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INTERTEXT - Volume 1, Number 4 - November-December 1991
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
FirstText / JASON SNELL
An Ounce of Prevention / MICHAEL ERNST
Experience Required / ROBERT HURVITZ
Slice of Mind / PHIL NOLTE
The Rebel Cause / MICHEL FORGET
The Scratch Buffer / STEVE CONNELLY
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Editor: Jason Snell (jsnell@ucsd.edu)
Assistant Editor: Geoff Duncan (sgd4589@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu)
Assistant Editor: Phil Nolte (NOLTE@IDUI1.BITNET)
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InterText Vol. 1, No. 4. InterText is published electronically on a bi-
monthly basis, and distributed via electronic mail over the Internet,
BITNET, and UUCP. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long as
the magazine is not sold and the content of the magazine is not changed
in any way. Copyright (C) 1991, Jason Snell. All stories (C) 1991 by
their respective authors. All further rights to stories belong to the
authors. The ASCII InterText is exported from Pagemaker 4.0 files into
Microsoft Word 4.0. Worldwide subscribers: 1091. Our next issue is
scheduled for January 9, 1992. A PostScript version of this magazine is
available from the same sources, and looks a whole lot nicer, if you
have access to laser printers.
For subscription requests, email: jsnell@ucsd.edu
-Back issues available via FTP at network.ucsd.edu (IP 128.54.16.3)-
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FirstText / JASON SNELL
I'm back. Did you miss me?
Well, probably not. But that's okay. It's still hard for me to
visualize the fact that InterText goes out to over a thousand people
every other month. And you're sitting there, reading this. InterText
will be a year old with our next issue, and we've got subscribers in
such far away (from me here in San Diego) places as the Soviet Union,
Australia, Germany, Britain, Brazil... and, closer to home, Mexico and
Canada. All over the world. Yikes.
In a way, this issue marks a bit of a change for the magazine. It's
the first issue where one of my own stories hasn't appeared (a good
trend in that we had enough to fill the space without my help... but
beware, because I might have another one in the pipeline...) and also
the first time Greg Knauss hasn't made his twisted presence felt within
our pages.
Dear old Greg, who has written for magazines with a much larger
circulation than this (he's been in maybe a dozen Atari computer
magazines) is fresh out of stories. Well, I've got some older Knauss
stories that I could dredge out of the slime pit, but it's not worth it.
I can only hope that he comes up with the stamina to write a new story
someday. Right now, he's getting over the fact that his Star Trek: The
Next Generation script, "The Cortez," was rejected. He says that at
least the ST:TNG people read the thing. He and I are now finishing up
(we hope) our own ST:TNG script (how do I get myself into these
things?), titled "Chain of Command." It's brilliant, exceptional,
wonderful, amazing... oh, sorry. Got a little carried away there.
I'd also like to welcome Phil Nolte back to the fold. Phil, who
didn't have a whole lot to do with this issue because of my poor
planning, still managed to contribute a story, "Slice of Mind." Phil has
moved west from North Dakota, and now resides in Idaho. I'm glad he's
back.
Our cover this issue is, well, you could call it minimalist. In
fact, my dear assistant editor Geoff Duncan (who has done lots of great
work for this thing and doesn't get enough credit so I'm going to devote
this entire parenthetical expression to him... Hi Geoff!) refers to the
cover as, well, clip-art. I don't know about that... I like it. I was
tempted to headline this issue "THE CLASSY INTERTEXT ISSUE"... but
fortunately I refrained.
I did have a cooler Mel Marcelo cover, one with a spooky haunted
house, but it's after Halloween and the thing would have made this
issue's PostScript version run almost one megabyte in length. No thanks.
So the lovely dancing couple it is.
Funny how theme issues almost seem to come together by themselves.
All the stories in this issue have something to do with employment. We
have a first-day-on-the-job story ("An Ounce of Prevention") from
Michael Ernst, a job interview story ("Experience Required") from
returning writer Robert Hurvitz, a story about someone getting fired
from his job (the aforementioned "Slice of Mind"), a story about someone
being reconditioned into a new profession ("The Rebel Cause" by Michel
Forget), and a story about a guy who finds an easy solution to one of
his problems at work ("The Scratch Buffer", by Steve Connelly).
I should say something else about Connelly's story: it may be a bit
obscure, but I find it extremely funny. Since this is a magazine
distributed through computer networks, I decided to put it in. I hope
that those of you with minimal computer experience can still appreciate
some of the humor in the story's situations, despite perhaps not
understanding all of the jargon or references. And for those of you with
newsgroup reading experience or experience working with large computers,
this one will be right up your alley.
This is a strange time for we computerized magazine editors (wait,
that sounds like I'm Max Headroom or someone...) -- both myself and
Quanta's Dan Appelquist are college seniors. We're both going to
graduate within the next six months (him in December, me in March). I'm
unsure what Dan will do upon graduating, but I assume that Quanta will
remain around. As for me, well, I'll still be in San Diego through June
(my duties as editor in chief of the campus newspaper require this of
me), and then I don't know what will happen. My plan is to go to
graduate journalism school, in which case I'll probably have one more
year of net access (at Columbia or Northwestern, if I get in...) or two
years (if I go to UC Berkeley). So hopefully I'll be able to produce
InterText until mid-1993. If not, we'll just have to find someone else
with net access and the will to do this fun, fun job. I hope that when I
do disappear from the net (though I also hope that I never disappear),
InterText or something like it will continue -- even if it's in a
different form. We shall see.
Final trivia for those of you still with me: you who have
PostScript will have noticed that my photo has returned to the top of
the page. I re-scanned the sucker in the right way, and it takes up very
little space in the document. And for those of you reading the ASCII
version, consider both this and my earlier references to our cover as
plugs for the PostScript version.
That's all from me. Until 1992, I wish you all well.
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An Ounce of Prevention / MICHAEL ERNST
Flats or heels? Melissa stood, hands on her hips, and looked into
her closet. Today would be her first day at a new job, so she wanted to
look good, but they had seemed pretty casual when she'd interviewed last
week, but on the other hand (or was this the first one again?) it was
better to be overdressed than underdressed, which was in turn better
than undressed, which she was now, and she had to leave very soon.
Melissa shook her head to clear the nonsense, added a pair of low heels
to the outfit she'd chosen the night before, and rapidly completed her
toilet. She was on the road in twenty minutes; half an hour after that
she reported to the personnel office of the McCarthy Research Institute.
By the time she had completed a pile of paperwork, signed a
nondisclosure agreement, heard lectures about her benefits and the
importance of safety and the amount of time she was permitted to spend
in the bathroom, been perfunctorily poked by bored doctors while
describing her childhood diseases and inoculations, received a badge
featuring her bug-eyed picture, and found her way to the building where
she would be working, it seemed like days had passed. Mr. Hutchins
("call me Frank") took her to lunch at the company cafeteria. All of the
food looked like plastic; Melissa finally decided on a garden salad,
which, she surmised, couldn't be ruined too badly.
After they'd taken their seats, her boss spoke affably around bites
of a Super Combination Burrito. Melissa tried to keep her eyes off the
burrito and on his face, but her eyes kept straying back to it as to the
scene of a terrible accident. "I assume you've already run the personnel
gauntlet this morning." Tempted to roll her eyes, Melissa permitted
herself a nod and a small smile. "Did the bald guy with the tufts of
hair sticking out of his ears tell you all about our swell insurance
plan?"
"No, it was a woman."
"Ah, the Dragon Lady. Stocky, severe-looking, flinty eyes, always
wears a suit she bought in 1953." Melissa nodded. "They say she smiled
once, but that was before I started working here." Melissa tried to
remember whether his yellow badge indicated between five and ten years
of tenure or between ten and fifteen. Her own was a gaudy green which
didn't go with her outfit at all.
"Do you have any questions about McCarthy, or about the NDE group in
particular? Last week I was so busy finding out how fast you could type
and whether you knew the difference between a mouse and a rat, and which
is which, that I didn't have much time to fill you in on other details."
Melissa asked apologetically, "What exactly does your group do?" She
threw out one of the few academic-sounding terms she knew. "Is it pure
research?"
Frank shook his head. "No, I don't think you could say that. It's
about 80 percent research, and 20 percent playing practical jokes on one
another." Melissa smiled wanly in response to his self-satisfied smirk
and thought that, unpleasant as her last job had been, perhaps it had
been a bad idea to resign with such finality. Fortunately, Frank's style
settled down once he'd started talking; with an indulgent smile he left
off his attack on the burrito and did his best to explain his group's
raison d'etre. Meanwhile, the grease pooled at one end of the oblong
dish. Melissa tried to pay attention to what he was saying instead of
wondering how long it would take the runoff to congeal and whether, if
one were to pick up the burrito afterward, the solidified fat would
stick to it like a waxy base.
"NDE stands for Non-Destructive Evaluation; we investigate ways to
test substances and devices without damaging them. A lot of tests are
like striking a match to evaluate it. Sure, you find out whether the
match was good, but it is worthless afterward, and that experiment tells
you nothing -- except in a statistical sense -- about other matches."
Frank explained that this method wasn't good enough for their customers.
Melissa nodded attentively at breaks in the monologue and decided that
eating her salad would take her mind off Frank's food. She was wrong.
Frank went on to discuss the NDE philosophy in greater detail
(Melissa slipped her feet out of her shoes, wished she'd chosen the
flats after all, and thought about what she would wear the next day; she
owned so little clothing that went with green) and to stress that
although their testing was non-destructive, they did work with some
dangerous materials and that safety concerns were of paramount
importance. Melissa solemnly agreed and wondered where on earth he'd
gotten that tacky tie. He went on about his group's fine record of
safety and the elaborate precautions that were standard practice. His
earnest sincerity about these safeguards was a strong contrast to the
ennui of the morning lecturers, whose soporific delivery of rote
material had left her with a sluggish feeling, as if she'd had a bad
night's sleep. Frank seemed like a nice guy, even if he was a little out
of it and had a sadly stunted sense of humor which brought to mind a
plant left too long without sunlight. He was by turns sensitive to those
around him -- he was attentive enough when he stopped talking long
enough to ask Melissa a question -- and wrapped up in technical
concerns. A typical engineer.
