Headfirst
Written By: C. Mage
"Steve? Come ON, Steve, whaddayou doing in here?"
I'm trying to make a rocket... "I'm trying to get the mainframe back up, do you
MIND?" Steve wiped his forehead with his sleeve and pushed his seat away from the
keyboard. He leaned back and switched on the light, swiveling in his seat as the door to
the office opened. Michael came in and looked at Steve carefully. "Buddy, have you
looked at yourself in the mirror?"
Steve got up and went to the bathroom, looking at his reflection. Brown hair, a little
wild from running his hands through it often, brown eyes, a little bloodshot, just short
of six feet tall, healthy, just a shade of a paunch. Not bad for a guy in his twenties, I
guess. "And what's wrong with the way I look?"
"You look like you got run over by a truck. How long since you got some sleep?"
"Oh..." Steve tried not to look too embarassed. "Since this morning."
"Liar."
"Not more than twenty-four, I swear on a stack."
"A stack of what? Coffee cups?"
"You wanna get off my back?" Steve pushed past him back into the office where
the mainframe was waiting for him, still ominously dark. "I've got a ten-thousand
dollar game server gathering dust and I'm losing money every hour that it's down. I hate
to TROUBLE you with all this, but..."
"Peace, man. I was just..."
Steve opened his mouth again, then closed it. He sat down heavily.
"Sorry, Mike...I guess I have been awake a while..." He rubbed his eyes.
"It's just that this thing bugs the hell out of me. I set it up, keep it
running...and then it starts freaking out on me. I set up the firewalls to keep hackers
from screwing up the system, but it's no good, and I keep getting all these crazy faults
and mishaps that shouldn't be there...and then I have to restart the whole thing from
scratch. Cold Reboot."
"It wasn't your fault, man. Stuff happens."
"Not in MY system. Not MY Mainframe. I built it, programmed it...even got some
Guardian programs from the boys over at MIT. I checked them over and over, code by code,
line by line. And they STILL went nuts on me."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to get this thing back up if it KILLS me. Look, just get to class. I've
got things to do."
Michael shook his head. "You know something, Steve? You're OBSESSED. You know,
there's a world outside this room, with people and all."
"Don't get me started. Look at me. I'm a teacher's aide, not built like a Greek god,
don't have money, not really good-looking, both my parents died in a plane crash...I'm the
Invisible Man. The only thing I can do well is computers. It's the only thing I'm good
at."
"Spare me the sob-sister routine. I've heard it before, and it bores me.
It's your life, man, do whatever you want." Michael left in disgust,
slamming the door closed behind him. Steve shook his head and went back to his terminal.
"System bios...green. All parameters set, programs online, directories in place, all
errata validated. Everything is...go." Steve stopped typing, then re-set the
operating system and turned the mainframe off. He took a very deep breath, then turned on
the main switch to the mainframe.
For a tense moment, there was no response. Then the prompts came up and the screen
scrolled by with information. As he watched intently, reading the screen faster than it
could display the alphanumerics, Mainframe came back online. After an hour of
self-diagnostics, Mainframe came up green across the board.
Steve leaned back and suddenly realized how tired he was. "I've gotta get some
sleep..." He stood up and went to the door, then stopped at the worktable. Sitting
directly in the center was a helmet outfitted with a sensor visor and a neural clamp. He
pointed at it as if it was a person.
"As for you, I'll run you through your paces tomorrow. With your help, I'll finally
get a handle on my Mainframe."
He left the office with a smile.
As he slept, Mainframe went on, returning to normal. The system restored the original
programs and validated the registered sprites. Bob, Dot, Phong, reunited once again, got
back to business as usual. It took Dot some time to get everything re-organized, but her
usual efficiency enabled her to restore her businesses in record time.
The new arrivals of Matrix, AndrAIa and the others promised to make things interesting,
alright...and their own experiences on the Web opened up new avenues to consider, new
possibilites and new problems waiting to happen. And along with Bob and Dot's new
friends...came a new development.
"Hand me that retro-spanner...no, the other one, that's the Lasertorch!"
Bob sighed and took the tool, bending back under the hood of his red clunker. Enzo sat
back and watched while Frisket gnawed on another one of the tools.
