I picked up my phone and dialed 1-800-SNY-PREZ. Nothing. “Well played, Hirai-san,” I muttered to the automated message. I dashed to the phone book. There he was. K Hirai. I dialed with the ferocity of an adolescent boy looking for his father’s Playboys.

“Hello?” the answer at the other end.

“Hirai-san?” I inquired.

“Um...I guess.” He was playing it cool. Too cool, if you ask me. It proved just how in control of the situation I was.

“Alright, Hirai-san,” I continued. “You know who this is and you know what this is about. I will flip the switch and in return, I want payment.”

“What switch?” His acting was impeccable. “Who is this?”

“Don’t play coy with me.” I was losing patience. “I already had to restructure my plan after I found out you changed your phone number. So I require you to be straight with me. I’ll turn everything back on, but I demand compensation for the stress-inducing power that was forced upon me.”

There was silence. I remained stout but only for a moment. I soon realized that I was not the only one being affected by this. There were millions across the globe who I had been hurting. I hung up the phone and I wept.

What had I become? My star had dimmed after being so radiant. I had become a husk filled with greed and impotence. My life had been rank with fertility once, but now the grass had shrivelled and lacked lustre.

I dwelled in my self-pity and angst for days. I cried extensively and passionately. I had obtained what mother had said I would: nothing. I had unknowingly but hastily taken emptiness and solitude.

I failed to notice that hours had turned to days, and days had turned to weeks. I picked up the phone for the last time.

“Hello?” came the answer.

“It’s me.” My voice was notably broken. “I’ll give them what they want. Just don’t make them suffer anymore. Don’t give this power to anyone else. I’ll give you back your machine, but you must promise me that you’ll make it up to them.”

There was no answer. He simply hung up. I grabbed my PlayStation 3, put it in a brown box, and addressed it to “Kaz Harai, PSN Headquarters, Japan.”

A few days passed, and then, like a beacon of hope, PSN was restored. Scores of gamers were jubilant and they cheered. Welcome-back rewards had been announced that would eventually be received to open, albeit critical, arms. To keep with the hacktivist ruse, Sony decided to keep the PlayStation Store down, claiming PSN won’t be at full strength until all the kinks were worked out.

Meanwhile, I lay in my bed with a quiet sense of satisfaction. I did, in the end, do the right thing. It took me some time to come to my senses, but no man or woman could go through what I went through without at least one moment of weakness.

As I let out a loud yawn, I heard a knock at the door. It was the mailman. He handed me a box. It looked like the same box that I had sent to Sony, though a bit more worn and rough around the edges. I opened the cardboard box and there, safely secured, sat a PlayStation 3. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn that it was the same PS3. I hooked it up and played a couple rounds of DCUO PvP.

When I was finished, I pressed the “PS” button and confidently selected “turn off the system.” Confident because I knew that when I “turned off the system,” The System would stay on.