A Future We'd Like To See 1.37 - Net.Gods By Twoflower (Copyright 1994) "Fzzwhwhizzz hhzzzhiwiz whixhizzz ffhhhzhf," the speaker outside McSpackle's clicked and wheezed. "No, I said I wanted a large FluidShake, a Triple Decker McBurger, and a small fry." "Fzzwhwhizzz hhzzzhiwiz whixhizzz ffhhhzhf," the speaker repeated enthusiastically. "Whatever," the patron grumbled, his land rover floating/grinding its way around the rectangular building to the pay window. The driver rolled down his rover window, and Twink grinned to him. "Fzzwhwhizzz hhzzzhiwiz whixhizzz ffhhhzhf," Twink said. "Hzzzghhzzzwzz zhzhg." The patron blinked, blamed it on C'atel's educational system and forked over his credit chip. Twink accepted it gleefully, transferred over four credits, and handed it back with the patron's food. "Fzzzxhhzhzbzzzz McHzzhwwh!" he waved, closing the window. We waited until the patron was out of earshot, then burst out laughing, rolling around on the oily tile floor. "I always get a kick out of that, Twinkie," I laughed, wiping drool off my not-so-neat McSpackle's uniform. "Geez, man, you do know how to cheer up an unhappy fry cook." "It's a knack," Twinkie wild-took, doing a combination What- Me-Worry shrug, Heh-Heh-Heh smirk and Neat-Eh? eyebrow raise. He slipped back into a generically happy look, and returned to the left side of the fry vat. I was seriously considering quitting my job at McSpackle's two months ago. The pay was lousy. Working conditions sucked. Everybody else had the mentality and liveliness of a zombie. Frankly, the job sucked. The only thing that was keeping me here now was Twinkie. Twinkie was the first real friend I'd had in this lousy town in two years, when I moved here to be a drummer in a grunge/polka/hiphop/gospel band. I had taken the fry cook position as 'filler' until I could find another gig, but it ended up as filler that lasted for a year and a half. Twinkie, though, he was what you called a like-minded individual. Fun-loving. Connoisseur of the truly wicked practical joke. Seemingly in love with life. The only thing we didn't have in common was computers... Twinkie swore never to touch a trode-band again after mopping up in the local arcade, whereas I, Chuck, was the supreme game junkie. So, we'd spend a few laughable hours on the job, playing with the minds of brain-dead businessmen and musicians that pulled up to the window for food. The manager couldn't stand either of us, but we were the only people in the entire 'restaurant' that didn't work slower than caterpillars. "Anybody else out there?" Twinkie asked, taking a new batch of 'potatoes' out of the fryer. "I wanna brush up on my Esperanto." "Remember last week when you tried that and it was the dean of Foreign Languages at the window?" I grinned. Twinkie hated it when I pointed out jokes that didn't work. "Well, it would have been funny if I had pronounced it right. Getting Esperanto lessons via a McSpackle's intercom is a bit embarrassing." "Shift's almost up... sun's almost down. Where to tonight?" I asked, lower bits of my brain handling the menial work of 'cooking'. "I don't have enough cash to hit the Peasluv again..." "Could always go down to the arcade." "I'm not THAT desperate," Twinkie coughed, wrenching his face in disgust. "I can't see how you stand those things, especially the VR ones. They're too boring." "Look, just because you're reigning champion at every game that exists doesn't mean I don't need practice, bud." "Alright, alright, arcade. But don't even TRY to get me to play that annoying multiplayer demon-stomping shotgun-blasting with you. You know I hate it." "Hey, you've got my word." * "What ever happened to 'your word'?" Twinkie asked, throwing his arms back in a Why-Me position. "Look, sorry, but these two guys were challenging my rank in the arcade and I needed a partner... look, I already promised them you'd play. You're good enough to whip all three of our butts, but I REALLY need you to help me here..." "No! Look, Chuck, you're a frood and all, but forget it. I hate games, especially VR ones." I paused for a minute. I tried to figure out what the trigger was that would trick Twinkie into helping him. I had found it a week or two back, it was just a matter of remembering it... Twinkie was pretty predictable, really. It was a fun sort of predictable, on the whole. "They said you were a sub-moron, you know," I muttered, in a low, matter-of-fact voice. "Eh?" "Yeah. Said a pocket calculator could out think you." "A calculator?" "Something about how you were all talk and no action. Just this guy with a 4.0 grade average and an ego the size of Yttia." Yeah, that did it. * "You owe me. BIG," Twinkie said, climbing into the four- player module and slipping on his trode helmet. "I'll buy you an ice cream, how about that?" "Triple moca almond fudge." "WITH sprinkles," I topped. He flashed me one of his patented looks of disgust and gratitude, and the 'trodes flicked on. I was very familiar with the layout of the first level. We'd be in the blue room with four pillars first, with three shotgun guys on the left. There were only three other places in the game that the other two jerks could touch down, and I had them memorized. Twink was already 600 steps ahead of me, swiftly entering the left room. