I've updated this tale several times as tech moves on...
===

Apartment 704 was easy to find. Off the right end of a dreary corridor, with walls, floor and ceiling a palimpsest of half-scrubbed graffiti, it had shatter-proof mirrors on side and facing walls plus two peep-holes.

I leaned on the call button. "PC Recovery Services."

You cannot be sure with those semi-silvered lenses, but I felt scanned high and low. At last, bolts and locks were drawn, and the door opened to its twin crash-chains' limit. I glimpsed tired eyes, a drawn face, loose, dark, drab clothes, ill-hidden fear, a haunted air. Her untidy, collar length brunette hair was gathered severely behind her thin neck, her chipped nails were varnished black. Too thin, though not quite anorexic, she could have been a librarian or clerk, passed over for promotion once too often, and dressed the way she felt.

"PC Recovery Services; Your hard drive--"

"Your ID ?"

I showed it.

"Come in !" She snapped. Releasing the chains, she opened the door just wide enough for me to sidle through. I noticed that the folding strut which stopped it swinging further was more solid than most.

"Ms Jones ? I'm Pete Souness, 'PC Recovery Services'; Your hard drive--"

"The desk's through there."

"Okay--"

I'd barely cleared the threshold when she slammed the door and set the bolts again. I ducked two wind-chimes and a dream-catcher in the short hall-way, pushed between opaque privacy curtains. A wave of incense hit me. I sneezed, then gagged on the fumes. Fumbling out my asthma inhaler, I sucked hard.

When the drug hit and I could breathe freely again, I looked around. The bed-sit area was seriously 'Gothic'. Midnight-dark drapes covered every inch of wall, the narrow couch-bed and a sagging recliner chair. The ceiling was painted black, the wood floor stained to match. A deep bowl on the low, circular coffee table held a smoking incense candle. The only real light came from twin ultraviolet CFLs in the ceiling's shabby fitting.

"The desk ?" I wheezed.

She pushed past me, her unfashionable, ankle length dress almost hiding her bare feet. Rounding the table, she pulled the drapes away from an alcove to show the narrow desk within. An old 80cm flat-screen was hard against the back wall, just below an ornate sun-disk. Cables trailed down the desk's left mouse-hole to a generic 'midi' system case in that corner.

"Thank you." I landed my tote-bag then studied her well-used wireless keyboard and mouse. A few seconds sufficed to eliminate coffee, BBQ sauce and/or spiff-ash from my usual suspects. "The drive's crashed ?"

"I think so."

"Did you have a power failure ?"

"No."

"Was there any warning ? A bang or screech ?"

"No. It just went wild and shut down."

"Okay." That limited the failure modes. "May I switch on ?"

"Yes."

I counted the beeps. "BIOS okay. Graphics okay. Windows_10 ? Old, but reliable-- Fails mid-boot, no safe mode. All as you said." I nodded politely. "Uh, in case I can't boot from my disks, how recent are your back-ups ?"

"Original system disks." She pointed to the left-hand desk drawer. "And last month's back up... But a lot's happened since then."

She was much younger than I'd thought, younger than her bitter voice and old-fashioned clothes. A religious amulet at her neck caught the UV and almost glowed.

"Okay," I said. "They're the safety net. Let's see what my survey disk can find."

I fed a CD onto the tray, pressed the reset button. The software suite loaded and set to work. Its pass slowly spattered the top half of the screen with scarlet. It was an unusual pattern, one I didn't recognise. "Uh, your main drive's trashed... What were you working on ?"

"Don't ask."

"None of my business." I nodded politely. "But that's the bad news-- Looks like your mirror drive's okay."

"Huh ?"

"You didn't know ? So who built your system ?"

"Nephew."

"He did good: The mirror software saw the main disk crash, dropped the link. Hmm... This damage pattern's not one I've seen before. I can't just swap them because whatever did this could have tainted the mirror drive. I'll have to sanitise the system first. So, I need to know what went wrong. It would help if I knew what were you working on..."

She shook her head.

"Please, give me a clue..."

She nibbled a knuckle, then whispered, "The document was cursed..."

"Well, I've used strong language when a virus locked horns with my fire-wall--"

"You don't understand !" Angry, she looked young, but haunted. "It was the document I scanned !"

"Ah... You're using Text Bridge ?"

"Yes, but..."

"Sounds like a Thes/Ogre variant." She didn't react, so I went on, "Lies doggo until your spell-checker throws up a key word or phrase. If it takes something like 'Joe', 'Bloggs' and 'Dismissed' they're known as 'Business Bombs'...

