Shards

by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

  I froze.

  Beyond the line of words on my manuscript, the rise and fall of the alien whale-song haunted the void every few seconds. My gut was hollow as realisation dawned on me. This was the sound of dying letters.

  Despite the constant radiating contentment, I tore my eyes from the screen and wiped a hand across my brow. The sweat collected there was ice cold. Although the blur persisted, a legacy of the late hour, I could read my watch well enough to know 4am was approaching.

  The euphoric feeling had faded, replaced by emptiness. When I refocussed my concentration on the screen, the bizarre realm of living letters had vanished. Instead, only the last page of my manuscript filled the screen. Most of it was riddled with typos.

  I squinted hard at the screen, hoping for the dazzle of colours to return or the hint of a cloud to show through. Instead, nothing.

  I composed myself with deep breaths and tried pushing the vision from my thoughts, concentrating instead on finishing the chapter before going to bed.

  I started in on the typos, but with every correction---every deletion---the haunting call of the letters echoed through my mind. I couldn't do it.

  Afraid to even turn off the computer, I sought refuge from the madness in sleep. While I slept, the screen purred and flickered in the darkness. Even in slumber, the metallic clouds, the bloated shapes of letters and numbers, and a haunting scream, played through the landscape of my dreams.

  The next morning, I returned to the manuscript, still bleary-eyed, but again, couldn't bring myself to correct the mistakes. I soon turned to thinking of all the corrections I'd made in the novel, and then in the dozens of short stories I'd written. I paled when I remembered trashing the original versions of chapters three and four. Nearly nine thousand words. Murdered.

  After much soul searching and guilt, I backed up every story of mine onto disks and locked them away in my study draw.

  Since that night, I've never written another story. Not another word. Knowing the consequences, it's just too painful to make a mistake. My computer sits dormant, with my entire writing career dormant within.

  I've now turned my hand to art---abstract art. With the indecipherable smattering of paint on canvas, I'll never be in danger of erasing my work ever again. The thought gives me comfort as I'm painting, imagining myself floating through a steel-brass cloud, feeling at one with the universe.

  Never again will I have to endure the mournful call of letters lamenting the loss of their kind.

  * * *

  Stealing Fire

  He glared into the campfire as though it were his bitter enemy. Tension lines---muscles taut and charged with adrenalin---were highlighted in the amber glow. Flickering shadows transformed his eyes into pits. Though hidden, they burned with an intensity greater than the coals.

  The fire played along the twigs, delighting in its rampage as the wood charred beneath. The kindling popped and crackled, accompanied by the dirge of a cricket. The insect was lost in the trees beyond his campsite, beyond his battered Triumph Thunderbird.

  Fire was capricious---an idiot child with a flair for destruction. Its dance sickened him to the core.

  Memories stirred. The fire became a portal to his torment. He scowled, repeatedly clenching his gloved fists as the nightmare played through his mind.

  The flailing arm was always first. Amy's. The tiny arm reached through the steel bars that entombed her inside the bedroom. Heat and irony assaulted him in waves as he fought to free his little girl. The bars he'd intended for her protection became her death sentence.

  He wrenched at the bars with all his strength as Amy's pleas, then screams, tore the heart from his chest. His desperation wasn't enough. The bars never yielded, nor the flames. The fire was ever hungry.

  Black, billowing smoke stung his eyes and raked his throat but couldn't drive him away. Despite the pain, the heat, and the stench, he held that tiny hand until the world faded to black.

  His memories soon shifted to Sonya.

  She survived that night, burnt beyond recognition and crippled by more than physical injuries. 'I should have done more', she had mumbled through ruined lips. Even after the bandages came off, Sonya tormented herself with the chant.

  Those were the last words he had ever heard from his wife and they haunted him to this day. The fire had stolen her too. Without Amy, or a face, her spirit surrendered.

  He saw it in her eyes that last day. That dancing flame. Where her light should have been. Dissatisfied that Sonya was spared the withering brutality of its embrace, the flame drove her to the hospital roof, and to her death.