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! I never even heard the computer bad guys scream. He was that good. "Here you go," he said, reentering and dropping a few health potions at my feet. "I split it evenly. Now grab this stuff and let's go get those bastards." I grinned behind the space marine mask, and dashed along behind Twinkie. He was already through the door and blasting away, moving onward towards the first possible drop point when I saw it. I was wondering if this was revision 1.2 of the game, or something, because it wasn't any monster I had seen before. Most of the monsters were basic humans or these spiky brown things... this was a cloud of some kind, swirling dots of tranluscent color and all sorts of weird patterns. I paused a second, examining it. It examined me back. Well, I THINK it examined me back. I can't remember how, because it had no eyes, no sensors, no actual features... just dots. I knew it was examining me, though. It's a weird feeling, being examined like that... felt like a thousand fingers of anger reaching out for your soul. Or maybe it was just gas. When it got bored, it examined Twinkie. I can't remember much about what happened next. There was a flash, and the cloud swarmed over Twinkie. I got really enraged, for no apparent reason, as the cloud expanded, then contracted itself inward... The game got a bit unstable, textures warping, the monsters rotating around entirely the wrong axis. Then everybody jacked out. "What happened?" I was asking, pulling the trodes off. The other two guys... typical sloping forehead gamers... they looked just as confused as I felt. The manager was running over, yelling what the hell is going on, what the hell is going on... lights all over the arcade were flipping out, games spazzing and shutting down. I didn't really watch any of the mayhem, the commotion. I was more worried about Twink, who was clearly dead. * "I don't get it, man." "What? Look, don't give me that crap, I spent a LOT of time trying to lug this guy down to my car and drive him out here at breakneck speeds, homing maybe you could revive him or, I don't know, SOMETHING--" "He's alive. And he's not. Look, it's just really hard to explain," Terry was saying, taking her stethoscope off. "It's strange. No pulse, no breathing, no heartbeat, but he's still warm, and has some REM going. Some life signs say he's in perfect health, and others say he's deader than a doornail. This is a new experience for me, treating a partially dead patient." "Can't you just scan him or something? Terry, I know you, you're supposed to be one of the best of the cheap, no questions asked medics around--" "I HAVE scanned him. He's normal. Sort of. Just weird. I think we ought to sedate him a bit, see if the signs go back to normal. It's hard to tell, I've never seen an undead patient before." I wasn't happy at all with this. Step one, figure out if The Twink was dead or not. If dead, step two, mourn. Step three, sue the pants off of that arcade, beat up the manager, burn it down. I was still shaking off the bizarre emotion bursts I had gotten in the game, and wanted to punch my fist through SOMETHING. "Alright. Sedate him, do whatever you docs know how to do, and call me the MINUTE his condition changes." "You're the client, Chuck," Terry sighed. "I don't know what I can do, really..." Terry prepped an injection, as I was stepping for the door. "Wait." "What?" "Something's wrong," Terry said. "The needle is hitting something. I mean, the skin's okay, but there's like a bone or something where there shouldn't be... Chuck, he's not bleeding." "So he's dead?" "No, he's not bleeding... look. It's like a rip in the skin, just no vessels, no clotting... good lord. Gimmie!" "What? What? Gimmie what?" "That penlight. On my desk. Good. Sweet mother..." I looked inside the skin flap she was shining the light on. METAL? * A robot. Now this was a shock. No robot would have a sense of humor. No robot would receive near orgasmic pleasure in telling customers that he was out, but his split personality would be happy to take their order. I mean... it was just silly. But Terry said the guy was a robot. I had even seen it; an entire arm joint. It wasn't even a very expensive limb replacement, it was his whole body. Once you got by the skin, the sensors could tell what was really going on. She didn't know what to do, so she called in a guy she knew at the machine shop. The guy had been working on him for a few hours... I was just in the waiting room, reading pilfered airline magazines, about how lovely the climate was on Torodo 6, about how President Doofman was found in an Ohio cafe dancing the waltz on a countertop. Silly. It was just so silly, finding out your best friend in the whole world was a cyborg. I was expecting Allen Funt to jump out from behind the counter or something. "Chuck?" Terry said, peeking from around the wooden doorframe. "Yeah?" "He's up." * "Heya, Chuck," Twink said, voice a bit scratchy and tinny. "You look like hell, Twinkie," I commented. Bits of skin were pulled away, where the technician had poked at his systems. I tried not to look at the large flap over his scalp, but my eyes kept getting drawn to it, like a magnet. "It'll heal," Twinkie assured, lighting up a cigarette from the table pack. I ignored how the smoke flowed through a hole in his