Challenge #00446 - A071: Whoops

Supervisor: Seriously? Are you shitting me?

Computer Tech: I never intentionally released anything into the wild. It was proof of concept. It wasn’t anything particularly sophisticated. Just some script kiddie cut and paste bullshit.

S: What is Rule Number Two of Computer Repair? What is it?

CT: “No, a ‘virus’ didn’t download all of that porn.”

S: Are you telling me you invalidated Rule Number Two?

CT: Well, in my case, it was a virus that would download the results of an unfiltered Google Image Search, then erase all traces of itself, and it would only work on a Windows 98 machine that had never been patched. – RecklessPrudence

“Tidy up the code, they said. Make it work more efficiently, they said,” Henry ranted as the security teams took him away. “Find the source of the system errors, they said. It’s only a five-minute job, they said.”

They said a lot of things, really. Lots of things that, taken in retrospect, should have sent up an entire textile factory’s worth of red flags.

“They didn’t tell me until it was too late,” Henry tried to bargain with the implacable security forces firmly attached to his elbows. “I couldn’t know until I was contractually obligated to fix it.”

They didn’t nod. Nor show empathy. Nor make a sound. Just marched on through the maze of corridors on the inexorable path to the holding cells.

“The entire system’s a virus! It’s a virus! The whole operating system is a field test of weaponised software viruses designed to inter-breed! This whole damn station is a virus!”

Many citizens stared as they moved Henry onwards. Many more looked once, and moved on with their individual lives.

This always happened during the maintenance cycle.

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