243 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
243 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oOOOO OOOO. OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
|
||
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" .OOOOOO OOOOOo OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
|
||
OOOO oOOOOOOO OOOOOOO. OOOO oOOOO
|
||
OOOO .OOOO OOOO OOOOOOOOo OOOO OOOO"
|
||
OOOO oOOOO OOOO OOOO "OOOO. OOOO OOOOo .OOOO'
|
||
OOOO .OOOO" OOOO OOOO OOOOoOOOO "OOOO. oOOOO
|
||
OOOO oOOOOOOO..OOOO OOOO "OOOOOOO OOOOoOOOO"
|
||
OOOO .OOOO"""OOOOOOOO OOOO OOOOOO "OOOOOOO'
|
||
OOOO oOOOO ""OOOO OOOO "OOOO OOOOOO
|
||
|
||
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
||
| |
|
||
| There Ain't No Justice |
|
||
| |
|
||
| #105 |
|
||
| |
|
||
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
||
|
||
- Opposition -
|
||
by Arifel
|
||
|
||
|
||
The battle between the forces of Light and Darkness in our office
|
||
finally came to an end. It was a draw.
|
||
|
||
We only employ fourteen people, so I find it peculiar that their
|
||
paths had never crossed before the expansion. We'd been allocated a few
|
||
hundred extra square feet of space, some more machines, three new desks;
|
||
over a long weekend, I organised a general shifting around of our
|
||
equipment so that it all fitted together. Ergonomic neatness and
|
||
psychodynamics weren't a consideration; we were drastically short on
|
||
reliable network cables, and the final situation of the machines was
|
||
limited by this factor more than any other element. I was certain that
|
||
if any drastic personal conflicts arose, they could be resolved.
|
||
|
||
Tuesday morning, I noted that Veil's machine was now right next to
|
||
Alannah's.
|
||
|
||
It would be hard to imagine two more different people. Veil was a
|
||
Goth, of the Jourgensen Variety; a gaunt, saturnine young man with an
|
||
unruly shock of blue-black hair who habitually dressed entirely in
|
||
black, affected mirrorshades, a walkman and dusty motorcycle boots; he
|
||
wasn't strong on interpersonal communication, but he was a capable
|
||
worker, almost monomaniacal (which always came in handy when we had a
|
||
deadline looming before us).
|
||
|
||
Alannah was referred to, privately, as the May Queen. She looked
|
||
like she'd wandered off last year's Tolkien calendar; she wore light
|
||
pastel dresses and about a dozen varieties of dark-brown wood pendants,
|
||
usually had flowers woven into her pale gold hair and rarely wore shoes.
|
||
The scent of patchouli drifted around her like an aura. Few people were
|
||
taken in by the vague, dazed look on her face, particularly those who'd
|
||
been on the receiving end of her wit. It wasn't just the clothing; she
|
||
believed in fairies, and got quite offended when someone would suggest
|
||
otherwise. She never raised her voice.
|
||
|
||
That first morning, they were both too occupied with getting back
|
||
into their current projects to worry about their immediate surroundings.
|
||
After the sliding two-hour zone which we called lunch, however, I saw
|
||
them darting the occasional glance at the other when they thought no-one
|
||
was looking. I'd held out hopes that they might have coexisted
|
||
peacefully; these hopes began to sink when Alannah asked Veil why he had
|
||
such a nasty-looking backdrop on his screen (it was a picture by H.R.
|
||
Giger, in sickly blue-green shades). He simply turned to face her and
|
||
smiled, revealing elongated canines. She shifted away cautiously and
|
||
brought up a new backdrop on her machine; a tiled pattern of pale-pink
|
||
roses.
|
||
|
||
I imagined that it might end there. Unfortunately, they had to work
|
||
together on the next project. It isn't often that any of our employees
|
||
feel inclined to put any of their personality into their work - Veil and
|
||
Alannah were usually minimalist in that respect - but over the next few
|
||
days, debates over minor points of style began to escalate into
|
||
defensive arguments on the merits of one design philosophy over another.
|
||
|
||
Veil favoured what he called the `fascist' approach, in which the
|
||
user was treated like an idiot, rigidly excluded from options that
|
||
Alannah thought should be generally available.
