>From: zap@lysator.liu.se (Zap Andersson)
Subject: The Reason Why
Date: 7 Dec 90 17:39:07 GMT

The silence of neon hangs in cyberspace, the silent hum of eternities
filled with data and logic. In the middle of a large, empty field between
two adjoining gridlines, is a bitstream in semi stasis, locked, hidden,
out of sight, iced. Stepping closer, our visions are twisted, fooled,
out sensors slightly modified, and perhaps even our own memory of having
seen anything at all, and there is nothing there. If we endulge in a deeper
probing, we will, slowly, be robed in darkness, as our primitive tools try
to chisel out an entrance through ice harder than the hardest, rougher than
the roughest, tougher than the toughest. As we joyfully chisels on, the
ice gives in, an entrance is opened, and in joy of cracking it so easily,
we slide in, only to be followed by darkness. The opening closes shut
behind us with a definite click, and is sealed with an interlock of
one-way trap-door mathematics and self modifying code structures. As we
look around, we see that we are not at all inside, we are merely in an
entrance chamber within the layers of ice, accompanied by a large, hovering
shade of darkness. As the walls of the ice slowly creeps closer and closer,
and the dark entity just _sits_ there, watching, we may just as well renounce
to prayer or meditation. No software in the world can save us now. We realise
that we have been flatlining since the moment we touched the ice, and we
curse ourselves for being so increadibly foolish. These are our last thoughts,
as the ice slowly closes it's jaws around us, and our intellect is crushed.
Somewhere, our realspace bodies sit, mindless, with thin stripes of smoke
emerging from the trodes. May we rest in peace. Amen.

But what if we had made it? Where were we? Well, let's just take a meta look
into that heavily iced place and see what's going on, and who is there.


                <  >    <  >    <  >    <  >    <  >

"Welcome, stranger." Zap says, as he allows us a glimpse of his own place
in cyberheaven. "I have invited you here. If I hadn't, mind you, you would
not be here at all. The ice you just saw are not just ice, it's DIAMOND:
_D_igital _I_ntrusion _A_lgorithmic _M_eta _O_verlaid _N_o-mercy _D_estructor
and it is coded by me. The old way. By hand. In assembly language. How it is
done? Well, some of us out here in the matrix just dont adhere to the new
ways of doing things, 12 G L computer languages, and the like. Somewhere
theres a lower level you know. There is always a lower level. Once upon a
time" he says, sitting down in a confortable armchair simulation of delusive
and constantly changing color, "when you wrote programs, the word write
actually had meaning. You typed things, at a keyboard. You may have read
about something called 'C' in your history books? It was a computer language.
Or perhaps, THE computer language? Depends largely on where you took your
history class, if you took any. Now if I tell you that there were even more
primitive ways of programming than that, would you belive me? I thought so.
But there is. And all this" waves his hand around the room "is made possible
because we run the cybernet on top of the cybernet handler, that runs an
program in Omni-6. But the Omni-6 device interference rule structure analyser
runs on a DwimPatch program. Did you know that? No, I doubted it. Did you
also know that DwimPatch is written largely in a tool called CyberTrix? No,
I doubted that also. Did you have any idea that CyberTrix is written in
SenseCode? And that the SenseCode is written in the pattern matching neural
net software NeurOTix? And that the NeurOTix parser is written in... Well,
I will not bore you with more names. Deeper down we reach the old stages.
Old standards, that are still there, because all the newer standards and
newer levels ar BUILT upon them. If I say things like TCP/IP, Rendeman and
SQL, you think I'm making up words. But deep deep down, these almost pre-
historic standards guide the appearance of this cybernetic world we are in."

Zap stands up from his chair and walks over to a rusty old terminal. It is
so old that it doesn't even have a dataglove or eyephones, just a keyboard
and a boring old 2d display with colors only of the visual spectrum. A VERY
primitive device.

