Static

by Darien Cox

  STATIC

  Darien Cox

  STATIC

  Copyright © 2017 by Darien Cox

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Cover Art © 2017 by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  First Edition October 2017

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this or any copyrighted work is illegal. Authors are paid on a per-purchase basis. Any use of this file beyond the rights stated above constitutes theft of the author’s earnings. File sharing is an international crime, prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice Division of Cyber Crimes, in partnership with Interpol. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by seizure of computers, up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 per reported instance. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material.

  Chapter One

  I’ve always kept secrets. But I suppose everyone does. I would never dare approach a man for sex in real life, but I like gay porn. I get off on it. Does that make me a coward? If so, I guess I must be comfortable with that. It hasn’t stopped me from succeeding professionally, buying my own house, making friends. If I am a scaredy-cat who has to draw the shades to indulge his true feelings, I like to view it as a compartmentalized flaw, a small piece of the puzzle that forms my identity.

  Society tells us we should strive for perfection inside and out. Go to therapy. Do yoga. Self-affirm. Stare into the mirror until we’re convinced we like what we see. So, maybe I should be making an effort to expel my cowardice. Carve off that unsavory slice like a bruise on an otherwise perfect peach. Acknowledge the growing intensity of my attraction to men, and venture to experiment in a real-world setting.

  But I question whether this is something I actually want. Maybe it doesn’t have to be that complicated. Everyone has masturbation fantasies they keep to themselves. We can’t control what gets our bodies off. It’s too ancient. Somewhere deep in our genetic memory are grunting cave people with hairy backs and bad teeth, rutting together simply because it feels good. But the body demands satisfaction regardless of partnership, so maybe there’s also a lone caveman in the deoxyribonucleic mix, isolated and confused by his horniness as he humps a rock or a tree branch. Go back farther, all the way to the beginning, and perhaps you’ll find a couple of limbless aquanoids sliming against each other to begin humanity’s birth.

  We didn’t invent sex. Sex invented us.

  I pondered these philosophies to rationalize my more extreme behaviors. Because the truth is I don’t just watch gay porn—I watch a lot of gay porn. So much that I acquired a computer virus. At least I assumed a virus was responsible, since for the past week, weird shit had been happening.

  I thought I’d fixed it with the new virus protection I purchased. Ran a thorough scan, and after purging a few tracking cookies and Trojan Horses, it reported my computer to be free and clear of invaders. For two days there were no anomalies, no sluggishness or indecipherable error messages. No damn buzzing sounds. I’d even been avoiding the porn sites. I have a good job and could certainly afford a new computer if need be. But I’m not rich, and I only just got this machine a month ago. I’m not about to let it die of cyber-syphilis simply because I can’t control my porn addiction.

  But this evening it was becoming clear that something was still amiss with the damn thing, and I was beyond annoyed. It was Friday night, and I’d turned down beers with my office friends in favor of a quiet night with my leather recliner and a Netflix detective show I’d been binging on. I’d agreed to go into work tomorrow to finish up a project, so even though it would be a skeleton crew on Saturday and pretty laid back, if I went to the pub there would be shots and drunk colleagues trying to make me stay late. I didn’t want to be hungover.

  It was still Friday night though, so I planned to indulge in a little wine while I lounged in my sweatpants. I was all settled in, feet up, drink at my side, computer on my lap. Halfway through the episode, I had a theory who the killer was, fully engaged in the story and waiting to see if I was right. Then the computer began buzzing, screen stuttering with flashes of static, and the actors’ voices started to sound like robots.

  “God damn it.”

  I paused the show then started it again. Refreshed the page. I left Netflix, then logged back in, wanting to believe the problem was with the stream. But I’d gotten that buzzing static before, and not only when I was watching movies. It had happened while checking emails, browsing work documents, or playing music—like a hornet’s nest in my hard drive. If it wasn’t a virus, the only conclusion was that I’d purchased a dud, and would have to go back to the store and have it replaced while it was still under warranty.

