Terrorist Guide - Bridge
Version 2.0
Danyl Strype
Anti-copyright 2002
The control room was strikingly austere, its operators strapped into their
realtime interface couches with expressions of uncomfortable concentration.
Other than that the room had less equipment than a hair salon. Its cracked,
lime-green walls were hung with curved screens and photonic mirrors, offering
the Caplin a full-surround view of the their psudospace location. Mewkis
lounged against the pastel-orange central column that housed the vessel's
solid-cooled CPU, picking his enormous nose with a gnarled and long-nailed
finger.
Having already provided Caplin Morrison with the floating points for routing
their current journey he would probably not be needed until it was time to
brief the crew, prior to disembarking into the psudosphere of their destination.
However Morrison liked him to hang out on the 'bridge', as he insisted on
calling it, in case of the unexpected.
When asked what that might be, his infuriating reply was always the same,
"If I could describe it I could expect it!" The crew shifted uncomfortably
in their 'facebeds as the vessel plunged through a packet storm. "Damn turbulence"
muttered Morrison as his fingers climbed stiffly but efficiently over
his hardlight console, calculating a detour through a less congested netway.
No luck. He growled. "Mewkis! Where's the nearest psudoport?"
"What sort of facilities are you interested in there squire", yawned Mewkis
as he speared a particularly juicy bogie, shoved it into his mouth and chewed
nonchalantly.
"Any port in a storm, my man," replied the Caplin without looking up from
his manual stabilizing, "and stop eating on my bridge".
Mewkis rolled his eyes and stepped into the navigation array's hardlight
console. Backbone brances and subnetworks flashed before him as he zeroed
in on their current location and searched the surrounding servers for an
open port. "Here ya go squire," he piped the port address through to the
Caplin's controls. We should be able to touch down and disembark in no time,
assuming we don't take any random bitz through the subroutines."
The Caplin clenched his teeth and fingered his controls apprehensively. "One
of these days Mewkis I need to explain to you about 'Jinx'.
"Sounds like nasty viruz" quipped Mewkis, returning to his lounging.
"Exactly" replied the Caplin. "Now keep quiet while I power us down".
********
"Any port in a storm", the Caplin repeated like an incantation against the
undesirable. "Our windows have crashed, our hard drives are fragmented to
hell and the crew are exhausted. I think you and I should have a look around."
Mewkis rolled his eyes and climbed back into the navigation matrix while
the Caplin strapped himself into a FreeArm VR unit.
The FreeArm was a graceless and and undignified contraption. It lifted the
user off the ground encased in a multi-sensory virtual reality array - lights,
camera, action as the users legs mimed useless walking and running motions
in the air. Most experienced networkers learnt over time to focus their kinetic
energy into more efficient mental interaction with the psudospace, keeping
still as a coma while navigating through the simulated world. The Caplin
had never bothered, preferring to flap around in his decrepid FreeArm like
a drunk teenager on a demented fairground ride.
Luckily he only ever used it for strolling around localnets. Anything fiddlier
he left to his crew who were currently climbing out of their realtime couches
for outleave.
The couch interfaces were more intuitive to work with but in bad traffic
you stood a good chance of having your mind snuffed out like a candle in
a drainpipe. Besides Mewkies found reclining while computing made him anxious
and preferred his hardlight interface. If the worst happened he could jump
clear of the console and at worst turn an ankle.
Mewkis powered up his console and and launched the metacrawler from the vertical
hold of the psudosub. A shadowy haze showed him the Caplin's avatar in the
passenger seat beside him. Behind him there was room for the rest of the
crew, strapped into fireweb harnesses which protected them from a number
of external attacks. Not every localnet they moved around sent out a welcoming
party.
Last updated: June 11 2003
Screw you guys I'm going home...
Page Design: Danyl Strype
strypey_at_orcon.net.nz