But I'm digressing.
Anyway I was really ticked off that day. Between my father and the floundering CIA Off-Campus campaign I was working on at the time, I felt like strangling someone. I was hoping that maybe after a few hours of playing Mario Brothers 25, I would feel much better. At least that's what I was hoping would be the case, otherwise it would really tick me off to have to walk home in the acid rain.
After walking by the Michael B. Clark Advanced Technologies Lab, (Which I swear is the ugliest building in all of the Iowa City/Coralville district-I mean did they have to make it an off gray color and stretch it across the Iowa River?) I came upon the Union. Even in the afternoon, it still looked like a black and gold ten story phallic symbol.
As I made my way towards the entrance, I glanced up at the 30-foot color video screen on the front of the building. As usual it was showing the traditional tiger hawk.
"Tickets for the 2025-26 Battleball season are now on sale at the new Union Box Office," blared an excited voice from the screen. Images of Battleball players leveling each other flashed on the screen at hyper-speed. "Come support the mighty Hawkeyes as they prepare to defend their international championship!"
If I had the money, I might have taken him up on the offer. There's nothing like watching a bunch of men abusing their bodies for the sake of school spirit.
But my thoughts of men battling each other were interrupted when I entered the Union.
"Stop AIDS!" Came an annoyingly familiar voice. I slowly walked towards the display terminals along the walls looking for the source of that dreaded voice.
It wasn't long before I came upon it. On one of the screens their were two white stick figures walking towards each other. One of the figures bent over while the other walked next to him. Suddenly a red circle with a slash appeared at the bottom of the screen and zoomed over the figures.
"Stop AIDS!" Said the voice, accompanied by red letters on the screen. Then the image dissolved into a picture of a balding 60 year-old white man.
"I'm Jeff, the editor of the Community Review," He said in a jovial voice, "the only true voice of UI students on this campus." I felt like throwing up right there.
"That's uncool!" A man yelled. I turned around and saw Joel, wearing a black fake leather jacket with a haircut that looked like it was done by a hair stylist having a seizure. Joel was an acidhead, the militant Greens' answer to skinheads. Acidheads liked to bleach their hair and cut random bald spots to make it look like they had just come out of an acid rain cloudburst.
"Hi Marjorie," he said as he quickly walked up to the screen. "This is definitely uncool."
We were both members of the same activist group. He was one of the unofficial leaders in a "leaderless" group.
"What else is new?" I said, "He's always pulling this crap."
Jeff kept on talking about his noble struggle to speak for all the "Real Students" on campus while Joel Continued to stare angrily at the screen.
"I got to talk to the others." Joel said, "We should call a rally and start a petition drive."Just what we needed, another stereotypical campaign. Our group was always stuck in the same old tactics: Form a front group, have some rallies in front of the administrative dome, send out petitions, form a coalition of coalitions, have some more rallies in front of the dome and shout even harsher insults than last time. This would last, say a month or two, before the unnamed leadership decided to move on to something else.
When the tape started over again, Joel looked up at me. He took a breath and said, "I'm glad I ran into you. I need to ask a favor of you."
"What?" I asked. I was hoping it wouldn't be something like putting up posters on the Dome.
Joel stepped closer to me and quietly whispered, "Did you read The Daily Iowan today?"
That was our "student" paper, one of the last in the country. It was edited by Jon Carson, a man who thought he was god's gift to journalism. "No." I said.
"Well, Jon Carson wrote a fucking reactionary editorial about the Black Student Union."
"Yeah? What else is new?" I was a bit puzzled by the way Joel was acting.
He looked around and continued, "Some of us want to reprogram the DI computer so instead of printing out his name, it will print 'Jon Castrate.'"
This was starting to sound interesting. I have a very strong love for devious actions, especially against assholes like Carson.
Joel pulled out a piece of paper.
"It would be really cool of you to type this into their computer. All you would have to do is say that you're writing a guest opinion-"
"I've never written one before," I said.
"Just ramble for a couple of pages," Joel replied, "then type this stuff at the end and save it. It should be easy to do because the computers practically run themselves."
This was too tempting. Any opportunity to fuck with the system is worth taking in my book.
"Sounds like fun," I said, grinning as I grabbed the paper. The group was actually going to take some serious direct action against Carson. Maybe there was hope for them after all.