  In turn, it drove him to the road. To the life of a wanderer. An avenger.

  He glared at the campfire, willing his demons to quieten. Clenching his fist again, to the sound of scrunching leather, he moved in closer to the flames. The heat surged in anticipation. Twigs popped like snapping bones. His face grew hot but he ignored the sensation. The heat barely registered. Not after this long.

  His focus honed to a tiny black sphere, a pinpoint aimed directly at the heart of the fire. Flames licked the air, eager for a taste of the flesh suggested by his singed hairs. The fire flickered, darting to and fro in the hunt for combustibles to devour.

  He rolled back the sleeve of his jacket, revealing a maze of burn scars along his forearm. It was time.

  He thrust his hand into the centre of the fire. The hand that held Amy's till the very end. Flames took hold within a heartbeat. The stench of burning leather and flesh filled his senses, the familiarity bittersweet. Tapping into his ball of rage, he tightened his fist, then snatched it back out into the night air.

  The fire squirmed and writhed in his hand. An animated yellow-white flame, fey, vaguely humanoid. A parody of life. The elemental spirit flailed in his grasp, desperate to return to its sheath of flames. Leather sizzled and smoked from its throes. Caught naked in the cold air, the flame quickly fizzled inside his fist.

  Barely aware of the blistering and lingering heat, he rubbed the smouldering glove on jeans ingrained with soot. The smell of scorched skin wafted across the campsite.

  He watched with feral delight as the campfire dulled. Despite the available fuel, it waned before his eyes. With its heart, its essence, stolen, the fire soon sputtered and died.

  The scene was almost played out by rote now. He'd lost count of how many fires he'd stared down. Only the scars kept score.

  Under the glow of moonlight fractured by the trees, he retrieved the sleeping bag stowed on his bike and unfurled it over the lumpy earth. He eyed the charred firewood, the dead coals, and then climbed inside his bedroll.

  Carefully, he removed his glove. His nerve ends were long dead, the pain excised. Only the sight of raw skin and the stink of charcoal and burnt flesh remained.

  His thoughts strayed back to his family and the happiness he'd lost. Too many fires raged out there in the darkness. Too many dancing flames to steal away people like Sonya and Amy.

  It was cold comfort but one less fire would burn tonight.

  * * *

  Firewall

  I'm a hacker. No, that's not quite right. I used to be a hacker. There was nothing better than invading the whole damn web with a made-to-order über virus. I was responsible for the tyck-tock virus, the one that brought down the World Bank and Microsoft servers for three days. Pulling down Microsoft gave me some serious cred. I was a freaking God-damn legend after that.

  My latest virus was IcE Maiden. I was on top of the world when I released that little baby on the unsuspecting public. My main targets are always the big boys. The idea of shoving it up corporate America gets me off every time I think about it. I'd love to see their dopey faces when some dickless IT manager says "Yeah, we have a virus" and then has no friggin' idea what to do about it.

  IcE Maiden was my greatest creation. A true masterpiece. Once that baby hit your hard drive, it was all over. Your computer would freeze and a little piece of my own personal wisdom would pop up on the screen. No matter ho
w many times you rebooted, the damn message wouldn't go away. It then replicated, sending itself to everyone in your email address book. I've found out the virus was a mega-success. It took the world's best brains almost three weeks to come up with a workable patch to fix it. I heard my Maiden even messed up the anti-virus corporations. Home freakin' run.

  I laughed as best I could when I heard that. I always target them first. If you take those guys down, it means your virus stays in circulation longer. A lot of the banks had trouble with it. I even heard the Japanese government crashed for a couple of days when IcE Maiden hit.

  Sometimes I wonder, as I get to do a hell of a lot these days, what sorta stuff they say about my viruses in other countries. Do they even call it IcE Maiden in Japan? Maybe they translate it to something like 'Young woman standing in snow'? The thought cracks me up.

