Destiny (nc, Sci-fi, Horror)

He brooded as he stared, myopically, at his computer screen. The flat
glare, which was the only source of illumination in the shabby room,
giving him a pale and slightly demonic aspect. A pasty complexion, a
long bespotted nose, a small, disdainful, mouth and a desperately weak
chin all adding to his unappealing visage. Which caused his encounters
with the opposite sex to be, at once, both cutting and unfruitful.

He was a mish-mash  of pathetically unfulfilled lust and heart
stopping misogyny  that both terrified and amused the girls of his age
group. Terror, if they had the misfortune to be alone with him and
amusement when they were in the company of their peers. Which
contrived, mightily, to heighten his sense of personal failure and his
blind, red, hatred of all things female.

Life, when it noticed him at all, only paused to sideswipe his
pathetic ambitions and then hurried on its way, leaving him
floundering in its wake. Until it left him an obsessive, with a
towering hatred that would make most criminal psychologists reach,
reflexively, for their textbooks and law enforcement officers for
their most lethal shotgun.

If only they but knew.

Which of course they wouldn't. 

Only a carefully selected sector of humanity ever would.

When 'it' worked. 

If it worked.

The 'it' in question being a new computer program that he had written.
Of myriad complexity and Byzantine structure it could, if generally
released, have changed the way humans interacted and communicated with
each other. And would probably have made him a millionaire. If he
wanted.

But this was no program for general release. This had a more prosaic
use, as a vehicle for both the fulfilment of his obsessions and the
denouement of his lust.

Bitter loneliness had  forced him into a union with his computer
which, when coupled with his single minded determination, had created
a white hot creative genius. Capable of making the machine fulfil
functions that were beyond the ken of the vast majority of the
population, who were both unaware and uncaring of the deeper powers
that sat whirring on their desktops. Computers were for use and he
intended to use them in a way that would bring shivers down the back
of any rational human being.

But he was long past the outposts of rationality and his humanity hung
by a thread.

And so to his program. Destiny he called it. It was both apt and
sagacious, given its unique powers. Power was his to command and he
intended to exercise that power. And someone was going to get hurt.

A smile, showing needle sharp teeth through his thin lips, as he
launched the application that would fire him onto the IRC channels.
Now he must search for his prey and use them to his satisfaction. His
time had come and he was going to live each moment to the full.

Destiny was his.

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

"Tracey. Are you on the phone again?"

"Yes mum."

"Have you done your homework?"

Tracey sighed. Her mum knew full well she didn't have any. It was the
Easter school break, anyway as a sixth former she hardly had any to do
any. But keeping the peace seemed more important than a confrontation
at this time. 

"Yes mum."

"Ok, but not too late tonight eh? We're picking Mrs Hendon up tomorrow
and we are going shopping."

"Yes mum." 

Tracey groaned. Mrs Hendon! Interfering old cow, what do we have to
bring her for? With her junkshop smell and her salacious interest in
Tracey's boyfriends, she was a right pain. But mum seemed to like her,
ever since the old trout's husband had died the year before. 'We must
help her to get over it, Tracey. She has no family and she must be
lonely in that old house on her own.'

'Why don't the old biddy just turn herself in to the nearest old
people's home, so she could sit in front of the TV with all the other
old codgers?' Thought Tracey. Silly old cow.

She clicked on her IRC access. "Lets see who's in town tonight" She
muttered to herself. Hoping that Hairy^hat was on line again. He was
such a laugh.

And so sexgoddex joined Cybercafe.

Downstairs her mother sighed. Tracey was such a pretty girl, who
caught the eye of many a young lad. So why did she spent so much time
on that Computer? She should be out, with her friends, having fun, not
cooped up in her room all night. It wasn't like that in her day.

The generation gap yawned wide and claimed another victim.

*******************************************************************************
A ripple of electrons fluttered through the delicate tracks of the
Mainframe, barely raising a zephyr as they passed on their way.

But someone noticed.

Tim Cohen, duty operator, dropped his feet to the floor and disabled
the annunciator that had pinged moments before.

"What the fuck was that?" He muttered to himself, as he dropped his
magazine, uncaringly, on his worktop.
 He tapped his keyboard trying to locate the source of the alarm, but
all systems seemed to be functioning normally now.  Ten minutes later
he thought he had tracked down the source of the interference but as
he closed in, it tantalisingly scuttled out of reach.

It was either a hell of a virus or one of the students had fucked up
their programming assignment big time.

The air conditioning hummed and his fingers tap-tapped for another
half an hour.

But it had gone.
**************************************************************************

'There aren't many people on tonight.' Thought Tracey as she perused
the small list of participants in the channel. She wished she lived in
the US sometimes, then she could get to chat to all those interesting
people over there. Instead of the boring bastards that cluttered up
the channel whenever she had time to chat.

She was just about to give it up and leave when she noticed that
someone was requesting a private chat.

Destinie wants to chat.

Mentally she shrugged. Why not? It was better than getting bored in
front of the TV with her parents.

She acknowledged.

Her nightmare began.