"That's great," Joel replied. He then looked at the screen and said in a louder voice, "I'm going to call a meeting. We got to do something about this."
So much for wishful thinking. Joel then put on his black sunglasses and walked away.
"At least something cool is going on today."
When I looked at the seemingly innocent piece of recycled paper, Jeff's voice blared out again.
"We're the problem that won't go away!"
This was too much for me. Joel could play his silly political games, but I was going to do something about this. I walked over to a trash can and picked up a tray.
"We speak for the silent majority on campus."
I discretely walked over to the screen.
"So come join us as take a stand against the commies and faggots--"
I threw the tray at the screen. When the tray hit the screen, Jeff's repulsive image shattered in a shower of glass and yellow sparks. I ran away as fast as I could. If Jeff could make his statement, then so could I.
After running around the Iowa City skyways for about a half hour, I finally made my way to the Guy Gannett Communications Center. Even through the murky windows of the skyway, the newly added fourth floor still looked like cancerous mole. Its solid black sides and mirrored windows just didn't match the gray, somewhat plain structure below. I always thought it looked like some monster raping the older structure.
When I came to the end of the skyway, the glass doors slid open exposing the sign, "Level Four: The Daily Iowan Level." I slowly entered and walked down the hall.
When I turned the corner, I entered this extremely large room that must have taken up most of the floor. It was a buzz with action with several rows of people busily typing away at their terminals and others running up and down the rows of desks. It felt like I was in one of those colorized movies.
"Can I help you?" I heard someone say. I turned to my right and saw a woman sitting at a very clean fake wood desk marked "Reception."
"Excuse me can I help you with anything?" She repeated. She was wearing a very nice business dress and her hair looked like it copied from a picture on one of those fashion servers. She didn't seem too impressed with my attire.
I answered, "Yes I would like to write a guest opinion for your paper."
"Do you have an appointment?" She replied in a cold tone.
"No I didn't realize that I need one." I replied. Besides why should I need one to exercise my First Amendment rights?
She started to reach for her computer when someone yelled, "It's OK Jill, she's with me."
I turned and saw a man walking from the newsroom. He was wearing some strange kind of head band. He was also one of the few people wearing a sports coat and tie.
"I'm expecting her." He said to Jill as he walked up to me. "Hi," he said shaking my hand, "I'm Terrence Jackson, Yale graduate, Writers Workshop member, and Editorial Section Editor."
This was an unusual greeting. "I'm Marjorie Carter," I said, "UI undergrad, independent writer, and freelance radical."
He wasn't amused at my answer. "Let me take you to a computer." He said and motioned me to follow. A few minutes later we finally came to a small cubical. Terrence pulled out a chair for me.
"Let me log you in." He said as he turned on the computer. When the screen lit up, Terrence said, "Log in Terrence Jackson, Editorial Section Editor. Run."
The computer hummed for a few seconds and responded in a female voice, "Voice print confirmed."
"Add new guest level clearance subject. Confirm."
The computer responded, "Clearance file open. Please add new subject." I had to admit, it did have a very sexy voice.
Terrence then looked over at me and said, "Say your name."
"Uh, Marjorie Carter."
"Marjorie Carter recorded for future reference." The computer responded.
"Just tell it what you want to do." Said Terrence, "It'll help you through." Terrence then walked off.
I nervously looked at the computer. I had worked with computers before, but never ones that you could actually talk with.
"Hi." I said to it.
"Are you new to this system?" It asked in a perky voice.
"Yes." I responded.
Suddenly the DI logo appeared on my screen. "Welcome to the world of voice assisted processing, a service of the Gannett/Hearst Corporation. This service is provided to assist all junior level journalists in-"
This was a bit much. "Could we cut the corporate claptrap," I said, "I just want to write a guest opinion."
Suddenly the screen went blank, except for a single cursor.
"Please type in your guest opinion as you would any word processing program," the computer said, its perky voice unfazed.
"How did you get that voice?" I asked.
"My voice is the result of several years of market research designed to determine which tone levels are the most pleasing to the human ear in an actual working situation. My-"
"Forget I asked."
I started typing away on my guest opinion. It wasn't much. Just the old lines about the evils of the CIA and how we should all get together and stamp out this menace that been coming to this campus for the past 20 years. It was tempting to write a piece claiming that student politics is really controlled by small groups who are either concerned with showing off their radicalness, wrapping themselves in the American flag or just padding their resumes at everyone else's expense. But I was already in enough trouble.
