textfiles/magazines/TWILIGHTWORLD/twilight.world-2.6

= TWILIGHT WORLD - Volume 2 Issue 6 (November 12th 1994) ====================


 This magazine may be archived,  reproduced and/or distributed provided  that 
no  additions  or changes are made to it.  All stories in this  magazine  are 
fiction.  No  actual  persons  are  designated  by  name  or  character.  Any 
similarity is purely coincidental.
 This magazine is for free. Get it as cheaply as possible!
 Please  refer  to  the  end  file  for  information  regarding  submissions, 
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= LIST OF CONTENTS ==========================================================


 EDITORIAL
 by Richard Karsmakers

 INTERGALACTIC SEX FANTASY
 by Bryan Kennerley

 NEBULUS
 by Richard Karsmakers

 FIRE & BRIMSTONE
 by Richard Karsmakers

 NITRO
 by Stefan Posthuma and Richard Karsmakers

 LETHAL XCESS
 by Richard Karsmakers

 LLAMATRON
 by Richard Karsmakers

 SUPER HANGON
 by Richard Karsmakers

 LEMMINGS
 by Richard Karsmakers


= EDITORIAL =================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 Things have been on the razor edge of the "too hectic" for the last month or 
two. Broke up with 5-year girlfriend Miranda, moved to a different address in 
a town filled with people wanting a room too,  and generally couldn't do much 
in between moving and staying in touch with one of the prime reasons for this 
rather extreme turnover in my life,  a totally enchanting girl by the name of 
Karin who is,  rather unfortunately,  spending this academic year at  Bristol 
University (some timing, right?).
 All I can say is "thank heavens she's got email",  "here's the new issue  of 
your fave magazine" and "see you all again in 1995's Volume 3!".

 I  hope you'll like reading this issue,  despite the fact that there's  more 
than  usual  of  my own scribblings in it (but you know what you  can  do  to 
change that,  so come on all you budding writers out there!). Don't forget to 
spread  the word - and the file!  Tell you friends about "Twilight World"  so 
they, too, can be embraced by the diversity of its wonders (sortof).


 Richard Karsmakers
 (Editor)

P.S. If you no longer want to receive "Twilight World", *please* unsubscribe; 
     don't let me wait for the messages to bounce instead,  totally  flooding 
     my email box!  This especially goes for people on AOL,  some 20% of  all 
     direct subscribers.


= INTERGALACTIC SEX FANTASY =================================================
 by Bryan Kennerley


 Slowly  he arose,  summoned by the the fanfare that signalled  the  imminent 
arrival  of  the leader of the Gajantrian Empire.  His heart  beat  a  little 
faster as he tried to imagine the appearance of his sworn enemy,  who he  was 
to  finally  meet  after so many years of bitter  and  unrepenting  war.  His 
ceremonial  battledress  weighed heavy on his shoulders,  but not  nearly  so 
heavy  as  the burden of responsibility from his people to end  the  fighting 
once and for all.
 The signal was given,  his opposite number had arrived and was standing just 
on the other side of the door.  Slowly the double doors parted, revealing the 
huge  corridor beyond.  A veritable throng of Gajja bodyguards  moved  firmly 
across  the  blood-red carpet towards his seat  of  power,  protecting  their 
leader from sight as well as from harm. When would he see...
 The  head gorilla stepped forward from the group and announced  with  almost 
painful  volume,  "Empress Cachatoria of the Gajantrian Empire!" The  sea  of 
muscle  parted to reveal the foe he had been battling against for as long  as 
he had been ruler.
 "So...we meet at last Danyon,"  in soft, almost melodic tones drifted across 
the  room to greet his ears,  as their eyes locked for the  first  time.  Her 
eyes.  As he met her stare the room seemed to fade away, the shared tunnel of 
intent concentration growing to fill his mind and all his senses.  He  forced 
himself to speak.
 "Yes,  at last," he said, slowly stepping forwards, each step deliberate, as 
if  requiring great force of will to make it.  She was not at all how he  had 
imagined her.  Over the years the myth of the "Devil Queen" had grown out  of 
all  proportions  throughout  his world and  domain,  images  of  a  gnarled, 
embittered  dragon  woman  comdemning all who displeased her  to  death  were 
widespread,  yet  now...now before him stood the most beautiful woman he  had 
ever seen,  much smaller than himself, slim but certainly not fragile, strong 
yet not overtly physically so;  if she was a devil then her eyes must be  the 
fires  of hell itself,  such was the burning he felt as she examined the  man 
she saw before her.
 Danyon stood at equal stature to the meatheads surrounding the Empress,  yet 
his  fair hair and crystalline blue eyes set him far apart.  He could  easily 
take any one or perhaps more of them on in a fair fight or otherwise, yet his 
strong  features and powerful gaze indicated a thoughtful predisposition  and 
intellect which engendered an instant presence,  denying any conclusion other 
than that this man was a born leader, Commander of the Unified Armies. How he 
yearned for that title to fall into obsolescence,  he didn't want history  to 
remember  him  as a warrior,  though his outstanding ability as  a  strategic 
thinker and planner made that ever more likely. Unless.
 The Empress slowly lowered her gaze,  though not removing her eyes from  him 
for  a moment,  scanning purposefully down his proud torso,  capturing  every 
inch of him within her mind.  Taking advantage of the momentary pause, Danyon 
surveyed the woman standing before him. Dressed totally in black, his initial 
thought  was that her ceremonial dress was a lot less...well,  less than  his 
own.  Almost  a mockery of a warrior's battledress,  it gripped her  form  so 
precisely  that she could have been born into it.  Before he could  make  any 
deeper observations she spoke.
 "You are much...taller than I had imagined, Danyon."
 "I thought I ought to make the effort," he replied.  She smiled and he could 
not  help but respond likewise.  His eyes slipped away from hers for a  brief 
instant and onto her glistening lips. He prayed she wouldn't notice. Or maybe 
he was praying that she would.
 "If  you  would  like to come this  way,"  intruded  a  voice,  offering  to 
introduce the Empress to her quarters.
 As she walked past Danyon she turned her head and gazed deep into his  eyes, 
softly uttering, "We shall talk later."

                                    *****

 The  arrival of "later" took an eternity.  The events taking place  were  of 
such importance to so many people,  of so many worlds, yet instead of working 
out the strategy of the forthcoming negotiations,  all Danyon could think  of 
was his rival's eyes, and those lips...
 Around the table of negotiation that night,  progress was slow.  Not a  word 
passed between the two leaders, each instead addressing the opposing captains 
and trained negotiators.  Argument faded into contradiction, but the apparent 
coolness of the two leaders prevented proceedings from decaying into outright 
squabbling.  No-one was expecting too much progress to be made at this  first 
meeting,  and if agreed temporary stalemate qualified success then a  success 
it was.
 As  the  meeting drew to a close,  Danyon and Cachatoria  waved  away  their 
aides,  who  cautiously  granted them a moment together,  hoping  that  words 
between  the  two  leaders may succeed where  negotiations  between  the  two 
empires had not.
 Their  minds  had  been matched against each other countless  times  in  the 
countless battles,  from opposite ends of star systems,  and now they sat  at 
opposite sides of a table,  barely feet apart,  two tacticians watching  each 
other,  waiting for the other to make a move. The Empress stood up and Danyon 
did likewise.  Slowly she walked towards him,  her eyes fixed upon his  face. 
Although he too had his eyes on hers,  he could not help but  surreptitiously 
follow the arc of her hips as she approached him, her exaggerated black dress 
complimenting her figure perfectly,  her hair worn up, emphasizing her strong 
cheekbones  perfectly.  They stood for a moment,  barely  inches  apart,  her 
perfume pervading his nostrils,  his lungs tightening ranks against the power 
of this attack. Her lips parted as if to speak, but held there tantalizingly. 
She raised one hand to her head and pulled her long, dark hair loose, shaking 
it  free  with a short but effective movement of her head.  Danyon  felt  all 
strength leave his body.
 "We shall...talk, later," she sighed, turned and left the room.

                                    *****

 That  night Danyon sat in his chambers,  his mind and body racing.  Idly  he 
tried  watching  the  news reports filled with  endless  speculation  on  the 
outcome of the negotiations in which he was a major player. It was no use; he 
switched the display screen off with a frustrated sweep of his right hand. An 
idea occurred to him.
 "Computer,  give me the securicam in the Empress's quarters," he said with a 
wry smile flickering across his lips.
 Instantly  the  screen  showed  a broad  view  of  Cachatoria's  suite,  the 
luxurious  decor slightly more splendid than his own.  Two  burlesque  guards 
stood by the door,  almost catatonic.  But no sign of the woman he sought.  A 
frown  crossed his brow and he thrust himself back into  his  omni-positional 
chair  and promptly fell onto the floor as the door  whistled,  signifying  a 
visitor.
 Rolling deftly to his feet and straightening his garb,  he moved towards the 
door.  Pressing the control panel,  the door slid open,  revealing a slightly 
more   heavily  attired  incarnation  of  the  Empress,   flanked  by   three 
disappointingly less attired bodyguards.  Attiring them fully would  probably 
take a large chunk of the military budget.
 "Friend or foe?" enquired Danyon politely.
 "Leave us,"  said Cachatoria to her guards,  deliberately avoiding answering 
that  particular  question  when in front of them.  The  head  guard  stepped 
forward  as  if to protest but the Empress put him back in his place  with  a 
single  icy  glare which struck visibly deeper than any physical  blow  could 
have done.
 As she stepped through the portal,  the guards' eyes were fixed firmly  upon 
Danyon.  "It's  so  hard  to get the staff these days," he  directed  at  the 
largest guard as the door slid shut between them.
 "So,  your  Empressness...what brings a girl like you to a nice  place  like 
this?"
 "It  is time to talk," oozed the Empress as she removed her outer  cloak  to 
reveal  a  black,   silken  dress  with  tactfully,  or  perhaps  tactically, 
positioned  holes  revealing acres of naked flesh leading  the  eye  straight 
towards those parts which were still, at least partially, covered.
 Danyon gaped,  though his military training had taught him to do so with his 
mouth firmly shut.  It didn't work.  The smile on his counterpart's face made 
that perfectly clear.
 "May I offer you a drink?" he finally managed.
 "I'd be offended if you didn't."
 "A jine and tonicks?"
 "How do I know you won't slip some poison into my glass?" Cachatoria  asked, 
a playful slide in her voice.
 "You don't," countered Danyon,  fixing her in his gaze as he handed her  the 
glass. Neither one removed their eyes from the other as they each took a sip.
 "Well,"  she  toyed,  "I'm  still here.  What do you  propose  we  negotiate 
first?" She turned and surveyed the room.
 "You  know very well that there are people who would gladly see us dead  for 
just speaking to each other."
 "Come  now Danyon,  we've spoken already,  do you think they would  kill  us 
twice?"
 "Still, discretion would be a wise tactic."
 "Is everything you do done for tactical reasons?"
 "Your armies haven't reached me yet."
 "And  your  viewscreen into my quarters...you  were,  perhaps,  planning  to 
invade me?"
 Danyon reached over to the control panel,  disabling the  screen,  blushing. 
Cacha sat down on the satin cloaked bed, crossed her legs and took a slow sip 
from her glass, watching the man before her, awaiting his next move.
 "Somehow," Danyon started,  "these negotiations aren't going quite how I had 
planned."
 "Somehow," Cacha replied, "I find that hard to believe."
 Slowly he moved towards her, finishing his drink in one swift motion. He lay 
the  glass down and gently sank onto the bed beside her,  his  muscular  bulk 
causing her to fall gently towards him. They now sat face to face.
 "Danyon, there is something I feel I really ought to tell you."
 "Will I like it?"
 "Not particularly," she replied.
 "Well, could it wait a while?"
 "I wish it could, but what I have to say has to be said now or it may be too 
late."
 "What is it?
 "I have to go to the bathroom."

