At the McMillan house, Sarah sat at her computer and waited for the screen to load. She frowned, hating that the blank screen reflected her face. It showed off the black soot mark on her left cheek, which had been there when she had first woke up. She wiped it away, but knew it wouldn't do much good. Every time she looked in the mirror there was new black smears on her face, and no matter what she did to get rid of them new ashen smudges appeared.
Finally it loaded, causing Sarah to grin as a series of code came up on her screen. She didn't know why nerds made such a big deal of being able to work computer code. It really was pretty simple. At least, ever since this morning it had been simple. At present she was trying to access the center for her home security system, and after a bit of work she found success. Soon the images popped up on screen of all the little cameras around the house.
"You always have been rather paranoid, haven't you daddy?" Sarah muttered. "Well now your paranoia gets to be useful." All it had taken was a bit of rewiring and tinkering with the code, and Sarah found she could access the entire system from her home computer.
Satisfied, Sarah stood, only to fall back into the chair. Ever since this morning Sarah's legs had been growing weaker, to the point where she had to crawl halfway up the stairs after going downstairs to rework the wires for the security system.
Sarah glared at the ring stuck on her finger, a black band with an orange gem of geometric design. "This is your fault, I just know it," she growled at the ring. Sarah struggled to stand again, leaning heavily on the desk as she inched her way back to her bed.