cheek. "Band aids will cover up the holes until then." I looked at him oddly. "Alright, MANY band aids. Look, what sort of explanation do you want? Fairy story, something to calm your nerves, truth, what?" "Truth would be good." "Alright. You're a net.boy, right? You cruise the net, even if not for illegal purposes. Just looking for the ultimate game fix. Well, you've heard of artificial intelligence, right?" "I thought that was a myth..." I explained. "I mean, I never saw one. There was a big hubbub about them on the Septic Tank system a long time back..." "I was one of the survivors of that," Twink said, puffing away. "One of the few AIs that made it out. You've heard rumors of Haven, right? Some odd floating castle in the sky arrangement, some system not hooked up anywhere so you couldn't access it from the net?" "Yeah." "It's true. All of it. That's where we, me and the other AIs, stayed for a long time. Some AI engineer, he gets it in his head that we can flee safely. We just need a way to change dimensions... from VR to Real Life. So, the split up. Those who wanted to hang around fled Haven to other places in the net, holing up. Others, we got robot bodies built. That's me." "But... man, you were REAL. Live. Lifelike." "Am real. It's simulated, though," he said. "Really, really, really, really, really, really GOOD simulation. I don't see any differences myself, other than the electronic aspect. You don't get aches. No pains. No zits. Pretty ideal. It's been a great life so far, man, not being hunted by programmers with pack dogs, walking around rez so good..." "It's not rez." "Exactly." "So what happened? When we were playing the game." "I'd like to ask you that, myself. I don't remember diddley, just shutting down and ending up here, realizing there'd be a hell of a lot of questions to answer. I do know one thing." "Yeah?' "I ain't alone in here no more." * I related what I saw. Big cloud, it enveloped him, the ride down here, the quasi-examination. Everything. "So what happened?" I re-asked. "Damned if I know." "Well, speculate!" "Alright! Lemme think." "If you're a program, how come you need to think? I mean, isn't it instantaneous or--" "Simulation! I'm human, mind-wise, as far as I know. Gotta lengthen thinking time, reflex, everything. It's part of my nature... alright. Let's see. Some thing attacked me, I passed out, now we're here." "Yeah, you and me." "No, we as in me and the thing. I can tell it's in my OS somewhere... I can't tell what it is, or where, just that it's trying to control me. I keep trying to get angry, for no reason. I've been fighting it... this is really weird, man. Ever see the Exorcist? Old flick?" "No." "Well, let's just say I'm expecting pea-soup time any second now. I need help, man... gotta figure out what's going on. I better write this down, in case I flip out between here and there..." Twinkie patted his pockets for a pen, found one, then scribbled down an address on my hand. "Now you keep what I am under your hat. You and that chick doc of yours. I've been having mucho laff-laff as a human and intend to survive to stay that way. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd better go into shutdown mode before it spreads any farther and I start ripping off heads. I'm not too heavy, I hope?" "You weigh a ton." "Well, deal with it," he laughed, smirking in a Trust-Me sort of way. He snapped his expression back to normal, and closed his eyes. His chest didn't move. * "Where'm I supposed to get the cash for this kind of travel?" I asked Terry, keeping Twinkie propped up against a chair. I waved the address-coated hand around. "I mean, good lord, he wants me to travel out to Regais. That's a good six- hundred credit spaceline ticket." "He has to have his reasons," Terry said. "Look at the headline of the address. 'Doc'. He obviously knows of someone that can heal him up." "But where do I get the cash? I can't exactly leave him like this for the few weeks it'll take to work up that much money." "How much was it again?" Terry asked, getting her checkbook out of the medicine cabinet. "No, no thank you, I don't take loans--" "GIFT. What're siblings for?" she grinned. * Getting Twinkie through customs was amusing. He would have laughed his ass off watching me get a zombie with 34 band aids through spaceport security... I put him on the X-Ray machine conveyor belt just to freak everybody out. His internal systems registered him with normal human anatomy, which made it twice as amusing. I was in the security office in handcuffs for two hours thinking up an excuse. Sometimes you can take a joke too far. After convincing them he was in an ancient Peruvian trance in preparation for the Month of Ritual Fasting, they let me go provided I took a health kit along in case he got any worse. I ditched it in a trash can and hailed a taxi. "Thirty seventh and main," I told the cabbie, reading the ink address off my hand. I had to rewrite it a few times to keep the ink fresh... just then I realized it would have been a lot easier if I had transferred it to paper. "That'll be double fee for two passengers," the cabbie said. "HOV restrictions. If they catch me with three passengers and no license to port around that many, I'll need the bribe money." "I can put him in the trunk," I offered. * KNOCK. KNOCK. I hope Twinkie