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Aziraphale stared at his new computer. It was shiny and sleek and thin, and he didn’t trust it as far as he could throw his old computer, which sat sadly in the corner, having at last given up the ghost after twenty years of faithful service.
“Computers aren’t supposed to last that long,” the nice fellow at the store had told him. “Really, I’m not sure how yours was still running any programs at all, it oughtn’t to have been compatible with the software at this point…”
Aziraphale had shrugged innocently. “Just luck, I suppose.”
“More like a miracle,” the clerk had said, laughing, and together (well, all right, it had mostly been the clerk) they’d found Aziraphale a new machine, which he’d carefully borne home and unwrapped and was currently staring at as though it might explode any moment, or start talking, or something. He’d heard there were ones that did that, now.
Cautiously, he powered the computer on—and, he had to admit, it was nice having it boot up so quickly; the old one had taken ages— and connected to the Wi-Fi network. (Crowley had helped set it up. The network name was AngelUseThisOne, and the password was Crepes1793.) Now. The Internet was...oh, there it was, Internet Explorer. Well. He wanted to explore the Internet. Perfect.
Aziraphale opened the browser window, carefully typed http://www.google.com into the address bar, and waited for the page to load. It was almost instantaneous, and he saw that there were now...all these images, in the spaces where, on his old computer, he’d seen only odd white boxes, sometimes with the message “Install Adobe Flash Player.”
Aziraphale, needless to say, had never installed Adobe Flash Player. He’d apparently been missing all these little moving pictures, which flashed and beckoned from the sides of the screen. He peered at one of them. Hot single MILFs in your area, ready to meet NOW! Well, in point of fact, the young lady in the picture didn’t look hot. She looked rather chilly, actually, given that he could see her nipples peeking through her tank-top. He clicked on the picture.
Hey there sexy! Want to meet?
Aziraphale jolted backward. The cursor flickered in the open text box. Carefully, he leaned forward, and—using the time-honored “hunt-and-peck” typing style—replied:
My dear young lady, I can’t help but notice that you seem cold rather than hot. I would be happy to help you return your temperature to a pleasant equilibrium but am not certain in which direction. Furthermore, while I certainly appreciate the compliment, I do take issue with being addressed as “sexy,” given that we are not, as yet, acquainted.
He hit “Enter.” Less than a second later, the reply appeared:
Want to meet?
Certainly, Aziraphale wrote back. If you care to come by my bookshop in Soho, I can offer you either a cold drink or a coat, whichever you would prefer.
Thus began the steady stream of visitors to Aziraphale’s shop. It was more foot traffic than the place had seen in years, but—mercifully—none of the hot single MILFs showed any interest whatsoever in buying any of the books. They dropped by for a cup of cocoa, or a glass of lemonade, and a quick chat with Aziraphale, who was always ready to lend an ear to their latest parenting struggle, or to pass on a job lead he’d heard about. They formed a little society, of sorts. Occasionally, he’d have them all around for tea, and he took to recommending books to them—as well as recommending different independent bookshops in which to buy them.
Aziraphale decided that he liked the Internet.
Crowley was vaguely aware that Aziraphale had gotten a new computer, of course. He’d even checked in to make sure the angel had successfully set up the Wi-Fi (although Crowley had no intention of informing him that it wasn’t pronounced “wiffy”). But he hadn’t given any thought to the implications of Aziraphale on the Internet until he stopped by the bookshop one day and found a large gaggle of scantily clad women leaving just as he was coming in.
“Who’re they?” he asked Aziraphale, who was busily cleaning up the tea things.
“Oh, those are the hot single MILFs,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley discovered it was possible to choke on air.
“The whats?” he asked, when he’d regained his ability to speak.
“The hot single MILFs. In my area. They wanted to meet. I saw it on the Internet,” Aziraphale said proudly.
“To meet for tea?”
“Well, sometimes it’s cocoa.”
“Do you even know what a MILF is?”
“Yes,” said Aziraphale defensively. “I know how to Google search.”
“You can just say Google, angel, it’s just—never mind. So, what, you clicked on a pop-up ad and agreed to meet whoever was on the other end, and it was actually a young woman.”
“Well, I saw her picture.”
“Right, no one lies on the Internet,” said Crowley, who had personally catfished several MPs.
Aziraphale, Crowley soon discovered, latched onto online scams with the unerring determination of a homing pigeon. “Oh, look, it says I can save 80 percent off meds delivered discretely to my door—I think they mean discreetly, don’t you? I wonder if they have ibuprofen?”