                                    *****

 Danyon lay on his bed,  examining the ceiling for flies.  Here he was, lying 
prostrate  while the leader of the enemy empire responsible for the  loss  of 
countless innocent lives was in the bathroom,  urinating. He couldn't see any 
which  was  no  real surprise since the air conditioning  would  consume  any 
wayward insects.  He wondered how the Empress's species urinated.  Sure, they 
were very similar to humans,  outwardly at least, but many rumours had spread 
from  the fighter pilot squadrons about the genitalia of the enemy.  Not  all 
was complimentary of course, but he wondered how true the ones concerning the 
female gender were true.
 His  thoughts were interrupted by the sound of flushing water.  "Think  man, 
look  casual,"  he  muttered,  deciding that siting  reclined  in  his  omni-
positional chair would be a suitably dramatic pose for he re-entrance. He lay 
back,  using all of his self control to look away from the door,  so he could 
turn to face her as it opened. Slowly it opened, and out stepped...
 Out stepped a naked Empress.  Before this moment he had thought that perhaps 
her dresses were designed to hold her body into the perfect shape, but now he 
saw that it was the other way round,  her body had obviously been genetically 
engineered  to show any garment off to maximum effect.  Either that or  there 
was a god.
 Danyon felt his jaw drop.  No amount of training could have saved him and he 
knew it would be useless to try.  Silently she traversed the distance between 
them,  her hips etching a perfect figure of eight in the air,  leaving almost 
visible  turbulence  in their wake.  Her bare feet pointed with  every  step, 
their  arc  intersecting with the ground almost immediately in front  of  the 
other foot,  exaggerating her whole motion yet further.  An age passed before 
she reached him and a thousand thoughts passed through Danyon's mind, none of 
them grammatically correct,  so engrossed was he in the spectacle that lay in 
front of him.
 Now she stood before him, her perfect breasts at eye level, one nipple each. 
That  was one rumour out of the window.  But somehow that didn't matter  very 
much  now,  her  firm  and  visibly  plyable  mammaric  prominences,  atopped 
tantalizingly  by  twin acute erectnesses,  were crying out for  third  party 
manipulation.
 Danyon reclined back in his chair just enough to include Cacha's face in his 
vision.
 "Danyon,  one  of the prime requisites of being a military tactician is  the 
ability to think laterally. Nice chair."

                                    *****

 The next morning,  Danyon awoke and rolled over in bed.  He half expected to 
feel the Empress Cachatoria's warm,  still moist body next to him but he  did 
not.  He  chanced to open his eyes.  It was a fine summer's day and  sunlight 
streamed through his window and onto his face, arousing him from his slumber.
 Then  it  struck  him.  He was no longer in his  chambers  on  his  military 
flagship,  this  room was totally unfamiliar to him,  and he  was  naked.  He 
struggled  to  remember  what  had  happened  the  night  before,   tried  to 
reconstruct some semblence of the events that had led to him being here.  And 
then he realised.  His name was not Danyon,  Commander of the Unified Armies. 
It was Andrew. Andrew Royd, computer programmer.
 "Oh, fuck."


= NEBULUS ===================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 "Hey, Pogo!"
 In  someone's dream,  the words penetrated the fragile boundary between  the 
real and the unreal. There was a dragon to be slain, but the voice distracted 
him  from the task at hand.  The evil beast breathed forth flames that  could 
barely be avoided. Some time passed.
 "Hey! Pogo!!"
 The person, still shrouded in deep sleep, was now dreaming about things he'd 
like to do to and with his lovely wife. The call penetrated into his dream at 
the moment when he was about to get down to serious business. He looked up, a 
bit befuddled, when he saw her head grow suddenly ugly and she screamed...
 "Hey Pogo!!  Your boss is calling!  Will you get your lazy ass out of bed or 
do I have to come and make you?"
 Pogo sat upright,  perspiring suddenly,  the voice arising from below having 
attained  a  very  aggressive  tone.  He  jumped  out  of  bed  and  stumbled 
downstairs.
 He looked his wife in the eyes, apologisingly, with as much of a Tom Selleck 
look as he could muster.  She handed him the phone as he gently caressed  her 
tail.  She found herself unable to put her heart in the angry tapping of  her 
foot on the floor. She *did* love him, no matter how chronically lazy her man 
was.
 "Yeah," (he checked his wristwatch to see what part of the day it was) "good 
afternoon. Pogo speaking."
 The  voice on the other end of the line sounded perfectly civil but  carried 
with it a sense of menace that could be felt as it half whispered,  "Are  you 
perhaps aware of the hours that have gone by since nine in the morning?"
 Pogo  was  grappling  for  an  answer,   an  excuse,  *anything*,  when  the 
earpiece spoke again.
 "Do  I  need to remind you of the fact that you actually have to  *work*  in 
order for me to tempted to pay anything?"
 Pogo swallowed. The man had a point.
 "But...," he fumbled.
 The phone continued blaring forth stuff about moral codes,  small thanks for 
many  pains and that kind of thing.  Pogo had been through this a  few  times 
before.  He  threw his wife a kiss,  causing her to smile the smile that  had 
been  one of the reason that had caused him to fall in love with her  in  the 
first place. Her tail curled, her body language speaking of things that would 
cause many a man to blush.
 Pogo directed his attention to his boss again,  who was still having a go at 
it on the phone. He was currently reciting a piece of poetry.

                        "Doesn't matter what you see
                          Or into it what you read
                         You can do it your own way
                        If it's done just how I say."

 Pogo remembered it faintly.  Due to some strange and ancient reason,  it had 
become a company poem or something,  a kind of credo.  A cultural anomaly, it 
was  a general tendency to recite it to any employee who had  done  something 
wrong. Pogo sighed. He had heard it rather too often.
 "Am I right in assuming I am needed at the office?" he asked with as much of 
a casual air as he could.  There was a sharp intake of breath following by  a 
positively  mute silence at the other end.  To avoid the  verbal  outpourings 
that generally ensued such a silence, he put down the phone.
 "I'll  have to be off to work,  pumpkin," he said,  kissing his wife on  the 
brow, "it might be a bit later tonight. Don't wait up for me."
 She  looked  at him with the air of someone that is trying to work  out  the 
Newton  forces of a car crashing into a perambulator carrying her  firstborn. 
Her tail stopped making those enchanting curly motions.
 He  had never before told her something like this.  Was he cheating on  her, 
perhaps?  Had he taken up talking to strangers?  Did he maybe - just maybe  - 
intend to buy a digital watch?
 Pogo saw the distress in her adoringly yellow eyes beneath her  enchantingly 
bushy  eyebrows - two of the 43 classic marks of beauty generally  recognised 
in a woman of their species.  He assured her that nothing was the matter - he 
was  still hers and nobody else's and he also refused to talk  to  strangers. 
When  he  saw there was still a glimmer of apprehension left  in  those  cute 
little  eyes of hers,  he hastened to add that he had no intent of  buying  a 
digital  watch either.  He hugged her,  went upstairs to freshen up  and  get 
dressed, went downstairs, hugged her again, and left for work.

 Having  arrived at a large building with "DESTRO-CORP INC." on the  roof  in 
brightly  blazing,  massive neon letters,  he went up to the second floor  to 
knock on a door with a cheap self-adhesive stuck to the outside reading, "I'm 
the Boss".
 There was no reply even after the third and increasingly noisy knock,  so he 
carefully opened the door and peeped in. Nobody seemed to be there, but as he 
stepped in something struck him as very odd about the room.
 There  were the usual pencils scattered all over the man's  desk,  something 
Pogo knew was a means to convince people the boss was a busy man that had  no 
time  to  tidy up his desk.  There was a Rembrandt replica above  the  filing 
cabinet,  hanging  obliquely.  If anything,  it was a bit more straight  than 
unsual.  Flames licked from the top of the man's wastepaper bin,  an annoying 
but  certainly not unusual phenomenon that happens now and again  to  chronic 
smokers such as his boss.
 There  was  a trail of lady's underwear leading to  another  door,  slightly 
ajar, from behind which something like moaning could be heard. Now *that* was 
quite odd.  The closer to the skin the underwear,  the closer to the door  it 
lay.  Perhaps  this  was  some kind of new meaning  to  the  word  "corporate 
meeting"? "Corporate mating", you mean!
 Pogo  took  a  small  package from a  pocket,  looking  at  the  cover  with 
appreciation.  There was a portrait of Lady Justicia on it,  pieces of  green 
paper on her tilted scales.  He cleared his throat; you should give the guy a 
fair chance, he reckoned, though he took care not to clear it with *too* much 
of  a noise.  In reply,  all he heard were muffled cries involving depth  and 
velocity.
 Pogo  felt a bit upset about having had to part with dragon and  wife  alike 
just  to have to listen to his boss doing things he'd rather have been  doing 
himself  now.  He pushed a button on a device present in the  room.  A  Light 
Emitting Diode popped on.
 "Thank  you for enabling this Cybernetics audio system to be of  service  to 
you," a friendly voice intoned.
 Pogo pushed another button.  A small drawer slowly buzzed out into the open. 
He  took  from the package in his hand a small silvery disc,  put it  on  the 
drawer  and  pressed the same button again.  With another  buzzing  sound  it 
closed itself, swallowing the disc. He then turned a dial to "10".
 A finger hovered meaningfully in front of a button labelled "PLAY >".
 He pressed it.

 "POGO! POGO! POGO!" he yelled loudly, not at all hearing himself, as violent 
sounds of blackened heavy metal poured out through the ovradially  controlled 
quadrophonic speaker systems.  He banged his head,  jumped around the  office 
and cried along with the music as violently as he could. The amplifier had no 
specification  of Watt power because the manufacturers had not been  able  to 
design a small enough legible specification letter set that would still  have 
been  able  to  fit on the device without  wrecking  its  absurdly  exquisite 
design.
 The doors bulged,  the walls cracked, the Rembrandt submitted to gravity and 
the  flames  extinguished quite spontaneously.  Windows opened  seemingly  of 
their own accord, satellites got hurled out of orbit.
 All of this could be heard quite clearly on the 34th floor of the  building, 
where  a  religious sect called "The Utterly Silent Ones" was having  one  of 
their meditations.
 The  telephone  rang,  though not even an aurally talented  bat  could  have 
distinguished  its  incessant  ringing from the  general  mayhem  that  quite 
literally engulfed the building and its surroundings.

 Note:  It  might  be  worth noting at this instance that  people  living  on 
Quernshal Epsilon who feel they have come somewhere for nothing usually  have 
a  tendency  to play Metallica's "...And Justice for All" CD at  the  loudest 
obtainable  volume.  This  is usually accompanied by  wild  pogoing  (banging 
heads,  thrashing limbs,  jumping,  moshing and so forth). This also explains 
why all male inhabitants of the planet are called Pogo.
 This might strike you as weird,  but that's only because you don't know what 
Zargomatic Sigmaians do when found in a bathroom with the paper run out.

