A high-tech satire, Memoirs of a Virus Programmer is the Candide of this century. Johnny Pepper dedicates his memoirs to his former girlfriend, Katya, to explain what drove him to become a virus programmer. As a software engineer at the illustrious Beamer Corporation, he begins his career with a naive disposition, assuming life will be nearly perfect. Eager to escape childhood poverty and to experience comfort, he forges his way into the office world with a blind and maddening optimism. The real world singes him time and again as he finds his world view impossible.