Blind Date

As he logged on to the dating site, he felt his heart sink a little. It always felt slightly seedy, emphasising his approaching middle-age and desperation.
After the last horrible cliché of a date, with an ageing disco diva trying to act half his age snorting charlie in the bathroom of a dingy club, he'd almost given up on finding any kind of meaningful relationship with anyone. This time it had looked a little more promising.
On his profile, the guy had looked pretty good. Nice looking, well educated, no mention of clubbing, decent job with an IT company. “Nothing ventured.......', he had thought as he clicked on 'send photo'.
He had met him outside the restaurant. It was a nice enough meal, a nice enough evening with a nice enough guy, just, well, dull. After he had made polite, empty promises to be in touch, and negotiated the awkward shuffle saying goodbye - do they hug, or kiss on the cheek, or maybe shake hands? - he had walked home feeling a little disappointed, but still holding out hope that at least it was an improvement on previous encounters. He had been optimistic enough that he had made himself a drink and sat down at the computer for another try.
To his surprise,when his profile came up, the symbols flashing in the corner of the page told him that this evening's date was logged on too. He smiled to himself, letting his guilty conscience disappear at being back on-line so soon after the end of the date. As he scrolled through the photo's and profiles on the page, he noticed the chat box had popped up. It was his date.
“hi”,
he replied.
“i've got that software link 4 u”,
He let out the breath he'd been holding. His date was as uninterested as he was, just being friendly. They'd chatted about techy stuff a lot that evening, for want of something more in common.
“http://www.bugkill.com”
“thanx”,
He typed in the IP, and up came the page. His date had told him this was a well kept secret, open-source software that beat anything on the market. He clicked on the big flashing download button, and went back to scrolling through more unpromising potential dates on the screen.
After a minute or so, he became aware of a faint humming coming from his speakers. The noise became rapidly louder, so he reached across to turn off the speakers, but the switch seemed to be stuck. The noise was getting louder still, making him feel quite disorientated. A sharp pain stabbed his ears, and his head was throbbing with the pulsing of the sound. Holding his hands over his ears, he looked at the screen to try to work out how to shut the signal down. As he felt the warm trickle of blood coming from his nose, he read the message in the download box. A red mist closed over his eyes and he fell into unconsciousness. The last thing he saw was the words on the screen,
“Program complete. Bug destroyed”.