 An embarrassed head appeared around the doorpost instantly. It was agitating 
wildly,  obviously  yelling something that remained inaudible due to  certain 
limitations of the ear when exposed to excessively loud music.  Even so, Pogo 
was too involved playing air guitar to notice that ever reddening face.
 The head disappeared for a few instants, after which the entire body stepped 
into the office. It was wearing various parts of lady's underwear that looked 
as silly on it as it would enticing on the proper gender. The body fought the 
black  wind  sprouting  forth from  the  ovradially  controlled  quadrophonic 
loudspeakers, struggling to get to a button simply labelled "OFF". Eventually 
it succeeded, triumph on its face.
 "Thank  you for having enabled this Cybernetic audio system to be a  service 
to you," the device intoned,  its friendly voice unheard by the ears of those 
present in the office that were occupied coping with the sudden high  beeping 
sound accompanying a sudden lack of volume.
 The  first sound they did hear was the phone,  ringing  angrily.  Eventually 
they heard sandalled feet kicking at the front office door.  Someone  yelled, 
"Blasphemy!"
 "Alright,  Pogo,"  the boss panted,  "you made your point.  I'm  sorry."  He 
wondered why he was apologising to someone who should be apologising himself. 
He then noticed himself wearing laced cammy knickers and went all red.
 Pogo got some of the fur out of his eyes, saw his boss, and grinned inanely.
 "Honey?"  a  girl's voice called from behind the door  that  had  previously 
hidden whatever the boss and she had been doing, "have you seen my knickers?"
 The beating on the door ceased,  the noises of flapping sandals and muttered 
curses  in the hall fading.  Many Silent Ones would have to perform  penitent 
atonement tonight.
 A girl's head,  flushed and furry,  became visible around the doorpost. When 
she  saw the boss standing she was rendered weak with laughter.  It  was  the 
kind of laughter,  the boss would later think back,  that you only knew  when 
you're a male whose kid sister once witnessed your urinating onto shockwire.
 Seating  himself  behind the pencil-strewn desk to hide the reason  for  all 
their fun, his fur slowly got its more familiar blue colour again.
 "Miss Doughshilling," he said,  having regained sufficient control over  the 
situation,  "would  you  be so kind as to dedicate yourself  to  our  company 
correspondence?"
 With an absurdly out-of-place curtsy, she disappeared.
 Pogo was getting a really strange sensation in his tail.  Almost,  he  could 
have sworn, as if it was on fire.
 "Wipe that grin off your face," his boss said.
 Pogo did.  The sensation in his tail was growing, but he dared not look away 
from his boss,  who seemed suddenly to have developed fangs.  Also, the man's 
eyes had suddenly gone, well, gone *red*.
 With  a  bit  of a startle,  Pogo noticed smoke curling up  from  his  boss' 
nostrils.  The sensation in his tail was now indistinguishable from pain.  He 
tore his gaze away, finding his tail on fire. There was laughter.
 It sounded...draconic.
 "Pogo?" a voice lured him, but it seemed to come from nowhere.
 His boss was no longer there. A dragon sat behind the desk. It spat fire.
 "Pogo?" the voice repeated. It sounded loving, caring.
 He opened his eyes,  shredding the dragon and all the fire it had come with, 
to find himself gazing sleepily at a furry blue creature that curled its tail 
enticingly.
 "Yes?" he sighed, in love.

 Originally written November 1988. Rehashed a lot, November 1994.


= FIRE & BRIMSTONE ==========================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 Cronos thought he had been in some quite hot places,  but never ever had  it 
actually  been  *this* hot.  Sweat was pouring down from every  pore  in  his 
dehydrating body,  and he knew instinctively that his bodily juices were  not 
going  to  last  long under these circumstances -  for,  even  to  his  harsh 
personal  standards,  these were severely  extreme  (and,  indeed,  extremely 
severe).
 It  seemed  as  if  each  and  every  pore  was  not  just  perspiring,  but 
experiencing  a rather blatant kind of rupture,  causing sheer  cataracts  of 
salty fluid to erupt from his being.  It leaked into his eyes,  obscuring his 
sight, irritating him endlessly.
 He  had  experienced this heat and the drought before;  he had been  on  the 
razor edge of death,  and he had been saved only in the very nick of time  by 
this mysterious nurse that had looked so extremely much like Gloria  Estefan. 
Water  had  been carefully and lovingly poured into his dried-out  mouth  and 
onto  his  parched  lips;  lace had embraced his vision -  as  had  a  rather 
significantly  well shaped pair of bristols.  No matter how unsalubrious  his 
situation  had been,  her appearance had transformed it into a dream that  he 
had wished never to wake out of.
 He could use some water now as well. A lot of it, as a matter of fact. Never 
mind the lace and bristols.  Water.  Age too oh.  Lots of it, possibly. There 
wasn't much of it around.

 It had been very dark.  His knob had still been hurting rather nauseatingly, 
and  his  finger  was still pointing towards the on/off switch  on  his  Mega 
Absorb Groin Protector,  trembling.  Wandering through the darkness that  had 
seemed  never to end,  the physical pain had slowly ebbed away,  but  another 
kind of pain had remained: That of having been beaten by a girl. A *girl*, of 
all beings in the universe.  As far as he was concerned, girls were there for 
the  mere  purposes of human multiplication,  dish  washing  and  environment 
decoration.
 He hadn't even wanted to lay a hand on her,  at least not as such, strictly. 
The damage to his ego had been substantial.
 Muttering to himself, he had suddenly stumbled upon two doors that seemed to 
have  suddenly  appeared out of thin...er...darkness.  He  had  been  totally 
bewildered  at  this,  and for several hundreds of nanoseconds he  had  stood 
still in utter confusement.
 Both doors had been comfortably ajar.
 Last time he had left the Void of Utter Nonbeing,  it hadn't brought him  as 
much  joy and excitement as he had had the courage to expect.  The fact  that 
one  door  now had an inviting plaque labelled "Eternal Heaven"  whereas  the 
other had one labelled "Pandemoneum" had not really helped him to make up his 
mind either.  However,  assuming that the latter would be some kind of  Iraqi 
Restaurant where one could get some really good Kuwait Beef, he had pushed it 
wide open and had entered.

 There was a lot of fire, and he reckoned that might be the reason why he was 
sweating so vehemently.  Though,  of course, he didn't think this for long as 
the whole concept of 'thinking' had not been included in his training.
 In the sea of orange light and looming flames stretching out all around him, 
he  suddenly saw a desk in the distance,  slightly distorted in the hot  air. 
As  he  came closer,  he saw that is was made of delicate  sapient  jacaranda 
wood, and that is was craftfully carved with all kinds of evangelical scenes, 
mainly from the book of Revelations.  The desk was just as vigorously  aflame 
as the ground and surroundings it was located on and in.
 Behind it sat a demon,  idlily tracing an elaborate pentagram with a  black-
nailed finger. It looked at Cronos with a look of boredom in its eyes.
 "Incredilus odi (*)," it said.
 "Ille  crucem  sceleris  pretium tulit,  hic diadema  (**),"  it  continued, 
stretching its hands towards the sky.
 The mercenary annex hired gun would have liked to punish the demon for  what 
he sensed could be nothing other than an insult of the most abominable  kind. 
However,  he  could  barely  find  the  energy to let  out  a  mere  sigh  of 
frustration.
 "Si  monumentum requiris,  circumspice?  (***)" The demon asked with  raised 
eyebrows.
 Cronos sighed again, and let his shoulders hang in quite a beaten fashion.
 The  demon smirked to itself,  satisfied.  The black-nailed  finger  stopped 
tracing  the  pentagram.  Flames  licked the  finger,  but  it  seemed  quite 
impervious.
 "May I have your name, please, Sir?" it now inquired.
 Cronos was about to try and answer when the demon wrote something down on  a 
piece of burning paper.
 "And what, may I ask," it continued, "is your business here, Sir?"
 Warchild, tired though he might have been, intended to beat the demon either 
to  the  answer or to pulp.  The demon scribbled down something on  the  same 
piece of burning paper,  unperturbed. It would have to be the pulp. Insulted, 
no matter how tired he was,  every of Cronos' preciously few brain cells told 
him to undertake some action.  With  a tired,  almost automatic swoop of  his 
hand, he cut off the demon's head using one of his killer fingernails.
 The head rolled down over the coals,  crying "O tempora!  O mores!  O si sic 
omnia!  (****)" before it disappeared in the hot haze. The body sighed to the 
ground  noiselessly.  Though  the flames had not imperilled  it  before,  the 
demon's corpse was now consumed eagerly.
 Unfortunately,  this  action  had taken the very last bit of energy  out  of 
Cronos'  being.  Therefore  he entertained no serious hope at being  able  to 
manipulate  his fate when a thunderous voice yelled through the  fiery  abyss 
behind him, totally catching him off-guard.
 "SISTE, VIATOR!! (*****)"
 The *something* that had yelled this was terrifyingly huge. It had two horns 
on  the  top  of its head,  a long tail that swung to and  fro  in  a  rather 
frightening way, and stood on hooves.
 The Unnamed One Of Many Names. Cronos froze.
 "BEHOLD  ME,  MORTAL!  (******)"  the voice cried again.  The  sound  of  it 
seemed to tear the heat and the bellowing flames to shreds.  The echoes of it 
died  away  only  slowly  in the furnace-like  rage  of  fettered  fumes  and 
flickering fire.
 Cronos  turned  around  slowly,  as  if in  a  dream  he  couldn't  control, 
whispering, "Whattafu..."
 "SHUT THY ORAL CAVITY, MORTAL! GROVEL BEFORE ME!"
 Cronos  knelt.  He  felt  as if he was controlled by  something  outside  of 
himself. He crawled towards the terrifying shape without daring to look up.
 "MAY  I  HAVE YOUR NAME,  PLEASE?" it inquired as Cronos  finally  grovelled 
properly at its hooves, totally at its mercy.
 Warchild  could do nothing but obey.  All resistance within him was  numbed, 
had left his body utterly. There had been nothing he could do about it.
 He said his name. Upon hearing it, the shape took a step back.
 "J.  Warchild?...er...*Cronos* J.  Warchild?!" it asked.  All power suddenly 
seemed to have left its voice.  When Cronos gathered the courage to look  up, 
the shape looked a lot smaller. No longer did it have a tail, horns or hooves 
either.  He looked up at the sweaty, bloated face of a man, a lit cigar stuck 
between  trembling  lips.  He  wore a name tag on which the  name  of  a  big 
multinational was printed.
 "Oh,  oh,"  the man said.   He muttered it much in the same fashion  a  lion 
would  when  surrounded by a dozen wildebeests pointing Kalashnikovs  at  it. 
Then,  although  all  fire couldn't possibly have gone out at  that  instant, 
everything went black.

 When  Cronos  woke  up again,  he  felt  strangely  comfortable,  cool,  and 
satisfied.  Nonetheless,  everything was still dark around  him.  Everything, 
that is,  except for two doors above which plaques hung with "Eternal Heaven" 
and  "Pandemoneum"  engraved on them in large,  not  particularly  unfriendly 
letters.  He  entered  the door with the plaque "Eternal  Heaven"  above  it, 
suffering  from an inexplicable subconscious fright that entering  the  other 
door may start a perpetuum story.