I waited. She didn't say anything.

"So, I'll have to sanitise the lexicon, Text Bridge, the mirror drive and even your flash BIOS. The 'C' drive must be fully re-formatted at low level to clear any lurkers, so I'll have to take your system case apart and pull the drive...

"I can do the system cleanse while the re-format's running, but we're talking three or four hours. Could take longer. Probably cheaper to wipe your system, invest in some cutting-edge virus protection and start again...

"You're welcome to get a second opinion." I waited. She didn't say anything. "Look, this won't come cheap. I'll go sit in my car for ten minutes. You've got my number; If you don't ring, I'll drive away and I don't charge for this visit...

"Or do you want your nephew to sit in ?"

"He recommended you." She bit her lip. "But he's in New York."

"Take a coffee break and weigh the costs." I advised.

"No." She stated, quietly but firmly.

"Okay." I ejected my disk, slipped it into its case then closed my tote-bag. Powering down her system, I turned to go. "I'm sorry I'm too expensive--"

"No, no ! I meant I don't need time to think ! I need that file-- I must have that translation !"

"Okay..." I hesitated. "Do you have the original document ?"

"Burned to ash..." She muttered. "Thought I'd be safe..."

"Okay, I'll give it a shot." I peered under the desk. "I'll need a couple of power points plus space to work. Uh, this desk-top and the coffee table should be enough; Don't mind me if I sit on the floor...

"Uh, if you do coffee, could you make mine meek and wilky ? And, sorry, I'll need better light and fresh air."

She narrowed her eyes. "You don't want to take it away ?"

"This is obviously personal, private and confidential-- Could you let it out of your sight ?"

"No..." She began to draw the heavy drapes. I was surprised to see they were on curtain rails rather than just hung from the walls. Given the decor, the bunch of herbs pinned to the window sash belonged. She kept drawing drapes; The revealed uplighters, she clicked on. At last, she came to an extract fan, which she switched to 'boost'.

"Thank you." I unplugged her PC, laid the case on an antistatic mat on the low table. I checked the live/earth/neutral of the nearest power point with a safety widget then, getting three greens, I attached an earthing lead and clipped that to the mat.

The case soon came apart in my trained hands. "Nifty four-square board: Four Gig RAM, quad-core AMD processor. BigBlue re-writer. Twin terabyte drives... Actually, this is a nice set-up..." I pulled her SATA cables from the drives, linked the second drive to my tablet PC via a 'fire-brick' interface, turned ASPIC loose then went data-diving.

After twenty minutes, I came up for air. "Hmm ? Was your word processor set to save every minute ?"

"I... I think so."

I twitched fingers across the tablet's virtual controls. "Was this it ? Oh Three Twenty Nine this morning ?"

"I... I think so."

"ASPIC claims it is clean." I opened the document.

She traced the archaic latin spelling with a well-chewed index finger. "Yes, yes, yes. And I remember that phrase ! But it looked different, a lot more ornate..."

"I'm using a default font and template." I shrugged. "Got a thumb-drive handy ? Thanks." I saved the document thrice, to be sure, to be sure, then slipped the write-lock across. "Okay, there you go: Keep it safe." She gripped it so tightly her knuckles were white. "Now we'll go hunting."

Her fonts were clean, if weird. Her style templates were full of mirror scripts, subscripts, superscripts, ellipses and a dozen other ornamental thingummies I'd never seen outside a history book. "Scanning, scanning. Standard lexicon is clean-- Ah ! There's a third-party plug-in for Text Bridge-- Whoah !!"

The 'firebrick' squawked. ASPIC's side-bars woke to streaks of colour and a cascade of code. The battle lasted about ten seconds, an eternity at processor level. Then ASPIC reported, 'YUM, THAT WAS FUN !'

"Phew !" I rubbed my still-itchy nose and studied the codes. "I've never seen that one before-- Or those two together !! And, d'uh, I didn't think this pairing was possible outside a Mac ! Oh, well, let's have a look at that plug-in's fancy font..."

I switched to a map format, slid the magnifying cursor across. "Wow ! It bypassed ASPIC's template and style traps, hung up on the fire-brick's second trap-door...

"It's an ill wind: This looks so strange, it may be a new virus variant. If so, you may get a bounty when I call it in."

She bit her lip. "What does it look like ?"

That was an odd question, but I was prepared to humour her. "Just a gob of hex."

She shuddered. I belatedly remembered that 'hex' had another, more traditional meaning.

