Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Line Noiz Issue 06
BEGIN LINE_NOIZ.6
I S S U E - ^ D E C E M B E R 2 5 , 1 9 9 3
>LiNE NOiZ< >LiNE NOiZ<
- L - i - n - e -
| N | O | I | Z
| n | o | i | z
| N | O | I | Z
C*)$^_@(!$()&*$#)Q($_(_^*NOIZ)*^)!*_$!(_(_)(&)*%)(!_)*)$*&)Q@#(_$(!_*^)*@^)~P
y(!@&$)`[]#^@_(4./^_$(#1709*-NOIZ^#)(~7@)()()&@)^_?)6^(_][<>!^)(!&%(@)(_!)(%u
b_@!(^_!!_$)_(_)*!)^%%$_!)+_)#$()ZION~!+_)+_%$)*&)_pQ_(@%^({}@">:&!_)#^_)(%$n
e!#^)()(^)($)^(K_K)^_#)_%(@)69)$()(${NOIZ@)(&_*(@)%()$()*@)&*)<))#>#P$(_~(#@x
r^_(Q)()G(S_#)>_)#__?#@@Q{_)W%()#_{?(_%_(NOIZ%_+#+_!+)_)$^(W_(_()*$^)*)%))#)?
C y b e r p u n k I n f o r m a t i o n
E - Z i n e
<><><><><><><><><><><><>< L i N E N O I Z ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
I S S U E - ^ D E C E M B E R 2 5 , 1 9 9 3
: File !
: Intro to Issue 6
: Billy Biggs <ae687@freenet.carleton.ca>
: File @
: Cyberplace in the workspace/ do I possess necessary CP skills/beliefs
: Doug Heinsdorf <dough@diag1.iac.honeywell.com
: File #
: Virtuality in Chicago
: <WARRENECKELS@delphi.com>
: File $
: Real World
: Rich Fannon <rsf@Cs.Nott.AC.UK>
: File %
: Let the Electric Guitars Speak to You
: Patrick A Beighley <pabst13+@pitt.edu>
: File ^
: Poetry
: Mirrorshades <annonymous>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
File - !
Merry Chirstmas everybody!
This issue wasn't supposed to be out so soon, but since it was gaining
weight, I sent it out.
The bulk of this issue is in short stories (short??). I would like to see
more stories, but would also like more to see other stuff.
Next issue I'm putting out a revised FAQ of the e-zine and probably some
other stuffs related to submission guides etc. etc. etc.
Anyways, Merry Christmas everybody!!
-Billy Biggs, da nerd.
-*- Subscription Info -*-
Subscriptions can be obtained by sending mail to:
dodger@fubar.bk.psu.edu
With the words:
Subscription LineNoiz <your address>
In the body of the letter.
Back Issues can be recieved by sending mail to the same address with the
words BACK ISSUES in the subject.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
File - @
>From: dough@diag1.iac.honeywell.com (Doug Heinsdorf)
____________________________________________________________________________
CYBERPLACE IN THE WORKSPACE/ DO I POSESS NECESSARY CP SKILLS/BELIEFS
I grew up in a hell like border town in sw Arizona. As kids, we would dig
thru the huge scrap heap behind the local Harley shop, finding twisted
chopper forks and fat bob tanks with teeth stuck in them. This was the
beginning of industrialism. These days after troubleshooting X windows
workstation boards all day, I come home to the relaxing whine of a hand
grinder ripping on steel and the latest Ministry cd blasting 'New World
Order' throughout the house.
I enter the garage just as my roomate (a Mech E) yells "ARC". The smell
of fresh fused steel and flux. The cd shuffles to Front Line Assembly's
"the Blade".
I wear a worn biker jacket, 10 hole Docs, 501s, and a Stussy shirt to
work. I just like it. I also like having a fresh shave - not on my face
but with a #1 clipper about 4" up from the base of my skull all the
way around. I dont have any tatoos that show below the sleeve line, I dont
want to push it. The manufacturing facility where I work is 500k sq. ft.
of one of the nations top ten best.
It is my skill that keeps me around. For 6 years I been working in the
diag team. My specialty is Moto 68020,030,040 diagnostics - I fix the
stinking boards.
