[syn] Who: Charls Goodwyn + Open to reactions What: Trick or trick. When: Evening of 2013 October 31 Where: In people's machines, lmao. Rating: ~PG Status: Finished.
There's a saying that goes that when the cats are away, the mice will play -- and with Charls Goodwyn, that was more or less something that applied.
He chose the time when the most number of Syndicates were out having a party in the Finale to sit down in his computer and start cracking his knuckles. He'd already prepared the scripts and bash files he would need for that rare prank of the year much earlier on -- when he was bored -- and now it was time to test them out, make sure they worked and show them to the world. Predictably and inevitably, there were a few parsing and runtime errors that cropped up in his simulation but it was nothing a few strokes, a few hot-second code modifications couldn't fix.
As soon as he launched the code into the Syndicate's network, Charls chose his outfit for the night -- a warm coat, a nice shirt, one of his better ties, matching gray slacks and socks -- took a shower and dressed up. By the time he was tying the laces of his leather shoes, the code had finished compiling and was now served in the plates of his victims. He inspected his work for a brief second, smiled, then turned off his monitor, his lights, left his room and locked it for the night. He left the building soon after -- all according to plan.
Meanwhile, an e-mail would appear on some Syndicates' inbox using the names of someone in their address book or Sent-To record. The subject lines could be just about anything: work, an invitation to some party, a quick note of favors, et cetera, et cetera. If anyone opened them, their screen would black out for two seconds -- and when it gets back on, the entire thing is inverted 180-degrees and the general color would change from cyan to magenta to yellow and back. The screen resolution would also be forced into something of old -- 800x600 pixels -- as if twisted letters were not enough to annoy anyone at all. And at the bottom-right part of the screen would be a pink box with a cyan text on it in system font. It contains a clock, counting down to midnight and a message on top that reads: You should be careful what you're clicking.
Smart people who deleted the e-mail, though, won't exactly be safe either. As soon as the inbox is moved to the trash, anything they typed would be inverted. And if they restarted their machines, the inverted text would spread throughout their desktop icons, documents, browsers, et cetera, et cetera. Their screen colors and resolutions, though, would remain right. Charls would have to commend them for their intelligence, after all. And instead of a box of doom at the corner, there's a stubborn pop-up window instead that ticks to midnight with Trick or Trick on the title bar.
If anyone thought their machines would explode or erase themselves by the time midnight struck, they would be completely wrong. Their machines would simply restart themselves and boot up as normal -- with no traces of the errant e-mails whatsoever, and no files lost, no credentials hacked. It's just a trick, after all, from the resident IT expert.
Who, by the time it would have run, would be out and about in the city, breathing the fresh air and eating some good dinner. If anyone texted him, they would get no response from him. Or well, they would -- in the form of an automated, Happy Halloween :).