1. Obsessive/compulsive 

“Obsessive. Ha! Compulsive. Ha! Shite!” He was talking to a large monitor on the desk in front of him. It had a yellow post-it note stuck to the top of the outer frame which read `Louie` There were two more screens on the 'C' shaped desk, one each side of 'Louie'. Each had its own post-it saying `Huey` and `Dewey` respectively. He held a freshly printed hard copy of a document that was displayed on the middle screen. He read allowed.

“Obsessions can be defined by ONE: Recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced, during the trauma, as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress.” He grinned.

“Well. Strike one. None of it applies.”

 He glanced across to the screen on his left, labelled `Huey`. Lines of black text were scrolling vertically across the screen. It represented the number of users currently connected to the network via Ny-Net lines. He nonchalantly scanned a few lines as they whizzed by. All was well. His head swung back to the middle monitor which was still displaying the webpage that Connor had printed just minutes earlier. He had searched the Net for any documents or footage detailing cases of obsessive/compulsive behavior. He had found over three thousand entries. He found what he was looking for on a university sever in Colorado.

"Now, that’s just not me is it?” The question was aimed at the monitor. He leaned back into his padded, high-back swivel chair and continued to read.

“TWO: The thoughts, impulses, or images are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems. THREE: The person attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, impulses, or images, or to neutralise them with some other thought or action.”

He raised his left hand into the air holding out his thumb and first two fingers. “That’s three down and none were me.”

He jerked his head to the right. The last of the three screens, `Dewey`, showed the graphical front end of a software agent called `The InPhiltraTor`. A logo filled the top third of the screen. Below it was a mish-mash of text entry boxes which included spaces for location addresses, various time adjustments, search string variables and directories on the host server. The bottom third of the screen was split into two. The left-hand side showed a bright green progress bar that read around ninety percent done. The right hand side was a small rectangle with a list scrolling up through it. The list moved slowly and seemed to be protocol addresses lines of digits interspersed with hyphens. Connor was stealing software from a commercial broadcasting station in Scotland. The little rectangle was sending out false addresses so that anyone trying to find out where he was got a string of dead end leads. Back to the printout.

“FOUR: the person recognises that the obsessional thoughts, impulses, or images are a product of his or her own mind.” He frowned “What fuckin` obsession. These people are the obsessed ones, not me.”

He screwed the print out up and threw it into the gloom beyond his desk. The whole office was in darkness with the exception of his corner where light came from the three screens and a small, oval based, black lamp sitting on the desk next to `Louie`. It had an LCD readout in the base which read 11.00pm. Connor had moved the lamp slightly when he reached over to the printer for the hardcopy earlier. The desk lamp had left a little circular shape in the thick dust that covered the desk. He swivelled his chair to the left, lifted his legs up onto the edge and placed both his hands behind his head.

“Download complete” It was Dewey. The voice was monotone and slow. A pre-recorded event sound set to respond when a variable was met in a given way. Dewey was not sentient.

Connor snapped up right and span to face the monitor.

“That didn’t take you long now did it?” He keyed in a new set of numbers and address lines. He hit an onscreen graphical key marked `Search and Enjoy` and the progress bar appeared showing 100%. Three seconds later the bar started to move as the next piece of software was lifted from a recording studio in Vancouver.  Connor made no attempt to view the previous download, he knew that he had it, he knew it was intact and that was enough. He may not even ever try to run it, but he had it and he felt safe.

He turned back to Louie. Reaching forward he pulled out a microphone from the bottom of the screen. It pointed towards him like the antenna of a large snail. He spoke into it.

“Louie, voice prompt.” Louie’s main drive whirred into life.

“Voice prompt activated.” The same monotone voice as Dewey. Voice recognition software, common now, helped relieve the monotony of the keyboard.

“Louie. Please read file `Obsessive/compulsive`. Begin from `Compulsions as defined by…` ” He didn't need the please, old habit.

