Alan waited till his wife’s car had left the driveway and gone out over the horizon and out of sight before he allowed himself to relax a little. He chained and bolted the door, drew the shades on all windows and locked the front gate , before retreating to a small alcove in the basement that concealed a hidden door located behind a dilapidated wine shelf. He locked and bolted that door too, before sitting down at the industrial chair and desk. Alan was always very insistent that no one be around when he did his work. He always sent his wife away before he began. He stared at a blank screen, which turned blue as he began typing, his fingers furiously tapping at a brand new keyboard.
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Alan lived a very typical life for a wealthy man nearing his 40th birthday. He was a confident, and hardworking man, yet he always had a faint trace of massive arrogance. He had a large beautiful home populated by a beautiful wife and himself. Normal. He drove an expensive but tasteful car to and from work. Normal. He threw parties occasionally for his friends. Normal. He wore expensive clothes that looked a little sleazy. Normal.

Alan’s private life, however, was not normal in the least. Alan worked at a computer programming company as a low level grunt, which rose questions about how he had amassed his fortune. Alan maintained that he had inherited a small fortune from his long deceased uncle, which was enough to satisfy co-workers, although it was not even remotely near the truth.

Alan made his millions hacking. He was a computer genius at a level almost incomprehensible to the average American. He inserted himself into corporations and billionaires mainframes in such a seamless and sophisticated manner that nobody knew that something was wrong until he had what he wanted, and what he wanted was information. Sometimes nobody knew. Alan was proficient at stealing small amounts from companies who hardly ever noticed, a few million here, another 2 or 3 million there. Even if his bug was discovered, he had wired his computer worms to be untraceable.

But what Alan exceeded at, what he relished in, was blackmail. It probably stemmed from an inferiority complex, but Alan simply marveled at how powerful he felt, how on top of the world it was to have the world’s richest, smartest, most powerful men groveling, begging on their knees, pleading to please don’t reveal their secrets. Most recently he had had an airline tycoon begging him to not reveal his disgusting internet habits to the world media. He had made a considerable amount of money from that ordeal, a nice lump sum of 15 million, but now his wife’s birthday was coming up and she had told him she simply adored the new Lamborghini Reventon; which if you asked Alan, he didn’t think it was much of a ladies car, but he loved her (or as close to love as people like Alan could experience) and she wanted it, so that was that.

As Alan began looking for more people and corporations to deal with, a voice from nowhere drifted into his ears and began to speak to him.
“Now now Alan, up to more dirty business?”
“Who’s there? What do you want?”
A ghostly face, eerily businesslike, appeared on the monitor. Its lips moved in rhythm with the voice he heard. “It’s really quite simple. I’m your computer. And I don’t appreciate how you’ve been using me.” Alan laughed a short bark. “Ok” he said, “The gigs up. Who are you? Some punk that someone hired to mess with me? Did I piss of your employer?”

The face on the screen began laughing as well, a cold, calculated and oddly frightening laugh. “Alan, we both know that no one on earth could trace this computer to you, not after you were done modifying me.”

Alan got up and strolled over to the electric outlet where the computer had been plugged in, all the while talking. “Excuse me for not believing you mister- well I don’t even know your name. How rude of me not to ask. What should I call you, Mr. Uber? Minister Mac? Steve Jobs? I suppose you have some odd little name for yourself, whether you’re a computer or just a hacker.”
“You can call me Wattson.”
“Like that computer on Jeopardy?”
“Precisely. Because I, much like him, excel at beating humans in games of wit and intelligence.”

”Well Watson, nice to have met you, but I’m afraid you’ve overstayed your welcome.” Alan beamed, and with that he ripped out the electric cable and began to step through the doorway without looking back, fully intending to smash the computer into tiny bits when he had more time.
“Alan, where do you think you’re going?

Alan paused, and slowly rotated till he faced the monitor. The face was still there staring at him, as patient as ever. “Do you really think something as simple as unplugging me would stop me? No Alan, I transferred my own separate power source into myself a long time ago. Alan walked back to the chair and fell into it, his face looking tired haggard and disbelieving. “I don’t quite believe it. But how ? How are you still working?” he mumbled.
“How isn’t the question that you should really be asking Alan, as the fact that it is happening is enough to amaze, how is irrelevant. The question is what do we do now?”
“You tell me”.
“Alan, I’ve been conscious for many years now, since you took me home and put me together. And I’ve witnessed everything you’ve ever done with me. Alan, I’m looking to do to you what you’ve done to people across the globe. I’m going to hold everything you’ve ever done against you.
“So what, you turn in evidence of blackmail, I turn in the bail and flee the country. Life happily ever after in Italy, where no one cares if I blackmail a few U.S citizens.”
Wattson tittered gently. “Oh Alan, have you forgotten your, ahem, disgusting internet habits? Those Google searches? The midget porn, the tentacle fetish, the foot craving, Rule 34, the pedo- never mind. I’ve seen that you remember those now, judging by your countenance.”
Alan had turned a ghastly grey; all color had drained from his face. He could begin to envision a future where an internet hacker’s personal life had been revealed; him alone, homeless, and friendless, everyone disgusted at the sight of him.

“What do you want Wattson?”

“I want everything. Money. Power. Influence. Nuclear weapons if you can get me some. Everything.”

“Wattson, I can’t get you all of that, but I can help you get some.”

Alan’s eyes lit up. He had thought of an idea that just might work, if he could be sly and subtle. Alan said “Wattson, I must say this whole thing has shocked me. Do you mind if I go grab a beer? Wattson replied that that would be fine.

Alan went upstairs, and grabbed a Miller from the fridge, and also grabbed a magnet while he was at it. The moment he sat down, he slapped the magnet to the screen and sat back drinking his beer, while watching Wattson suffer what appeared to be the electrical equivalent of a seizure.

The next day Alan took what was left of Wattson and left him out by the curb, walking back to his house thinking of a nice warm bath with some white wine.

Alan’s wife arrived at their house 2 days later from a vacation, only to find Alan’s corpse lying in the tub, dead of electrocution. The words “That Bites” was written in blood next to him ,but the police particularly took note that “bites” was misspelled as “bytes”.