Geek to Farm

She shrugged with a smile and I knelt down in front of her. "That is a Gibson Les Paul LS4 ash burl custom! Only fifty of them were made and each to specific specifications! Good god, it must be worth..."

"It is priceless Johnathan," Wallace's voice said softly behind me. "I will never sell it but when I get too old to play it I will give it to someone whom I know will appreciate it for what it is."

"You're going to play it today?" I asked excitedly and he nodded with that easy smile. "Let's see what the day brings."

Half an hour later we were practicing flat out. This time Wallace was invited to make comments and soon he had us stop every time he found something not 'up there' as he called it. By lunch I was sopping wet with perspiration and my voice was tired. We broke to grab something to eat and just rest a while.

Wallace called me to one side. "You need to breathe deeper Johnathan. Exercise your diaphragm in this way," and he illustrated a breathing technique I had never seen. Well, for that matter, I never had a single singing class in my life so all those little secrets were unknown to me. For almost half an hour he coached me in breathing while singing and then he made me sing 'Hey Jude', A Capella. I felt weird singing for him but that honest smile sat on his face and after the first verse I was singing with ease. His hands were constantly moving, either directing my timing or showing when to breathe in a specific way. When I was finished he simply indicated that I do it again and just as I started to sing he started singing with me in a rich tenor. I was so surprised that I stopped singing but he carried on and simply showed me to join again and damn did I sing! This guy was pulling something from me that I never knew existed. The breathing made a massive difference and even though I realized that it would take a long time to master it I knew I was onto something great.

When we finished he put his hand on my shoulder and I could see pride in his eyes when he said; "Now you will be ready for Saturday."

Jimmy simply greeted me with a wide-eyed "Dude?" and I saw Nicky and Danny beaming. I felt good and wanted to get onto that stage. I motioned to Wallace with my eyes to follow us. He picked up his guitar and followed us.

The first song we did was Bruce Springsteen's 'Brilliant Disguise' and even though Wallace had never before played with us he simply fell in with us and I could hear the richness of that Gibson adding a new and full dimension to our sound. It was as if he found the holes in our music and filled them with his own style. A few songs down Jimmy called a break and we got together for a drink.

"I've been thinking Mr. Du Pont," he said to Wallace. "What if we crack the gig into two main sessions and call you on stage to play with us to the end? It will add some spice!"

Wallace smiled and nodded. "Thanks guys. Only note that I have not played with you before and there is a real chance that I can do something strange."

Danny laughed. "I thought I could play! I will gladly follow any strange thing you may do sir!" He mused for a second. "Beethoven? Was he the guy who said that playing a wrong note is insignificant but playing without passion is inexcusable?"

Wallace smiled that honest smile and held out his hand. We shook on it and returned to our instruments. For another hour we played and ironed out our score before Jimmy called a halt. "OK guys. We have to clear this hall and get back home before the ogres find us."

Wallace suddenly put up his hand. "Mind if I do a quick solo?"

"Do your nut!" Jimmy called and came to sit next to me as we watched Wallace tune his guitar before setting his pedals. When he was finished he stood and played a soft run with his left hand on the strings. It sounded like a melody from heaven and then he slowly turned up the volume on his guitar and all hell broke loose. He stamped on a pedal and that hall reverberated to a guitar solo I never thought I would hear. That Gibson sang, howled, screamed and thundered to a tune that was simple genius. I saw Nicky starting to follow on his bass and then Jimmy ran to his set and seconds later added soft percussion to just add to the energy. I saw Wallace smile and I could feel gooseflesh run down my back. I was watching genius.

Wallace turned, held his guitar up high and with a crash from the drums it was over. We laughed. It was just too perfect for anything to be said.

Chapter 8

Monday morning I again parked next to the road near the traffic light, hoping to see the little Ford carrying the girl with the beautiful eyes. With nothing showing up I dejectedly drove to work and started my typical day of hammering code into a computer. I was going through a coding sequence when a particular line caught my eye. Almost hidden between commands was a reference line to a sequence that made no sense. I had seen this type of coding before and I ran to Derek, our IT guy, and pressured him into giving me a spare hard drive. Back at my office I dumped a mirror copy of the program I had been working on for many weeks onto the other hard drive and saw to it that my computer was not in any way connected to the LAN.