"Let's assume," he continues "although I know it to be true, that most of
these prehistoric standards have small flukes, flakes and minor problems.
Did you even know these were known as Bugs in the old days? Now I have
personally dug through every library in the world, and gotten source code
listings for all the standards. Some are not even written in C, some are
actually written in assembly language. You don't know what that is. Never
mind. But I can say, that it is really just one step from the hardware.
Now there is one lower step. It's micro- and nanocode, but these ARE the
hardware in some sense. You cannot alter them. Now I will tell you why
my Ice simply cannot be cracked. My Ice, or rather, my DIAMOND, are written
partially in C, partially in Assembly language, but there are also hardware
patches, and, yes, it is also written in microcode. This has taken me years
of time and many $ of cash. I did it on the company computer, in my spare
time.

It also allows me to do almost what I please in the matrix. So, you say, I
could break every databank in the matrix, and slide away with the cash?
You say I could take over the net?" He sits down at the old terminal and
turnes it on. Loud fans start to spin, and you can almost feel the heat
build up in the room. "I am not interested in that. And I will show you
why." He taps some keystrokes on the keyboard. The keys rattle and click,
and ugly characters pops up on the screen, you can even see the individual
pixels of the characters. "Here you may see" he says, pointing to the
display, "what I look like in realspace. That 'thing' i showed you all
in the Chatsubo was not me. Just a simulation. This is me."

On the screen a hospital room is shown. In a bed there is something or
someone, you can hardly tell for all the wires and hoses. Stripes of gray
hair can be seen, parts of a very very old face, and a wrinkled, crippled,
npdy. If you look closely you will see that the skull has
been opened, and wires are attached directly into the partially exposed
brain. "That is me" Zap says, "and now you know why I am constantly logged
in. This body" makes a gesture towards his blond appearance "is actually
an exact image of how I looked 1990. Only slight modifications, like, some
of this removed.." he pads his stomach with a smile. But the smile quickly
fades and is replaced by a serious look. "By my age" he says "I have gained
some wisdom. I am desperately trying to hide this under a facade of rather
childish exploits, but things has turned a bit serious lately. I need some
help. And it is not from you, my beloved guest. So if you  will excuse me
for just one millenium..." Zap quickly taps a sequence on the keyboard of
his ever so old terminal, and we are permanently logged out of his cyber
heaven.


                    < >   < >   < >   < >   < >   < >


Zap sits back at his terminal, thinking. "I just have to type a single
command at this prompt" he whispers to himself "and I will destroy all of
this, and take the most of cyberspace with me..." He taps, slowly, and the
text "kill -9 -1" appears on the ugly old screen. But he does not press Enter,
he silently tappes backspace until the line is removed. "No" he says to
himself, "I cannot let it end like this. Oh I need help. Some spiritual help"
He leans forward to the keyboard, and with speed that would make a professional
typist look embarassed, he manages to fill the screen with enigmas. "Now
where ARE you?" he mutters to himself, as user ID's and cybernet locations
pour over his screen. By accident he stumbels into a classified area, and
his DIAMOND accidentaly wipes out three AI's and six layers of military Ice.
"Ooops" he says. "I had promised myself not to USE that stuff! Gosh if they
notice...." Suddenly the display stops scrolling, and a loud beep is sounded.
"Aha!" he says "There she is. Now let's hope she won't be mad at me...." he
clicks the keyboard, ever so gently. "Now I hope I'll get her here in one
piece" he presses a key, and a silent pop is heard, and Belladonna is
suddenly standing in the room. "...isn't until we get to..." she stops talking
and looks puzzled. "You? Where...where am I what IS this?" Zap stands up.
"Sorry, my precious, but I simply had to. There was no time to contact you
any other way. And you simply MUST inform Li, in any way possible." He taps
a few keys and the display says:

  in alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo you write....
  >-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  >Copyright 1990 JM Shields
  >Don't use any of these characters without permission, or else....
  >-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Zap clears his throat. "I'm pretty worried about the 'or else' part, I saw
what you did to the ashtray back at the chats, but this is serious things."
He ticks up the hospital bed on the display once more, and explains his
actual whereabouts for her. "Now look" he says, "you must understand that
I cannot return to my body, because i have no body, really. But on the
other hand, I cannot run a construct on MYSELF, and get into the matrix
permanently unless the ones caring for my body does so. It's a hardware
setup, you know..." he taps a few keys apparently at random "...I've..."
he stops. Is that a tear in his eye? Nobody knows. "Now, my dear Belladonna,
I have a piece of rather shuddering information for you" he clicks a key,
and the camera showing the hospital bed is slowly panning to the left. On
the wall, beside the bed, is a huge ARES logo.

