My Computer is Possessed

Cal and I were told to go to the Einstein Bar so they could fix my computer. That was a place in the electronics store where all the smartest nerds gathered to help us simple minded folk who couldn’t take care of our tech.

There was only one geek there this early in the morning, and he was a short looking guy with his shirt tucked in and his pants pulled up way too high. But one thing was for sure, he looked bored as heck and ready to fiddle around with something broken.

“Welcome to the Einstein Bar,” he snorted as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Let me guess, you forgot your password and got locked out?”

“No, worse…” I held my head low in shame. “It’s the CIA.”

“Ooh!” He laughed like a snorty little pig. “Haven’t gotten that one in a while! You low level peasants don’t know when to not click a shady looking email, do you?”

“I want to punch him,” Cal openly declared. “How dare he call a princess a peasant?”

“You can do whatever you want after he fixes my computer,” I said. “Look, nerd. Can you beat the CIA and fix my computer or what?”

“Can I?” He whipped out a thumb drive and plugged it into the CPU tower. “Oh, I can fix it right here and now!”

We all waited while he just awkwardly stood there and did nothing with a proud demeanor.

“Hey, Einstein, do you want to plug the computer in first?”

I could see a little piece of him die inside when I said that, yet he continued to smile like he held the upper hand here.

“...”

“Earth to nerd?”

“Yes,” he breathed out quietly. “Plugging it in to the wall would help.”

_(<.>)_

Once we got the computer set up on the counter, he started messing around with some pretty matrix looking screens. He just kept typing and typing, like a real hacker.

“Oh my god, that’s a lot of numbers… You must be a genius if you know how to do this,” I complemented.

A bead of sweat dripped down his face. His cheeks turned hot red.

“N-no…” he said in a shaky voice. “I’ve been randomly typing things in for like twenty minutes… This CIA lock screen is a lot harder than normal.”

“So, you're telling me you're actually not a genius.”

“No, that’s not it!” He twisted his chair around. “It’s not that I can’t fix these, it's just this one is like… It’s like magic! I can’t get rid of it even when I factory reset the whole computer!”

“Hey, doesn't factory resetting erase my harddrive!?”

“Ehem…” he cleared his throat and unplugged his thumb drive. “You actually have an SSD, or a solid state drive. You see, the difference is…”

“I don’t care!” I shouted. “What happened to all my data?”

“It’s all on this.” He handed me the thumb drive. “Look, I’m sorry. But your computer’s bricked. Do you still have a warranty on it?”

I definitely didn't have a warranty on this anymore. Great… My phone was already wrecked, and now I needed a new computer? Oh well.

Cal suddenly looked like he’d seen a ghost. His eyes were darting all over the electronics store and he grit his teeth.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“There’s something here… Something evil…”

He suddenly grabbed me and pushed me under the counter. Just as he did, static crackled through the air, zapping around like little bolts of lightning. I thought it was Cal attacking with his lightning magic, but those bolts were actually coming from TV’s all around the store.

The nerd guy dove under the counter with me too, and he was absolutely petrified by the lightning storm around us.

“I can’t die like this!” the nerd screamed in terror. “I’ve never even gotten my first kiss!” his eyes rolled right onto me like this was his opportune moment, but yuck.

“No way, bro. I’m not coming near those chapped fish lips,” I said.

“I’m really a great guy when you get to know me.”

“Yeah, anyone who says that definitely isn’t a great guy.”

Cal was using himself as a lightning rod to absorb all the sparks shooting in every direction. But it looked like the electricity was actually burning his skin somehow, which shouldn’t have been possible.

The lightning blasting out of the TV’s calmed slightly, and all the screens burst and made bits of glass rain down all over.

My computer monitor started to shake violently, and the screen distorted like it was a pool of pixels. Those electric eels we saw at the pet store slithered out from the screen of my bricked computer like the glass was nothing but a watery portal. Before we knew it, at least a hundred of them had poured out of it, each surrounding Cal and I.

He grabbed me from under the counter and blasted out torrents of electrical might from his fingertips, but it did nothing to the serpents. It even looked like they were absorbing it!

“Curse these serpents,” Cal said.

“How did they get into my computer?” I questioned.

“I don’t know, but you’re in danger here, princess!” Cal noticed the cowering nerd under the counter and picked him up too. But instead of carrying him kindly, he slung him over his shoulder.

He ran us all to the exit, but was intercepted by a collection of those electric serpents. They lunged our way and bit onto Cal’s skin. Their bodies started to glow as they stole the energy from him.

“Cal!”

With what strength he had, Cal tossed both the nerd and I toward the exit, giving us a chance to leave the electronics store. The nerd was gone in a second, but I couldn’t leave Cal and anyone else in here behind.

“Run, Aurilia!” Cal shouted.

He was fighting hard to get those things off him, literally ripping them from his flesh. But there were too many.

“I won’t go without you!”

I took up a metal rod by the door and batted away several of the serpents. Cal had a moment to recover.

“We need to save June and anyone else in here, Cal!” I announced.

“I plan on it,” he assured me. “But you need to get to safety.”

Cal didn’t realize I could help too. These serpents had a weakness in my notebook, and I was going to find it and exploit it.