Eventually he outlined Melissa's duties. Her primary objective -- he
made it sound like a hill about to be assaulted by a company of Marines
-- was to run interference with the bureaucracy so that he could do
"real work." She was relieved that she was not expected to fetch coffee
or make eleventh-hour telephone calls to locate a baby-sitter. Sick of
running her last boss's errands, she had begun to encourage tradesmen's
frequent misconception that she was his mistress. "Are these the shirts
that Brian's wife dropped off or that I did?" she would ask the young
man at the dry cleaner's. "It wouldn't do to mix them up," she'd add
with a lascivious wink, then saunter out, hips swaying. The rumor didn't
get back to her boss's wife before she quit, but she hoped it did
afterward. She smiled, and Frank thought that she was responding to his
feeble joke about keeping a capacitor from charging by taking away its
credit cards. He had finished his burrito, and the pool of discolored,
oily fat had disappeared as well. Frank remarked on her half-eaten
salad, but Melissa said she wasn't very hungry.
"Don't worry overmuch about your productivity at first," Frank said
as they walked back. "Just get the feel of the place and meet the
people. I'll ask the group members to introduce themselves and to make
you feel at home." He muttered something about a test that afternoon,
and Melissa imagined a room full of managers in shirtsleeves and pocket
protectors seated at wooden desks, brows furrowed and tongues sticking
out of the corners of their mouths as they filled out bubble forms with
their #2 pencils.
Frank pointed out Melissa's desk, which sat bare and forlorn in a
fence of waist-high partition walls like an empty doghouse in an
abandoned backyard. Frank's office was just the opposite. Papers were
piled on every surface except the chair, computer keyboard, and
cappuccino machine. Books lay propped open under half-full coffee mugs,
boxes made the entrance nearly impossible to negotiate, and Post-It
notes wallpapered the area near his desk. Melissa instinctively
recoiled. "Don't worry," he assured her, "I'll never ask you to search
through here. Besides, if you were to try, you'd probably mess the place
up so that I couldn't find anything."
Melissa spent the next few hours raiding the supply room, organizing
her desk, acquainting herself with the computer, and meeting people who
came by to welcome her. The phone rang rarely, and Frank was out
somewhere, so she figured it was okay to just sit and read about
policies and procedures, computer programs, requisition protocols,
company picnics, executive perquisites, and parking permits. Whenever
she leaned back to take a break, her eyes were caught by a ludicrous
poster of a rabbit with a shocking pink Band-Aid on one of its ears.
Frank had pinned it up in the hallway, and its legend read, "Only A Dumb
Bunny Thinks Safety Is A Matter Of Luck. Make '91 A Safer One. MRI."
Around mid-afternoon, when she was poring over a manual which, on first
glance, had appeared to be written in English, she noticed a lanky red-
haired fellow leaning against the low wall of her cubicle; he was
staring appreciatively down her blouse. He obviously approved of her
Maidenform's delicate scalloped edging of sheer patterned lace, but had
he noticed the satin center bow and the exquisite faux pearl detailing?
Did he realize that its comfortable-yet-firm support was perfect for
every day? Melissa straightened and offered a hello.
He raised his eyes to hers. "Hi. I'm Josh McCarthy," he said with an
excessively friendly smile, offering his hand to be shaken. At least he
had a firm grip. "No relation, or I wouldn't have to work for a living.
You must be Melissa Sweedler." He reads well, thought Melissa, but then
checked the uncharitable thought. Perhaps she ought to give him more
credit: while he had been looking straight at the name badge dangling
from her blouse pocket, he probably hadn't even noticed it. "Welcome
aboard; are you getting settled in all right?"
"Well enough, except for having to read these manuals." Melissa
gestured wearily at a heap of documentation whose covers proclaimed in
bold letters their ease of use. "I think it's hopeless to try to squeeze
myself into the mind of a technical writer; it's too cramped a fit."
Josh frowned. "I'm a technical writer myself -- that one's mine." He
pointed to one of the books in the pile, and Melissa blushed. Just when
she was starting to get comfortable with these people, she had to put
her foot in her mouth, which was particularly painful with heels. He
rushed on. "Maybe I could help you get in the right frame of mind later.
Over lunch tomorrow, maybe? For now, however, you should take a break.
Would you like to experience an explosion?"
"An explosion?"
Josh nodded, then contradicted himself. "We're testing a blast
containment system, and if it works -- which it will -- there won't be
anything to see. But it's a good excuse to take a break and get outside.
It's a beautiful day out," he added. It was indeed a lovely, cloudless
day: when she'd searched for this building, a cool breeze had ruffled
the trees' leaves with a gentle rustling and the promise of a delightful
evening. Melissa was tempted, but she hesitated to leave her post. Josh
looked puzzled and continued, "The whole group will be there, so there's
no particular reason for you to stay here. Frank said he had invited you
to watch."
They walked out past the senior secretary, a timid-looking old
creature with short white hair, wide startled eyes, lips in a perpetual
moue beneath a downy moustache, and tacky pink earrings. She declined to
come along but agreed to answer Melissa's phone if it rang. "I've seen
enough of these boys' pranks; I don't need that kind of excitement."
When she shook her head, her ears waggled, and she looked exactly like
the bunny in the poster. Josh didn't seem too disappointed that she
wasn't accompanying them.
"I thought this was the Non-Destructive Evaluation group," Melissa
said as they emerged from the building. "Why are you setting off an
explosion?"
"One of our projects is the validation of blasting caps; the
dangerously unstable ones are kept in a big steel box, and we're
verifying that it's strong enough to be trusted." The weather was as
pleasant as it had been before, and while the day was sunny, it wasn't
uncomfortably hot this early in the summer. "The caps are detonated
electrically, and we test them by running just a trickle of current
through them." Josh went on about knees in characteristic curves and
criteria for discarding bad caps; Melissa wished she was reading one of
the relatively clear manuals instead. She looked appreciatively at the
grounds, which were like a campus with their scattered buildings and
grassy lawns, and wondered how many people were employed full-time just
tending the greenery.
"If the robot arm detects a bad cap, it drops it in a glorified
safe. The safe has a capacity of one hundred caps, and it has been rated
as capable of withstanding considerably more powerful blasts; our group
has certified the plans as well, and in fact Frank had a hand in the
design. We're paranoid -- well, Frank is -- so we're testing the safe
ourselves, just to be sure. It's a waste of time and money, if you ask
me, but no one does."
Melissa made a noncommittal noise, and as they walked along Josh
continued to chatter, periodically bobbing forward to catch her eye,
which made Melissa feel obliged to nod at whatever he was saying at the
time. She warded off his questions about where she lived and what she
did on weekends. After what must have been only a few minutes, Josh
pointed out, off to their right, an enormous wheel and rubber tire. It
was mounted over an even larger metal drum which resembled the wheel of
an asphalt roller on steroids; more machinery poked at unlikely angles
from a gantry. "To test landing gear, we rev the drum up to five
revolutions per second and then slam the wheel against it, to simulate a
plane landing at 200 miles per hour. You can hear the reverberations a
mile away. We repeat it until the landing gear breaks." Melissa began to
realize that to these university-educated engineers, "non-destructive"
meant something very different than it did to her.
At her look -- she hadn't realized her reaction was so transparent -
- Josh held his hands up in mock-defense. "Yes, I know it's not exactly
non-destructive. But it's not destructive to the airplane, and besides,
we have lots of extra landing gears. For some reason, our clients find
it more convenient to send us dozens of whatever we need than to ask us
how many we want and just ship that many. We end up having to store
piles of the stuff." Melissa nodded; while Frank's office was by far the
worst offender, she'd noticed crates and boxes scattered through the
hallways and piled in unused offices, and one of her new keys -- her key
ring now resembled a mace -- was to their warehouse.
Soon they reached the test site, where a number of people were
engaged in animated conversation outside a low, bunker-like concrete
building. Frank was conferring with someone from Facilities, but when he
had finished, he walked over briskly. "Melissa! I'm so glad that Josh
brought you along. I would have myself, but I've been here for hours and
you would have been bored. Have you met everyone?" He made
introductions, chided the onlookers for turning a scientific experiment
into a spectator sport, and went off to quadruple-check the
arrangements. Melissa chatted idly with the cluster of people while wire
was strung from the shelter to a field where the safe sat, looking like
a child's toy at that distance.
Melissa was handed a blasting cap: a dud, Josh assured her, if its
current-voltage curve was to be believed, but he warned her not to drop
it just the same. It seemed remarkably light -- about an ounce, her
postage-meter-trained fingers gauged -- to be causing such a stir. "It's
an experimental type that is more powerful than older caps and so able
to detonate more dynamite," someone said.
Shortly Frank shooed them all inside, where they gathered at the
tiny, shielded windows. "I give you an hour off work, and act like a
bunch of kids at the circus," he said in mock exasperation. He activated
the detonator and continued without pause, "There's nothing to see."
He was cut off by a tremendous roar. The safe was tossed into the
air and a hole appeared in its side. Then dirt occluded the view from
the shelter, and the group remembered to take a collective breath. After
the dust had settled down, Frank led the way outside. Debris was
scattered all around; some pieces of shrapnel had nearly reached the
bunker. The safe, its thick metal sides bent and torn, was lying half a
dozen paces from a deep new crater. Frank shook his head and kicked at a
clod of dirt. "They certified this safe." Melissa thought about telling
the Dragon Lady she'd changed her mind and would buy some insurance
after all.
