by Russ Zabel (Russathome@aol.com)
[Note: The Infinite is a loose organization (cabal?) of Cybermages. More on them to follow.]
Gather round, little Borgies, and let your daddy Ouroboros tell you abedtime story. You all know that many of us share a common goal: to transcend our bodies by Transferring our souls into some sort of computer. The Internet seems to be prime territory for your new home, right? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps you can learn from the mistake of one of your fellow Borg.
There once was a programmer named Jack, who also happened to be a cracker named El Conquistador. He was not of Spanish or Latin descent, he justhad a really healthy ego. Anyway, he was a wunderkind with computers. At age nineteen, he had a brilliant career, was attracting all sorts of praise,had a job at with a major defense contractor, blah blah blah, you know the drill. There was just one catch. Some of his most incredible programming feats wouldn't work for anyone else. Same computer, same commands, same everything, but with a different user the program wouldn't work. Naturally,his employers did not take kindly to this. He was fired in short order, and his story made it into the paper filled with vague references to national security. The conventional wisdom was that he was lucky no conspiracy charges were filed against him.
Boo hoo, sob sob, poor Jack. The next day the story ran in the papers, and he went to console himself at his local coffeehouse. He sat down and began to drown his tears in caffeine, when a guy sat down at his table. Now, normally, Mr. Conquistador would have given the guy some serious sass for violating the unwritten Law of the Coffeehouse: "Never sit with someone you don't know." But this guy was scary. Not scary like I'm going to beat you to a bloody pulp, scary like when you turn around, I will slit your throat without saying a word and you'll never know what happened. He was thin as a rail, had scars all over his shaven head, had pale, blotchy skin, and he was dressed all in black except for his sunglasses with yellow smiley faces for lenses. He twitched like a junkie, and he stared through the smiley faces.
So Mr. Scary Man says, "You need my help." This did not make jack feel very confident.
"Uh, ahem, why do I need your help?" Jack asked aloud, inwardly cursing his quaky voice.
"Because the next person to visit you will be trying to kill you. Iam here to save you," Mr. Scary Man said matter-of-factly.
"Right," Jack said. His abject fear was leaving him now as he reassured himself that he is in a public place, fear is irrational, blah blah blah. "I don't think so-"
"Shhhh," said Mr. Scary Man.
Then the fire alarm started going off, and the sprinkler system kicked in. Mr. Scary Man grabbed Jack as he tried to run out with the rest of the panicked people. Ten seconds later, it stopped. Oddly enough, the sprinkler system had not gone off over Mr. Scary man, so he was the only dry one in the entire store. Mr. Scary Man was also the only one in the whole store still in his chair. Jack sat back down. Tense staring ensued.
"What the-" Jack began.
"Shhhh," said Mr. Scary Man.
Mr. Scary Man touched his mug with his pinky finger, and moved his fingeraway. Then he touched the mug again with the same finger, and somehow lifted it off the table.
"Do you need to see more? Perhaps that was not impressive enough for a man of your caliber?" asked the stranger, a hint of mockery in his voice.
Jack's digital watch started to play the Star Spangled Banner. It was NOT supposed to do that!
"No, no more. Really. That's okay. If you can do this, what will the others do?" Jack asked, with more than a little panic in his voice.
"They use guns, mostly, and you'll never see them coming." The stranger answered.
"Why do you care about me?" Jack whined.
"Because you can do what I just did. And what I just did is the tipof the iceberg. We are here to help. They don't much like people with our talents."
And so Jack went with Mr. Scary Man, left his old life behind, and becameone of the few, the proud, the Borg. As in everything else, Jack progressed quickly in his studies. One might even use the term "prodigy."
What does this have to do with me, you ask? I'll bet that sounds quitea bit like how you were recruited, for starters. Anyway, Mr. Conquistador decided that the Internet was the place to be. It's always turned on, indestructible, huge, and so on. In short, for all the same reasons that you will be thinking of Transferring your soul there. Before you go out and try it, let me finish this story.
Jack's occult prowess was such that the equipment he needed to upload himself into the Infosphere was not very difficult to create. He plucked outan eye, and replaced it with an infrared data transfer device. He was ableto create the hardware and write the software within four months of his initiation into The Infinite. And so, in good Borg form, he uploaded himself and destroyed everything he had used to do it.
Within minutes of the Transfer, he had been consumed by one of his predecessors who happened to be in the right place at the right time for a snack. Jack was very smart, and he had a way with machines. Unfortunately for himhe had used all his power in the transfer, and so was easy prey for whoeveror whatever it was that swallowed him up.
The moral of the story is this, kiddies: Don't make the Transfer until you can run with the big dogs, hunt them down, and eat their still beating hearts.
Ouroboros out.