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  Article: Danger: Trilobits!

  Author: Agente Shuffle

  Feedback given by: extasis, Uncle Nicolini, Luis Gm and Unihedron, love you all!

  Image Credits:

  Trilobita.exe, by Солярист and modified by Agente Shuffle, both licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0

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  rating: +44+–x

Danger: Trilobits!

Icon of "trilobita.exe"

Hello there! I am a Trilobit (Proetus digitalis) and I'm one of a kind. You see, unlike other types of Trilobite, I do not exist in a physical medium, but in an entirely digital one! In this case, a small and very nice computer, in which I and more of my species enjoy staying. You might say "Wait, there are more of your kind?", and I'll answer "Of course!" Let me explain it to you; I was originally just a lonely little boy when I was found by Wilson's, but they eventually realized that I was very lonely and sad. So, they started to think of a way to keep me company, and they succeeded! It turns out that I exist thanks to a computer program called "trilobita.exe" that was found on the computer I used to occupy. When the program was reopened, the Wilson's guys typed in some things and, few moments later, someone just like me showed up! They did it a few more times, and now we are a total of 8 very close friends. Our names are Milo, Johnny, Natt, Dizzy, Uni, Subby, Amy and Louie (that's me!) You may be wondering what makes us dangerous, and that is our feeding method. But calm down, we are not going to hurt you intentionally; we actually feed on files, or rather, on certain pieces of information that other files contain. When we ingest portions of the files, the information they contain ends up irretrievably corrupted and therefore the file becomes unusable. Oh, was that your homework? I'm so sorry! Of course, we do not do it maliciously, it is just our way of being.

Fortunately, here at Wilson's they understand that and they don't hurt us or try to delete us because of it. They take good care of us and keep us on a computer dedicated only to receiving unimportant files so we can feed ourselves well; they send us 16 files every day! That is more than enough to be satisfied. If for any reason our program ends up on your computer, don't open it! Instead, contact a girl named Faeowynn to take care of us if you want to keep your files safe. But wait! Eating is not the only thing we can do, no sir! We also know how to communicate… or at least we try. We like to make beeping noises to express ourselves, and mimic human speech a bit. Nobody at Wilson's understands us this way, but they have tried to teach us some morse to make this easier, and we strive to learn! We are also musicians by nature; we love humming tunes that we hear from staff or from music files they send us. We love the melody of "Under Pressure" and will sing it if we are happy! This is what most caught the attention of the guys at Wilson's, and what made them show interest. Luckily they found me! My former owner had left me some time ago for unknown reasons and I waited for him for a while, but my digital stomach could not remain empty with no files to gnaw on. Somewhat desperate, I started making all kinds of noises for him to come, but he didn't; however, Wilson's arrived, and I can't be more grateful to them.

Precautions and Facts About Me!

Despite being the spawn of a computer program, I am very much alive! (Unlike common Trilobites, ahem) Many tests carried out by the Wilsons can support we are living, maybe not breathing, beings! Not counting file corruption, we are completely harmless to you and your computer! You probably won't even notice us roaming in your PC.

Although we have undertaken many searches, we have not been able to find the creator of "trilobita.exe". All we know is that he is someone called "Maximus" and, apparently, he swears a lot. If we run out of files, we might start to eat and corrupt the hardware! I did it a few times before being found by Wilson. Please remember to feed me, or you'll have to buy another of those.

Important Reminders!

These animals are truly amazing and very interesting due to their never-before-seen digital nature. However, just as they are cute, they are also harmful; of course, they will not enter your house to gut you, but they can damage files that could be of great importance. That is why we must control, monitor and keep them at bay. We don't want to have any kind of unwanted incidents, right? So, if you see a copy of "trilobita.exe" on your computer, don't hesitate to call me! You just have to give me your address so I can go and take over as soon as possible.

Also, any information about Maximus is appreciated.

— Faeowynn Wilson

For inquiries or complaints:
Adress: Wilson's Main Shelter, Boring, Oregon.
Telephone: +1 206 555 0161
Email: nosliw.rerac|nosliw.nnywoeaf#nosliw.rerac|nosliw.nnywoeaf

(Phone ringing)

Faeowynn Wilson: Hello?

