When Steve opened the door it seemed as if he had returned from battle. His hair was ruffled, his t-shirt had coffee stains and his pale looks told me that he hadn't eaten much or slept in a couple of days.

“Steve!” I exclaimed, “Are you alright! What happened?”

Steve, letting me in, dropped himself on the couch and kept staring at the floor solemnly. Now Steve was never known for keeping his room neat but yesterday, it seemed as if a bomb had gone off or the mob had come in and searched the place like in the movies! CDs were on the floor, books were spread everywhere, and there were a bunch of tools like screwdrivers, pliers etc. all over the coffee table and couch.

As I tried to grasp the reason behind it, Steve had a big "SIGH" and declared after few minutes - “I am ruined!”

I blinked and stared at him without a word. A minute of awkward silence followed. Then he slowly turned towards me and said in a choking voice, “I have been robbed - my research papers, my programs, my photographs, music, games... everything! All my work is gone!!” And he started sobbing.

There was a pin drop silence in the room. I saw his laptop and everything was clear to me. The back cover of the laptop was open and the cords were coming out.

“Has the hard disk crashed?” I asked. Steve nodded in affirmation. Steve's laptop is his life, his love, his everything. He just cannot do without it. Most importantly, he kept all the information about the aliens and other supernatural phenomena that he had been researching.

“You must have back ups on CD?” I asked slowly.

“Not of everything. I haven't kept the latest photographs and music in the CDs. Above all, I don't have any copy of the research work on aliens. And you know, I was making programs for video games on a freelance basis. I lost them too! I tried everything, but I can't retrieve it,” said Steve hysterically.

Now, Steve is in big trouble this time. He should've kept the back ups of every important document in the CDs or in a pen drive.

I tried to console him, “Hey buddy, this is not the end of the world! I'll give you the music and photos. And you can start your work on aliens and video games afresh. You've just started the research! By the way, how did it happen?”

Steve's face got red in anger. “Those forums I go to. I clicked on an ad I just could not resist. I thought it would be a great program to check out about aliens. But instead I downloaded a malicious virus that attacked my whole system and nothing could be done! Ohh!” he said hoarsely and he almost started crying. Now he has to do his work all over again.