didn't mind me using his shoulder to hit the door, but really I had my hands full lugging him around. Covering up confusion and depression with bad physical humor is common nature, I guess. "Doc's out," the door said. "What do you need?" "Excuse me?" "Yeah, a talking door. Pretty damn funny, yeah? Load of bull. Gimmie a message so I can tell him, then go away. I'll have you know I'm fully armed." "You are?" "Well, no, not really, but I wish I was." "How can a door talk?" "Look, this Doc, he's an artificial intelligence expert, right?" the door reasoned. "So, one lazy Sunday morning, not much business, he codes up a door with an attitude. I'm great against solicitors. Ever tell some fundie religious guy that you'll happily let them in, we're busy sacrificing a bull to Zeus, and later on you can participate in our nude caviar orgy and drug-fest?" "Err, no." "I have. Damn lot of fun, that is. Try it sometime, you'll see." Twinkie would have liked this door. "Look, this guy's pretty heavy, so--" "Looks familiar. Hold him up to the light," the door ordered. "Come on, come on, I've got things to do, places to go. Alright. Let's see who... whoa. Now there's someone I haven't seen in awhile." The door swung open with a mechanical hum. "Come right in, man. Doc's in the back." "I thought he wasn't home." "Well, he just doesn't want to be disturbed, see? 'course, your pal there, he's on the guest list, can come in any time. Don't just stand around, get inside, I've got some closing to do." I lugged Twinkie inside, and the door shut behind me, grumbling something about job satisfaction when the voice cut in. "Hey!" the house said, in a high-pitched, cheery synth voice. "It's Twinkie! Yoo hoo! Doc!" There was a low grumbling, and a shadowy lurking figure stomped into a doorframe. "Yeah?" it rasped, voice aged with, well, age. "What's the little bugger want? Two want some programs and stuff again?" "I don't know, I'm just a house. Ask him." "Who the hell are you?" Doc asked, shining a flashlight in my eyes. I held up a hand (letting Twinkie slump a little) to block the light. "Chuck, sir. Umm, Twinkie here is having problems, and asked me to bring him here--" "House, gimmie some damn lighting, will you? I can't work in pitch darkness, you know," Doc grumbled, lights clicking on. I could finally see him. He did not look well. Eyes were bloodshot, back lumped, almost permanently in a hunched-over-a-VOSNet-deck position. He was pretty short for a human, with balding hair, combed around in a spiderweb sort of style. "Don't just stand there, pal, put Twink on the work table already. Hmm. Band aids. He bump into a mugger with a high powered blaster?" "No, some engineering guys had to patch him up after he freaked out in an arcade." "Alright. Let's give him the lookover... Seems fine physically, according to the scans. Why'd he shut down? You do something to him, flesh-boy?" "Me? No sir! Here, let me explain." * "Well, I can't say I haven't heard of it," Doc said. "Not sure if I can exorcise him." "I thought robots didn't need exercise." "No, hoser, I meant exORcise. Gets the demons out. That is what this is. At least it could be, I've never heard of one without a form before." "I don't follow." "How close are you to net.biz, boy?" Doc asked, prepping the deck permanently wired to the work table. "Well, I play a lot of games." "Uh-huh. Not that close, in other words. Alright. I can assume he told you about the escape, Haven, the cyborg bodies, the whole deal?" "Yeah, he mentioned a bit of that." "Alright... god, how I hate playing the role of the guy who explains everything to the clueless wonder. It's not my usual style. How about if I go find someone who can explain out this mess to you?" "Sounds fine here," I said. I mean, what else should I say? No, I wandered a few light years away from home with my best friend who turns out not to really be alive, so I think I'll just wander back and forget about everything? I hate people that prompt for lines like that, instead of just talking away. "You're about to be let in on the of the biggest net.secrets out there. Think you can handle it?" Again with the one-answer questions. "Of course." "Alrighty. Here," he said, tossing me a trode band, wired into his work table. "I'll jack you where you gotta go. Only got one of these things, really, so if she doesn't show, just come back and I'll go in and look for the bitch, okay? Good." He tapped a few buttons and I was in cyberspace. * It wasn't any part of VOSNet I was familiar with. Seemed cylindrical, with... naah. One can only use up so many geometrical terms before boring people to death. If you wanted to relate the room to anything, it'd be a bit like a tin can, with a thousand little holes, streams of light connecting each of them together. Looked like your average VOSNet switch-center. There was a girl in the center of the beams, her back to me. White dress, fairy wings, cutesy stuff... but nothing out of the ordinary compared to what some people on the net had progged themselves up to look like. She was busy waving a wand with a little plastic star around in the air, cutting through the beams, sending the odd light stream sprawling and scrambling, eventually fixing itself. "Excuse me--" I said, and she turned around. I always pictured fairies to be cute. She