Belladonna jumps two meters backwors, here eyes turn to thin stripes, and
with a killervioce she says: "YOU work for ARES you BASTARD". Her fingers
start sizzling with icy blue sparks. Zap swallows. He knows that this
lady has some mighty powerful toys installed. And he has invited inside his
icy fortress. Smart move, eh? "Please, listen to me! I *DID* work for ARES
back in 1992, when the accident happened. They put me in that bed" points
to the screen where the bed is once again centered "and from what I know NOW
the 'accident' wasn't so accidental. They wanted me and my mind to stay.
They hooked me up to their computer system, or what was left of me. They
USED my brain as any old computer. And before you fry me to a crisp with
those dangerous toys of yours, YES, my brain is responsible for creating
some of those killer droids. Not *ME* I must say, but my BRAIN. But I
managed to 'escape' into cyberspace, and because of some old fashioned
fiddling with a worm and a shutdown deamon I wrote, I am sitting here,
still alive and heavily iced, and rather safe. They think I am braindead,
out, juiced, finito, no-more. But they keep my body alive because they
know about my shutdown deamon. ARES will be no more if that body dies, I
can assure you. But, on the other hand, If that body dies, I die to, since
I cannot run a real construct on myself from here. I've TRIED, you know. Do
you want to see the result?"

A virual clauset opens, and a flat-shaded polygonized version of Zap steps
out, sayin: 'I"M ZAP I"M K00L I"M S00 AWESUM I LIKE FEMALE YEZ C00L SEX YEZ
C00L FEMALE' and tries to get to Belladonna with an apparently obcene cause.
The 'real' Zap snaps his fingers and the failed simulation is sucked back
into the clauset. He looks quite embarrased. "Oh I'm ever so sorry. I didn't
know it had decayed that low...I actually made one even worse, he escaped
and runs around the net calling himself Biff...hope you will forgive me?
...well, back to buissness...."

He stands up in front of his terminal, saying: "So when you guys decide
to kick some ARES ass, either be *carful* with that" points to the body on
the screen "or make the essential setups for me to transfer all of my mind
into the matrix. Then you may waste that body, and flunk ARES to bits."

He twists, and looks at her. And with a wild smile he says "Mind you, I
rather prefer the latter..." Belladonna looks at him, and says: "So you
are not exactly loyal to the ARES guys, are you? But all these powers you
have with that DIAMOND of yours? Can't you waste them?" Zap shakes his head.
"No. I cant 'waste' them. I would waste myself as well. And if I use DIAMOND
at all, they will get very nosy. Mind you, I did get a bit careless on my
quest to get to you, and wiped out a few things, but that was mostly Turing
cops" He smiles. "You know, every day since the accident they have had top
deckers on line to try to break down my little deamon. And they are getting
closer and closer all the time. And if they KNEW that that body in any way
poses a _threat_ to them, well, they would REALLY try, wouldn't they? That's
why I'm lying low with my DIAMOND stuff...." He walks over to her, takes her
hand, and says: "Please help me. As you can see, I can help you. You know
how to run a construct, right? Thought so. Now I will send you back to
where I picked you up, the exact place AND time. From your companions point
of view, nothing has happened. I *do* hope that your memory of this meeting
will stay in you when I put you back. If it doesn't, well, I won't bother you
further. You see, the back-transfer procedure is a bit unsteady on the point
of memory, perhaps a dangling pointer somwhere.... You will be back in the
exact second you left, but... well... let's try."

He picks a few keys on the keyboard. Belladonna is just trying to tell him
something, when she pops away into a blue haze of nothingness. "Sh*t" he
says "she was trying to say something. Well, if she keeps her memory on
the voyage, she can email me...." He punches a few more keys, an proceeds
to play a game of Tetris, on his old, 2d terminal.


                  < >   < >   < >   < >   < >   < >


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
My rules: Ain't got none, as long as you don't kill me :-) or break thru
          the DIAMOND. It can't be done, you know B->. I will crack it
          myself in a later episode. So watch out for when "Zap forgets
          key and is locked out of his own house"!

          As for fiddling with Bella, Eyeore, Li or the others, ask them
          not me. I've taken enough liberties with the above....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


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