***
***
"I'm hungry" said Jim.
Carolyn stepped forward, "here, want a piece of my chocolate- covered Foo-Bar?".
"Counselor Cleavage, what do you make of this?" asked Dale of a new character just written into the story.
"I feel a sense of derangement, a serious disturbed personality lurking very near".
"No, I meant the situation, not the author".
"Oh, well then, proceed with caution, don't divide by zero, write protect all disks, free-all memory, and reply to all messages!"
Moments later while brandishing their hacker guns, the crew stepped defiantly into the transputer ready to brave any danger (short of FORTH programmers that is). The captain took one last glance around the room and said wistfully to his StarChip, "I'll CPU later old girl". With that our heros disappeared into the Void.
***
The explorers journeyed across the fractal landscape, stumbling over an occasional complex number or two. The murky atmosphere nearly smothered them like a cheap electric blanket. Slowly making their way to the top of the rise, they spied their quarry off in the distance. Ahead of them spread an endless expanse of cubicles stretching out towards the horizon in moribund shades of beige and gray. It looked much like a laboratory's maze, beckoning them to come and be the mice.
"Captain, look at this!" Lauren gasped, holding up a deep red tie she picked off the ground. "There must be (gulp) Power Users in the area!".
"That does it everyone, put your Hacker-Blasters on 'Buss Error'", directed the Captain, "And be careful, don't get trapped". Forming a tight circle and tossing furtive glances in all directions, the team made their way down the hill towards the maze. Dave monitored the source of the ever stronger signals with his homing.device. "Over there! Down that aisle, to the left". Silently they scuttled down the muted pastel hallway. Finally, one-by-one, they stopped in their tracks. There in the fluorescent gloom was a small pale figure, hunched over a CloneTech PC (model 1500ZX-Q with transistorized Tint-Control!). His face shown green from the soft impersonal glow of the monitor. A pair of handcuffs bound him to the desk supporting the device of torture. He babbled over and over, "BDos error on drive A:, BDos error on drive A, what the hell does that mean?, BDos error on drive A:. . ."
The captain slowly approached the man, "hi pal, we've come to set you free".
"What's a BDos error?" the man said glancing towards the captain.
"I'll tell you if you can tell me what and AmigaDOS error 227 is. Ha ha ha. We've come to rescue you from this drudgery, stand back, Gentlemen, enable your weapons! . . . Hose it!"
The startled user jumped back as millions of OHMS sailed passed him striking the PC squarely in the face. Moments later, 640K of memory, two disk drives, 20 meg hardcard, (in other words, a bristling hunk of connectivity) was reduced to a pile of smoldering ashes. The handcuffs then dropped from his arm and he was free. "Come on, we have to get going" said the Captain. The user hesitated at first, not quite sure what to make of the situation. But finally realizing that these guys were real he jumped up from his ergonomically designed chair and joined them. "We must hurry, there are Marketroids in the area, trying to sell the Power-Users on 32GB Worm drives in 12 designer colors." He waved for the crew to follow him down to secret passage. Off in the distance, voices could be heard. "M-M-Marketroids!!! They're hypnotic powers are unsurpassed in this and parallel dimensions!" the user stammered, "This way!".
"Captain, why don't we just upload ourselves to the EnterBoing?" asked Dave, "and get outta here?".
"Silly you, don't you know anything about contrived plot construction?"
Before the Captain could continue they found themselves surrounded by several faceless, impeccably dressed beings, waving sales brochures in their faces. One clutched Carolyn by the arm "come this way little lady! I'll show you a computer to solve all your problems. With this model, you can keep track of recipes, balance your checkbook. . .".
Out of the mist a portable showroom appeared. Dozens of beige boxes lined the chrome tables, each winking their little cursor eyes, saying, "come, try me, come. . .".
Another Marketroid directed Bryce towards yet another nameless Beige Box. "And here sir is the New and Improved CloneTech 72839QQ+ RISC-PC complete with WeenieDOS 10.1. This makes obsolete Everything we've ever sold. And you better buy it now, or else it to will be obsolete in 12 minutes. And by the way, is this baby fast! It runs at 17000 GigaMIPS!"
"What do you expect for a RISC chip with only 2 instructions!" Bryce replied.
