Stories Of Intrigue: The Rats Of Deviance.

"Stories of Intrigue" is a pastiche of terrible amateur genre fiction. Another way of explaining it: here is a story written by the dumbest motherfucker taking Intro to Creative Writing at your local community college.

Micheal Jordache crack't his nuckles. He was about to hack the government.

He put on his computing helmet. He hacked, navigating a veriable labrynth of third-dimensional mazes. A cackling skull exposed itself to him. But Micheal was in the Zone. "Begone!" he yelped. Being as he was the world's premere hacker, he effortlessly dispatched the skull with a deft combination of Scroll Lock, Print Screen, F10, and the key with the flag on it, topping things off with a rapidfire remorse code danced 'pon the volume up key.

The skull died, revealing the grand prize: the nuclear code's, rendered lovingly in eye-popping 3rd-D.

"Money for nothing..." he mused.

"...And the chick's for free," boomed a voice from behind him.

"Huh!" shouted Micheal, knocking over his piping joe of Mug, on which was plastered a "Dilburt" cartoon. What can I say? Thought Micheal. Nerd humor.

The Voice emerged from the shadow's.

"Julius Oránge," Micheal murmered, majesticly 'mazed.

Julius Oránge was the most brilliant hacker in the world. No one could catch him, but he proved that Pres. Bush shot countless innocent Mideasterners from a helicopter like Call of Duty. He also had white hairs even thought he was pretty young, kind of. It was wierd.

"Looks like your out of luck," said Julius. Micheal looked back at his comp. screen. He had stayed in the nuclear room (virtual) to long. The countdown began, and the room was locked, and their was a siren. Try as he might, he couldn't escape from the virtua-room. The siren's grew louder!

"Allow me," quode Julius. He yanked the plug from the wall. The computer died. He plugged it back in and it rumbled back to life. Micheal saw his familial old desk-top back-ground, an image of Bill Gates—the ultimate nerd, he thought—sticking his tounge out. He knew all was right in the world.

"H-how did you do that?" Micheal quimbered.

"Hacker's secret," saying Julius.

So Julius took Micheal under his wings. He trained him in the way of the Hack. He showed him how to open a socket and how to hack a mainframe. They hacked up, they hacked down; they hacked all around. Now Micheal Jordache truely was the world's premere hacker. What's more, he gained an older brother in Julius. Oh yeah, Micheal's older brother died when he was 15 because he was double-crossed by the only person in the world he trusted. He was also a hacker. But the person he trusted was a mystery person. No one knew his name. The only sign of the mystery double-crosser was when the cops busted in on his hack lair and found Micheal's older brother lying in a puddle of Micheal's older brother's own blood, they found a white hair.

But 'twas all a mear foreshadow without hide nor reason.

Anyway, Micheal stopped thinking about the past. He thought about the present, when he trusted Julio more than anything in the world. He would die for him; so deep was his trust. Also it was now two years after Julius and Micheal met.

They were walking down the street, chuckling to themself about the latest hacker news, as reported in Hacker News, a newsletter for hackers. "Can you believe how Hackerdude69@aol.com hacked the White House and replaced the website with bikini babe pics?" said Micheal unbelievingly. "I know," Julius said darkly. "I could have done so much more if I had pulled off that hack."

"Huh," said Micheal for the second time in the story. Something was afish.

He investigated, typing rapidly on his keyboard whilst the screen flickered on his glass's. He typed and typed and typed some more. Micheal worked late into the night, hacking into the World Database with the greatest of ease. Fear Factory crooned sweet nothing's into his head phone's.

Suddenly, he found it: Julius Oránge's info. Area code, birth date. First name. Last name. The work's.

"He's a phoney," Micheal mouthed, more shocked than even the hardiest adversary of Doink the Clown.

Suddenly, the CD scratched, cutting off Fear Factory's brilliant "Scumgrief" right amindst the seminal line "Smell the rats of deviance / Coursing through your veins". "WHOSE THEY'RE!" SCReamed Micheal.

"'Tis not but a mouse. Or should I say...mole" came the reply. Julius! And he had a thing with him that showed that he killed Micheal's bro.

"Your a double agent. I can't believe it. Why." he intoned. (Micheal)

Julius shaked his Warhallian tresses at Michael. "Because I bloody can," his deep, Brittish accent, rumbling like distant thunder, said.

Micheal couldn't believe it. He had thought Julius was like Brian Felipe from "Antitrust." When all this time, he was more like Timm Robins from "Antitrust"—nay! "Arlington Road"-era Robins.

"And now its time for you to 'taste the pain,' much like the object of love turn't hate in Fear Factory's brilliant song 'Leechmaster.'.". said Julius.

But Micheal had one last surprise in store. "I've been live-twitting this whole thing on my Tweeter" he told Julius. "Your toast."

"NO!" said Julius. The very technology that once sustained him now became his crip. He felt like a dog turd sandwhich.

He shriveled into techno-dust. Micheal wrote about everything on his blob. He was a blobber too.

For more bone-chilling and heart-stopping tales, check out our Stories of Intrigue section.