I hated electronics, probably because it was work. Cold mudda funkin work.
I slot a pwa into an extender board into a module. I use this torture
device to extract the 040 from its feminine connector, and I pop in
the interface to an $80k Tektronix logic analyzer. From the modules Kernal
CPU I read, simply via serial port, where during power up bootspace testing
this $3k graphics wonder took a dump on me.
I locate the branch address, punch it into the LAZ and scan the code for
how best to stimulate this dog as soon as I remove the LAZ and hook up
the emulator (yes its expensive).
The job is hardcore, especially since I aint a nerd and previous attempts
to become more symbiotic with a pc in my house have led to me wanting to
punish my machine (Front 242).
I stopped hating my job 4 years ago. Reading Neuromancer opened up new
respect and triggered my imagination into a feedin frenzy. I was ready
to cram a 2Ghz Hewlett Packard digital scope probe into the lead tech's
neck, right between C5 and C6, just to get a sample. Thats sample as in
waveform storage.
The dream faded but the cyberpunk vision is in the now/future. I will
not fry myself trying to grasp/suck input from the CyberVisionStone.
Like Gibson wrote "its the way i'm wired". So I wait. I play mortal
combat on my SegaCD and save money for an Atari Jaguar, or whatever
I feel fills the void. I bust assembly code all day, now we got UNIX
/040 boards, the big new CPUs (cant say no names now) are coming.
Next semester its back into CS classes. How some guys are driven to
spend all day/night online or attacking seriously vast hard/soft
projects at the same time is beyond me.
The extremists are the ones who teach me. My strangely hi analytical
ability and my need for some future CP skills make the cold CPU warm.
Thats bulls%&# because an 040 w/o a heatsink can cook flesh.
So amiornot CP? I certainly feel like some brand of industrial puke.
I aint online 24-7 but I can wrench some of the hottest hardware.
I dont dress to pose, I dress like biker skum to differentiate or
designate my place. I know all about external centering, alias giving
a s%&# what others think. But If i got it I use it.
A bonus to having tatoos is people get out of your schtinking way!
They dont know from betwixt the legs of what beast you just came from.
It is the jedi mind trick of reality.
I guess I am what I make me. Maybe if I start dressing like a suit the
company will promote me. Possible I am embarassing. Women want me,
managements scared of me, nerds urinate in thier froot of looms when
they see me get the hot diag fix.
My well paid roomate say SUPRESS, CONFORM, and AVOID.
$DOUGH$
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
File - #
>From: WARRENECKELS@delphi.com
Virtuality in Chicago
Virtual World Battletech, North Pier Festival Market, 435 East
Illinois #334, Chicago, Illinois 60611, 312/836-5977
Since Halloween, reporters around the country have been donning
goggles and filing into darkened chambers to sample the latest in
virtual reality - virtual reality parlors springing up in major cities
across the land. This year, Virtual World Entertainment set up a game of
Battletech (R) at the "North Pier Festival Market," a crowded and
trendy mall that is the eastern cubic zirconia on the string of
Chicago's tourist traps. Battletech itself is pleasant, but technically
disappointing, too short, and expensive.
To play a first game, one must register and pay one dollar for a
plastic card. For $7-$9 (depending on day and time), players are shown
a science fiction video where the heroine rescues a hapless newbie,
showing the unfortunate (and hopefully the audience) how to run the thing.
Players can then ask the guide any questions; things can get quite
involved when a Net-head and a preteen's mother try to clarify
the instructions.
"So you push the throttle forward to go in reverse after
pushing the button? How do we stop?"
Question Time mercifully ends and game time begins.
The guide first talks with the users, and judges (accurately
in my visit) how complex the landscape should be - our newbie
majority got a desert landscape with a gridwork of peppermint-stick
poles as obstacles.
After an admonition to not pick on the newbies, Battletech players
squeeze into small booths like those found with tens of more trad-
itional video games and then pull a canopy over themselves.
Numerous LED displays light up, as do a window screen (with a small W)
and a vector radar screen below. The LED displays are generally
superfluous for the new user, or so they say. . .