wasn't. She looked like hell, really, quite tired and overworked, with circles under her lines. Bad hair day, a bit of static cling to the gown, the works. "Who're you?" she asked, one arm continuing to wave the wand around. "Look, if you're one of those guys poking in here to see what all the racket is about, just go away before I have to spam you with noise, alright? I'm a busy woman." "Doc sent me," I said. Her expression changed from tired annoyance to tired disgust. "Mortals. They always send calling cards to us at the wrong time. Alright, I suppose the lines can stay clean for a little while." She stopped waving, pulled a golden chair out of midair, and sat on it. A table with a slightly-stained tablecloth rose from the floor, as well as another chair; right under my rear. I sat, not having much other choice. How was she jerking ObjIcons into existence so fast? "One lump or two?" she asked, offering me the kettle. "Err... no thank you, I'm not a tea guy, really." "Coffee?" "Well... okay," I agreed, as she pulled a steaming cup of java from nowhere, placing it in front of me. I sipped the CUP. A taste SENSATION, STRONGER than ANYTHING I HAD EVER FELT IN VR, GAGGING, MIND SPINN IN G... "Too strong for you?" she asked. "Gaaah. Urk. Where'd you GET that taste sample? Lord, it's nastier than the strongest black coffee known to--" "It's my mother's blend," she said, sipping a cup herself. Funny, SHE didn't gag and cough and choke. "Kind of bland, really. Alright, human, what is it you're looking for?" "Well... you know Doc, right?" "If I didn't, I would have fuzzed you when you came in here." "Fuzzed?" "Like this," she said, twiddling the wand experimentally at amrfopqekrb-0q3mnirb-m=-nbtm24=6v]dh2,9mh[vb9m-246m9h=- 24m96h9v26m9h-=24m96h=-2m46-=hsNoise," she continued, after my senses stopped wreaking havoc on my mind. "Wand of Line Noise, +3. It's my job to fuzzle up the lines a bit. Lynne_Noys, Patron Saint of Line Noise. It's sort of a pun," she explained. "Bloody nasty job, but someone's got to do it, really." "What ARE you?" I asked, shaking away the after affects of the sense-noise. "I told you, name's Lynne--" "No, no, I mean WHAT are you. You're not human, and no AI I've ever seen has had that much power over the 'net..." "Ah. I'm getting the picture now. Doc sent you in here so I can relate the grand scheme of things, did he?" Lynne groaned. "I swear, that little troll of a man can be annoying sometimes... tell him to go do his own explaining, alright? We Thinkers are busy little bees, and Don't! nasrf0bqaerb0q3j8r Have! w04nbq403ornq03rbq03 Time! 0aerf0qej0 To! w- 0aepfdmaw[df.fds'.];psfbvs' GOOF AROUND!" I spasmed under the wand's shock waves, as the final one hit the safety locks on Doc's deck and jacked me out. * I fell backwards, inner ear still trying to cope with the blast that knocked me out of the net. Doc was there, wiring Twinkie up to the table, when I hit the ground. "She threw a snit fit, right?" Doc guessed. "I don't care how powerful they think they are, they're just as impolite as us mortals." "What WAS she?" I asked, pulling off the trode band and regaining my dignity. "That, pal, was a Thinker. Nobody knows when they got in the net, why they're there, or when they're leaving. A whole new species, unlike anything ever seen before. Wicked, huh? The best thing you can equate them to is gods. Gods of data." "So they're AIs?" "No, they're Thinkers. Different breed. AIs need the VOS software to survive... AI code is built directly into the system. These 'things' are just living data... code that simply DECIDES what it wants to do, what it wants to look like. Sure, you can hit the OFF switch, but that's it. They're big suckers. You can't kill them, you can't fight them, you can't do anything to them." "When did THIS happen? Look, I've been a gamer for a long time, and I've never heard of demons in the net--" "They don't show themselves to just ANYBODY. I'm one of the few, the few they recognized as the top of the human jack-in breed. There're maybe a hundred people in the galaxy that know about them." "Details. I want details. And more importantly, I wanna know what the hell this has to do with my pal Twinkie here." "Alright. When we first found Thinkers, they were in an isolated sector... some system way out in the middle of nowhere, shut down from the inside. They were just raw data then, data that moved but didn't really DO anything. Just sat around, thinking. About two minutes after we--" "Who's we?" "Don't interrupt, kid. Just me and a few other netrunners you wouldn't know jack about. Two minutes after we crack open the place, they get out and run amok. We don't hear much about them for a few weeks, but now they're back. And one of them seems to have wormed its way into your friend here." * Doc went into full lecture mode after that. About what happened when the Thinkers returned to thank him and 'us' for letting them out, and what they looked like. How they had adopted various personalities to adapt to the net. Some played gods, some fictional characters. All of them had plagiarized some concept from somewhere, either folklore or myth, and looked around under guise of just another human. They liked it here. They found humans, Ytts, Sarens, the rest of the net.users a bit annoying, but didn't mind them. As gods