The MiSTing Authors' Own Fanfics Reviewed (2/4)
Tjats
MIKE: Hello, welcome back to The MiSTing Authors' Own Fanfics Reviewed.
SERVO: Up next is the first instalment of "My Gift to You" by Rob C Bungie.
CROW: So Cambot, if you please?
[shadowrama]
>--------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: http-www.no....@juno.com (Rob C Bungie)>
MIKE: Rob C Bungie is otherwise known as The Elastic Man from the Fantastic
Four.
CROW: That was pretty lame, Mike.
>
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>My Gift To You
>
>Issue 001 - prelude
SERVO: Uh, there are room for the digits to go into the hundreds, Mike.
MIKE: Don't worry about it. We're only reading this first one.
>
>"The world had moved on since then.
>The world had emptied."
> ---The Dark Tower, Vol. 1: The Gunslinger
CROW: My Gift to You, starring Beverly Garland and directed by Roger Corman.
>
>[Note: All series references (cyberpunk, anime, or otherwise), music
>lyrics, etc. in this section are owned by their respective creators and
>distributors, as well as anyone I forgot who stakes a claim.]
>
>SAN TRINE CITY
>OCTOBER 25th
>2031 AD
MIKE: Sorry, you forgot to mention years in the disclaimer. I believe the
X-Men
have rights to the year 2031.
>
>The machine just _stood_ there, and it was its pose that unsettled Jason
>the most.
SERVO: It had frozen while doing the macarena.
>It was crouching, a cyborg version of some ancient greek
>statue; muscular metal.
>Its eyes were dead and unactivated.
>
CROW: So they were dead.
>Even stranger, there was moss growing like hair on it; as though this
>was a gargantuan, filthy, brawny man who was lost and in trance.
MIKE: Well, that and he was roboticized by Doctor Robotnik.
>
>It looked deactivated, but Jason wanted to be sure, though; you didn't
>get far in Street Tech Maintenance without getting all those forms
>filled.
CROW: Huh?
>Usually, Jason would be giving some ATM machine an online enema
>around now - but occasionally, HQ would get a report like this, of some
>service drone going apeshit and hurting people. Jason had been in the
>wrong place at the right time, and so got the task of defusing this
>thing.
SERVO: Okay, you cut the red wire.
CROW[Jason]: But I'm color blind.
>
>Jason did, however, have an ally - his own service drone. His suit was a
>small robot - a machine consisting of a cockpit, a single, silent
>antigrav engine which hummed quietly, and two claws attached to the
>sides: externally, a photogenic match for the space-faring technician
>robots. The claws were his tools: easily as good as the gripper 'bots
>they used on the space stations.
MIKE: And on love satelites.
>
>They were also on company payroll, as his bosses had ingrained in his
>head before letting him use them on his shift.
>
>Internally, at least, it was like being in a Yugo, with hovertank-styled
>butterfly grips instead of a normal wheel.
CROW: The story presuposes that we know exactly what it's talking about.
>
>The hardsuited public custodial technician (fancy name for
>'street-sweeper-inna-tin-can' in Jase's experience; but hey, he needed
>the cash for the homecoming dance) approached cautiously. It was just
>paranoia induced by being downtown at night, really. Nobody wanted to be
>in the concrete labyrinth of Rat City(which was the nickname for San
>Trin City's slum area and resident _villas misarias_) after dark if they
>could help it, even its own denizens.
SERVO: Whadawe got so far?
MIKE: A robot with feelings, or is it a guy in a robot suit?
CROW: A strange greek robot with moss growing on it instead of rust.
MIKE: And to top it all off clever futurobabble.
>
>The utter, complete silence in a wired world so full of noise easily
>disturbed the youth, while the condemned buildings looked bigger and
>bigger, and shadows began to tease his frightened imagination. <There's
>something wrong about the place>, Jason realized. <It's like you're in
>church.>
SERVO: He must be an aethiest.
>And it was like a church, in its sincere silence; albeit, some
>church long since wasted, defiled, paved over, and buried...
>
MIKE: This seems like the begining to any given PlayStation RPG.
>He set down in front of the 'buma'. "Buma" stood for 'Big Ugly Metal
>Android', or so it was said. It was scary, how good he was getting at
>this job.
CROW: And just then Batman Beyond flies into the scene.
>
>Jason flipped a switch and extended one of the robotic arms towards the
>buma's I/O ports and preparing to uplink and see what the problem was.
>Then, he took a swig from his Jolt, and tossed the can into the rapidly
>growing pile of decimated caffeine drinks. At this rate, he would be
>through 3 six-packs by the time he got home.
SERVO: Geting drunk on Jolt...it must be THE FUTURE!
>The radio played on during
>all this, it's late 20th century song playing at a low volume, though
>the song was clearly supposed to be played louder. At its diminished
>volume,
>the song sounded ghostly and sad, a negative image of its original
>intention:
MIKE: Just replace the batteries and it'll be fine.
