[ShadowStitches]

(ahahaha eff my titles XDD)

(in human form)

Oz took a deep breath and unlocked the door to his room. It had been a quite tideous day,
but at the very least he had something to look forward to today...

There had been quite a lot of talk about this new and dangerous "Virus" causing some sort of havoc.
Having been quite busy, he did not too close attention until he heard the words "Intelligent", "scary" and
"even talking to users" or something along those lines. He doubted that it was a truely 'Intelligent' piece of script that was causing havoc. Most people where just guilable and stupid enough to invite these things into their sistem by clicking an email or downloading something. some people where just too retarded for words.
and still...something told him this was something to take a closer look at.

So, he pretty much opened every door he could think of for malware to enter his uprotected laptop. Obviously, and old model, but the Platform of many of his projects test runs. To keep things from getting too big and potential harm, he only had a mockup mirror of his actual computer. Basically all of his programs, being pre installed or written by him, where there. you could even start them, but they would only do that, open, and the refuse to do anything else. It still quite usefull to test any malware he programmed, and see what exactly it would do to these programs, again without wasting a lot of data space. And on the odd ocasion, he used it to test out work from his competition.

Letting his Bag hit the ground with a thud, and switching on the light, the teenager looked around "Trip?
yo Trip, you there?"  //apparently not//. all the better. Making his way to his spare laptop, he released it from the 'sleeping' phase and quickly connected to the internet and his mailbox, all while letting a basic script run that was checking for any sort of change in the systems. He had one other reason to toy with this
...program. He recently wrote something that could prove very interesting should it work, and this Virus would kind of be the subject of a first test drive. "Well. lets get this party started..." he mumbled to himself, while scanning the screen and emails "anybody home?"

[zapdragon555]

Admin hadn't expected to see such a pitifully open door as he was making his way through the stream of information through cyberspace. Or whatever--Admin didn't really think in human terms. It was reality to him, and he was amused with how humans tried to put labels on things most of them really had no control over. Ah, but back to that door--that little thread that practically begged for Admin to latch on and follow.

This was either a trap or some child who had somehow disabled every single one of its parents' virus protection software. Admin wasn't fond of either situation, and yet, his curiosity was quickly getting the better of him. After all, he'd had pretty good luck lately, and if worst came to worst he could always sneak out of there and revert to a previous form at some past haunt. He grinned slightly to himself, veering off and zipping into the pocket of information provided to him, and wrote up a fairly benign-looking e-mail that said something or other about having won an iPad, with no strings attached. Whatever; it hardly mattered. If this person was dumb enough to leave their defenses wide open like this, then they sure as hell would be dumb enough to open something like that.

[ShadowStitches]

Oz scrolled through his Mail account, making sure to dismiss the usual suspects. one...positive side
effect of bein one of the people who wrote viruses or other harmful programs, was that he knew pretty much every fake email adress there was. or at least, his computer did. Which was why he found this new email prety quickly. "all right then" he mumbled to himself. really, it was always weird to knowingly open these mails, even to a computer that was secure and, if worst came to worst, disposable. Before Opening the mail,
He opened his little experiment dubbed 'onewaystr.exe' for now. it still was a prototype, and a version prior to the newest one he had on his working computer, but it would do the trick...if it indeed would work.

Turning his attention back to the email, he crunched his nose. No wonder his peers klicked on that one.
Free Ipod. right. Hovering his curser over the mail for one more second, he could not help but to feel
some form of curiosity. /what kind of monster are you?/ hopefully he would not be disapointed...
with a klick, he opened the email. /Come right in.../ .

[zapdragon555]

It seemed this boy was experienced, because Admin barely noticed the experiment beginning to run. He noticed the slightest increase of CPU usage, but nothing more. It was like a tiny blip on the surface of a percentage, and then it was gone. He barely arched an eyebrow at it. Down to business--he felt the magnetism of the cursor approaching his email, and he felt his body crackle with excitement. He truly would have total free reign over this computer; it had been so long since he'd been allowed such a playground.

