LS35-J Chapter 4
Todd pressed return on his cheap second-hand computer
keyboard and smiled,
"I'm in, now to see what is really going on here".
For the last few hours he had been trying to hack into a computer system
he had come across by accident when he had been dialling his girlfriend.
Now completely oblivious that he had been due to meet her hours ago he
typed away on his keyboard...
Dirk's job was a cop on the information highway,
cruising and checking the packets for any irregularities.
He wasn't actually human, but still a sentient being none the less.
His area was InterEurope 152,
a highway he had cruised up maybe a million times in his short life uptil
now,
but that was his only recollection of any sort of time,
no reference point existed outside the highway for him and he would certainly
have no knowledge of when his successor would take over from him -
death was instant in this digital world.
Though he did have his own beliefs on this particular point,
too many lunchtimes stuck in dirty laybys with nothing going on
had made some part of his being think -
it wouldn't be final when the end came,
some part of his code or neural makeup would make it into his successor,
something like taking the best parts of him and improving on them,
if it wasn't an improvement he thought, why would they replace him?
Dirk came to a data input point -
something he had decided to call in his memory as 12935.
It was at this point that highway 151 intersected with his
and he was jealous that its guardian always seemed to be far more successful
than he was at tracking down rogue packets and hitch-hikers -
packets of data that stole lifts with normal unsuspecting ones
and thus never got charged for the use of his highway.
Professor Snideblasts modem burst into life with a flurry
of musical tones.
"A-ha" he thought,
"another person falls into my little trap..."
Dirk hit the brakes hard.
He blinked twice but the sign above the highway still read
MAGIC ROUNDABOUT 1 MILLISEC AHEAD
where it should have read Intersection 151.
Dirk knew that there could be some 'flyers' (hitch-hikers with false IDs)
ahead but he hadn't reckoned with a mutated supervirus such as
Magic Roundabout tagging along as well.
Dirk had one chance to blast the real 'flyer' off the highway -
one mistake and he was yesterdays spaghetti.
Just then he spotted Mr Rusty trundling along on his scooter.
"Morning" said Mr Rusty, "have you seen Dougal?"
"What is it to you if I have" replyed Dirk
"No need to be rude" said Mr Rusty
"If you do see him can you give him this" he asked and promptly
vanished.
Dirk took the brown paper bag and looked inside -
sugar lumps.
He took one out and paused with it between his finger and thumb,
halfway to his mouth.
Then 'BLAMMM'.
The force of the collision forced the sugar lump halfway up his nose as
his face hit the tarmac.
He looked up with great difficulty to see a young face -
obviously a joy-rider he thought before he passed out.
Meanwhile,
Todd stared glassy eyed at his computer as a dribble of saliva hit the
carpet.
The computer link syringe dug ever deeper into his brain.
In the virtual cyberspace world on InterEurope 152,
Todd had his first meeting with Dirk.
His childhood hallucinations had disappeared and they faced each over in
an infinity of empty hyperspace.
Snideblast had soon ascertained that Todd was out of his
depth.
This kid didn't know what he was doing!
"Where on Earth am I?"
Enquired Todd staring into the distance,
hoping to find a reassuring horizon.
"An interesting sentence" replied Dirk bafflingly.
"You are in Cyberspace. Route 151 to be exact.
However, whether that is, in fact, 'on Earth' is a concept too difficult
for both of us to contemplate".
Todd shuffled nervously.
"What the hell are you on about?"
"HELL" screamed Dirk.
"You know of HELL?"
For the next ten minutes Dirk ranted at Todd.
The general jist of what he was saying concerned whether they were both
possessors of their own souls,
but much of the context was lost on Todd.
"Bollocks" Said Snideblast, quietly to himself.
"I thought this was going to be fun"
At this he stood up, gently pressed 'ERASE' on his computer,
and headed off to make himself a cup of herbal tea.