  I saw some of the press clippings on the net shortly afterwards. I'm glad the Western world got the name right at least. I remember another freelancer, by the name of WackyDuck, released a kick-butt virus that did some major global damage.

  His virus was called Big Boa. The media screwed up and some wise guy went all religious with it. They called it the Serpent virus, and started all sorts of fun and games with prophecies and finger-pointing. I thought it was a hoot. The apocalypse---now on your PC! WackyDuck never lived it down. Even those in our little community started calling him a religious freak. My point is, you're never the master of what you unleash. You just hope it goes the way you planned.

  I think it was a reaction to WackyDuck's experience, cos I remember scouring the new age and religious newsgroups and mailing lists. I found as many emails as I could and then unleashed IcE Maiden on 'em. It was a long list, with emails from hundreds of lists from all over the world. They wanted apocalypse through the internet, I'd give it to 'em.

  You know when you're looking at email addresses and some seem really familiar? It's almost like dejá-vu. Well, when going through the occult newsgroups, I came across an email address that practically burned itself into my eyes.

  Hell, it wasn't even the address, it was the word.

  Malephagia.

  I didn't know what it meant. Yet I recognised it, like I'd seen it before but couldn't remember.

  As I hovered my mouse over the email address, something in my head told me to delete it from the list. I even started to. Then sense kicked in and I moved on.

  #

  Long slender fingers, concealed within black velvet gloves, deftly played across the keyboard. The rhythmic tapping of keys formed a strangely melodic tune that filled the apartment. Arcane symbols, indecipherable to layman's eyes, lined the screen in an complex yet ornate arrangement.

  Twin tanks flanked the computer---itself a sleek black machine that purred in accordance to its master's desires. The tanks were connected to the hard drive by serpentine plastic tubes. These tubes, filled with amber liquid pulsing from the nearby tanks, snaked into the hard drive case and circled back again, forming a closed circuit.

  Floating at the centre of each tank, akin to monstrous test-tubes, were foetus-like creatures. They were vaguely human yet wrong, drifting in the cloudy ochre fluid---nine inches of wrinkled pink flesh bobbing in artificial wombs.

  The melodic typing continued its song until a warning flashed up in bold, red letters, bordered on every side by an array of runic characters.

  Virus Detected. Designation: IcE Maiden.

  For seconds, the screen remained unresponsive, despite repeated tapping at the keyboard. Another message flashed on screen but only for an instant. It wavered and vanished before it could be read. The keyboard returned to life, as further keystrokes were converted to symbols in the on-screen document.

  One of the foetuses convulsed as the hard drive whirred into automated life, sucking and recycling the greasy fluid from the tanks. The hybrid machine clicked over for long seconds, syphoning through the amber liquid. The symbiote foetuses drew more orange fluid in hungry, synchronised gulps, returning it in bubbles and dark ochre dribbles.

  A final message appeared on-screen, surrounded by assorted runes.

  Counter-measures initiated. Destination: 'Sabre' - IP 203.198.66.4.

  A throaty laugh echoed through the apartment.

  #

  Nothing in my life could ever prepare me for what came next.

  A few hours later, I get this weird message on my computer. That took me totally by surprise.

  Doing what I do, by definition I have to have the very best filters and firewalls in the game. The community is pretty tight but wars between hackers can be deadly. Turning our virtual arsenals on each other is a nasty business, so protection comes in spades.

  So on the screen was this freaky message. I don't know to this day how he did it, but the words were flaming. Not like your usual animation-type stuff, I mean like they were really on fire. The windows and icons on my desktop caught fire on screen. The desktop images inside the monitor---on the screen---were burning. It was awesome.

  The message read: Your virus has been detected and destroyed on contact. You are now infected by Malephagia Firewall counter-protection.

  I was stunned. In my years of hacking, I'd never seen anti-virus protection like this before. The whole damn screen was on fire, but the message burnt brightest, right in the centre.