 The smell that immediately entered his nose was that of beef.
 Several  people  with stubbly cheeks and checkered  dishcloths  tied  around 
their  heads  were carrying plates with or without food to  and  fro  various 
guests that sat around cosy tables with little burning oil lamps on them. The 
lamps  were  shaped like miniature oil wells,  something which  caused  quite 
some amusement among a few of the guests, apparently.
 The lights were dim,  but not too dim to disguise the distrust that appeared 
in a couple of waiters' eyes as they beheld Cronos standing in his  habitual, 
sortof  menacing  way  in the door opening.  They whispered  to  each  other, 
pointing at him.
 Cronos  didn't like being whispered about,  and he liked it even  less  when 
people  started pointing at him.  And it would be an understatement to  claim 
that  he absolutely *loathed* it when both of these acts were being  executed 
simultaneously  by  men  with stubbly cheeks and  checkered  dishcloths  tied 
around their heads.
 One of these suspicious characters now came towards Warchild and gave him  a 
contemplative look, suspiciously asking, "You from Kuwait?"
 "Wotzit too ya?" Cronos replied in a way he considered to display he was  in 
total control of the situation.  It was either the wrong way or the  stubbly-
cheeked  character  was  quite  a guy,  for it totally  failed  to  leave  an 
impression.  Instead  of  cowering  in  fright much in  the  way  Cronos  had 
expected, the man simply repeated his question.
 Cronos  couldn't  help feeling his supposed stranglehold  on  the  situation 
slipping from his grasp,  like eels in a bucket of nose excreta. He'd had the 
feeling before. Deja vu struck him like a subconscious sledgehammer. He found 
himself muttering unsurely.  Eventually,  evading the question,  he told  the 
waiter he wouldn't actually mind getting offered some food.  After all,  this 
was a Restaurant of sorts, wasn't it?
 Upon having registered this, but not without properly failing to lose any of 
the suspicion on his face,  the waiter turned around and walked away  slowly, 
to  return  after a while holding in his hands a menu Cronos  thought  looked 
like it was written in bloody Arab.

 Some  things only happen once in a lifetime,  such as sensations of  Utterly 
True Love, or the experience of drinking a Pangalactic Gargle Blaster. Cronos 
now went through something similar, for he was actually *right*.

 A  bit  unsure  of himself,  Warchild started to study  the  menu,  under  a 
perpetual  look  of  scrutiny from the man with the stubbly  cheeks  and  the 
checkered dishcloth tied around his head.
 "Abdul  Haddam  Sussein," Cronos proudly stated after a couple  of  moments, 
"*that* is what I'd like to have.  And quite rare,  if you don't mind. Unless 
it's sperm whale,  of course, which doesn't agree with me at all. *Anyway*, I 
trust it isn't."
 The scrutinous look on the man's face transformed itself, quite inexplicably 
so it seemed,  into one of anger. Slowly, the man pointed to a badge fixed to 
his own shirt. There was a name on it.
 "A.H. Sussein," Cronos read out loud, "well, *that* is a funny coincidence!"
 A fist quickly zoomed in. Someone lost consciousness, just prior to thinking 
the sperm whales were flying low this time of year.

(*)       I hate and disbelieve
(**)      That man got a cross, this man a crown, as the price of 
          his crime
(***)     If you seek (his) monument, look round you
(****)    O  the times!  O the manners!  Oh that he had done  all 
          things thus!
(*****)   Stop, traveller!
(******)  Behold me, mortal!

 Originally written summer 1990 (which was quite hot and had the Gulf War  in 
it).  Later  published  in  slightly altered form  in  "Quill",  the  Utrecht 
University English Faculty magazine, July 1992. Last rehashes October 1994.


= NITRO =====================================================================
 by Stefan Posthuma and Richard Karsmakers


 This  story  was written while intoxicated and has  some  scenes  describing 
eroticism. It was inspired somewhat by the film ("movie" to all you Americans 
out there) "Wild at Heart",  and basically goes to show that art and  alcohol 
don't mix.

 "Aaaaaarrrggghhhhh."
 Oh my God, that alcohol went down very smoothly.
 The  hooligan made a mock attempt to throw away the bottle,  kindof  how  he 
would expect girls to like it.
 Lula thought he performed this act in a way that, to her, looked ravishingly 
exciting in a weird way.  She rubbed his crotch and whispered something horny 
into his ear.
 "Oh yeah, oh yeah," the hooligan (who happened to be named Sailor) moaned as 
he gave her neck a wet kiss.
 "Ya  know,  Lula," Sailor bragged,  "I nicked this car especially  for  you. 
'Cause I...you know..."
 She sighed into his ear,  slightly moistening his anvil.  Two erect thingies 
could be seen under her tight blouse.

 Surgeon General Interrupt:  No you're not going to do this.  You can't. This 
is the most utter trash conceivable. How much did you guys drink?
 Writers: Not much, yet, but we're getting to the one litre mark.
 Surgeon General (continues):  Oops.  Then I guess I'd better call out a  'no 
holds  barred'  warning  for everybody who's  into  virginity,  prudence  and 
chastity.
 Writers  (nodding their heads,  breath a-reeking):  Yeah.  That would  be  a 
*good* idea.

 "You look, like, fingerlickin' horny, Lula," Sailor continued breathily, now 
on his turn moistening her anvil - and more.
 "Uuuhhh...," Lula hesitated.
 "What is it baby?" Sailor softly rasped.
 "Do you realise that this is read by innocent 'Twilight World' readers?"
 Sailor seemed to mull that over for a few seconds.
 "Yeah,  he muttered disinterestedly, "f@*k 'em." It came out matter-of-fact, 
the way natural-born killers swear, carrying with it triviality.
 "But  do  you also realise that we are at this moment doing 110  on  a  busy 
highway?" Lula sighed, repressing a surge of panic.
 The  erect thingies slowly dissapeared and she suddenly thought the  way  in 
which  Sailor  had  handled the bottle wasn't half as  exciting  as  she  had 
previously reckoned.
 "Come on, I just want to...you know," Sailor stammered.
 He was losing his patience a bit.  Why didn't girls instantly and  blatantly 
succumb to his most primitive of baser needs?
 "You know what daddy always says," Lula added shily.
 "I wanna go all the way tonight," Sailor confided in her.
 "Will you love me forever?" Lula wanted to know.
 Sailor thought. The sentence "Let me sleep on it" somehow wanted to be said, 
but he didn't know why so didn't.
 "Will you buy me a dog?" she continued.
 "Oh,  shit  no.  Not  a  dog," he spat,  mouth feeling  as  if  filled  with 
metaphorical bile, "the only good dog is a hot dog, you know that."
 Sailor's  thingy  was now also getting pretty limp.  He saw a  drive-in  and 
parked the car there. They were playing "Gone with the Wind".
 The  car next to them was making rhythmic motions,  and it wasn't  the  wind 
that was moving it.
 "Look at them," Sailor tried, "*they* are having fun..."
 Lula didn't even look him in the eyes. "Not until we're engaged."
 Sailor thought.  It was beginning to be a habit. His next date would have to 
be less intellectually stimulating. Definitely.
 "I  suppose  slipping a cheap Pepsi Cola pulling ring on your  finger  won't 
help?"  Sailor  wondered.  Another  line  that seemed  to  want  to  be  said 
automatically, which this time he did.
 She looked away from him,  insulted. She found herself studying the rhythmic 
moving  of  the car next to them rather more intensely  than  was  considered 
proper etiquette.  Embarrassed, she looked away. She found herself looking at 
two ants doing something on the ground.
 "Aaaaaarrgghhhh..."
 That alcohol surely went down smoothly again.
 "D'ya know,  Sailor," Lula said,  "that alcohol is known to decrease a man's 
capabilities during, well, *the act*?"
 "Dunno," Sailor remarked absent-mindedly,  as if the question had been asked 
-  and the statement proven wrong - many times before  already,  "Don'  care, 
really. Doesn' put me down."
 "Well, that's what they say on 'Physician TV', anyway," she continued.
 Their  foreplay (or whatever you'd like to call it,  for it probably  isn't, 
not  even  by  male chauvinist standards) was brutally  interrupted  by  some 
rampant beating on their car.
 They  both  looked  up  rather  startled.  They  saw  a  granny,  repeatedly 
connecting  her umbrella to the hood with as much force as she  could  muster 
with her frail, geriatric body.
 "Say,  you young rascals," she started to croak with a voice that sounded as 
if it needed some oiling by a three-hour session of fellatio,  "are you fully 
aware of the fact that your immoral behaviour can be observed and studied  by 
at least twenty-three honourable citizens of the State of Mississippi?"
 Twenty-three honourable citizens of the State of Mississippi,  zipping their 
zippers:  "Shut  up,  you old fart!  F*@k off!  We want to see  some  serious 
porking here!"

 Surgeon General Interrupt:  Dit is hartstikke banaal,  man!  Dat kan je niet 
maken!
 Writers: English, please.
 Surgeon General: This is completely vulgar, man! You can't do this!
 Writers: Try us.
 Surgeon General:  Oh my sweet heaven.  Help me in this brave battle  against 
orgasmic orgies of putrified pornographics!  It seems even old  Mrs.  Tripper 
Gore can't turn the tide!
 Heaven: Shut up, you old fart! Buzz off! We want to see some serious porking 
here!
 Surgeon  General:  Well...er...I wouldn't mind seeing some myself,  but  you 
can't  really  admit that in public,  can you?  It  wouldn't  be  politically 
correct.
 Heaven: Sure you can. You have our blessing. You're no politician, are you?
 Surgeon General: OK Sailor! Go for it man! Pork the bitch!

 "Do you hear that,  Sailor?" Lula whispered in a very low voice.  She wasn't 
sure  if she had actually heard something or not.  Perhaps it had been  tele-
something.   Kinesis?  Pathic?  Vision?  Well,  she  didn't  know.  Something 
preternatural, anyway.
 Mysteriously, the two erect thingies appeared again.
 "Sure  I  did," Sailor said,  his eyes reading her body like the  expert  he 
liked to think he was. A confident grin wrenched his lips.
 "Ooooh, Sailor..."

 Written December 1991, rehashed October 1994.


= LETHAL XCESS ==============================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 Thanks to my ex-girlfriend, Miranda, who deserves credit for the basic idea. 
I will always remember you fondly.