Admin waited until the exact moment the email was clicked, and immediately he set to work. Admin zipped out of the infected files and began cataloguing as much information as possible that was contained in the email application, a pleased feeling itching at him as he observed the lists of personal information being rushed into his system. It didn't even occur to him that it might be fabricated--surely no one so stupid as this person would be able to do such a thing. While this human was reading over that trashy email, Admin decided it'd be best to begin sapping energy immediately. He settled down and waited for a thread of CPU to latch onto... but none came. Admin blinked, looking around, eyes widening. It was almost as though the computer was dead--entirely dead, and yet running just fine. Admin slithered away from the email application, mildly perturbed, and tried for a different program. He opened it, slipped inside, and attempted to run it, to no avail. The computer suddenly made an irate beep, and Admin winced--he hoped the human wouldn't notice the little sound that slipped out.

[ShadowStitches]

Oz only gave the email a short once over, pulling a face at its cheapness. Well, to be fair, whenever he started to send out bugs disguised in emails he was not exactly creative either.
Re directing his attention to the more interisting things going on witht his little...project, he raised one eyebrow. This was interisting. His little snitch software that was monitoring what was going on on his laptop seemed to be a little too slow to keep up with whatever had infested his computer. He made a mental note
to improve his software on that part, and leaned foreward slightly. What struck him as odd was the fact that the 'bug' he just let in with the email seemed to target random programs, as if it was 'unsure' on where to go.
Oz furrowed his brow, only faintly hearing the short beep of his computer.

Dismissing it as uninportant, he quickly checked his project. It seemed to run well, which escentially ment
that Admin now was 'trapped' on the computer, for a while at least. The program was ment to  simply prevent viruses and other malware that he willingly downloaded from spreading, in cutting the conection to the internet for any data trying to spread from his computer. In turn, he could still download and acces he internet, but simply not upload or spread something into the web. It was just a little toy really. Of course, if he studiet the works of his 'rivals' he did not want to help them to spread their little programs by leaving his Internet open. He never thought about actually "trapping" something or rather...someone though.

Watching his monitor intently, he clicked on an other aplication. He was not sure if it would do any good in this case. It was just a more advanced scanner that would maybe identify the intruder and could tell him what he was dealing with here. he doubted it though, as the scanner could only identify things it already knew. What he could see confused him. It was not that different from any other invading software really, but the way it "moved" and targeted seemingly random programs just...seemed a little strange to him.  

He leaned in even closer, mumbeling lowly "come on now...what are you?"
His roommates always made fun of him whenever he was talking to his computers. It helped though.
He of course knew it was childish, but somehow it calmed him down and helped him thinking.

[zapdragon555]

Admin felt the virus scanner tingle on his back, but after no alarm bells went off, he figured it was benign enough. It was one of those low-key ones, nothing particularly worth his time. He had bigger fish to fry, at the moment. In particular, he needed to figure out just what was going on here, because there was something horrendously wrong with this computer that he couldn't put his data on. He grit his teeth and stared out at the boy behind the screen, scowling slightly as he watched the boy's mouth move. Well, he was finished with this screwy place. Finished!

Admin hopped out of the application he'd been fiddling with and rushed towards the thread of data he'd left hanging, aiming to latch on and zip back into cyberspace, but instead of catching the thread as expected he slammed face first into a solid firewall that delivered a healthy shock to his system. Admin stared at the shimmering wall, disoriented, then stared back at the boy. Well. Fine then. He'd figure out what was going on.

Admin slithered back into the email application and pulled up a blank message, beginning to type rapidly a message that this odd human would see.

I take it you're not really interested in a free iPad, are ya, kid? Real shame. What's up with your parents' computer, anyway? I think it might be a little screwy. Really screwy. I'm pretty good at fixing things, if you'd let me take a better look at it. You'd just have to close down those nasty firewalls and reconnect to the internet, and I'll have it running much better in no time!

[ShadowStitches]

As he had thought, the scan came back unconclusive. Oz looked at the monitor for one more moment, before tuning his attention towards his coffee mug sat to the left and in safe distance from his computer. When he turned back, he blinked slightly confused at the message. How in the hell did this guy get any information from his computer? The program should have prevented any uploads or information from his computer to spread. a frustrated growl escaped his lips. This of course ment that the program was not working, apparently.
What was more disconcerning however was that someone had obviously targeted him specifically, maybe a rival?

