Reality's Escape: a collection of short stories

Antivirus

Alexandria glanced up at her dad from where she was seasoning four slabs of steak. "When are Mr. Conner and Nicholas coming?"
Steven Pallo was tying on a manly apron, but stopped fiddling with the knot when his seventeen year old daughter spoke. "I'm not quite sure; they weren't in church this morning again. Conner didn't text to cancel, though, so-" Here he turned to look out the screen door to the driveway, where a car was pulling up with no one at the wheel. "That's probably them."
The side door lifted open and two men stepped out. One was short and nearly bald, while the other was tall and muscular.
Steven coughed, getting his daughter's attention again. "I want you to be careful today, okay?" His brow wrinkled with fatherly concern as he reminded her, "Guys are dangerous."
"You're a guy, and you're not dangerous." She smiled at her father sweetly.
"I will be if another guy comes close to you."
"I get it, Dad. I'll be careful."
By this time, the two were up the walk and climbing up the steps to the entry. Short Mr. Connerson was greeted cordially, but Nicholas did not fare quite so well. He had to bear a stern look from Steven as he entered the house.
"Hello, Mr. Pallo. Hey, Alex," he greeted as he glanced at her watchful father. "What's up?"
"Oh, not much," she responded as their dads exited the back door to the bbq with the raw meat and extra steak sauce. "Except you and your dad not showing up for church today again."
"I know." He sighed, and leaned against the counter where she was cutting lettuce for the salad. "The computer on the car crashed again, and Dad spent all morning reprogramming it. I wish I could just drive manually for once. You know, with a steering wheel and the gas and brake pedals."
"Yah, me too. Dad always drives ours." She smiled back at him. "How's your Bible reading coming along?"
"Well, I finished the book of John just yesterday. You?"
"I already started the book of Romans." They laughed. She was a fast reader, but was showing off now in their youth group's challenge to read the New Testament in a month. "Hey Nic, can you bring this bowl of salad to the table outside? I've got to get the potatoes out of the oven."
"Sure."
The two teens joined the men outside by the picnic table, and ate.
After lunch, they had to clean up while their dads tried to fix the car permanently; but they dashed outside when they heard an explosion and yells from outside. The sight that greeted them was anything but welcome. The sleek car was now reduced to pieces of burning rubble lying across the driveway and yard. Steven was coughing, lying on his back a few yards away from the biggest pile of scrap rubble.
Alexandria quickly took in the situation and ran to her father. "Dad, are you okay?"
When Steven nodded his blackened head, she got up beside him and joined Nicholas in looking over the ruins.
"Dad? Dad!" he yelled. No answer. "Dad!" But still no answer. His face displayed despair. "He's not here."
"He's got to be; I'm sure— oh! There!"
Nicholas jerked up his head to see his father come running from behind the house, then sighed in relief. "Where were you?"
"Uh, taking a leak. What in the name of crashing computers happened to my car?!"
Steven stood up and coughed more. Alex ran to support him, but he straightened up. "It blew up. I don't know why- but your phone-"
"Oh no, was my phone in there? The company would have given me another car, but they can't replace my phone."
Steven's brow furrowed. "How is it that I work at the same company as you, but I have never gotten a free car?"
"I meant my, uh, my insurance company. The, uh, policy I have doesn't cover phones."
"Well, I was going to say, your phone beeped before the car blew up. The screen on the car dashboard was flashing too."
Mr. Connerson's face smoothed in realization, but nobody noticed.
Alexandria guessed, "A virus?"
"It would have to be a complicated virus to affect the physical qualities of the phone," Mr. Connerson replied rather smugly. "Most viruses only affect the device's the information stored on the device, or memory drive. I have never heard of a virus that could damage the actual phone – before this, I suppose."
The other three stood staring at him. "Are you sure?" Steven asked his friend. "I heard of a study in the third department at work on something nearly like this virus you're talking about. That's where you work. Do you have any idea what happened?"
Alexandria looked, surprised, at Mr. Connerson. A glance to the side showed her that Nicholas was as confused as she was. But then her phone dinged. She frowned. "That's not my ringer," but she checked it anyways.
"Watch out!" Stephen knocked the device out of his daughters hand. Startled, she tried to ask her dad why he did that, but he pushed her away from the phone lying in the grass.
"Dad, I don't think a text is—"
BANG! The phone burst into smoking bits of metal and plastic.
Steven Pallo shrugged. "Well, I guess I should have known that explosion wouldn't be as big as the car."
