The Stigma (by Koltin Scott)

Chap. XVI

"The fields have eyes, and the woods have ears."

—Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Knights Tale
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The Baron

     I was sitting at a diner, looking around the DarkSpaceWiki. I was gathering information on several museums. Nothing special... yet. While I contented myself with extra creamy hot chocolate I also planned what evil things I will be performing for the future. Especially for the Dragoons.

     War is in place and several vengeful plans have been thought out. However, they probably know that I am planning lots of nasty plans, and if I were in their shoes and my enemy was planning something I'd do something to disrupt his planning process. Nothing has happened yet...

     Yet...

     Then my bloody laptop started flickering...

     When lights flicker ninety-nine percent of people in the world think it's ghosts; but when a laptop flickers ninety-nine percent think it's evil super villain hackers trying to blow them up. I thought about that a moment,

     Nah, they don't think that it's an evil villain, just some punk to mess up their FaceBook page.

     Anyway...

     My computer blacked out to a dark chat room; all the fonts green. I typed:

     <My God! I'm just trying to get a hot chocolate without people trying to kill me for God's sake!>

     <😂 really?>

     <hey! How the heck did you do emojis?! }>:(>

     <😎😎😎>

     <Punk...>

     <😁👍😘😉>

     <What do you want? I don't have a FaceBook to wreck and I have a device that can counter hack your butt and nuke you and-your computer.>

     <To join you 😊>

     <I am royally ticked that I can't send emojis: I'd send you the finger.>

     <😏 Riiiight even after Gekko gets you?>

     My eyes scrunched at the name. Gekko?

     <Consider yourself thankful for the warning. Name's Headsman, look me up at Ralph's pizza... if you survive 😌. Ta-ta.>

     Gekko?

     <Is Gekko yours?>

     After a moment I thought the hacker wouldn't respond, but said,

     <Yeah, my enemy. We're both new self-employed villains. After the publicity you're getting on DarkSide I guess he thinks he'll get brownie points from the big dogs for taking you out. Love your vids by the way. Anyway you have thirty seconds to nuke your computer. See you at Ralph's: ask for big dawg.>

     "Great," I mumbled.

     I injected a special (Alien-designed) thumb-drive into my laptop that saved whatever I was doing, checks and clears most viruses, and turns my eighty-grand firewalled laptop into a tablet of plastic that Moses had. That working, I slapped a five dollar tip down and tried to get as much sweetness as I could into my bitter heart before I got shot or something.

     I pulled out my 'toolbox' and fingered it keeping it close. I waited for something to happen but nothing did. I thought for a moment that nothing was going to happen...