Hacker Horror 1:

"Tell-Tale Voltage Regulator"

Late one night, in the basement of his work, Harold was recompiling his kernel for the 15th time that week.

"Maybe one day, I'll have a kernel that works!" thought Harold. One of Harold's problems was that he only had a 386DX25 with 4 megs of ram to work with. The accountants all got the P166's with 32 megs of ram.

After the compile was completed he installed it and proceeded to reboot his system. Everything appeared to be working normally, except for one thing...

"FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!, I forgot to compile the crappy ethernet card support!!" In frustration, Harold slammed his fist down on the keyboard, then lifted the monitor and threw it across the room. As the small fire created by the exploding monitor burned down, he realized what he had done. His boss would kill him if he found out! There was only one thing to do... hide the evidence and claim that his monitor had been stolen!

Luckily, they were doing some work on the Second floor, and one of the walls was not yet completed. Harold threw the monitor onto a push cart and put a box over it. He knew that no one should be in the building, but just in case. He got to the elevator without anyone seeing him. He pushed the elevator call button and waited for what seemed to be an eternity. Finally the elevator opened.

"Hey Harold, how's it going?"

FOR PETE'S SAKE! It was security... "Uh, nothing much, just taking this up to 2nd floor to replace a monitor one of the secerataries said had a color problem."

It sounded good, good enough. The security guard looked at Harold, for a minute he thought something, Harold looked very white, and was sweating profusely. But then, he was a typical hacker, so that didn't mean anything. "Alright, just be sure to lock the doors behind you..."

Harold boarded the elevator and pressed 2. Now that he had passed the security guard, nothing should stand in his way.

On the second floor, there was a section of wall that wasn't quite done yet. Harold threw the broken monitor in there, and quickly threw up a piece of drywall and nailed it down. Using skills he had learned from his father, a carpenter, he quickly spread the plaster all around, liberally. He didn't think that anyone would notice that the wall had gotten done early... he ran past one of the secerataries desks and opened the drawers... sure enough, he found a hair dryer. He used the hair dryer to quickly dry the plaster... grabbed a power sander and finished the job. Last but not least he grabbed a vaccuum and sucked up all the dust.

"But what is it missing??" Paint. He needed paint, but he couldn't find any. Quickly he found a post it note and scrawled in his best handwriting (the best handwriting for a hacker anyway) 'BOB, I FINISHED THE WALL, COULDN'T FIND PAINT..'. Never mind the fact he didn't know who Bob was, but there was always a Bob working somewhere, so it sounded good.

Harold got back on the elevator and made it back to his room safely... he wrote a note to his boss that his monitor had been stolen and went home.

The next day Harold came in to work and was greeted by his boss.

"Monitor stolen?", his boss questioned him about it. Harold told him that he had left the room unlocked accidently and probably someone from Maintenence took it. He looked as convincing as he could. "Okay" the boss said, "Get one out of storage, I hope you don't mind using an EGA monitor for a while, it's all we've got left..". Doesn't matter, thought Harold, I only use text based OSs anyway. "Oh and by the way, Harold, a seceratary up on the second floor says that he can't see the network, can you look into it?"

"Sure, I'll go right up". As Harold boarded the elevator, he thought of how clever he was to get out of trouble. He especially had a big smile on his face when he reached the second floor and saw Maintenence painting that wall. He went over to the secerataries desk and found that the guy's network connection had been removed. No big deal. He went back down the hall, but something stopped him. From behind the wall where he had hid the monitor, he heard a slight and high pitched "Whiiizzzzzzzzz". He thought about it for a moment... but nah... couldn't be...

Later that evening as he was about ready to type make zlilo for the 16th time, his boss popped in his office and said, "They're having network problems again, and this time it's not the cable being unplugged...".

"Okay, I'll look into it." Harold quickly hit return, and left the room. There is nothing I could have forgotten in the kernel this time, I have everything supported... HAHAHAHA! As he walked past his wall, he again heard the slight, "Whiiizzzzzzzz" from behind the wall. He thought about it for a moment as the security guard walked up... "Funny thing your monitor being stolen... I didn't see anyone but you here all last night!"

"Listen, perhaps if you had been doing your job a little better I would still have a monitor!" Harold shouted back. The security guard was taken aback. The whiiizzzz became louder.

"What's that noise?" Harold demanded. The security guard looked puzzled. "Harold, you are wierd." the security guard left. Harold continued on to the problem computer.

"Why isn't this seeing the network, all the drivers are loading properly!" He checked the connections, he checked the hub, and he even replaced the NIC. As he turned off the computer to reboot, the high pitched whiiizzz became very loud.... "CUT IT OUT!!" Harold shouted. No one could hear him because no one was there. Harold ran to one of the maintenence walls and flipped the breaker to turn off all of the power on that floor. The whiiiizzz noise only became louder. He turned the power back on and grabbed a fire axe from the wall, setting off the fire alarm. But Harold couldn't hear the fire alarm. All he could hear was the Monitor from hell, it's noises raging from behind the wall. He took the axe and chopped down the wall. "DAMN YOU! I WILL KILL YOU ONCE AND FOR ALL!!" The security guard rushed up behind him and startled Harold.

"What the hell do you think you are doing??" demanded the security guard. Harold didn't even look at him, he kept chopping at the wall. The security guard was perplexed, so he drew his weapon. "I ORDER YOU TO STOP NOW HAROLD!!".

Harold pleaded "I HAVE TO MAKE IT STOP!! I HAVE TO MAKE IT STOP!!"

"Make what stop?"

"The Monitor, IT WON'T QUIT!! IT IS TRYING TO DRIVE ME INSANE!!". The security guard was speechless and didn't know what to do. Harold kept chopping at the wall. Finally it caved in, Harold climed in the wall and grabbed the monitor.

"HAHAHA! I HAVE YOU NOW YOU MONITOR FROM HELL!!!!". That was the last thing Harold said before he discharged the High Voltage area across his hand. The charge went up his arm, and into his brain. Harold colapsed...

-epilogue-

Harold woke up in the hospital.. still shaken. He didn't know what had happened, the shock had made him forget. After he left the hospital, he went back to work. His boss felt sorry for him and gave him his old job back, but had hired someone to take his place in his abscense. Harold went downstairs to his computer and flicked the switch to turn it on.

The computer breathed to life, Harold was pleased to be back where he belonged, in front of a computer. They even fixed his monitor, and he had a brand new 15" SVGA monitor. He turned around to get a can of jolt out of the 'frige and when he turned back, Harold screamed in horror. A scream so loud that it could be heard clear to the 5th floor. For his monitor was displaying something that could not be explained, something that terrified him past all sanity.

His monitor was saying "Starting Windows 95...."