Tim Wilson: Fae?

Faeowynn: Dad! Hi! How are you?

Tim: Worried. Where are you? I've been trying to personally meet you but every time I ask, the guys say you went out not too long ago or things like that, so I had to call you. Is everything fine? You don't usually go out very often and right now is not exactly a good time for it.

Faeowynn: Oh, I'm so sorry for that. I've been extremely busy with this Trilobit issue. Can you believe I've received over 16 calls in the past 5 days? It's overwhelming me. I recently had to travel from Boring to Medford, that's like 280 miles. But don't worry, I'm relatively ok. Is everything alright?

Tim: Trilobits? That's exactly what I wanted to talk you about.

Faeowynn: Oh, tell me more.

Tim: Look, not long ago we tracked down some signals and conversations from this "Maximus" guy and managed to find out a thing or two.

Fae: Huh?

Tim: First, he is indeed the creator of "trilobita.exe" and knows how it works perfectly, as he has made other similar programs, but, you know, he hadn't made living digital entities. Second, the intentions with which he has created this program are not exactly good, quite the opposite. The program is made to irretrievably corrupt data, and we found out that he's planning to start mass-distributing it or something like that. I think it's called spam.

Fae: Wha- spamming? No, no no no no, this isn't good at all. Where does the signal come from?

Tim: Uhhh, from Spain.

Fae: From where!? You've got to be kidding me. Wh-why does he even do that?

Tim: From what we've seen, it appears that he's doing it just for fun.

Fae: Excuse me? He managed to create living beings that corrupt computer files by pressing a button just for fun?

Tim: It looks like that's the case.

Fae: This can't be happening… How are we even supposed to stop him? We can't go to Spain!

Tim: Actually, this is the funny part.

Fae: I don't think it can be funny at all.

Tim: Look, the purpose of doing all of this for fun is because it seems like he's "competing" with someone else. A so-called "Limiter" comes into play.

Fae: I don't see how having two of them now is funny.

Tim: Let me finish. Maximus and Limiter seem to be doing a kind of competition that consists of Maximus creating an unusual virus and Limiter creating an unusual antivirus capable of stopping it. They basically hold each other back. The good news is that it is supposed to happen only once; if Limiter is able to stop him, Maximus will probably give him a backhanded compliment and then either disengage or leave us alone. If, on the other hand, Limiter can't stop him, Maximus will remove all copies of "trilobita.exe" along with the Trilobits and send them en masse to Limiter's PC to humiliate him.

Fae: And how do we know that Maximus won't create stronger versions of it? What if he makes Trilobytes?

Tim: He's apparently too busy doing more important things to care about a copycat.

Fae: Copycat?

Tim: Ah, yes, Limiter is like a Maximus fan or something. And he loves fans, but not people that want to be like him.

Fae: I'm so confused about this. Are we sure this is going to work?

Tim: It should work. If not, we might need to contact the Foundation.

Fae: I'm not really sure about this.

Tim: Come on, just try to calm down a bit. You sound stressed.

Fae: I'll… I'll try. Thanks, dad, see you later.

Tim: See you later.

(Call disconnects)

(Phone ringing)

Tim Wilson: Hello?

Faeowynn Wilson: Hi, dad! It's me, Faeowynn.

Tim: Fae! How's everything going?

Faeowynn: Fantastic. I haven't had calls about the Trilobits in a couple of days. It seems that everything has worked. Do you know anything about that?

Tim: Ah, yes. Apparently Limiter was able to develop a powerful antivirus that managed to ki- err, redirect the bugs to a different terminal. Basically all of them are gone, including the ones we had at the Shelter. Reviewing, we realized that the program was sent and executed automatically on all computers that had "trilobita.exe" installed or that had copies of Trilobits. Do you want to know something funny? All of our computers, or the vast majority, received the program. It seems we had more Trilobits than we thought.

Faeowynn: Really? Well, at least is over. I can finally take a break.

Tim: Haha, yeah. Anyways, I'm a little bit busy, so I'll call you later!

Faeowynn: Bye! Love you!

(Call disconnects)