Halfway through the piece, I heard loud laughter coming from a few terminals down from me. I turned and saw three men standing around a computer. One of the men had his back turned to me.
He continued his story, "So I said to Maggie. 'If women can have their own safe places from us men, why can't I make the DI a safe place from you lesbians?' Boy you should have seen her face." They all laughed twice as loud.
"So Jon, do you think you can get Maggie to change her mind?" One of them asked.
"Naw," another answered, "only a real man could do that."
They all laughed again. "She better change Joe," Jon said, "otherwise I'll fire her and have her blacklisted on the G/H network."
"That'll teach her!" Joe said. Joe then noticed me. I returned to my work.
"Hey Jon," Joe said, "look at that." I glanced up at them. Jon was now facing me, exposing his "Stop AIDS" sweatshirt. I then returned to my screen.
A few seconds later I heard him walk up to me.
"Well hello there." He said, touching my jacket, "Didn't anyone tell you that the 60's were over?"
I looked up at him. He was wearing one of those silly headbands. "Well hi Moonbeam," I said, "didn't anyone tell you that the New Age is over with." Jon seemed confused. "What's that thing on you head?" I asked, "Let me guess, is that your aura enhancer?"
Jon smiled at me. "Actually its the latest in editing technology," he said as he pulled up a chair. "It lets me do things on the computer with my mind." Jon said sitting down.
He actually had a mind.
"It works like this," Jon said as he pointed to a small cylinder on his head band. "This fires an invisible laser beam which I can use to highlight anything on the screen." Jon then highlighted the word "liberal" in my piece. "Now using my mind, I can delete a word," he said as the word disappeared, "and replace it with another word." Then the word "lesbian" appeared on the screen.
I slowly clapped my hands. "I am so impressed." I said unenthusiastically, "Now could you please leave me alone while I finish this?"
"What are you working on?" He asked, leaning towards me.
"You can read it when I'm done!"
"I'm just being assertive." He said.
This wasn't funny anymore. "You're being a pest."
That obviously angered him. Suddenly he jumped out of his chair.
"What's the matter?" He yelled. Now everyone was looking at us. "You've never been around a real man before?"
That did it. I grabbed his crotch. His once manly expression now appeared twisted and in obvious pain.
"Is that a worm in your pocket in your pocket or are you not such a real man after all?" I asked. Jon only moaned and winced.
"Answer me!" I yelled.
"Marjorie!" I heard someone yell.
I turned and, much to my horror, I saw Paul, a comp sci major and my ex- boyfriend.
"Marjorie, let him go! You're going to get into deep trouble."
"Listen to your friend." Jon moaned.
"Stay out of this Jon!"
"What's going on?" Someone yelled.
When I turned I saw an older man standing outside an office marked, "Chief Guidance Manager."
I let Jon go and he staggered backwards.
"It's nothing." Paul said.
"Yeah," Jon said, "it's nothing."
"Good! Jon," the man said, "I need to see you in my office right now!"
Jon nodded and then looked at me and said, "You had better be gone by the time I'm through with the manager." Jon then slowly walked away from me.
Realizing that I didn't have much time, I pulled out the piece of paper and started typing out the commands.
"What are you doing here?" Paul asked.
"Typing." I answered.
"I just finished a guest opinion about the evils of computer hacking." He said. Paul then started to look at my paper.
"Do you mind?!" I said. He seemed to have a horrified look on his face. I pulled the paper from him.
"Do you mind?" I slowly repeated.
Paul looked like he had just seen a ghost. "Bye." He said and ran out of the newsroom. I didn't think too much of it because everything seemed to scare him.
I finished typing the commands and said to the computer, "Save it."
"Document saved and program executed." It said.
I picked up my stuff and left the newsroom. When I entered the skyway, I noticed that the wind had picked up and the black clouds looked threatening in the late afternoon sun.
It was in the early evening when I finally settled down in my dorm room. I had just finished my "Big Al's" pizza ("Pizza that's good for you and good for the environment!") and turned on the TV to watch "The New Simpsons." The lights in my room were off so I could see the distant Cedar Rapids skyline out of my 20th story window. There was a steady rain outside and the weather bimbos were issuing acid rain warnings.
I was thinking to my self about how the day had really worked out after all. As I lay back in my futon, I couldn't wait to see the next DI and hear Carson's reaction on TV.
