Headcrash Read online

  Headcrash

  Bruce Bethke

  C:DOS

  C:DOS RUN

  RUN, DOS! RUN!

  > exec com | type READ_ME.TXT

  > BEGIN

  >

  Jack Burroughs.

  Some say he was the best.

  Some say he was a complete dork.

  Some call him the coolest cybernetic sidewalk surfer ever to hang-ten on the shoulders of the Great Information Superhighway.

  Others call him a total loser, completely lacking in even a rudimentary sense of personal hygiene.

  Some have claimed he was a virtual god: a being of supreme power and intelligence who only reached his true final potential when he jacked in that ProctoProd™ and spread his personal mindware across twenty gigabytes of high-bandwidth laser dataspace.

  Others have claimed that Marsha Vang, that cute little brunette down in Document Coding, actually went out on a date with him once, and he took her back to his room in his mother’s basement and played “Weird Al” Yankovic tapes at her for four hours straight.

  Some still say, “Jack Burroughs. I knew him when…”

  Others say, “Who?”

  This, then, is the definitive answer to that question. For a long time, all that we in the outside world knew of Jack came from his actions on the Net, and the occasional leaked memo from the Federal Information Agency security directorate. Then one day the attached file showed up on a public e-mail bulletin board in Tangiers, encrypted in the old ARGL_BARGL compression format and posted from an ancient twentieth-century hotel reservation system somewhere in the Hawaiian Islands.

  Now, at long last, we know the true story of Jack Burroughs. Of his life, and apparent death. Of his incredible, and mostly imaginary, sexcapades. Of his impish, and some might say puerile, wit. Of his final, desperate, battle against the grinding forces of bloody corporate darkness, and his betrayal and abandonment by those he trusted most.

  Here, then, for your enlightenment, we now present the complete and unexpurgated file, solely as a matter of public service. Consider it an object lesson in the utter, unchecked, absolute evil of the modern multinational corporation-state.

  P.S. Inquiries from parties interested in purchasing the film and/or hypermedia rights to this story may be directed to our agent at [email protected].

  1: INIT

  God, I miss my hypertyper.

  I mean, if I still had that thing, I could code this all up in Rich Text Format, lard it down with hotkeys and hyperlinks, and make this sucker dance. You want to know how the story begins, you tap the backgrounder button and zap, Carl Sagan is in the upper right corner of your screen, saying, “Four and a half billyun years ago, a great cloud of hot gas resembling President Gore’s 2004 reelection speech—”

  Okay, maybe that’s a bit wide-focus. So you tap the closelook icon, and a thirty-second sample of Tom Petty’s “Refugee” blasts through the audio channel, while the main data thread goes into an explanation of how Mom met Dad at a Heartbreakers concert at the Civic Center in 1980, resulting in me in ’81, my sister in ’84, a marriage in ’85, and a divorce almost exactly six months to the day later. From there I could link out to the Mitchell Motor Vehicle database and give you a fair guess at the current collector’s price for a mint condition 1979 Pontiac Trans-Am, as well as some insight into why Dad is still pissed he had to trade his in for something that could carry a stroller and two car seats.

  But, no.

  No, I’m reduced to working with this stupid, stinking, flat-file editor, banging out a simple linear text file—a sequential text file, for God’s sake—so I have to pick an absolute rock-solid point of beginning, follow the thread through the middle…

  And call me a Clipper-burned paranoid, but I have the strangest feeling that someone else is going to be writing the ending.

  So, to begin. Where? If this was desktop video, I’d start with a sweeping, dizzying, panoramic virtual helicopter shot of a traffic jam on the Information Superhighway, or maybe with the audio of that message Gunnar left on my phone the night before it all hit the fan. (“Meet me at the club tomorrow, 2300 hours. Your life depends on it.”) But why make a big deal out of that? Gunnar was always leaving me weird, paranoid messages.