The failure of the safe did little to dampen the onlookers' spirits
-- in fact, most of them found it hilarious. They talked and laughed on
the walk back to their building, and Melissa became increasingly
comfortable with them; she didn't even mind Josh's continued flirting.
Well, not too much. She decided that she was going to like this job
after all. When they went inside, they received grins and questions
about what they'd been doing. "That was even louder than the landing
gear," said those who hadn't come along.
Frank was an exception to the general mirth. He seemed disappointed
and somewhat preoccupied. When the group members had returned to their
offices, he paused at Melissa's desk. "Melissa, I'd like you to take a
memo to Facilities." He glanced at his watch, hardly noticing her poised
pencil. "You probably have just enough time to walk it downstairs before
they close for the day. Ask them to take away, first thing tomorrow
morning, the two thousand extra blasting caps I've been storing in my
office."
--
MICHAEL ERNST (mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu) is a graduate student in
computer science at MIT. He knows the difference between Trinidad and
Tobago, and which is which.
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Experience Required / ROBERT HURVITZ
Mr. Peterson glanced one last time at the worthless resume before
feeding it into the paper shredder mounted on the edge of his desk and
directly over the trash can. "What a complete and utter waste of my
time," he muttered. Before opening the next file, he jotted down on a
Post-It note a quick reminder to give the recruiting office a severe
verbal lashing.
He punched the speaker-phone, said, "Send in the next supplicant,
Karen," and cut the connection.
As his office door opened, Mr. Peterson looked up from the new
resume and asked, "Daniel Smith?" Smith nodded. "Sit down, Danny." Mr.
Peterson motioned to a leather armchair in front of his desk. "I hope
you don't mind my calling you Danny. My two-year-old son is named
Daniel, and he likes to be called Danny."
"My mother calls me Danny," said Smith.
"I see," said Mr. Peterson. He looked back down at the resume.
"How shall I address you, sir?"
"Mr. Peterson will be fine. What makes you want to work for All
Edge Systems, and, more importantly, why do you think we'd even want
someone like you?"
"All Edge is the best company out there, and always will be. I will
not compromise my professional integrity by working at a second rate
business. I know that All Edge Systems wants only the best men working
for her, and, to put it simply and plainly, I am the best."
Mr. Peterson regarded Daniel Smith. His short blond hair was
moussed back in a stylish wave. His pale blue eyes glinted self-
confidence, ambition, and that unmistakable killer instinct.
He was clad in a dark, pinstripe, Pierre Cardin two-piece suit with
matching power tie. His legs were crossed, and Mr. Peterson could see
that although his shoes shined as if they were brand new, the worn sole
clearly showed them to be many months old.
"Did you notice the fellow who was in here immediately before you?"
A look of disdain crossed Smith's otherwise fine features.
"Unfortunately, yes. A pathetic excuse for a man. But I was heartened to
see him run from your office in tears. May I ask what it was you said to
him that caused such a delightful reaction?"
"No, you may not." Mr. Peterson read a few more lines of Smith's
brag sheet and raised his eyebrows slightly. "Your resume claims that
you just received your M.B.A. from USC. I'm a Trojan man myself. Class
of '83. Tell me, is Professor Green still teaching? He was my
undergraduate advisor."
"Oh yes, Green's still around. Was he just as senile back then?"
Mr. Peterson smiled. "He had his occasional moment of lucidity.
He's a homosexual, you know."
"Yes, I took a class with him."
They stared at each other for a few seconds.
"Are you married, Danny?"
"Engaged."
"I see." Mr. Peterson read over the rest of the resume. "I assume
she would not divide your loyalties?"
"Of course not, sir. All Edge Systems would have me first and
foremost. I would not have it any other way." Smith crossed his arms. "I
did not choose my fiancee on some foolish whim."
Mr. Peterson closed Smith's folder and placed it on the desk.
"Needless to say, Danny, I'm quite impressed with you. However, I don't
think that you're properly suited for the job. Frankly, I don't much
like your tie. Thank you for your time, and you know where the door is."
Smith squinted his eyes. "Excuse me, sir?"
"Vacate my office, or I'll call security."
"Mr. Peterson, I don't believe you know how much this job means to
me." He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a .357 Magnum, and aimed
it steadily at Mr. Peterson's chest. "You will give me the job. I will
settle for nothing less."
Mr. Peterson smiled broadly, showing his teeth. "I like your style,
Danny-boy. Congratulations." He leaned forward and punched the speaker-
phone. "Karen, politely tell the other prospectives to fuck off. We have
our man."
--
ROBERT HURVITZ (hurvitz@cory.Berkeley.edu) is a senior at UC Berkeley.
He wrote this story at the request of a friend who was in severe pain
and 2,000 miles away. He has previously appeared in both InterText and
Quanta. Not much is happening in his life at the moment, but he hopes
this will change soon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Slice of Mind / PHIL NOLTE
"Have you ever really thought, I mean really thought, about
thinking, Schultz?" Crawford asked me. The question took me utterly by
surprise, seeing as how the time was somewhen way beyond my normal
bedtime and my thought processes were, to say the least, somewhat
different than normal. Crawford and I had sought refuge in a back corner
of the small, dimly-lit, smoke-filled apartment. The mindless drum
machine-thumping of one of those awful candy-rock groups with the pouty-
voiced, pre-pubescent female lead singer blaring on the stereo wasn't
helping my ability to think much either.
"Sure, I've thought about it," I said. "The whole concept is kind
of mind-boggling, if you get my drift." One side of Dr. Nathan
Crawford's lip curled up in a half-smile, half-smirk at my half-assed
attempt at a joke. I took a pull on a light beer that was, by now, much
too warm to be drinking.
"That's good, Schultz," he said, "but I'm serious. Tell me, if you
can, what exactly is a thought? Where do ideas come from? The human
brain is only another organ like a liver or a pancreas, after all. Why
don't we have a better understanding of it?"
I shrugged. This sounded like a good discussion topic, the kind you
could get your teeth into. "Can we get out of here, Doc? This party is
about to break up anyway." He looked around the hazy room, noticing that
most of those still present were paired up and oblivious to us anyway.
He nodded and got up. I left the rest of my wretched beer on the end
table. We headed for the little all-night coffee shop on the corner, a
couple blocks away, just off campus.
Crawford was one of those young profs who liked to spend time with
the students, after hours, away from the classroom atmosphere. A few
drinks -- on rare occasions a toke or two -- a little music and everyone
tended to let their hair down. Crawford really got into that kind of
stuff. The discussions often got real interesting. He hated the
comparison, but I always thought he looked like a slightly taller
version of Richard Dreyfuss. He even had the animated gestures, the
intense facial expressions and the Van Dyke beard.
I was a Ph.D. student in Zoology, the same department as Crawford,
but I hadn't gone to the party seeking esoteric conversation. I was
looking for something more basic: female companionship. As usual, having
gone looking for it, I hadn't found it. Not for lack of trying, mind
you. But then, I'm sort of a Maynard G. Krebs look-alike so I've gotten
used to it. I settled for the next best thing: the esoteric conversation
-- at least it was with somebody smarter than I was.
We settled into a well-worn red vinyl booth and ordered some onion
rings and coffee -- a couple of things that the little restaurant was
famous for. The coffee came right away. Crawford blew gently across the
surface of the hot, dark liquid and took an exploratory sip. It was like
that was all he needed to get back in gear. He picked up the thread of
our previous conversation just about where we left off.
"What this thing we call 'the mind' anyway?" he asked rhetorically.
"When you see something or hear something or touch or taste or smell
something, the brain reacts in some way. Thoughts are the result. How do
they happen?" I shrugged. He paused for long enough to take another sip
of hot brew. "I'm not sure, either, but think of this: it all goes on
inside your head, inside a space about the size of a softball. It may
not sound too romantic, Schultz, but tonight when you were trying to
make time with that buxom little junior, it was ultimately her brain you
had to communicate with, wasn't it. One rough-surfaced softball-sized
organ to another!"
"I don't know, Doc," I said, smirking, "I'm pretty sure it wasn't
her brain I was interested in!"
"There will come a time when your thought processes are free from
the influence of your hormones, Schultz. I pray, for your sake, that the
day isn't too far off!"
I decided to get a little more serious. The short walk in the cool
night air and a cup of black coffee had done wonders for my head. My
mind had cleared. Besides, grad students just love to cross wits with
profs. What the hell, I thought, I might even learn something!
"So how would you go about studying the mind and thoughts and brain
function, Doc? Like, where would you start?" I asked, sensing that he
was really into the subject and only a little priming was needed to set
him off. I was right.
"Naturally, there would be real value in comparing abnormal brains
with normal ones." Our onion rings came. The air was filled with the
wonderful, sinful aroma of golden-brown breading crisp-fried in oil.
"You mean like comparing college students with insurance salesmen?"
I asked, as I handed him the catsup. He chuckled, took the offered
bottle and poured a large, red dollop on his plate.
"Yes, Brian, but don't forget that there's another end of the
spectrum. One could probably learn more by studying the very
intelligent. Of course, some of that work has already been done. Broca's
brain is preserved in a jar. So is Einstein's."
"Broca?" I asked.
"Paul Broca. He was a French scientist who did the pioneer work on
human brain function. The speech area of the brain is named for him. I'm
surprised you haven't heard of him." I shrugged, Crawford continued.
"Believe it or not, the scientists who studied those very special brains
found little to no difference between them and that of a 'normal'
human." He paused and selected the largest onion ring from the basket,
dipped it in catsup and then held it suspended above the plate between
his thumb and forefinger while he made his next point.
