| Satan woke up one morning and attempted to log on to the internet. After cursing Bill Gates to hell a few times as his Windows locked up, and then cursing Compaq to hell for building such a shitty computer, Satan finally was able to log on. As he pointed and clicked his way through the portal sites searching for evidence of evil, he was disappointed with the lack of true evil that seemed to exist online.
"Pornography is great and all," Satan said. "But I need to have tangible evidence of pure evil somewhere on the internet. These white power sites are stupid and lame. I need to feel as though my demons are running through the ethernet terrorizing everyone."
So, Satan hired a consultant.
This consultant was a former lawyer, since we all know where lawyers go. The consultant consulted with Satan for 6 days and 6 nights. On the seventh day, they rested. On the eighth day, the consultant made a PowerPoint presentation to Satan and his hordes of evil minions.
"Here is our 10 point plan to introducting evil into the common e-commerce market," the consultant said. "In order to really branch out in the B2B sector, we have to get some pre-IPO execs to sign non-disclosure agreements in blood."
"But how will this grow my business?", Satan asked.
"Well, evil is a real growing market," the consultant replied. "This strategy is designed to complement your current presence in the 18-24 year old market, while building brand recognition on all levels."
"Excellent," Satan smiled. "We'll begin immediately."
A team of designers immediately set to work purchasing a domain name and building a site. In 2 weeks, Satan's presence on the internet was announced by a large marketing campaign using banner ads and pop-up windows that were crafted into porn sites by hackers.
"Our visitors have been spending an average of 26 minutes on the site!", exclaimed the consultant. "They are coming here from all the other major portals and every fifth customer is selling their soul at rock bottom rates to you."
"Excellent," Satan grinned evilly. "Soon, nobody will be able to stop me. Not even Bill Gates. I'll have all the souls and he'll have none."
Things kept going well for a while. Then, Satan received an email from the US Government. It was a lawsuit. Satan called in the consultant immediately.
"You used to be a lawyer!", Satan roared. "What is this lawsuit nonsense about?!"
The consultant read the email carefully and sighed. "Apparently, you have a monopoly on evil. The US Government wants to break you up into smaller evil entities."
"What what what?!?!?", Satan screamed. "No, that isn't possible! I won't let them!"
"I suggest you go along with it," the consultant said. "Or else you'll be stuck in the purgatory of a long court case, insane legal fees, and absolute boredom."
"That's a good point," Satan said. "Lets dismantle the site for now. I think that those porn sites we hacked are a lot more evil now, although those white power idiots still don't get it. I will let the humans do my bidding, and concentrate on making Hell an even worse place to be."
So, the site came down. The sale of souls went back to being a one-on-one affair arranged by various demons and imps. Satan went back to micro-managing Hell, and evil continued to flourish elsewhere on the net unassisted.
This silly bit of nonsense brought to you by the letter Z and the Nodeshell Rescue Team.
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