>
>"Hey man wake up and smell the concrete
>Strange to see you changed like the LB
>Could be 'n identity crisis
>But I don't buy this
>Reality bites
>But that's what life is..."
>
ALL[singing]: Everything's gonna be alright, rockabye.
>The machines linked, and from a passing bum's P.O.V., the scene would
>look like one automaton was performing the vulcan mind meld on the
>other.
SERVO[Spock]: Pain! Pain!
>Inside Jason's 'suit, a monitor was flickering to life like an old TV,
>showing something reminiscient of Windows 3.0's File Manager(before
>Microsoft was bought out by SinTEK, and SinTEK in turn merged with
>GENOM, of course).
>
MIKE: After being bought out by two companies they decided to revert to a
40-year-old
program?
>The trick was to gain access to the main directories without activating
>the AI-OS. First thing they told him that week or training, a week in
>which Jason's activities usually included almost falling asleep in class
>and mingling with girls, but still managed to pass. And, hey, it wasn't
>like he was drowsy during _all_ the classes...
SERVO: And in the future they still pass everyone.
>
><Hm, all the directories are in the right place, better do a surface
>scan->
MIKE: Hmmm. Yup, I see lots of blackheads. You'd better get some face wash.
>
>What Jason saw in the screen made him drop the can of Jolt Cola right on
>his coveralls.
CROW: He accidentally downloaded porn.
>
>He didn't even notice.
>
>There were no files in any of the directories. Not a one. He checked
>through each with growing panic, and ice cold fear churning through his
>small intestines.
SERVO: Oh my God! All the files are missing!
CROW: Oh the horror!
>
><This can't be right - the big lug smashed up 3 whole blocks...what the
>hell is this thing?!>
>
>Wait -
>There was one file.
MIKE: It was COS.
>
>Jason tapped the OCR file. It opened, revealing just what it was - an
>amazingly intricate symbol, one that made Jason think of think of the
SERVO: The fanfic's skipping.
>copied scans of hieroglyphics he had seen back in fifth grade: in fact,
>it was all he really remembered from that year. The picture was
>beautiful, mysterious - a remnant from whatever phantom worlds had lived
>on this land before society ripped them away.
>
>It was then that the buma opened its eyes.
>
>They did not glow in LCD,
MIKE: That sounds suspiciously like a LucasArts anagram.
>like they usually did, but a deep red
>(#990000, to be exact). It opened It's mouth and bared It's teeth, in
>what looked
>to Jase like a... <a smile>.
>
CROW: Oh, my god! Not a smile!
>Yes, exactly like a grin that clearly said, *Got You* ...the same grin
>one always saw when they were made fun of, and when you saw that grin
>you knew they meant every word, and they knew they had hurt you by that
>particular tease and they were _glad_to_see_it_, and you didn't snap
>back at them because you were amazed that anyone could be that cruel.
>And,
>because you were a little afraid of that as well.
SERVO: The robot played a prank by making Jason think that all it's files were
erased. Sure.
>
>Then, the buma jumped forward with amazing speed - and ripped into the
>service suit.
MIKE: Tony! Your hands are claws! You are the Buma Man!
>
>Jason felt a deep red pain(in his mind's eye, as red as the buma's eyes)
>in his gut.
>The pain was almost familiar; a few years ago, in football, he had been
>tackled by the opposing team's poster child for anti-social behavior.
CROW: And Jason is yet again injured for being non-sociable.
>The slam had hurt like a bitch, and he had gotten a red welt across his
>midsection for a couple weeks, but this was much worse.
>
>He looked down and saw, with no little surprise, that the buma had
>slammed its arms into the suit - and into him. He felt the buma's hand
>move around in there, causing more pain, pain enough to scream - which
>he did - and then rip out with the same intensity and ferocity.
>
SERVO[Jason]: I've got to stop this...IT'S MORPHIN' TIME!
>Jason felt a great discomfort, and disturbing _emptiness_ - no pain, now
>- and looked into the buma's grinning, vampiric, crimson eyes. The
>machine just stood there, watching Jason, waiting for his bloodstained
>mass to fall. He closed his eyes in order to escape the buma's. He saw
>the symbol - (The word <Egypt> stumbled into his mind, and would be the
>last word he ever thought of) - once more.
>
>Then, he saw nothing ever again.
>
>End of Issue 001
[Lyle cam]
MIKE: Alright, we have a robot that looks like an Ancient Greek statue
with Egyptian heiroglyphics terrorizing street sweepers in cans with
a suposed loss of files.
CROW: This story reminds me of the dreams I have every night...but of
course the characters here are replaced by us, Mike.
MIKE: ...okay.
SERVO: Stick around, cuz we've got Sailor Deathmatch comin' up!
[commercials]
Jim, that Mistie
(#90212)
"Darling, why should I be worried? The only time I ever felt badly was when I
felt like a whore in Milan and that only lasted seven minutes and besides it
was the room furnishings." -Catherine "A Farewell to Arms"