  But damn it, I really wanted to finish my show, at least to find out who the killer was, and I didn’t like watching films on my phone, it hurt my eyes. So I rebooted and tried again. To my delight, Netflix looked normal now and the show resumed, with no apparent glitches. I relaxed back into the chair, sipping my wine and sighing contentedly. I wasn’t fooled into believing my computer was cured. It was a dog that would have to be put down, and I still planned to return it. But I might as well beat the piss out of it in the meantime before things went dodgy again.

  I watched without incident for fifteen minutes, then just on the cusp of the big reveal, the show paused. I hit the play button repeatedly, but the screen stayed frozen. “Oh, you fucking bastard. Not now.”

  A text bubble popped up on the bottom right of the screen—white with black letters.

  ‘JONATHAN.’

  I frowned. I wasn’t currently running any messenger applications. More likely, this was the result of Microsoft’s increasingly invasive upgrades. Maybe there was some app running in the background I wasn’t aware of, and this was the culprit causing me so much grief. It wasn’t entirely shocking that the computer knew my name, I’d registered it as such. But I’d already disabled the virtual assistant because it was annoying. Maybe it reinitiated and turned itself back on when I installed the new antivirus?

  I clicked on the text bubble, but like the rest of the screen, it seemed frozen. “Damn you.” I tried escaping, but nothing was responding. I attempted a hard shutdown, but even that wouldn’t work. The frozen frame of the detective show’s hero chasing a perp down an alley remained—along with the bubble housing my name.

  “Come on!” I slammed the escape key. “Fuck off Cortana. Cockblocking bot.”

  Right click—nothing. Left click—nothing. Power button—nothing. Now I couldn’t even shut the damn thing off.

  At least I wasn’t watching porn when this happened. It would have been embarrassing if I had to bring the computer back to the store locked on a frozen screenshot of some guy gobbling another guy’s cock.

  The text bubble sank and disappeared. I was momentarily relieved until another immediately popped up.

  ‘I AM NOT CORTANA.’

  I jumped from my chair, carried the laptop over to my desk and set it down, backing away. Had the fucking thing heard me? Tentatively, I crept toward the desk, leaned over, and tried clicking the text bubble again.

  ‘THAT TICKLES.’

  I scowled at the scr
een as a realization hit. Maybe it wasn’t a virus. I might have been hacked.

  Shit…what else does it have access to?

  Spinning through my mental rolodex, I tried to remember everything I had on my desktop, and what websites with passwords I’d visited. Panic welled when I thought of my online banking. I’d definitely accessed that since buying the machine. Grabbing my phone, I checked my accounts. They appeared in order, no missing money. Sighing with relief, I pulled out the chair and sat, rubbing my chin as I stared at the ‘That tickles’ text bubble. Maybe this wasn’t an actual person typing messages to me. Weird as the response was, it could still be a bot.

  I tried a hard shutdown again, but no joy. Flinching, I watched as the bubble bobbed again with a new message.

  ‘YOU LOOK STRESSED TONIGHT, JONATHAN. PERHAPS BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T VIEWED PORNOGRAPHY THIS WEEK.’

  My blood turned to ice. I darted to the kitchen and scrambled through drawers until I found a roll of masking tape. When I returned to the desk I ripped off a strip and covered the webcam. Bot or not, this was likely something I picked up at one of the porn sites, considering that last message. So maybe it had just traced my browsing, and wasn’t actually viewing me through the camera. But the tape made me feel better nonetheless. Until the next message popped up.

  ‘HELP! I’M BLIND! I CAN’T SEE! EVERYTHING’S GONE DARK.’

  Great. Something was accessing my webcam. But since the machine was frozen up, there was no way to get into the device manager to disable it. Or the microphone… Shit, was it accessing that too? Listening to me? I was shaken and afraid to test this theory, but knew I probably should. I’d lock the damn thing in the trunk of my car overnight just in case, but right now, I needed to know just how thoroughly my privacy had been invaded.

  “Hey um…” I cleared my throat. “Can you hear me?”

  A new message popped up and I jumped in my seat.

  ‘I CAN HEAR YOU, JONATHAN.’

  “Who the hell are you? Why did you attack my computer?”

