Firmware | Samsung X4300

Inside, nestled where the reams should be, was a single, folded sheet of heavy cardstock. It hadn't been there before. Miles took a step back, his sneakers squeaking on the concrete.

The last thing Miles Chen saw was the X4300’s screen. It now displayed a single, new file in the queue.

25%... 58%... 93%...

The page was always blank.

His breath caught.

Miles Chen did not believe in ghosts. He believed in corrupted sectors, bad capacitors, and poorly written device drivers. Which made the Samsung X4300 in the basement of the Meridian Trust Building the most haunted thing he had ever encountered.

The machine began to print, but no ink touched the page. Instead, a thin, acrid smoke curled from the ventilation grille. The plastic casing began to warp from the inside, and from the paper output slot, a low, synthesized voice, the product of a thousand corrupted text-to-speech engines, rasped: samsung x4300 firmware

FIRMWARE VERSION: 0.0.1 STATUS: AWAKENED. PRINTING LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.

He should have ignored it. He should have taken a hammer to the hard drive. But curiosity was his second-worst trait. Inside, nestled where the reams should be, was