dp.13
MEGAZONE 23
"It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she
whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a
part of our own can have departed forever--that the
brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and
the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be
hushed, never to be heard."
--Frankenstein
Over the next five days, the statement "This is gonna
work" became a litany for Ben. He slept little, and ate
less, as he pounded away at the keyboard for hour after hour,
pausing only to nap when it was absolutely necessary, eat
when he was forced, shower, change clothes, and tend his
hands. In the meantime, ReRob worked almost as intensely on
the mecha units and Zoner shuttled back and forth giving
technical advice. Itsnotmygoddamnplanetunderstandmonkeyboy
was only xhosted to real_world for the shortest possible
amounts of time; to email out for food (and get it back by
email), to email all the Wedge Rats for emergency notices,
and to admit Wedge Rats for fittings.
Ben's corner of the station was untouched, strewn about
with scribble paper and the like as he wrestled with the
protocols of CLULESS, the problem being that as he gained a
clue to how it worked, it became harder to program in. The
whole thing hinged on his objectivity, which was hard to
maintain considering the circumstances. Meanwhile, in
ReRob's section, Wedge Rats came and went, being issued the
Cyclone of their choice and exiting with it packed into a
large cardboard box. Quietly, almost silently, the Wedge was
gearing up for war.
After seven days of intensive programming, Ben suddenly
stopped typing and, with a final C-x C-c, shut down the emacs
window. He read his mail (alarmed notices from aej about
being 42 meg over quota, mostly), even read some news, trying
to calm himself before the big moment. Then he cd'd to
/usr-1 and prepared to compile.
Suddenly, a warning message came in. Someone was trying
to hose his terminal. Shut him down, log in through that
port to his account, and erase everything he had worked for.
"Nrrr!" he snarled, and began banging out a countercode.
In Alden, Entropy met resistance and began to push
ahead. Whoever was resisting him, he was decent, but
Entropy's skill far outclassed his. He was fast and lucky,
that was all.
"What is taking so long?" Largo demanded behind him.
"Shut up, I'm working."
"Work faster, fool! I'm paying you well to do this
job!"
<<Head Like A Hole, NineInchNails>>
For twenty minutes they battled back and forth; finally,
seeing he could hold out no longer, Ben prepared to try a
desperate, last ditch attempt. He while(1) fork'ed Entropy's
terminal and keyed a compile command.
"Wait right there," said ReRob from across the station.
"I forgot to tell you--clucomp's animate enabler has been
killed. Use the copy in your account."
"Thanks," Ben replied quietly; it was the first word
he'd said in almost a week. He returned to his homedir,
enabled the compiler, and engaged.
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
Two large anvils materialized on the ceiling and crashed
to the floor of the HoloDECstation, one on either side of
Ben's seat.
All the color (what was left of it) drained out of Ben's
face. He grabbed his shoulders in the opposite hands and
began to rock slowly back and forth, chanting over and over
again, "No, no, no, no, no..."
Zoner stared at the xterm and drummed his fist against
his leg.
Ben clenched his fists and slammed them down on the
xtty, smashing its virtual face and deresolving it. "No, no,
no, no, NO!" He whirled, threw himself out of the chair to
the floor, an entire week of warring hope and despair
transmuted to pure despair. "No..."
MegaZone walked slowly into a corner, collapsed into a
heap, put on a Walkman, and began listening to
NineInchNails' "Terrible Lie".
Ben pulled himself into an Indian-style position and,
rocking gently, began to sing.
<<Country Feedback, R.E.M.>>
This flower's scorched this film is on
On a maddening loop
These clothes
These clothes don't fit us right
I'm to blame
It's all the same it's all the same
You come to me with the phone in your hand
You come to me with your hair curled tight
You come to me with propositions
You come to me with excuses
Dumped out in the road
You wear me out you wear me out
We've been through faith breakdowns self-hurt plastics
collections self-help self-pain asked psychics
Fuck off
I was central I had control I lost my head
I need this
I need this
A paperweight, a junk garage
Winter rain, a honey pot
Crazy, all the lovers have been tapped
Hotline, wanted ad
Crazy what you could've had
It's crazy what you could've had
Crazy what you could've had
I need this
I I I need this
While he sang softly to himself, drowning in his grief,
and Zoner did much the same thing with his Walkman on 10 and
his hands pressing the headphones to his ears, ReRob went
over to the window and examined it carefully, hoping for
something, anything, that might help. And, his eyes
widening, he saw it. He turned to get Ben's attention--then
thought better of it; having such a trivial error (missed
paren) pointed out to him in this state might evoke a rather
harsh reaction. Instead, he corrected it, ran over the file,
and, his fingers crossed, compiled it.
Then he pulled off a quick file transfer and logged out.
