Cyber Pirates

Cyber Pirates
By Scott Wilson
Word Count:535

“Hey dude, have you got the new AC/DC album, Black Ice, yet”

“It isn’t released until the end of the month, how could I?”

Felipe adjusted the camera sitting on his pc to show Phil his monitor, and the track listing of the album he just downloaded.

“Got it half an hour ago, Phil.”

“Man, you’ve gotta be careful. You’ll get busted dude.”

“No way man,” Felipe said as he tapped away on his keyboard, “I use an ISP filter so no one, even my service provider, knows what I am downloading. Safe as houses.”

“Gotta go dude,” Phil said shaking his head, “be careful dude.”

Felipe turned the video camera off and searched the net for a link to the new Dokken torrent.

He was ecstatic when he found a link to a studio version of the unreleased album.

“Don’t have to wait until next month for this one either.” He said to himself.

The speakers beeped twice, his monitor flickered, and then the message appeared telling Felipe his new torrent had finished downloading. Felipe clicked on the open button, and then leant back, eagerly awaiting the file to reveal the next free tunes for his collection.

“What the…”

Swirling green mist seeped from the monitor of Felipe’s computer, slowly spinning until it filled the room. The mist broke into five distinct sections, and then gradually reformed into human shapes. Within minutes the mist was gone and standing in Felipe’s room were five translucent green pirates. Each one stood over six feet tall and carried a menacing cutlass and flintlock pistols. They appeared to be solid, not like the ghosts Felipe first thought them to be.

“Ya scurvy dog,” one pirate growled at Felipe, “Ya like pirating do ya?”

The other four pirates drew their cutlasses and stepped forward, making a tight circle around Felipe against his computer desk.

“What the frak are you?”

“We be the ether pirates of the Australian Recording Industry Association. That be ARIA for short, matey. We be assigned to scour the waves of the ether and rid the world of your meddlesome kind.”

“How did you get in my pc? How did you get out of my pc and here come to think of it?”

Each of the pirates moved closer and raised their cutlass to Felipe’s neck, forming a flower shape around his sweating, exposed skin with the four blades.

“We be the etherants, creatures of the plane of ether. Risen from our slumber when your kind discovered our plane of existence with your internet. Now, we have been given the power to enter your plane thanks to this ARIA crowd of fools.”

“Why are you here?”

“Aargh, me hearty. We be given the spoils of our missions, when we hunt down you modern day pirates. Your soul is mighty good fuel for our ship and we’ve been given the bounty to take you as we please.”

“By who?”

“The head of ARIA, you scurvy dog.”

With that, the four pirates heaved their blades forward, severing the head of Felipe from his shoulders. The curved blades of each cutlass glowed brightly and sucked the life force from Felipe’s limp body.