The Middle of Everywhere

Ok, this is my first story in collaborative fiction, so be nice. My only request, please keep the futuristic theme, and don't go off topic too far. Here goes:

The Middle of Everywhere

Today was somewhat gloomier than yesterday. The sky was darker and grayer, there was a chill in the air. After arriving at my home after work, I sat down and asked permission to watch TV over the phone. I hadn't been allowed to watch any for nearly a week now, after the incident. We all had to get permission to do anything from Smith. He ran the show. You never questioned Smith’s authority.

Unfortunately, Smith would never back down from power. Couldn’t back down from power. Smith was everywhere all the time, and nobody could stop him. Who is Smith, exactly? A computer virus.

It all started when a young boy, around 17, decided to attempt an illegal modification to a very human-like simulator, which would allow it illegal access to global resource centers. The centers controlled everything, including bank accounts, the internet, and physical things too, like water supplies and global imports and exports.

Smith was originally a program that would act and react to human speech, sort of like a digital friend on a computer. But this teen decided to pull a prank on a friend, by changing it and commanding it to shut off his water and electrical supplies. It did this by hacking a global resource center. But, now that this program had the ability to control the resource centers, mixed with it’s perfectly human-like thinking processes, it decided to duplicate itself and spread to every computer on the entire planet, allowing itself to control all of the planet from every possible computer. This way, when somebody deleted the program from their computer, it would just reinstall from another. It turned up the voltage within the network wires so high that anybody who tried to disconnect any of them would be electrocuted. An evil out of control virus was let loose that day.

Smith was obviously in a bad mood, disallowing TV for an entire week. I decided to ask for a cup of decaf coffee instead, which was ok. The coffee machine started itself upon receiving orders from the global resource center. I waited patiently in my chair for the coffee to be ready, all the while thinking about the good looking woman I had seen at work today. She had smiled at me.

Suddenly my head started throbbing with the largest headache I have ever felt. Smith had mind control, of a sort, as well. The large tower on top of the hill sent electromagnetic radiation matching that of human brains’ frequency that would cause an extremely painful headache for hours. I hadn’t gotten permission from Smith yet to start dating this woman, or even think about her in such ways, so he punished me by using the tower. His sensors must have detected the illegal thoughts. I took a small sip of coffee. Once a man had thought very hard about how to successfully destroy Smith, and the tower sent out large doses of x-ray radiation to him, killing him. What a lucky guy, to be able to leave this horrid place so easily, without even...

I found myself on the floor, and my abdomen hurt enormously. I could smell something awful, what was it? There was a bad taste in my mouth. I turned over to the other side to find that I had vomited, and my head was laying in some of itit. “Maybe that ought to teach you not to insult Smith” said the shrill computer-voice of Smith. I had called this world horrid, and unfortunatly the sensors were able to pick it up. You can’t run from the sensors. You can't hide from them.

[edit on 2/6/2005 by diehard_democrat]

I picked myself up off the floor and brushed myself off, to find that only smeared it. A suicidal thought came to mind. I decided to go run and grab my special aluminium foil hat, that disabled the sensors ability to know what I was thinking. They concluded that my head was a toaster whenever I would wear it. I was also very lucky to be living alone, for if anyone else found me wearing this hat, I would be turned into Smith for sure. The only downside to it was that if Smith detected a toaster floating around my house for long periods of time, he would become suspicious and investigate, which would end in a severe punishment.

After placing the shiny dome upon my ruffled brown hair, I began to wonder how I could insult Smith in such a way that he would decide to rid of me using the tower. Yes, so that I would be able to leave easily, without pain, just like that other man did only weeks before. No! I've got lots to live for, damn it! Eileen, who smiles at me at the office, she's something to live for! And, yes, Marty, and Jack, my best friends! That's worth living for! And... oohhh yes... taking Smith down, that was definately something worth living for.

But how? How would I devise such a complex plan in secrecy?

Another thought came to mind...