"Does it have a... A structure ?"

That, too, was an odd question. The fact she asked it intrigued me enough to click into the more arcane facilities of ASPIC. "Let's see..." Reverse engineering was not something I usually did, but I set that tool to work. A map developed, morphing as the software decompiled and cross-referenced the code. "Uh, it's self-modifying... And wwweb-aware. Okay, ASPIC's running well. Let's see what we have."

" 'Caution: Source code derived from this facility must *ONLY* be used for study. Wanton release of any computer virus, worm and/or data-bomb is subject to penalties of...' Okay, okay, okay: Show me."

The screen showed an untidy flow diagram, scaled it smaller and smaller as the de-code grew. Links bridged the different sections like an untidy spider's web. Then ASPIC blinked, brought up a boxed message, 'Reformatting'.

An ugly face built on the screen, one with horns, fangs and slitted eyes.

Ms. Jones screamed.

I stared at the wild visage for a few moments, shook my head. "What sort of psycho concocts a virus this devious then makes it look pretty--"

"You-- " Ms. Jones struggled. "You think that is PRETTY ?"

"Ugly as sin," I admitted. "But to get any pattern beyond pure utility...!

She clenched both hands. "I told you it was cursed !"

I carefully dumped it and the source code to a sterile thumb-drive, stuck an 'Extreme Hazard' label over the cap. "That's one ! Go to it, ASPIC !"

You can hide a lot in graphic files, and her documents were laden with links to animated titles, dropped capitals, ornate borders, seals and such. I began working through them. The first was a large, wax seal. That same ugly face sneered out from a ring of archaic script and weird symbols.

I heard a sob. I turned quickly. Ms. Jones was on her knees, clutching her amulet.

"Are we getting warmer ?"

She nodded.

"Okay, this file's much too big. To start with, it has a VRML core, a big one... Let's dig around... That's odd--"

ASPIC squawked, froze the 'script, put up a rare warning, 'Photic Driver'.

"Bastard !" I allowed myself, digging into my virtual toolkit. "Let's see your Fourier profile--" I stared in wonder at the results appearing in multiple windows. "That's one hell of a nested trap-- It has a morphing auto-stereogram, flickers at optical driver frequency, plus subliminal text and two ultrasonic frequencies with a sub-sonic beat...

"It would hold your gaze just long enough to trash your disk, leave a hypnotic suggestion and possibly give you a seizure...

"Your nephew really did good: His 'mirror' set-up saved your sanity, and perhaps your life."

"But... But, who'd do such a thing ??" She whispered. "I've never hurt anyone !"

"I... I don't think it was personal." I sucked my teeth as ASPIC accumulated more findings. "Uh, remember the Code War ? 'The Crash of '18' ?"

She nodded. "An aunt nearly died when her plane landed short. All the shops went to 'Cash Only' for that week. We had to use pen and paper at school..."

"Well, the Code War was a lot bigger and nastier than that..." I studied ASPIC's latest finding, which confirmed my growing suspicion. "There'd been enough DDOS Blitzes, site take-downs and their like before that, but '10 saw it get serious. The first version of StuxNet targeted Siemens' industrial controllers...

"It showed up in Iran, screwed their nuclear enrichment facilities. Well, they blamed Mossad and the CIA, of course."

"Of course," she nodded.

"Just shows even the hyper-paranoid can be right occasionally. Well, the Germans blamed an Italian hacker team. Indian authorities went hunting a team of mercenary BlackHats based in Mumbai. Japanese broke up a big BotNet run from Honshu. Russians reined in a rabid ultra-nationalistic group..." I studied ASPIC's progress and, based on a hunch, steered one of its attack vectors to a different entry point. "Late '14 saw the first iteration of StyxNet--"

"That sounds evil..."

"It was." I shuddered. "And it got personal when viruses began using photic drivers..."

"Epilepsy ?"

"Uh-huh." I terminated a stalled vector, launched an alternate. "At first, it was subliminal, gradually reducing its victims' flicker threshold. People went down with Sick-Building Syndrome-- migraines and faints. Then it added post-hypnotics to force fugues. There were a lot of bizarre 'accidents'. As the months went by, it evolved. Soon, it was entraining pulse and respiration...

"Symptoms looked like mass hysteria or the start of 'legionella', but people began dropping dead...

"Official line was a 'Swine 'Flu' variant, and it did coincide with a seasonal outbreak." ASPIC's status lines began blinking. "Aha ! We've made contact !" With that hook placed, ASPIC went for the kill. A dozen vectors lit, prompting a cascade. I studied the emerging pattern, grinned. "Making progress !"