|
||
|
||
`If they need to see the previous records, they can ask for them. I
|
||
think the main screen is cluttered enough as it is. They won't all be
|
||
using monitors as big as ours, you know.' She gave him her odd little
|
||
smile, kept typing without looking up.
|
||
|
||
`If you had your way, there'd be nothing on the screen except a text
|
||
box with a button marked EXIT.' He smiled his approval.
|
||
|
||
`That's the idea. Users are, in general, very simple people, and we
|
||
don't want to scare them off.' She closed her document with a petulant
|
||
snap of the mouse button.
|
||
|
||
`Why don't we just put them in camps and be done with it?' His only
|
||
response to this was to add a new button to the main screen display,
|
||
with the text: PUT ME IN A CAMP NOW PLEASE. And he refused to take it
|
||
out.
|
||
|
||
After a few days of this kind of sparring, the conflict moved to a
|
||
different level; I called this the battle of the Screen-savers. Veil's
|
||
regular screen-saver was a jarring, sporadic white flash which looked
|
||
like it might set off epileptic seizures. While he was out of the
|
||
office, Alannah committed the unpardonable sin; she touched his machine
|
||
and changed it to one of the smooth, green, cycling Mandelbrot designs.
|
||
|
||
He didn't get angry; he simply changed it back and password-protected
|
||
it. Later, she hacked it, changed it back to the green fractals and put
|
||
in her own password. He retaliated by attacking her machine, adding a
|
||
background task that altered the system event sounds on her machine at
|
||
random. At one stage, they'd be as Alannah had set them, soft chirps,
|
||
forest sounds, cat purrs; she'd exit a program and, without warning, her
|
||
machine would scream at her, samples from industrial music songs, horror
|
||
films, sounds of car accidents and breaking glass. It took her until ten
|
||
o'clock that evening to find and remove the task; it came back again by
|
||
itself the next morning. She was more thorough in removing it the
|
||
second time.
|
||
|
||
She put subliminal text in his flashing screen-saver; it took him
|
||
almost as long as she'd spent fixing her system to get the messages to
|
||
stand still long enough to read. They were selected sayings from
|
||
oriental mystics, Discordians, Temple Ov Psychick Youth shamans, and
|
||
when he'd managed to capture an example of the latter, he brought it
|
||
over to me, a bitmap-file on a disk.
|
||
|
||
`See this? TOPY was founded by industrial musicians. She's losing
|
||
it.' I almost laughed.
|
||
|
||
`I don't think she knew that. Anyway, didn't Genesis P Orridge go
|
||
all techno-new age? Maybe that's the point she's trying to make.' His
|
||
face went blank, a sign that he was plotting revenge. His eyes narrowed
|
||
a fraction.
|
||
|
||
`I'll show her a point or two.' he muttered. I didn't mind; this
|
||
altercation wasn't affecting productivity, and I liked to think it was
|
||
healthy.
|
||
|
||
The next morning, he'd slipped a kind of dust-cover made of black PVC
|
||
over his machine and monitor; two guttering black candles sat on either
|
||
side of the desk, each giving off an unusual scent, and to top the
|
||
ensemble off, a bleached ram's skull sat on top of the monitor. A CD
|
||
player concealed under the desk played dark ambient rumbles. When she
|
||
came in and favoured his altar with a withering look, he said casually,
|
||
`It helps me think.'
|
||
|
||
She couldn't allow this to go unchallenged; that evening, she
|
||
equipped her desk with a tiny bronze gong suspended from a wooden frame,
|
||
arranged vines around the base of the monitor, and two incense burners
|
||
near the machine's cooling fan. The scents of rose, musk, sandalwood
|
||
and the ever-present patchouli began to spread throughout the office.
|
||
She rang the gong with a chrome-hex-nut-topped glass wand every
|
||
twenty-three minutes; I could tell from the way his knuckles whitened
|
||
when she did this that she was winning this round. He parried this
|
||
attack by plugging headphones into his CD player and listening to
|
||
industrial music. I could hear it, leaking out from around the edges of
|
||
the headphones, from where I sat. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa roar. His hands
|
||
would still occasionally clutch at nothing as if he was being given
|
||
electro-shock therapy, but now it was his own doing. With his
|
||
mirrorshades and his music, he was almost completely insulated from her.
