by JT Kalnay
“Holy shit,” Craig muttered.
“Now remember, that’s just between you and me,” Jean said. She reached over and gently squeezed his thigh. “I guess we’ll have at least one little secret, even if you are ah … ten years younger than me. But if I were you, I’d get rid of that code and get it off any machine I care about for anything except playing Marauder.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I’ll delete it.”
“Do yourself a favor. Just pull the hard drive it’s on and trash it. Better safe than sorry.”
“So how much do you know about computer viruses?” Craig asked.
“More than most,” Jean answered.
“From the Bureau?” Craig asked.
“Well, actually I learned about them from my friend at UW. She’s a cell biologist and she’s very interesting. She’s got an M.D. and a Ph.D. She’s also your age, single, and very cute,” Jean said. She lifted an inquisitive eyebrow.
“I’m taken,” Craig said. “Remember Stacey?”
“Okay. I’m just telling you that she’s cute, and single.”
“Fine. Now tell me about the viruses,” Craig said.
“She could tell you better. I can set up a meeting if you’d like,” Jean said.
“Jean! Come on. Just tell me,” Craig said.
“Okay. Well she says that calling a computer virus a virus isn’t that wrong because in fact they are a lot like other viruses. Now most people think that viruses are only in humans, but that’s not true. All kinds of animals have viruses. Like, HIV probably started in simians. And here’s one that really freaked me out, even bacteria can have viruses.”
“Weird,” Craig said.
“Anyway. Dr. Brady, that’s her name, not that you’re interested, tells me that the more intelligent and thus more dangerous viruses don’t actually want to kill the host they live in. They want to use the host to breed more of themselves and to allow them to spread more virus around their environment, or even jump environments. If they kill their host, then in effect they’ve killed themselves. So you see the worst computer viruses aren’t the ones that crash your hard drive or anything, the worst ones are the ones that use your machine to replicate themselves and keep themselves hidden then go off later. That’s why I believe it when people say the Marauder has a virus in it. The whole thing might be a virus. The way it keeps itself hidden and knows how to duplicate itself. And how it never kills its host.”
“This is so weird,” Craig said.
“Why?” Jean asked.
“Because I’ve got the code you know. And I’ve been looking through it. And one of the things the program has is an algorithm to duplicate itself. I never had it figured out, because it wasn’t like a regular old UNIX fork() call. So now what you’re telling me is that it probably invokes this duplication when it figures it’s sending out a replica to die and take you with it. It shows you the replica and the player doesn’t even know.”
“Well. That’s all I know about viruses, if you want to know anymore I could set you up with, oh sorry, bad choice of words, arrange a meeting with Dr. Brady. I’m sure you two would get along, I mean interface well intellectually.”
“Jean. Let me say it as plain as I can. I’m not interested. I love Stacey. I’ve loved her since the first day she walked into my class. Most people don’t believe in love at first sight, but that’s what it was for me. Of course it took me a year to convince her to go out with me. But I loved her since the first time I saw her.”
“That’s a nice story Craig. Sorry about busting your chops,” Jean answered.
“No problem. Not a lot of people know about Stacey and me, because we kind of had to keep it a secret, me being a graduate assistant teaching a class and her being an undergraduate. Some people might have questioned all those A’s she got, and what she did to get them. She earned them. Wait. That didn’t come out right. You know what I mean. You’ve been a woman in a man’s world at the Bureau. She did the work. She wrote the programs, she took the tests. Every grade she ever got from me was straight up honest. In fact, I probably graded her harder than anyone else. I loved her then, and I love her now. I am so glad she finally decided to move in with me.”
“Are you going to marry her?” Jean asked.
“I’d like to. Her family hates me. Maybe if I can win them over then we’ll get married. But for right now, we’re okay the way we are.”
“Craig. You’re not going to marry her family, you’re going to marry her. There’s always a reason not to do the thing you know is right. If I were you I’d forget about her family and marry her as soon as you can. You never know what’s going to happen.” Again Jean looked off into space for just a moment too long then quickly started again. “It’s funny how people’s families warm up to the boyfriend after the diamond goes on the finger. Right now you’re just some California dude who’s fucking their daughter.”
“Nice talk Jean.”
“Just calling it like I see it,” Jean said. "Do you have to call her or anything or can we keep playing?"
"She's in England, slaving away doing an installation over there."
"So then you don't have to call her?" Jean asked.
"I called earlier, but her cell phone wouldn't pick up. Probably had it turned off."
Chapter
May 21, 1994
San Francisco, California
“How did it go in Seattle?” Stan asked.
“Good. They’re with the program,” Craig answered.
“When are they going to take up a plane?”
“Next week. They said they’d give me forty eight hours notice. They want me to go up like always.”
“Good work Craig,” Stan said.
“So Stacey’s trip went well? She’s coming back tomorrow right?” Craig asked.
“That’s right. They had some network problems with their simulators and had to reset them. They think it was a virus or something. But everything’s okay now. Don’t worry Craig, we’ll get her back safe and sound for you just as soon as we can.”