go, these were pretty tame. They didn't upset anyone, they didn't mingle in affairs, they just sat around. "Doing what?" "Thinking. Just sit around, pondering the mysteries of the universe. They'll occasionally do a bit of building, because the personality they took on demands certain quirks and fetishes, but they're mostly intraverts, hermits. This one in Twink, though... he's weird. Real weird." "Look, is Twink in any danger here? I mean, I'm going to take an educated guess and say that the Thinker got into Twink's bod through that lousy arcade game--" "What would a Thinker be doing slumming it out in an arcade?" Doc asked, pausing in his wiring. "Was it fleeing something and looking for a place to hide? Takes a lot to scare a Thinker." "I don't know, you're the net.guru." "See, they don't travel much. Occasionally they'll roam around the systems looking for chatter, when the boredom really sets in, but that's about it. Never, ever in such a low-level system as an arcade, unless they have some other reason. Games of skill are too boring for any computer-critter, AI or otherwise." "We could just turn Twink on and see what he says." "I wouldn't suggest that. He must have had a good reason to shut down... AIs can predict the future better than humans, kid. They've got the math and the runtime to handle it. If he saw something so nasty in his future as to warrant full shutdown, then whatever is in there is nastier than you'd think." "We can't exactly LEAVE him like this." "I can't do anything until I know what it is. You don't want to try to attack a Thinker without good reason, they stick up for each other. Go back to Lynne and describe what you saw in that game. Maybe she recognizes it. Heck, it's probably her third cousin or something. See if she knows what to do with it." "No way. I'm not getting zapped again." "Look, just be polite and kind and maybe cower a little, and she won't do a thing to you. Her personality mold demands a little respect, since she certainly wouldn't get any normally... would YOU thank someone whose job it was to screw up your connections?" * She was still there, still messing with the lifelines of netizens everywhere. "Um, hi there," I said. She spun around, with sort of a Oh- Gods,-Not-You-Again look. "Listen, I think one of your relatives might be trapped somewhere, and Doc asked me to come in here and see if you recognized it... er, him, or her, or whatever." "Will you leave after telling me?" she asked. "Yeah. I promise, really. Anyway, it's sort of a--" "Don't bother," she said. "I can get the mental picture out of your mind faster than you can." She waved her wand, and I braced for another line of noise... unlike having noise push you back, this was more like having noise pull your forward. Vacuum of scrambled data. "Your mind is seriously unorganized, even for a human. Let's see." She paused, mentally sifting through my memories. Eyes widening, jaw dropping. Then a clenched bite of anger. "Not again!" she scowled. This was genuine anger; none of her usual tired, weak anger. "I thought he was gone! When is he going to give UP?" "What? What is it? Look, my friend's life is sort of hanging in the balance here--" "If you've got a stake in this, you can tag along. But keep your trap shut. It's time for a family meeting." She grabbed my arm, and started fluttering her wings. She gave the lines a last blast of noise, then flew off. One thing I never did understand about super hero movies is how, when the superhuman is flying in the sky holding another human by the wrist, the mortal didn't just hang there, pulled down by gravity. Well, I never did figure out why, as I remained on the same flying angle she did. Lynne was zooming over 3space, at speeds beyond the fastest deck I had ever seen, with me in tow. That's when I saw it. One incredibly HUGE construct, texturemapped to look like a mountain... no, it was a mountain. Very, very high resolution and detail, almost photorealistic. Makes sense, really... when you're pure data, you don't kid around about the furnishings... She spiraled up the mountain, higher and higher, simulated wind whipping by. We circled two times and landed on a small plateau at the top. "Where--" "Shush, remember?" she said. She approached a single silver bell in the center of the plateau, and rang it a few times. There wasn't a melodious ring of silver or a glorious, triumphant DONGGG... just a little ding!. One of those ding!s that echoes off everything in a five thousand mile radius. One by one, they arrived. Some in simulated airships, some by the power of wings, others materializing in a beam of light. All wildly different... one a pirate, another a space adventurer, a few furries. Toons. Normal-looking people. Things that I can't even describe. (I think Ghandi was in there somewhere, too.) "This is not a meeting for all of us," Lynne said. "Immediate family only, please, and the convert. I'll ring for the rest of you if needed." The others grumbled, climbing/beaming/flying back down the mountain, leaving just Lynne, me, and three others. An almost orange-haired girl, a slathering beast, and some normal looking guy. Quite a contrast between the three. "Who's the mortal?" the monster asked, voice like James Earl Jones scraping his figernails across a chalkboard. "Is he food?" "No, Dad, he's