Bailout!

In the depths of the Great Recession of 2009, Ms. Trellis and Fastrack, Inc. reaped the benefits of being Too Big To Fail. As the world’s leading data storage firm, the company held so much information that it was in no one’s interest for it to go bankrupt and have the contents of its servers fall into the wrong hands. Hence, a government bailout. On a more personal level, the year saw Wendy Welding near completion of her doctoral studies. Patina had a growth spurt, and discovered that her iPatina avatar wasn’t the only superhero in Cyberspace. Her brother Rusty became Adapter-Boy, and the former computer bug Thrip was transformed into a vampire. Patina’s blogger boyfriend Thom made the switch to Twitter, and Ada Counter was appointed the nation’s cybersecurity czar. Art’s laptop, lacking adequate security, evolved its own defenses. The year ended with the Computer Bug seemingly finding a love interest in a lonely, winsome Spyware. Of course, nothing having to do with the Bug stays intact for very long.