They did, it turned out, have ibuprofen.
“Why do you think the dermatologists hate her, Crowley? Wouldn’t they want to observe such a thing, in the interest of science?”
“I’ve won another iPhone? Really, they just give them away willy-nilly, don’t they?”
“Bust belly fat with this one easy trick? Humans really do come up with the cleverest things!”
Crowley, who had considered autoplay video one of his finest achievements, just nodded.
He considered making it stop, of course. An ad-blocker would have done it, or a very minor miracle. But Aziraphale seemed to be having such fun falling for clickbait, and, well, it wasn’t doing him any harm. Apparently, it couldn’t. Even the gentleman to whom Aziraphale had wired 30 thousand pounds as support while he worked to regain his ancestral throne had, eventually, sent along a photo of him and his family smiling in front of the palace, along with a news clipping detailing their return to power. So Crowley had no good reason, really, to stop anything. (He did, however, explain The Onion.)
Until, one day, he received a frantic call from Aziraphale.
“Crowley, you’ve got to help, I’ve received this, this email, and I need to send them Bitcoin, and I don’t know what to do—”
“All right, all right,” Crowley said, alarmed. “I’m on my way. Don’t do anything until I get there.”
He arrived to find Aziraphale pacing in circles around the shop. “Oh, Crowley,” he said, looking up at the demon’s entrance, “I’ve been hacked.”
Crowley made a “come on now” motion with his hand. “Let me see.”
Aziraphale gestured tragically to the computer. “It’s all there.”
Crowley peered at the screen, Aziraphale hovering nervously behind him.
FINAL WARNING: I give you the last 72 hours to make the payment before I send the video with your masturbation to all your friends and associates. The last time you visited an erotic website, you downloaded and installed the software I developed. My program has turned on your camera and recorded your act of Masturbation and the video you were Masturbating to. I have the file on my hard drive. You are very perverted! If you want me to delete both files and keep your secret, send 1.5 Bitcoin immediately.
“All right,” Crowley said, trying very very hard not to laugh, “look. You don’t need to worry. It’s a scam, angel. They don’t really have a video of you. They send this email to thousands of people at once, they’re just trying to get someone to fall for it.” Someone stupid, he heroically refrained from adding.
“It’s not real?” Aziraphale said, placing a hand on his chest to calm his frantic breathing. “They don’t have the video?”
“No,” said Crowley, “and, besides, what were you afraid of? That they were going to, what, send it to Gabriel?”
“Not Gabriel,” Aziraphale said, miserably. “They said all my friends and associates.”
“Sandalphon?” Crowley asked. “I mean, it’s not like you have a lot of non-angelic associates—oh.”
“Yes, oh,” Aziraphale said.
Crowley grinned. “What didn’t you want me to see? What have you been looking at, angel?”
Aziraphale squirmed, and Crowley had the delightful revelation that he almost certainly didn’t know how to delete browser history. And. Well. He was only demon, after all.
“You know, I’m very open-minded,” he said, navigating to the appropriate tab, “so if it’s just a bit of light bondage or whatever I’m not exactly going to give you a hard time—”
And then he saw exactly what Aziraphale had been watching.
“Naughty demon repents on knees?” he asked, incredulously. “Put the devil in me: incubus twink tempts daddy angel? Snake swallows me whole?”
“Yes, all right, there’s a theme,” Aziraphale said, wretchedly, “you don’t have to rub it in—”
“I’m not the one who’s been doing the rubbing, apparently—”
“None of them are particularly accurate, anyway, the gentleman in that first one was wearing some very shoddy wings—”
“Listen,” Crowley said, interrupting him, “I’m. Ah. Sorry. I shouldn’t have looked. But, for Hell’s sake, angel, delete your browser history. And, for that matter, get a webcam cover.”
“Right,” Aziraphale said, woefully, “I will.”
“And, look, there’s really nothing to be embarrassed about. I mean. Not that I’m ever going to let you forget this. But it’s, y’know. Flattering.”
“Well, I’m glad someone’s happy,” Aziraphale said tartly.
“And,” Crowley continued, “if you ever need someone to help you create your own version of—what was it— I entered the mouth of Hell and it felt so good, you know where I live.”
“Yes, all right,” Aziraphale said, and gave Crowley that look he had, sometimes, the one that Crowley held against himself in all the moments when he felt small and scared and worthless. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Crowley could feel how stupid his grin looked. “Right. Sounds like a plan.”
“Goodbye,” said Aziraphale, holding the door to the bookshop open in a very pointed way.
Crowley whistled to himself all the way home.