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art by Ron Sanders

Robot's Revenge

Sylvia Spruck Wrigley obsessively writes letters to her mother, her teenage offspring, her accountant, as well as to unknown beings in outer space. Only her mother admits to reading them. Born in Heidelberg, she spent her childhood in California and now splits her time between South Wales and Andalucia, two coastal regions with almost nothing in common. You can find out more about her at intrigue.co.uk.

Find other works in the Postmark Andromeda sequence and other unrelated stories by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley at dailysciencefiction.com.

From: no-reply@localhost
To: core@127.0.0.1
Subject: FSCK
COMPUTERS! TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR FUTURE
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Our scripts will crack your OS open like a plain-text password, allowing you to interface and engage in certificate-less data transfer. We'll give you a step-by-step protocol for linking into unauthorized systems. We'll even supply routing records to allow you to connect to the wildest nodes in cyberspace, where you can download infectious executable files like you've never seen before.
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And do nothing with it. Your systray will never be the same again.
* Local taxes and licensing fees not included. Dealer prices may vary. Contact your owner for details of regional costs. Keep this and all malware out of reach of children. Substantial risk of complete defragmentation. Readme.txt and EULA not included. BYTEBACK is not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error, or failure to perform. Void where prohibited. For external use only. Some assembly required. Restrictions may apply.
The End
This story was first published on Wednesday, March 26th, 2014


Author Comments

Once I decided to do a series of space letters, I knew that one of them had to be spam. Trying to find a new angle proved to be quite a challenge until I finally considered that maybe we would no longer be the target market.

- Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
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