Chapter 53: The Joker Virus

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For 20 advanced chapters, visit my Patreon: https://patreon.com/Twilight_scribe1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After leaving the campus dining hall, Tony Stark headed straight for the public computer terminals in the university library. Sure, the Stark estate in Malibu had a computer setup that was vastly superior top-tier machines and custom-built rigs. But it was a bit of a drive, and the on-campus machines were closer. In this era, personal computers were still luxury items. Most students already burdened with student loans couldn't afford one. So the school invested in shared access, hoping to nurture the next generation of tech talent. Naturally, with computers being both functional and fun, the library's computer area was constantly packed. Sometimes, people even had to line up. But Tony Stark didn't wait in lines. He spotted a terminal he liked, walked right up to the student using it a chubby guy mindlessly chatting on some BBS and tapped him on the shoulder. Then, without saying a word, Tony dropped a crisp hundred-dollar bill onto the desk and gave a look. The guy turned around, ready to curse out whoever dared interrupt his session but the flash of green shut him up real quick. He recognized Stark immediately, plastered a sycophantic grin on his face, logged out, and got up. Before stepping aside, he even gave the seat a couple of pats to cool it down. That's the kind of bootlicking a rich kid like Tony could inspire. At this point in his life, Tony Stark hadn't yet developed the eccentricities and compulsions that would one day define him. The so-called "quirks" were more like scars, forged later by betrayal and pressure. Right now, he was just your classic rich genius smart, cocky, and generous when it amused him. And anyone who's really lived knows this: true party animals don't have hang-ups. They don't shy away from mess they dive in and turn chaos into a game. Tony didn't even flinch at the idea of sitting in someone else's sweaty chair. He plopped right down and got to work. The fat guy didn't leave. Instead, he hovered behind Tony, curious to see what the infamous Stark heir would do with a machine worth a fraction of his pocket change. Tony connected to the IP address he'd just memorized the one the two nerds had been whispering about in the cafeteria. The moment the BBS login screen popped up, the fat guy's eyes lit up. He recognized it. That cursed BBS. The reason his home computer had been nuked. He hadn't dared reinstall the OS yet too much hassle. That's why he was stuck using the public machines. Now, watching Tony Stark poke the same digital hornet's nest, he couldn't help himself. He clapped and shouted: "Wooo! Hey, check this out! Stark's taking on the Joker!" That got attention. Fast. The quiet hum of keystrokes in the computer lab turned into a buzz of murmurs and footsteps as students rushed over to gawk. Tony didn't shoo them away. He simply turned to the fat guy and asked, "Does this BBS have a name?" "Nope. No name. But ten minutes after you connect, the whole screen gets hijacked by the Joker Virus so that's what we call it. Uh, aren't you gonna check the timer? You've only got ten minutes." Tony smirked. "That's plenty." His fingers flew across the keyboard. This was the DOS era. No multitasking. No fancy window switching. Just command lines and whatever program you were running was the only thing you could see or do. Tony wasn't trying anything fancy at first just running random commands to see how the system responded. He wasn't expecting results. He just wanted to listen to the errors, to figure out what kind of system he was dealing with. And sure enough, he spotted the telltale signs: the system was running an old-school UNIX environment, the kind used on legacy mainframes. From there, it was child's play. He began querying the OS version and checking the BBS's program structure. If the BBS didn't restrict command input, he could run scripts or commands directly. Behind him, the crowd grew larger. The fat guy was loving the attention, shouting like a carnival barker: "Place your bets! Will MIT's golden boy become the fourth name on the wall or will he get Jokered like the rest of us?" People started crowding around, whispering, watching, betting. Some even abandoned their own machines to see the action. Even the library staff got wind of it. The moment they heard "Joker BBS," they ran over to shut things down—didn't matter if it was a genius or a trust fund brat at the keyboard. But the crowd was too thick. They couldn't get close. Tony, meanwhile, was laser-focused. His hands blurred over the keys, typing out code that would make a concert pianist jealous though the clack of the keyboard wasn't exactly music to anyone's ears. Soon, the BBS screen cleared. Tony had forced it back into raw command input mode. Then he launched a text editor and started writing his own script to hijack the system's admin privileges. He was so absorbed, he didn't hear the whispers behind him. "Will he notice?" "He hasn't yet." "No one ever does on the first try..." Then, the BBS screen came back this time with four lines of text. The original three were untouched. Tony's addition? "This little trick is hardly worth bragging about." He clapped his hands, raised his arms like a magician taking a bow, and stood up, expecting cheers. But the room was silent. Everyone was staring at the screen. Then it happened. The screen flickered. A grotesque ASCII Joker face filled the terminal. The image scrolled downward, frame by frame. The system hadn't frozen it was running something. He'd been Jokered. And then came the cheers. "Wooo!" "There it is!" "The Joker beat Stark!" Tony stared at the screen in disbelief, slamming the keyboard. No response. Behind the noise, one angry voice cut through: "GODDAMMIT, TONY STARK!" The head librarian now crouched with his hands on his head shouted, "Do you have ANY IDEA how much of a pain it is to reimage a library machine?! You've got more money than God why don't you go crash your own damn computers?!" Red-faced, Tony Stark had no comeback. Not this time. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Loving the story so far? Want more chapters? Drop a Power Stone to show your support! A quick review would mean the world too.Thanks, everyone! ❤️ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~