Galactus – Irrecoverable – Brian Manton

1.

In a student-looking sitting room, two twenty-somethings pay no attention to each other as they stare at screens.  Mike is at his PC desk with his back to us and Jane is sitting on the couch cross-legged, staring into the laptop on her lap - the screen reflected in her glasses.

SFX (from Mike's PC):  BLING

MIKE:  Jane, why are you emailing me?

2.

We see Mike's computer screen logged into his gmail account, with a focus on the attachment in the email Jane sent - "herald.exe". The mouse pointer is over the attachment.

Jane (OP):  It's cool, check it out.

SFX:  click

3.

Still on Mike's screen. Mike's hand, raised in shock and confusion is also in shot.

A dialogue box has popped up on screen.  At the top there is a progress bar, already at 48%. Beneath this is a scrolling details field which reads:

The folder "Stories from Nebulon Prime" has been deleted.

The folder "The Adventures of Kazdor the Great" has been deleted.

The folder "The Black Necromancer and the White Donkey" has been deleted.

The folder "Confessions of an Orcslayer" has been deleted.

The folder "Down and Out on Planet Isotania" has been deleted.

Mike:  No no no no no no no no--

4.

Still on Mike's screen. He has opened a browser and gone to “runscanner.net” to look up what herald.exe is.

URL - http://www.runscanner.net/lib/herald.exe.html

The website screen reads:

What is Herald.exe?

*red warning symbol* MALWARE

File description:

Herald.exe is a virus that has been designed to detect and delete amateur SciFi and Fantasy fiction.

The program runs once and does not install itself on your system but the files it deletes are irrecoverable.

Mike: What the hell?!

5.

Jane is standing on the couch, her arms raised in victory. Her laptop is flipped upside-down beside her.

Mike has spun around in his chair and stares at her incredulously.

Jane:  I AM GALACTUS - DESTROYER OF WORLDS!!!