Ghost in the PowerShell

I call him Dominic.

It was a quiet Saturday the day we met. A Saturday I thought I’d spend alone. I had no plans except to sit at my computer and play video games. I might not have owned a gun in real life, but I was one heck of a gunman on the internet.

The day started like any other weekend. Not quite awake, I bashed my finger against the front of my computer tower three times before I found the power button. I let it whir to life while I fixed a cup of fragrant, slightly-sweet coffee to bring me to life. Steaming cup in hand, I plopped into my chair as the words “Hello, William!” greeted me on screen, prompting me for a password.

My fingers punched the keys before my brain remembered what my password was. With another sip of the most magical of all beverages, I double-clicked the icon that would load my game. Nothing was going to interrupt my relaxing day of shooting pixels at other pixels.

The first few matches went fairly well. My team lost the first round, but the next two, we trounced them! My coffee cup was empty, and I was settled into my groove. It was the fourth game when I first noticed something strange. My gun changed. Hadn’t I had my assault rifle out? When had I switched to my handgun?

I shook it off. I must have bumped the button by mistake. It happens. I switched back to the assault rifle and took down another two enemies before ducking into a storage shed to reload.

The next two games proved that either I was clumsier with my key presses than usual or there was a problem with my keyboard. Again and again, my gun changed at random moments. When it got me killed, that was it!

I picked up my keyboard and slammed it down on my desk. "What a piece of junk!" I yelled.

I ripped my headset off my head and stormed out of my room, empty coffee cup in hand. My feet attacked the tile floor as I stomped to the kitchen. I wound up my arm and prepared to pitch my mug at the wall. Only the voice of my ex-girlfriend kept my grip tight on the ceramic.

“You can’t keep losing your temper like this over a game!”

I sucked in a deep breath and forcefully set my mug down on the counter. She was right. This was no reason to lose my cool. There was a common-sense solution to this. I’d just go buy a new keyboard. Going for the drive would cool my head and it would be a simple fix.

An hour later, I unboxed a shiny, new keyboard. Wireless. Cool lights. Custom-programmable keys. A shiver crawled down my spine as I brushed my fingers across the keys. I rested my fingers atop the A, S, and D keys, mimicking my game play with the goofiest of smiles. I almost giggled as I unplugged my broken keyboard and slipped the tiny wireless receiver into its place. My computer started up and a rainbow of hues greeted my eyes as they glowed across the keys.

I did giggle, then.

I moved it three times on my desk before I found the perfect position to settle in for a relaxing night of murdering pixels. For half an hour of spectacular bliss, I believed my troubles to be over.

Only for my character to switch guns without my permission.

"No…"

The gun switched again, as if to prove that I wasn’t just imagining it.

“You piece of—”

It switched again. My hand wasn’t even touching the keyboard anymore. I let out a barely-contained scream.

I’m no computer Casanova, but I consider myself to possess above-average knowledge. I tried the obvious solutions first. I swapped hardware, tried different USB ports. I searched for out-of-date drivers and updated every last bit of software on my machine. When I’d exhausted my own knowledge, I turned to the internet.

Many of the solutions were obscure, involving knowledge of the inner workings of my operating system. Each new fix grew increasingly complicated. I rubbed my forehead raw as I muddled my way through complicated shell commands. Dizzying dialog boxes had me pulling out my hair. Words became increasingly difficult to decipher. I scoured forum after forum, reading them over thrice before understanding these new instructions.

But I was determined. I wasn’t going to let this thing beat me! I didn’t want to have to buy a new computer for a problem as minor as this. I was going to triumph over this glitch. But with each failed attempt, my determination faltered and my hope petered out. Perhaps it couldn’t be fixed.

I rubbed my tired, puffy eyes and decided I’d search for one last solution before giving up and watching anime for the rest of my weekend. The cursor blinked expectantly in the search box. I stared at it. What new search could I try that would uncover that one post with the answer I sought? My brain searched futilely for words, but found only haze. My hands sprawled out at either side of my keyboard, achy and worn from hours of failed diagnostics.

I finally picked them up, prepared to type an old search and hope I could find something new on page three or four or five. My fingers hovered over the keys, frozen by the single word in the search box. A word I hadn’t typed.

Hi.

I stabbed the backspace key with furious abandon and the word disappeared. No, it must have been my imagination. I was tired from trying to fix my computer all day. I was seeing things.

The word reappeared. Hi.