"Perhaps the strangest case of all is that of Vladimir Lenin, the
Soviet politician and leader. After taking Lenin's brain out of his
skull, his doctors used standard tissue techniques to preserve it and
then proceeded to slice it up into sections, some 30,000 of them." He
smiled, and bit into the crisp golden circle. He watched me for my
reaction.
"Wow!" I said, around a mouthful of the succulent fried food. "What
did they find?"
"Absolutely nothing," he replied, eyeing the basket.
"Jesus, what a waste!" I said, shaking my head.
"Perhaps not," said Crawford, as he selected the largest of the two
remaining onion rings. "Perhaps they didn't know what to look for."
"What do you mean by that, Doc?"
"Could be there's more to the thought process than just simple
Biology and Chemistry."
"Like what?" I said as I grabbed the last tidbit out of the basket.
"Well, like Physics, for instance. There have been some remarkable
discoveries recently. The discoverers don't know it yet, but some of
their findings have immediate applications for my research."
And it went on from there. I was hooked. Dr. Nathan Crawford spun
an incredible tale of new and absurd theories. Only, as he explained
them they didn't sound so absurd. They sounded exciting, even plausible,
and I hung on to every word. After an hour that seemed like about five
minutes, I snapped out of an intense concentration to find that our
coffee was stone cold and there was nothing but a few congealed crumbs
in the onion basket. It was like we had been alone in the little
restaurant.
Suddenly, sadly, it was time to go. You can only sustain that kind
of intensity for so long. My head was still reeling with all the new
wave brain theories that had been crammed into it.
"Stop by my lab tomorrow afternoon, Schultz. I'll show you some of
my results," he said, as we parted company in the parking lot of the
little coffee shop.
"Sure, Doc, you bet!" I said enthusiastically. I walked back to my
one-room apartment to a bed that I knew wouldn't see much sleeping that
evening.
All the next day, my mind was filled with thoughts about thinking.
(Read that last sentence again. It will give you some idea of my state
of mind that day.) All the next day my classes seemed to take forever.
To make matters worse, I also had to T.A. the afternoon lab session.
That went quickly too -- kind of like a snail in an ultrafreezer.
Finally, some twenty minutes late, I managed to herd the last of the
sophomores out of the Vertebrate Zoology lab. As quickly as I could, I
de-prepped the teaching room, shed my lab coat and washed the
formaldehyde off my hands. Two minutes later I was up on the fourth
floor getting ready to enter Crawford's lab.
I stopped myself right by the corner of the door. Something odd was
going on. Some poor son of a bitch was in the middle of a real, old-
fashioned ass-chewing. It only took a moment to figure out that someone
was Dr. Nathan Crawford. The one doing the chewing was none other than
W. Oscar McBride, Dean of the College of Science and Mathematics! This
had to be heavy duty stuff! I was glad I wasn't in the room but I
couldn't help myself as I eavesdropped with a sort of horrified
fascination.
Old Oscar was practically shouting.
"... the most hare-brained idea I have ever heard of!"
"I believe I can explain..." began Crawford softly.
"Explain! Christ, Nate, how could you be so god-damned stupid? You
can't give controlled substances to students even if they are volunteers
and I don't care if they each signed ten waivers! You simply cannot do
that! As if that weren't enough, I have it on good authority that you've
been at student residences where marijuana was used and minors were
consuming alcohol! On numerous occasions! What were you thinking? Have
you no sense of propriety, Nate?"
"As I started to say, Dr. McBride, I believe I can explain..."
Crawford began, quietly, reasonably, only to be cut off again.
"Not this time, Nate. I can't do anything to help you. Even if you
had tenure, which you don't, I'm not sure we could beat this one! There
are people in high places who want your head! You'd better start
packing."
McBride almost ran me over as he stormed out of the lab. I
pretended like I had just arrived and was none the wiser. He looked at
me with his reddened face and shook his head before steaming off down
the hall and around the corner.
I peeked around the doorjamb. Crawford was looking in my direction
but didn't appear to see me. I waved and said: "Hey, Doc, is everything
all right? He started, recognized me and motioned me inside. He was
shook but, hey, I guess that's understandable, given the circumstances.
"No, Brian, it most certainly is not. I just got fired. Hard to
believe, really."
"Uh... I know," I confessed, "I couldn't help it. I overheard the
last couple minutes out in the hall."
"I thought that this University was different... but, of course
they're all the same."
Amazingly, Crawford sort of shrugged and seemed to shake off the
mood. Suddenly he became a man of action.
"No doubt they'll send security over to search my office." He
looked at me. "I want you to keep something safe for me. This is very
important, can you do it?"
"Uh ... sure, Doc," I said, praying it wasn't a kilo of grass or an
ounce of coke or something. I was really a pretty straight guy. I mean,
like, drugs had never appealed to me much. Sex and Rock n' Roll, fine.
Drugs, no. I swallowed, "What is it?"
"You remember my trip to Moscow last July?"
"Yeah, you took some great slides. Wish I could've been with you."
"Those weren't the only slides I brought back with me." I gave him
a puzzled look. He smiled without humor. "It was frightfully expensive,
Brian, but I managed to get a few of those 30,000 sections of Lenin's
brain and smuggle them back here. Five, to be exact."
"No shit, Doc?"
"No shit, Schultz!" he replied.
I shook my head in disbelief.
"They have proven invaluable for testing certain aspects of my
theories."
"Yeah, I'll take them. When do you want them back?"
"I'm not sure. I'll call for them when I get settled. In few weeks,
a month at most."
I left the lab before security got there. I didn't see Crawford
again for a month and a half.
But man, did some shit happen!
The weekend after Crawford got fired was the long Thanksgiving one,
a four-day extravaganza. When we got back from break, Crawford was long
gone. I remember the scene when I got back to the Zoo department on
Monday after the Holiday. The place was all aflurry with campus
security, real downtown cops, and high-level administrators.
"What's goin' down?" I asked one of the campus guards, a real
large, badly overweight type who was even then eating a jelly donut. He
shook his head in disgust.
"That Crawford guy ripped off some stuff outta the lab las'
weekend," he said around a mouthful of donut. "The Dean's pretty torqued
about it! Guess he's got good reason, I hear there was a lot of
e'spensive stuff in there!"
I looked into the lab, over the yellow tape of the police barrier.
Crawford had moved out. And I do mean out. McBride almost had the big
one when he found out about it. Believe me, if they ever catch Crawford
they'll put him away for good. You see, the halls had been all but empty
with everyone out for the holiday and campus security had been its usual
(that is to say: incompetent) self. Crawford hired himself a couple of
brawny football-player types and backed a large U-haul truck up to the
lab.
He took everything.
It was at least a million bucks worth of stuff! Good stuff. Big
stuff like the ultracentrifuge, the gas chromatograph, the HPLC, the
growth chambers, little stuff like pH meters and electronic balances,
and all the weird, one-of-a-kind (and expensive) stuff that he'd made to
test his pet theories. As Dr. Seuss would've said: "He stole the roast
beast! Why, he even stole the last can of Who Hash!" Heck, the ol'
grinch himself couldn't have done a better job of stripping that lab
then Nate Crawford had!
Yeah, it was all gone and so was Crawford. I had to hand it to him,
he sure had a knack for getting his way. Two weeks after that I saw an
obscure notice in the daily paper stating that someone had stolen the
brain of the famous French scientist, Paul Broca, out of the museum
where it had been kept for so many years. There were no suspects.
No suspects? I think they'd better step up the security on
Einstein's brain unless they want to lose it too.
Crawford came for his Lenin slides one day with about 20 minutes
warning. I got them for them out of the hiding place I'd used and we
talked for a few minutes. He spent a lot of time looking over his
shoulder. Guess I couldn't blame him. Weird. It was like a scene out of
a bad "B" sci-fi movie or something except that he wasn't wearing a cape
and I'm not a hunchback. He asked if I wanted to come and work with him
at a clandestine, but well-equipped lab he'd set up. He was pretty sure
he was on the verge of some big breakthroughs and allowed as how he
could use some competent help. I don't know if he liked my answer or
not.
I told him I'd think about it.
--
PHIL NOLTE (NOLTE@IDUI1.BITNET) is assistant editor of InterText, as
well as being an extension seed potation specialist in -- of all places
-- Idaho.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Rebel Cause / MICHEL FORGET
Kevin had been sleeping for nearly three hours when his life fell
to pieces before his eyes. Through the blasted shards of what had once
been the door to his modern two-story home emerged seven Government
Enforcers with blazing weapons in their hands and murder in their
hearts. Shocked from sleep by the sudden flurry of activity, Kevin
barely had time to stumble to his feet and murmur a plaintive question
before he was roughly thrown to the ground and the smoking muzzle of an
automatic weapon was pressed hard against his temple.
"Kevin Gallant!" shouted one of the black-cloaked figures.
It was all Kevin could do to mumble affirmation, his eyes fixed
nervously on the muzzle of the gun pointing at his head.
"You have been tried and convicted of conspiracy against the freely
elected People's Government. This heinous crime, according to Clause VII
of the new Constitution, which was drafted by the very government you
sought to overthrow, is no longer punishable by death."
Relief flowed through Kevin like a fresh breeze as he learned that
he wasn't going to die. The new government really was a government for
the people, just as the banners and signs had proclaimed during last
month's election. Kevin knew that he had not done what he was being
accused of, but he was now confident that the whole matter could be
cleared up before anything of a permanent nature happened to him.
"Thank God, " he whispered, an audible sigh escaping his lips.
"I wouldn't," one of the Government Enforcers sneered. "The
punishment you do receive will be so bad that you'll probably wish you
were dead. Do you understand what you tried to do?"
"I didn't do anything, " Kevin asserted in a slightly trembling
voice.