  So I guess the thing to do, finally, is just drive a stake in the time/space continuum, pick a point, and begin. Monday, May 15, 2005. It was a crummy day: dark gray clouds scudding by all low and overcast, the wind gusting through in fits and bursts, a hard spring rain beating down in fat, cold, drops. Our Wonderful MDE Corporate Management still hadn’t repaired the bomb damage to the west entrance (the PPLF blew us up on April 15; said they really wanted to bomb an IRS building, but ours was more convenient), so I wound up having to park my ‘95 Toyota Rustcan out in the far reaches of the south lot, pull on my shoe condoms, and slog a quarter-mile through the cold rain and dead worms to the south entrance.

  I was almost within sight of the door when Melinda Sharp came blasting by in her shiny new Dodge “Deathmaster,” nailed the largest puddle in the entire lot, and left me wearing most of it. Screeched to a stop in her reserved, double-width, executive parking space; bailed out of the car and was sprinting for the door with a Wall Street Journal over her big blond hair before I had a chance to flip her off. By the time she was inside the Dodge had shut itself down, dimmed back its lights, retracted its steering wheel, raised and sealed its window armor—

  And started threatening the rainstorm. “WARNING! THIS VEHICLE PROTECTED BY ARMED RESPONSE! BACK OFF!”

  That, at least, broke me out of wondering why Melinda was in so early and let me start the day with a cheap laugh. Three trips back to the dealer and her new car still couldn’t tell the difference between being broken into and being rained on. If it was following true to form, it was already using its onboard cellular phone to call the cops, and in about five minutes the MDE parking lot was going to be simply crawling with pissed-off police persons in soaking wet body armor.

  I’d “accidentally” strayed into the personnel files a few weeks earlier and pulled her cost-of-benefits numbers. Up and coming Executive Tracker or no, sooner or later the company was going to have to make Melinda start paying her own false-alarm service charges, else we’d be Chapter 11 by July. Personally I had a lot of history with Melinda and couldn’t wait to see her finally take the blame for one of her own messes.

  And that was the wicked little thought that kept me warm as I splashed the last fifty yards to the south entrance. Just as I was about to step into the covered outside entryway—and into the full, clear view of the security cameras—I caught a furtive movement from the corner of my eye. Someone was lurking behind one of the pillars!

  My reaction was purely reflexive. I had a brown belt in schwartztortco Victim Training; in the space of a heartbeat my breathing went fast and shallow, my knee joints locked up and wobbled, and my arms and hands went perfectly limp. My eyes and ears switched into automatic record mode, while my pain sense heightened to an excruciating pitch and an alphabetized list of personal injury attorneys’ phone numbers danced before my eyes. My God, if I could just manage to get assaulted on company property, I’d be set for life!

  As if in slow motion, the short and swarthy man behind the pillar slid into view. My mind raced. Who was he? An assassin? A corporate spy? Another (albeit strangely thin) PPLF terrorist?

  No. He was my boss, Hassan Tabouli. With his head down and his jacket collar up, his thinning black hair and gray-streaked beard plastered down by the rain, water beading the thick lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses; trying to hide from the wind and rain on one hand and the security cameras on the other, and taking a last, desperate, furtive drag on—

  Egad, a cigarette. The list of attorneys in my mind instantly jumped to those s
pecializing in personal air pollution, before I finally managed to shake myself out of that damned reflexive mode and start acting like a normal human being again. “G’morning, Hassan.”

  I’d thought he’d seen me. I was wrong. When I spoke, Tabouli jumped like I’d hit him in the butt with an electric cattle prod. He sucked his breath in sharply, palmed the lit cigarette (ouch!), spun around in a blind panic—

  “Oh!” He recognized me and relaxed a very slight notch. “Oh, uh,” he coughed, and then, realizing the cat was out of the lung, relaxed the rest of the way and exhaled a thick stream of hot, carcinogenic smoke. “Well, hi, Jack. I, uh—” He noticed the cigarette in his left hand and waved it around helplessly. “I, er, suppose you’re wondering—like, I just found this, uh, this—” He pointed off in a vague direction. “In the bushes, over there, and I—was just about to, y’know, report it. To Connie. In Environmental Health.”

  He may have been management, but I liked Tabouli, and considered him something fairly close to friendlike. Very deliberately not looking at the cigarette, I said, “Report what, Hassan? I don’t see anything.”

  He screwed his eyebrows together in a puzzled look and shook the ciggy. “This, uh—” It dawned on him. “You don’t?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  Hassan broke out into a big, fuzzy, brown-toothed grin.