not food. This is... what was your name?" Lynne asked. "Never mind, it's in your mind. His name is Charles Frickburger Topper, aged twenty three. Works as a short order cook. Want his credit chip account and childhood traumas?" "Pleased to meet you," the normal guy in the baggy shirt said, extending a hand to greet me. "Sis," the girl asked, "I know you date some weird guys, but he looks a bit... normal for you." "I'm not DATING him, Melody. His friend, an AI, seems to have bumped into Hate." Nobody talked. Awkward family moment, I guessed. "Look, before we go any further, I'd better introduce Charles here to you guys," Lynne sighed. "Charles, this is my dad Grendel, demon-beast of the swamps and danish legend... my sister Melody, AI folklore figure of innocence and purity, and Gosub. Gosub's just a convert." "Yup," Gosub agreed, his baggy brown clothing shifting in the breeze. "How's the real world doing? Seen any good movies? How's the food? Where can I find Hate so I can rip his electric balls off?" "Enough," Grendel snarled. "Hate has been found. I thought you slew my only son, Gosub." "I thought I burned the bastard twice, Grendel," Gosub said, pausing to sit on a nearby rock. "He's a wriggly little guy. Where is he now, Lynne? I've got some old scores to settle." Lynne motioned for me to speak. "It... Hate, I mean... well, I was playing an arcade game with a friend of mine... who turns out to be and artificially intelligent cyborg, but I think I can cope with that now... and I saw this cloud of dots and light in the game. It jumped on Twink, and the safeties went off. Twink was half-dead... when he woke up, he said he felt something inside him. He shut down and asked for me to take him to Doc." "How's Doc-boy doing?" Gosub asked. "Haven't talked to him in awhile now..." "You must destroy the unit immediately," Grendel said. "Hate must not reach the net ever again. He is not like us. He has no personality, just emotion. He is dangerous." "Dad!" Melody stomped. "You can't go around arbitrarily killing people. This boy Twink was very important to Melody's past, according to the myths. We must find a way to save him." "Well..." "You were not told to speak, mortal!" Grendel growled. "Shut up and let the kid talk, Grendel," Gosub said, not looking in the monster's direction. "You had an idea, kid?" "If Twinkie is really an AI, can't he transfer himself to the matrix?" I suggested. "I mean, if we can keep Hate from coming through, and get him out here, we just close the link and Hate is stuck in Twinkie's body..." "We don't fit," Lynne said. "Thinkers can't stay in a cyborg body very long. Humans even less. If we link Twinkie up to the net, Hate will overflow out easily and run amok again. You don't know my brother, Charles. He almost destroyed VOSNet. Twice." "I burned him pretty bad both times, too," Gosub grinned. "Cost me plenty, though." "Well, come on. Whenever I want to, umm, pirate a game from a site, I just slip in quietly, transfer the file, and leave before anybody notices. Is Twinkie's body is just a big robot and computer combo, couldn't the same thing be done?" "You'd have to be quiet," Gosub pondered. "Real quiet. Almost silent. DEAD silent. Thinkers have better hearing than your average iced-up security system, you know." "Yeah, but you wouldn't have to be quiet, just erase your footprints as you made them. Say, like someone that's living data could do..." The others considered this. I was wondering if it was wise to have suggested the idea... just from what I had seen of Lynne, Thinkers weren't afraid to throw power around. If she could read my mind that easily, it could be wiped twice as easily. "It's got merit," Gosub said. "No. We cannot take chances. Hate must be destroyed for the safety of the net," Grendel said. "Destroy the AI." "I think a ballot is in order," Melody suggested. "It's the only fair and just way. All those in favor of killing the life to snuff out my brother?" Only Grendel raised a claw. Or hand. "I think they nays have it," Gosub said. "Good. Just taking him out that easily isn't satisfying enough. I'll do it. Where's Doc's office again?" "Whoa. Time out," Lynne said. "Gosub, frankly, you've still got the mindset of a mortal. You may have the powers, but you've got the brains of a human. Not enough speed and skill to handle the task." "I'm a qualified hacker. Besides, YOU certainly can't do it. We want silence, not noise." "I can be quiet when I want to!" Lynne yelled. "No, you can't. See?" "I will not go. I am against this idea," Grendel reaffirmed. "I don't care what you electronic screwballs think," Gosub said. "I've been sitting on my duff for the last week in the matrix doing jack shit. Enough is enough, I want to take this thing out once and for all. Do you know the way back to Doc's place, Chuck?" "I will not permit one of the royal order of Thinkers to go on... a suicide mission!" Grendel roared. "You will stay, convert!" "Nyah," he said, sticking his tongue out. In an instant, I was at the bottom of the mountain, along with Gosub. * "Alright," Gosub, said, dusting off his hands. "Which way?" "Well--" We were there, right outside the rectangular box representing Doc's workshop. "Would you please stop it with the mindreading shtick?" I requested. "Oh. Sorry, I forgot. Jeez, I hate this. Being