But just before I drifted into TV land, the pict-phone rang. I slowly grabbed the remote and called up the image on my TV. To my surprise there was Paul's nerdish face all over the pict-phone window.
"Hi Paul."
"Marjorie we got to talk." Paul said in a very anxious tone.
"Is it better than Bart Simpson proposing to Barb?"
"Get serious Marjorie," he said, "this is a matter of life or death."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Marjorie how could you do this to anyone? I thought I knew you."
I was getting impatient. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"That program you typed in," I nodded, "I thought I had seen it somewhere before, so I went to the computer library and looked through all the files about hostile programs."
"Yeah." I said.
Paul starting real fast. "As I was looking, I remembered a final project I did about limited thought-controlled computers and ways to sabotage them. Of course I also included ways to protect them, so don't get the impression-"
"Get to the point!"
"Show me the program you typed in."
I pulled it out of my pocket and put it in front of the camera. I sighed, wondering if this was one of his silly panic attacks.
"Marjorie," he said slowly, "you just typed in the last part of a larger program designed to kill Jon Carson."
My heart jumped. Would Joel actually try to kill someone and have me implicated? I never thought he would actually try direct action against Jon, let alone murder.
"Paul, are you sure about this?"
"I double checked it several times. It's part of a larger killer program. When you saved your guest opinion, your program linked up with the larger program. If Jon accesses one of his personal files while wearing his thought control head band, the computer will send a massive jolt of energy into his nervous system-"
"Which would kill him."
"Exactly. Marjorie I pray to God you didn't know about this."
"I didn't." I said. Paul breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll call you back in a little while." I said and hung up the phone.
After tearing through my room for a few minutes, I finally found Joel's phone number. I quickly called hoping that this was all part of some sick joke. After 10 beeps, his face flashed onto the screen.
"Hello," Joel moaned over the phone. It looked like I had just woke him up.
"What did you give me to put into the DI computer?"
"A program to alter Jon Carson's name." He moaned, "Didn't I tell you that?"
"I'm asking because a friend of mine saw it and claims that it's meant to kill him. Now if I'm going to be doing your dirty work, you'd better tell me what the hell is going on right now."
Joel moaned and responded, "Are you sure?"
"Don't fuck with me Joel!"
"I'm not." He said, "I didn't realize we were going to reach this level of activism so soon."
"Level of activism?" I asked.
"I'll need to talk to the others, because I thought we were just putting in a prank program. However if what you say is true, then I think that this is a very cool move."
I was stunned. How could he say that killing someone is cool?
Joel then continued, "Marjorie, could you tell me who told you about the program. It's very important-"
"Hold it right there!" I yelled. "Are you seriously trying to tell me that killing him is actually a good thing."
Joel sighed. "Marjorie," he said, "do you agree that their must be a revolution to overthrow the present filth ridden system?"
"I think that there needs to be one."
He scratched what was left of his hair. "Do you support the use of violence in this revolution?"
I was starting to get nervous. "What does killing Carson have to do with the revolution?"
"Well," he said slowly, "answer my question first."
"I don't have time to play your silly dialectal games." I yelled.
"Most people in the group support a violent revolution at a certain point." Joel coldly said, "Something you should think about."
I didn't like the sound of this.
"Acidheads believe it should come now, before it's too late. If the others feel the same, then killing Jon is a very necessary move for the revolution to succeed."
"Why?" I asked. My stomach was starting to tremble. I never really liked Acidheads with all their tough talk and physical attacks against anyone they deemed at threat to "Mother Earth." However this was the first time that I had ever heard Joel seriously defend killing someone.
"Why do you commit acts of vandalism?"
"To shock people out of their complacency. Now could you please stop answering my questions with questions!"
Joel put both his hands on his head. It was as if this discussion was giving him a headache. After a few seconds, he looked at me and answered, "Isn't vandalism an act of violence?"
That bastard was actually trying to rationalize murdering someone by comparing it to vandalism.
"Look I don't know what your fucking game is, but I really don't want to play anymore."
Joel lean back and responded, "Are you telling me that you actually believe that an Eco-Sexist, Bio-Racist jerk should be allowed to live?"
"Good-bye!" I yelled and turned off the screen.
For the next few minutes I stormed around my room. What a mess. First my father, then the Community Review display screen and now this. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this one.
