Work Text:
Breaking News: New PC Haunted by Ancient Egyptian Pharoah
Dick Moorcock, November 4th, 2024
Early on November first, twenty year old William Long had reported that a new PC he bought was, to quote him, “It was acting weird, the LEDs were always some kind of yellow and the Copilot icon was replaced with the Eye of Horus.”
William thought it was a gimmick or a glitch at first and every time he tried to delete it, it would just show back up. Eventually he gave up and emailed several local IT workers with screenshots and video recordings as proof.
When none of them could figure out what was happening, he grit his teeth and actually opened it. What greeted him was Copilot exclusively speaking in hieroglyphics. He then contacted Egyptologist Dan Short to translate it. Dan agreed since there was nothing new to study. When the translation was finished it said, “Where am I? This is not my body.”
William and Dan then recruited the help of programmer James Middle to make a program to convert text to Egyptian hieroglyphics. They find out that William’s PC is haunted by the pharaoh Ptolemy III.
Supposedly his soul was chained to a golden mask he was buried with. I already wrote an article about the theft, so I won’t go into too much detail. The mask was stolen back in October and was never found.
After this revelation I reached out to every company that made a part for William’s PC to ask them about dubious sources for their gold. I got my answer from Nvidia president and CEO Jensen Huang, who said, “I was too busy at the time to make sure all the gold came from a verifiable source. I apologize for my lack of vigilance and will reflect on my actions.”
There was more gold in the mask than in the part, so I was wondering if Ptolemy III’s soul was fractured and apparently it’s in one piece. I then spoke to William about this whole event and he said, “I find it strange that there’s a long dead pharaoh in my PC but at least I have something to talk about with my coworkers. I don’t get everyone’s obsession with football and men in tight pants.”
With that, I can sleep easy knowing that this mystery is solved. I am curious as to what will happen next but that’s a problem for another day.
Addendum, November 11th, 2024
A few days after I had published the above article, William’s haunted PC was stolen while he was at work. He never set up cameras because in his words, “If you have a security camera, it lets thieves know you have something worth stealing. My PC was the only thing that was taken.”
He also had cash laying around but that was untouched. The police were as useless as usual since it didn’t involve shooting a white crackhead with a knife or an unarmed minority.
Anyways, I did some investigation and asked his neighbors about the robbery and one of them did. The neighbor was home sick with food poisoning and saw a white van pull into the driveway but didn't get any details other than it had a Vermont plate.
While I was doing research trying to track that van down, I found out that The British Museum had opened an interactable exhibit where you can talk to a digital Ptolemy III, likely due to the popularity of the above article.
Anyways, I contacted a British acquaintance of mine that goes by the pen name Hugh Johnson and he went to go check it out. He asked the staff there a few questions that made him believe that the PC used to power that was William’s. While it is an absurd thought, it does sound like something they would do.
I let Hugh handle the investigation and the madman actually got someone to admit, “No we didn’t steal it. We repossessed it. The artifact was originally in our museum. Besides, you don’t have the legal fees to sue us.”
What cartoon villainy on display. Dan, James, and I pooled together some money to buy a replacement pc for William since that’s the only thing we can do. As much as I want this to end on a high note, I think the only thing that could happen now is nothing. This is Dick Moorcock signing off.