Loadstar 161/161.d81/sr.pack rat

Text File | 2022-08-26 | 27KB | 917 lines

         P A C K    R A T

       by Andrew Mushynsky
          New Smyrna Beach FL


     The First Place Winner in

  LOADSTAR's PROSEQUEST '97 Contest



  One

    Harry the Bagman stood in the
shade of the ruined gas station, a
slender figure silhouetted against
the glaring sunlight. He sucked
slowly on the frazzled end of a twig
and scanned the lonely expanse of
buckled concrete ahead.

    "Too wide", he rasped. "If
there's trouble, I'll never make it
across." The sound of his voice hung
in the dry air, startling him. It was
the first time he'd spoken in days.

    With a sigh like a parched croak,
Harry slid the heavy leather bag off
his shoulder. He poked gently among
its neatly wrapped contents until he
found the water flask. He took a few
small sips, wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand, and placed the
flask carefully aside.

    Kneeling in the cool dirt, Harry
slowly removed several small packages
from the bag, unwrapping each in
turn, laying them out on a clean
cloth in orderly rows. Not much to
show for almost three months of
work....

    A cracked 1541-II that might,
Gates willing, still be usable. A
handful of 64 motherboards, rescued
from badly smashed casings. A 128
Programmer's Guide, complete and with
only slight fire damage around the
edges. A scattering of individual
chips... SIDs, VICs, VDCs, PLAs. And
a score of 5 1/4 inch diskettes that
might or might not be any good.

    The disk labels looked promising
-- word processors, databases, even
some copies of good old LOADSTAR --
but he wouldn't be able to trade
promises for food or winter supplies.
He needed to find something usable
and substantial, or this whole trip
could prove to be a costly waste of
time..

    With another tired sigh, Harry
the Bagman tenderly re-wrapped all
his finds and replaced them in the
large scuffed leather bag, along with
the flask and the tools of his trade.
He stood up and gazed out into the
harsh sunlight once again.

    He was pretty sure there were
Ludds around. Hell, there were always
Ludds around somewhere, destroying
anything useful, expunging the past.
For days he hadn't come across a
Shack or a Depot or a Circuit City
that hadn't been totally trashed and
burned to the ground. Hadn't found so
much as a usable flashlight battery.
And there had been that smoke in the
sky two mornings ago, a dark angry
smudge across the sun.

    He gazed intently at the tumbled
buildings, the shattered walls and
scorched roofs surrounded by acres of
what had once been a vast parking
lot. Here and there the rusted hulk
of an automobile cast scant shadows
in the relentless sun.

    "Too wide and too damn little
cover", he repeated to himself.
Still, the site was reasonably
intact. There was a chance that there
was a good dig there, and with the
traders' Gathering coming up in the
fall, that could mean the difference
between making it through the winter
in comfort ... or not making it at
all.

    But why had the Ludds, if they
were in this area, spared this
cluster of half ruined stores?
Something didn't feel right...

    "Aw, Gates", he swore. "I've got
to see what's in there." And with
that, he lifted the heavy leather bag
onto his shoulder and began trotting
steadily across the open plain of
cracked concrete, on a straight
course for the crumbling facade and
flaking letters that spelled out TOYS
R US...


  Two

    "Once upon a time," Harry the
Bagman would say to whomever would
listen, "this world was a paradise.
It was filled to the brim with people
and wonders, and life was as close to
perfection as it had ever been. Then,
of course, the people, being what
they were, naturally screwed things
up all to hell..."

    Harry, as he was fond of saying,
had seen it all. He had been only a
boy at the very beginning of the
Digital Revolution, and had watched
the first crude home computers
appear, with their awkward chiclet
keyboards and tape cassette drives.

    He had plugged into the first on-
line services at an astounding 300
bits per second, had seen the
Internet grow into the World Wide Web
and then into the all-encompassing
WorldNet, through which all data came
to flow, the electronic nervous
system for a whole planet.

    He had voted in the first
Electronic Elections, applauded the
passage of the Universal Access
Amendment, and witnessed the new
network of instantaneous
communications dissolve international
borders. He had seen the promising
dawn of the true Global Village.

    And then, as they used to say in
those days, the fecal matter hit the
cooling device.

    Somehow it had all come apart,
and no one in those fractured,
chaotic times really knew how it
happened. Some said it was the work
of a Unabomber cult, rabid
technophobes who would stop at
nothing to return the world to a pre-
industrial Eden. Others suspected
dis-spirited Fundamentalists, angered
by the coming of this satanic New
World Order of instantaneous
transmissions, of heretical words and
sensuous images, unstoppable,
uncontrollable, uncensorable.

    Some suspected those eternal
malcontents the Serbs, still nursing
their 500-year-old grudges and no
longer content to practice their
ethnic cleansings on a merely local
stage. Others were sure that the
cause of the catastrophe was a rogue
group of hackers, ex-Microsoft
employees, and disgruntled postal
workers, long on pent-up frustrations
and short on sedatives.

    But most put the blame on some
secret government Artificial
Intelligence computer gone awry; or a
Wall Street automatic trading program
that got horribly confused; or
perhaps even great Jahweh Himself,
destroying this new digital Tower of
Babel in an electronic Flood that
wiped it all away, and smashed the
hard-won civilizations of men back
into a new age of dark struggle.

    Whatever the cause, it happened.
Someone, or some group, or some thing
crashed the system, and toppled the
vast network that supported the
modern world. Unfortunately, this set
off numerous military alarms and
automatic defense programs, which
resulted in more than a few limited
nuclear exchanges, which caused
enough Electro Magnetic Impulse
blasts all over the world to fry
every computing device, large or
small, that was turned on and
attached to the WorldNet. And that
was pretty much all of them.

    Pretty much...

    Except for the most ancient
devices, the little 8-bit wonders,
the 'toy' computers. The ones that
everyone had started out with so many
years ago, that they had long ago
packed away into closets and attics
and basements and totally forgotten.

    Because, really, they weren't
good for anything any more, were
they?


  Three

    Harry ran on, his mind racing
faster than his feet.

    Just before the Great Fall, some
forgotten warehouses of the old
computers had been discovered and
they had gone on sale once again, as
curiosities and toys for children.
Harry had seen them himself in a
store just like the one ahead. There
they had sat, original Commodore
equipment, modest and beige and
ignored once again.

    He had never forgotten, and now,
during all his scavenging expeditions
through the ruined towns and cities,
he kept an eye out for the remains of
the giant toy emporiums, hoping to
find those rarities once again. Gates
knows that there was need for them
now, as small communities slowly
started to rebuild themselves,
desperate for any sort of technology
they could salvage from the past.

    As Harry ran, the bag slapping
against his side with every step, he
began to feel the excitement once
again. He began to let himself hope.
Maybe this site would be his jackpot,
the great motherlode, untouched by
the elements or the Ludds.

    He kept himself to a steady pace,
his gaze sweeping left and right,
alert for the slightest signs of
movement. The heat of the sun
reflected off the cracked pavement,
throwing up waves of heat in the
motionless air. It was like running
through a baker's oven, and within
seconds he was drenched in his own
sweat, his eyes stinging and blurred.
Blinking furiously and shaking his
head, he jogged on. He staggered
once, almost losing his footing, when
he misjudged his jump over a fallen
lamppost, but he kept himself from
fal