The screen in front of him began to scroll. When the flashing cursor reached the correct line it stopped and the monotone voice started to read.

“Compulsions as defined by ONE: Repetitive behaviours (e.g., hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (e.g., praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession, or according to rules that must be applied rigidly.”

Connor was silently shaking his head.

 “TWO: The behaviours or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation; however, these behaviours or mental acts either are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralise or prevent or are clearly excessive. The obsessions or compulsions cause marked distress, are time, or significantly interfere with the person's normal routine, occupational (or academic) functioning, or usual social activities or relationships. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., drug abuse, medication) or a pre-defined general medical condition.”

As Louie was reading the last line Dewey spoke.

“Download complete” Connor automatically swung back  and repeated the process of sending the software agent off to steal more `goodies` as he called them. As with the last acquisition, he did not check the content of the download. Getting it was enough, he knew that the Ny-Net would not collapse if he kept getting his wares.

Turning back to Louie he whispered under his breath.

“I don’t wash my hands too often, do I? They’ll be accusing me of Tourettes

 Syndrome next. Bollox. Fuck. Twat. ” He laughed. Louie didn’t answer.

 

Connor had worked for Ny-Net since the age of twelve. He had been identified at seven years as having potential, the company, by law, could not intervene until his twelfth birthday. The large UK service providers and the government had learnt their lesson earlier in the new century. They were still fighting compensation battles in the 'European Court of Human Rights' after twenty-five years. Connor had been an orphan and until Ny-net identified him he had been with six different sets of foster parents. He had been staying with a family in Cambridge for nearly six months and, from the scraps of memory that he retained from his childhood, he had settled in well. The father, Daniel Princeton, had worked for Ny-Net in their Cambridge Sales office. He had noticed Connors potential ability when given the opportunity to use the in-home system. He returned home one evening to find an irate message in his mailbox asking how he dared interfere with clients secure data. The following day he had been interviewed by Ny-Net security who had established the truth. He had allowed Connor to access the game servers from his home system. Connor had patched into one of Ny-Nets client servers and, in no time at all, delved into files belonging to the Foster agency that had placed him. He had altered his own file to recommend extended stay with the Princeton’s, to be reviewed no sooner than two tears hence. The foster agency settled out of court with no publicity, Ny-net adopted Connor and the Princeton’s were paid, in advance, to care for Connor until his twelfth birthday.

He was given a fairly standard education for the day with the exception of Mathematics and the Computer sciences. He absorbed masses of information pertaining data management and system analysis. He graduated at fifteen, mastered at sixteen and went into full time employment in the Manchester office at sixteen. He was now twenty-two and he still worked in the same office as the day he arrived.

In fact, some people said he was the Manchester office.

 

Ny-Net was the fourth biggest UK provider of connection services for the Net. The Net had expanded so rapidly at the end of the nineteen nineties that thousands of companies had jumped onto the bandwagon selling and re-selling connection services. Most of them fell off very quickly. Ny-Net had formed in the early days, prior to the clamp down, and had ridden the waves standing in defiance against the industry giants. Around 2015 they merged with two other

Providers and went truly global with their fiftieth Satellite being the first to be launched from the prestige new Euro launchpad at Selafield. Connor managed all the north of England corporate Net accounts and ran the support office. There were three hundred staff in the Manchester Office, Connor only new two of them personally. One was his Support Manager, Steve Jones, who actually interacted with the support staff and had the unenviable task of putting Connors recommendations into practice via the work force. The other was Denton Riley the cleaning supervisor.

 

Connor was worried. He had downloaded the behavioural information because he had an interview with a Councillor at eight the following morning. He knew she was going to start analysing him and probing into why he did what he did. He had better arm himself. He turned to Dewey.

“I may have a little job for you my friend. Time to get something worth while for a change. Let's see what we can see about Senga Moshen.”

Dewey didn’t answer.