April 16, 2016

Jerome:

ThirdEye.dll has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. All connections have been closed to ensure system stability.

TheWall.exe has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. All connections have been closed to ensure system stability.

Peeler.exe has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. All connections have been closed to ensure system stability.

Webcrawler.9.104b has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. All web connections have been successfully disconnected.

bleacher.onion has launched in a separate window.

bleacher.onion has failed to launch. One or more necessary files cannot be found on this system. Caution!: System files are not secure.

YoureFucked.exe has launched in a separate window. Thank you for using TrinitiNet software.

It doesn't really sink in until Trinh's pulsing, glowing red triangle pops up on the screen. In the span of taking a sip of a sick ass zero calorie Monster, my screen's exploded, my heart's pounding, and my world's turned upside down. I reach over and yank the power cord of the surge protector outta the wall, taking down the router and modem and the house's internet. I can hear Mitch bitching down the hall but I ain't got time for that now. There's a couple seconds where I can't even remember how to breathe. Then it sets in.

"Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. FUCK!" I don't know what I'm doing but suddenly I'm on my feet and the wheels on my desk chair are spinning pitifully up in the air after the chair crashes to the floor behind me. I hear Dondo stealthily close and lock the door to his room like the flighty little motherfucker he is. Must be nice to just cower in a corner and hide whenever anything bad happens. Yeah, just let dumbass Jerome take care of everything. Just pretend you know nothin' at all about it so he's the only one who goes to fuckin' jail. My hands are shaking in rage and anxiety as I shuffle through the desk drawer until I find that stupid ass Game Band Preston made me buy from him and I jab it in the open USB port on the computer tower. It looks like it's full of old Minecraft save files, but it's actually just thirty-some disguised and useful mini-viruses distracting any nosey passerby away from a grade-A wiping program. I boot up good ol' Chernobyl, the Dark Net denizen's best friend, and with a five-fingered command it's off and runnin', nuking everything that is or ever was on the drives.

Gonna need a fresh Game Band now, too.

I really fucked up.

"GodDAMMIT!!!"

I shove the stack of empty Monster cans off the side of the desk and all over the floor. The stale, fruity-smelling musical crash is satisfying but it's not enough. Not even close. I kick the tipped rolly chair outta the way and head to the bathroom to wash the pissiness outta my eyes and pull myself together before I fuck up even more. When I come back, Mitch is sprawled out on my Picasso couch with a knowing look on his face and the fire axe from the garage on his lap. Not the first time I've stumbled and bit the dust in the Deep Net. He tosses me the pillows off my bed and one of the many fuzzy Pikachu blankets and I nod and prepare the choppin' block for the execution. I spread the blanket out on the floor and the electric rat looks thrilled that its time's finally come. Poor Pikachu's seen some real horrors in this shitty, drippy house.

"Just bought that fuckin' computer. Goddammit."

"I'll buy you another one. You wanted better monitors, anyway. Put all of the evidence in a trash bag and I'll dispose of the body."

"I fucked it up. I'll take care of it."

"No. You need to be here in case the cops show up and start asking questions. You need to bleach everything and tell them what they want to hear."

" 'Axing' questions, Mitch. That's how we do shit on the Onion. The only person who asks anything anymore is Jeeves. And I'm pretty sure he's fuckin' dead by now." He raises his eyebrows in his usual snotty good humor. He's probably just laughing at me on the inside 'cause I won't have a way to get back to the fringes for at least three or four days. And all that election shit with the leaked e-mails and the hacked voter affiliations and the seances with God and the bribed hookers was just getting good, too. I toss the pillows down, one on top of the other, then I turn around and start yanking all the cords and wires and plugs outta the computer. "Not even three months old and it's already on death row."

"Feels bad, man. Feels real bad. Are we gutting mine, too?"

"I hafta look. Should be fine. Imagine if I hafta nuke Dondo's. He'd be even more butthurt than his broken disk drive. And we all know what really broke that." Mitch lets out a big, juicy slurp and I hold the computer tower out in front of me, looking at it one last time before I loosen my grip and watch it fall straight down on the pillows with a pitiful bounce. "Goddammit."