  “Well, in that case,” and he went for that filter tip the way my Mom goes for a long-neck Budweiser. A deep drag; an exhale dial turned into a heavy, contented sigh; a satiated smile. He nodded at me. “Keep up the good work, Jack. See you inside.” I turned and started for the door.

  “Oh,” Hassan called out after me, “and thanks for coming in Saturday to finish up the mid-quarter statistical report! The Duffer was impressed!”

  Under his breath and mostly to himself he added, “He didn’t understand a word of it, but he was impressed.”

  Tabouli may have said more. I didn’t hear the rest of it, because by then I was through the door and into—

  Well, first the metal detector grid, to make sure I wasn’t carrying any concealed assault rifles. Then the Faraday pulse cage, to make sure I wasn’t carrying any hostile software. Then the Olfactory Evaluation Containment Unit, to make sure I wasn’t carrying any illegal pharmaceuticals, followed by a quick scan of my Mr. Movies videotape rental card, to make sure I hadn’t watched any questionable movies over the weekend. Then I slipped my employee ID badge into the ID card reader with my left hand, laid my right hand on the plate of the palm-print scanner, stared into the laser retinal scanner with both eyes fully open, all the while hopping up and down on my left foot and whistling the first four measures of “Old Man River”…

  And then the inner airlock door chimed and slid open, and I went toe-to-toe with Carl—the last, best line of defense, prototype for the twenty-first-century man, the most heavily implanted rent-a-cop in America—and, I suspect, Employee Number 00000002. Every morning, it was always the same. Carl would stand there, gaunt and tall and inhumanly erect (thanks to some extra servo motors in his artificial knees and hips), pacemaker and insulin pump throbbing audibly in three-quarter time, skeletal-thin right hand resting on that ancient revolver on his hip while his palsied left hand held the employee ID badge I’d just handed him like it was an annoyed live scorpion or something, squinting at the ID photo through his floaters and cataracts and trying to decide if the picture matched my face, or if maybe he should just shoot me and save himself some work. I had this mental game I’d play while waiting, of trying to make a picture by connecting his liver spots. Usually I came up with a horsie.

  And then he’d smile (nice dentures), and hand the ID badge back to me, and vosynth, “Good morning, Mr. Burroughs” (lost his larynx to a cigar, they say), and clank aside to let me pass.

  Actually, I rather liked that. Mister Burroughs. A few people called me “Jack,” and for some reason I never understood a lot of people at MDE called me “Pyle,” but old Carl always called me Mister Burroughs, and treated me like a human being, not some fresh-from-college twenty-three-year-old freak.

  This morning, though, there was a change in the routine. I got through the cage and the scanners. Got the hairy eyeball treatment from Carl, followed by the usual cheery “Good morning, Mr. Burroughs.” He clanked aside to let me pass, and I clipped my name badge onto my shirt pocket and crossed the lobby. Rounding the corner that led to the elevators—

  I got jumped by a whole rabid pack of perky, cheerful, multiculturally balanced and hideously wholesome spokesmodels.

  “Hi!” the athletic blond female one said. “We’re from the EarthNice Foods Division, and we’ve got a special treat for you!” I fought free of her and caromed over to the other side of the corridor.

  The elderly black female bodychecked me there. “We know what it’s like,” she said. “You’re looking for a nice, hot, pick-me-up drink in the morning!”

  I feinted right, rolled left, and ran headlong into the young Asian male.

  “But as a concerned consumer,” he said, “you want to be sure you only buy products that help the environment—”

  The muscular Native American male blindsided me and tackled me at the knees. “—and contain no harmful additives!” As I went down, I got an elbow free and whacked him in the kidneys. He grunted in pain and lost his grip, and I bounced to my feet.

  The spindly boy in the electric wheelchair spun around hard and slammed me against the wall. “That’s why EarthNice foods is excited to be introducing—”

  The weight-impaired Downs Syndrome woman clamped a forearm across my throat and pinned me to the wall with all her strength. “—this revolutionary new breakfast beverage!” With her free hand, she lifted a cup of something hot and steamy and pressed it to my face. I twisted my head away and clamped my mouth shut. A few scalding drops splashed on my cheek and trickled down into the inside of my collar.

