The I.T. guy

Somewhere else another man was working away in his basement. He was surrounded by a computer array consisting of seven laptops held up by various kinds of supports, all of which were rendered invisible by the mass of cables strewn about between the machines. Closer inspection of the machines would reveal to an onlooker that they were all running some form of master PC, each of them trying to select the same target and attempting to bruteforce the password.

''Well, shit'' He groaned, watching the last machine in the line fail on its third attempt. With that plan thwarted for the day, he turned to the central machine he was using as the brains of the operation and had it execute a shutdown on all of the master PC machines. He leaned forward onto the desk for a moment, then slumped backwards into his chair, closing his eyes and shaking his head in frustration his chin slumped onto his hairy chest. When he opened his eyes, he noticed something odd.

''Can't believe I forgot my shorts'' He said, looking across the desk at the camera feed monitor. He looked straight up at the camera and flexed his arms, admiring the magnum PI lookalike body he'd built for himself. Then he looked back at the laptops against the opposite wall and his cocky expression turned to one of dejection.

He dragged himself up the stairs and locked the door, sealing the basement off completely. And if the various levels of physical locks didn't keep someone out, then the rules he'd set up on his own personal Master PC would certainly put them out of action, one way or another.

He turned and headed towards the main hall of his mansion, intending to make his way towards his closet. But before making his way up the stairs, he stopped and glared intensely at a statue that was up against the base of the stairs. The statue was an adonis-like figure, or rather, it was a caricature of one, with bulging muscles and a massive dick that defied all bounds of practicality, never mind biology.

''You're a real fucking piece of shit, you know that'' He growled, looking at the smug facial expression of the statue. ''I'm just glad you didn't think you needed to defend yourself from things created by Master PC. Enjoy your time in carbonite, dickhead''

He started to walk off but then turned around.

''You know what Seth... sorry, I mean, Number Eight, you're just lucky I haven't cracked your password yet, cause when I do, I'm gonna have to think of something to do with you. After you fix all those girls, of course.'' He turned away, then turned back. ''Hey, maybe I'll turn you into a milking machine. Or, hey, maybe I could turn you into a lawnmower, make you do something productive for a change''

''Hey Hun, you berating the statue again?'' The sweet feminine voice asking the question alerted him to the fact his wife was in the room.

''You're goddamn right I am. How come you're already back up at the house?'' He asked

''Well...'' She started, pulling a thick pair of gloves off her hands ''For one, If I have to hear 'Milk Me, Fuck Me, Moo Moo Moo' one more time, I might go nuts''

''Fair enough'' He shrugged

''And also, I wanted to ask...'' She gestured down at her exposed lower half ''...care to explain why you felt the need for a no-pants party all of a sudden?''

He immediately tensed up ''What do you mean?'' He asked.

She returned a slightly worried look ''I mean I was down there and suddenly everyone's pants disappeared. I just assumed...''

''Shit, shit, shit'' He hissed, quickly turning to run up the stairs. Halting just for a moment to look over his shoulder ''I need you back down with the girls, let me know if anything seems off''

''Kate!'' He yelled, making her come to a stop in the doorway. ''The slightest thing. Call me''

''Chuck'' She said, with a wry smile on her face ''I know what I'm doing. Just go''

He nodded, then rushed to his office, no longer caring about the lack of shorts.

The moment he passed the threshold into his office, he made a beeline for his desk and booted up the computer.

''C'mon, C'mon...'' He mumbled, anxiously waiting for the machine to reach the desktop. He somewhat regretted not leaving it running. But another part of him was all too aware of how **** an idle machine could be. Still, the seconds felt like decades right now.

''Thank you!'' He said, a little louder than he intended. Finally, he could get to work.

Immediately, he booted Master PC and ran a script he had personally designed. The hours of banging his head against the wall in an attempt to understand the back end of the program suddenly seemed more worthwhile. He watched the screen closely as the program searched for any running instances of any version of MPC_UI within his 1000-mile sphere of influence.

Nothing.

The program turned up absolutely nothing. Not one instance.

He relaxed slightly, slumping into his chair. At least, whoever had made everyones pants disappear wasn't active right now. Or maybe they were using a UI version he couldn't detect.

That worried him. He'd had enough encounters with other MPC users in his time to know many lost all sense of morality. Hell, he had seven laptops in his basement as proof of that. Each one a souvenir from a user who had gone beyond harmless fun and well into the territory of megalomania and total disregard for other human beings' autonomy. Thankfully, most of them were not terribly savvy when it came to computer security. However, the realization that many of the systems he ''confiscated'' had completely different User Interfaces, each seeming to prioritize different aspects of people to change, some making changing reality as most people remembered it as easy as ticking a box. Others made it so simple to make sweeping changes tied to a location, that the users could booby-trap buildings and even circumvent some user protections.

He shuddered slightly at that last one. Cringing at the memory of looking for a user who had turned half a town into his personal harem, only to walk into a strip club and suddenly find himself turned into a buxom brunette who was only too happy to do whatever she was told. He was glad Kate had stayed behind that day. Even more glad to have a wife resourceful enough to figure out what had happened and make use of his copy of MasterPC to save him. Not that she didn't have her own fun with the buxom brunette later.

Taking MasterPC with him on vacation was always eventful. And it was good to have backup. Speaking of backup, he suddenly remembered the message group he'd set up with the few reasonably stable users he'd encountered in his travels. They weren't exactly experts, but it would probably be worth checking in. If nothing else, he could let them know what was going on so that if this mystery user somehow did get the better of him, somebody would be in a position to come looking.

Kayla: So something bizarre just happened. I got out of the shower to find pants just suddenly weren't a thing anymore. Like they're basically just heavy-duty winterwear. Other than that, my whole town is buck-naked from the waist down. I think I might be dealing with another user nearby.

Mel: Oh shit. I just had basically the same happen here. Was out at a party and then POOF, pants be gone. Don't know if the winter-wear thing applies here. But, I do know every last piece of clothing in the house that would cover my crotch or ass is gone. Like just gone.

Kayla: Fuck. Wait, you're out near the coast, yeah?

Mel: Yeah, why?

Chuck sat back in his chair, his hand over his mouth. He knew exactly why she was asking. There were at least 500 miles between those two. And Chuck himself was at least a couple thousand further inland again. This had the potential to be really fucking bad.

Chuck: Kayla, you still got that thing I set up when you had that issue with another user last month?

Kayla: Yeah.

Chuck: Run it. Now.

Chuck: Melissa, give me an email. I'm gonna send it to you and walk you through setting something up to scan for users in your area.

Kayla: Chuck. How many other users have you run into since you got MasterPC?

Chuck: Eleven. Technically twelve, if we count your problem last month.

Mel: What makes a user a problem?

Chuck: Trying to take over the world, causing a bimbocalypse, enslaving whole towns, that kind of thing

Kayla: Or turning your crush into a supervillain BDSM dom who goes around enslaving people.

Chuck: That too, yeah.

Mel: So how many problem users have you run into?

Chuck: Counting Kayla's problem. Nine. None with this kind of range though.

Mel: So whoever did this hates pants and has potentially infinite reach. Got it.

''Shit'' Chuck mumbled. He had been so focused on mentally mapping out the distance between Kayla, Melissa and himself, that he hadn't thought about the possibility of further reach. He needed to get in touch with Bonnie. She was pretty much all the way on the other side of the country, so if her area was affected, they were in deeper shit than he previously considered.

Chuck: Bonnie, if you see this, get in touch.

Kayla: Good luck with that, I haven't seen Bonnie on here since the first couple of messages when you were getting her set up.

Mel: Who's Bonnie?