Still another Marketroid set up an overhead projector and a tray of petrified doughnuts. "I want to thank-you for coming to our little presentation" he said in a disinterested monotone. He put up a viewgraph with the words "I want to thank-you for coming to our little presentation". "Today we'll talk about what the LAN can do for you", he continued with as much passion in his voice as a cheerleader at a chess-match.
All too soon, these mind-altering presentations took their toll as one by one each of the stalwart crewmembers keeled over, sound asleep.
***
"I'm glad you asked" chirped one of the female Marketroids placing a viewgraph on the overhead. "Why, you're in Businesslandia! Now, why would you want to be in Businesslandia? Because this is the Year of the LAN!. . ."
"STOP IT!!" cried the Captain, covering his ears. He fell to the ground, writhing in agony.
The door breezed open, as two nattily dressed Marketroids swept in, both dressed in the finest Italian tweed suits.
"Captain", said the one on the left, "we're here to bring you, our guests, to Generalissimo Akers."
Now, Generalissimo Akers was one not be trifled with, he was everything a Marketroid could dream of becoming. From making his sales quota of MicroSloth products every hour, to being able to toss off trite, meaningless phrases at the drop of a hat, Akers was a dangerous man to unsuspecting buyers and computer columnists alike. He proudest achievement was coining the term "user friendly". But what do you expect from one whose father was responsible for "new and improved!".
The other crewmembers were up by now, rubbing their eyes and looking around. The two representatives herded them together and ushered them out the door.
The party was taken on what would turn out to be a guided tour of Busnesslandia. What they saw would check all your sums: halls stretching out as far as the eye could see of classrooms, seminar rooms, training rooms all dedicated towards the teaching people how to sell the "Operating System of the Future", Oh-Oh-S/2. A sobering thought to be sure.
Strolling by each doorway bits and pieces of the presentations would drift within earshot.
"Now class repeat after me : 'It's a great game machine, but can it do real work. . .'"
"It's a great game machine. . ." the class parroted.
"'Who needs multitasking', Oops, heh, heh, that's last years notes. Try this 'the modern office today requires multitasking'".
"The modern office. . ." droned the class.
The next classroom rang with post-sales comments, such as "have a nice day", "good luck", and the much underrated "I'll call our technical guy about that".
A few doors down, the crew observed a behavior modification session in progress. A shimmering new Sun VelcroSystem workstation had had it's case electrified. One by one, marketroids-in-training were brought into the room after being denied computer privileges for 3 weeks. They hungrily jumped at the chance to do a PgDn. One after another they were bent upon touching that inviting box, and one after another they would be sent diving to the floor from the resultant shocks coursing through their bodies driving them nearly to the point of cardiac seizures. Next to the Sun, a CloneTech! 2000 (with Automatic Case-levelling!) hummed merrily away. Colored text was scrolling on it's small friendly screen demonstrating the new XYZ-GA board. One by one as each student picked himself off of the floor, they reached for the CloneTech!, hesitantly at first. When it didn't shock them, an almost drugged smile of relief crept across their face, "boring was safe" became the universal thought.
Further down the hallway, on the left was a most bizarre chamber. Their hosts paused in hushed respect. The room bore a strong resemblance to that of a small chapel. Other marketroids inside were bowing their heads, mumbling faint, hushed chants : "the journey is the reward". said over and over, "the journey is the reward. . .".
On an altar in the front of the room was a gold and leather bound book. Looking closer, Dale saw the words "Market Plan", emboldened on the cover. The crew was quickly ushered away.
Turning the corner, they stopped cold in sudden shock and horror. What lay before them was the greatest surprise they had yet seen, (surpassing even the time when the Sidecar was released ). Stretching out before them, defining the very essence of infinity, was a vast, endless corridor. It's walls lined with literally millions of upright round glass tubes. Each one enclosing a well-dressed body standing in an apparent state of suspended animation. "Vertical market-roids!" exclaimed Jim in a super-human attempt at making an excruciating pun (hey guys, I'm not going to take the blame for it!).
"Armies! They're armies!" whispered the user, "why, this is were they breed them. . .".