  I sat there hypnotised, watching my desktop image---a half-naked supermodel sunbathing next to a swimming pool---get slowly eaten by the flames. When the water in the pool started bubbling, I thought I was going crazy.

  Before my eyes, the face of the burning girl twisted into a contorted scream.

  I freaked.

  I put my hands to the keyboard and was jolted by a flash of searing heat and pain in my fingers. I was thrown backwards. It was like a massive electrical shock. The smell of burnt flesh and plastic filled the room.

  It took me a long time to recover. I just stood there watching the screen blaze.

  The bikini model soon crumpled into a blackened skeleton. All my icons were now little squares of ash dotted around the screen. Yet the burning message remained.

  Very carefully, I touched one of the keys, trying to make the message disappear. Heat welled up from my finger and the whole keyboard shot up in flames. Snatching my hand back, I then grabbed at the monitor, trying to move it out of the fire's path. The plastic under my hand smouldered for an instant then the monitor exploded in a fireball, showering glass fragments all over my room.

  I panicked, reaching for my half-empty Coke to pour over the computer. The can melted with a loud pop, spilling scalding drink all over my desk. Despite the eruptions of heat and fire, my hands were mostly unscathed.

  Downstairs, I heard my parents shout my name. They probably heard the monitor explode. Panicked and confused, I stumbled back, collapsing onto my bed. All I could do was sit on the edge of my bed and freak out, watching the flames rise out of what used to be my state-of-the-art computer.

  Not knowing what to touch, I slumped into myself, cupping my head in my hands. That was my mistake.

  The heat was excruciating. I screamed and flailed for what seemed hours. I clawed at myself, trying to put out the intense fire consuming my body. More pockets of fire erupted every time I touched the sheets. It was a nightmare. I was burning alive.

  My parents barged through the door. I grabbed at Dad in desperation. His sleeve shot up in flames. The whole room became an inferno. Dad beat at his arm as he pulled away from me. Mum disappeared, leaving the two of us to burn.

  She returned seconds later and smothered my body with a blanket. I screamed and screamed. It was unbearable. The last thing I saw was Dad ripping his jacket off and throwing it to the floor. At least he got off lightly.

  #

  The black keyboard stood temporarily abandoned as the entombed foetuses stared into nothingness. The amber fluid in their hooked-up tanks had clouded from the recent activity. Between them, the computer lay idle in stand-by mode---a predator at rest between kills.
<
br />   Behind the carpet of darkness that served as screen saver, a data log automatically generated by the computer waited for the master's return.

  At the top of the log, amid time, date, and server data, stood waiting to be read:

  Target 'Sabre' (IP 203.198.66.4).

  Malephagia Firewall v1.1 successfully uploaded.

  Dozens of other nicknames and addresses trailed below.

  #

  I spent two months in Stratton Memorial following 'the incident'. They said I died during the first operation; that my heart stopped for thirteen seconds. I went through six more operations before they'd even considered releasing me. My body is a pathetic withered blister; one giant scab.

  I've been in the rehabilitation wing of the Feldman centre now for about nine weeks. I wear a full body pressure suit that's supposed to be cutting edge medical technology. I hang by slings like a mummy on wires. They're trying to get me to move, in case my muscles atrophy. Hell, I didn't move much when I wasn't all burnt up, so I figure what's the difference. They say I was lucky to live. Can't see the difference there either.

  I'll never be able to touch anything ever again. Ever.

  Despite the rehab, despite the pain, despite everything, there is one thing that keeps me going.

  I have the bastard's email address, and the hope to track him down. I also have those words, still seared into my mind.

  You are now infected by Malephagia Firewall counter-protection.

  * * *

  Smouldering Eyes

  I only ever wanted to be noticed. To feel attractive. It was a simple, heartfelt wish. To undo the misery of my bland face and stringy hair. To be beautiful.

  Now, every guy who catches my eye ignites with desire. The acrid smells of burnt flesh and the agonised screams are seared into my memory.