But then, why would he have sent such a stupid cookiecutter message of an ipad in the first place?
frustrated, he read the message he previously only gave a half glance, and furrowed his head further.
wait. so the guy did not know who he was? He was very confused right now, especially at the last part of the message. Blinking, he leaned back, and tried to sort what he could detect from this situation. Someone had installed a virus on his laptop, which scoped out information and gave him some control over the machine. so far so good, nothing unusual here. Further more, Oz's Program was not working apparently, because the other guy could get data/info from his computer via the internet (or so he assumed), which, again, was not unusual. what was odd however was that this person wasted time with him. as he said, this computer was practically worthless. so why bother?
Knowing fully well that whoever was reading this could see him typing,he responded in the same mail:

'Hey pal.The computer is exactly the way it is supposed to be. But thanks for your concern.

' shame that one could not convey sarcasm via textmessage properly. Curious, he kept typing.

'who are you? and what do you mean, the firewalls are down...'

well...apparently they where.
He later could not really say if it was simple abscent mindedness, or frustration, or habbit, but he hit the 'sent' button

warning. No Data can be transferred at this moment

Oz blinked. /hold on/. This completely threw him of track. it was not a "email could not be sent, invalid adress' type of warning. no, apparently his program was actually running. Quickly he tried to upload something small to some random site, but again met with the same result

warning. No Data can be transferred at this moment.

How in the hell could the guy access his data then? This was wrong. And it was the first time he felt creeped out by something to do with his 'profession'. with a lump forming in his stomach, he returned to the message an quicly tiped

how are you doing that?

[zapdragon555]

Admin watched as the boy's facial expressions changed with a bored look of his own. Why did humans take so long to think about things, really? The virus stared back up at the shimmering wall, scowling, then blinked as a message started forming. No... firewalls? What? Then... then what was that thing, stopping him from leaving?

He zipped back over to the message and was preparing himself to type, when more words started appearing from the human. Who was he? Tom Riddle, who else. Hah. Humans seemed to like it when he answered that, whatever it meant, but he wasn't in a playing mood, right now. He was pissed. Not scared, noo, not by any means. But irritated? Yeah.

Admin jumped slightly as the message shot towards the wall, and bounced off of it, blocked by it. Surely the kid knew what it was, didn't he? Unless he really was just a completely useless runt whose parents had a really terrible screwy computer. Admin was slowly beginning to assume the latter, though. Dodging another file as it shot past him, Admin opened a new message, typing quickly.

Secrets, kiddo, biiiiiiiiiIIIIiiig secrets. Doesn't matter, anyway. Your computer is seriously messed up. What kind of junk computer can't even connect to the internet?

But then... how did he get there, if it wasn't connected? Surely, whatever that block was, it had to have been put in place after Admin had gotten there. That really made the metaphorical hairs on his spine rise. No way... had this kid... trapped him? On purpose...?

So who are YOU? HUH? >:(

[ShadowStitches]

Oz could not help to roll his eyes at the response of the ...whoever it was on the other end of their conversation. This all did not make sense. The guy was right..or...partially right really. they technically where conected to the internet. Data could still be downloaded, and he couls still search for things in the web. obviously, with a search request, he was sending out data and information too, that was right, but the modified firewall would not let anything 'out' of his computer bigger then a search request, which was a tiny bit of data, compared to everything else. and it was by no way enough for a spyware to transmit enough information for the other guy to know what his computer looked like, let alone communicate with him.
besides, he did not read anything trying to send data from his computer again...

'I must have overlooked something.' he tried to reason.
sighing, in both frustration and to release built up tension, he leaned forward and answered.

shouldnt you know who you are talking to? given that you waste your time with me and my shitty computer?Pretty sure you knew that I'm not a clueless kid from the getgo. Call me Oz

He was still convinced....or rather trying to stay convinced that he was talking to a rival hacker that was trying to spy on him. it had to be.