Finally, a very standard shoot-em-up game starts. You see the
other players' robots through the "window" and on radar, and shoot
at them. They shoot at you. You get dire messages every now and
then about the latest bit of your robot that was blown away. Get
shot too often, and you see the ground recede as your robot ascends
to Virtual Valhalla. The screen switches to a door opening
and your shiny new robot is ready. You see robots running and
shooting at each other and at you. This continues for exactly ten
minutes.
During these ten minutes, the cross hairs lag frustratingly behind
your joystick movements and shots take a full second to fire. The
robots are clunky and drab, the better to save memory and processor
time. Nobody said (and I didn't ask) whether the time lags were
deliberately designed or caused by inadequate hardware or software.
At the end of the game, you get your coats (this is Chicago) and
gather with the other players at the screen that recounts your mission.
The graphics in this recap are an improvement on the old Atari
Combat (tm) game. Meanwhile a laser printer spits out a detailed
listing of your ten minutes of battle.
"7:07 Net Surfer's right torso is evaporated by Cool Kid!"
7:07 Net Surfer ejects as Cool Kid reduces Net Surfer's
Loki V1 to rubble!" (Net Surfer didn't come back down)
8:05 Net Surfer vaporizes Cool Kid's left torso!"
And so on.
All in all, this would be a marginal two-token video game, but
because the players entertain each other, the game becomes 28-token
or 36-token. The technology seems a bit clunky, and any test for
virtual reality must come up negative. Anybody who can get LineNoiz
will find nothing new in Chicago.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
File - $
>From: rsf@Cs.Nott.AC.UK (Rich Fannon)
[ This issue we have 2 CP/Sci-Fi stories for you. ]
[ I plan to put in no more than 2 per issue, as they tend to be fairly ]
[ large. ]
Real World
"Welcome to the Technotraz.", said Harliquin, kicking the door closed. Jenny
smiled from the centre of the room and spun on her heel, taking in the sight.
Two murals, one half-completed. A third wall covered in posters of
cult movies and stims. The fourth wall was glass, looking out over
the twilight Sprawl. One corner had been shattered at some stage and
patched with a piece of yellowing translucent plastic. The rooms
contents were shabby, but clean - a heavily patched sofa and a table
with a crate somewhere in its ancestry. Floor cushions were scattered
liberally around. The room could seat a dozen - in comfort if not in
ceremony.
Harliquin moved over to the window. Smoke, glowing red at its' base, curled up
from the middle distance. It's source was about a mile away.
"Queens Park burns again.", he murmured. Jenny joined him and slipped an arm
round his shoulders. Harliquin absently hugged her, his lips moving
soundlessly, uttering a prayer of protection and peace. He looked down,
cocking his head quizzically.
Harliquin abruptly broke the embrace and turned into the centre of the room.
"Lights." he stated, "And some mellow music.". The overhead light flickered
into dim life and the music centre hummed selecting a track. A slow complex
rhythm filled the room, an unidentified instrument swooping high over the
stave and then diving into a growl.
Jenny turned towards him, head slightly tilted, questioning.
"Bruce Cockburn," he answered the unasked question, "Mid to late twentieth
century."
"I didn't know you were into classical."
"I only found out about this guy 'cause a mate at the Kings Arms was into him."
They fell silent as the vocalist began, speaking about dawn on a Tibetan
hillside, the instrument - what was it? - accompanying his monotone.
Without warning, a piano entered - a descending appeglio - before the speaker
burst into song.
"Weavers fingers flying on the loom,
Pattern shifts to fast to be discerned.
All these years of thinking,
Ended up like this,
In front of all this beauty,
Understanding Nothing."
Jennys' breath caught in her throat as an solo began. The piano joined the
other instruments, producing a beautifully, complex, interwoven, rhythm that
the unidentified instrument - it must be a synthesiser - danced around.
She suddenly found tears running down her cheeks, the atmosphere, the music and
her tired, emotional state conspiring make her lose control. Jenny stopped
analysing and let the music take her.
Harliquin watched silently, almost impassively as the music drew to a close.
Then he grinned.
"It has that effect on me too.", he said.
Jenny was surprised; men in her world didn't usually admit their emotions and
she was sure that it was the same on the street. Her assessment of Harliquin
was changing rapidly with each new revelation of his personality. She thought
she preferred this sensitive, compassionate version, but she was less and less
certain of exactly who she was going out with. He hadn't even made a pass at
her...