 Hell is a pretty rotten place.  Not only is it damn hot, but its inhabitants 
also have a rather deranged sense of humour. Reason enough to try and get out 
of it,  but that tends to be so hard that nobody succeeds and everybody would 
rather  adapt  himself  to the exotic temperature and  odd  sense  of  humour 
instead.
 But not John Doe, full-time filantropist and part time science fiction games 
designer.  Not *the* John Doe,  the person that had never killed but a fly in 
his entire life, the person that had donated such ludicrously huge amounts of 
money  to orphans,  dying little African children and AIDS research that  his 
heirs had threatened to sue him.
 Not John Doe!
 Due to a devilish trick of fate,  however,  some nutcase had put a 9 mm slug 
between his eyes.  Just like that,  one happy spring morning on the corner of 
11th  and  Wall Street - speaking of 'being at the wrong place at  the  wrong 
time'!  While his spirit left his body,  gently bobbing above the remains, he 
saw  the  gun-wielding  hooligan stealing his  money,  fake  gold  Rolex  and 
- genuine - Nike Airs.
 This would all have been perfectly alright had he taken the right turn after 
cloud  nine.  Unfortunately,  he hadn't.  Whereas he should have  followed  a 
traffic  sign labelled "Heavenly Bliss and lots of Groovy Peace"  he  absent-
mindedly  walked into the direction leading to "Eternal  Hellfire,  Damnation 
and Utter Pandemoneum". Death doesn't happen to you every day,  at least  not 
too often.  Once you've met the Skinny One with the Big Razor on a Stick, you 
tend to spend some time idlily wondering, deep in thought.
 Wrong thing to do.
 The  first  thing John Doe had considered odd was  the  guardian's  costume. 
Wheras he had expected kind of a light robe and a long beard he saw instead a 
black goatee, two little horns and a distinctly red complexion.
 "Excuse me,  sir," John ventured, feeling ill at ease, "would you be so kind 
as to announce my arrival at these here Gates of Heaven?  I'm Doe.  John Doe. 
Johnny  to  my  friends.  Filantropist and part time  science  fiction  games 
designer."
 The  demon (for,  as you could have guessed already,  it was none less  than 
one) stifled a chuckle, frowned, and casually played with his laser gun.
 "Sure," it said, "just go right ahead. Turn left behind the seventh gate."

 Mr Doe was surprised to discover he had unintentionally wandered into  Hell, 
which  he  only found out after having passed through  the  seventh  gate,  a 
demonic laughter echoing through the archway of gates far behind him.  And it 
was too late.
 "There  is  no way back now,  chum," a voice said.  It  sounded  artificial, 
collected,  totally in control, much in the way he recalled having heard once 
in a film where a computer had raped a woman to create progenity.
 John swirled around to find himself looking directly into the metallic  eyes 
of a big red robot.  It hadn't been there a few seconds ago.  Its moving bits 
seemed properly oiled for it to be able to move thus soundlessly,  a  strange 
thought  to  go  through the mind of someone who  had  just  entered  Eternal 
Damnation.
 It is a common misconception that Satan looks like a goat that has eaten too 
much  lobster.  It's  just a lack of imagination on the part of  writers  and 
artists  of old alike,  quite on the contrary to their thinking up the  whole 
biblical storyline in the place.  As a matter of fact, He Of A Thousand Names 
looks  like a big red robot with smoke coming from his nostrils and  a  large 
Howitzer laser built into his right arm.  Had the "Robocop" films been  known 
in Times Long Gone, some artist might actually have thought of it.
 John sensed that this had to be the purest kind of evil he would ever meet.
 "No...no way back?" he asked,  having trouble to get rid of that frog in his 
throat.
 Beelzebub nodded in meaningful silence.
 "Unless  you want to fight the creatures from your own Hell," the  Evil  One 
said, making grotesque gestures with his arms, "Monstrous beings contrived by 
nothing  less than your own imagination.  Hideous creatures that spill  forth 
death and destruction.  Vile machines driven by your own fantasy,  impossible 
to  beat.  Evil  aberrations  from  the  depths  of  your  worst  fear-ridden 
nightmares."
 John trembled.  A chair appeared from nothing,  allowing him to sit down. He 
did.
 "W...will I...I...h...have to beat all those?" he stuttered.
 Astaroth folded his arms, nodding with his eyes closed. There was a smugness 
on the Nameless One's face,  a smugness John would have liked to swipe off if 
only he would have been his usual, confident self.
 "But...but...I h...haven't even killed a *fly* in my life, you know, and now 
I h...have to fight my way through all those...those dismal monstrosities?"
 "Those," Azazel replied euphemistically, "and probably a jolly lot more."
 It  was  then that Mr Doe decided to change his  life  (well,  his  *death*, 
actually).  Gone were the days of peace and quiet.  He would get out of  this 
self-styled hell if it was going to be the last thing he'd ever do!
 Er?

 Original written July 29th 1991. Rehashed October 1994.


= LLAMATRON =================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 "I was slowly suffocating.  I could barely see a glimpse of light above  me, 
way out of reach.  All I could see were strange items crashing down on me, as 
if  desperately wanting to prevent me from as much as *thinking* of  reaching 
out to that light - the light I treasured and adored,  the light I needed  to 
be able to hold on to life itself.
 Yet  I sank deeper and deeper,  until I thought my ears would burst  and  my 
mind would implode.  Vague memories I recalled, but they could not soften the 
feelings of suffocation and potential death that were threatening my being.
 I tried to breathe but it only filled my lungs,  yes,  my entire being, with 
the  items  that leapt down at me.  I saw the glimpse  of  light  decreasing, 
fading like a candle precariously placed in a draught.  It slowly disappeared 
until there was barely anything discernible.
 Thinking back of the beautiful things in my life,  I let myself sink deeper. 
My lungs burst.  My mind shrank.  Julia. Heavy Metal Music. Super Gridrunner. 
Lemmings...
 None  of  it  would remain where I was to go.  None of it.  I  wept  at  the 
thought,  writhing in grief, but the tears were beaten away by the items that 
kept  on  crashing down on my acheing body,  reducing my heart  and  soul  to 
slush.
 How I had loved life, but it would never be the same again... I felt my life 
force flow away, drained into the vortex below me.
 I spitted.  I even tried to vomit.  But there was no stopping the continuous 
stream down my throat, into my lungs, through my very pores.
 "Indiana  Jones  -  The Adventure Game," I  read  aloud  whilst  swallowing, 
"Ghostbusters!"
 A  thousand  licensed titles dug into my flesh,  straining to kill  my  last 
attempt at resistance.
 I looked around and saw Men In Suits.  Horrible suits, pressed meticulously. 
And ties, of course. Ties.
 They would probably drag my lifeless corpse away soon, smug smiles plastered 
across their faces.
 "NOOOO!!" I cried with all strength I had left.
 Nobody heard me except for the Men In Suits.  They did not heed my desperate 
calls, already started to smile.
 Then,  "Super Monaco Grand Prix" hit me straight straight through the heart. 
A U.S.  Gold marketing director stifled a chuckle. I saw all colours and none 
for  a brief instant,  then I felt myself fade away as CD-ROM-based  Turtles, 
great swathes of cheaply digitized sound and graphics, washed over me..."

 Gene closed the book and put down his quill when hearing quick steps on  the 
stairs,  suddenly opening his senses to the sound of children playing in  the 
street before the apartment building.
 Instinctively, he sensed the person climbing those stairs would...
 A soft knocking, a specific sequence, on the door.
 Julia.
 He  tried  to  walk past the Screen to the door  as  casually  as  possible, 
probably  betraying  more than he would have had he dashed  for  it.  It  was 
indeed Julia.
 "I  told  you never to see me here," he whispered,  "the Thought  Police  is 
always alert, you know that."
 She  glanced  back  over her shoulder,  as if she  expected  someone  there. 
Hurriedly, she closed the door behind her.
 "Julia..."
 "Be still, Gene" she said, "I had the Screen turned off."
 "How..."
 "Doesn't  matter,"  she  replied,  "it  just  is.  I  know  someone  at  the 
Department."
 He seemed to relax, but knotted muscles still betrayed a sense of awareness. 
He felt odd.  Why was she here?  Why hadn't she waited 'til the evening, when 
meeting him in the park would be much safer?  And had she slept with  someone 
at  the department to get the screen  switched  off?  Uncertainty.  Jealousy. 
Doubt. Fear.
 It appeared as if she had read his mind, at least partly.
 "I  can't  be in the park tonight,  and neither can you,"  she  checked  the 
screen  to  see if it was really switched off,  then  continued,  "there's  a 
Meeting this evening. At Jonathan's."
 Eager fires sparkled in Gene's eyes. "A Meeting? Tonight?"
 She  nodded.  The  sound  of the children playing  outside  had  ceased.  He 
suddenly became aware of that.  She heard it, too. He ran towards the window, 
carefully parting the curtains slightly to allow him to cast a glimpse on the 
street below.
 Together  with the increasing sound of marching feet,  he saw a Squadron  of 
uniformed men come around the street corner. The sound of their boots sounded 
threatening  on the cobbles,  which were still wet with the  early  morning's 
drizzle.
 He hurriedly closed the curtains again.
 "Thought Police!" he rasped, "Were you tailed?"
 She  shook  her head,  but it was obvious she couldn't be  completely  sure. 
"Maybe it's not us they want," she said, "maybe it's someone else..."
 Poor souls.
 "Silent,"  he interrupted her,  daring another look through a  tiny  opening 
between the curtains.
 He looked intently at the scene that was developing in the street.
 One  of  the Thought Police officers had halted in front of a house  on  the 
other side of the street.
 "You're right," he said, sighing in mute relief, "it's not us."
 Poor bastards anyway.
 He opened the curtains wide. She came to stand next to him.
 "It's the...Tails...Tolers...whatever they are called," she observed with  a 
voice of incredulity, "who would have thought they..."
 "Who would think it of *us*?" he put bluntly.
 The Thought Police had forced the door open now,  and entered the  house.  A 
shot could be heard.  After a while,  an officer came out with three children 
and a woman, weeping. Another carried a box.
 "Illegal computer games," Julia whispered.
 Gene nodded slowly.
 At  that  moment,  a black car with sirens and flashlights came  around  the 
corner,  stopping  precisely  in front of the house where  the  officers  now 
stood, holding the woman and her three children.
 Out of the car came a man.  He wore a tweed suit and tie,  casually glancing 
around  through top fashion glasses.  Around his wrist was a gold  watch.  He 
held a cane.
 The officers jumped in line, saluted enthusiastically, almost with religious 
zeal.
 "A Man In A Suit," Gene gasped.
 They  could  see the man inspect the box with games.  He took out  a  random 
floppy disk,  tossed it back after a quick inspection.  After signalling  the 
box to be loaded into the trunk of his car,  he turned his attention to  what 
seemed to be the youngest of the three children.  A little boy,  probably not 
yet 10 years of age.
 A wry smile wrung his lips.
 He  made  a casual remark to the woman,  who now started to weep  even  more 
hopelessly,  seeming to beg the man for mercy.  She tried to release  herself 
from the iron grip of the Thought Police officer.  With a quick move, the Man 
In A Suit hit her across the face with the cane. His face didn't even as much 
as flinch. No joy, no pain, nothing. Void of expression, like a machine.
 Blood appeared from a gash across the woman's cheek. She stopped sobbing and 
looked at the man with eyes wide open in fear mingled with disgust.
 The man put his gloved hand on the thin hair of the boy,  stroking it as  if 
reassuring the child, soothing it in some way. Another Thought Police officer 
now emerged from the house carrying a computer system. Upon a sign of the Man 
In A Suit this, too, disappeared in the trunk of the car.
 The  man asked something of one of the Thought Police  agents,  after  which 
this officer gave him a gun.
 The Man In A Suit toyed a bit with the gun,  as if wondering what to do with 
it. He spoke to the woman. She began to weep again, desperately struggling to 
get free. There was no escaping the iron grip.
 The  man  put the gun on the little boy's forehead and pulled  the  trigger. 
Blood came out on the other side in a small dark red fountain.
 Gene  promptly  closed  the  curtains.   Julia  looked  shocked.   The  shot 
reverberated through their minds.
 A  sound could be heard of a car door slamming shut and a car  leaving.  The 
siren,  that  had wailed incessantly during the whole procedure,  was  turned 
off.  The  sound of disciplined marching feet growing distant indicated  that 
the Thought Police, too, was leaving.
 "You'd   better  call  the  Department  and  tell  'em  the   Screen's   not 
functioning," she said, "otherwise they may get suspicious."
 She hurriedly kissed him, opened the door and left.
 Gene sighed deeply,  suppressing an urge to look outside again.  He went  to 
sit down in the one corner of his room that could not be seen by the  Screen, 
picked up his quill and opened the book.
 "October 13th 2004," he read aloud as he wrote down the words.