omniscient and omnipotent is no picnic." "Can I ask something? What did the monster guy mean when he said you were a convert?" "Jerks," Gosub spat. "I bumped into Hate, AGAIN, last week, and died fighting him. The Thinkers 'awarded' me with the HONOR of becoming a Thinker, for my valor and courage. So, I'm a convert. Yay. I hate it. I can't sleep, don't eat, can't get laid. I'm not human anymore. It's something that's a hard habit to break." "Really? I would think it'd be a bit fun. You could run around screwing up networks and playing jokes." "Some fun. Look, right now all I want to do is finish the job I failed at twice already, killing that son of a bitch. He's already offed two of my friends, Grendel's wife, and tried to destroy the net twice. Enough smalltalk. You jack out and go have Doc link your friend up to the net. Make sure he jacks it in and out in less than a second... that's all I'll need to go in, rescue your friend, and leave. I don't want to risk letting Hate out. It would be bad." He jacked me out before I could say anything. * "Sure took you long enough," Doc commented, as I jacked out. "So what's going on?" "I'd better summarize, we're under time restraints here," I said. "Do you have Twink ready to jack into the net?" "Yeah. I was about to jack in myself and look around, but you were still using my only trode--" "Don't. Just jack him in, count to point nine, and jack him out. They're going to try to trap the Thinker inside him and get him out to the net." "A Thinker isn't going to live long in such restrictive quarters, you know. Alright, we'll pander to their whims." Doc fiddled with some buttons, tapping one twice. "Jacked in, out. That was simple." Twink powered to life, eyes snapping open, wide. Real wide. "So now there's just a demonic evil Thinker in there?" Doc asked. "Yeah." "They tell you what we should do to keep him from ripping our throats out, once he wakes up alone, isolated, and very angry?" "N--GURK!" I gurked, as an iron grip fastened itself around my neck. Twink stared at me, firelight in his eyes. Really, really pissed off. Pure hate, and nothing else. "T-Twink?" I gasped, feet leaving the floor as he sat up. "It's not Twink," Doc strangled, in the other hand. Twink/Hate promptly dropped us, a What's-Going-On look passing over his face. He staggered around the room, being jerked in several different directions. "I don't think there's just one in there," Doc suggested, hiding under a table. Twink stumbled around the room, punching holes in the walls at random, searching for something. At last, he found the door, gave the touchpanel a solid WHACK, and ran screaming out into the night air. A scream? And then the sound of a hover bag scraping against the ground, and a crunching of metal... then laugher. Horrible laughter. I dashed out after him, only to find the wrecked remains of a land rover smashed two doors down, and little bits of Twink all over the place. "Aww, jeez..." I cursed silently to myself, running out towards the biggest chunk. Twink's torso coughed slightly. A human reaction, I smirked to myself. "I got 'im," Gosub said, through Twink's mouth. He was grinning like a maniac. A happy maniac, though. "Why'd you stick around? Why'd you stay in Twink's body?" I asked. "Figured... had to keep you two safe, once Hate woke up," Melody smiled. "Don't panic... it's fine. Twink's safe and sound in the net... I'm technically dead anyway, it's about time I lived up to the standard. It beats living in that rat-trap of a reality, anyway... damn the net..." Gosub shut down, once and for all, still smiling. * There was a wake for Gosub and a good-riddance for Hate at the top of the Thinker mountain that night, Doc and I participating in the festivities. He was using a toy deck we found in his garage. "An honorable way to die," Grendel said, drinking a tub of mead. "Humanity should be proud." "I'll miss the little rugrat," Lynne said. "I only knew him for about nine-tenths of a second," Twink said, "But he seemed pretty swell." "I have been meaning to discuss this with you, mortal," Grendel grumbled, turning to Twink. "If you wish, we can enpower you. You may live here, with the gods. Anyone who can fight off Hate from inside their own body is deserving of such a reward." "I think I'll just wait until Doc has a new body for me ready," Twink told the elder Thinker. "I spent the first year of my life in the net, and didn't like it very much. What can I say, I'm addicted to reality. It grows on you." "How much longer until you're back at the McSpackle's, Twink?" I asked. "My ticket's stamped for return flight tomorrow, and I need SOMETHING to tell the manager." "His body'll be ready in a week or so, keep your shorts on," Doc said, sipping his coffee. "I'll work as fast as I can." "Alright, but he could dock your pay, Twink." "Big deal. So I just filch some fries out of the cooker for the next few weeks instead of lunch. Drink up, Chuck, this is a party." I took a healthy swig out of my goblet. Or at least tried to. Considerably less fluid went down my synth throat then I was expecting. "Why is everybody laughing?" I asked, because everybody was. Twink gave me a You-Fool grin and pointed at my shirt. Dribble glass. Twink was still the same old joker he always was. Nothing had really changed. I was glad.