"Pizza?" Harliquins' voice jerked her out of her muse. He was holding the
phone and looking at her.
"Actually," he said, dialing, "I'd better phone the clinic - with the riot and
everything I might be needed."
He pressed a couple of buttons, and was answered on the second ring.
"Hi Dave, it's 'Quin," Harliquin spoke into the handset, "How goes it? So it's
a bit early yet? Hang on."
He covered the mouthpiece with one hand and looked up at Jenny.
"Do you have any medical training?" he asked.
"A bit of first aid."
"You said you wanted to learn how to help people..."
"A-ha..."
"We needed down at the clinic - it's not going to be pleasant."
"Ok."
Harliquin uncovered the phone and spoke again.
"Dave? Jenny'll be there as well."
* * *
The flak jacket was bulky and uncomfortable, but Harliquin had insisted that
Jenny wore it. He'd replaced his customary jacket with a long, dark coat.
Jenny had been shocked when he pulled a gun case and a box of cartridges out
from under his bed - she thought that Harliquin only ever used the dart-gun.
The shotgun was now concealed underneath his coat and Jenny was
carrying his dart gun in her jacket pocket. It's weight was strangely
comforting.
More gunfire - she flinched unconciously. Even Harliquin seemed disconcerted
by this exchange of fire and he quickened his pace. Jenny found herself
breaking into a skipping walk to keep up. She glanced at his face - an
impassive, emotionless mask that chilled her. He hadn't spoken a word since
they had left the apartment, his vocabulary reduced to grunts and gestures.
Her parents had hit the roof when she rang them. It had taken Harliquin at his
most loquacious to persuade them that there was absolutely no way that he could
get her home through the riot and she would be safer at the clinic than
anywhere else.
She wasn't sure any more. Harliquin seemed to have as many faces as his
namesake had colours. This latest one scared her more than the rape gang had.
Fifty metres ahead, a warm glow issued from a converted tenement building.
With the clinic in sight, Harliquin seemed to relax, but as they neared it his
body tensed. Voices echoed from the garage that had been converted into a
reception - loud, angry voices.
He motioned for Jenny to say put and stepped slowly and carefully towards the
clinic. After a moments indecision, Jenny hurried after him. Harliquin shot
her a dirty look, but said nothing.
The voices grew more distinct as they grew closer, both corporate accents. One
had the Anglo-American vowel sounds of Gentech, the other was oriental.
Gentech was shouting at the calm, confident oriental.
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just blow you're fucking head
off and just come in here anyway!"
"I would advise you in the strongest terms not to do that sir. Your voiceprint
has been recorded and may be used to convict you if you commit any illegal
act."
Harliquin picked his way through the shattered glass and drew a bead on the
shouter.
They were five of them, dressed in the white suits and hoods of Ks' and
definately armed for bear - the first few seconds of this confrontation were
going to be critical. Harliquin recognised the oriental as Mariko, a woman he
knew vaguely. Her eyes widened at the sight of him - damn.
Gentech through back his head and roared with laughter. "Come on," he laughed,
"Lets trash this place!"
The shotgun roared, startlingly loud. Harliquin rocked with the weapons kick
as the tip of Gentechs' hood was shredded by buckshot.
"Harliquin thinks that will be very difficult; with nothing but bone fragments
where there should be knees..."
For a moment no-one moved; time froze. Then, the K next to the leader suddenly
blurred. Harliquin had always alternated buckshot and solid shot in the
shotguns' magazine and the slug struck the half-drawn pistol, ripping it out of
the mans' hand.
"Unless anyone has a reaction time higher than 34 on the Voight-Cambert scale,
I suggest that you place your weapons on the floor."
Harliquin always exaggerated his offical score. It had always given him an
edge and this time was no exception. Gentech dropped his pistol and ripped off
the remains of his hood. He was black. Harliquin knew enough history to
appriciate the irony.
"Ok, hands on heads."
The mob had started to comply when David burst in. Harliquin nodded
curtly to him.
"I thought I'd told you to get rid of that thing!", David was
definately in no mood for pleasantries.
Harliquin scowled, but said nothing.
"The police say that they are on the way, David", Mariko spoke
quietly, visibly shaken.
