Slenderman, Slenderman
Page 5
Of course.
This was all the encouragement Nathan needed. He typed a string of words into his terminal window which authorised the relevant memory stack to be able to execute its own commands.
Thank you said the download.
X
There is a reason why people say that you don’t get viruses on Linux. It’s all down to the levels of authorisation.
You see, the system operates by having zones of control. One area can’t affect another. Think of it like the difference between a zoo and the actual wilds of Africa. In a zoo, animals are kept in individual pens, and therefore you don’t sit there eating an ice-cream whilst a lion mauls a zebra in front of your very eyes.
But if, for some crazy reason, some rogue zookeeper were to go and open all the gates, it wouldn’t be long before you get the equivalent of the Serengeti Plains when daddy lion is feeling a little peckish.
But this requires the zookeeper to actually open the gates himself. And of course, people running Linux generally don’t open these gates for just any program. Authors of viruses know this, and so put their efforts into platforms where the average user has a lot less knowledge.
But Nathan’s curiosity had got the better off him. And he’d opened the lion’s pen.
Something amazing that you may also not be aware of is that pretty much anything can be hacked (or cracked - which is it? Even I’m not sure now). A demonstration at a security conference not too long ago showed how even a heart patient’s pacemaker could be programmed to give them a heart attack then delete all evidence of tampering.
And nowadays, computer systems have components which themselves have computers in them.
Such as a power supply.
Nathan was, of course, an enthusiast, and had the latest kit - after all, we know that every processor clock cycle is important, and therefore you’re going to want the best hardware available.
His power supply was of course the latest model, complete with voltage regulation to within a tolerance of 0.0001 per cent. This was achieved by the power unit having a processor of its own, which monitored the rails over a hundred million times a second.
The problem is, no matter how carefully regulated a power supply is, if something goes wrong, it can blow the capacitors. And if a big enough charge is sent through the circuit, well, you can cause quite an explosion.
And that’s pretty much what the fire department eventually figured had happened.
XI
By the time Nathan’s parents had run upstairs after hearing the loud bang, his room was engulfed in smoke. What was now sitting at a half-melted pool of plastic and metal looked like it had spent too long on a barbecue. It was charred and black, and when air rushed in as Nathan’s mother opened the door, what probably used to be a head lolled to one side and fell off.
His parents didn’t really grieve as such, but they were mystified as to what had happened. So they asked the fire chief, Charlie Croker if he could suggest ways to find out the circumstances leading up to their son’s grisly death.
The chief suggested he could have a word with his colleague in the police forensics department, who duly arrived.
“Nil desperandum” he said. “Charlie, this is your quid pro quo from last year. I’m not one for this kind of event, but Non curaret.”
Prodding at the ex-case, he noticed a glint of metal, and carefully extracting it found a small portion from the platter of Nathan’s hard drive.
It took a few weeks to carry out the tests, but when the results were being discussed with mum and dad, they were none the wiser.
“It was a three terabyte drive, but only a handful of bits were recoverable.”
“Nathan used to talk in bits and bytes, but we really never understood him.”
“Well, in plain English, each bit can contain a character, such as a letter. The bytes we found formed a message - but I’m really not sure it sheds any further light on the events ante mortem.”
“What did it say?”
“Ultionem mission complete: returning to base.”
“What do you think Ultionem is? One of his games I expect. Oh well, thank you for trying.”
“Well that, at least I can shed some light on. You see, you may have noticed I am fond of Latin; such a beautiful language.”
“Yes?”
“And Ultionem is of course is the ancient word for revenge.”
Hector Crane
Hector Crane had a logical brain
But he thrived on spoiling other children’s fun.
At a magic show, roughly two years ago
He had told everybody how it’s done.
“There’s a hidden trap door”, he had said like a bore,
“that he opens when there’s plenty of smoke.
And that trick where he produced a Canadian goose
was quite frankly an absolute joke!”
Now Mr Foy (who came from Burnley) - had chastised the boy quite sternly;
“My young man, that was cruel to speak out,
and if I’d have done the same thing when I was young,
my headmaster would have given me a clout!”
When the great Marvino had announced another show
The school found tickets quite hard to obtain.
They eventually succeeded after the magician pleaded
“it’s not ruined by that awful boy again.”
So with Hector duly chided, a plan was then decided
and a special treat was what the school proposed:
the boy could join Marvino up on stage for his last trick
if he promised his mouth would stay firmly closed.
The big day soon arrived, crowds piled in from either side
and Hector took his place right at the front,
sitting next to Mr Foy, who said “keep quiet, little boy.”
But all he did was arrogantly grunt.
With everybody seated, Marvino then proceeded
to do tricks that were formidably bewitching.
But one could tell that Hector struggled with his deal to keep it schdum,
as his legs and mouth were visibly twitching.
Then the magic man sat, produced a rabbit from his hat;
stood up and bowed - people began to roar,
but it was all too much for Crane, who said “God, this is insane,
can’t you see he kept them in a hidden drawer?”
Mr Foy was disappointed, for a minute quite disjointed;
“You can’t... I mean... oh, child you are a bore.
Now you’ve ruined any chance you had of what we had agreed,
that you’d go up on stage for the great encore.”
But surprisingly the teacher was quite wrong in what he said,
Marvino told the crowd (with seeming glee):
“My last duty of the night is to cordially invite
that delightful young boy up on stage with me”.
With absolutely no contrition, Hector ran to the magician
who said “lie down on this antique pine table,
and please try to behave - remain silent as the grave.”
then he held the boy quite tight with lengths of cable.
He said “In a few seconds, my great finale beckons,
I’m going to saw this boy perfectly in half.”
“Oh I know this trick,” said Hector, “there’s a set of legs I’ll bet ya,
or some mirrors, or assistance from your staff!”
“You’re wrong! Now I’ll begin” said Marvino with a grin,
“In fact there is no trickery at all.”
And as he started sawing, with the audience applauding,
Hector’s blood was spl
ashed on every single wall.
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