Chapter 3: Curiouser and Curiouser

At first, Josh just stared at his ringing phone. He probably would have kept staring at it, but Jeff interjected, “Maybe you should answer that.”

“Uh, right,” he said as he swiped the answer button. “Hello? Oh. Hi Hun. [pause] Yeah, no problem. [pause] Wait, Hun? When did your cellphone start working again? [pause] I mean, there’s been a major computer virus going around. People haven’t been able to use their computers or their cellphones. When did your phone start working again? [pause] I see. OK, I’ll see you tonight.” 

Josh put down his phone. Everyone stared at him. 

“She says it never stopped working for her. She just called me to ask me to pick up some milk on the way home.” 

“Dude! This thing has been going on for days. How could you not have figured this out until now?” 

“We’ve both been working a lot. We haven’t had a chance to talk much.” 

“Where does your wife work? You’d think something like this would come up.”

“She’s a kindergarten teacher.” 

“Oh. I guess she doesn’t use the internet much at work.” 

“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t really know, actually.” 

Rosa jumped into the conversation, “But you said it hadn’t gone down for her. That means she had been using the internet still. Does she use it at home?” 

“Yeah, she uses to look up lesson plans and recipes a lot. She’s always texting with her family.”

“Interesting,” said Rosa, “Has she done any of those lately?”

Jeff shrugged, “Not sure. Like I said, we’ve been working a lot.”

“Right,” said Rosa. “Well, maybe we should try some of those things. You know, texting family and looking up recipes. Let’s see if they work for us too.” 

“Can’t hurt to try,” commented Jeff. 

So, they all pulled out their phones and started searching for recipes. No problem. Next, they texted a few family members. Again, no problem. 

Then, they branched out. They tried to check their email. This time, the critters came back. Together. The squirrels and sloths both invaded their screens. The same happened when they tried to check the news or text their colleagues.

“So,” said Jeff, “Our virus has an agenda.” 

“It looks that way,” agreed Rosa. 

“An agenda?” asked Pradeep. 

“It will allow certain activities, but not others,” replied Jeff. 

“And it’s targeted,” added Rosa. “The animals seem to be location-specific.”  

“Good point,” said Pradeep. 

“I’ve never seen a virus this sophisticated,” said Josh. 

“Agreed,” replied Naomi. “I wonder how widespread it is, though.” 

“Well, it’s probably impacting a lot more people than us,” said Jeff. “What are the chances that Rosa chose to visit someone from the only other company that was infected?”

Everyone nodded.

“What do you think?” asked Rosa. “Is that the next thing to find out? Split up, contact as many people as possible, and see what we can figure out?” 

Everyone nodded again. 

“OK,” said Jeff, “but let’s be methodical about this. Make a list of questions we want to ask people and the types of people we want to find.”

“Right,” said Naomi. “We know that Josh’s wife, who’s a teacher, wasn’t impacted. So, we should think about the people we know, what they do, and try to contact the most diverse set of people we can.” 

“Won’t that be hard?” asked Pradeep. “It seems like everyone in the Silicon Valley works in tech.” 

“I know a lot of people who don’t,” responded Rosa. “I can make sure we fill out the non-tech demographic.” 

“I can see if my wife can help,” said Josh. “Also, we don’t necessarily have to limit to people in this area. If our phones are working, we can try to call family in other states or whatever.” 

“Yeah, good point. I can call my parents back in India if my phone will let me,” said Pradeep. 

“What about the questions?” asked Naomi. “What should we be asking people?”

“Well, there’s the obvious ones of course,” said Jeff. “Have you been having any computer problems lately? If yes, can you describe it? Which activities have been impacted?” 

“Also, how long have you been experiencing the issues?” added Naomi. 

“Have you found a fix?” added Josh. 

“Do you really think we’re going to get that lucky, Dude?” asked Pradeep. 

“Probably not,” answered Josh. “But it can’t hurt to try.”

“OK,” said Jeff. “It’s 1:00 now. How about we meet back here tomorrow at 9:00?” 

Everyone nodded. They had a plan.