Chris wasn’t supposed to be working on New Year’s Eve. He had made it clear to everyone: he’d show up for the company party, enjoy a few drinks, maybe laugh at Steve’s inevitable bad jokes, and head home. The IT room would be closed, the server untouched, and his phone switched off for the night. But plans, especially in IT, rarely go smoothly.
The party was in full swing when Chris arrived, fashionably late and ready to relax. The conference room had been transformed into a makeshift party hall, complete with garish decorations, a crowded dance floor, and an open bar. Steve was already making a spectacle of himself, juggling champagne flutes while Linda filmed him on her phone. Karen was loudly praising the hors d’oeuvres as if she’d catered the event herself. Chris was halfway through his first drink when someone approached him.
“Chris, right? The new IT guy?” The voice belonged to a man wearing a sweater that looked suspiciously like Chris’s “Ho Ho No” design, only older and more worn. The man grinned. “I’m Jack. Heard a lot about you.”
Chris froze mid-sip. This was Jack—the elusive IT wizard whose absence had left Chris in a constant state of firefighting since his arrival. “Jack? As in the Jack? The guy who left me no notes and a legacy of chaos?” Chris said, only half-joking.
Jack laughed, clinking his glass against Chris’s. “That’s me. But chaos? C’mon, I thought I left things in decent shape.”
“Decent? Let’s just say I’ve had my hands full,” Chris replied, shaking his head.
Jack shrugged. “Well, you’re still standing. That’s half the job. Anyway, I figured I’d bring some nostalgia to the party. Got an old USB with photos and videos from the office back in the day. Thought the gang might like to see the ‘good ol’ times.’”
Chris’s stomach dropped. “You… plugged it in somewhere, didn’t you?”
Jack frowned. “Yeah, why?”
Before Chris could answer, the room plunged into chaos. The music cut off abruptly, replaced by loud static. The overhead lights flickered ominously before plunging half the conference room into darkness. Across the room, Linda’s phone buzzed repeatedly with alerts, and Bob from sales shouted, “The Wi-Fi’s out again!” A wave of murmurs spread as people stared at their devices, all blinking error messages or rebooting uncontrollably.
Chris turned back to Jack, who looked genuinely puzzled. “What did you do?”
Jack held up his hands defensively. “All I did was plug it into the AV system to play a slideshow!”
Chris groaned. “Jack, did you check that USB for malware? At all?”
Jack hesitated. “It’s from my old work laptop. I figured it was fine!”
Chris stared at him, incredulous. “You worked in IT for how long, and you figured?”
Together, they sprinted toward the AV system in the corner of the room. The projector was frozen on a garbled mess of distorted images, the error messages growing more cryptic by the second. Chris unplugged the USB and began examining the system, his brain racing. Whatever Jack had plugged in wasn’t just corrupt—it was running an executable file that was now spreading across the network.
“It’s a worm,” Chris muttered, his voice grim. “This thing is trying to take over the whole system.”
Jack leaned over his shoulder, suddenly serious. “I’ve seen this before. It’s an old prank script I wrote years ago for a demo. It was supposed to simulate a virus outbreak—totally harmless. But if it’s gone rogue…”
Chris glared at him. “You brought that to a live system? Are you trying to ruin my life?”
Jack winced. “Okay, not my best idea. But look, the script has a backdoor. I can help shut it down.”
Chris didn’t have time to argue. The two of them rushed to the IT room, navigating through the darkened halls lit only by emergency lights. When they reached the servers, Chris began isolating affected systems while Jack walked him through the steps to disable the script.
“The key is finding the trigger file,” Jack explained. “It’s disguised as an image, but once it’s opened, it activates the script. Did anyone open the slideshow?”
Chris gave him a withering look. “This is Steve we’re talking about. Of course he did.”
The two worked feverishly, battling against the worm as it tried to overwrite permissions and spread to additional devices. Jack typed commands into the console, his hands moving with the precision of someone who knew the code inside out. Chris monitored the network, quarantining infected endpoints and manually restoring critical systems.
Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably just twenty minutes, the AV system rebooted. The projector flickered back to life, displaying a benign image of a holiday party from years ago—Jack grinning awkwardly in the corner, holding what looked like the same worn sweater he was wearing now.
Jack leaned back in his chair, wiping sweat from his brow. “See? All under control.”
Chris gave him a look of disbelief. “Under control? You nearly nuked the entire system with your ‘nostalgia.’”
Jack grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, but it was fun, right? A good bonding moment.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “Let’s never bond like this again.”
Back in the conference room, the party slowly resumed as if nothing had happened. Most of the attendees were too drunk to notice the near-catastrophe, though Steve was loudly recounting his bravery in “saving the day” by pointing out the slideshow issue. Chris returned to his drink, only for Jack to sidle up beside him.
“You handled that well,” Jack said. “Better than I would’ve. Maybe I didn’t leave things perfect, but it looks like they’re in good hands.”
Chris raised his glass. “Just keep your USBs to yourself, and we’ll call it even.”
Jack laughed and clinked his glass against Chris’s. “Deal. Happy New Year, Chris.”
“Happy New Year,” Chris replied, finally letting himself relax. For now.