The Luv Bug?

I took this job because they promised me plenty of free time. Time to write my children's books and time to spend with my own children. I have identical twin girls, Ashley and Ashton. They're the inspiration for my book series "I'm Seeing Double". Don't try running out to buy it just yet. It's been put on hold until I can actually get some of that free time they promised me. Considering the current backlog, that should be in about a thousand years.

My current so called "witness", Mr. Steven Gilbreath, is another one of those conspiracy nutcases. Thinks he knows all the answers. Typical for most geeks like him. Shaped like a pear with small arms and shoulders and a big ass from sitting around in front of the computer all day. Of course he wears glasses, people like him don't bother with contacts or corrective surgery. His hand is shaking so badly he can barely get the cigarette to his lips. I reach across the table and flick my lighter on. I'm hit immediately by the burnt smell of tobacco.

"Thanks, Man" he says. "I been telling myself I was going to quit. Just never seem to get around to it. You know?"

I nod knowingly, even though I don't. I never could figure out why you would need to get around to quitting, like you need extra time or something. If you just went ahead and quit, you'd have extra time.

"Okay, this is it in a nutshell" he says leaning forward as if I can't hear him from where he's at. "Do you really believe that some fourteen year old girl from Brazil could actually develop a computer virus as deadly as that "Luv Bug" virus is? Look, I'll admit I could do it, but I've been writing computer programs for over twenty years. It would still take me months to write that thing from scratch as complicated as it is."

"She's already admitted to developing it. She said something about wanting to destroy all the computers in the world because her old boyfriend had met someone new online. Being in love a few times myself, I know just how bad that first breakup can be." I say as I smile across the table at Steve. Something tells me Steve has never been in love before.

"Yeah, yeah, I've seen all the news programs making her out to be some poor little heartbroken girl. It's all a bunch of bull."

"Alright, fine Steve, but it's over. They've convicted her, the virus has been destroyed. There's nothing left to do" I say, as I begin to rise from the table.

"What about the 'Deep Blue' virus" he says, leaning back with a smug look on his face.

I sat back down and began massaging my temples. "Okay, tell me about this 'Deep Blue' virus. Where did it come from and how come I've never heard of it."

"It came from Dynasoft and it never existed."

He could tell from the look on my face that I was very close to throwing him out on his ear. Rather than wait for me to do something that drastic, he decided to plunge right in.

"There are two major security software companies, McVeigh and Kramden. Every time there's a virus, they're the first ones to come up with an anti-virus. Both McVeigh and Kramden came out with a Deep Blue anti-virus at the same time. The only problem was, the virus didn't exist yet. It was supposed to have been released by a twelve year old boy from Georgia, but his baby sister wouldn't quit playing the Adventures of Barbie and his mom overruled physically removing her from the computer. By the time she was finally put down for a nap, the deadline had already passed. Only a few people, like me, would have known about the anti-virus, so nothing was ever said to the mainstream media about it."

Confident that he had my attention now, he leaned over and picked up his glass from the table. After taking a long slow draw of water, he leaned back once again, resting the glass on one knee.

"I found out about it because of my position with Purient Insurance".

I already knew he was a files clerk with the company.

"The boys father, a Mister Robert Howard, was killed by a tractor trailor owned by Coastal Trucking. We paid one million dollars on his claim based on a five hundred thousand dollar policy with a double indemnity clause. In addition to that, Coastal Trucking paid an additional one million dollars to settle a wrongful death civil suit that had never even been filed. Pretty good money for a family that never made more than forty thousand a year."

"So the kid loses his dad and gets a lot of money. They'd probably rather have their father and husband back."

"Nope, not this dad. On the days he actually bothered to go home, Mr. Howard used the kids and their mother as punching bags. The family's better off without the guy."

"Anyway, what caught my interest was the form 271-1. It was a new form." Steve leaned forward again and sat the glass of water on the table. He pulled two pieces of paper from his shirt pocket and unfolded them. Placing them on the table, he pointed to the bottom left hand corner of each.

"See, every form has the month and year that the form went into use or was last revised. The 271-1 is the form you use when you first initiate the policy. See, this one is dated August of last year. But Mr. Howard supposedly signed the form three years ago. I looked his policy up on the computer and it shows he's had the policy for three years, made payments on time every month, all that good stuff, but then I decided to look him up on the backup copy we maintain and guess what?"

I shrug my shoulders to let him know I have no idea.

"The policy doesn't even exist. We do a complete off-line backup every thirty days, you know, just in case. I go back three months. Nothing. So, I go home that night, slip into my Dick Tracy outfit, sit down at the computer and go to work. Guess what I find out?"

I let out a long slow breath. Every corpuscle of my body is telling me not to say it, but I know I have to. Almost unintelligibly I mutter "what".

Steve brings out another piece of paper from his shirt pocket. He saws the surface of the paper across the edge of the table to smooth the wrinkles out and then places the paper in front of me on top of the other two papers still laying there. I stood up to stretch. You can only sit so long on the old wooded chairs before your butt goes to sleep on you. I grabbed the paper up and walked around to the other side of the table. Sitting the paper down on the desk in front of him, I watched Steve beam with pride at the chart depicting the course through which everything flowed into Dynatech.

"McVeigh, Kramden, Coastal Trucking and even my company, Purient, are all owned, indirectly, by Dynatech."

"Okay, so what does it all mean? Why should we be concerned about Dynatech owning two security software companies." I lay my forearm across his shoulder as I lean forward to get a closer look at the chart.

"People are scared to not have some sort of virus protection on their computers now. Every time there's another virus scare, more and more people sign up for one of their outrageously expensive protection services. It's like paying the Mafia not to burn down your business. Only this is on a global scale. In another five years, they may be as bad as the cable company."

I reach over and grab a good chunk of hair. As I slam his head onto his shoulder, I can feel the give between the second and third vertebra as it presses against my forearm. I grab my coat and head toward the door before the body hits the ground.

I turn around and look at Steve one last time. He'll never know just how close he was to finding out the truth. Not that he had all of his facts straight, but he had enough. Maybe I should feel sorry for him, but I don't. After all, anyone that says the company I work for is as bad as the cable company deserves to die.