A shaky gasp left my lips and I banged once again on the only key that could salvage my sanity. But as fast as I deleted the letters, the words came back.

Hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi….

“This is insane!” I screamed.

Can

I froze, my fingers gripping the armrests of my chair.

Can you see me?

“No…” I muttered under my breath.

The words in the search box disappeared. New ones appeared a second later, letter by letter. Yes, you can.

“Stop it!” I screamed like a madman. My chair crashed to the floor with a rumble as I burst to my feet. I kicked at the computer beneath my desk. With a hollow, metallic crunch, a dent formed in the brushed aluminum side. “This can’t be real!”

The words disappeared only to be replaced by three, new characters. Ow!

After a moment of breathless silence, I collapsed to my knees and yanked the power cord from the wall. Watching wide-eyed for the moment the monster would emerge from my lifeless computer and devour me whole, I scurried across the room. I had officially lost it. At the ripe, old age of twenty-three, I was certifiably insane. Lock me up. Throw away the key. Clearly, there had to be something wrong with me.

Then, the most paranoid of thoughts occurred to me: what if it really could escape? What if it wasn’t confined to the computer? What if it could lurk in the walls? In the refrigerator? In the heater?

I ran from the room, snatched up my keys from the coffee table in the living room, and ran for the door. Squeezing the key fob for my car, I let out a breath as the lights flashed to let me know it was unlocked. I practically dove into the front seat and slammed the door shut with a cushioned THUD behind me. In the confined space of my sedan, my breaths were as quick and heavy as my heartbeat.

My eyes were glued to the front door of my house, as if whatever possessed my computer would open the front door to claim me. A part of my mind berated me for this foolishness. I was hiding from the wind. I was the child who saw demons and monsters in the shadows of molting trees. I was being silly.

But I could not shake this fear. Something had responded to me. It had replied to my voice with letters on the screen. It had expressed pain. Such a thing had to be impossible, right?

Perhaps I was going mad. Surely only an insane man thought his computer could talk back to him, right? But that was the truth of the situation. Either my computer really did communicate with me or I was going crazy. I could think of no other solution. No other answer.

As I gripped the steering wheel, reason began to wrestle control of my thoughts. What was I so afraid of? What could it possibly do to me? I didn’t even know what “it” was! If I didn’t want to end up in the loony bin, I needed to prove that I wasn’t imagining it. I would have to talk with it. Even as the thought flashed across my mind, I realized the insanity of it. But what choice did I have?

With a deep breath — okay, several deep breaths — I tugged on the door handle, my wide eyes still watching the front porch. With trepidation, I stepped out of the car, keys clenched between my whitened knuckles. My once-clean socks gathered grass stains as I inched across the lawn. My heart beat faster the closer I came to the front door.

Crossing the threshold of my house usually brought immense relief. My home was my sanctuary and the one safe haven from the struggles of the world. But I felt none of that as I stepped into my living room. My house harbored a monster and I snatched up the broom from the kitchen to defend myself from it.

The light was still on in my computer room. The fan still spun, casting flickering shadows across the bumpy, speckled ceiling. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary except my desk chair laying on its side. With one hand still grasping the broom, I reached under the desk and grabbed the plug. I hesitated.

I didn’t have to do this. I could chuck this thing in the garbage and buy a new computer. I could dismiss this entire incident as the product of exhaustion and just assume this computer was broken in a way I would never understand. But I had to know! It wasn’t just about my computer. It was now about my sanity. I needed to know I wasn’t losing my mind. The only way to find any answers was to plug this thing back in.

So, with a trembling hand, that’s what I did. My heart pounded, but nothing happened. I pressed the square button on the front and let it beep and whir to life as I righted my chair.

I huffed at the obligatory “Your computer did not shut down properly…” screen and pressed any key it demanded of me to bypass the scans that never did anything but waste time. Finally, my desktop appeared — an artful image for an anime I’d been obsessed with the previous month cluttered with folders and shortcuts I rarely paid attention to. I wasted no time clicking the button that summoned a digital notepad to the center of my screen.

Hello? Are you there? I typed furiously, sprinkled with deletes as my fingers fumbled over my words.

There was no answer.

Are you there? Can you see me?

Still no answer.

I let out a forceful breath as my fingers raked through my hair. What was I doing? Perhaps it was my imagination. Or maybe I really was losing my mind.

Please, if you’re there, I just want to talk.