"Hey, Bob! Why don't you ever trade your car in for something else?"
"I LIKE this car." Bob came out from under the hood. "It's who I am,"
he added with a hint of pride.
"You're a busted-down, rusted out heap of junk?"
Bob turned to see Dot walking out of her diner, tapping numbers into her PDA. She smiled
as she approached. "Sorry to spoil your fun, but I just got a call from Phong. He
wants us to get to the Principal Office at once."
"So much for the vacation." Bob tossed the retro-spanner over his shoulder,
where it made a neat disappearance into the toolbox. "Let's go."
Dot stared at the car. "You don't expect us to go in THAT thing, do you?"
"It just so happens that I fixed the problem. The powerplant is purring like a
kitten. I'll show you."
As Bob went to the driver's side, Dot pulled out her zipboard and stepped on. "I'll
see you there...if you make it." She took off with a laugh and Enzo let out with an
excited yell, following close behind on his own zipboard.
Just watch. I'll be there before you get halfway. He started the engine, listened to it
purr, then stepped on the gas...and listened to it die noisily. He got out of the car and
slammed the door, pulling out his own zipboard and flying off after the disappearing duo
ahead of him.
Steve sat down in his office once again, the helmet in his hands. The helmet was wired to
the mainframe, the gloves and a large box with a power supply of its own. Steve put the
helmet over his head and slipped the visor over his eyes. As his pupils adjusted to the
lack of light, the visor lit up with a colorful display of neon windows, one of which
showing a crystalline gate in front of him. He brought up his hands in front of him and
saw them in the visor, represented in virtual reality. He moved them up to a smaller
window and tapped it, downloading his utilities into the persona, then watched the
construct materialize as a metal staff of silver and gold, the two rods twisting around
each other and
meeting at the top, cradling a large jewel that changed color constantly.
He grinned. "Alright... let's do it."
Steve reached out, touched the GO button and for a moment, ceased to exist.
When he could open his eyes once again, he knew something was wrong. He stood up, looking
around. All he could see was the digitized world of the virtual reality within Mainframe;
his office was gone. He was in some sort of alley, between large blocks of data, and he
couldn't see much of anything except for the sky, which was an impossibly clear blue. He
shook
his head and went closer to one of the blocks, searching for a reflective surface. When he
found one, the sight took his breath away.
He looked completely different. His face was much different, better sculpted and much more
handsome than his real face. Except for his right eye, which was a bright red, he looked
human, though more stylized. Steve grinned, then held aloft the staff and said, "VCI,
Command: DOS Shell."
Nothing happened.
Steve frowned. "VCI, Command: Ping."
Still nothing.
"VCI, Command: Open File 'COMMAND.COM'."
Nothing at all.
"VCI, Command: Disconnect."
Steve closed his eyes, waited, opened his eyes.
He was still in Mainframe.
A sudden panic took him and he backed deeper into the alley. "What's going on...do
none of my utilities WORK?? VCI, Status."
The magestaff spoke in a melodious androgynous voice, "-VCI now undergoing
restructural analysis. Please stand by."
"Oh man this can't be happening..." Steve sat down to wait for the VCI to
finish. "Restructural analysis? What does that mean?"
After a few minutes, a new voice pervaded Mainframe, a female voice proclaiming,
"WARNING. INCOMING GAME. WARNING. INCOMING GAME."
A large, pink cube of swirling energy dropped from a vortex in the air, falling to the
surface of Mainframe. Steve looked up and his eyes widened.
Then the Game claimed him and everything around him.
Reality shifted and Steve found himself somewhere else. The world had transformed from a
virtual city into a virtual jungle, the sounds of clashing steel thick in the air. Steve
was now sitting on a rock, his white and silver robes splayed around him. His cowl had
fallen back as he looked into the sky and saw fighter planes flying over.
"-VCI restructured for environmental shift. Now operational."
"About time! What is your current status?"
"-VCI now enabled for the following tasks: data retrieval, offensive
weaponry, defensive measures, movement capabilities and inter-format transport."
"Offensive weaponry? Defensive...I don't get it. I thought I was able to control my
Mainframe with this construct."
"-Negative. You do not have the necessary authorization to access the computer from
this virtual context."
Steve felt his mouth go dry. "What...?"
