Word Count: 12,041
Summary of Events:
DaNiel followed Corbin to his house out of a desire to know what the little metal thing was Corbin had shown him and settled into the guest bedroom to spend the night, anticipating getting a look at the object in the morning. Corbin woke up at nearly 14:00 and discovered that DaNiel had taken his laptop and the metal thing and had connected them only to learn that Corbin's laptop couldn't run the full program, so DaNiel launched the Beta version, which, as it loaded, showed them the mark of the US military . . .
Excerpt of the Day:
“You’re hacking into Army stuff!” he cried. “We’re going to get killed for sure!”
“I’m not hacking into it, I just turned it on and connected it to your computer by Bluetooth,” the wrong-con* replied.
“Why did you turn it on!?” he cried.
“I saw a button, I pressed it, and it lit up,” the wrong-con replied. “Don’t wet yourself.”
“I’m just supposed to guard it, not play with it,” he snapped. “We’re not supposed to find out what it is. I shouldn’t have even showed it to you.”
The window changed again to show two words: Beta was small and all-caps and positioned between the upper shafts of the L and D of the following word: Latrodectus.
“I wonder what these words mean,” the wrong-con mused.
“They mean get out of here and stop snooping where you don’t belong,” he swore.
“Oh stop Tiny Tim,” the wrong-con replied, clearly annoyed.
“I’m not tiny,” he snapped. “I’m taller than you.”
“Not by that much,” the wrong-con replied, still focused on the screen.
“And my name isn’t Tim either,” he replied.
“Then what is it?” the wrong-con asked.
“It’s Ty†,” he replied.
“I got the right letter,” the wrong-con said. “Do I get points for that?”
Ty set his jaw and glared at the wrong-con before turning his attention back to the screen, which had flashed again and now displayed a window that showed a very beta-looking set of text; it looked more dated than Facebook.
The bottom message was highlighted by a red box and had an old-fashioned serifed font from the days back when personal computers had become a thing screaming in all caps: RED ALERT. Fitting it was red.
VPS0317SEA
Have reason to believe Removed is headed your way seeking Latrodectus. Removed is unstable, *MU terminated contact. High Risk. Get to safety.
“What does that even mean?” Ty asked, having read the message over several times.
“Well this is Latrodectus,” the wrong-con replied, looking at him and holding up the thing. “And it needs to be taken to safety, gotten away from Removed, whoever that is.”
“But where is safety?” Ty asked. “My bedroom?”
“I’d say Seattle,” the wrong-con replied.
“Seattle,” Ty replied. “Where did you pull Seattle from?”
“Sea,” the wrong-con replied, pointing at the last three letters of the alphanumeric code at the top of the message. “In a lot of things that’s the abbreviation for Seattle.”
“But why would it be safe there?” Ty asked.
“Well, it’s not here,” the wrong-con replied. “In fact, it’s about the furthest from here you can get contiguously. I mean, you could always hoof it to Alaska, maybe take a plane to Hawaii, but without crossing any major water bodies or borders it’s respectably far from here.”
Notes:
*DaNiel identified himself to Corbin as wrongly convicted when he revealed that he'd escaped from prison; alliteration to ex-con.
†Corbin's nickname, derived from his middle name.
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