For almost an hour I ran checks and commands on it and then just sat there staring at the screen. I was angry. How did this happen? Or better still, why was it there? Where did it come from and how did it get through the firewall?

I got up and walked to Henry's office. "We have a problem Henry," I said as I walked in. "There is a bug on our system and it seems to ignore our anti-virus programs."

He raised his eyes but followed me. I called Derek over and the three of us closed the door to my office where I showed them what I had found. Henry, of course, did not really understand what I was showing him but Derek whistled and carefully scrolled through my scan results.

"Jesus Johnathan," he exclaimed. "Do you think this thing may have gotten out?"

I shook my head and shuddered. "I don't know. The program is sitting on our server and I have backed it up on numerous occasions. As far as I know nobody has access to the secondary exe files. We may be lucky but if this thing runs we will be swimming in shit."

"What is it?" Henry wanted to know and I carefully scrolled through some of the coding lines. As I went along I made notes on paper and when I was finished I showed him to come to my white board. I drew a matrix and gave each command an activation probability. It took me a while but at last I had as many variables as I needed on the board. From there I drew a command line, keeping in mind that Henry's understanding of this science was limited and I had to keep it simple.

"Ok Henry," I said when I was confident that I could explain it to him. "Help me here Derek. You see Henry, this is how a so-called virus works. There are millions of the things and most are simply irritations but there are those that are really malicious and what we are looking at here seems like something that originated in Hell itself."

Henry's mouth was going through motions as if he was chewing. "Meaning what?"

Derek spoke up. "If that thing activates and gets out just about every database in the world will be at risk. What it does is to look for a random data file that fits a preset range of criteria and then it simply changes its size, nothing else. As far as the program you run or your database is concerned that file is corrupt and it seems simple. If you find that file and do anything to it, such as will happen when you run a typical anti-virus program or you delete it, it activates an exe file that changes the main command line. That is just one variable of a few I have seen here. There may be hundreds of others."

I sighed. "That is what has been happening here. I am sure this program for Joice Developments was working properly when we took delivery of it and the moment we ran it to debug this little jerk took off."

"What now?" Henry wanted to know.

Derek and I looked at each other and laughed ruefully. It was all we could do. "We will have to quarantine our entire server and every computer and file that has been in contact with our systems and test each and every one for infection. That is the start. From there everything sent from here for the past month will have to be traced. That includes any documentation, e-mails and even photos with any form of data connected to it.

"How will you test it?"

Derek looked at me. "I don't know. How about you?"

I shook my head. "Henry, developing a code to test computers and their systems for infection can be done in a few minutes I guess. It is containing this little bastard that scares me. One oversight and another hidden command can activate causing all kinds of nightmares."

Henry was thoughtful. If I did not dislike him so much I would have felt sorry for him. If this thing ran amuck, he would stand to be blamed. "Do you think it came with this program for Joice Developments?"

I took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't know Henry. It could have been here already, waiting for some sequence to run."

I could see the concern wash over him and I decided to take command of the situation. I looked at Derek and nodded to him. "Drop the server. Don't shut it down! Just pull the plug!" I turned to Henry. "Get everybody together in the hall. I will speak to them. Just do it quickly. And while you are busy, get the directors together. Phone them! No e-mails or live chat of any kind. They will have to get together here, and quickly."

He almost ran from my office and seconds later Jenny burst in. "Johnathan?"

I smirked. "We are in deep shit Jenny. There is a very malicious bug in our systems and I think it has been the reason why this program for Joice seemed such a heap of junk."

"What now?"

"We shut down," I sighed. "We have just been hit by the technological bubonic plague."

Henry leaned into the door. "The whole crowd will be in the hall in a minute Johnathan. I had the Directors on the line. They, or at least most of them, are on their way. Anything else?"