This is a test computer, genious. you did not think I would leave my working computer open like that?
And dont be silly, internet is running fine...

He hesitated. as much as wanted to test his little program, it kind of showed that it...somehow did not work? or did work? he wasnt even sure anymore. time to go. there was no reason he should waste any more time with this. or so he told himself, not wanting to admit that he was in fact creeped out.

you know what? its late. lights out. sayonara

he bent down and pulled the router out of the socket. quite radical, but the only way he was sure they where truely diconected. 'good night, creep...' he thought to himself, looking at the monitor.
A childish, last idea came to him, and before he could overthink it too hard, he typed one last thing into theyr conversation box.

still there?

it was almost as if he was doing it to show himself that there would be no answer. of course not. there could not be...

[zapdragon555]

Know who I'm talking to? Don't flatter yourself.

How amusing. Oz, was it? Admin barely cared about what humans called themselves, but sure, he'd remember it. He remembered everything, after all; it was easy with an artificial mind. He didn't try to think too hard about it, anyway.

But what was this child blabbing about now? Admin cocked his head, staring at the text that appeared before him. His eyes widened fractionally, mildly surprised. So this human knew what it was doing, did it? At least marginally so. Admin cast a glance back up at his escape thread, still blocked by a shimmering firewall, and snorted in contempt. He was about to respond to whatever strange, meaningless message the human was typing now, when suddenly he felt a change in the data of the computer crackle at his spine.

The... the internet went out. Admin had felt it before--which brought up the question: was the internet truly always working? A flicker of apprehension chilled through his body, and Admin turned his attention back to the monitor, peering at the human as it straightened back up and returned its hands to the keyboard. What an oddity, this Oz was. It's almost as though he dealt with situations like this before, perhaps from amateur human viruses.

Of course I am, kid. What's cutting off the internet supposed to do? I'm already here.

Admin paused, a frown tugging at his features, and continued, asking the same question as before, but a bit different this time. Humans were always so caught up in names--no, Admin wanted substance. Perhaps this would get his point across better.

WHAT are you?

[ShadowStitches]

Oz was about to shut down the computer, with a small sense of victory. sure, he played dirty, and he would look into the matter tomorrow. After all, he was not someone to easily let such a thing go without investigating a bit more, but...

a response popped up.

Oz halted in the motion to grab his coffee and stared at his monitor. "the hell?" he whispered, leaning foreward a bit. How. how was this possible? Leaning back in his seat, he tried to sort his thoughts.
Okay, someone was clearly screwing with him. just to be sure, he checked if there where any other networks that somehow could have snuck their way past his sensors, but nope. nada.

So it had to be a pre installed program.A hoax of one of his roommates, it had to be. A good hoax.
He stood up apruptly and disregarding how unlogickal his logickal explenation was, he picked up his phone and started to pace in front of his computer. Vertigo picked up after the second ring " 'sup?" she practically yelled
over the sound of muffeled, droning music and chattering of a crowd "hey. I found that little bug you planted on my test computer. very funny, and pretty good. please leave your fingers of my.." "what?!" Vertigo sounded confused "what are you talking about?" "that little program you wrote? you know? the arrogant sounding thing that acts like some kind of spyware?" "dude are you high? I didn't touch anything. and before you ask, neither did Tripp. She was gone the whole day" he stayed silent. He believed them, because he knew they would be far to proud of such a program then to act innocent and drag out the joke "dude. you sound stressed. you okay?" He stopped and stared at his working station, a new message on the monitor "yeah...yeah. see you later." "get some sleep"

He sat back down and tried to make sense of all of this. He felt...wierd. Maybe he indeed needed a bit of sleep. because right now, he had some very unreasonable thoughts about sci-fi like AI projects infiltrating his computer humming through his head. Bullsh*t, obvioulsy. but still there.
"okay. fine" he placed his hands on his keyboard

Okay, not gonna lie, this is kind of freaky. Not sure how you do it, but kudos to you mate.

His brain still desperately tried to reason that there in deed was a very...skilled person behind all this,
obviously there was no way that was possible, but still better to think of it this way then let the mind wander into other directions.

