OIC (42)
MegaZone23
"We are young/Wandering the face of the Earth/Wondering
what our dreams might be worth/Learning that we're only
immortal for a limited time."
--Rush
UTOPIA PLANITIA
Lord Wolfgang Amadeus Fahrvergnugen sat slumped in his
great black chair, looking blankly at the screen of his
deskcomp as it mutely and unsympathetically reported the
death of his great dream. It was so hard to believe. His
children, not only defeated but utterly routed, slaughtered,
the few survivors scattered across the Universe. Gryphon, a
madman, killer of children. MegaZone, abandoning his offices
and his duty to go off and sulk like a child. Kei and Yuri
divided by lines of hate and pain. ReRob, scarred and
tormented, his only comfort Deedlit. How had this happened?
The door hissed open. This, Fahrvergnugen knew without
turning, would be Decker, disregarding his lordship's orders
to be left alone with some sage comment or suggestion which
would turn the tide, but for which he would later refuse all
credit. Fahrvergnugen turned around to greet his trusted
assistant--
--and found himself looking squarely down the barrel of
an M-5 plasma rifle. His vision planed away up the barrel,
parallax twisting the figure at the end, but Fahrvergnugen
recognized him nonetheless.
Decker.
"Decker!" Fahrvergnugen roared. "What in hell is this!"
"What does it look like, m'lord?" Decker sneered. "This
is an assassination. After all, my masters have defeated
your little toy army--it wouldn't do to have you building it
again. With your death, we close the circle."
"Your masters--GENOM?"
"On this level, yes."
"`On this level'..." Fahrvergnugen murmured, thinking.
Suddenly his eyes flew wide with comprehension. "Of course!"
he shouted, leaping to his feet despite Decker's armed and
dangerous presence. "How could I have been so blind! Of
course!"
"Clever, aren't you, Wolfgang? Pity your knowledge came
too late. Your tin-plated starship and its crew of
miscreants and degenerate weirdos has been destroyed! Your
time is past! The future belongs to my masters!"
Fahrvergnugen's face twisted in rage, and he charged at
Decker, his left hand grasping the haft of his bastard sword
and hauling it from its scabbard. Decker stepped back,
startled by his lord's roaring charge, and fired.
His aim was spoiled by his surprise and the beginnings
of a very real fear; the plasma bolt took Fahrvergnugen low
in the right side, shattering armor plate and spraying the
room with blood. Fahrvergnugen's sword hissed around in a
whistling chop, severing Decker's head; it bounced into the
corner of the office as the corpse clattered to the deck in
the doorway.
Fahrvergnugen stood for a few minutes, fighting for
control, before sheathing his blade and taking stock of his
wound. Deep, painful, but not mortal--not to one of
Fahrvergnugen's constitution. He picked up the plasma rifle,
slung it over his shoulder, and keyed the door.
Lord Fahrvergnugen paused in the doorway to look back at
his office and the death of his dream one last time; then he
turned, muttering, "Celine must be told," and was gone.
In Kent, England, 1865, a child was born, the second of
two, to the Holmes family. The elder brother, Mycroft, a
somewhat slothful but undoubtably brilliant lad, was
delighted with his younger sibling, who was every bit as
brilliant as he, and with many times the energy.
The boy grew to a man, tall and gaunt, with slick black
hair and a hawk nose, and piercing, incisive, steel-grey
eyes. He took up lodgings in Baker Street in London and
began a successful business as a consulting detective, and
soon his name was famed throughout the world, through the
efforts of his friend, a doctor, and the doctor's literary
agent, A. Conan Doyle.
Before all that fame business happened, though, on the
tall, gaunt, black-haired detective's twenty-first birthday,
Edison Bell opened his eyes, sat up, looked in the shaving
mirror, blinked at the hawk-nosed face he saw there, reached
into his pocket, pulled out his grid pass, checked the
coordinates reading on it, and cursed.
"Damn!" he cried. "I'm in the wrong universe!"
Ok, so now that you've read this weirdness and you're totally
lost you'd like some answers. Well, we're not going to tell
you everything, since a lot was explained in the original
Undocumented Features, and in The Long Road (aka UF2) which
are available on the Internet via FTP. The address is
130.215.24.1 (wpi.wpi.edu) cd /anime/FanFiction. Set binary
on and get dp.undocument.1.Z and dp.undocument.2.Z; have fun.
(Plug plug plug, huge shameless plug) mega...@wpi.wpi.edu
can answer any questions, or at least try to. However, there
are a few new things, and the authors wanted to spew randomly
about some unimportant stuff. And this glossary is the
result.
Redundancy: See recursion.
The Mann Systems Series 1001E BioSculptTM is the result of
many generations in the evolution of the 101-E Bio-SculptTM
tank. See the glossary from UF2.
Swimming: Has nothing to do with water. It comes from Erik
A. Swimm's last name. See, last year, when we started
writing this atrocity, we used to throw knives at a cardboard
box on our Fold-O-Couch-O-Death MkII (see the UF2 glossary).
Well, other than putting LOTS of holes in the mattress, Erik
had a good record of getting the knives to stick. Handle
first of course. So hitting someone with the wrong end of a
thrown/airborne object became Swimming it.
Recursion: see redundancy.
Roboteching: 1. Taken from the TV kludge Robotech. (I like
it ok? -Zoner) The extremely picturesque, and rather silly,
way missiles seem to fly away from the target on random
paths, only to converge on it at the last second. 2. The
practice of taking material created by others and kludging it
into your story line.
Saab 900 Turbo: Speedbump.
This writing is the product of Benjamin D. Hutchins, Brian D.
Bikowicz, Rob Mandeville, the Editorial College (peanut
gallery), .gif files, text, lack of sleep, STRESS, angst,
caffeine, sugar, incredibly green pie, remarkably hot chili,
AT&T, the US Postal Service, the Big Duck, lots of music once
again, and yes, despite all the darkness, love.
Published 3 September 1992 at Eyrie Publishing,
NotEvenCloseToInc., 14 Dover Street #2B, Worcester, MA 01609.
For everyone: thanks again.
Benjamin D. Hutchins
Brian D. Bikowicz
Rob Mandeville
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Natural Progressions to be Found in the English Language:
cat...................................catapult
I-NET: gry...@world.std.com BELLNET: (508)755-4675
SNAILNET: 14 Dover St. #2B, Worcester, MA 01609 USA
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#I have one prejudice, and that is against stupidity. Think!#
#mega...@wpi.wpi.edu Moderator for FTP 130.215.24.1 /anime#
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--
REMANDE: Rob Mandeville -- just ask for ReRob
rem...@wpi.wpi.edu WPI Box 2906 "Worcester Insane Asylum!"
I'm an AI trapped in a man's body.