"Just think of it this way: it hurts you more than it hurts your baby. After five or six swings, you won't want to stop." I nod and he holds the axe out for me to take like it's King Arthur's actual diamond sword. I spin it around in my hand a couple times before I get a good grip, draw it back, let out a deep breath, and swing it down. There's a loud thud and a big, silver dent appears in the side of the glossy, black-painted case. "Try not to hack the floor up. Last time I checked, they didn't breach the floor."

"Mitch. Eat a shut-it-sicle." I bring the axe down again and again and again and again and again. Pieces of broken plastic and shards of glass and loose screws and twisted metal are sprayed all over the floor by the desk when I set the axe against the wall. It's like a twenty-fifth century murder mystery. I head over to the closet and pull out the shoe of dreams, sliding the sole out to expose the hidden storage compartment in the bottom. I push the last couple packets of shrooms and a decent hunk of weed outta the way before I find what I'm looking for: my get-outta-jail-free kit. At least it's safer than microwaving metal disks and watching Benj's life flash before his eyes when it starts sparking. As funny as that'd be, not worth.

I twirl the tiny screwdriver and the industrial-strength magnet between my fingers and Mitch looks on in curiosity as I pull the mound of dented metal apart to find the computer's vital organs. I stack all the drives in a tower and plop down on the floor next to the whole mess, quickly dismantling all the metal skeletons to get to the tender bits. I pull the first thick, silver disk out and examine it in the dim sunlight coming from between the blinds. Hard to believe the internet's just a big, invisible, cancerous string of these things talking to each other. Hard to believe that just an hour ago I was playing a 3D shooter game with thirty other people through this plain chunk of metal. If that's not fucking magic, I dunno what is. "Goodbye, old friend. I hardly knew ya." The magnet snaps onto the drive and I strain to pull it along the disk in a big zig-zag pattern to scramble anything that could possibly still be on there while leaving a big, unfixable gouge in the metal. No point in wiping drives if you don't do it right. I destroy the other two, too, movin' like a pit worker in a Nascar race. After all, it's not the first time I've had to do this shit. I'd need five or six hands to count all the computers I've lost to breaches and viruses over the years. It's not easy bein' The Virtual Dark Knight, I'm tellin' ya.

"Throw it in a bag and I'll take it over to Gulfport and toss it in a dumpster." I nod and run downstairs, not bothering to creep anymore. Ain't got time for that when we've got a body to bury. Too bad if I disturb Dondo. I'm pretty disturbed myself about now. I grab three black trash bags and the broom and head upstairs to start shoveling scoops of dead computer into the bag.

"Hey, Mitch. You think Nooch'd want my parts?" I see him smirking at me as I throw a slightly bent CD drive in the bag.

"Yeah, I'm sure he would love for you to give him your parts, Jerome. I bet he would get down on his knees and beg for your parts."

"Fuck you. If you're ever funny, I'll be sure to let ya know." He snorts and I reach deep in the wreckage and pull out what might actually be the only part of the hardware that isn't dented, twisted, cracked, or flat out unrecognizable. I pop the little black and red cord outta the port and chuck the piece of plastic at him, and I don't bother holding back a snicker when he flinches at the tiny projectile. "Look, Benj. I finally found you a fan."

"Oh, ha ha. It's so kind of you, dood, giving me your one and only fan."

"That's cold, Mitch." He grins and blows into the tiny vents to make the quarter-sized blades move. "Fuck this shit. Get outta here."

"Here," he grins as he reaches out for the tripled sack of dead computer guts, knocking off my snapback and flicking me in the side of the head as he walks awkwardly past me, still hobbling so his waistband doesn't rub against his halfway-dissolved stitches. "Go snoop through everything else that was connected to the network then pop a Percocet and chill the fuck out."

"Ay, ay, Captain." He walks around the end of the bannister and smirks up at me with his almost-human eyes while he scurries downstairs.

"I can't h-ear you."

"AY, AY, CAPTAIN!" I shriek at the top of my lungs right in front of Dondo's door. There's a little spot of warmth that grows in my stomach when I hear something go crashing to the floor inside the locked room. Hope I scared the shit outta him. "And grab some sugary shit on the way home. Make it look like you had a reason to go out trollin' at dusk in case you come back to a herd of Fly SWATters."

"Just don't get yourself killed."

"I mean... I try my best every day and it looks like it's workin' so far."