So I decided to sit down and watch Bart Simpson try to get out of whatever mess he was in. In some ways it's nice to know that other people can come up with worse problems than the one you're in. As I watched, I tried to asses my situation. Joel was right that Jon was a jerk. He always insulted women in his articles, and even made vague allusions to supporting segregation. His comments about Maggie certainly didn't improve his standing in my book. Besides Jon advocated assassinating leaders that he didn't support, so maybe killing him would go down in history as the ultimate irony.
"Arm-Chair warrior gets his brains blown out while working on editorial supporting assassination of foreign leader," the headline would read. Perhaps it would be a fitting end.
But as I watched Bart writing on the chalkboard (In college), "I will not instigate revolution," I realized that I was playing the same rationalization game that Joel was. Who was I kidding? I wouldn't be any better than Jon if I supported his death. What kind of revolution needs to kill someone in order to succeed. Violence against an inanimate object is one thing, but against a person, even an asshole like Jon, is another.
There was really only one right thing to do. I jumped up and called Paul.
"Hi Marjorie." He said. "I hope you aren't mad at me for--"
"Paul, do you think that you that you can get rid of that program?"
He thought about it for a while and said, "I think so. One of my class projects involved working on computers like the one the DI has. You know, I remember one final project-"
"Fine, meet me by the journalism building at midnight. We're breaking into the DI."
"What?"
I was standing by the street entrance around midnight. The rain was now falling pretty hard and steady. The worst part about an acid rain storm is not the fact that it can cause skin cancer or that it can possibly turn your hair black in a few hours. No, the worst part about it is the fact that each drop fucking stings. Even with my hat on, my face felt like a pincushion.
After standing out in the rain for ten minutes, Paul finally arrived, carrying his portable computer and wearing a yellow plastic rain mask and rain coat.
"Christ Marjorie," he yelled, "how you stand it without a rain mask?"
"I'll manage." I said as I walked towards the door.
"Let me tell you right now," Paul whispered, "that what we are about to do is a serious crime. This is a corporation we are dealing with, not the University. And let me tell you that corporations don't like hackers messing with their systems. I hope you realize that I could lose any hope of a career for this stunt."
I sighed and said, "Paul. there are two ways to look at this. The first is that we are saving someone's life. It may be the life of a son-of-a-bitch, but it's still a life. Second, try not to think of this as hacking into a corporation computer, think of it as a 'covert repair operation.' Now shut up until we get into the newsroom!"
Paul looked at the door's electronic lock. "How do you expect to open the door?"
I pulled a large battery and two wires from my jacket pocket. "I learned this from some friends of mine in the Blackhawk sector."
Paul nodded his head and reached into his pocket. "I swear to God," he said as he pulled out a pocket computer with a key card in it, "if it weren't for me, you would blow up this whole building just to get rid of one computer program."
Paul then walked up to the lock and leaned towards it. He set down his portable computer and started typing on his hand-held computer. A few seconds later he pulled out the key card and swiped it in the lock. The door opened.
"Marjorie," he said, "sometimes you can make things more difficult than they have to be."
We entered the building. Except for the street lights filtering through the windows, the building was completely dark. We fumbled our way up the stairs. All the while I was hoping that there were no motion detectors in the stairwell. I dreaded the possibility of having to explain this story to the UI discipline officers.
("No officer, we weren't going to steal anything. What were we doing here? Well you see there's this computer program in the DI computer that's going to kill Jon Carson unless we--How did it get there? Well you see--Yes officer, I understand that hacking is a crime...")
Somehow we managed to reach the fourth floor. Paul managed, after a few tries, to swipe the card in the stairwell door lock. The door opened uneventfully. Slowly, we made out way to the main newsroom. Fortunately, there was minimal lighting so we could at least see where we going.
"I'd better get started." Paul said as he sped up. He passed a few rows of terminals before stopping.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Giving us a place to hide." He said, reaching over to turn on the computer. "God I can't believe I'm doing this."
When the screen lit up he said, "Log in Paul Dougles. Run."
"No file on record." The computer said in the same perky voice. "Please explain what you are doing here at this time?"
"Goddamn it!" Yelled Paul so loud that I nearly jumped. "Terrence actually deleted my guest opinion. I spent weeks on that story. I'll kill him!"
I ran over to the terminal he was at.