"You're so right" said a strong voice from behind. A portly, well-dressed (hey, they're all well dressed here), gentleman stepped forward. "Allow me to introduce my self, I am Akers, how may I help you. . ."
"Let us go dude" said Kodiak.
"Heh, heh, not so fast. Allow me to show you around". And with that the master salesman revealed what few outsiders would ever know, the true nature of sales. "Gentlemen, have you ever given thought to what happens to the various trinkets and junk made for fads gone flat. You know, hoola-hoops and the like. Or for that matter, what becomes of lessor computers which just can't cut it. Where do you think all that junk goes, huh? Who do you think has all of that stuff now?"
The crew looked around at each other with NULL expressions, not sure what would come next.
"I do. . . .Who else do you know who has a planet full of SpectraVideo computers, Coleco Adams, and yes, even the fabled 'Albert'."
"Are we supposed to be impressed?" smirked Leo.
"Well, these armies of ours will spread out across the universe like Amiga 3000 rumors on a cheap Net. Phase one of the Plan will have them using their hypnotic powers to get everyone into believing that Oh-Oh-S/2 is the operating system of the future, getting PS-one-halfs in every home, on every street corner, in every school. . . Then will come the MaxiPlan. Hidden in the OS are subliminal messages which will be flashed, on all CRTs throughout the galaxy. These will be ads enticing everyone in to buy all of this leftover merchandise. At last we'll be able to empty out those warehouses full of Michael Jackson gloves! Atari 'ET' videogame cartridges! Quadraphonic record albums! Textcraft 2.0!. . . Akers was now staring off into space, rubbing his hands together in a violent excitement. "Damn, am I sure glad I bought those Apple III futures!. . .". He paused to catch his breath, then continued. "Heh, heh, And when this is done," he said, nearly shouting while raising his fist into the air, "I will be as rich as Bill Gates!!!!!".
Dave jumped towards the man, veins bulging, "hold him captain, and I'll shift his bits!" he yelled.
"Back-off Lieutenant, he has a Lock on us here. Ok fat-stuff, but what does this have to do with us" asked the stern, yet compassionate authority figure, Captain Dale.
The Generalissimo turned his sinister gaze towards them. He raised his arm, pointing a fat, rounded finger towards the captain. "You! YOU PEOPLE! ARE THE ONLY ONES STANDING IN MY WAY!!!" He leaned towards Dale, standing nose to nose. His fat flabby face turning beet red, he POKED his finger into Dale's chest. "These high-level interrupts of yours I cannot tolerate! DO YOU COMPUTE??"
"Get Outta My Face Fat Stuff. . ."
"Stand back, and I'll reformat him!!". A blazing beam of bits came shooting across the room. Kodiak stood, blaster in both hands, teeth bared. . .
Akers stood there grinning, Ones and Zeros bounced harmlessly off him. "Ha Ha! You can't touch me, I'm write protected!!".
He grabbed the captain's arm and roughly shoved him towards one of the glass chambers. He pressed a button on the side, causing it's door to slide open. Dale stood, aghast, for here he was staring at, himself. . .
"Yes, a clone, a perfect clone, our secret weapon my Captain."
Major Lauren reached out and touched the clone marketroid's arm. "It has the look, and feel of you Captain. I'm scared."
"We have clones of every one of you. Soon we'll have them in place on board the EnterBoing heading towards that DevCon of yours. We've outfitted them with a phony Amiga 3000. Inside is a PS-one-half board and MicroSloth Windows. And there they'll destroy the very fabric of the Amiga, and everything it stands for. And in the process, handing me the Universe on a Silicon Platter.
The crew stood in stunned silence and wondered if they could get dinner now.
"Take them away men, and feed them to the Line Eater" he commanded his comrades, "oh, and have-a-nice-day gentlemen".
Our heros were drag-selected down to a dungeon, and gen-locked up. Dave saw a figure, hunched over in the darkened drop-shadows. "No", he whispered to himself, "it can't be. . .John Draper?? Captain Crunch?".
The figure jumped up, "At your service", he replied, taking a deep bow. . .
***
"Due to the Writer's Guild of Amierica strike, this signature is temporarily cancelled".
[disclaimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas]
HTML Version done by Christian 'Kochtopf' Scholz