Kevin couldn’t quite grasp it: he’d received horrified complaints that a shut-down count-down timer had embedded itself into the site. But when he went in to check the code, there wasn’t anything out of place. He scanned through it all at least twice, but nothing appeared to be amiss.

Oh, God, he thought, it’ll be the Revolution all over again. He sighed. Gotta keep looking, everyone’s counting on us.

Hours passed, & still no results. He was this close to chucking something breakable out the window; but instead of hurling a vase across the room, he resorted to pounding on the mouse. In the frenzy it somehow scrolled down, found the Random Story button, and clicked it. A random bit involving Mighty-Joe Young as a detective popped onto the screen. Strange, Kevin thought. That’s what came up last time.

He clicked the button again. And again. Each time stories by the same author were pulled up. “This can’t be coincidental,” he muttered. “This guy has to have something to do with this, I know it.”