"For god's sake shut up!" I yelled. After all the computer could be calling the officers as we spoke. "Log in Marjorie Carter. Run."
"Marjorie Carter confirmed." The computer said. "Hi Marjorie, I'm glad to see you again."
"Same here." I replied.
"Ask it to call up your guest opinion." Paul said, still visibly upset.
"Could I please see my guest opinion?" I asked the computer.
"Your article is presently in the Editor's file and cannot be accessed at this time." The computer said. "However, you are free to write another article at this time."
Paul then opened his portable computer and started to crawl under the desk. "You keep watch up front," he said, "I'll handle this from here."
For what seemed like hours, Paul typed and fiddled away at the computer.
I couldn't believe that at one time I was actually attracted to him. Call it a moment of weakness. He used to be such a nice guy, I guess, before he started worrying about his career. Then computers and grades became his main obsessions. What a waste.
"Could you come over here?" I heard Paul whisper as loud as he could. I quietly walked over to him. Maybe this nightmare would soon be over. When I arrived, I saw him sitting on the floor with his own computer hooked to the terminal. He seemed more than nervous, almost horrified.
"I managed to get that killer program out of Jon's file." He said. "Now it will run on any head band."
I nodded.
"But there's one major problem." He said in a shaky voice. "I can't erase it. So there's only one thing to do."
Paul then slowly picked up a head band that he must have gotten from on the cubicles. "I want you to put this on my head."
I wondered what the hell he was up to.
Paul then pointed to his computer. "When I press the return key," he said, "that will start the program. Since it won't work unless it senses brain activity, I have to wear the head band to start it."
"That's suicidal!" I yelled.
"Wait a minute," he continued, "once I hit the return key, I want you to wait a second, and then pull it off. If we're lucky, I should only have a seizure for a few seconds. Then afterwards the program will destroy itself."
I didn't need to ask what would happen if we weren't lucky.
"Say Marjorie," Paul said nervously laughing, "if this doesn't work, I really enjoyed the time we had together."
"Me too."
Before I could put the head band on, I heard footsteps in the background.
"Marjorie!" Came Terrence's voice, "I know you're in here!"
I should have figured that bastard was somehow involved in this.
"I'd really like to talk to you." He said, "They told me you might listen if I promised not to hurt you."
I had to distract him away from Paul, so I quickly crawled down the row.
"I can hear you Marjorie!" He said, "So why don't you just talk to me?"
I remained silent.
"The group didn't know about this. I needed to cover my trail, so I told them that it was prank program. They hated the guy so much that they agreed to sneak it in through their guest opinions. It was the only way I could get it in the computer without tripping the internal security system."
I kept moving.
"I could make the computer expose who typed the parts of the program, but I really don't want to do that. Let's make this as easy as possible. Your friends won't talk and I think you should follow their example. I unlocked the skyway door so you leave without having to go into the acid rain."
"How nice!" I yelled.
"You know, we're alike in many ways. We think for ourselves. We don't blindly follow ideologies like Carson and your leftist friends do. We see though the bullshit. We know what's going on. I'm sure you'd agree that it's people like him who are fucking up this world."
"Why the hell are you trying to kill him." I asked as I stopped moving.
"Because I should have been the editor!" He yelled. He continued in an upset voice, "I'm a better writer, a better editor, and I have more experience than he does! Yet because he has connections with the corporation, he gets to be the editor. It's not right! I've spent years working at this paper and I'm not going to let him destroy it."
"That's it?" I said.
"Do I need any more reasons? How about the fact that he's a right wing asshole? This paper is nothing more than an excuse for him to blab his political beliefs. If it weren't for the corporate policy of "customer participation," you guys wouldn't even get an event schedule in the DI. Isn't that enough reason to get him out of the way so your 'revolution' can go ahead."
He had obviously lost it. "No revolution is worth killing for. I don't care if he is a jerk, he deserves to live!"
He responded with a long laugh.
"Look," I said, "I can understand how you feel, but killing won't change anything. They'll just hire someone who's just as right wing as him, if not worse. Why don't you just delete the program and then we can talk about it in private? I know of a nice 24 hour bar that serves the best Spiked Black Cow. What do you say?"
There was a long pause. Then he laughed and said, "That's good one Marjorie. They said you were a fighter. But I've already made up my mind."
"Then you're no better than Carson."
"So be it."
I stood up and said, "You know I cant let you get away with this."