"Is this StyxNet ?"

"Uh-huh. Well, Symantech, Kapersky and the rest of the anti-virus industry began ramping up to deal with it. The Source Forge community mounted their own response. They'd had several high profile casualties, which made it a grudge match..." On screen, ASPIC was tightening a virtual noose. "My cousin Phil worked in CGI, lost a co-worker. Team donated several man-months and a chunk of render-farm cycles...

"I was a student intern --Sneaker Net and GoFor-- so had a ringside seat. Well, we decompiled a core module. Even I could see it was a truly evil piece of work-- Compact, re-entrant, weaponised, with anti-tamper code--" ASPIC bleeped and flashed up, 'That Was Fun, Too !' "Gotcha !" I crowed. "Now for the salvage team !" I typed briefly, sent another program in to scour the battlefield. "Okay, now ASPIC knows what to look for, it should be done in five minutes..." I shook my head. "StyxNet evolved, thanks to its genetic algorithms, but sicko BlackHats added plug-ins--"

"But who-- ?"

"No-one ever claimed the original, though some of the plug-ins' coders are known. Best guess, the monster ate its master..."

"Huh ?"

"It's... It's like finding your cute coral snake has grown into a spitting cobra."

"Poetic justice." She nodded.

"Truly !" I nodded, too, pointed a finger at one item on the growing list. "That font is much too big for the points it supports. It looks harmless and, most of the time, it is. Font extensions to support animated GIFs were meant for smileys, but an ingenious coder found a way to embed applets. After the novelty wore off, that meant each and every letter of a font could be a Trojan Horse or worse. Crucially, each character might only contain a harmless module. But, invoked in the correct sequence, they'd combine and rampage..." I used due care. Letter by letter, I dissected that ornate font, stymying their scripts, deconstructing GIFs, tweaking them to work outside photic driver frequencies.

"Phew !" I came up for a breather and a chance to clunk my knuckles. "This is hard work !"

"Bad ?"

"Dire..." I pointed to the florid 'F'. "The evil seal was showy, flashy stuff, but this is all business, does the same in a tenth the code." I slid a glance to the analysis. "Nested grief: Its primary effect is to writhe a bit. Put together with several other letters, you get an animated auto-stereogram that sucks you in. When one flag's set, it has a subliminal effect I haven't nailed. When two flags are in place, it goes into mild photic driver mode. There's a three-flag mode that's a full-on mugging. One chunk of script looks like part of a web browser."

"It could dial out ?"

"Looks like it..." I studied the code, tapped its target URL into a ring-fenced browser on my tablet. "Astrology ?"

"I know that site !" She pointed. "Look at the dates !"

"One flag for a Full Moon, two for an Equinox, three for Halloween..."

"But why me ? I'm not a practising Wicca !"

"Caught in the crossfire..." I set the 'F' to safe, began on the 'G'. "Uh, if it isn't a silly question, what were you doing ?"

"It's not exactly mainstream..."

"Hey, I played D&D with my cousins and the neighbour's twins-- A Baptist aunt came across some of our work and got quite a scare..."

"Ahh..." She said slowly, then speeded up. "It's one of the classic alchemy texts-- I'm a History post-grad: I spent two years researching it, and it's a head-f**king hoax !!"

"Uh, well, it would be more correct to say it was hijacked..."

She looked at me sideways.

"When you ran TextBridge, it searched for a match to the font. As soon as that loaded up, bad stuff happened." I went on, "When I've house-broken this font, it will be defanged, mostly harmless."

"Ahhh... Ah ?"

"Look, there's not many private IT guys who've worked with this stuff. After the Code War, most White Hats mutated into Management or were gagged by NDAs. I was too young, too lippy and only on the books as an Intern: I slipped under the radar...

"You said  the plain text wasn't enough-- Well, when I'm done here, you'll have all the illuminated characters, too." I grinned at her growing relief. "It's going to be as close to the original as you can get--"

"Minus fangs--"

"And time-bombs." I nodded. "The really good news is this is serious war-code, which knocks the bounty up to a new level. I reckon we'll be splitting five thousand."

"Ah..." Her persistent frown melted to a broad smile. "You said this will take a couple of hours ?"

"Mostly grunt-work now ASPIC has the scent."

"I was going to send out for pizza-- Do you like Veggy ?"

"Anything but Anchovies, Ms. Jones !"

"Julie to my friends."

            

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Here we go!