💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › magazines › UXU › uxu-232.txt captured on 2022-06-12 at 15:06:39.
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Underground eXperts United
Presents...
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[ Sweet Celebration ] [ By Hedge ]
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**SWEET CELEBRATION**
By Hedge.
/* Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum! */
It was a normal slow day at work. He had just finished some reports
concerning citizens disturbing the order. Naturally they hadn't had a
chance in court. Not when he, Leipzig, and his department of
CitizenMonitor had placed their devices inside their houses. He liked
these machines. They stopped the guilty from walking from an obvious
crime, just because lack of evidence. If they weren't guilty, how come the
Police had got their eyes on them in the first place? He knew the answer
to that question just as well as the citizens did, when a person had
attracted attention from the Police he might as well buy his own ticket to
the Facility Of Corrections up north.
This day had been better than ordinary days though. The usual afternoon
quarrel with the Boss didn't take place for some strange reason. He liked
his Boss, but they didn't agree on several matters concerning the
Monitoring of citizens. He felt that his Boss was somewhat weak when it
came to these issues. Normally when they came together in the afternoon to
discuss the procedures used during the day's Monitoring, the arguments
began. Often loud arguments, when his Boss claimed that he used too much of
his paranoia at work. Oh, well, he thought, not everyone can be as hard
working as me...
The Monitoring, by the way, was an activity that the Police put in when
some suspicion came in against a citizen. The department of CitizenMonitor
drove off to the suspect's house, and after checking that there was nobody
home, they planted his house full of monitoring devices. These devices
could detect if there were illegal substances in the air of the apartment
for example, and of course detect any sound made therein. If any illegal
activity was detected, the suspect was brought to trial, and convicted. He
then had to serve a minimum of five years at the Facility Of Corrections,
and when he came back from that he sure as hell wasn't capable of planning
anything illegal.
The silence in the office began to bother him. He had detected during
these last few days an atmosphere of secrets around himself. Colleagues
talking at a table with low voices suddenly stopped when he came
in...Perhaps the Boss has grown tired of me, he thought. Perhaps he'd
rather see me up north instead of having me here bothering him? What else
could it be? A chilling fear began to rise inside of him. If they
already have begun to keep secrets from him, they would soon enough decide
that he was a prime target for Monitoring... He quickly found his way down
to the technical facility, where he took out a Sweep System, made to make
places safe from monitoring. We shall soon see, he thought. On the way
towards home, he started to laugh hysterically at his own paranoia. This
must be the most common health risk at this department he said out loud to
the booming car stereo.
When arriving at home he immediately started to sweep the apartment, but
nothing showed on the SweepSystem's display. "Strange", he thought. While
heading towards the center of the apartment, he turned up the sensitivity
on the machine and began another sweep. Suddenly a loud beep sounded from
the machine, accompanied by the terrifying text:
"*Presence Locator Detected*
*At position: Present*
*Index: -1.5in. Deep*
**EndSweep**".
(A presence locator checked if a suspect was home, and the Department
usually placed it at someone's apartment a few days before an arrest was to
be made.)
He stood there for almost two minutes, as if he had seen a ghost, when he
suddenly started to cry. He screamed out loud and smashed the Sweeper
against the wall. After regaining control over himself, he started to
think. "How long has it been there, how many days, or hours, do I have
left?", he thought. After taking everything into account, he said: "Well,
there can be more than one contender in this game!", and ran out to his
car. He left his home with screeching tires, heading for the nearby weapon
store. At the store he used up his last money on the latest in personal
defense, and then he went back to the Department and required a Monitor,
which was used to read the signals from different spy devices, like the one
in his house. After returning home, he carefully tuned the Monitor to the
frequency used by the bug under the floor. Then he went out to his car and
drove away a couple of blocks, so he wouldn't be spotted.
Several days went by without even the slightest beep from the monitor.
He hadn't eaten anything during this time, and there hadn't been much sleep
either. Hungry, tired and desperate he entered the fifth day in his car.
He stepped out of the car just as the sun began to rise and began to
stretch his limbs. Standing there in the early morning light, he started
to think about his colleagues. "They must be wondering where I have gone"
he thought. He was interrupted by a shrill noise from the monitor inside
the car. He quickly got back inside, and read the message on the display:
" *Human Presence Detected!*
*Number: 15 Persons*
*Of which armed: 7 Persons*
*Male/Female: 6/9*
*Status: Moving*
**Illegal substances detected: None**
**EndMonitor**
**Do you wish to Monitor all out/incoming calls?(Y/N)**"
"So they even bugged my phone" he though as he slowly pressed 'N' on the
small keyboard.
"**CallMonitor DeActivated**!"
the machine replied. After the last message the monitor stayed quiet for
almost ten minutes, and then beeped again flashing a message:
"*Speech Detected!*
*No.sources: 4*
**Do you wish to listen in?(Y/N)**".
He again pressed 'N' on the keyboard as he looked at the last sentence.
He had formulated this meaning to the technicians when they were developing
the monitor. To add a little fun to the boring work of staking a suspect
he had said...
The Monitor flashed a confirmation on the display, and then beeped again:
"*Illegal Substance Detected!*
*Of Type: THC*
*Scientific/Street Label: Cannabis Sativa/ Grass, Haschisch*"
**EndMonitor**
"Well, well, they are smoking grass right in the middle of a bust...This
is it", he thought. He started to load his weapons, and preparing for the
fight mentally. "In and out quickly" he said repeatedly in a low voice.
When he was done, he drove away, heading for home. He parked the car just
outside the stairs, and jumped out running towards them. Rushing upwards,
two steps at a time, he arrived at his door breathing heavily. "It's a
good thing my windows are on the other side of the building, otherwise they
may have had spotted me coming up", he thought as he kicked the door wide
open.
Inside he opened up fire. He had stopped thinking now and acted in an
robotic fashion. Where ever the red laser beam hit, a burst of hollowpoint
slugs joined it. People were screaming, but he heard nothing. "In and out
quickly" was the only thought in his mind. His walk through the apartment
blazing at everything that moved, created a horrifying scene of skulls
exploding, bodies being torn in two and the shocking color of red
blood. After approximately 35 seconds he realized that he had ran out of
targets. Not a sound could be heard there in the living room as the smoke
began to clear. He looked at his feet, and realized he was standing in
something which appeared to be ice cream mixed with blood. As his mind
began to settle, he could also read the text of the bullet-pierced banner
which stretched from wall to wall...:
"Happy 30'th Birthday Leipzig!!!"
/* Hedge -94 */
/* Please send me your views of the world: s93glo@ida.csd.uu.se */
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uXu #232 Underground eXperts United 1994 uXu #232
Call UNDERWORLD_1994.COM -> +1-514-683-1894
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