text: Eric was a computer nerd. He accepted this as his fate in life. Ever since elementary school, he was the subject of constant bullying. His black-framed glasses, overweight size, and unkempt hair made him the subject of far too many practical jokes. These jokes hurt and cut deep. In fact, that action shaped his future. In high school, to ease the pain of lack of friends and name-calling, he considered himself a kind of computer wiz. He excelled in all his math and computer classes. In time, he retreated into his computers. Soon he was writing computer code and programs and inventing new video games. One of his ideas was to bring the world into his bedroom, his fortress of solitude. One of his unique programs would combine locations with real-time pictures of that location. Eric figured out a way to have pinpoint accuracy so that he could zero in on a particular tree, vehicle, or person. This concept was by far more advanced than anything available to anyone, including the military. Using GPS coordinates, it appeared like specific popular map programs but far superior. He was excellent at writing computer code. With the result, he was not always sure how it would turn out or how he got there. During this time, he worked at a computer tech firm to keep his knowledge current. The company loved him, but the other employees just continued the bullying of avoidance and name-calling. Soon his new life’s schedule became Monday through Friday from 7 am to 4 pm time devoted to work, and every available minute after that would be spent on updating and fine-tuning his new location program. Eric had two driving forces. One was the love of inventing a new video game and one, a different one, that of revenge. As the ideas for the new game grew, so did his revenge. He never dated and rarely left his small apartment except to shop for food or go to work. A prototype of the new game was that he was able to focus in on anything he wanted and program the game to follow that item. He first tried it out on a bus. It worked well. No matter what street the bus traveled on, the bus was crystal clear on Eric’s large monitor’s screen. He could not explain how this was possible, but it was happening. The excitement was overwhelming. There were no cameras following the bus. It was all done via a GPS system he developed by accident. The next trial of the program was to follow a person. He picked a cute young lady. He locked the application in on her location, and what happened next was beyond amazing. This young lady entered her house, closed the front door, and walked into her kitchen. Eric was stunned. She was there on his computer screen, he was staring at the monitor and watching this young lady prepare her lunch. This event was, to Eric, totally unbelievable. He could not comprehend his success. He immediately shut the computer down. A fear came over him. What if that lady found out? What if the government found out? Can I delete this information? And then he thought, maybe I should keep it because there were so many computer program levels of protection and firewalls. He rebooted the computer and opened his new program. In the search bar, he typed the last location of the young lady. Within a second or two, he was watching her again in her kitchen. From a nerd point of view, he believed he would become the greatest nerd ever. Over the next few months, while keeping the cover of employment, he continued to tweak his new video game. He found a way to delete the memory so there would be no trace back to him. He found a way to split the screen into two different locational targets. The possibilities filled his mind, also, the questions. Questions about should he keep this a secret or share this incredible invention. Eric, the nerd, kept this all to himself. Why would he share anything with a world that made fun of him and never let him join in? This was his idea, his brainchild, his way of dealing with all the pain and suffering provided by others. To Eric, life was good now. He settled into his new routine: work and this video game. His work improved as he seemed happier. He was still a friendless nerd, but his attitude changed. He went to work as positive as he could and left work as quickly as he could; he did not participate in any event his company had. He was pleasant at work, but no one ever contacted him after work. To him, this was all good. About six months later, he felt the new video game was perfect, but he had an excellent idea. He wrote it down, and for the next week, every day reviewed and studied his notes. He was torn between following the new path or just enjoying what he had. This went on for weeks. He tried hard not to let this indecision affect him, especially at work. The turning point was when a senior computer programmer at work began to ridicule him. Eric now was suffering again from fat jokes, glasses jokes, and of course, the loneliness jokes. Eric did not realize he had a lot of vacation time built up. He requested four weeks off. The company seemed relieved to give him the time off. It was a Friday his last day before vacation. He methodically removed much of his belongings from his cubical. He did not want to return to this place. His goodbyes were short. He was almost invisible while there, so he would not be missed when he was on vacation. The last person he said goodbye to was the computer programmer that was his new source of problems. He walked up to him and shook his hand. The guy was a bit taken back. He smiled in that sort of fake way, and Eric smiled back suspiciously. And with that, Eric left for his apartment. On the way home, Eric stopped to buy enough food to last a few weeks so he would not have to leave his apartment. He had plans, and he had ideas that needed to be finalized and quickly implemented, all without any interruptions. Eric could not explain to himself how this worked. He needed to experiment to find answers. One bright Sunday morning, he picked Sunday as a day when fewer people were out. He located a tree three blocks away from his apartment. With laser focus, he zeroed in and started to record what was on the monitor. He walked over to the tree and searched for the direction where a camera would be. He found none. He went back to his apartment and reviewed the recording. It was like he stumbled onto a dimensional gap. He could not explain this, nor did he want to. All he knew was that he found it and it was exciting. But he was