A computer from an era before she had even been born appeared in Clover’s apartment, a wiry mess of tendrils spread from its dull plastic casing like a technological mold. It had power even though the building was blacked out. Cyber green text from the screen had saturated an eery fog that filled the room and smelled like old coins. She approached the terminal - why was the carpet wet? Her pulsing fingers hovered over the keyboard, the keys looked like fantasy runes - they were irresistible. Clover licked her lips, “Uh, I invoke thee, oh spirit… of the… computer? sHoW yOuRsElF! Please accept my ex as sacrifice!"

B z z z t…
USER: @Synonym Congratulations, you have summoned an abomination. Would you like to name it?

B z z z t…
USER: @GeminiChaos Congratulations, you have summoned an abomination. Would you like to name it?

Vivian blinked in surprise and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She hadn't expected the terminal to even power on, given that it looked like someone had reached in and pulled a handful of wires out the back.

Then it did, of its own accord. And it showed a prompt; some nonsense that had probably propagated from a long-forgotten BBS. She found herself entering a name, something that stirred in her memory;
«Virus. Destroyer. Angel. Savior.»

And then it asked her for SACRIFICE. That didn't seem right - but her hand moved toward her pocket, the flash drive that held all kinds of reference material, compressed and organized in case something happened to the servers where it all was stored. She plugged it in to the waiting port (next to a 5 1/2" floppy drive, that made no sense). Her fingers tapped out the file path; something that stirred in her memory;
«Library. Host. Central cluster.»

And then it processed for a terribly long time, the hard drive's clicks and what's the only sound in her apartment. Out of curiosity, she plugged the drive into her normal laptop and checked; and the Library of Congress' collection was gone.
«Given. Taken.»

And now it wanted a name... Along with another? No, there was no way. It couldn't be connected, there was no cord, there was no Wi-Fi, she hadn't hooked anything up.

What the ⚝⚝⚝⚝ was going on?

As promised, a creature flickered onto the screen - its saucer eyes fixed on his mother through the glass. Clover raised her hand and pressed it against the screen. It felt impossibly thin, like paper; if she pushed just a little harder, she had the strange sense she might slip right through. Clover tickled the abomination with one finger, it’s just pixels, right? “Hmm, Eadie-Beadie.” Whatever this being was, they were connected.

A sudden click alerted Clover that the building had regained power, the overhead light broke her attention away from the computer. Although definitely alone she felt the presence of another woman. “What the fuck, is someone there? Can you hear me?" It was like a radio in her mind, as she sat there listening intently to someone else’s thoughts a second abomination appeared on the computer.

B z z z t…
USER: @Synonym Eadie-Beadie has a message for you, would you like to read it?

B z z z t…
USER: @GeminiChaosYour abomination's anger swells.

Vivian nearly jumped out of her seat as a voice crackled from the computer's... speaker? No, that couldn't be - it was too old to have any more sound capability than the motherboard speaker, certainly nothing that could replicate a voice.

"I, uh... Yeah. I can hear you. Are you at another terminal? Can you describe what you're seeing?"

«Terminal.»

It had to be, despite the impossibility - this thing in front of her was just the access point to a network. How it connected, she had no clue. But it was the only thing that could explain this.

"Listen, there's something very interesting with this whole situation. Let's try to stay calm and get to the bottom of this."

«Rabbit hole. Curiouser GOTO Curiouser.»

«User. INPUT NAME.»

Almost automatically, her hands typed out a single word across the keyboard.

CHESHIRE.