The Midas Touch Application

This was originally written as a Flash Fiction for a now defunct content platform. It is a speculative horror fiction. Enjoy!

Greg, Juliet and Manoj wrote code for a discreet company of unknown origin. All they knew was that the pay was stellar and the resources amazing and the company provided all of their specialized, souped up hardware and software; as well as the paying for the fastest connectivity available.

In point of fact, they had never met the people who paid their wages, nor any of the other programmers, user acceptance staff or engineers. They had no idea how big the company was, or how many others employees there were. Their assignments were modular, and very specific, and because of their salaries — they rarely, if ever, questioned the bigger picture.

They knew each other, because often they would video conference and chat while working on code together, sometimes alpha testing, sometimes just passing the time while they awaited the response for a module they had submitted and even though they were on different continents, their lives seemed to be in constant synchronization. It didn’t matter, day or night. And they had become good friends.

It was on one of these calls while talking about the high costs of gas/petrol that Greg had a sudden pain in his abdomen. Seconds later, Juliet and Manoj also experienced a similar sharp pain, akin to appendicitis, but fleeting and with no after affects. The latter two assumed it was some sort of sympathy pain for Greg. It was odd, but…