Craig blushed and looked at his feet.
“Are we done?” Craig asked.
“Yeah. Once again, good work Craig.”
“Thanks,” Craig said. He turned and left the conference room.
“What got into him all of a sudden?” Stan asked the empty room.
#
Craig walked into his dark office. Yellow post-it notes obscured half his computer monitor. Several letters lay on his well worn chair. The message waiting light was flashing on his phone and the email icon was blinking on his computer. Craig flicked on the lights and piled the mail from his chair onto his desk, some spilled onto the floor.
“Nice to be back,” he muttered.
As the lights warmed up he turned to look at the poster of the Marauder on the wall. He picked up the phone and started to dial then suddenly jammed the phone back down and jumped out of his chair. He quickly covered the three steps to his doorway, then jogged down the hall like someone who wanted to get somewhere, but was a little afraid of where they were going. In a minute he was at the QA department.
“Hey Craig. How was Seattle?” Anthony Hayes, the red-haired QA chief greeted him.
“Not bad. Say, Anthony, did you ever figure out what was wrong with those testing machines?”
“Not really. Why?”
“Stan said Stacey had a similar problem in London. I didn’t have any trouble in Seattle but I wonder if there’s something in our machines?”
“We scanned them and didn’t find anything,” Anthony answered.
“Maybe we should re-install the operating systems and the test software from our read-only ‘pure’ copies.”
“Already done it.”
“Yeah? Cool. Great. Thanks Anthony.” Craig turned to leave.
“Craig? Is there something I should know about?”
“No. Nothing. You know me. Mr. Paranoid.”
“Okay.”
#
“Tough day
Mr. Walsh?” the guard asked.
“You know. Anytime you go away things pile up.”
“Yessir. My grandson said to be sure to thank you for the tickets to the amusement park. He had a real good time.”
“Great.”
“Have a nice night Mr. Walsh. You go straight home now. You look a little tired. Don’t worry, she’ll be home soon.”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t know?” Craig asked Rufus.
“Know what?” he answered, with a wink.
#
“A Bud and the phone please,” Craig said to the barkeep.
“Pizza again?”
“Yep. But just a plain this time,” Craig answered.
“Something on your mind kid?” Tim Ford asked from the end of the bar.
“You could say that.”
“I could. But I didn’t. Could you?”
“Not tonight okay? I ain’t in the mood to play Tim,” Craig said.
“Sorry. Buy you a beer?”
“Sure. But I’m only having one tonight. I gotta get back home and look after a few things before my girlfriend gets back from London.”
“Do the dishes, pick up the laundry, kick out the hookers, take back the dirty movies, fumigate, throw out the crusty Kleenex. Yeah, I know what being a bachelor for a week can do to a place,” Tim teased.
“Come on Tim. I told you. I ain’t in the mood.”
“Sorry. Here’s your beer. Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
The two men drank in silence. While Tim slyly watched a young couple in the mirror behind the bar, Craig just stared into nothing, lonely.
#
“Keep the change,” Craig said.
“Thanks,” the pizza boy answered.
“Help yourself,” Craig said, opening the box for Tim and the barkeep. As usual the bar was empty, the young couple having left.
“So what’s on your mind?” Tim asked between greasy bites.
“Nothing.”
“Something at work? Something at home?” Tim probed.
Craig looked over at him. “I think I know why this bar is always empty,” Craig said. Tim and the barkeep shared a small laugh. “You really want to know?” Craig asked.
“Well as long as you’re not going to confess to a Hank Adams like killing spree, I’m all ears.”
“Two more,” Craig ordered.
“Coming up,” the barkeep answered.
“Well. I kind of screwed up at work,” Craig started.
“How so?”
“My girlfriend bought me a video game for my birthday and I loaded it on my computer at work.”
“Yeah, you told me that before,” Tim said.
“Right.”
“So they caught you playing it or something?” Tim asked.
“No. I wish that was it. People play video games at work all the time. But that’s not it. She didn’t actually buy the game, she got me the source code. We’ll, about ninety eight percent of it. And I loaded it on my machine to see if I could figure out how to beat it.”
“So. There can’t be any harm in that,” Tim said. The barkeep and Tim looked at each other for the briefest moment.
“Well there wouldn’t be, except that I found out that the game has a virus in it.”
“A virus?” Tim asked. He set his beer down and shifted toward Craig.
“It turns out that this game has got something in it that stays resident and running in the computer even after the game is over. It keeps trying to find a network server for itself even after you tell it the game is over. On your personal PC you don’t care because you usually turn it off or do something else and your operating system is probably single-tasking so this network connectivity module doesn’t get any CPU cycles. But at work, on a parallel processing, networked machine that’s up 24/7 with a multi-tasking operating system and pools of available threads, the network connectivity module keeps running and generates some interesting problems, especially if the machines are protected from the network by a firewall. You get all kinds of “server not found” and “network connection timeout” errors. And that’s only what I know about. No-one is really sure what it’s doing behind the scenes, if it’s setting up some humungous logic bomb or worming into other machines or what.”