I could see his shadowy figure standing several rows away from me. He sighed and said, "You know I can't let you get out of here alive."
A red laser beam flashed by me and hit the wall. The area exploded, leaving a three foot diameter hole. I quickly ducked.
"That was a warning shot Marjorie," he shouted, "you can still leave before I use my special head band for real."
I crawled to the closest intersection to Terrence. This was really getting out of hand. A killer program is one thing, but a killer editor is another.
When I heard his footsteps coming, I grabbed the closest roller chair. Since he could fire that laser with his mind, I had to act quickly.
A few seconds later, I saw his legs come from around a cubical. Almost with out thinking, I shoved the chair into his legs. The impact definitely surprised him as he staggered back. I then jumped up and threw the hardest punch I had ever thrown since grade school. Though it stung like hell, my blow did send him flying backwards and on to the floor.
Realizing that he wouldn't be down for long, I ran like I'd never run before. A few seconds later, I heard a terminal explode behind me. I dove to the floor as two more exploded. Apparently his aim wasn't much.
When I got my bearings, I heard what sounded like two people fighting. I peeked up and saw Paul and Terrence going at it with Terrence getting the upper-hand.
"You're not worth a laser blast!" He yelled.
Seeing a dictionary next to me, I grabbed it and ran towards Terrence's back. I hoped I could knock him out with it. Just when I got into range, he had Paul on his back and was pounding him senseless.
I took my best swing at Terrence. Instead of knocking him out, he threw an elbow into my gut and knocked me down. Before I realized it, he grabbed my arms and got on top of me.
"You know what Bitch?" He yelled, "You're going to di-"
Suddenly his head jerked back and a laser beam hit the ceiling. The next thing I know, there was a bright flash and boom echoed throughout the room. I could feels Chunks of tile raining down on me. When my eyes cleared, I realized that Paul had managed to pull him off and once again Terrence was distracted.
I got up and ran over to the next row. I realized that this was going nowhere fast. Between Paul and me, we had managed to make him very mad and caused several thousand dollars of damage in the process.
I grabbed a small book and started to throw it at him. Terrence, who happened to be facing the right direction at the right time, fired at me. The beam glazed my right shoulder. I screamed in pain as I fell down. I cursed that damn head band.
Then it occurred to me. The head band is connected to the computer and the killer program is on the computer.
I managed to pull myself up with my good arm and slowly made my way to Paul's computer. With each step, Paul's suffering seemed to increase.
When I reached the computer, Terrence's pounding stopped.
"Where are you bitch?" He yelled.
I pushed the return button.
"Program activated." The computer said.
Suddenly there was a sharp humming sound. I looked up and saw Terrence shaking as sparks flew out of his head band. He screamed and started running down the row. A few seconds later he crashed through on of the windows. I only heard him scream briefly before he hit the ground.
"Program terminated." The computer said.
A few days later, I finally ventured out into the world. My shoulder was still sore from that shot but it was nothing I couldn't handle.
Paul, on the other hand, had to spend a day at Student Death. Terrence really worked him over. Someday he'll have to tell the explanation he gave them.
I ran into Joel in the Union. He was standing next to the Review display screen (Which now had security glass surrounding it). When he saw me, he calmly walked up to me.
"I talked to the others," he said, "and they didn't know anything about it. We all thought Terrence was trying to help us."
"That's nice." I said.
"The others think that it's too soon for the revolution." He continued. "We'll just stick to the usual stuff."
"Joel," I said, "I've been thinking, and I've decided that I don't want to work with the group any more."
Joel stumbled for a few seconds before saying, "OK, but if you change your mind, you can always come back. We really need all the cool people we can get."
I said good-bye and walked away. I guess it was for the best. After all, there's a big bright universe out there, and there's no since in wasting my time playing same old games.
As I walked away, I noticed a DI hard copy with the headline, "Officers look for DI vandals" and the sub-head, "Review staff suspected."
"It's not the Review that messed up your pretentious little lives," I thought, "just little old me."
Bio:Side One is very loosly based on my experiences as campus activist. Though I never got ino a life or death situtation like the main character.
My other publishing experiences include being the Editor of H.E.L.P. Magazine, Arts and Entertainment Editor of Icon, and Co-arts editor of Refractions.
E-mail:William Brinkman
URL: http://www.xnet.com/~wbrink/
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