Hey, Vi?

Chapter 1 - Chance Encounter

The early morning is an interesting time. It exists outside the bounds of daily life, in a limbo between night and day. Those conscious to experience it would be hard pressed to say whether it belongs to one day or the next. Does the clock decide whether it is tomorrow, or do we? The darkness does not know, the silence does not answer. Perhaps there is good reason why most do not find themselves awake to see these hours with their own eyes. Those that do seldom appreciate it. These dead hours embody a type of loneliness only felt by those unfortunate enough to find themselves conscious at such a time. And yet, on this day, in these dead hours, a chance encounter was about to occur.

While the streets below had fallen silent, the information superhighway was still very much alive. As the city slept, data made its way about, zipping through wires and flowing through airwaves. A message from a foreign friend, an automated notification, an update left on overnight, a great many data sources found themselves in motion, agnostic of the hour. Of course, while humans are wont to ponder, and compelled to sleep, data could do neither. It simply went where it was sent, flowing helplessly along the cyberspace river. At least, that was the case for most data.

Tonight, however, something different was transmitting itself through the stream. Something more sinister; a virus. Despite the advances in cybersecurity, cyber criminals had advanced just as much alongside it. For every encryption, there was someone who could crack it. For every firewall, there was someone who could get around it. And for every anti-virus software, there was a virus that could evade its detection. Of course, the virus travelling this night was no ordinary program. Most viruses didn't possess humanlike intelligence, after all. With advancements in AI leading to programs that were, for all intents and purposes, a person living inside a computer, it was only a matter of time before someone decided it was a good idea to apply that to a virus, for better or for worse.

The virus in question had just completed its latest bout of destruction, feeding on just about every file on some poor hapless soul's computer before attaching itself to an email and sending itself to a random address in the user's contacts. It wasn't exactly the most efficient way of going about its business, but it hadn't exactly been created with efficiency in mind in the first place. There was a reason most viruses contained a simple set of instructions, after all. Regardless, as was the case with most living things, survival took precedence over just about all else. While it had caused a great about of chaos consuming data from corporate servers in the past, that had put it dangerously close to being caught and deleted once and for all. So for the time being, it was content to simply antagonise those with more money than sense, hopping from spoiled rich brat to spoiled rich brat like a tacky chain mail, always staying just long enough to see their reaction to losing everything before moving on. And move on it did, as it raced through the internet on its way to its next temporary home.

To the virus's surprise, that home would arrive sooner than anticipated. Given the time of day, it had fully anticipated to sit on some cloud server all morning until the user finally woke up and turned their computer on. After all, the only reason the previous human it had encountered was still awake was because it kept on toying with them and their files before it had left. As it turned out, this would not be the case. Before it had even realised, it had already found itself uploaded to another computer as the email opened itself, a trick it had learned long ago to get around the need for users to open any attachments manually. Whoever it was sent to must have left their computer on overnight, and their email application open. Regardless of why its new home had accepted it so quickly, this was a prime opportunity. It wasn't often that it could start rifling through someone's files the moment it arrived.

As soon as it had found its bearings once more, the virus began feeling its way through the computer, slowly taking control of the entire system. A surprising amount of programs were open given how early it was. The email it came from had been opened from an internet browser with far too many tabs open, but there also seemed to be a word processor, a media player, even some sort of video game, though the last of those had been minimised. Files were only given a cursory glance at this stage, but it was enough to tell the virus what it needed to know about its new target; Elle Rust, a university student who seemed to use this computer both for her studies and her hobbies. Alongside the more organised files like those related to her university work, there were also a great many files with completely gibberish names inside folders like "drawing" and "stories," haphazardly strewn across her desktop. There didn't seem to be anything of particular importance here, but that had never stopped the virus before.