The information superhighway, or Internet, is similar to your typical interstate. It has several places to get off and on. It can be traveled at a high rate of speed. It can lead you to places where you weren't planning on going. It also has criminals.
Romulus Edinburgh is your typical everyday high school kid with one exception: he's a murderer. Romulus has long black hair tied back in a ponytail. He has gray eyes and an extremely pale complexion (the type that would be on a corpse that has been dead for about a month). He usually wears a black leather trench coat. His tongue and left eyebrow are both pierced. He also carries a laptop computer wherever he goes. His mind is like a computer.
Romulus looks at his alarm clock. It reads 4:47 a.m. He is supposed to be getting ready for school in less than fifteen minutes. He has been on the Internet all night trying to hack into various sites. But now he decides to take it one step further. He decides to try to do something that will prove to his friends that he was there.
The alarm clock reads 4:59 a.m. He has found a site called Central County Hospital. He pulls out his book of passwords and starts typing. His alarm clock rings. His mom knocks on the door and yells, "Rommy, wake up!" His mom opens the door and sees that Romulus is looking at the power grid of Central County Hospital. She swats him in the back of the head and says, "Are you hacking again?" He ignores her and continues typing. She continues, "You can go to prison for that kind of stuff." He mumbles "Stupid bitch" just soft enough that all she can hear is a sound. She stomps out of his room.
The alarm clock reads 5:30 a.m. He turns off the power for room 613. He then disconnects from the Internet. He grabs his backpack and starts walking to school. In his computer class he starts thinking about all the times his mom has nagged him saying, "Clean your room, take out the trash, walk the dog, go to bed, etc." He then pulled his laptop out of his backpack and plugged the phone cord into the wall. While his teacher was lecturing on the basics of the Internet, Romulus was hacking into the computers at his mother's work.
Romulus looks at the little clock at the bottom of his screen. His watch reads 11:45 a.m. He is into the head computer and has found the program that controls the elevators. He sets a timer to go off at around 4:00 p.m. He then disconnects from the Internet and heads for the cafeteria.
The clock on the wall reads 1:00 p.m. Romulus is eating lunch in the cafeteria with his friends. There are three of them. All of them are wearing black leather trench coats. They are sitting at a four-person booth (kind of like the ones at McDonalds). Right next to him is a tall guy built like a linebacker in the NFL. He has a tattoo of an ankh on the underside of his left forearm. His name is Lex. Directly across from Lex is a petite red-haired female. She has blue eyes and her name is Katherine. Right next to Katherine is her boyfriend James. He has short blonde hair with a flat-top haircut.
His watch reads 1:30 p.m. They finish eating and sit at the booth talking.
James says to Romulus "So, did you do anything last night?"
Romulus grins and says, "Check the local news."
James connects up to the Internet on his laptop. He brings up the local news and scrolls through it. "What should I be looking for?" said James.
"Something to do with Central County Hospital." says Romulus.
James goes to the hospitals, then to Central County Hospital. He sees the headline Central County Hospital: 2 dead from mysterious power outage. James' eyes bug out. His face turns about as pale as Romulus' is normally.
Romulus says, "What's wrong?"
James turns the laptop around and says, "Did you do this?" Romulus nods and grins evilly. He now realizes he has power over people. He controls whether they live or die. Lex, James, and Katherine walk off without Romulus.
He looks at his watch. It reads 2:00 p.m. He gets up and walks out of the cafeteria. He walks down the hall towards his next class, then stops at the door. He then thinks, "I guess my friends will have to die, too." He walks past his classroom and out the door. He heads home. He walks up to his bedroom and lies down to sleep.
At the same time, Lex, James, and Katherine left the cafeteria and headed for the student parking lot. They jump in Katherine's car and leave the parking lot with a nice long screech of their tires. She drives to Romulus's mother's workplace. She pulls up right on the sidewalk, jumps out of the car and runs into the building. They walk up to the elevator and push the call button. The doors open and Lex pushes the button labeled "19."
The alarm clock reads 3:00 p.m. Romulus is still asleep. At the office Katherine, Lex, and James get out of the elevator and walk down the hall. They knock on a door labeled Edinburgh. A woman's voice says, "Come in." They herd into the room and she says, "Katherine, Lex, and James, why aren't you in school?" They approach her and she sees the look on their faces and says, "What's wrong?" James pulls out his laptop and lays it on her desk. He brings up the page from his hard drive and turns the screen towards her.
James sternly states, "Romulus did this." Her face turns white and she starts crying.
Katherine puts her arms around her and hugs her. Katherine says, "He needs help."
The alarm clock reads 4:00 p.m. Ms. Edinburgh, Katherine, Lex, and James are back in the elevator and Ms. Edinburgh pushes the button labeled "1". The elevator starts to slowly go down. When it reaches the 15th floor, it starts to speed up considerably. The elevator crashes on the first floor crushing all four of their bodies.
The alarm clock reads 6:00 p.m. On the news, an anchorwoman talks about the accident. Romulus wakes up to it and sees the news. Behind the anchorwoman he sees the wrecked elevator and part of a black leather trenchcoat. He says, "Cool, I killed two birds with one stone," and grins. He then clicks off the TV and goes back to sleep.
Be careful about the people you associate with at school, work, home, on the phone, and on the Internet, especially. On the Internet one could say that he is a 50-yr. old reverend, when in reality he is a 17-yr. old perverted teenager. The Internet is a nice place to go, but don't go there with your eyes closed.
Back to My Writings...