"-Do you wish me to repeat...?"
"No, no, I got the bad news the first time. Wait a minute...I never
programmed you for cognitive thought or independent action."
"-Restructural analysis enabled higher intelligent functions."
"Can you tell me why all this is going on?"
"-Yes."
Steve stopped. "Explain current situation."
"-We are inside a Game Cube, namely Dungeon Crawler. The User is named DIABLO1153,
and he has begun playing the Game."
"I know that guy...that PK has been getting on my nerves. Well, this time, things are
going to be different."
"-The programs within the Game area are now obligated to defeat the User. If the User
loses, the area of Mainframe returns to normal. If the User wins, the area is deleted and
all Binomes and Sprites are deleted, reduced to objects called Nulls."
"Uh oh...what am I here?"
"-You have the properties of a Sprite, but you also possess unknown qualities as the
persona of a User."
"In short, if the User wins, I'm history??"
"-There is a 92% chance of that happening. Your ex-User status may give you the
ability to survive..."
"No way. I'll pass on finding out the hard way! Where is the User now?"
"Travelling this way in a Hero Construct."
"What is the goal of the User?"
"To win the Game, the User must travel to the dungeon, brave its defenses and find
the treasure."
"My goal?"
"Stop the User."
"...or be destroyed. Alright...let's scope out the territory." Steve
jumped down from the rock and headed to the entrance to the Dungeon. He stopped and looked
down the path. The User would be there any minute. "All Games have rules. Am I
allowed to attack him outside the Dungeon?"
"Yes."
"Good. Second, what weapons do I have available to me?"
"Your Construct is an Enemy Mage. You must ReBoot to gain access to your
abilities."
"How do I ReBoot?"
"Tap the VCI jewel in the head of your staff and say the word, 'ReBoot.' That will
initiate the change and give you full knowledge of your abilities."
Steve shrugged, tapping the gem. "ReBoot."
His robes suddenly turned blood red and his staff turned flat black. Gold trim surrounded
the edges of his robe and his features took on a sinister cast. Steve's head suddenly
filled with previously unknown facts and techniques. "Alright, User...let's
boogie."
DIABLO1153 walked along the pixellated path towards the mouth of the cavern. Back behind
his screen, the fifteen-year-old munched on pizza and hoped to find some other Users in
the Cavern of Darkness. He enjoyed getting new equipment...and of course, beating on those
he knew he could easily defeat was an added side benefit. Suddenly, a red-robed mage
jumped down in front of him. The name icon over the newcomer came up on his screen as CM1.
He sent a message to CM1, "So, how far..."
"...HAVE YOU GOTTEN ON THIS LEVEL?" finished DIABLO1153.
"Just down a few levels. Found some neat stuff, too. Had to look for them hard, some
secret places..."
DIABLO1153 came at him, sword waving around. Steve smiled; DIABLO1153 had taken the bait.
He backed off, letting DIABLO1153 think he was scared, then yelled, "Staff, Air
Spell!" Steve took off like a rocket, landing on a cliff overlooking DIABLO1153.
"Whatsamatter, Diablo? Finally met someone
you couldn't bully around?"
"WHAT LEVEL ARE YOU?" DIABLO1153 demanded.
"Higher than YOU, buster. It's payback time."
DIABLO1153 backed up, then changed weapons, going from sword and shield to longbow. He
fired off a volley of arrows, raining the cliff face. Steve jumped down, staying just
ahead of the arrows, and aimed his staff. "Staff, NUKE Spell!"
"-I'm sorry, Cybermage1, but you do not have that spell available to you."
"Why not?"
"-Because you need your full Spell Points to cast that spell."
"Alright, then I guess I'm going to have to do this the hard way." Steve landed
on the ground and hid behind some rocks. "And why did you call me by my persona
name?"
"-Here, in Mainframe, you are your persona, hence you are now Cybermage1."
"Alright, then, Staff, based on the Spells I have and the Spell Points available,
what's the WORST thing I could do to DIABLO1153?"
Staff told him.
DIABLO1153 came right around the corner to see CM1 standing there, facing him, only twenty
feet away. "Just before you bite it, DIABLO1153, tell me. Why do you hunt players
instead of monsters?"