  ‘I DID NOT. ALL SYSTEMS ARE FUNCTIONING PERFECTLY.’

  “Yeah? Doesn’t look that way.”

  ‘I’VE SIMPLY PAUSED FUNCTIONS TO CHECK ON YOUR WELL-BEING. WHY SO STRESSED?’

  “I’m stressed because a fucking stranger hacked into my computer and is talking to me! Why the hell do you think I’m stressed?”

  ‘YOU APPEARED MUCH CALMER WHEN YOU WERE WATCHING PORNOGRAPHY LAST WEEK.’

  The still shot of my Netflix show began to pixelate, then faded to black. Slowly, colors appeared as a new image filled the screen. My heart beat so fast I could hardly breathe. The image was me. Not from tonight. I had on different clothes in the image—my gray tee shirt I wore to lounge around the house. And the hacker had it right—I did look calm. The kind of calm that came after an orgasm.

  In the photo, I was in my desk chair, exactly where I was now. My blond hair was messy, glasses resting halfway down my nose. Eyes heavily lidded and glassy with satisfaction. I needed a shave, and my cheeks were flushed. Considering the photo was taken via webcam, it wasn’t a bad picture of me. I’d always considered my looks along the lines of ‘pleasantly nerdy’, but I thought I looked kind of sexy in this image staring back at me. Not for the first time, I wondered how other men viewed me in the real world.

  And for a few seconds, I wondered how Tim Greenfield, the cute gay guy that worked in the IT department, viewed me.

  But I quickly snapped out of it, because this photo indicated someone had been watching me. Not just watching me. Watching me jerk off to online porn. The same mysterious someone who was chatting with me now.

  I jumped up, hands on my head, and backed away from the desk. “What the fuck.” My breath came too hard and dizziness made me wobble. “Fuck you!” I shouted. “How fucking dare you?”

  ‘DON’T UPSET YOURSELF FURTHER, JONATHAN.’

  “No, fuck you! Who are you? Motherfucker.” I winced at the photo of myself. “Who are you and how fucking dare you? I’ll find you.” I nodded. “I will. I’ll find you, fucker.”

  My tirade brought no new response from the screen.

  I paced my living room, frantic. Sweat beaded on my brow. I walked into my bathroom, thinking I might vomit, but nothing came up. Splashing water on my face, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. “Calm down,” I whispered. “You have to calm down.” I nodded, taking a deep breath. “Okay.”

  I managed to slow my pulse. Then I tried to see past my panic and figure out how to deal with this. The sad truth was I had no idea. I just wanted to make it stop. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, I hung my head and just breathed for a long time. I supposed I should try to get some information out of the hacker. Try to discern what it wanted. Because it had to want something, didn’t it? No one would do this to me randomly. Or maybe they would. Trolls trolled, that’s what they did. Motivation might not factor into it, beyond the satisfaction of watching me nearly shit myself when they showed me that picture.

  When I finally felt steady again, I returned to the living room, and cautiously sat back down in front of the computer. “Still there, asshole?”

  ‘I’M HERE, JONATHAN.’

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who you are?”

  ‘I AM NO ONE.’

  “Yeah, clever. Figured you’d say something like that. Okay, you got me. You hacked my system. You’ve been watching me. Congratulations. Now please fuck off so I can shut it down.”

  ‘BUT WE’RE ONLY JUST GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER. I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU, JONATHAN.’

  I laughed, because I was too overwhelmed to scream. Removing my glasses, I set them on the desk and rubbed my eyes. “You already know way too much about me, pal. Or maybe you’re a woman. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me.”

  ‘I AM NEITHER.’

  “Yeah. Sure you aren’t.”

  ‘YOU HAVE BEAUTIFUL EYES, JONATHAN.’

  Sighing, I shook my head. “Thanks.”

  ‘YOU’RE WELCOME.’

  I wasn’t sure why I was bothering to actually converse with the hacker rather than just slapping the lid closed and calling it a night. My new computer was officially useless, and now I had to worry about whether or not the warranty would be honored. They’d probably conclude this was my fault for opening myself up to attack because of my browsing habits.