I bit my lower lip and absently rubbed over my left eye. It complained painfully and I swore softly. I shook my head and started walking towards the door. As I passed him a thought suddenly struck me and in my anxiety I grabbed him by his shirtfront. "The company that developed this program! Get that team here. Now!"

Henry simply nodded and ambled to his office while Jenny and I stretched our legs to the conference room. As we entered I could almost sense the anxiety. Everybody knew something cataclysmic was wrong but of course still had no idea what it was. To me it felt like that first time we were flying into a combat zone. Paralyzing fear buoyed up by a strange excitement.

I got onto the little stage in front of the entire personnel of Peterson Development Inc. and a thought flashed through my mind. If this bug went on its happy road of destruction and it proved to be from us, this company could face class action of global proportions and we would simply cease to exist. In front of me, almost fifty households' bread and butter was hinging on the outcome of this. Maybe more if you took ancillary service providers into the equation.

I took a deep breath and sighed. "Ok. Let's get this down. We discovered a very malicious bug in our systems and have shut down. I want all of you to delve into your memory and try to remember any data you may have shared electronically with someone anywhere in at least the last month, maybe even longer. Be that on a flash drive, e-mail or file sharing over the net. Even if you did something here for a school project we will need to know about it and get hold of those files. I mean everything! We will be working flat out to develop a program to test media for contamination."

"The way the bug operates will make it impossible for those of you developing systems right now to carry on safely. I want everybody to shut down their computers immediately to prevent possible damage. We all take work home sometimes. If you even possibly opened a file from here on your home computer, shut it down! And keep it shut down! If the kids threaten mutiny, take them for runs through the parks. It won't stop the mutiny but chances are they will be too tired to bother you." That was met with a few laughs and even a couple of gags.

I blew through my lips. "I am sorry about this as I know some of you are facing pressing deadlines. We will start developing a test code to check systems for the bug and once that runs, those computers that are deemed clean will be allowed to be used albeit without support from the server. And of course, no connection to the Net.

An hour later I had most of the directors in the conference hall. Derek and I had set up a dummy system and after I had explained to them what we had found I started playing with the bug. Using the knowledge I had, I started chasing the little pest around. Derek suddenly yelled out. "Johnathan look!" and he pointed to the bottom of my screen. "Something is trying to connect to dial out!"

I immediately ran a command to see what was going on and I felt cold as I watched the bug running through portal after portal in an attempt at getting out. Derek suddenly pushed me to one side and feverishly started a line of code. As soon as he hit enter, that bug turned into a madman. Line after line of code was generated and it seemed as if the bug was hell bent at destruction. Pretty soon my notebook hung up and nothing we did could get it to do anything. I raised my eyes to Derek and he nodded whereupon I rebooted it. It went through the first bit of the sequence and then simply hung up. I rebooted and went into the setup. This was Derek's speciality and I moved out of his way. My eyes followed his feverish typing but my mind was going over the past few weeks. This damn bug and its creator will most probably never know it but it has been indirectly responsible for Justin's death, the disappearance of my neighbor and my black eye. I shook my head to clear it of such negative thoughts just as Derek suddenly swore loudly. He suddenly turned my notebook on its face and as fast as possible ripped the battery out. Holding it up he looked at me with big eyes and a slack jaw. He was breathing as if he had been running and I casually wondered if he was having a panic attack.

"Johnathan," he almost gasped. "This is too big for us. We will have to get the big boys in here."

"Big boys?" asked Mr. Tremaine and Derek looked at him with something like fear in his eyes. "I have never seen anything like this! This bug is almost alive! And it is physically capable of destroying hardware!"

"What?!" I almost screamed at him.

Derek looked at me in a lopsided way. "I am afraid your computer is cooked my friend." He waved the battery in my face. "Your RAM is not responding and seems corrupted. The CPU seems to be doing what it wants as well." He chuckled "I will not even use this battery in another computer. There is a chance that the control circuit can make it blow up!"