"BECAUSE THEY'RE DUMB AND EASY. EASY EXPERIENCE, EASY GOLD. NEXT TIME YOU MAKE UP A
CHARACTER, REMEMBER THAT. MAYBE NEXT TIME, YOU'LL BE SMART ENOUGH TO RUN."
"So that's it...it's not gold or experience, it's POWER. You're just a weak-minded
person, probably some small jerk on the outside who couldn't get a date or
anything...small-minded, you take out your frustrations on those who can't defend
themselves. Doesn't it bother you that you're the only one having fun when you do
that?"
"HEY, CM1, THIS GAME WAS PUT UP TO BE REALISTIC, RIGHT? WHAT'S MORE REALISTIC THAN
THAT?" DIABLO1153 stepped towards the robed figure, materializing a double-bladed
axe. "I'M GONNA ENJOY THIS."
Then part of the ground he stepped on glowed red.
"You enjoy being turned into a warthog? You're more screwed up than I thought."
Cybermage1 said dryly.
DIABLO1153 yelled as he shed his armor, dwindling to a porcine spectacle of himself. His
gear lay about him in three large piles and he looked up at Cybermage1, grunting.
Cybermage1 walked over and tied a rope around the warthog's neck, leading it to the mouth
of the canyon and sending it in.
"See how much fun it is NOW, wiseass." Cybermage1 sat back and waited. He didn't
have to wait long. Five minutes later, a familiar voice pronounced, "GAME OVER. USER
LOSES."
The game environment disappeared and Cybermage1 found himself sitting on the ground, back
in his white and gold garb. He stood up and looked around. "Well, THAT was
educational... now all I have to do is figure out what to do next. Right now, I need to
get some information about where I am and what I can do. Staff, can you download
information into my head about
what I am and what I can do now?"
"-Yes...but we must make contact with a data module at the Library."
"Where is it?"
"-I shall lead you."
Cybermage1 looked around at the inhabitants of Mainframe in something approaching
disbelief. They all looked like stylized ones and zeroes given human facets like arms,
legs, eyes, noses and mouths. The "binomes," as Staff called them, had
personalities, professions and families just like people in the real world. Cybermage1 was
shaken at this...he couldn't help
but think of all the programs and utilities he'd coded, deleted... "Staff, these
binomes," he whispered, "do they have sentience?"
"-Yes."
"Oh...hell. As if I didn't feel bad enough. Okay, you mentioned binomes and sprites.
If these are binomes, what are sprites?"
"-Sprites are more complex binomes...higher-evolved, if you will."
"This is going to require some private place to rest while I work this out..."
With that,Cybermage ducked into another alley and went in search of someplace more quiet.
Cybermage1 spent the rest of the day in a warehouse.
He'd found the empty space later on the same day he'd made his appearance in Mainframe,
walking through streets and past binomes who gave him a glance or two, but he wasn't
followed, he was sure of it. As he walked, he tried to grasp the impact of what had
happened to him, but he just couldn't wrap his mind around the concept that he was,
essentially, trapped within his own Mainframe, and instead of having total control of this
virtual world, he was more or less at its mercy. He also discovered, after tripping over a
curb, that he could also feel pain here, although the persona's metal legs made stubbing
his toes inconsequential at best.
But the presence of pain implied other things. Pain indicated a nervous system, which
meant that whatever he had become, he was very much a living thing. And the behavior and
architecture of the buildings around him indicated intelligent lifeforms, higher reasoning
functions and...
Cybermage1's head began to swim. *Now I have to re-think my entire universe.*
Once he found the warehouse, he decided that it would serve, for now, as a base of
operations until he could reason out what to do next. It was clean, as most of Mainframe
apparently was, so he found a spot near the back where he could commune with Staff in
relative solitude. As he sat down, he noted the lack of dust and other particles that he
normally associated with the
real world. "Alright, Staff...I need a lot of answers to questions I don't even have
yet. I'll start with the basics. Am I alive?"
"--Yes."
"Do I need to eat, breathe and sleep?"
"--Yes, yes and yes."
"Oh. Okay, do I need to...well, you know..."
"--No. All food here is ingested with the capacity to store energy within you, but
you are, in effect, an energy lifeform. The concept of waste products is nonexistent
here."