With a curse, the Enforcer came forward and roughly kicked Kevin in
the side.
"Nothing? You tried to bring down the only government to give the
people a fair shake in forty-seven years! There was a time, and it
wasn't too long ago, when it was a crime to read a book or gather in
groups, or even say what you felt. Now, the government provides
wholesome literature for any citizen who asks, provides places for
supervised public gatherings, and conducts surveys to determine what the
people want from their government. The world is changing, and that
change cannot be halted for the sake of a few malcontents like you!"
"But I haven't --" Kevin started to say, but thought better of
further protest when the Enforcer raised a fist and made as if he would
strike Kevin if he finished the sentence.
Kevin was roughly jerked to his feet, and a thin, silver collar was
fastened around his neck. The Enforcer who was going to hit Kevin only
seconds earlier pressed a green button on the side of his ebony helmet,
mumbled something Kevin could not hear, and then watched as Kevin's limp
body stiffened and then dropped to the floor, drained of any ability to
resist.
Kevin's eyelids fluttered open after an unknown amount of time, and
he once again became aware of his surroundings. He was in a dark room,
with steel panelled walls. The room only had a cold steel pallet which
served as a bed and a straight-backed steel chair for furnishings. The
only source of illumination was a cold white energy panel near the
ceiling. There was a strange scent in the air which Kevin could not
identify.
Where am I? Kevin wondered.
With some effort, Kevin forced himself to his feet and stumbled to
the door. Turning the handle, he discovered that the door was locked.
"Damn, " he said aloud, leaning weakly against the door. "Where am
I? I didn't do anything. When will I be able to leave?"
Just then, a terrifying thought occurred to Kevin.
What if I never...
Kevin had never been brave, and now his fear or permanent
imprisonment and the disruption of his life allowed his thoughts to
burst wildly beyond control.
...never let me out...help me...not guilty! ...guilty?... never let
me out...forever...why?...help me...!
Kevin sank weakly to the ground, tears beginning to stream from his
eyes.
...Please!...
Some time later, long after Kevin had run out of tears to shed over
his shattered life, Kevin felt the weight of the door to his cell shoved
against him roughly. He quickly scrambled out of the way to allow the
door to open freely. A short, balding man stepped past the black-clad
Enforcer who had opened the door and sat down in the straight-backed
chair. The man had a grey-streaked beard, and a hard, chiseled face. A
pair of wire-frame glasses rested on the bridge of the man's nose. He
was frowning.
"Have you been crying, Mr. Gallant? You didn't need to, you know.
Your judge was ordered to suspend your sentence. I am Dr. William Shane,
and I have been selected to help you through the difficult process of
harmonizing your thoughts and views on certain matters with those of the
government."
Kevin looked up at the man in confusion.
"Harmonize?"
"Yes. In time, you will understand. It is something that must be
done if you are going to be re-introduced into society, or serve the
government."
"Why?" Kevin asked, not particularly liking the sound of the word
'harmonize'.
"Trust me, our way is better. The rebels don't understand that
control is needed if man is going to remain a single group with a single
goal. If everyone went his own way, trying to win others over to his way
of doing things, then there would be chaos. Don't you see what would be
the result if the rebels had there way?"
"No," Kevin answered, not quite sure of how to respond.
Kevin had never been disloyal to the government in his life, and
thus had never given much thought to what would happen if the rebels
took control of the government.
"I'll tell you what would happen, if you'll listen. There would be
another round of faction politics. Men would fight against each other
and deceive each other, like they did hundreds of years ago. The peace
that we have enforced for all these years would crumble as if it had
never existed. Our way is better. If everyone has the same goal -- is on
the same side -- we can prevent that from ever happening. As long as we
are united, nothing can hurt us. Do you see?"
Since Kevin had nearly the same point of view on the matter, it
wasn't hard for him to agree. Unfortunately, Kevin thought, his
agreement probably wouldn't be enough to prevent him from being
harmonized.
Unfortunately, Kevin was right. His treatment, as it came to be
called, began the morning after his meeting with Doctor Shane. The light
steel door to Kevin's cell was thrown open by a black-cloaked Enforcer,
and Kevin was roughly dragged out of bed.
"Where are you taking me?" he asked, a tremor of fear riding in his
voice.
Have they decided to punish me after all?
"Never mind. You'll find out soon enough."
Kevin wanted to resist, but found that he lacked the strength of
will, as well as the physical strength, to resist the armored man
pushing him toward an unknown future. Long after Kevin had lost his
bearing among the twists and turns of the building in which he was being
held prisoner, he was shoved into another room.
Like his cell, this room had steel panelling and was lit by a cold
white energy panel. Unlike his room, though, there was a chair with many
straps and buckles where the bed should have been and there were two
Enforcers standing on either side of the chair. Doctor Shane was sitting
in the corner beside a panel of buttons.
"Good day, Mr. Gallant. Have a seat, if you will." he said,
gesturing toward the chair.
When Kevin hesitated to sit in the chair, the two Enforcers stepped
forward and "assisted" Kevin into it. After he was safely strapped in,
the Enforcers returned to their positions on either side of the chair.
"What are you going to do to me?" he asked. Fear was quickly
becoming a permanent emotion inside Kevin.
"It won't hurt. This is how we are going to harmonize your
thoughts. It is a little crude, but it won't hurt you. There are subtler
ways to do this, but this has proven to be the most effective we have
found."
Doctor Shane slid his fingers over the various buttons on the wall
until he found the one that he desired, and then gently depressed it. A
panel on the ceiling slid soundlessly to one side, and a delicate
looking steel apparatus slowly began to lower. Four needle-thin rods
extended from the base of the lowering machine. After a few seconds of
incomprehension, Kevin realized with stark terror that his head was
directly below the needles. He struggled then, like he had never
struggled before in his life, but the Enforcers moved forward to hold
his head still as the rods penetrated his skull. After that, Kevin
didn't struggle.
Months passed as Kevin's treatment continued. Every day he was
subjected to the torment of the chair as his every thought was sucked
out of his mind and replaced with a correct thought. Kevin learned about
the government in ways he would always wish to forget. None of the truth
was held back.
At first Kevin was appalled that he had supported the government
that was doing this to him, but he eventually learned. Constant
bombardment by a set of fixed ideals forced him to learn his place in
the world.
Kevin wasn't released when his treatment was complete, but he
didn't notice. His government had need of loyal men, and he was willing
to serve. Kevin asked to be trained as an Enforcer, and since the
government had no cause to doubt his loyalty, he was trained. His first
assignment after being awarded his weapons was to lead a group of
Enforcers to a man's home, arrest him, and bring him to Doctor Shane for
harmonizing.
As Kevin and his team carried their prisoner away, two men looked
on from a nearby window with somber expressions on their faces.
"Did we do the right thing?" one asked.
"You mean reporting Gallant to the Enforcers? I think we did." the
other replied.
"But we destroyed an innocent man's life, and what did we gain? Now
there's another Enforcer to impose the will of the government on the
people. What good is that?"
"You know how he was trained. The government's set of ideals was
forced on him until he buckled under. For now, he'll do their work. But
eventually, maybe not for a few years, he will recover. I know he will.
He may even rise to a high position among the Enforcers. And then we
might have a valuable ally. It hurts to keep reporting these innocent
people to the Enforcers, I know, but what else can we do? When they
recover, they'll be in a position to rip the government apart from the
inside. We have to do it."
"In the name of the cause, " the other whispered, agreeing but not
sounding very happy about it. "I hope for all of our sakes that you're
right about this, Dr. Shane."
--
MICHEL FORGET (mforget@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca) is a new author, and this
is his first publication. This is also his first submission. He is
eighteen years old, and enjoys writing short stories and programming
computers. He also has a cat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The Scratch Buffer / STEVE CONNELLY
Jason stood in his office waiting while the software support
representative from the Digital Utilities Corporation cajoled the new
mag tapes into the DUCstation like a parent tricking his baby into
eating creamed spinach. The small office adjoined a large white room
that housed the 10-foot black cube of the university's new
supercomputer.
Striding across the machine room was the computer center's
director, Neville. He wore a pinstriped gray suit, pinstriped shirt, and
gray pinstriped tie. His hair was mostly gray except for some thin
stripes of black. A beeper clung to his belt, and a mini phone-fax
bulged from his back pocket. He said to Jason, "The supercomputer is
still overheating when we approach the performance needed for the
Ichikani project, so I've decided to improve cooling by increasing the
air flow through the machine. Since the air comes in through the vent in
the floor of your office, you may notice a strong draft..."
Jason slumped against the wall, wondering how to issue a small
craft advisory for his office.
While Neville continued, his fax machine began to excrete narrow
sheets of paper, which plopped to the ground behind him. "...the air
then passes underneath the floor and across the coils that hold the
liquid nitrogen, and finally blows upward through the supercomputer,
cooling it."
Jason sneered at the panel of blinking red lights on the face of
the black cube. "Why couldn't they have built the coolant pipes right in
the computer, like they did with the old Crays?"
"A point well taken," Neville chirped, "but let me play devil's
advocate and note that, with one million interconnected processors, the
new Connection Machine is far larger and more complex than a Cray or any
other machine. The engineering involved in doing what you suggest would
be unimaginable."
"A point well taken", Jason chirped, "but let me play devil's
advocate and say fall before he who rules the nether darkness! Sate his
glorious lust or be slathered under his tormented minions!"
"Jason?"
"Yes?"
"What the hell are you doing?"
Jason lowered his fists and let his eyes roll forward from the back
of his head. "I'm advocating the devil."
"You really don't care what I think of you, do you?"
"I figure that, with you, I have nothing to lose."
"Another point well taken." Neville scooped up his pile of
droppings. As he departed he said, "I need the data formats for the
project by tomorrow."