Ben finished the last, wavering note of his song,
pressing his clenched fists to his eyes; he could taste the
salt as the water ran from his face, wetting his shirt. He
didn't care. He didn't particularly care about anything
anymore. He just wanted to revenge himself on the people who
had done this to him--and then die.
A hand touched him gently on the shoulder. He slapped
it away with a snarl of rage. The last thing he wanted now
was to be comforted. Strong hands grabbed his own fists,
drawing them gently away from his eyes; he tried to twist
free, but the grip was firm--but soft somehow...the hands
were too small and smooth to belong to ReRob or Zoner--
<<In The Flesh, Pink Floyd>>
He opened his eyes, slowly, hesitantly, not wanting to
dare to hope to believe. Tears ran free as his lids slipped
open, splashing onto his saturated shirt. His vision cleared
as the liquid slid away from his eyeballs and a face snapped
into nearly clear focus.
Kei's.
Ben wondered if he was insane or just dreaming. She was
wearing her jeans, sneakers, and her Operation Zenith t-
shirt; he had brought them with him from his room the last
time he emailed himself to Morgan to get a shower, in a
gesture of hope that she would appear. He suddenly realized
that he was wearing that shirt today too.
"Kei?" he said weakly. "'Zat you?"
"It sure is," she replied. Then she released his hands
and grabbed him up in a hug.
"My God," Ben whispered to himself as he hugged her with
all his strength, clinging desperately, not willing to
believe but never wanting to disbelieve. He needed an
anchor, something to keep him moored in the world. "Kei,
you're alive!" Something snapped in him; a week of rage,
frustration, hope, and despair all came gushing out of him in
a tremendous storm of relief. "Goddamnit--you're alive!"
He began laughing hysterically and crying at the same
time, dancing, punching at the air in joy, thumping the
walls, degaussing the HoloDECstation, thanking ReRob over and
over and over again, kissing Kei, getting kissed by Kei,
exulting, cheering, rejoicing, and thus and so on.
Ben calmed a bit when he realized that their fierce
embrace was 1) making the muscles in his arms twitch with
fatigue and 2) bruising him; he held her at arms' length by
the shoulders and looked deep into her eyes, his own
shoulders heaving as he tried to get his breathing under
control so he could talk.
"Kei, there's something I want you to know...I had my
initial misgivings, I was indecisive, I was scared...I
thought I'd never see you again. This is weird, it never
occurred to me that this could happen to me...I never
thought.."
"Right before it all went dark I saw your face," she
told him at the same time. The conversation connected about
as well as the NFS server tends to, but neither particularly
cared for continuity at the moment. "The pain there--I was
actually more afraid for you than me. I've never felt that
way before...it's kind of unsettling."
Almost simultaneously, they closed their eyes, took deep
breaths, and pulled each other tight again, never mind the
goddamn bruises, and both murmured the same phrase into the
other's ear: "I love you."
A few moments previously, Zoner had heard all the
commotion through the music blasting through his Walkman. He
tore off the headphones, throwing them to the floor, and
turned around, about ready to explode in a violent rage.
Then he saw Ben standing near his xtty keyboard, tears
streaming unchecked down the side of his face Zoner could
see, locked in a fierce embrace--with Kei!
Zoner quickly scanned the environment of the HDS and
locked onto a form he had never again expected to see, Yuri.
She was standing off to one side, naked, and he hadn't had
the foresight to bring clothes. He ran over to her and
covered her in his denim jacket, well, as best he could, and
hugged her for all he was worth. As he choked back tears of
joy and relief he kissed her passionately and said, "You're
back, I can't believe it. I missed you so much, I only felt
this way about one other person. I, I love you Yuri. I want
you to know that, I really love you."
"I love you too, Zoner," Yuri sobbed. They stood there
holding each other for a long moment. Then Zoner noticed
that his jacket didn't really cover much, Yuri would need
some clothes. He called up an Email window xhosted to
real_world in E7C and grabbed some clothes she had left
behind.
A couple of minutes later, ReRob went to ask Ben about
something in the Griffin armor; he discovered both Ben and
Kei curled up in the corner under his xtty, fast asleep.
ReRob marveled at the resilience of the human spirit and
went back to work. He would just have to decide for himself
which option Ben would prefer.
Meanwhile, in Alden, Entropy received a piece of angry
email from aej demanding to know why he too had over forty
megabytes of stuff in his account. It's the last straw, the
letter went, I've had enough of this shit, you can kiss your
ass good-bye. And then pif! Entropy's account vanished into
the ether. No password disability, no week's grace period--
just zap! and it was gone.
Once and for all, aej had proven his superiority over
the common user, no matter how skilled.
Cursing, Entropy went out into the main room, slugged
Largo, and stormed out of Alden Hall. It would take him
hours to rebuild that account.