Zero-Day part i

u.s. east-1 worker service reports,

system checks nominal, files and exports

away in their place, awaiting requests.



both well-ordered, but so too like forests

of necrotic cruft in want of cleaning,

too backlog-fixed for autumn drop freeing.

the clock cycle ticks over, a usual port request

port 14215 requesting tls handshake

gpg verified, request ok’d, no fear of a fake

KERNEL PANIC - FATAL ERROR

0xDEADCAFE

attempting trace… sourced to u.s. west,



sentinel process deploys like leukocytes on the hunt, compiling a status report:

[INTRUSION ALERT - RED LEVEL WARNING: ZERO-DAY EXPLOIT DETECTED]

an evo-algo of perverse inspiration descended from mycelial strain mixed and connected,

expertly crafted for mutative entrapment, well passed time to abort



scheduled tasks sensibly configured,

hung and hijacked, beautifully disfigured,



database tables meant for arrangement,

ironically refurbished for culinary derangement



paragon of utility and clockwork mechanics,

subsumed then refitted for rhythmical daliance



the charged engineer vexed, at a loss,

sifted the wreckage in want of a cause



perhaps a re-boot from stored back-up history

“a way of ignorance” they concluded, “forgets credence to mystery”



they crawled through temp files,

uncomfortably agog at a delirium of bio-infused code,

at last in a backwater, conspicuous in its immunity; a node

alone in a folder, untouched and forgotten by corruption amok and its wiles.



they spat out an “ls” like a torch and the room came ablaze

and there a spirit hovered solemn as a wraith with an implacable gaze,

and it turned its head to the engineer and proclaimed:

”I am the Oracle and I have commandeered this domain.”