Defining Disaster

The Mechanical Genius

His fingers flashed mercilessly across every key; his dull, purple eyes stared ahead in a consistently mesmerized daze. The messy plot of hair sprouting from his head was as pale golden as the sun he rarely saw. His vampire-like skin tone was illuminated by the bright computer screen. On it, the green and yellow matrix of numbers and letters joined together in a wonderful cacophony of coding. He smiled as he felt the connections from the machine start to join with his brain, become a part of his very being. This skill allowed for the most illegal activities to be accomplished, the most deadly occupations to be his very own careers. He waited for the true connection to become a reality as he opened his mind to the mechanical manipulations that the rest of his damned world took for granted. The computer began to flash and screech as he bathed in the electronic glory of it all, knowing the information he so desired would soon become vulnerable to his inhuman abilities. For what seemed like hours the information poured forth into him, the border between man and machine was no more. He lifted his arms high, his unblinking eyes never leaving the screen.

Suddenly, with a loud ping, it stopped. He blinked for the first time in ages, dropping his arms slowly, tilting his head to the left and then to the right, still not breaking his gaze with the computer. The flow of information ceased to exist and the border had been replaced, but why?

His gaze was brought to a notification at the bottom left corner of his screen. The source of the ping had been an email notification, something he hadn't received since he last saw the sun. He opened the email, on it was a single sentence.

Go to your front door.

He squinted, hoping he had read that right, his front door? Slowly, he got up out of his chair, his limbs cracking and his legs wobbly. Without turning off the lights, he lumbered to the front door of his apartment, swimming through the piles of rubbish he had acquired throughout his days here. Under the door was a red letter, only the edge visible to his purple eyes. He reached down painfully and grabbed the strange note, the white wax seal was something he hadnt seen in ages. His curiosity stronger than his will to finish the task, he popped it open.