  An armed, uniformed, MDE security guard stepped out of the shadows and leaned in so close I could smell the bacon on his breath. His voice was a low, grating, venomous thing. “Dey wants youse ta try da complimentry product sample—” he stole a glance at my employee ID badge, then spat out, “—Jack.”

  I looked at him. Looked at the spokesmodels. Looked down the corridor in hopes of finding help: no one else there but a cluster of haggard, frightened, cowering wretches—in short, typical MDE employees.

  I smiled at the guard. “Be happy to,” I gasped out. The spokesmodel relaxed the forearm across my throat and lifted the cup again. I gulped hard, closed my eyes, leaned forward and opened my lips.

  I felt the cup touch. I took a small, tentative sip.

  “It’s caffeine- and sugar-free!” the blond woman said.

  “It won’t stain your dentures,” the black woman added.

  “It’s one-hundred-percent natural,” the Asian man pointed out.

  “And uses no rain-forest products,” the Native American announced.

  “Best of all,” the kid in the wheelchair concluded, “it was developed without any animal testing!”

  “So what do you think?” the woman who held me by the throat asked.

  “Honest opinion now,” the guard said, as he scanned my name and employee number into a handheld computer.

  They closed in on me. Hanging like vultures. Waiting.

  “Can I try another taste?” I finally asked. The guard snarled. The large woman held up the cup again. I took another drink; a large gulp, this time. Rolled it around on my tongue. Listened to what my nose and taste buds were telling me.

  “It’s hot water,” I said at last.

  “NO!” they screamed in unison. “IT’S COFFEE CLEAR™!”

  With a disgusted snort, the large woman turned me loose and sent me on my way with a shove. The other spokesmodels drifted back up the corridor to set the trap for the next hapless victim. I wasted a moment looking for my briefcase before remembering I hadn’t brought it that day, then pulled myself together and started heading for the ele
vators.

  Oh no, the guard again. I smelled the potent reek of his aftershave before I saw him; heard the anguished cries of those four lost and lonely brain cells searching for each other inside his skull. He stepped out of the shadows, blocking my path. “I don’t like youse attitude—” he stole a glance at my employee ID badge “—Jack. I t’ink I’m gonna keep an eye on youse.”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.” I tried to step around him. He sidestepped and blocked me again.

  “What’s wit you? You t’ink you’re some kinda smart guy—” he stole a glance at my employee ID badge, “—Jack? You tryin’ to make trouble?”

  “No sir, I’d never want to make trouble for you.” I tried to go around him on the other side. He blocked me yet again.

  “What da hell’s your problem—” he stole another glance at my employee ID badge, then whipped out a pen and wrote my name on the back of his left hand “—Jack? You lookin’ to get hurt?”

  I stepped back and smiled nervously. “Absolutely not, sir.”

  “Den why da hell won’t you get out of my way?” I flattened against the wall. He brushed past with a snort and went stomping down the hall in the other direction, a sloping-foreheaded fix to his face that suggested he was looking for branches to swing from and bananas to eat. A couple of really choice smartass comments came to mind as I watched him drag his knuckles away.

  I wisely decided to keep them to myself.

  BRAIN DUMP * BRAIN DUMP * BRAIN DUMP

  * BRAIN DUMP * BRAIN DUMP * BRAIN DUMP *

  OBJECTIVE: To clue you in on exactly what kind of cowflop Our Hero is about to stick his foot into.

  MDE = Monolithic Diversified Enterprises

  Monolithic Diversified Enterprises is big. Way big. Bigger than the Gross National Product of a lot of countries. In fact, there are in-house rumors that the government of Sumatra is actually just a wholly-owned subsidiary of MDE. (There are out-house rumors, too, but decorum demands that we not discuss them.) MDE has its sticky corporate fingers in a mind-bogglingly broad and totally senseless array of industries; Wall Street analysts continue to claim that there is some fantastically subtle and brilliantly obscure plan behind all this, but they’re just lying to protect their jobs. The chain of command, ownership, and reporting within MDE transcends the word “byzantine” and makes the i386 chip gate diagram look simple and obvious by comparison.