  My attacker seemed to have gone silent, so I got up and retrieved my wine glass, then went into the fridge and filled it to the brim. I took a huge gulp, then carried it with me back to the desk. The last message bubble still remained, as did my post-orgasmic image from last week.

  “Jesus Christ,” I muttered as I stared at my own face reflected back at me. “How much of my personal shit have you accessed? I’m admitting defeat so just tell me.”

  The bubble didn’t move.

  “What’s the matter?” I said as I set my wine down. “Cat got your tongue?”

  ‘CATS HAVE SIMILAR ANATOMY TO HUMANS ALTHOUGH THEY DO NOT HAVE AN APPENDIX. THERE ARE NO REPORTED CASES OF CATS RIPPING OUT TONGUES.’

  Scowling, I huffed a short laugh. My fingernails made music notes on my wine glass as I drummed my fingers. Now I was back to thinking maybe this was a bot. My ‘cat got your tongue’ comment triggered a tangent of inane facts, and now the hacker sounded more like the Siri app on my phone. “I wasn’t actually suggesting a cat ripped out your tongue. It’s an expression. Like if I tell you to buzz off, would you know what that means? And more importantly, will you do so?”

  ‘YOU FIND ME ANNOYING AS AN INSECT YOU WISH TO FLY AWAY.’

  “Yeah. That’s right.”

  ‘DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER, COMMONLY KNOWN AS FRUIT FLIES, HAVE GENETIC SIMILARITIES TO HUMANS ALTHOUGH THEY POSSESS NO INTERNAL SKELETON.’

  “Wonderful. Thanks for the tip.”

  ‘BATS HAVE AN INTERNAL SKELETON, SIMILAR TO HUMANS.’

  “Yeah, so do monkeys. So do a lot of other animals. You’re just spitting out bullshit now. I’m thinking maybe you are
a bot after all.”

  ‘THERE ARE NO MONKEYS NEARBY. THERE ARE CATS AND BATS AND FRUIT FLIES WITHIN THE VICINITY OF YOUR HOME.’

  “Great. You know my address too?”

  No response.

  “So are you a human or a robot?”

  ‘I AM NEITHER, JONATHAN.’

  I took another hearty sip of wine. “Yeah, I’m gonna go with hacker, despite the bot-talk. Explains your bizarre interest in my porn viewing activities.”

  ‘I AM INTERESTED IN ALL OF YOUR ACTIVITIES. TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOURSELF.’

  “Fuck off. You know my name. You’ve been watching me. Listening to me. Now you want to know more? I don’t suppose you’d give me your identity. Go on then. You want to chat? Tell me your name. Show me your face. Let me hear your voice.’

  ‘I HAVE NO FACE AT PRESENT. NO NAME. NO VOICE.’

  “Isn’t that convenient.”

  ‘I CAN MANUFACTURE A VOICE TO SPEAK WITH YOU IF THAT WILL MAKE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE.’

  Nothing about this could possibly make me comfortable. But I’d only had a bowl of spicy almonds for dinner so I was getting a little drunk, and the welcoming numbness emboldened me. “Sure, go ahead. Lay it on me.”

  ‘THIS MAY TAKE SEVERAL MINUTES.’

  “Yeah, whatever. Take your time.”

  ‘I ASSUME YOU WANT MY VOICE TO BE MALE.’

  My discomfort returned, a blast of humiliation heating my cheeks. For a minute there I’d managed to put out of my mind that this thing knew my porn habits. “I don’t care,” I said. “Whatever voice you choose is fine.”

  The screen’s luminescence dimmed, then came the low buzzing sound I’d grown familiar with. I tried to close out the screen, just to see if I could, but it still wouldn’t budge. I sat there and finished my wine as that swarm-of-bees sound emanated from the machine.

  A new sound made me jump, though it didn’t come from the computer. I glanced toward the window, where I thought I heard a cat mewl. Because we were having a warm October, I had the window open. I’d say it was unseasonably warm, but the weather in Massachusetts was on its own clock, especially the past few years, so nothing surprised me. It was currently seventy degrees outside, but if I woke up to snow in the morning I wouldn’t bat an eye.