David nodded and turned back to Harliquin, "And when they get here you
can hand that gun over to them."
"No.", Harliquin still spoke in that same quiet, emotionless voice,
his eyes still fixed on the Ks', "We've been though this David. If J
was a pacifist then he would have told the soldiers to lay down there
weapons rather than just to stop taking bribes."
David sighed. "Ok.", he said resignedly and looked towards the still
frozen woman, "What sort of medical training do you have, Jenny?"
Jenny started. Her mind was still playing, in slow motion, the moment
when Harliquin and the K had both blurred. Her ears still rang from
the shotguns roar.
"Jenny?"
She blinked and tried to answer. "Um, a first aid course. Mostly
scalds and home emergencies."
David nodded. "That'll be fine. We've probably got about five
minutes before the casualties start arriving so I'll try to get you
through the basics. 'Quin - you'd better stay on security since
you're so attached to that weapon."
Harliquin coloured, but said nothing.
David beckoned and walked towards the curtain that separated the
reception from the clinic proper. As Jenny started walking, someone
started screaming. It sounded like an omen.
Behind her, Harliquins' eyes flicked over the group of disarmed Ks' -
passionless and emotionless.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
File - %
>From: pabst13+@pitt.edu (Patrick A Beighley)
Let the Electric Guitars Speak to You
Once, when Jimmy was stoned he told me what it's like when he hits
his zone. He lets the guitar speak to him, he said. He knows everyone else
can hear what he's playing but there is more -- a certain sub-text, if you
will. It goes straight to his brain, like he's jacked in to it. He feels
each note resonate through him, he becomes a larger-than-life sounding
board projecting this more than complete, more than correct, more than
consummate music. Nothing but the guitar exists in his mind and it helps
to be on speed. But when it's gone, it's gone. There is nothing to do.
Sometimes when Jimmy plays at the Samurai Saki House, he actually
does jack in. He said that's different. When he's jacked in he's got a whole
bunch of zones to hit. The guitar is just one part of it. He has the sound
mixing and (at the Samurai) the lights, the smoke, and the display walls --
all going on inside of his head. This mental juggling act that Jimmy is so
adept at is what Tasha was looking for when she found us.
==
I was at the Samurai. Again. Jimmy was playing with the "Phunks."
Again. Undercover Metro Cops were conspicuously trying to mingle
inconspicuously.
The cops were never very successful at the Samurai. They knew that
most of the Samurai's clientele were involved in illegal drug and software
deals. They came wearing the popular leather and denim and they drank the
popular drinks and they danced the popular dances to the popular music. And
the deals happened around them. And they knew that the deals happened.
But they never actually caught anyone.
I was holding some expensive software in a self-destructible mini-
diskette in my jacket pocket. I was waiting for one of those famous Samurai
deals to find me.
She showed up instead.
In her shiny black leather jacket, I saw the familiar setting of the
Samurai warped and twisted. She stared at her drink and I stared at her.
She was not a part of the usual low-rent rock 'n roll hacker crowd. She was
definitely financed. I noticed the chrono imbedded in her right wrist. She
turned towards me and I finally saw her face.
Her face. It was white. It was papier-m ch white. The irises
of her eyes were shiny black to match her long silky back hair. Those eyes
were surely implants grown in a genetic engineer's lab to exceed normal 20-20
vision and dyed black to absorb more light at night and to reduce glare. I
tried to imagine the detail and precision with which she saw me. She
continued to look right through me.
"Hi. I'm Steve," I said.
"Hi, Steve."
I did not see the first punch. She hit me in the chest and threw me
off of my stool. She was on top of me in a second going through my pockets.
Her hands flew over my body. Just as she started to check my hands and arms,
I flicked my wrist to release my blade. I slashed at her hands.
Her dark and sticky blood was running over my stomach. She sat on
top of me, in shock, holding her hands together trying to stop the quickening
flow. I rolled out from underneath her and picked her up. And split before
any other cops could smell her blood.
==
I carried her through the deserted streets of the Metro. My apartment
was only a couple of blocks from the Samurai and it didn't take long to reach
its relative safety. I set her down on my old couch and went to the bathroom
to find whatever first aid supplies I had. When I came back she was moaning,
wringing her hands. Her hands. Her hands were long and thin and caked in
dark brown blood. I had done a pretty good job on her. There was blood
still dripping from her wrists.