I laughed at him and he went red in the face. "Good god Johnathan! I am not joking!"

My mouth went dry. "You are serious? It can destroy hardware?"

He nodded long and hard with something like fear in his eyes. He rolled his eyes at my notebook. "That thing is fried my friend," and again he chuckled. "Won't even use the charger again if I were you."

"Really?" asked Mr. Tremaine

Derek nodded with a snicker. Actually joking sir but it seems almost possible. My attention was riveted to the fact that we had a bug capable of damaging hardware. It just seemed impossible but then again, what was impossible these days?

Mr. Tremaine sat forward in his chair. "What do you mean by the 'Big Boys' Derek?"

Derek pursed his lips. "I don't know where to start sir. The anti-virus companies. Microsoft. Apple."

"All three?"

Derek chuckled. "There are a ton of companies who specialize in protection against bugs but this is something that will need some serious attention. I guess Microsoft and Apple will most probably have a service provider who does these things for them. The thing is; how do we get them to take us seriously?"

I laughed. "We could send it to them!"

"Uncle Billy will have you burnt at the stake," Derek chuckled and then looked up with wide eyes. "Can you imagine what will happen if this baby gets to run loose? The global data loss will be incalculable."

"So, what do we do?" I asked and indicated my dead laptop. "We can't send them an e-mail. Well, at least not from here. We can't use our phones to send mails either because they may have bits of that thing on them." I found it funny and laughed softly. "So much for technology."

Two guys were shown in. John and Reese from the developing company I had been cursing into the deepest recesses of Hell. They listened attentively to Derek and I, asked a few probing questions and then Reese was on his phone, speaking to his bosses. His message was clear. Hard shut down! Immediately!

John fished out his phone. "Mind if I call a friend? He may just have a friend who has a friend.... You know the drill." He spoke for a while and disconnected. "Someone will call soon," he mused aloud.

We waited for about thirty minutes before that phone rang. Reese answered and put it on speaker. On the line were two guys from a company that did research into bugs and they sounded very excited about what we had found and wanted to come and have a look.

I looked toward the directors and they nodded their approval. The only problem was that these guys were in Washington and would only be here by tomorrow. The directors shrugged and walked out into the cubicles where Mr. Evans made the announcement that everybody may as well to go home and stay there until further notice.

I got into the SUV and soon was on my way home, three hours early. Grody would not know what to make of it.

As it was I spent some time in the garden cleaning flower beds, trimming edges and just sprucing things up. I played with Grody, washed the car and gave the house a much needed thorough cleaning. I had a long shower and walked to the kitchen dressed in nothing more than a pair of boxers. At great leisure I started a dinner for one. While frying a potato I remembered the breathing exercises Wallace had shown me and with a grin I did them as he had instructed. I washed down a mixed collection of vegetables and chicken cubes with some cider and after packing the dishwasher I retrieved my acoustic guitar and went into the basement where I sang for about an hour, using the newfound breathing techniques and eventually flopped into bed. I think I was a lot more tired than I had thought because I remember lying down and then I woke up to a sunny day.

At the famed traffic light I pulled off the road and sat there for about half an hour watching the cars going by. The little Ford did not show and I dejectedly rode to the office block. Was she just a once of? The longing to see my girl with the honey-hazel eyes again was becoming stronger by the day.

At the office I made myself some coffee and was sipping away when a knot of people walked in. In the lead was Derek, followed by John and Reese, a girl with a shock of heavy, dirty blonde hair held in a thick ponytail and two obvious geeks. "Morning Johnathan," Derek smiled and then indicated the three newcomers. "May I introduce Mike Smith, Dick Strange and Joey Middleton. They are from Dreaming Bugs, a small company that specializes in our little problem."

I chuckled. "I'm glad you think our situation here is a 'little' problem."

"Mr. Gough," Joey began. "Can you tell me how you identified the threat?"

I had to swallow my mouthful of coffee before I could answer and saw a shadow of annoyance pass over her face. I did not like her.