 It was past eight that evening when he retrieved his coat.
 The  Screen  was  working  again,  and spilled forth  the  usual  amount  of 
propaganda,  soaps  and  somewhat more subtle advertisements.  He  knew  that 
*someone*,  *somewhere*,  was  watching him.  An eerie feeling of  discomfort 
crept upon him at this realisation. He still hadn't quite grown used to it.
 It  seemed to him as if this afternoon had never really  happened.  The  air 
conditioning had made the scent of Julia's perfume vanish quickly,  and apart 
from  a patch of congealed blood and thin hair on the pavement on  the  other 
side of the street nothing indicated that the Thought Police had ever struck. 
It always happened that way.  Eventually the rain would increase and wash  it 
all  away,  like  most people's memories of events similar  like  these  that 
happened all the time,  everywhere,  because man has in himself a  compelling 
desire to disobey.
 But Gene could not banish the vision of the Man In A Suit holding the gun to 
the little boy's forehead,  the sudden sound of the shot that had mercilessly 
hurled  the  lifeless body to the ground - every detail of  sight  and  sound 
seemed impaled on his senses. The fountain of blood, the glazed eyes enlarged 
thousandfold, the "thud" of the body on the pavement.
 He shook his head,  hoping that would make it vanish.  It didn't. Damn them! 
Had all good sense abandoned humanity?
 He  put up his collar,  opened the door and left.  The wind  was  remarkably 
chilly.  It tore at his coat,  as if trying to make sure he would notice  it. 
The  street  lights threw a  disembodied,  eldritch  light,  emphasising  the 
dreariness of the slow rain that had started about half an hour ago.
 The dark patch would probably no longer be there when he would return  later 
that evening.  He hoped the horrible memories would have similarly  vanished. 
Idle hopes,  and he knew it.  The stuff clung to you, ate you from the inside 
of your soul.
 He  stayed  close to the buildings,  melting into the shadows each  time  he 
heard  faint steps of other people in the streets.  There was no curfew  yet, 
but there was a substantial chance of being arrested after dark - the Thought 
Police  consisted mostly of men that'd rather shoot first and  ask  questions 
later (if at all). And, of course, Gene would rather not be leading strangers 
to one of the Meetings.

 Jonathan's.
 About  three  dozen people were huddled together in a cellar  under  a  19th 
century  house.  It was rumoured that the owner of the house was one  of  the 
Department  people,  one  of the few who did not believe in  the  System  and 
instead sought to battle it slowly from the inside. Some rumours even went as 
far as stating that he was one of the top System people, but nobody knew that 
for certain.  He was never present on any of the Meetings. Nobody was certain 
even if the place was actually his. Probably not.
 Jonathan's  had  become  a  popular place  of  saviour  for  original  games 
programmers  ever since the Men In Suits had taken over full global  economic 
power,  instituting  a  law against the production and  use  of  non-licensed 
products.  People  that  had been living software industry  legends  in  Pre-
Licensed times led the life of renegades and outlaws. These Meetings were the 
only  occasions  when they could be like their former  selves  again,  albeit 
partly.
 A hushed silence had passed over the people gathered in the cellar when Gene 
related  what  had happened that afternoon opposite the  appartment  building 
where he lived.
 "Pigs," someone said, "they're pigs. Pigs in fancy clothing!"
 Everyone agreed.
 Most  of  the people here were men like Gene himself -  young,  refusing  to 
submit  to the absurd laws inflicted by these ruthless Men In  Suits;  people 
who refused to believe that the only viable products were licensed  products, 
people who spitted on the names of "Ghostbusters",  "Back to the Future"  and 
"Moonwalker". They had all liked the films, but the games inflicted upon them 
by  the Men In Suits were of a quality only liked by mothers doing  Christmas 
shopping - and their children, who apparently didn't know better and probably 
never would.
 A new load of Originalist games had arrived today,  and there was even a new 
computer  system with them.  These soon got all attention as there were  some 
really good ones among them,  including a cult game including  llamas,  yaks, 
sheep, and an Ancipital.
 The  system  was installed,  and Gene watched as someone started  playing  a 
rather nice shoot-'em-up game where you had to collect various animals  while 
shooting all kinds of other objects.
 The kid handling the joystick was surely very talented, and when he had lost 
all his lives,  after half an hour's playing, he was already allowed to enter 
his name in the hiscore table.
 He  was at the top,  having forced the name of the previous hiscore  holder, 
one "Stu Taylor", down by one entry.
 "Wait!"  Gene  gasped,  feeling  a sudden sense of  despair  arise  in  him, 
"Taylor! You see that name? Stu Taylor!"
 The whole hiscore list was filled with Taylors. It had been the Taylors that 
had been struck by the Thought Police that afternoon. Not the Tails or Tolers 
or  something.  Suddenly the name shot home,  its implications weakening  his 
knees.
 This  system  had  been theirs.  The games had been  theirs.  All  had  been 
confiscated  that  very afternoon by the Man In A Suit that  had  mercilessly 
killed that little boy. Then certainly there could be only one explanation...
 Jonathan!
 Had Julia arrived already?
 There was a sudden noise. Sounds of panic. Frantic movement. The lights were 
smashed, plunging the room in total darkness. There were cries. Some shots. A 
sudden,  searing  hot pain in his left shoulder as something hot entered  and 
refused to leave.
 Then everything went black.

 The depth increased.
 The blackness around him whirled ever downward,  and the light that  reached 
him  from the little bright spot far above him grew less even as he  watched. 
Already it was like the point of a needle.  His eyes could not even  convince 
him that what he was seeing was not just a figment of his imagination.
 His skin was bruised by the impact of many dark things crashing down with an 
ever increasing vehemence.
 He tried to cry,  to grasp out towards that spot of light,  real or not.  It 
was as if he felt the rays of light release him, like a rope breaking, a film 
hero hanging on it.  And this time he knew there was nothing to save him  for 
falling endlessly. There would be no rescuing ledge. There would be no strong 
arm of another hero snatching him away from certain death.
 He was beginning to lose his senses. Already, the light seemed to be getting 
more intense, coming towards him rapidly although he still knew himself to be 
falling.
 There was no mistake now.  The light seemed to come nearer - up to the point 
where his eyes hurt of their brightness even though he had closed them.
 Saviour?

 Gene opened his eyes, suddenly aware of a pain in his left shoulder. He felt 
with numb fingers, discovering a band-aid wrapped around it.
 Bits and pieces came back to mind.  The shots.  The hiscore table. The sight 
of a Men In A Suit shooting an innocent child.
 Jonathan!
 His head hurt, too. He must have dropped down on something after he got what 
he reckoned was a shot wound in the shoulder. There was a bump on the side of 
his head.
 He looked around to take in his surroundings. There was no mistake about it. 
He was in a prison cell. A Thought Police prison cell.
 He had always imagined these cells to be dark and damp.  He had thought they 
would be made of filthy concrete,  dark grey with Originalist slogans written 
all over them - some of them written in congealed blood, perhaps.
 Reality struck him almost like a physical blow.
 The  cell was entirely white,  and seemed to be made of  plastic.  No  spots 
anywhere,  and no writings either. The corners could barely be seen as it was 
all perfectly white and well lit by a lamp that allowed no visible shadow. No 
shadow,  that  is,  except  for that of his own body that was  lying  on  the 
ground. He felt like a shadow himself. Feeble. Weak. Helpless.
 His  clothes,  so he noticed,  had been changed too.  He was dressed all  in 
black.  Except for his face and hands there was no patch of skin visible. The 
blackness of his clothing was complete. It seemed to be able to suck up every 
particle  of light cast at it,  much in the way everything else in  the  cell 
seemed  to radiate it.  Was this some kind of way to make him feel  safe,  or 
saved?
 One of the walls turned out to have a door in it.  It was not until  someone 
opened it that he actually discovered.
 The person was dressed in white entirely. Even the visible skin on hands and 
face seemed to be preternaturally pale.  He could see by the form of the body 
under  the tight white suit that it was a woman.  She beheld him  wordlessly, 
oppressing  him  into a mute silence merely by the way she looked at  him  in 
utter  disgust and haughtiness.  She seemed to examine  him,  watching  every 
square inch of his body,  every line on his face, the outline of his genitals 
in the tightness.
 The invisible spell by which she had seemed to bind him to silence  suddenly 
broke.  By the time he found out he had the capacity of speech,  however, she 
had  already turned around and left,  carefully closing the cell door  behind 
her.
 A panel in one of the other walls suddenly opened.  Behind it was a  Screen. 
It displayed a message.
 "People don't want to be saved."
 Simple, plain, without the unnecessary exclamation mark.
 Gene had heard of the terrible things that were supposed to happen to people 
caught by the Thought Police.  He had never really believed them,  but  after 
what he had seen this afternoon...
 This afternoon?
 How long had he been unconscious? It could have been...
 A new message was displayed on the Screen.
 "It is October 15th 2004."
 Some  basic  arithmetics told him he had been out for two  days.  Two  days! 
Would Julia know? Perhaps she...
 The  Screen now displayed someone in a prison cell.  The cell  was  entirely 
white,  and the prisoner was dressed entirely in the same colour as well.  As 
the  camera zoomed in on the person,  he saw it was a female.  A girl in  her 
late twenties.
 Julia!
 "Bastards!  Bastards!" Gene shouted at the top of his voice.  He started  to 
get up,  to hit the Screen or find something to hurl at it,  hurl himself  at 
it. A sharp ache in his shoulder reminded him he'd better not. His knees gave 
way, causing him to sink back to the floor, moaning in pain.
 "Bastards..." he muttered under his breath, looking up to see the picture of 
Julia in her cell replaced by another message.
 "People are happy."
 *What are they trying to do to me?*
 The answer to his question was almost biblical.
 "We want to make you see the error of your ways."
 Now  Gene  remembered.   He  had  heard  stories  of  fanatic   Originalists 
disappearing,  only to reappear after some weeks as if nothing had happened - 
with  the only difference that they were now Licensists.  The Department  had 
its methods to change people's minds.  Even if it took weeks or months,  they 
would  succeed.  Either  that,  or the victim would turn out insane -  to  be 
disposed of accordingly.
 *Death or Licensism. A brute choice* he thought ruefully.
 The Screen's answer was prompt.
 "Death or Licensism. Your choice."
 *Damn it! This screen can read everything in my mind!*
 "Death or Licensism. Your choice."
 The machine didn't even bother to react to Gene's thought.  Why react to the 
obvious?
 "I'd  rather  be dead than be submitted to that which you  call  Licensism!" 
Gene shouted.
 Swiftly, the Screen displayed another message.
 "As you wish."
 Only  some moments passed,  after which he heard someone unlock the door  to 
his cell.  A woman dressed in white came in.  Another nurse. In her hands she 
held a small tray on which some small bottles were located.  Her hair  looked 
familiar. And those eyes looked like...
 "Julia!" he exclaimed.
 "Gene,"  she  replied.   Her  voice  and  expression  betrayed  no   emotion 
whatsoever. Void of anything, like a machine.
 "What have they done to you?" he asked, "Why..."
 He  felt  the  power of speech give way in mid-sentence as  she  looked  him 
straight  in  the eyes,  binding him to silence by the same spell  the  other 
nurse had used.
 "We have done nothing to her," the Screen read.
 Gene's eyes spoke to her of fear and infinite sadness,  but she had  already 
transferred  her gaze to the bottles - and a syringe that she  carefully  and 
meticulously  started to fill with various quantities of the  various  fluids 
present in those little bottles.
 He  saw her prepare his death.  He found he didn't have the power  to  move. 
Betrayed by his friends. Betrayed by the woman he had lived to love. *Killed* 
by the woman he had lived to love.  They certainly knew how to make your last 
moments wretched.
 He  looked around,  knowing he would not have much time left to  do  so.  He 
strained to keep his eyes away from Julia,  causing his eyes to focus on  the 
Screen. There was another message there.
 "What a cruel fate. Better than Licensism?"
 *Yes!* he thought, *Yes!*
 But he felt his heart give way within him.  He himself doubted the certainty 
he had tried to assert with that thought.
 The Screen's analysis was quick and harsh.
 "Sure."
 Was  his  life worth spending for The Cause?  Was he maybe the last  of  the 
Originalists left? Was it worth dying an unknown martyrdom?
 The  Screen  still had the same message.  Mute,  but  overpowering  all  his 
senses.
 "Sure."
 He  thought back of some of the games he had played.  Had not  the  original 
games  been so much more fun than the licensed one?  Had he not  played  many 
original  games *much* longer than any licensed  material,  those  quick-cash 
jobs?
 *Indeed  I  have!*  He  could feel a new  inner  strength,  fuelled  by  the 
experience  of having played original games.  He knew it was worth dying  for 
the Originalist Cause. And after him there would always be more Originalists.
 Good games get played anyway.
 He saw the syringe's needle sink in his arm, barely depressing the skin, but 
didn't as much as flinch.  Death would embrace him - a far better alternative 
than Licensism.
 Julia removed the needle after injecting all the fluid in his veins. Without 
a word, she turned on her heels.
 Gene's last words were nothing more than a whisper,  barely audible even  to 
himself: "I have always loved you, Julia."
 She didn't look back,  oblivious to the pitiful dying man in the cellar. She 
closed the door behind her, not bothering to lock it.
 The Screen went black.
 For Gene, too, everything went black. For the final time.

