"Huh?"

Ivan furrowed his brows in confusion as he scanned the email on his screen. He had just returned from a cross-courntry running race and was checking his e-mails before he took a shower. He wasn't expecting this, though.

Apart from huge streams of incomprehensible code, he found a message reading "FinalCatalyst Complete. Test Run Perfect. Disposal Underway". As far as he knew, it meant total bubkes.

"What's 'FinalCatalyst'?" he muttered to himself. "What Test Run? Disposal of what?"

His brain hurt from all the questions. One part of him was annoyed, but another smaller (and probably geekier) part of him was actually rather intrigued. A weird code, strange messages, and an anonymous sender... It sounded like something from a science fiction movie...

He was shaken out of his reverie by the paper thin communication screen on his door. Glancing towards it, he saw his mom looking through it.

"Aren't you going to wash yet?!" she said angrily. "Ive been waiting for you for half an hour!"

"Alright, alright, I'm going!" Ivan replied. He glanced nervously at the screen as he stood up. Should he save it or delete it? In his haste, he rushed his thinking and deleted the message. "It's probably just some stupid prank mail," he said as an excuse. Shutting down his computer, he grabbed his towel and headed for the bathroom, trying to ignore the voice in his head saying he did something stupid.



Darkness filled a desolate house hidden in the midst of the woods several hundred miles away from Ivan's home. The only light came from a small computer screen, not enough to even illuminate the face of its user. Behind a pair of sleek thin glasses, cold eyes read a message on the computer screen. Through the darkness, a smile could be made out.

"So," the user muttered. "They accidentally sent the message to someone else, eh?" The user chuckled. "I can take care of that with my tracer program."

A few clicks later and Ivan's email adress and personal information appeared on the monitor. "Ivan Easting, fifteen years old, black hair, gold eyes..." the user read thoughtfully. "Just some stupid kid. Oh well, I guess it won't create too many problems if I rub him out."

The user chuckled heartily. "Now that it's ready, I can get back at all those people who tried to screw me over years ago. He'll make a good start. The test run was successful, but I think we need to do an 'experiment'. After all, he already got a taste of the virus. Why don't I let him have the rest?"