BURN

The growth in information technology has made the dissemination of information very easy. However there is a price to pay for such easy access to information.

On the internet, there are a growing number of computer users falling prey to a new computer virus called BURN. This virus is so new that most anti-virus software companies do not yet know of it. It is also unlikely that anyone will survive to tell the story of its most unusual effects.

Astute students of Fortean lore may note an increasing unusual death rate amongst Net surfers, and there are always going to be upset parents. Media types, always hungry for a new angle on the Internet, will also make much of the rising tide of bodies, linking them to Internet pornography. 

Eventually the BURN virus can be traced (via assembly language code headers) to a compiler belonging to the Arkham Sanitarium. 

Howard Barker is a deranged hebephrenic psychology postgraduate from Miskatonic Uni who works as a ward assistant. Lately he has been spending a lot of time with the computers in the building.

Possibilities

1 The two variants of the BURN virus target Windows or Apple computers.

BURN is a Trojan virus which hides itself inside other applications then attaches itself to video card drivers. The next time the computer is booted up the virus causes the screen to pulse and strobe at a rate which hypnotises unfortunate onlookers or causes epileptic seizures.

Embedded into the strobing is the subliminal text message KILL - ENJOY. After 15 seconds the virus shuts down and is deleted the next time the computer is booted. Victims immediately become mindless killing machines and end up dead, either shot by police as they stroll through a shopping mall armed to the teeth, or take their own lives after cheerily slaughtering their family and friends.

Howard Barker is currently preparing his doctorial thesis on human psychological impulses and is testing a few of his assumptions before he submits his final paper.

2 The two BURN variants target sound card drivers, not video drivers. It causes the computer to produce an odd agglutinous chanting from the attached speakers. If the timing is correct (i.e. night and Fomalhaut is visible) the user will suddenly feel cold and tired, and a glowing ball will appear from the smoking remains of the computer.

The chant is a summoning spell for a Fire Vampire and the user has just lost the requisite magical energy to summon the beast. There are a large number of recent cases of people burnt to a cinder alongside their melted computers, causing the major PC companies to suspect hardware faults; none have been found so far.

The Fire Vampires, being balls of plasma, then run around the electrical circuits in the building causing major fires. In big computer installations the sprinklers/halon/CO2 extinguishers go off and the Fire Vampires usually get snuffed. Surviving security video footage from a nearby college campus may prove illuminating.

Howard Barker is a mad genius who got a number of such spells piecemeal from one of the inmates. Said inmate is John Doe #23 and has an unusual case history.

3 The BURN virus is slow and insidious. It subliminally flashes unpronouncable text messages on screen, essentially a Contact Nyarlathotep spell. It also adds a bookmark to web browsers. The address is that of the home page of the Starry Wisdom Brotherhood, a quasi-religious group who hold all kinds of odd beliefs. 

Nyarlathotep contacts the unfortunate victim via dreams or e-mail messages from an apparently non-existent mail address. The net result is that the victim is seduced by the Mythos and joins the Brotherhood. Eventually the sendings (dream or electronic) command the victim to prepare for a journey to the throne of the Ruler of the Universe and to prepare offerings. 

Howard Barker maintains the website and there is much circumstantial evidence pointing to him as the leader of the Brotherhood. Actually he is a front man and scapegoat for Dr. Eloise Whateley, a recent addition to the staff roster at the Sanitarium.

© Peter Devlin

Ghost in the Machine

From: laura@karr.aol.com
To: john@soda.berkeley.edu
CC:
Subj: Help!

Received: From laura@karr.aol.com by soda.berkeley.edu
 Sun, 8 Oct 1995 20:36:26 PST
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 1995 18:34:15 MST

John? It’s Laura! You gotta help me, I’m in deep trouble. I’m at the institute, I feel so strange. They’ve got me hooked up to this machine, and I’m cold, I can’t feel a thing. I’m afraid they’ll pull the plug on me, joh;owqihefp8y2er99@@oweh934yrhflknflkjsndfk

*****************************************************************

Then the message breaks off and continues for a while with several kilobytes of ASCII-trash. Attempts to mail back are futile, as the Internet connection is now offline.

The message is from Laura Sinclair, with whom the recipient (John) has extensive email communication. Six weeks ago, Laura, a psychology student with a background in computer science, left college to participate in some kind of cutting-edge research program with the Karr Research Institute located about 35 miles outside Golden, Colerado. Laura never told the investigator what kind of research she was to do there, but she was very excited about it. The investigator hasn’t heard from Laura since.