 He  had to strain his eyes in order to see the vague spot of light  now,  so 
far  away and above him now that it seemed nothing more than a  minute  star, 
billions of billions of light years away.  No matter how big the sun might be 
that formed that star,  to him it was minute and it had no power to warm him, 
nor the power to shed any light on him.
 Pictures flashed by him.  He could see a ghost holding up his fingers in the 
form of a "V",  just before it was torn away by a Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle, 
which was in its turn obscured from his view by a giant "Moonwalker" logo.
 He closed his eyes, finally at peace.
 A llama beckoned him.

 Originally written May 1991. Rehashed and extended somewhat October 1994.


= SUPER HANGON ==============================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 "This is patient number 20.18.5.1., Karsmakers, Richard C."
 The voice sounded distant and echoed slightly off the frating green  through 
a  cold  and sterile corridor of the Sanitarium for the  Very  Very  Mentally 
Instable.
 "What's his Q?" another voice inquired.
 "Computer Junk grade A+.  A very heavy case.  Seems to think he's a  Boolean 
variable about to get a value of eleven."
 "I see," nodded the other again.
 "Totally hopeless.  Not to be released at any time, not even to be taken out 
of his straitjacket. No visitors allowed, either."
 The other made some notes in a small booklet, which was afterwards carefully 
replaced in a pocket.
 "No!" they heard the voice of patient number 20.18.5.1 cry out,  "No!  I  am 
not allowed to get a value of eleven!  Please help me,  *anyone*, help me! My 
CPU is pushing an interrupt driven unit at my memory cells...it has too  high 
a priority..."
 The  men standing outside the room looked thoughtfully at one  another.  One 
of them,  the one that hadn't been making notes,  opened a small hatch in the 
reinforced tungsten carbide door to allow them to peep in.
 The  patient had assumed a motorcyclist's posture now and was making  noises 
that were supposed to imitate a sexy engine.
 "Look,  Dr Hetfield," the man said, stepping aside to give his colleague the 
opportunity to watch.
 "Vroom.  Vroom.  Skreeeeeeech!!" the patient uttered while his body was  now 
slowly  tilting as if going through  a  curve,  "vrooo...?!..eeeeeeee...Bang! 
Crash! Smash!"
 Patient  20.18.5.1's  body  fell  to  the  floor  limply,  suggesting  heavy 
mutilation and spontaneous partial amputation of several of his  limbs.  Some 
seconds later,  however, he sat upright again and continued driving at, so it 
seemed, an awesome speed.
 "He's  suffering a chronic motorcyclist's syndrome.  It usually comes  right 
after the Boolean variable thing, and is in its turn usually followed by..."
 The man was interrupted by screams of fear and dread from inside the  padded 
cell.
 "Aaaaarrrgghhh!  Let  me out of here!  You shouldn't have let me in  at  the 
first place...even my base page is of much too big a size for a ZX 80!"
 "...his  claustrophobic  'out  of  memory'  syndrome,"  continued  the  man, 
fumbling in one of his pockets.
 "Tsssk,  tsssk, dear colleague," was about the only reaction the other could 
produce. "I suppose that's the main problem with those Computer Addicts going 
Cold Turkey."
 They both nodded.
 "Especially the grade A+ ones."
 "How did he get so far, Dr Hamilton?" Dr Hetfield asked in sympathy.
 "His parents bought him a computer at the age of 17," Hamilton explained,  " 
which made him rotten to the core. They shouldn't have allowed him to buy his 
last computer though,  one of those incredible Quark Hyperdrive  things.  Got 
one  at home too.  He sooner or later *had* to run into a game that  absurdly 
addictive."
 "Which game?" Hetfield asked.
 "I think it's called 'Super Hangon'," Hamilton replied, absent-mindely.
 Hetfield's eyes opened wide.
 "You're not suggesting..."
 "Oh yes, dear colleague, oh, yes."
 "Er...I  have that one at home myself,  too," Dr  Hetfield  said,  trembling 
slightly, "Let my kids play with it all the time! Even play it myself now and 
again. Seems quite harmless."
 "Mine likewise.  Me likewise.  Even my wife likewise," said Dr  Hamilton,  a 
hint of sadness in his voice.
 "Shoot,"  Dr Hetfield muttered,  apparently in thought,  "Never realised  it 
could have such devastating consequences."
 There was a silence as deafening as it could be. Inside the padded cell, the 
patient  was having his "Output Device Not Present  Error"-syndrome,  sitting 
sedately in a corner,  waiting for a pin to go low.  The silence somehow gave 
the moment extra momentum.
 "I  did!"  Dr  Hamilton suddenly sighed  deeply,  embracing  his  colleague, 
putting his head on the shoulder, eyes wet.
 "My whole marriage is breaking up," he sobbed, going apart at the seams now, 
"my kids screw up school...I get distracted at work more and more rapidly...I 
even start try cry aloud and confess my mental state to a fellow colleague!"
 "Everything  will  be  alright,"  consolidated  Dr  Hetfield,   patting  his 
colleague on the shoulder reassuringly.
 "You  know,  I'll level with you," the sobbing doctor sighed,  "at  times  I 
think *I* am beginning to feel like a Boolean var..."
 His eyes opened wide in fear.
 Inside, a pin went low. The patient entered another mentally deranged phase. 
Dr Hamilton's eyes crossed, his head went red, his arms sagged.
 "No!"  he said,  trying to hold on to the frayed ends of  sanity,  "No!  No, 
blasted CPU!  I am a Boolean variable! I cannot get any value other than zero 
or one! Not...not...surely not eleven! You've *got* to be joking!"
 Dr Hetfield released the man from his grip,  raising his eyebrows in wonder. 
This Asylum,  apparently,  didn't deserve half the credit it  got.  Carefully 
avoiding the now flailing arms of his colleague,  he probed the man's pockets 
for celldoor keys.  Having found them,  he quickly opened the door and gently 
but  surely  directed  - *pushed* - Dr Hamilton into  the  same  padded  cell 
Karsmakers, Richard C., was in.
 "Vroom. Vroom. Skreeeech!" Dr Hamilton greeted patient 20.18.5.1.
 "Crash!  Bam!  Splatter!"  the patient responded in  warm  welcome,  sinking 
through his knees and once more allowing his body to fall to the floor rather 
limply.
 "Sure, yeah, they're good boys, yes," Hetfield mumbled, closing the door and 
locking  it meticulously.  He glanced through the peephole to see his  former 
colleague  and the patient running around after each other  now,  one  making 
engine-like noises, the other mimicking a vast crowd of cheering spectators.
 "Tsssk,  tsssk,"  Dr Hetfield tssk'd,  flicking the key in a pocket  of  his 
white coat. For no apparent reason a thought entered his mind.
 "Eleven?"

 Original written October 1988. Rehashed October 1994.


= LEMMINGS ==================================================================
 by Richard Karsmakers


 For this story, dear reader, it is needed to venture far back in history, to 
a time when history wasn't black or grey but void of colour altogether.  As a 
matter of fact,  reversely speaking,  we will have to leave history behind us 
and  explore the times of 'pre-history',  when mankind barely existed  -  let 
alone  write anything about the weird and wonderful things that  happened  to 
him.
 It is in this time that we meet a predecessor of modern man,  whom we  will, 
for the sake of easy reading, call 'Groent'.

