About the Author Cornelius A. Fortune's work has appeared in Dreams of Decadence, Dark Fire Fiction, Twilight Showcase and many others. He is currently a journalist and contributing writer for the Detroit Metro Times.

I was walking by the side of the road with my dog, the faint glow of the highway pulsing with unforgiving light when four guys pulled beside me, slowing down to match my pace. The big one on the passenger side rolled down his window (he was also the one driving, which confused me at first). They all wore black T-shirts with ironed-on monograms that were frayed and crusted, worn from years of use. "Hey fella, you from around here?" he said. There was the smell of liquor on his breath.

"Depends on who's asking." Either I kept walking, or the ground kept moving, I don't know which. In cyberspace everything's constantly moving.

"I'm asking," he said stabbing a thumb at his chest. "The name's Dot-Com. These are my brothers Dot-Org and Dot-Net and our cousin Dot-Biz." They all waved. Their shirts had each of their names spelled out on it. "This is your computer, ain't it?" I nodded. "We were wondering the way to the nearest rest stop. Dot-Biz got a need to piss something awful."

"Why don't he just piss on that web page over yonder?" I asked. "Ain't nothing to be ashamed of."

"His equipment don't work like everyone else's. I don't know if he's got some type of Windows 98 problem or what, but he drunk a shit load of java script up at the Titie Factory." He turned to his brother. "Org, what they calling that new drink?"

"Spam," said Dot-Org.

"I thought it was cookies," said Dot-Net.

"Weren't spam or cookies," said Dot-Biz, scratching his head. "It was HTML." He held his stomach and a loud rumble filled the car, followed by a wet exhalation sound. "I think we better hurry up. I feel like I gotta download something."

"Not in my goddamn car you ain't," said Dot-Com over his shoulder. "You better cut and paste that shit into an attachment. I just had my search engine cleaned out."

Dot-Biz sank into the corner of the backseat and stared out the window.

I felt sorry for him. "Take this road all the way up till you get to MSN, exit Google and go down a piece till you reach Yahoo! That's where you'll find relief."

"Thanks kid," said Dot-Org. "Where you headed? Maybe we can give you a ride."

"Naw," I said. "Me and my dog got sucked in during an illegal shutdown and we're trying to find the 'on' switch to reboot. I think someone moved it."

"Well good luck feller." He handed me a CD-Rom in a ruby-colored jewel case.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Anti-Virus protection. Trust me, you're going to need it. Those nasty buggers are everywhere. They ain't got no upbringing, you know? Daddy never spent enough time with them."

"Yea," I said, like I knew what they were talking about.

"Take care," Dot-Com said. "Oh by the way. If a feller by the name of http comes looking for us, you tell him we're over at hotmail, okay?" I nodded. "Much appreciated."

And they drove off.

In the distance I could see the shimmering wastes of dead websites, piled high. There were tons of error messages that floated in the air, buzzing on transparent wings. Me and my dog followed a URL path which forked off onto a vast pop-up ad.

There we found three beautiful women sitting by the side of the road (by the Fire Wall), one of them was sliding up and down a gold pole that ran all the way up into the sky. Their private parts were bloated out. We stopped to ask for directions.

"Ummmm, lookie what we got," one of them said. (She had dark hair.)

"I think this one's kind of cute," the other said. (She had red hair.)

"Might be our ticket out," said the pole girl, sliding down from the pole and crawling on the ground towards me (her hair was blond and as long as a geocities address). The other two advanced. My dog started to growl.

"Look," I says, "I'm not really interested in any uncouth extracurricular activities. My dog and I are trying to find the 'restart' button. Have you seen it?"

The woman with dark hair, asked her sister: "Have you seen a 'restart' button?"

"I haven't seen a 'restart' button." She turned to the blond, who was now licking my boots, her tongue was sharp as a mouse arrow. "How about you? You seen a 'restart' button around here?"

"Uh-uh," she said. "I ain't seen nothing."

"Wouldn't you like to see us?" they said in unison. "All you gotta do is open the zip file and you can view us without the parental blocks. Come on, don't you wanna see nude pics, XXX girls, girls on girls with d#$%^, feet fetishes, xxxslut fantasies -- must be 18 years or older..."