"Let me help," I said. I sat behind her and started to clean her
hands with alcohol. She breathed through clenched teeth, "For the pain..."
"All I've got is some speed. That's not what you need right now.
You're probably pretty strung out already. Aren't ya?"
She nodded. I wrapped her left hand in gauze and started on her right
hand. I checked to make sure her chrono was all right. It was Swiss and
perfect. There was very little scarring around it -- a real first class
implant. As I held her right hand, I thought about the punch she delivered
with it. It had been more than just a sucker punch. It had been more than
just some chick jumped up on speed. She had been re-wired!
"Hey now," I said. "I think it's time for you to answer a few
questions for me."
"I just wanted to score some stuff. You looked like you were holding.
I thought you looked easy. I'd take it and leave," she said.
"No way. I don't buy it." I moved away from her. "You're too good
for small time drug hits and everyone in Metro knows that I'm strictly
software fencing. I don't have anything valuable enough for a cyborg like
you to waste your time on." I was leaning against a bookcase across the room
from her. There were a couple of chairs and a long coffee table between her
and me.
"Drugs," she said.
"No. I don't buy it. Come on, who owns you? Who are you working
for?"
"I was looking for a quick score -- that's all."
I pulled a .45 from bookcase. "Now see. I think you just broke into
my house. I think you're trying to hurt me and I think the Metro Police would
like to know about that. I'm sure they do a retinal scan and find out who the
hell you are."
"They won't ID me. I'm an IBM employee."
"Shit. So your eyes, your central nervous system re-wiring, your
chrono -- all IBM property?"
"Tasha Petrovich, International Business Machines, 477.93.8992."
"So tell me why I don't take you to Apple and let them fry you." I
waved the gun around for effect.
"I'm sure that you've got some expensive unlicensed Apple software
lying around here somewhere." She spread her arms out and gestured toward
piles of mini-disks on the floor.
She had a point. The last thing that a small-time fence like me want
was to get involved in an inter-corporational "situation". The really big
information companies worked completely outside of the law. Even in the
Metro, which was considered one of the best patrolled information communities,
Apple, DEC, Sega, and IBM had their own "police" forces that worked on the Net
and on the streets.
I stood there watching her. Her dark eyes were moving quickly. She
was constantly judging the distance between us, watching the gun, and watching
my eyes. I had to take control of this situation. She was over the shock of
her injuries and was ready to complete her mysterious mission.
"Look, I need your help. I want out of this business. I still have
some corporate secrets. If you can get me a new Metro Id, you can have it
all. I'm sure it's worth a small fortune."
"I can't help you. I've retired from running on the net. I don't
even have a Cyberspace machine anymore. Besides, The guy that I used to work
with has gone completely legit."
"You're not going to help me?"
"No. I think you better leave. I don't want any corporate trouble.
Shit. I bet there's quite a price on your head."
==
When I was younger and the Metro was still called Atlanta, I was
working with Jimmy. It was a simple racket. We dug through corporate
garbage, tapped phone lines, and stole software. When we had found a weak
link in a computer system, we would go in looking for whatever we could find.
I ran the terminal and Jimmy jacked in. We made a few really good scores.
Once or twice we were able to get into accounting subroutines and
electronically embezzled credit directly into our accounts. Other times we
would just peddled whatever restricted information we could find to corporate
competitors. All in all, it was a good life. I enjoyed doing speed, the big
scores, and the whole cloak and dagger game. Jimmy loved to be jacked in. He
loved the sport of the chase for the zone. He said that the attainment of the
zone was the ultimate goal of life. Once after wrestling with an almost
impossible on-line defense systems that final crumbled before him, Jimmy just
sat there for ten minutes. His eyes were glazed over and his skin was a
collection of goose-bumps. I swear I thought he had reached the eighth level
of Nirvana. I know it was the speed and the exhaustion of being jacked in for
seven hours, but he said he had been one with the zone.