|
||
|
||
She'd go outside and smoke clove cigarettes until she stank of them,
|
||
then she'd come back inside and sit upwind of a battery-operated fan. He
|
||
came in after lunch with a jar of ground nutmeg, which he'd snort
|
||
through a fountain-pen case. For a moment, I thought she had him there,
|
||
but he mailed her a copy of his contract, subject: `no mention of legal
|
||
substance abuse in this'.
|
||
|
||
This whole thing had escalated to the point of interfering with work.
|
||
I was about to step in and do some mediating, when our semi-sentient
|
||
office network took a hand in it.
|
||
|
||
They were both at lunch (she at a local vegetarian restaurant, he at
|
||
a nearby hamburger joint, stoking his burner with cheap scorched meat
|
||
which he'd come back and breathe all over her); I happened to look up
|
||
and saw the hard-drive lights on their machines flashing almost in
|
||
synch. First, her machine; then, his, for about ten minutes. Then, a
|
||
tiny window appeared in the middle of her display: `HARD DRIVE FAILURE'.
|
||
I had my suspicions, but I thought it prudent to let them work it out.
|
||
|
||
Fortunately, she came back from lunch before he did. She saw the
|
||
window, typed frantically with much use of the alt-key and deft
|
||
movements of the mouse; it looked like something had just overwritten
|
||
every sector on the disk. The only things left were memory-resident
|
||
things running when she'd gone to lunch, and the first time she tried to
|
||
use something that referred to a disk-based library, it fell over in a
|
||
heap. I could see her lower lip quivering.
|
||
|
||
Just then, Veil came back from lunch, oblivious to her distress. The
|
||
first thing he noticed was that his hard drive was almost full; then he
|
||
spotted the new subdirectory on his machine, and only after this did he
|
||
notice that Alannah was about to collapse into tears. For the first
|
||
time in weeks, he took off his shades; I could almost see his defences,
|
||
his dark-shield aura, fade. She was just standing there, trying to come
|
||
to terms with the loss of month's worth of work, when he cautiously
|
||
approached her and handed her a glass with about three fingers of some
|
||
dark-red liquid in it. She took it from him, sniffed it cautiously and
|
||
then drank it down in one go. He smiled.
|
||
|
||
`Vodka and cough syrup. Now, you go sit down over there, relax and
|
||
Veil will fix.' Meekly, she complied; all he had to do was reinstall
|
||
the operating system, re-establish the network connection and copy the
|
||
contents of that sub-directory off his machine and onto hers. Magically,
|
||
her machine had been brought back from the dead.
|
||
|
||
I thought that he'd won when she asked him for another slug of that
|
||
drink, but after considering that he kept his mirrorshades off for the
|
||
rest of the day and assumed a much more open and friendly attitude, I
|
||
decided it was a draw.
|
||
|
||
The next day, instead of unadorned black, he was wearing blue jeans
|
||
and a promotional T-shirt for the Cocteau Twins' `Four Calendar Cafe'
|
||
album.
|
||
|
||
She wore a dark-purple tie-died dress. And his mirror-shades.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
<20> <20><> <20> <20> <20><> <20>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20><> <20><> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>ݲ<EFBFBD><DDB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۱<EFBFBD><DBB1><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> <20> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20><><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> Phoenix Modernz Systems: 908/830-TANJ <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD>۱<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> VapourWare BBS: 61/3-429-8510 ۲<><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD>۱<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> underworld_1995.com 514/683-1894 ۲<><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> RipCo ][: 312/528-5020 <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> etext.archive.etext.org <20><><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> TANJ Mailing Address <20> <20> <20> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> PO Box 174 <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> Seaside Hts, NJ <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> 08751 <20> <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><DBB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۲<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20><> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>; <20><> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>ݲ<EFBFBD><DDB2><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>۱<EFBFBD><DBB1><EFBFBD>
|
||
<EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> <20> <20> <20> tanj@pms.metronj.org <20> <20> <20> <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD><EFBFBD>
|
||
|
||
|