However, there is something weird going on. The email is dated around 6:30 p.m. and was sent from the Karr institute. However, according to Golden, Colorado authorities, Laura died in a climbing accident near the Institute. She was pronounced dead at 3:30 p.m. on the day the email was sent – a full three hours before she sent the message!

Possibilities

1 The Karr Institute, high up and isolated in the Rocky Mountains, has recently been taken over by the mi-go, who run a mining operation nearby. The Fungi from Yuggoth killed the scientists and placed their brains in control cylinders. They attached Laura’s brain to the institute’s powerful mainframe computer in order to examine this human technology. The mi-go dumped the bodies in a crevice, but accidently dropped Laura’s, which was found.

In a clear moment, Laura’s brain sent the email to John. After noticing this, the Fungi disabled all the computer’s connections to the outside world and have since left.

The dimensional shambler attacks!

Laura’s body, with its surgically removed brain, has caused a stir in some parts of the FBI. News of the body’s odd mutilation has been quietly suppressed as the authorities mount their own investigation.

2 It is a trap. An old enemy of the investigators infiltrated the harmless Karr Institute and murdered Laura. He staged a climbing accident and then wrote the mysterious email to get the investigators attention. If they take the bait, the villain will blow up the only bridge to the institute, trapping them. Then he, she, or it, summons a dimensional shambler to drag his enemies to screaming hell.

3 The Karr Institute is headed by Dr Lawrence Karr, a brilliant but unscrupulous psychologist. Karr, funded by a secret government agency, runs a research project in human-computer communications combining virtual reality technology, neuronal networks, hypnosis and certain drugs. Karr’s real goal is to establish mind control with virtual-reality enhanced hypnotic messages. He has met with success.

But something went wrong. Laura, a latent psychic, somehow merged her mind with the institute’s computer during an experiment, leaving her body dead. Karr panicked and had his brainwashed assistants stage a climbing accident in order to avoid investigation.

Laura’s mind, trapped in the computer, managed to access the email program and write a message to the investigator at 6:30 p.m. Karr noticed and turned the computer off, garbling part of the message.

Any investigation runs into a dead end - and the cover-up operation of a government project turned sour.



© Markus Huenemoerder

Virus

Something is wrong with the computer. Its performance slows erratically, it crashes too often. Strange responses appear from ordinary requests. Files are corrupted, data is damaged.

A virus checker reveals nothing – the computer is not infected with any known virus. However, the corruption is certainly symptomatic of virus activity.

Then, of its own accord, things get better. Performance improves, the machine stops hanging. In fact, it almost seems as if it is performing better than usual. Everything is right again. Except...

The files are weird. Fragments, oddly named. They don’t execute, and when examined seem to be random masses of code, or occasionally, sheer meaningless text. Deleting the files does nothing – they just reappear. Careful checking reveals that the files are all modified while the computer is on - somehow it is creating them. And, while it first created lots of small files, it now produces fewer, larger files.

Eventually a single file appears: RUNME.EXE.

Running the program causes the screen to clear – and then an image forms. It’s a box, an old stone artefact about the size of an ordinary cardboard box that was recovered from a recent investigation. And yes, the problems with the computer started about the time the box was retrieved.

On the screen, the box begins to glow...

Possibilities

1 Millions of years ago, the serpent people realised they were losing their battles for control of Earth and made preparations to ensure their survival. They constructed subterranean hibernation chambers to wait out their enemies. The chambers were never reactivated ... although that may change shortly.

The box is a serpent people device, a control mechanism for their hibernation sites. It has successfully created an interface program between it and the computer, allowing for the appropriate instructions to be entered.

On the screen, the glowing box dissolves into a spinning map of the Earth – as it was millions of years ago. And dotted on the map are several brightly glowing dots: serpent people sites.

2 The box is a powerful old one computer. It can now be communicated with, via the interface it has constructed. It is undoubtedly malign.

3 The box is the egg of a virtual demon. As the image glows on the screen, the box itself (the real one, that is) glows brightly, then crumbles into pieces. The egg has hatched, the computer is now possessed by a mathematical demon.

The creature is quite evil, and gobbles up all the files on the computer – and demands more. (It doesn’t like duplicates, either.) It is cunning; deleting files doesn’t work and neither does switching off the computer.

But what does it want? And what does it do when it finds the Internet?