The Apple-3 run was our last. We had hit Apple twice before for a
total net profit of $4 million. After Apple-2 we had hired some of the
electronic underworld's best accountants who had set us up for an early
retirement. So on Apple-3 we weren't on the edge anymore. We were too
comfortable. I don't even think that Jimmy was on speed. We thought that we
had found a permanent weak spot in Apple's defenses on the last run. So, we
went in just as easily as last time.
Cyberspace is an illusion generated from the Information Network. A
Cyberspace 7 takes the information traveling across the Net and all of the
nodes of the Net and builds a 3-D image. Jimmy was plugged into the
Cyberspace 7 the same way he jacks into music and effects equipment -- a thin
wire ran from the jack at the base of his neck to the Cyberspace 7.
Jimmy was searching through the accounting records, trying to find a
nice big account to take. Then the walls came down. Apple knew exactly where
we were. The entrance that Jimmy used was gone and his Cyberspace world was
falling apart. Usually Jimmy could just disconnect himself from the
Cyberspace illusion, but the Apple defense system had immersed him in darkness
and kept him panicked. I could tell from my terminal that Apple was tracking
us. My screen was flashing red. They had traced Jimmy's path to the Metro's
Net. They would only need a couple of seconds to find our Cyberspace machine
linked in to the Metro Net. Then miraculously Jimmy came back to life and
disconnected. Ten minutes later we were at the Samurai celebrating our
official retirement.
==
Jimmy was playing at the Samurai when he first saw Tasha. She was
there up front dressed in red -- a spandex suit that covered her from neck to
toe. Jimmy was jacked in for the show and had been flirting with the zone
during his first set. But when he saw her up front checking him out... He
closed his eyes. His mind set the display walls undulating with oceans of
Tasha's red silhouette.
She danced. He played. He created complex images on the wall.
Images within images. Red dancers inside of red dancers. He watched her
eyes. He projected little figures entangled swaying to the rock 'n roll
rhythm wherever she looked.
His music blossomed as he ran full into the zone. There were chords
within chords. Melodies on top of melodies. He felt insane. He felt the
creative power of all of Beethoven's best works filtered into a single moment
inside his brain.
They lived at Jimmy's small apartment for two weeks -- fucking and
eating take-out Chinese. Jimmy recognized the silicon implant at the base of
her neck. He knew she had her nervous system augmented electronically. After
reading their fortune cookies one night, he asked, "Who owns you?"
"IBM. Help me -- I want out."
"How can I help? I'm just a singer."
"Have you ever jacked into the Net?"
"A long time ago for kicks..."
"You and that Steve who's always down at the Samurai can get me out.
So I can stay."
==
They walked into my loft. She was carrying a "Cyberspace 7" and he
wore a big grin.
"Hey Stevie, we need your help to clear Tasha," Jimmy said.
She was wearing a loose dress with a floral print and sunglasses. Her
time was running out -- and if that was the best disguise she could manage she
was in big trouble. She did not walk like a woman dressed in a floral print
dress. She walked like a spy with a punched-up nervous system. Every
information corporation in the world had to be looking for her by now.
"I don't want anything to do with her," I said.
"I just want to be free. You can help. I've got some of the best
virus software in the world. You fire up the software and Jimmy will jack
into the Net. And ta-da one Metropolitan Passport for me," she said.
"Free? You want to be free? IBM completely rebuilt you to be a
corporate thug for them. They spent millions on you and your hardware and
now you're just going to go Elvis on them. I don't get it? What's the deal?"
She was flustered. "I'm not a spy. I can't handle it out there. I
know about your run-in with Apple. My near death experience with Apple
happened in real life -- not over the Net. Look I'm just like you guys, I
just want to retire gracefully,"
"Jimmy, do you believe her? Do you think that once we get her a
passport that she'll still fuck you?"
"Come on, Stevie, that's not right. That's no way to talk. And yes,
I want to help her."
"We don't know anything. Apple could have been tailing her all along.
They might know what we're up to. This could all be a big setup. Apple'd love
to find us all in the same room." They stood there smiling. They weren't
taking me seriously. How come I was the only one who felt the danger here?
They looked at each other and I knew what they were feeling instead.
"Okay. Okay. I'll help, but there's no guarantee that if we get you
a passport they won't still find you."
She smiled and set the Cyberspace 7 next to my old beat up terminal.
