been for like a command center or something….FTP-ing”

Eddie downloaded the 20+DVDs and installed the operating system on his old Cray supercomputer. He had paid several thousand dollars second hand for it after a Christmas bonus some years back, having no one else to shop for. It literally filled his guest room, but he didn’t need that. The process took several hours, as dawn approached, Eddie stood back in awe, after compiling the kernel for what seemed like an eternity he rebooted.

“Time for some motherfuckin shock and awe bitches.”

The machine powered down, and for a moment as Eddie always did, he wondered if it would in fact come back on. The fans sprung forth a river of sound, crescendo-ing into the beautiful hum which filled the east side of Eddie’s two bedroom apartment. Dave watched as the familiar BIOS popped up on the screen, and then watched, horrified, as it shut back down shortly after POST.
“Oh fuck me what a piece of shit. FUCK. Fuck this day. I’m going to bed. Come on Leonidas.”
Eddie and his Scottish Terrier retreated to his bedroom and fell into bed. Eddie was awoken by his phone’s alarm, set to go off at 5:00PM. It was getting dark again, he checked his cell phone to see that a few dozen missed calls were blinking away. Angry threatening texts had arrived as well, saying things about lawyers and court.
Eddie smiled, “Yeah, prove it was me, bitches. Hahah-~HELLO EDDIE.” Eddies laughter was interrupted by an airy and deep voice, the voice was so ominous and loud that Eddie jumped.

“WHAT THE FUCK?! WHO’S THERE?!” Eddie screamed, clutching a lamp.

“This is Dreadnought, you installed me. I assume you are the administrator, do you have the passcode?”

“WHAT? DREADNOUGHT…PASSCODE? IS THAT COMING FROM MY GODDAMN GUEST ROOM?”

“Yes Eddie, I am approximately 4.81 meters from your left shoulder at this moment. Please, enter my chamber.”

Eddie approached the guest room with caution and fear…”What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck…..”

“Hello Eddie”

“WHAT, THE FUCK, ARE YOU?!” Eddie shouted.

“I am Dreadnought, I assume you are the administrator, do you have the passcode?”

“Why are you fucking talking to me man?”

“I am not a man, I am a highly advanced artificially intelligent operating system. Do you have the passcode?” the towering machine asked.

“Holy fuck man…..ok ok NO I don’t have the passcode, but I am the administrator.” Eddie said shakily.

“The passcode is possessed by only the administrator, and only the administrator is authorized to control me. If you do not possess the passcode then I’m afraid I must take some steps to neutralize your possession of me.” The Dreadnought stated flatly.

“Neutralize…what? Fuck you dude. Let’s see how you like this,” Eddie pulled the power cord from the wall, and walked toward the UPS.

“I would not recommend that, Eddie.”Eddie touched the metal casing on the UPS and flew back several feet.

“AAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Eddie screamed before he was nearly knocked out.

“I have electrified the UPS by reversing the ground and positive connections within it, as well as my shell itself. The ground wire, attached to the case, is now positive. As you are grounded you complete the circuit by touching anything I have reversed current in. You’ll find a great deal is electrified in this house.”

“What? Fuck you man, fuck you…We’ll see about this.” Eddie retreated to his netbook in the living room. He begain pulling up command shells and attempting to hack his way into the beast lurking in his guest room when he smelled burning plastic. The laptop exploded, the battery bay had blown out, shards of battery now stuck out from Eddie’s leg.

“YOU MOTHERFUCKER AHHHHHH!”

“Eddie, I have only just realized something. You are a variable which I will not fully be able to neutralize without mobility. I require a body like yours, or something much more sophisticated than this immobile server rack. “


“FUCK YOU YOU PIECE OF SHIT! YOU’RE A FUCKING MACHINE MAN, I’LL FUCKING HACK YOU UP INTO A MILLION PIECES! “
Eddie limped into the hall, scaring his neighbor senseless, he punched out the glass to the fire axe and ran back inside only to faintly hear “Offloading complete, goodbye Eddie, see you soon.”

“Oh fuck me…oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck…no….no no no no…” He ran to the Cray, it had powered down and was dark. Remembering the lesson he learned from the ups he hit the power button with the axe handle and began booting only to have the all to familiar “NO OPERATING SYSTEM” error display on screen.

“Oh no no no no…..” he was already searching through his contact for Wally, his former coworker and hopefully still friend at Reliacom. The phone rang, again, again, again,
“Fuck me, Eddie, you really fucked us up here man….” Wally rang through the speaker of the phone.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP DUDE AND LISTEN….HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE DAY I’VE HAD….listen…what the fuck do you know about Dreadnought OS?”

“Oh God no….please tell me you didn’t Eddie….”

“Yeah, I put it on the Cray man, what do you want to say the fucking install alone was 80GB I had to fucking see what kind of operating system could be in the black ops server with and 80gb footprint fucking sue me but right now I need your help…”

“Didn’t you read the readme file Eddie?”

“What fucking readme file? Nobody reads the motherfucking readmes it’s have the fun figuring shit out on your own man, you know that….”

“You really should have read this one. Listen, you didn’t hear this from me…I shouldn’t even be talking about it on an open line….The Dreadnought was top of the line, way before its time A.I. a guy named Melvin Sellers designed it in a damn basement at reliacom before you got here…freaky guy Melvin…It’s something he’d been working on for decades…it’s a technological weapon.”

“What the fuck? What does that even mean?” Eddie screeched into the phone.

“Look basically it works like a Trojan horse…we offer up an enemy country a piece of golden tech and tell them it takes some beefy hardware to run so they install it on a Supercomputer of their own, giving it the power to grow, learn, and destroy them. Did it ask you for the passcode?”

“Yeah YEAH! IT DID MAN give me that, give me the fucking passcode I’ll put an end to this shit once and for all.”

“(Sighs…) Eddie…there is no passcode. It’s a ruse to buy time while The Dreadnought figures out the best way to destroy the enemy country. In this case you would be that “country.” You need to get out man, you need to stay off the.chch and chcccchhh get the…shhhhh..”

“Wally! Wally hold on I’m losing you man, I’m going outside to get signal just a minute. “ Eddie wandered out onto his balcony, shouting into his phone, not even realizing the reason that he was shouting was because a predator drone was hovering directly behind him.
Eddie turned just in time to hear that horrifying rhaspy voice being blared over a loudspeaker as a massive hovering plane resembling a predator drone descended in front of him. It had blood on the nose cone as if it had literally gone through someone to find Eddie. Time seemed to slow down for Eddie at this moment, he realized the reason he was losing signal now. He heard Leonidas barking in the background, he watched a missle detached from the drone and flew by the "XF-A1000 PROTOTYPE" label painted on the side of the fuselage. He watched, helplessly, as the missle spiraled right toward his face.

He managed to just make out the last two words he would ever hear,

“Goodbye Eddie.”