 "Groent."
 Groent  looked  up,  awaking at suddenly hearing his name  called  out,  and 
startled when discovering it was his stomach that had called.  He would  have 
to make a mental note of this one day, like tended to happen every morning.
 He looked around him and saw the sun rising in the west, deep in the innards 
of a huge fjord - only,  of course,  he didn't know it was a *sun* that  rose 
there, let alone that it was a *fjord* above which this phenomenon happened.
 "Groemble."
 He  startled again as his stomach seemed to cry out the name of  someone  he 
didn't  recall  ever having met before.  He'd better get some food  into  him 
soon,  otherwise there was no telling to who would all turn up  here.  Eating 
always used to shut his stomach up - until the next morning,  of course, when 
it would wake him up, calling him names again.
 He walked towards the yellow orb in the sky, instinctively sensing there was 
likely to be some food in that direction.
 Before  we continue with this tale,  you should know one  thing: Prehistoric 
Man is not easily startled - instead,  he is only easily and very  sincerely, 
indeed, completely, flummoxed.
 So Groent was quite flummoxed when he looked at an enormous piece of writing 
located  on one of the fjord cliffs.  He gazed at it for the largest part  of 
the morning, but couldn't make any sense of it at all.
 "Groempledegroent!"
 His  stomach  was  clearly trying to make a  point  there,  and  it  quickly 
reminded Groent that he had more to do rather than stand aimlessly around and 
gaze at the word "Slartibartfast" all morning.
 He was amazed by the fact that that strange thermonuclear fusion reaction in 
the  sky had moved so much during his ponderings - but not half as amazed  as 
he  was by the furry little creatures that started hurling themselves down  a 
cliff's  face,  connecting themselves in a lethal way to the ground not  more 
than thirty steps ahead of him.
 For a moment he stood there, being silently, sincerely and utterly flummoxed 
again.  Then  a bright light bulb appeared in a small fluffy cloud above  his 
head.
 "Foeoed!" he cried joyfully.
 At  that  precise  instant,  a contraption from outer space  tried  to  land 
exactly  in front of him.  It hovered a bit above the ground much in a way  a 
hesitant spaceship would do, and then finally touched down.
 A  ramp  extended  itself,  from which came a  creature  walking  down.  The 
creature,  so Groent was kinda truly flummoxed to see, looked a lot like him. 
It had his genitals covered, however. How shockingly rude!
 The creature stepped down towards Groent,  who stood rooted to the ground in 
a  rather extremely flummoxed way.  To anyone familiar with  the  words,  the 
phrase 'insanely witty' could have sprung to mind.
 "Might you perhaps be Groent Eggesboe Abrahamsen?" the creature asked.
 "Groent?"  Groent replied,  and started hopping up and down as if  immensely 
happy, rolling his eyes and flapping his ears.
 "I  take  it  that's a yes," the creature nodded,  then  hummed  the  middle 
segment  of Yngwie Malmsteen's "Trilogy Op:5" and ticked a box on a sheet  of 
paper he had taken with him from the spaceship.
 Things were going smoothly for Wowbagger II,  son of Wowbagger.  Unlike  his 
father,  the  Infinitely  Prolonged,  who had set out to  insult  the  entire 
universe  in  alphabetical  order,  Wowbagger  II,  the  Even  Less  Finitely 
Prolonged,  had  decided  to insult all people *of all times* in  the  entire 
universe in alphabetical order.  Quite a formidable task,  one might say, but 
as  he had immortality in his genes and had a Compact Universal Nuclear  Time 
Traveller at his disposal, he reckoned he was quite capable of doing it.
 He  had just started with a new name - Eggesboe Abrahamsen.  He had  made  a 
habit  of  starting  with oldest representative  of  the  family  name.  This 
prehistoric man, Groent Eggesboe Abrahamsen, was the first in this case.
 Groent still hopped up and down as if insanely happy.
 "Noendeju!" the Prehistoric Man cried as if something unbelievably  exciting 
was happening right before his eyes, "Noendeju!"
 Wowbagger  II  didn't  heed the cries  the  Eggesboe  Abrahamsen  progenitor 
uttered. Instead, he took out a kind of calculator with had, for some strange 
reason, "DON'T PANIC" written on it in large, friendly letters.
 He  typed  in  the  coordinates of the place where he  was  at  the  moment, 
followed by a text.
 "Hmm," he muttered, "they speak Norwegian here."
 As  the  prehistoric  man looked unpredictable enough for  Wowbagger  II  to 
decide  that trying to insert a Babel Fish in the ancestor's ear might  prove 
dangerous, he instead put it in his own mouth.
 "Groent Eggesboe Abrahamsen," Wowbagger II said solemnly, "you're a jerk."
 The Babel Fish instantly translated the voice into Norwegian,  but this  did 
not seem to affect the Prehistoric Man.
 Groent  still  hopped  up  and down in a  rather  insanely  happy  way  when 
Wowbagger  II ticked another box on the sheet of paper,  turned on his  heel, 
re-inserted the Babel Fish in his own ear and made the calculator-like  thing 
disappear in a pouch hanging at his side.
 Then The Even Less Finitely Prolonged suddenly saw *them*: Little  creatures 
that hurled themselves from the nearby cliff face, behind his spaceship.
 "Whattaf..." Wowbagger II uttered,  and went closer to investigate.  Even as 
he looked,  more of the little creatures smashed to ruthless deaths on top of 
their crushed and splattered little buddies.
 At  that instant,  a sense of Purpose coarsed through The Son's  veins  with 
deafening speed.  He instinctively felt that his immortality now suddenly had 
a  Reason,  a Purpose beyond mere purpose.  It was not to insult  the  entire 
universe in alpha-chronological order, but...
 TO SAVE THE LEMMINGS!
 It  was  as  if some divine being had whispered the cause  in  his  ear.  He 
shuddered,  shook,  trembled,  shivered and jerked. He felt himself fill with 
The Purpose. Nausea overtook him for the briefest of instants, but he quickly 
regained control of himself.
 He cleared his throat.
 "STOP!"  he  yelled with a voice so full of Power that it made  Groent  stop 
hopping up and down in that peculiar, insanely happy way.
 The  lemming  that  was just about to hurl itself  down  the  cliff  stopped 
abruptly,  causing  the followers to bump into him and turn around,  back  to 
their breeding place - where they would frolic and fornicate until the end of 
their  days  (that is,  until there were again too many so that they  had  to 
migrate into a random direction again).
 Wowbagger  II  The Even Less Finitely Prolonged looked around himself  in  a 
decidedly  smug way.  After that he disappeared back into the bowels  of  his 
spaceship.  After  a  bit  of hovering above the ground as  if  in  some  way 
hesitant, it took off to dazzling heights, disappearing.

 Groent  didn't  really know what to think of all this.  On  this  particular 
morning,  he  had been confronted by a thing in the sky,  a thing in a  thing 
with  water  in  it,  a strange feeling in  his  body  somewhere,  mysterious 
inscriptions  on a thing,  a thing from the big thing above him,  a  creature 
that came from the thing,  and little things,  food,  hurtling itself at  his 
feet.  He *knew* instinctively there had been something important between all 
of those experiences. Something that...
 Ah!
 "Foeoed!" he growled, a strangely insane look settling on his face.
 He dove into the warm pile of lemming corpses,  tore furs and dug his  teeth 
into the warm bellies filled with lemming entrails.

 Groent  has  been known to live happily everafter.  Lucky for  the  Eggesboe 
Abrahamsen  family  - and less luckily for humanity as a whole - he  found  a 
female  that  liked  his  peculiar  way  of  sweettalking  ("Groent?  Groent! 
GROENT!!") so that his name was not to die out.  Eventually, he was to have a 
descendant  known  as The Minute One.  This particular specimen  still  looks 
rather insanely witty.
 Groent  Eggesboe  Abrahamsen died in 999.951 BC when he  choked  himself  on 
lemming entrails.

 Original written June 1991. Rehashed October 1994.


= SOON COMING ===============================================================


 The next issue of "Twilight World",  Volume 3 Issue 1, is to be released mid 
January 1995.  Please refer to the 'subscription' section, below, for details 
on getting it automatically, in case you're interested.
 Please  refer to the section on 'submissions',  below,  for more details  on 
submitting your own material.
 The next issue will probably contain the following items...

 TORVAK THE WARRIOR
 by Stefan Posthuma

 CADAVER
 by Richard Karsmakers

 THE JAWMAN
 by Bryan H. Joyce

 THE LADY WORE BLACK
 by Richard Karsmakers

 POPULOUS II
 by Alex Crousen

 AND MORE


= SOME GENERAL REMARKS ======================================================


 DESCRIPTION

 "Twilight World" is an on-line magazine aimed at everybody who is interested 
in any sort of fiction - although it usually tends to concentrate on fantasy-
and science-fiction.
 One of its sources is an Atari ST/TT/Falcon disk magazine by the name of "ST 
NEWS" which publishes computer-related articles as well as fiction. "Twilight 
World"  principally consists of fiction featured in "ST NEWS"  so  far,  with 
added stories submitted by dedicated "Twilight World" readers.

 SUBMISSIONS

 If you've written some good fiction and you wouldn't mind it being published 
world-wide,  you can mail it to me either electronically or by standard mail. 
At all times do I reserve the right not to publish submissions.  Do note that 
submissions  on disk will have to use the MS-DOS or Atari  ST/TT/Falcon  disk 
format on 3.5" Double-or High-Density floppy disk.  Provided sufficient  IRCs 
are  supplied  (see below),  you will get your disk back with  the  issue  of 
"Twilight World" on it that features your fiction. Electronic submittees will 
get an electronic subscription if so requested.
 At all times, please submit straight ASCII texts without any special control 
codes whatsoever, nor right justify or ASCII characters above 128. Please use 
*asterisks* to emphasise text if needed, start each paragraph with one space, 
don't include empty lines between each paragraph and use "-" instead of "--". 
Also remember the difference between possessives and contractions,  only  use 
multiple  question marks when absolutely necessary (!!) and never  use  other 
than one (.) or three (...) periods in sequence.

 COPYRIGHT

 Unless  specified along with the individual stories,  all  "Twilight  World" 
stories are copyrighted by the individual authors but may be spread wholly or 
separately  to  any  place - and indeed into any other  magazine  -  provided 
credit is given both to the original author and "Twilight World".

 CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS

 I prefer electronic correspondence,  but regular stuff (such as  postcards!) 
can  be sent to my regular address.  If you expect a reply please supply  one 
International Reply Coupon (available at your post office), *two* if you live 
outside Europe.  If you want your disk(s) returned, add 2 International Reply 
Coupons per disk (and one extra if you live outside  Europe).  Correspondence 
failing these guidelines will be read (and perused) but not replied to.
 The address:

 Richard Karsmakers
 Shetlands 36
 NL-3524 ED  Utrecht
 The Netherlands
 (This address is valid up to January or February 1995, after which I'll have 
a P.O. Box)

 Email r.c.karsmakers@stud.let.ruu.nl
 (This is valid at least up to the summer of 1995)

 SUBSCRIPTIONS

 Subscriptions  (electronic ones only!) can be requested by sending email  to 
the  address mentioned above.  "Twilight World" is only available  as  ASCII. 
Subscription terminations should be directed to the same address.
 About  one  week prior to each current issue being sent out you will  get  a 
message to check if your email address is still valid.  If a message bounces, 
your subscription terminates.
 Back  issues of "Twilight World" may be FTP'd  from  atari.archive.umich.edu 
and etext.archive.umich.edu.  It is also posted to rec.arts.prose,  alt.zines 
and  alt.prose  and is on Gopher somewhere as well.  Thanks to Gard  for  all 
this!

 PHILANTROPY

 If  you like "Twilight World",  a spontaneous burst of philantropy aimed  at 
the  postal address mentioned above would be very  much  appreciated!  Please 
send cash only;  any regular currency will do.  Apart from keeping  "Twilight 
World" happily afloat,  it will also help me to keep my head above water as a 
student  of  English at Utrecht University.  If  donations  reach  sufficient 
height  they will secure the existence of "Twilight World" after  my  studies 
have been concluded. If not...then all I can do is hope for the best.
 Thanks!

 DISCLAIMER

 All authors are responsible for the views they express. Also, The individual 
authors are the ones you should sue in case of copyright infringements!

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 EOF