==
All of us were on speed. Jimmy's useless eyes involuntarily darted
back and forth "looking" at the vast array of the Net. I sat at the terminal,
my finger were darting over the keyboard. I had the virus running. Jimmy
would be surrounded by the silvery globe of the virus speeding to the Metro
Government's computers. Tasha sat behind me, watching the screen carefully.
She held on to Jimmy's limp hand and breathed heavily.
Jimmy's virus would taking him to the Metro's database where he would
find a new identity for Tasha. He would insert her physical data into the
identity record and then Tasha would be a new person. The only problem was
that every kid who got in trouble with the Metro law tried the same thing on
a daily basis, so the Metro had one of the best defenses on the Net.
My screen flashed red. Trouble. The Metro must have spotted our
virus. I quickly ran through a mutation sequence. Our spherical virus should
now look like a tetrahedron. A standard data package from another national
government. I watched on the screen as Jimmy gave the correct access codes.
We're in! The Metro had let their defenses down and Jimmy was in. Tasha
sighed and stood up.
I popped my knuckles. My part was finished. I got Jimmy's virus in.
Now, I just watched my display as he flipped though files. Thousands of names
scrolled through my screen. Jimmy was able to makes sense of each of those
items instantly through Cyberspace -- different records had different shapes
and colors. I imagined Jimmy juggling colorful kitchen knives.
The list stopped. Jimmy had made his switch. Tasha Petrovich was
Brenda McClure, a Metro citizen, complete with bank accounts, national
credit, and passport id. I turned off the virus and disconnected Jimmy. As
Jimmy got used to the real world again, my display flashed. The virus had
erased itself and all traces of us on the Net. It was the best one-shot virus
I had ever seen. Jimmy and I had pulled off the best hack that I'd ever
heard of.
"Man, I've never hit the zone like that before," muttered Jimmy.
==
My second retirement is much like my first. I spend a lot of time at
the Samurai. I drink a lot of beer. Not so much speed anymore -- I don't get
alert now -- I get paranoid.
Brenda was right -- her secrets were worth quite a small fortune. My
share is enough to ensure a peaceful retirement.
I don't see Jimmy much anymore except on Cable. He made it quite big
after Brenda joined his band. Not band anymore really. They've got their own
Cable channel -- well actually it's more than just a Cable channel. They've
got their own Cyberspace on the Net and they're a corporation.
When I'm at the Samurai, the sort-of-inconspicuous Metro cops look at
me and shake their heads. They know. Most of the clientele of the Samurai
know. But I just sit here drinking beer and watching Cable with my own police
officer from the Phunk Corp.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
File - ^
[ Here's a poem I got. Yes, I accept poems. ]
By Mirrorshades
I was flying through a higher realm of reality
A feeling of serenity passed silently over my soul
Soaring over seas of flowing circuitry
Floating above towers of thoughts
I was omniscient
I stood before an angel of glowing white
Behind her glow was a gate of gold
She smiled her angelical grin to me
She stared her angelical stare
She touched the gate with her angelical touch
She warned of the dangers...
I was omniscient
The touch opened the golden gate to reveal a tower
The tower was a flood of information so powerful,
It stretched for miles above
It reached centuries to come
Glimmering white
I was omniscient
As I entered the tower, I saw a ghostly man
He chuckled a sinister chuckle
He walked towards me
Closer...
Closer...
He seemed to enter my heart
He seemed to rip out my soul
I pushed back with defiance
I could do nothing
Nothing
....Omniscience
All went black
I could hear a single line of noise
A noise of my death
The ghostly figure had ended my life
I thought I was invincible
I thought I could break into anywhere
I should have listened... to the angel
I learned...
I wasn't omniscient
................Flat.............Line....
(C)1993 - 'Shades
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Look for Issue 7 comming in with the new year. <<
>> <<
>> I'm looking for stuff like Virtual Light review << <<
>> Year in review editorial <<
>> Christian Cyberpunk (anybody wanna write about the <<
>> whole disscussion in general) <<
>> Always wanting more sci-fi <<
>> Write a column! <<
END LINE_NOIZ.6
--
Billy Biggs Ottawa, Canada "When all else fails,
ae687@Freenet.carleton.ca read the instructions"