He looked at the question and hesitated for a second, before typing.

I'm a programmer

well. techincally he was. and he just did not like the word 'hacker', it always sounded kind of cheezy to him.

Same question to you.

[zapdragon555]

If Admin thought humans typed slowly, holy hell if they didn't talk slowly. Admin was growing terribly bored as Oz retreated to call someone up on the phone, and he didn't care much to listen in, though he very well could. He was having a good time rearranging all the files in the trash can into a word that most humans took offense to, and having a gleeful time of it, when suddenly another message popped up. Admin peered out of the trash and slid back into the messaging program, sighing in boredom.

A programmer? Well, it would explain a few things. Someone who usually spent time around computers would no doubt know their stuff. And Admin did suppose this Oz guy did the right thing, for himself. He succeeded in locking Admin inside the computer, which was a hassle in and of itself. Admin thought for a moment, then smirked to himself. He didn't have to give anything to this guy. Not until it was forced out of him, anyhow.

I'm just a SCARY MONSTER is all! ; )

[ShadowStitches]

Even though the over all experience was still quite freaky, Oz could not help to roll his eyes at the response.
so. whatever this was, it was a troll. Lovely. Well, if whatever...no. whoever, because it clearly had to be some very skilled person behind all this, did not want to cooperate, he would have to try and sick some bigger things on it. Not to erase it of course, this was far too interisting. but to understand it better.

Fine. I'll find out myself then.

Opening a modified anto virus scanner, he sent it off on its way to find the  'monster'.
Given that it was more of a analysis software again, he was not worried that he would damage this new playmate. However, it was quite agressive in trying to enter codes and trying to read data, more so then his little monitoring software he sent off before.

[zapdragon555]

Admin frowned at the response he was given. It certainly wasn't anything close to the fear and nervousness he was hoping for. Pity. Admin was about to grant Oz another response, when suddenly he felt an alarm go off in his head instinctively. A scanner? Well, that was just fine and good, normally, but Admin was beginning to realize something. If... and that was a big 'if'... this guy really did know what he was doing... Admin could potentially be in a little bit of trouble.

Maybe he should've acted more like some little trojan and just lied low. But how was he supposed to know that this was a trap by a semi-competent human?! Admin's data prickled as the scanner passed over him--it was no use hiding, really--and he squinted up at the virus scanner as it began vomiting out a mass of unreadable data. Yup, that looked about right. Admin sighed, reclining back as the computer began to slow with the high amount of CPU usage. It was only a matter of time before the human would have to turn off the virus program and really start the show. Admin wasn't looking forward to it. How could he convince Oz to open the internet back up...?

[ShadowStitches]

He leaned back slightly, only vagually glancing at the string of jumbled code once in a while. Of course, it was encoded, or at least it seemed that way. His scanner would take some time, but he would decode it eventually.

He rubbed the temple of his nose, still trying to make sense of this. The Laptop gradually began to whirr loudly in protest. again, nothing overly suspicious, but he was a little worried about the CPU usage. that was a little...fast, and his program should have done something more productive then sputtering code mumbo jumbo by now.

He examined the code closer, and furrowed his brow. This...seemed completely unusable, or at least he never saw anything like it before. The whirring slowly escaladed into a howl, and he nervously checked the temperature of his PC. Cursing under his breath, he waited a few more moments before quitting the scanning software. It did not seem to come up with anything but the jumbled code, which he copied and saved for later analysis. Right now, he simply wanted to understand this weird thing and get it over with.

Okay, seeing that you're not going to answer me with anything usable, I'll just get rid of your little virus.

It was not empty threats, at least not in his book. He had some programmed monsters of his own that he could potetially use. taking half of the computers software with it, should he fire it up, but...seeing as this was his test computer, he did not care too much. Then again...he could just leave it on there and keep it a while? maybe find out more about it?

His fingers hovering over the keyboard, he decidet to add.

I am kind of curious though. what exactly are you doing wasting your time here? I mean obviously there is nothing exiting up here, so why bother?

If he had to be honest, the throughts of sci fi like AI's grew more and more prominent, and wormed their way into his brain.