They started touching me, caressing my face, dancing sensuously against me. I squinted hard at their edits, deciphering the megabytes within their messages. "You girls are 41K each and you come with attachments -- you're viruses."

The one with the dark hair's eyes glowed red. "Open that fucking file, or we'll break your fucking neck." She snapped her fingers twice (snap! snap!). "Girls." The other two surrounded me, staring with red hollow eyes. "Hold him down. I'm about to go medieval on his ass."

The dark haired woman descended upon me, the blond bit my dog and the red head's teeth went all Bram Stoker on me but I still wouldn't open the zip file.

Suddenly the head of the blond exploded and little fragments of data scattered all over my shirt; residuals blew in the wind, smelling faintly of cinnamon and singed wires. Her head started reforming in moments, inflating like a helium balloon.

"I suggest you stop fucking around with these e-mails and just delete them. What are you going to do, save them in you Inbox for later, you perv? Delete them," said the cop pointing at CD-Rom jewel case gripped tightly in my hand. I found the delete button and the girls were moved into the Trash folder. I deleted that too.

The policeman helped me up. He looked as if he hadn't shaved in a few days. "You okay son?" he said, gazing up at the golden pole in disbelief. A long strand of hair hung from the pole, wrapped tautly without a head to be rooted in, perhaps using the pole as substitution.

"Much better now officer. Thanks," I said, brushing myself off.

"You didn't happen to see the Dot Brothers, did you? They come through here?" I read his name tag, it said: http.

"About maybe forty-five minutes ago," I said. "Look, if you find them, I don't any trouble, okay? Don't tell them I was the one that told you. They gave me the Anti-Virus Protection."

"Oh no, no trouble, it's a good thing you had it too. I left mine at the office," said Officer http. "We're going to take them back home so they won't get in any more trouble. We just rounded up the Three Double Youz." There were three W's (www) in the back seat with handcuffs on. "I won't tell them. This'll be strictly between you and me."

"Well in that case, you can find them at hotmail," I said. "I think that's where they said they were going."

"Those brothers never get enough of them titie bars, do they Collon (:)?" said Officer http. "This is Officer BackslashBackslash (//). My partner for years, since I first joined the force in the early 90s.The web was a lot different in those days." Officer BackslashBackslash nodded at me. "Boy ran into a problem with those Spam sisters."

"Whee-hee," said Collon BackslashBackslash. "Them girl's hot though, real hot, but they carrying some nasty viruses."

"Ain't nothing that good, if it's gonna fuck with your hard drive, you know what I'm saying?" said http, nudging me with his elbow.

I didn't know what he was saying, but I laughed with them anyway. "You wouldn't know the way to the 'restart' button, would you? Me and my dog are hungry and want to go home."

Officer http pointed northward. "Just beyond those hills. Can't miss it. 'Bout five miles from here. They moved it during the last Windows update." He got in his police car.

"Thanks," I said. "I guess that's why I had trouble finding it."

"Take care of yourself," he said. "You might want to get some security software as well. And try to avoid those illegal shutdowns. Reloading can be a bitch. See you around."

They drove off.

I heard a whimper at my feet.

"Well come on, lick your wounds later," I said to my dog. "We've got more walking to do. Plenty of time for that later." He followed slowly, whining softly. "I know. I know. I don't mean to snap at you. It's not your fault." I bent down, stroked his head and we started walking again.

The five miles wasn't as long as I thought.(This was probably due to the fact that five miles in cyberspace wasn't measured in the same way it was in the Offline world.) I found the 'restart' button lodged into the side of a Photo Shop 7 image of a snow-covered mountain and we jacked out, landing right under the kitchen table.

"Got to take a shower after that." I rebooted the computer. "How you doing boy? Had enough excitement?" He barked at me, panting heavily, happy to be home. My shirt was bloody and tattered and teeth puncture marks were everywhere; they itched. "Filthy viruses."

I put peroxide on my wounds, ate a frozen dinner and popped in the Anti-Virus CD-Rom, while I gave my dog lots of kibble for his trouble. This time I didn't do an illegal shutdown.

I clicked the shutdown button and tucked myself in bed, slipping into a dreamless sleep.