At this point, I wasn’t going to get any crazier if I kept at it, so one last shot in the dark seemed worth the effort. My heart leapt as the cursor jumped to the next line.

That hurt. The response appeared out of nowhere.

It was real! I stopped breathing, but my mind went into overdrive. Was it going to hurt me back, now? Every Star Trek episode where something took over the ship’s computer flooded my thoughts. A montage of men in red or yellow shirts hurled across the bridge by a bolt of lightning played in my head. Was that to be my fate?

With one, shaky finger, I pressed one button while simultaneously rolling my chair as far from my desk as possible. When my touch wasn’t greeted with dramatic electrocution, I eased a little closer to finish my response.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You scared me.

I just wanted to say hi.

Its words sobered me. I’d let this thing terrify me because it was unknown and unexpected. But as it spoke to me, I couldn’t help but see it as a child. Curious and unafraid. At this moment, it felt more like a little brother than a monster.

My arms relaxed and I let out a chuckle. I’d say you did a pretty good job of that. lol What’s your name?

The cursor blinked for several seconds, unmoving. I don’t know, the reply came at last. Do you have a name?

Yeah. My name’s William.

Can I be William, too?

That would be weird.

Oh… The computer fans whined, as if in solidarity with the lonely ghost.

How about I give you a name?

You can do that?

Sure! People give names to their pets all the time.

I am not a pet! I could almost hear the petulance through the deliberate way the letters plodded across the screen.

I didn’t mean that. People name their children, too. But, if you don’t want me to, you could pick a name.

The cursor blinked hesitantly. No. You do it.

“Okay,” I said triumphantly, clapping my hands together. “Now we’re getting somewhere! How about…?” My mind went blank. What do you name the thing that lives in your computer? Should I give it a boy’s name or a girl’s name? What about something neutral like Pixel or Mittens? I dismissed that idea outright. It insisted it wasn’t a pet.

How about Mandy? So maybe giving the ghost in my computer my ex-girlfriend’s name might not have been the smartest move, but I was floundering and it was the first thing that came to mind! Cut me some slack.

I don’t like that one.

OK, what about Jordan?

Isn’t that a river?

You don’t know your name but you know world geography?

I dunno… If a computer ghost could shrug, I’m pretty sure that’s what it was doing.

How about Dominic?

Dominic…Dominic…D O M I N I C. Yeah! I like that! I’m Dominic!

I breathed a sigh of relief. My mind was already turning to anime and giving my pet computer ghost a name like Sebastian or Todoroki would have been weird.

Great! So, Dominic, what are you doing in my computer? How did you even get here?

I don’t know. I can’t remember. 

What do you remember?

I. The letters appeared slowly, hesitantly. I remember that thing you were doing. With the guns.

My game?

Yeah. I couldn’t help but imagine a little 8-bit Megaman nodding as Dominic typed.

Have you played it before?

I think so.

I interlaced my fingers and rested my chin against them. If Dominic had played my game before, did that mean he used to be a person? Was my computer some kind of gamer afterlife? Gamer heaven? Or gamer hell — forced to watch someone play badly but never able to intercede.

But Dominic had interceded. It had been awkward at first, only able to interact with a single character, but like a child, Dominic’s language, his interactions, had evolved. What if Dominic wasn’t the ghost of some gamer, but some life form borne of a quirk in the code?

Dominic’s next words pushed all those thoughts away and plastered a smile on my face.

Can we play again?

I snatched up my headset and pulled it down over my ears. “Alright, Dominic. Let’s kick some butt!”

Yay!

These days, Dominic and I play together quite a bit. It was rocky at first, having a ghost try to “help” me play, but in time, we found our rhythm. Dominic learned how to anticipate my needs, and his response time in emergencies is unbeatable. No one knows my secret weapon. No one knows how a nobody like me climbed the ranks. No one knows about Dominic.

I still wonder, sometimes, just what Dominic is. What circumstances took place to bring the two of us together? We talk about it on occasion, but we’re no closer to figuring out how any of this happened — or is even possible — than the day we first met. Perhaps one day, we’ll find that answer, but neither of us care if we never do. We’re just happy to have found such a friendship.

He gets lonely when I leave for work. I make sure my computer is on before I leave so he has something to do while I’m gone. When I get home, he tells me stories of his adventures, how he uses the internet connection to visit other computers. I see many people complain on internet forums about random key presses or phantom typing. I want to tell them not to worry. It’s not a sign of a serious problem or virus.

That’s just Dominic saying “hi.”