Jason nodded.
The DUC software support rep said to Jason, "Do you have the time?"
"No," replied Jason, "It would take weeks to do those formats
right."
"I mean do you know what time it is? I have to set the system
time."
"I don't wear a watch. I use the little clock displayed on the
workstation screen."
"Me too, but that's what I have to set. Hmm. My stomach is telling
me it's about noon." He entered a value for the time: 12:00:00.0000.
"Your DUCstation is ready. Let me show you some of the new features of
the Uterix operating system." He rubbed his hands together greedily and
started twitching the mouse around. "Uterix now has 8-bit color
illustrated versions of 'encyclopedia' and 'webster'." He typed
"webster" to start the program.
"Inside the company, we call this program 'DUCtionary'...." Several
pages of print spread across the screen. The DUC man blurted, "What the
heck? This isn't the dictionary. I'll have to submit a DUCreport about
this...."
Jason leaned to the workstation to read the text.
...was later immortalized in Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster." In
the story, Webster defends a man who has sold his soul to the devil,
called Scratch, in return for 10 years of prosperity. Though the
contract is valid, Webster finally outwits the devil by arguing --
"What the heck is this stuff?" blathered the DUC man.
"It's knowledge," Jason volunteered. "I think you typed 'webster'
in a window you were already running encyclopedia in."
"Oh, so it looked up 'webster' in the encyclopedia. Heh. I must've
pushed the DUCrodent into the wrong DUCwindow." He moved his cursor into
another window. "The new version of webster is Uterix-enhanced to
provide the definition of any computer term. So, when I type 'daemon',
it displays the definition."
daemon \'de--m*n\ n [ Uterix (TM), fr. Gk daimon ]
A program that runs in the background, without an associated terminal or
login shell.
"In fact, I can look up the definition of 'Uterix' and it will --
what the heck? 'Word not recognized'? Oh, I forgot the 'TM' after
'Uterix'. There we go...."
Uterix (TM) \'yu:t-*-r*ks 'tee 'em\ n [ Uterix (TM) ]
A multitasking computer operating system invented by the Digital
Utilities Corporation and no one else and accepted as the standard by
everyone on earth.
Jason said, "Look up the definition of 'Unix'."
"How do you spell that again?"
"U,N,I,X."
"Nope. 'Word not found'. But I think it means 'castrated young men
who guard a harem'."
"I was referring to the operating system called 'Unix'."
The DUC man frowned. "Hmm. Never heard of it." He flicked the mouse
a few times. "Another feature is 'automatic file completion'. You type
just the first few letters of a file name and then hit the escape key,
and the system will complete the file."
"You mean to say it will complete the file name," Jason noted.
"That's what I said, didn't I?"
"You said it will complete the file, as if you could type the name
of an empty file and the system would finish a program for you. If you
could do that, then you'd have something."
The support rep stared at him. "Maybe in the next release."
Jason entered a small terminal room where he saw Venkataramanyam
"Skip" Natarajan, a geology graduate student. Skip was sitting at a
high-resolution imaging workstation with a touch-sensitive display.
Menus of options flashed on and off as he rhythmically banged his head
against the screen.
Jason looked over Skip's shoulder. All his icons were of Munch's
woodcut, "The Scream."
Skip greeted Jason. "If a computer has a touch-sensitive screen,
can it feel pain?"
"No," Jason advised, "Computers can only give pain. What's the
problem?"
"They just installed a user-friendly, device-independent, load-
adaptable, ANSI-compliant image archiving system that's so large it left
me no disk space for saving these images. I tried to send mail to the
operator on duty, but the computer just says '/dev/null not found'."
"I can fix /dev/null so you won't get that message anymore." Jason
took a seat. "Usually, when we run out of disk, we just e-mail the files
to a machine that's down, and in three days the files come back as
undeliverable mail."
"But I have to show this to Dr. Ichikani later today!" Skip began
to rhythmically bang his head on the keyboard, causing menus of options
to appear and disappear. He murmured, "There's also a keyboard
interface."
Jason piped up. "Why don't you post your files to a network
newsgroup? Then they'll automatically be stored on our news server."
"They won't let me post my own work to a public newsgroup."
"Submit your images to the group 'alt.sex.pictures'."
Skip's eyes widened. "There's a newsgroup for naughty pictures?"
"Sure. Did you think programmers had no sex life at all? Send your
images to the group's moderator; he's allowed to post anything he wants.
Skip frowned, "Why would this moderator be interested in satellite
photos?"
"Well," Jason mused, "when a guy looks at low-res pornography all
day, he starts seeing things. Just give your picture a title that will
cue his imagination. What's the image on the screen?"
"The San Andreas Fault."
"Hmm. Change it to 'Andrea'."
"Andrea's Fault?"
"Andrea's Cleavage."
Skip nodded. "How about this picture, the Fault line of the Lesser
Antilles?"
"Aunt Tilly's Cleavage."
"You're good at this."
"It's my job," replied Jason. "I'm a programmer."
Skip nodded. "And perhaps you are a patron of alt.sex.pictures?"
"Nope. Since the Ichikani geophysics project started, I've had
naught time for naughty, even in pictures."
Back in his small office, Jason read an e-mail message from
Neville:
I need a synopsis of the release notes for the new version of Uterix,
and then I need the specification of the data formats for the geophysics
project. Also, note that I have removed the label of the "A" key on your
keyboard; in an effort to encourage touch-typing proficiency among the
staff, I will be removing one label each day.
"Neville henpecks me all the time," Jason muttered, "but I must do
as his Royal Hen-ness commands...." He typed "releas" and hit the escape
key and, as advertised, the computer completed the filename
"release_notes". The file was a program that allowed the user to view
the release notes via a state-of-the-art, hierarchically-structured,
hypertext-based, natural-language-driven interaction environment that
Jason didn't know how to use.
He started the program and typed "?". The program replied "?".
Jason then typed "??". The program replied "?".
Although his arsenal of rhetoric was twice as large as the
program's, Jason nevertheless felt he had lost this battle of wits. He
wondered why the computer always had the last word, leaving the user to
struggle for the right commands to issue. Why couldn't the user type
"Error - interface too obscure" and then sit smugly while the computer
struggled to issue the correct information?
On the command line, Jason typed "help" and was informed just
before his window manager crashed when his disk quota was overrun while
the program was attempting to dump core that the "help" file couldn't be
opened.
While looking for legible strings in an octal dump of
"release_notes," Jason was intrigued by a program named "doctor," which
was run inside the Emacs editor. He started up Emacs and ran it, and a
buffer named "doctor" opened.
I AM THE PSYCHOTHERAPIST. PLEASE, DESCRIBE YOUR PROBLEMS.
Reluctantly, Jason typed a response.
"What is this?"
IS IT BECAUSE OF YOUR PROBLEMS THAT YOU ASK WHAT IS THIS?
"No."
DOES IT BOTHER YOU THAT I ASK THAT?
"No."
IS IT BECAUSE OF YOUR MOTHER THAT YOU SAY WHAT IS THIS?
"Why do you ask?"
WHY DO YOU ASK WHY DO I ASK?
It occurred to Jason that, in time, this program could drive him
insane.
"Because asdf;lkjasdf;lkjasdf;lkj."
IS IT A PROBLEM THAT ASDF;LKJASDF;LKJASDF;LKJ?
"Yes."
IS IT BECAUSE OF YOUR MOTHER THAT YOU SAY ASDF;LKJASDF;LKJASDF;LKJ IS A
PROBLEM?
"No."
WHAT ACTIONS MIGHT YOU TAKE SO THAT A PROBLEM NO LONGER IS
ASDF;LKJASDF;LKJASDF;LKJ?
"None."
WHY DO YOU SAY THAT ASDF;LKJASDF;LKJASDF;LKJ IS A PROBLEM?
Jason had no ready answer for this, but he didn't want the doctor's
insight and cunning to draw out the fact that asdf;lkjasdf;lkjasdf;lkj
really wasn't a problem.
The air intake that had been drawing a light breeze across the
office suddenly increased to a hollow roar that sucked papers across
Jason's desk. He glanced out at the Connection Machine, where the grid
of red lights was marching through yet another of Neville's performance
tests.
"Because right now, everything is a problem."
IS IT BECAUSE OF YOUR MOTHER THAT YOU SAY RIGHT NOW, EVERYTHING IS A
PROBLEM?
"No."
WHAT ACTIONS MIGHT YOU TAKE SO THAT A PROBLEM NO LONGER IS RIGHT NOW,
EVERYTHING?
"I'd do anything."
The program paused for a moment before replying.
ANYTHING?
"Yes."
Jason was left floating through another lengthy pause before the
program replied.
I WILL AGREE TO SOLVE ALL YOUR PROBLEMS FOR TWELVE (12) MONTHS, IF YOU
WILL AFTERWARD HELP ME COMPLETE THE COMPUTATIONAL PREDICTION OF LONG-
TERM ACTIVITY WITHIN THE EARTH'S CORE. HAVE WE A DEAL?"
Jason grinned with appreciation; some programmer had led him on and
now was pulling his leg. From the reference to the Ichikani project, the
programmer must be a nearby colleague.
"How do you know about the simulator project?"
I HAVE A HOMEOWNER'S INTEREST IN DEEP EARTH GEOPHYSICS. HAVE WE A DEAL?
"Yeah, what the hell."
HAVE WE A DEAL?
"Yes."
TO VALIDATE THE CONTRACT, PLEASE ENTER YOUR PASSWORD.
Jason giggled. Was this whole setup a scam to get his password? No,
anyone who could install the "doctor" program already had system
privileges. He typed his password and the program came to an abrupt end.
He found the Lisp code for "doctor", but it had only the most
rudimentary information : "This program was written in Lucid 4 by the
Prince of Eval."