not done with his experiment. He had the television news on the background during his tests. The story was about weaponizing words, weaponizing race, it seems everything was now weaponized. This gave Eric ideas. An old video game in his closet under a bag of old clothes was a Call to Arms type game. Could it work, would not know until he tried. So, Eric took the video game handgun and wrote code so that this item would be incorporated into his new game. Failure and failure. Maybe Eric had embarked on something that could not be done. He became obsessed with finding a way to connect the video handgun into his new game. Meanwhile, the senior programmer was also filling his mind. This jerk went out of his way to attack Eric. Every day while on vacation, Eric became madder and madder. ‘He will pay,’ thought Eric. Then without knowing, Eric wrote the code needed to include the video handgun into the game. He immediately located his favorite testing tree. He held his breath as it pointed the handgun sights on the monitor towards the tree. When the center of the tree was directly in line, he pulled the trigger once. Looking at the monitor and looking at the tree, he saw a bit of bark fly from the tree. Could it possible. Did he somehow hit the tree? How was that possible? Eric ran, maybe for the first time in his life, to the tree. He observed some pieces of bark missing. He took a felt-tipped marker from his pocket and drew a small three-inch circle about head height on the tree. Back at his apartment, he focused the sights on the center of that circle. He aimed, fired, and bark from within the circle flew off the tree. Not only did this work, but it was the perfect weapon. Basically, from out of nowhere, a pulse of some kind stuck the target leaving zero evidence of what happened or who fired the shot. It was at this time that Eric began to formalize his quest for revenge against those who made fun of him. He felt it was his turn to, as he said, turn the tables. He made a list of those he wanted to seek out and correct their misbehavior towards him. The list grew each day. Being the nerd he was, he began to rank his targets in order of being shot. And always the computer programmer, that jerk at work, held the number one position. But Eric did not want to start at the top. He wanted to work his way up so that when it came to number one, there would be no problems, just results. The day arrived for the first real test. He reviewed his list and decided on a girl that rejected him back in high school. He put her name and home location in the search bar of the program. With a bit of sweat on his brow, he pushed the enter button. Within seconds she was on the monitor. Wow, this was so unreal, but it was real. Eric followed her via the monitor. After about four or five minutes, which seemed more like four or five hours, Eric believed he was ready. He told himself she could have gone out with him. She should have gone out with him. She was now directly in the middle of the sight picture on the monitor. He fired. He watched her fall. There was a puff of smoke, a small ruffle of clothing, and she fell. He just stared at the monitor screen. Soon others were running over to the girl. Eric could not look away. Police, an ambulance, all arrived at her prone body on the ground. Later that night, on the news, there was a report of a young lady found dead. No cause or explanation was given. Eric knew her name before the news reporter spoke it. Weirdly, Eric rejoiced. Part of him was happy, while another part seemed sad. He now had power. This was all new to him. He could not explain how this worked; he just knew it worked. The first thing he did was erase the recording of the practice shot against the tree. He then deleted the recent activity. Just in case he thought. It was getting close to the end of his vacation. He was torn between maybe going back to work or just shooting the computer programmer. He chose shooting the programmer. So began the game of stalking the programmer. Three days until the vacation was over and three days left for the programmer. A day later, it was time. Eric had prepared himself for the greatest revenge ever. He typed the programmer’s name and home location into the game’s search bar. Then, there that jerk was on the monitor. He was less than a mile from Eric’s apartment. The programmer was in his backyard sitting on a lounge chair, enjoying a drink, and some reading material. Eric knew this was the last thing the programmer will ever do. Again, the sweat beaded up in his forehead. He felt a bit nervous, but nothing was going to stop him. Carefully the programmer was positioned within the center of the game’s sights. Eric took a deep, long breathe and fired. Nothing happened. Eric immediately checked the sighting position. It was dead on. He checked the handgun connection; it was solid. Eric fired again. Nothing. Confused, Eric rebooted the computer. It took about three minutes to get back running. He opened the program, and the programmer’s information was already on the screen. When everything was lined up again, he fired, nothing happened. Eric was beside himself. He could not figure out what had happened. Everything was good to go, and nothing was out of order. Maybe the programmer knew about the program and had some shield against Eric’s game was created. Eric’s mind was racing out of control. To make matters even worse, there was a brief power surge. This action was more than Eric could handle. He was storming around the apartment and raced over to the compute programmer’s backyard to see for himself what was wrong. He left the apartment. Meanwhile, a power surge had rebooted the computer again. Eric was, for the second time in his life, actually running. He arrived at the backyard and observed the programmer sleeping. He went up to him ever so slowly and without making a sound. He heard the programmer snoring. Eric stood over the programmer and looked back in the direction he knows the pulses should have come from. He just stood there, adjusted his glasses, and looked back toward that direction. Three pulses struck Eric as the computer had rebooted while he was gone, and for an unknown reason, still was programmed to fire at the location in the search bar. Eric felt the pulses enter his body and, without any other thought or movement, fell back, dead before he hit the ground. Eric was gone, and with him, all the secrets of this game were gone forever.