Leonard pressed .

Leonard P., a man whose patience had been whittled down to a thin, screaming wire, stared at his monitor. For the third time that morning, the Blue Screen of Death had appeared—not with a mournful sigh, but with a cheerful, smug little ":(" that made Leonard want to throw his ergonomic keyboard through the window.

A frantic Google search on his phone led him to a forum. The post was from a user named Ghost_in_the_Shell_98 . It read:

“Only sure way. Total annihilation. Format C: from BIOS.”

And in the silent, data-less void, a little frowny face appeared on the glass of his window.

But Leonard saw only one reply, from a user with a skull avatar: “Oh, but you can. Enter the BIOS. Find the hidden altar. Invoke the purge.”

He restarted. He mashed . He entered the BIOS.