“You say it only shows up on multi-tasking operating systems?” Tim asked. “How about a pseudo multi-tasker like Windows 3.1?”
“That piece of crap? No way. It’s not a true multi-tasking operating system. You’ll only see the problems on a real operating system, like VM, or UNIX, or even OS/2 Warp.”
“Oh.”
“So anyway. I think I’ve got it off all the machines at work but I can’t be sure. And I think it got onto one of our client’s machines from one of ours. What a freakin’ nightmare.”
“It went from your office to someone else’s?” Tim asked.
“I think so. And if it did, and if it’s my fault, I am in deep shit…” Craig trailed off.
“Shit indeed,” Tim said.
“Exactly,” Craig answered.
“Gimme another,” Craig ordered.
“Hold it,” Tim said. “You said you were having one, and you’ve already had two. You said your girl was coming back and you had stuff to do. So, get on home little dogey,” Tim ordered.
“Right.” Craig said. He tossed a ten on the bar and headed for the door.
“See you,” Tim said.
“See you,” Craig answered.
“Hey kid. What was the name of that game?” Tim asked.
“Marauder. The Morphing Marauder,” Craig answered.
The bartender and Tim looked at each other and then watched Craig as the filthy glass door closed slowly behind him.
“Like you needed to ask,” the barkeep said.
Chapter
May 22, 1994
San Francisco, California
Craig stood just outside the gate in the International Arrivals area at San Francisco International Airport. He craned his neck trying to see another foot farther down the jet way. Several dozen other friends and family members were likewise anxiously awaiting the arrival of their loved ones from London. Finally Craig caught sight of Stacey as she strode up the jet way. His eyes lit up and the fatigue of the past few days dropped away. She reached him and threw her arms around him. For the longest time they stood there in the embrace.
“I missed you. I love you,” Craig said.
“I missed you too,” Stacey said.
Craig transferred her carry-on bag to his shoulder and they headed into the airport to gather her checked luggage.
“Long flight?” Craig asked.
“Oh yeah,” Stacey answered. “And to make it worse, I had a large, nervous, chatty Kathy beside me. Even after she threw up for the fourth time she wouldn’t shut up. Ever had someone breath puke breath onto you for six thousand miles?”
Craig knew the right answer was no answer.
“Boy am I glad to be home,” Stacey said.
“So how’d the installation go? It must’ve been hard because I wasn’t even able to get a hold of you for the last couple of days. I left some messages on your cell phone but you must have been pretty busy,” Craig said.
“Yes I was busy. But the software got installed and I think everything is going to be okay,” Stacey said. She looked down and continued walking towards the luggage pickup.
#
They stood around the carousel waiting for the luggage to appear. Craig held her hand and she slumped into him.
“So you’re probably too tired to think about planning another climbing trip?” Craig asked.
Stacey stood up and looked at him.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked.
“I saw this really cool advertisement for a climbing camp in Yosemite later this summer. It had rock climbing, and hiking, and gourmet food, and alpine stuff, and everything. I’ve got it at home. I thought you’d be interested.”
Stacey kept looking at him.
“What
?” Craig asked.
“Nothing,” Stacey answered. “I’m just tired. It sounds pretty good.”
“And it’s run by Lynn Fucentese. I think you’ve mentioned her before. She’s like your hero or something isn’t she?”
“Lynn Fucentese is putting on a climbing camp in Yosemite?” Stacey asked.
“Yes.”
“Well now you know what you’re getting me for my birthday,” Stacey answered.
Chapter
June 5, 1994
San Francisco, California
Craig sat alone and virtually motionless in his office, reading and rereading the email he’d just received from his old college friend and competitor.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
DATE: June 5, 1994
RE: FINGERPRINT
Dude. You sent me that network stuff on April 26. I’ve got some bad news for you. One of our IT security guys looked it over and said it shows the fingerprint of a new virus that’s slowly but steadily making its way around the net. This new virus is supposed to be particularly vile, aggressive, rude, crude and socially unacceptable. There was even a rumor it managed to get into a building’s AC unit and tried to freeze everyone before somebody pulled the plug on the building. So I’d take all the usual security precautions and reload anything I cared about.
As he continued staring at the message the office lights, which were connected to a timer and motion detection circuit, clicked off, leaving him alone in the dark.
June 6, 1994
Hong Kong
Assembled from News Wire Reports
A Soviet made China Airlines Tupolev 154 crashed today ten minutes after takeoff from Xian International Airport. One hundred and forty six passengers and sixteen crewmembers are presumed dead. The remoteness of the area and the difficult terrain are hampering the recovery of the bodies and the flight recorder. Authorities have not ruled out foul play. A government official says it is too soon to tell if there is any relation to the China Airlines crash on April 27 in Nagoya Japan where two hundred and seventy one people perished.