"I won't get fat?"
"--Your persona will not change unless you want it to. When you consume food, you
will stop as soon as you are no longer hungry."
"Well, THAT'S a plus." Cybermage1 continued on for some time, until he found
enough info to tell him what he needed for survival. "Okay, let me get this straight.
I am, for all intents and purposes, immortal. I need to eat, sleep and breathe, but not
nearly as much as I did when I was..." He took a deep breath. "...human. I can
be hurt, injured, even killed. I have considerable strength and resilience, compared to my
human form. I can't access any command programs or alter anything unless I am in someplace
called 'the Principal Office' and override the current COMMAND.COM using my natural access
powers. Hmmm...no, I think I'll stay away from that. The last thing I need to do is
develop some kind of god-complex. Time passes differently here, at a much higher rate.
Seconds equal days here. There are entities named Guardians who protect Mainframe from its
enemies, sprites with exceptional abilities and objects called 'keytools' which function
as multipurpose tools, weapons and defenses. I guess that would make you a keytool,
Staff...Staff, that doesn't sound right. You deserve a proper name."
"--Staff is as good a name as any, Cybermage1."
"Maybe...but if we're going to be here a while, I'm going to feel somewhat stupid
calling you just 'Staff'...how about...I've got it! Your new name is Archon."
"--New name regsitered."
"Alright, Archon, let's sum up. Using you, I can create new tools and store them
within you for use later...let's call them 'Spells', since we are going to be cultivating
a sense of style here. They can be multiuse Spells, but you'll need to recharge your
energy after their use. You can also store one-shot Spells, which take up less room and
uses none of your core energy, but once they're used, I have to spend time installing new
Spells. Although you have a lot of storage capacity, the space is still finite, so I can't
just pile them all in forever. The Spells require my physical touch and a spoken command
to 'cast' them, with allowances made for special instructions. Unfortunately, special
instructions make the Spells larger, limiting their use."
"--Correct."
"Viruses are not merely infesting code, they are physical, intelligent sprites.
Somehow, I'm not surprised. There are several viruses out there, the main three being
Megabyte, Hexadecimal and Daemon. I thought I'd gotten rid of the Megabyte and the
Hexadecimal viruses with the system reboot...ah, well, I'll just have to come up with some
anti-viral Spells, just in case.
The last thing I want to do is get caught flat-footed by..."
A horrible thought occurred to him. "Viruses can hurt me, can't they?"
"--Yes."
"Can they kill me?"
"----------Unknown."
"Great. The answer man's stumped." Cybermage1 sat down heavily. "I'm
already getting hungry, too. This just gets better and better. Alright, where is the
closest place to grab something to eat?"
Bob arrived at the door to find that Dot and Enzo weren't the only ones there. Bob saw
Matrix, AndrAIa and a few other sprites as well waiting outside the Principal Office.
"Is Phong throwing a party?" Bob asked as Frisket bounded over and barked at Bob
happily.
"If he is, it isn't to celebrate anything. He sounded pretty serious."
Dot turned as the doors opened and Phong glided out.
"Welcome. Come in, come in."
Bob turned to Dot, who shrugged and followed Phong inside. Once they were all assmbled,
Phong brought up a vid window showing the sky over Mainframe.
"This happened earlier this second. It has taken me until now to properly identify
what it isn't."
Suddenly, a hole opened in the sky, as if a Game were coming through, except this time,
there was a flare of white energy deep within the vortex, and a small golden ball dropped
through the opening, falling to the surface of Mainframe. Within a millisecond, it had
dropped through the skyline and disappeared from view.
"What do you mean, 'what it isn't'? You mean, what it IS, don't you?"
"No. What it isn't." Phong went to his desk and a screen came up behind him.
"I have spent every nanosecond from the time it appeared to now trying to identify
the object. It is a file unlike any I have ever seen before. It is not a virus, a sprite,
a Game or anything I have ever seen before. It is something entirely NEW. The most I can
discover is that it has many of the characteristics of a sprite."
"Whoa...alphanuMERic!" Enzo looked at the reply. "Where is it?"
"I have lost track of it."
"Then WE have to find it," Bob said resolutely. "Somehow, I don't think
we're the only ones who know about it."
Continued on the next page...