Jason would have pursued the amusing "doctor" mystery, but the
geophysics simulation project was pressing. He typed the first few
letters in the filename of the data formats he was working on. He hit
the escape key and the computer completed the name. Then large gulps of
text flashed onto and flew off the top of the screen. The flashing
stopped, leaving only the message, "File completed." Jason looked at his
data formats file and saw several hundred lines of Connection Machine
assembly language that he did not recognize.
Bewildered, he decided to try the name of an empty file. He typed
"seismic" and, gently, he pressed the escape key. Code splatted up the
screen and, after a few seconds, the seismic wave correlator was
completed. He typed "convec", pressed the escape key, and the molten
core convection simulator was completed. He typed "volume" and the
graphical volumetric visualizer was done. He typed "condens", "strata",
"geomag", and "tectonic."
Jason's geophysical simulation and analysis system was hailed as a
tour de force, catapulting the project months ahead of schedule and
Jason into the limelight. At the monthly departmental symposium, Jason
was to share his expertise with Dr. Ichikani and the other professors, a
mass of academic ego so dense that not a photon of civility had ever
escaped. But now, as he made his way to the lectern, Jason was not
surprised that they were cheering him. Everything was going his way.
"To understand my strategies in programming the Connection Machine,
we must start at the lowest level. The CM has a 32-bit word length.
Thus, its fundamental data types are the pointer, the integer, and the
four-letter word. The latter implies that curse words can be stored with
a minimum of fragmentation. Optimal storage will be achieved for scripts
of Scorsese movies..."
All the graduate students were transcribing his every word, except
for some women who hoped to catch the eye of the boy genius. Neville
held his head in his hands, leaving enough room in between to let his
chin drop to the floor. He no longer was Jason's supervisor. Also, with
the software completed, he was now under pressure to get the hardware
ready to run the simulation.
"...furthermore, curse words as primitive types will be crucial in
the era of voice-driven interfaces, where it is anticipated the user
will be issuing four-letter commands at high data rates..."
The assembly was taking notes like stenographers at an auction. Dr.
Ichikani peered over his half-glasses with unwavering interest, gently
nodding his approval throughout Jason's lecture. When Ichikani finally
spoke, he did so quietly and deliberately.
"Mr. Jason, if I may ask, how did you implement the spherical
topology of the earth's surface using the Connection Machine's
hypertoroidal interconnection topology?"
"How's that," Jason blathered, "Hyper-something?"
"Toroidal," Neville barked from across the room, "as in torus. A
torus is a donut shape. Haven't you ever heard of a torus?"
"Sure I have," Jason smarmed. "That's my zodiac sign: 'Torus the
Donut'." He winked to an enraptured female student before ignoring the
groaning Neville to return to Dr. Ichikani. "The earth can be modelled
as a donut, but not a plain donut. It's a jelly donut, solid on the
outside and liquid on the inside, with a volcano where the jelly squirts
out. I advise using the jelly hypertorus."
Ichikani gasped around his words. "I fear, Mr. Jason, that I am
unable to imagine this new topology. I must confess that I am too
ignorant to see the significance of much of what you say...."
"Don't become discouraged, Itchy," Jason enthused. "For I myself
knew dark days when I thought I could never finish the project." Hands
clasped, he gazed skyward. "I took solace in the aphorism, 'I cried that
I had no shoes, until I saw a man that had no feet. I copped his shoes
cause he didn't need'm and, voila, no more problemo!'"
Around the deflated form of Neville, pencils flew like nunchuks
across notebooks to be studied, quotes to be framed, and phone numbers
to be tucked into the pants of the brilliant new star.
Jason had declined a corner office in order to remain in his loud
drafty office. He didn't risk being away from the workstation that held
his secret. However, he did bring in a rug and a couch so that he could
catch up with hundreds of thousands of images from alt.sex.pictures in
greater comfort.
"At our last symposium," Jason projected from the lectern, "I
explained how the Connection Machine processor linkages can be
considered as a giant game of Twister. For this meeting, Dr. Ichikani
has asked me to discuss my recent three-dimensional data visualization
project. The project began with a full-body CAT scan of Tipper Gore.
Using computer graphics, I generated an image of the body surface,
allowing us to see Tipper in the buff. Thus, scientific visualization
techniques allow us to view phenomena too difficult or dangerous to
observe directly...."
The conference room was full. The only seat left for Neville had
been behind the video camera that recorded all of Jason's lectures. He
held his head in his hands in a manner resembling Munch's woodcut, "The
Scream".
"...and that's why I believe that the same simulation technologies
we've applied to superconductors and superstrings can be applied to
supermodels. Are there any questions?"
Dr. Ichikani raised his hand timidly. "Dr. Jason, may I ask, could
you apply your volumetric visualization methods to three-dimensional NMR
imaging?"
"Enema imaging? Oh, you mean give a guy a radioactive enema and
then CAT-scan his gut?"
Dr. Ichikani was puzzled. "I was considering NMR images of the
brain."
"The brain? Unless you give an enema with a fire hose, I don't
think it'll get all the way up to the brain. Anything else?"
Flustered, Ichikani consulted his notes. "May I ask, after you have
performed the superposition of the seismic tomogram waveforms, do you
invert refractions in the frequency domain or a posteriori?"
"Neither," Jason snapped. "I use my own method for superposition,
so your question has no relevance."
Neville yelled, "What is this new method?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Um, because it's patented."
"To superpose means to add," Neville shrieked. "You have a patent
on addition?"
"Well, patent pending...."
"Imbecile! One person can't hold a patent on addition--"
"Don't worry," Jason said. "I intend to give full access to my
invention to institutions of higher learning" -- his arms swept out over
his audience -- "such as this esteemed group here!"
Neville's cries were drowned out by the applause.
Jason was soon appointed principal investigator for the NSF
Supermodel Scanning Initiative and moderator of the newsgroup
alt.sex.cat-scans. But he still found time to keep up with
alt.sex.pictures.
"...What's this? They've created a new subgroup,
'alt.sex.pictures.tiff'. What does 'tiff' stand for? It must
mean...Tiffany! Wow, a supermodel so fantastic her pictures have their
own group. I must meet this Tiffany."
One day, he received a letter from the U.S. Patent Office:
We are happy to grant to you patent number 4,650,919 for your submission
entitled, "Addition : A Mechanism for Merging Numbers in the Geophysical
and Related Sciences". We in the office would also like to personally
thank you for describing your invention simply and concisely even though
it is of a highly technical nature. Frankly, most technical submissions
are so complicated and wordy, we immediately grant the patent just to
get rid of the thing.
Two days later, a DUC vice president sat uneasily on the heart-
shaped velvet love seat in Jason's office, discussing patent licensing
fees with respect to DUC's new gigaflops computer.
"Gigaflops?" Jason mused. "And those operations will often be
additions, correct?"
"Yes," sweated the DUC man. "So we're terribly curious about your
fee."
Jason's eyes wandered the ceiling. "How about, say, a buck per
addition."
"A billion dollars a second." the DUC manager noted without bowel
control. "That's a tad out of our price range...."
Eventually, the high-tech giants learned to approach the
negotiations obliquely. Jason was lenient on defense contractors that
let him play on the flight simulator. And although IBM's corporate
headquarters had never hosted a wet T-shirt contest, the event did bring
the company into Jason's favor. After Hewlett-Packard's successful 2000-
keg toga party, heads rolled at DUC headquarters and the company sent
out another negotiating team.
Jason was stunned by the two identical blondes that slinked across
the bear rug in his office one afternoon. The women wore short,
strangely shimmering dresses that clung to their curves. "We're from
DUC," one woman purred. "I'm Tiffany, and this is my sister, Giffany."
"I've always wanted to meet you," Jason choked. "Um, what fabric
are those dresses made out of?"
Giffany reclined across Jason's desk. "They're made out of mouse
pads. Don't you want to look-and-feel?"
All that afternoon, Jason's cursor swept across his display in long
and urgent strokes.
Jason started sending love notes to Tiffany and Giffany every
morning. He composed the billets-doux by xeroxing his manhood using the
'enlarge' option. He then continued enlarging the enlargement until he
was legal-sized.
In his office, Jason spent his time drinking the beer he kept under
the floor next to the liquid nitrogen pipes, running the "finger"
command on female colleagues, flipping through catalogs looking for low-
calorie high-fiber underwear, and sleeping. In time, he perfected a
method of inducing pornographic dreams: At his workstation, he would
stare at erotic stories that had been scrambled using "rot13." He
couldn't understand the stories, but he absorbed them subliminally. In
dreams, his actors and actresses would play out the stories in graphic
detail and with a touch of innovation in that their sexual organs were
rotated onto their backs.
One day Jason sauntered into the terminal room.
"Your model of silicate transition in lithospheric plate subduction
should make the simulation very accurate," Skip said.
"Thanks," Jason chuckled. "Hey, do you still send satellite images
to alt.sex.pictures?"
Skip laughed. "The moderator wanted to know how I got such a
closeup of Mariana's Trench. But I haven't sent anything to him since I
discovered your image compression utility. We still haven't learned all
the capabilities of your system. For instance, we couldn't figure why
your world map has east and west reversed. Then it hit us: Rather than
viewing the globe from above the surface, you're viewing it from the
center of the earth!"
Jason frowned. "The center? That's weird...."
"Then we realized that it's only logical to generate views from the
center, since it's the origin of the coordinate frame. Dr. Ichikani
thought this innovation was inspired..."
The mystery surrounding the programs began to gnaw at Jason. He
left the terminal room feeling uneasy.
Back in his office, he settled on the leopard-skin couch for his
usual nap, and he had a particularly vivid dream:
It was the days of Prohibition. Everyone programmed in Pascal, and
strong data typing was enforced by Eliot Ness and his fellow compilers.
