100 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
100 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
`...how could Nature... assure us that we must not, however,
|
|
decide to love ourselves if that might cause others pain?'
|
|
|
|
Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade
|
|
|
|
Hani watched over Andrey's shoulder as he manipulated the image
|
|
on the screen, rotating it, zooming in to examine details,
|
|
panning across the intricate designs. A slight frown crossed
|
|
Andrey's face as the machine laboured to keep up the display...
|
|
the object was very detailed.
|
|
"This bit," Hani pointed, "you press it in and turn it at the
|
|
same time." "Okay..." Andrey put his left hand into the feedback
|
|
glove, and a wireframe hand appeared on the screen. "Are you sure
|
|
this is safe?"
|
|
"Relax. As Terry Gilliam said in `Monty Python and the Holy
|
|
Grail', `It's only a model'."
|
|
"I know." Andrey turned in his ergonomic Hans Rudi
|
|
Giger-designed chair to face her. "If you will recall, `only a
|
|
model' is exactly what Phillip LeMarchand said about that thing
|
|
when he made it," gesturing with his free right hand at the
|
|
puzzle box that sat on the face of the HP scanner. The elaborate
|
|
brasswork gleamed in the bright light of Andrey's architect's
|
|
drawing-board lamps.
|
|
"What are you worried about, you fool? If anything is going
|
|
to happen, it'll happen in there," pointing at the case of his
|
|
TurboSkum Tower 586 PC, "so what can happen? Hard disk crash?"
|
|
"It ain't your hard disk." Andrey muttered. He returned his
|
|
attention to the display. The wireframe hand reached out,
|
|
pressed the centre of one side of the model of the puzzle box.
|
|
A touch of a function key and the hand rotated. Suddenly, the
|
|
image of the box came to life, changing shape with a fluidity and
|
|
speed that even his 80586-based pc, running AutoCad Version 23
|
|
could not match. "Oh shit," Andrey croaked, his throat suddenly
|
|
dry. He grabbed for the box with the feedback glove, but the
|
|
wireframe hand seemed to pass through the image frictionlessly.
|
|
It now looked like an elaborate cog, a spastic rubik's cube, an
|
|
elongated spearhead, a crown-of-thorns starfish. Blurring with
|
|
motion, the box resolved into a cube once more. Andrey grasped
|
|
it with the feedback glove. "Got the little fucker," he grinned.
|
|
Then, the image of the box on the monitor sprouted dozens of
|
|
spikes, like the Iraqi weapons that Hani had seen, potatoes with
|
|
six-inch nails thrust through them to make economy-sized
|
|
morningstars. Andrey shouted, "Chort vosmi!". Gleaming silver
|
|
spikes were protruding from the back of the black plastic mesh of
|
|
the feedback glove. He tried to tug his hand from it, but it was
|
|
plainly fixed. Blood ran from inside the glove, to drip down the
|
|
cable leading from the glove's interface and pool on the desk.
|
|
Hani grabbed the nearest thing to hand, which happened to be
|
|
Andrey's portable CD player, and bashed at a spike which poked
|
|
almost straight up. The matte-black case of the CD player passed
|
|
right through the silver sliver, protruding from its back like a
|
|
hologram. Andrey moaned as the CD player hit the back of his
|
|
impaled hand. The Cocteau Twins skipped a beat or two (you
|
|
really shouldn't hit people with CD players when they are playing
|
|
nice music like `IceBlink Luck'). Through gritted teeth, Andrey
|
|
grated,
|
|
"Okay, you smartass bitch, now what? Just a fucking model,
|
|
eh? NOW WHAT???" He shrieked as she grabbed his forearm and
|
|
tugged violently. The velcro padding that held the feedback
|
|
glove's interface to the desk separated, but not before Andrey's
|
|
hand came out, minus two fingers. "YOU STUPID BITCH!" he
|
|
shouted, oblivious of the flashes of blue light that were
|
|
emanating from the monitor, slightly diluted to purple through
|
|
the sprays of blood which ran down the screen. He took a swipe
|
|
at her with his mangled hand, and then a horrific screech came
|
|
from the machine's hard disk. The lights on the keyboard were
|
|
flashing maniacally. They had time to glimpse a message outlined
|
|
in an orange rectangle - `GURU MEDITATION' and something else, a
|
|
string of hex numbers, as the monitor exploded, peppering them
|
|
with slivers of glass. The force of the blast blew Andrey over
|
|
backwards in his chair, dragging Hani with him. When they
|
|
scrambled to their feet, there was someone standing behind the
|
|
desk, one hand on the top of the scorched monitor case. He was
|
|
dressed in scraps of black leather, some of which appeared to be
|
|
stitched to his skin. The general style appeared to be early
|
|
1920's Theatre-goer... he had one of those waistcoat-inset
|
|
dickeys made out of a strip of bleached flesh. He was wearing a
|
|
mask of skin, stapled to his face. The ravaged lips twitched.
|
|
"Good morning, architect." with a flick of his wrist, a
|
|
cut-throat razor opened in his right hand. An icepick appeared
|
|
in his left. He pointed the razor at Andrey's face. A cut
|
|
appeared between Andrey's eyes, and spread simultaneously down
|
|
his nose and up through his receding hairline. Another gesture,
|
|
and the razor was gone. The cenobite spread his fingers, and
|
|
with a rotten-calico-tearing sound, the two sides of Andrey's
|
|
face were torn from the fascia of his skull.
|
|
|
|
* * * * *
|
|
|
|
"I see you've been adding to your collection." Pinhead said
|
|
to Face as the chains clanked, the prisoners groaned and shrieked
|
|
on the end of their hooks. "Anyone we know?" Face shook his
|
|
head sadly.
|
|
"Just another architect of his own destruction." Pinhead
|
|
grimaced. "Oh, and by the way," Face continued, "if we have
|
|
anyone down here who knows how to use a personal computer, I have
|
|
an AutoCad Model that I think we should upload to some Bulletin
|
|
Boards...". He waved the disk that he had picked up from
|
|
Andrey's desk.
|