Alex whipped her head away from her smoldering former phone and focused on her dad. "How did you know that was going to happen?"
"The ringer." She shook her head, but he insisted. "I'm serious. That made the same sound as Conner's phone did before it exploded."
"But why did the car blow up too?" Nicholas voiced. "Dad's phone probably wouldn't have blown up with any more force than Alex's did, but look at the rubble. The circuits in the car itself exploded."
"Was the phone connected to the vehicle?" Steven wondered.
It wasn't plugged in, if that's what you mean," Nicholas answered. "I saw it right before we got out of the car."
"I don't mean like that. You know, bluetooth: so you can play you music through the car speakers, and call with the car system instead of the phone. Or maybe hooked up to the wifi router?"
"I don't know; that stuff makes no sense makes no sense to me. Dad?" He turned toward Mr. Connerson, but there was no one there. "Dad?"
"Nic, your dad is starting to scare me with his disappearing act," Alex said. "Where's he this time- is he 'feeling the urge' again?"
Both Nicholas and Steven made no reply. Each was contemplating how convenient that he should be busy when the car exploded, and gone again when it was discussed.
A beeping in the house broke them from their trance.
"The fire alarm!" They ran into the house, and saw the plush couch on fire. The apparent cause of the fire was the melting pieces of Mr. Pallo's phone, lying in the flames. Nicholas had grabbed the fire extinguisher on the way in, and sprayed the area until the fire died completely.
"Well, there went my phone," Steven observed. "It must be a virus, if all of our devices are bursting from the inside out. And, I'm sorry Nicholas, but I'm afraid your dad has something to do with this."
Nicholas glared at the carpet. "He's not my dad."
Steven got a little riled up. "Look, he was my best friend. I probably had a better relationship with him than you did, as his son. But you don't hear me disowning him!"
"No; I mean, he's not my dad. I found some papers a couple days ago." Nicholas sighed. "I was adopted."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Alexandria asked him softly.
"I was hoping it was a mistake," he shrugged.
"It isn't a mistake. I knew." Steven admitted.
"And you never told me?" The young man was angry now. "I should have known."
"Your dad- Conner- said he was going to tell you. Of course he didn't want me to. It's a family issue."
Nicholas slumped, but Steven turned his attention back to the matter before them. "Do we have any other devices in the house that will blow up soon?"
"Not since the TV broke last week," Alex said, but then she remembered something. "My new laptop! Grab the fire extinguisher, come on!"
They ran down the hallway to her room, but the laptop in question was sitting innocently on her bed. She approached it slowly, but nothing appeared on the screen.
"Alex, be careful," warned her father, and the same message was in the eyes of Nicholas.
"Don't worry: we'll have the warning of the beep, right?" Alex picked up the laptop. "Wait- didn't the other explosions happen after the receivance of a message? My laptop can't receive messages. We got it yesterday, remember, Dad? I didn't hook it up to our wifi yet."
A few faint yells came from outside.
"Their phones are exploding too," Steven said gravely. "My guess is that Conner's phone sent out the virus before it reacted to it. Now it is traveling in an ever-growing circumference around the cause of the infection."
"What are we going to do about it?" Nicholas wondered.
"The only thing we can do is to tell people to disconnect their phones from their server. That is the only way for the virus to not be able to work its way into the devices," Alex said.
"Alex, research the nearest cell tower," Steven told his daughter. "And hurry."
"But won't my laptop blow up if I connect to the Internet?"
"I don't know; the virus has already passed into the neighbouring houses. It shouldn't be able to backtrack. But if it starts beeping, get away from it."
Alexandria quickly typed in the password to the wifi and searched the Internet. "In Phillisburg, half an hour south of here."
"That's the nearest city to this tiny town. I'll go there, and get them to send out an alert before everyone's screens explode." He hesitated, not wanting to leave a nineteen year old boy alone with his daughter. "Nicholas, get on my bike and ride around town to warn them about this- or if it already happened, help them with the aftermath and explain things to them. Alex, you stay here and try to hack into the virus to cancel it."
"But you said I wasn't allowed to hack anymore after I reset the lockers at school."
Nicholas gaped at her. "You hacked the locker system? Awesome!"
Steven frowned, but Alex protested: "I just wanted to see if I could."
"Nicholas, let's go, boy." Steven was waiting impatiently for him to leave. "Alex, hack into that system. And God bless you both!" And the two left Alex muttering to herself as her fingers tapped over the keyboard.