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