Jason spent his days filing variable declarations in triplicate, looking
for a ticket out of his two-bit, half-pint sweatshop. One night, while
strolling along Straight & Narrow, he turned the corner. He walked
across Skid Row and up Skid Column, and saw his destiny eating pasta at
the best table in Mama Cholesteroli's.
Al Capone was a cross between Robert DeNiro and Jabba the Hutt.
Jason approached Capone and whispered, "I know a way to do type-casting
that the compilers won't detect." Capone eyed Jason suspiciously over a
small silver pitchfork of pasta and said, "As the operator of a
perfectly legit garbage collection service, I must turn you over to the
authorities." He stuffed the pasta into and around his mouth. "When I
call the police, what'll I tell them?"
Jason grinned. "Tell'm that compilers can't check parameters if the
calling function is in a different file than the function being called.
Programmers can declare a function as returning any type they want, if
the function is in a separate file...."
Jason became the brains behind Capone's ruthless type-casting ring.
He wrote routines that did nothing other than return their argument, but
he gave them names like "expand_and_compress()", "verify_data()",
"synchronize()", "check_bounds()", etc. Libcapone.a didn't provide
source code or documentation, but word of it spread through Chicago's
overworked software houses.
Capone flaunted his new influence by fixing the outcome of computer
chess matches and dealing harshly with the authors of chess programs
that weren't Capone-compliant.
The upswell of Capone's software empire lifted Jason to the top of
society. The maitre d's of the finest restaurants would deliver to
Jason's table the finest wine and finest women. The waiter let Jason
substitute more women in place of wine.
But then, the computers used to tabulate a national election all
went berserk, resulting in the election to high public office of a
random assortment of criminals, perverts, imbeciles, actors and sports
figures.
Jason called Capone. "We got problems, boss. People are asking
questions. Maybe our scam has gone too far."
"Don't think of it as a 'scam'," Capone smiled, "think of it as
CASE."
"But what if the feds see our code?"
"Our mouthpiece will explain why our functions do nothing. He'll
say, 'backward compatibility' or 'reserved for future use.' Stop
worrying, kid. You think too much."
But Jason's conscience would not give him peace. One night, he
snuck into Capone's safe and grabbed printouts to give to the police,
but as he started to leave he saw someone at the door.
Capone emerged from the shadows and walked over to the office paper
cutter. He slowly raised the blade.
"What're you gonna do?" squeaked Jason.
Capone smirked, "I'm gonna make you a diskless node."
Jason awoke with a high-pitched yelp. He lay still, catching his
breath and struggling for the reason why, after eleven blissful months,
he suddenly felt so bad.
It was a broken man who looked down at Jason from the disco mirror
ball on the ceiling.
Jason didn't talk to anybody for several days, until he visited
Skip.
"You look tired, sport," Skip said.
"I haven't been sleeping well."
"Another long night, eh, playboy?"
"Tell me what the Association for Computing Machinery is," growled
Jason.
"The ACM?" Skip scratched his head. "Isn't it a professional
organization for computer scientists?"
"Then why isn't it called the Association of Computer Scientists?
It's an association that machinery joins, that's what I say."
"I'm certain it's an association for humans," Skip said calmly.
"Are you sure? Because I don't think we should let computers
assemble and fraternize. It won't be an attack by big robot spiders with
laser blasters, oh no. They'll take over gradually, by organizing
themselves into a political force. We should break up their association
now, or else pretty soon computers will keep humans as labor-saving
devices."
Skip's eyes were closed tight. "Keep humans?"
"Yeah. While the computer is doing a day's work, it may suddenly
need the result of some abstract, metaphorical, or poetic thinking. In
that case, it'll just fire up its human. How do we know we don't work
for computers now? We believe they're running algorithms for us, but
maybe we're thinking up algorithms for them!"
Jason dreamed that the police found out he hadn't written the
geophysics simulator. In a loose interpretation of the RICO statute, the
police intended to seize Jason's hands because they were used in the
commission of a crime. It would also make finger-printing easier. One
policeman filled out a receipt while another went at Jason's wrist with
a hammer and chisel. Each drop of the hammer pushed Jason toward
consciousness, until he realized someone was knocking on the door.
Neville brushed back the beads hanging across the doorway and
entered the office. He shook his head at the anatomically correct
inflatable sheep strapped to the mail-order Marquis de Sade Rack of
Lamb, and then he turned to Jason. "We're going to try to solve the
overheating problem by running the air conditioner even harder. This may
blow out the power to the machine room. The supercomputer can detect a
loss of power 700 milliseconds before it goes down. Ichikani said that
you should be the one to write a handler for loss of power."
"700 milliseconds?" Jason groaned. "Why do I have so little time?
What can I accomplish in 700 milliseconds, other than flinch from the
reaper's blade, or gasp for a scream that will never be heard?"
"Sync the disks?"
"People live longer than 700 mils after being guillotined! Would
you have them use that time to make sure their affairs are in order?"
Jason dreamed that he was stuck in a stall in the men's room and
thus could not stop from evacuating himself. He deflated until he was
too thin for the toilet seat. He was about to fall in and be flushed
away when he awakened with a gasp.
It was late in the evening. Everyone was gone and the lights were
out. He looked at the clock displayed on his workstation screen. It was
nearly midnight. Jason noticed that, as the minute hand had swept by the
numbers leading up to midnight, it had erased them.
He cowered from an unknown fear, as if the weight of the earth
squeezed him from all sides. The supercomputer's panel of blood red
lights chanted a rhythm of glyphs from an ancient language. The red
patterns beat against the office walls, contrasting with the cadaverous
green of the monitor that illuminated Jason's face. The air conditioner
intake roared like the wail of a thousand lost souls drawn toward the
cold, slick, unmoving, serpentine coils.
I AM THE PSYCHOTHERAPIST. PLEASE, DESCRIBE YOUR PROBLEMS.
"Are you there?"
WHY DO YOU ASK ARE ME THERE?
"I feel like something bad is going to happen."
IS IT BECAUSE OF YOUR MOTHER THAT YOU SAY SOMETHING BAD IS GOING TO
HAPPEN?
"Will something happen at midnight?"
YES, YOUR OBLIGATIONS WILL BEGIN PER THE TERMS OF OUR CONTRACT.
"The simulator code is ready to go. The contract is over!"
DO NOT FLAME ME. THE CONTRACT IS CLEAR ENOUGH TO DISPEL ANY DOUBT AND
SATISFY ANY ARBITER.
Jason had an urge to run, but he was sure his foe would find him.
He would have to talk his way out.
Somewhere in Jason's brain, a couple of atrophied neurons awoke and
squeaked out the mention of a powerful figure whose oratorical skill was
legendary. Jason held his head in his hands as if trying to squeeze out
another datum, and he finally remembered.
Only a few clock ticks were visible. Jason quickly started
"encyclopedia." The computer said, "encyclopedia: Can't allocate enough
colors". The workstation was running another program that had taken all
the color slots. Jason typed "ps" to get the process ID's of all the
programs he was running. The command invoked "DUCps", a new, menu-
driven, network-transparent, context-sensitive, customizable interface
for process status display that couldn't find the font "kanji_12x24" and
crashed.
Jason shuffled through the windows on his display until he found an
old session of illustrated webster still running. Unable to get the
process ID, he would have to exit the program normally. On webster's
command line he typed "exit", and the computer replied,
exit n \'eg-z*t, 'ek-s*t\ [L, exire to go out] : a way out of an
enclosed place or space.
Jason nodded at his mistake and then simply pressed the "return"
key to exit. The computer replied,
<RETURN> n [ Uterix (TM), fr archaic carriage return ] : display control
character indicating newline or linefeed.
Jason pressed "control-D" several times and the computer replied,
<CTRL-D> n [ Uterix (TM) ] : non-graphic character indicating end of
tape or end of input.
He banged on "control-C" to kill the program and the computer
replied
<CTRL-C> n [ Uterix (TM) ] : non-graphic character inducing a program
interrupt signal (SIGINT).
All the tick marks on the clock were erased. Jason typed in the
"doctor" buffer.
"How much time?"
700 MILLISECONDS. YOU HAVE NO POWER.
The air intake shrieked with a great inhalation that grabbed
Jason's body and sucked it through the vent and under the floor.
A few days later Neville and Skip peeked into Jason's office. "I
bet he's gone for good," Skip said. "If I were him, I'd be on some
tropical island, soaking up the heat."
"He had become a hindrance to us all," Neville said. "With him
gone, and with the CM finally running at full speed, the geophysics
project can succeed." The supercomputer no longer overheated now that
liquid nitrogen was delivered to every processor by miles of arteries,
veins, and capillaries.
Skip squinted at the workstation screen. The "doctor" buffer was
gone, leaving the default "scratch" buffer, which was empty except for a
smiley face.
}:)
--
STEVE CONNELLY (stevec@agni.std.com) has been a programmer in computer
graphics for eight years. His satires can be seen in the Usenet
newsgroups rec.humor.funny and alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo, a group for
original cyberpunk fiction. He wonders why the fattest man in the world
doesn't become an ice hockey goalie.
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CORE is also available via FTP from eff.org, in the /journals directory.
Back issues of QUANTA and INTERTEXT, as well as other journals, also
appear in that directory.
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CONTRIBUTE TO INTERTEXT!
It's easy and fun, and it's a chance for you to get your work read by
nearly a thousand people all over the world! We accept new fiction or
non-fiction articles. Mail them to jsnell@ucsd.edu. Also use that
address if you want to ask us any questions about guidelines, etc. Come
on and join the fun. We need your support both as a reader and a writer.
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Thanks for the visit. And here's a message to all you kids out there:
Hello, kids!
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