***************************************************************************
sexgoddex> Hi Destinie> Hi yourself, you f or m?  sexgoddex> f. and
you?  Destinie> M. Where are you?  sexgoddex> In England, a place
called Milton Keynes you heard of it?  Destinie> I've heard of England
but not Milton Keynes sounds like a couple of dead poets.

Tracey laughed. Yep that sounded like Milton Keynes alright, with its
concrete cows and plastic trees.

sexgoddex> got it in one. Where are you?  Destinie> The US sexgoddex>
that's a big place whereabouts exactly?

Just then the screen started to pulse and flash making her nauseous
and giddy. She reached forward to turn it off but seemed to lose the
power to make the simplest movements. Her consciousness spiralled down
into a blackness and her body slumped down in the chair.
*****************************************************************************

A naked Tracey hung limply in the gossamer tendrils that hung around
her in shimmering waves. It was a fairytale land of darkness and
ghostly, sourceless, lights interspersed with flickering flashes of
colour like a remote thunderstorm.

"Where am I?" She screamed, but her voice had changed and it came out
in a form reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich, if she only but knew.

"You are mine!" Boomed the omnipresent voice.

"Who are you?"

The laughed attacked her from all sides, teasing and barbed.

"I am you, you are me. We are to reach for omneity."

She screamed and tore at the tendrils.

They dissolved and she found herself hurtling down a spiralling
passage, with the voice following her as she flailed hopelessly.

Suddenly she was in a vast room, blue and shivering. She floated and
dipped in a vortex of swirling red clouds.

"Mine! Mine! MINE!" Intoned the voice.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" She screamed, but the demonic laugh echoed though
the vast chamber, ebbing and flowing like a wraith.

"I cannot leave you alone, my pretty one. I will be at one with you. I
am your destiny and you are mine."

"NO!" She cried as she was again borne aloft towards the inky darkness
that had materialised in front of her.

"YES!"  cackled the laugh.

"NO! NO!"

"YES! YES!" The ensuing laughter seemed even more gleeful and
threatened to crush her with its power and resonance.

Sounds, lights, whirling patterns. Stars shot past, faces appeared and
morphed into hideous skulls, suns exploded.  Pulsing shapes
threatened, terrifying darkness pursued her.

She was naked. She was clothed. The cackling laugh toyed with her,
dressing and undressing her at its whim.

"LET ME GO!" She screamed as a spot hurtled towards her, looming
larger and larger. 

"I cannot let you go mummy." Said the Child's voice. She looked down
to see a sweet, curly haired toddler staring innocently up at her.

"Mummy? I'm not your mummy."

"AH BUT YOU ARE!" Boomed the voice.

"Who are you?"

The power of the laughter tumbled her end over end.

"The time for questions has gone. Now is the time for action."

She found herself spreadeagled on a bed, limbs like a star. Her powers
of movement curtailed.

Then he materialised in front of her. He was wearing a cloak of
shimmering green which he cast from his shoulders leaving him naked.

She looked at his penis, it was the reflex action of any female being
confronted with a naked man. It was huge and pointing at her. She
tried to scream but couldn't.

The noises died away, leaving a soft melody playing in the background.

"You have seen your child." He said. "Now we must make it. Omneity."

He then launched himself upon her and invaded her helpless body.

Her pain crescendoed with the music as he powered his way into her.

"Omneity!" He gasped as he thrust. "We are at one!"

****************************************************************************
She lay on the mattress, curled in a foetal crouch.

The time for crying had long passed as had the pain. Now she just felt
numb and empty.

'This can't be happening.' She thought.

Just then writing magically appeared in front of her. At first it was
a meaningless jumble of characters then it started to take shape in
front of her incredulous eyes.

"Are you there?"  It said.

"Yes." She answered.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Tracey."

"No, what is your Nick. I have no record of a Tracey."

"sexgoddex."

"Ok, wait!"

Nothing seemed to happen for hours then suddenly she found herself
staring at a room through a small. glass window. Her heart pounded
frantically when she recognised her own room and her body slumped in
front of the computer.

She pounded on the screen with both hands. She didn't know what else
to do.

"Is this yours?"

"Yes. Who are you?" She called.

"I'm Tim.......Wait." Wrote the words.

Suddenly she felt a presence behind her. She turned and saw her
rapist.

"Are you trying to escape me, little one? I am you, you are me. You
cannot escape."

She flew at him, hands drawn into claws reaching for his face. But he
merely disappeared and then appeared behind her with a whip in his
hand.

"I must tame you." He said simply.

"Don't hit me!" She screamed, and instinctively covered her breasts,
as he drew back the instrument over his head. Then, just in the
instant that the whip was about to make contact on her flesh, she
found herself back in her room, staring at her computer screen.

"I'll get you, you bitch." Snarled the voice from her sound card.

She saw him glaring at her from the screen. 

"You cannot escape. I will draw you in." He cried.

She reached for her modem and tore the wires from it, then hurled it
across the room.

The voice screamed through her. He was trapped inside her computer.
She could feel his power looming so she quickly pressed the reset
button.

When the computer rebooted she typed:

Format C:

And listened with satisfaction as the hideous screams died away.

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