The Cybergypsies

The Cybergypsies Page 17

by Indra Sinha

  Morgan: You would have to know her better to know why.

  Morgan: One of the few things in this life I can be certain of . . .

  Morgan: . . . and there aren’t many of those.

  Bear: What is? That she is not seeing anyone else?

  Morgan: She just can’t think straight at mo . . .

  Bear: She should seek professional advice, help, counselling.

  <*>A bloodcurdling scream rends the air!

  Morgan: If I knew where she was I wouldn’t be here.

  Bear: Well good luck with it.

  Morgan: Thanks.

  Bear: Was this joint account your idea?

  Morgan: Yes. And she said no . . .

  Bear: Thought so.

  Morgan: . . . at first.

  Bear: You are a good chap, Morgan.

  <*>jump to Morgan

  Morgan and Dreamdancer’s Cottage (1024)

  <*>hug Morgan

  You give him a friendly hug.

  <*>A long drawn out scream reaches your ears!

  <*> timecheck

  It is now 3:07am

  Bear: Give her space – sounds what she needs right now.

  Morgan: She’s a good woman, but her whole world has caved in.

  Bear: Must hit hay.

  Morgan: . . . in rather large painful fragments.

  Morgan: Don’t spose you’ve got a spare 2.5k . . . grin?

  Bear: Me? I am horribly overdrawn . . . all this cybergypsying . . .

  Morgan: . . . in exchange for a 10pc part of my property?

  Bear: I wouldn’t take any of your property.

  Morgan: Well . . . Soho pays well I’m told . . .

  Bear: Soho?

  <*>Morgan grins infectiously.

  Morgan: Well . . . whats King’s Cross famous for?

  Bear: I don’t think I could make much selling my body. I’d have to pay ‘em to proposition me.

  Morgan: Think I’d have to pay ‘em in my case.

  Bear: Snap.

  Morgan: Snap.

  Bear: I’m off.

  Morgan: Me too, night.

  Bear: Night.

  <*>Morgan has given you a friendly hug!

  <*>A long drawn out scream reaches your ears!

  <*>quit

  Goodbye – thanks for calling

  Gateaway disconnected Press any key

  You have now left SHADES. If you would like to play again Key *_

  Barefoot and starving

  The first fortnight of mideast.kurds shows a sharp change of pace after Saddam’s attack on the Kurds. (These posts are still up on Greennet.)

  4/01/91

  1 WELCOME

  3 kurds

  4/06/91

  2 Kurds bombed with chemicals

  kurds

  3 The West & Saddam Hussein

  kurds

  4 Text of Amnesty ad about Kurds

  bear

  5 List of destroyed Kurdish villages

  kurds

  6 Iraqi genocide documents

  1 kurds

  7 Gulf War, a Kurdish perspective

  kurds

  8 URGENT APPEAL BY KURDS

  1 kurds

  4/07/91

  9 Kurdistan on Tearful Map

  aldopacific

  4/10/91

  10 How to donate by e-mail

  bear

  11 $1 solar pasteurizer plans

  1 igctsponheim

  12 Scots Clergy Endorse Kurds Appeal

  1 aldopacific

  13 Creeping Catastrophe - Church Scot

  aldopacific

  14 Sortie and Tonnage Comparisons

  aldopacific

  4/11/91

  15 Kurdish Appeal Progress Report

  kurds

  4/12/91

  16 Barefoot and Starving

  1 aldopacific

  17 Pork Sausages and Clouds

  2 aldopacific

  4/13/91

  18 Let’s get rid of these hypocrites

  1 bear

  19 “There is another way”

  bear

  22 Write a letter to George Bush

  kurds

  23 KURDISH RADIO APPEAL TEXT

  1 kurds

  24 3 ways to donate to Kurdish Appeal

  kurds

  25 How to donate in France and USA

  kurds

  26 Kurdish Hunger Strike Goes On

  kurds

  4/14/91

  27 KURDISTAN: WHERE THE US...

  igc.peacenet

  28 Cornwall Kurdish Medical Aid

  1 inoc

  4/15/91

  29 Democracy for the Kurds

  igctgray

  4/18/91

  30 KURDISH DONATIONS

  guest3

  31 Catholic Endorsement of Kurds

  aldopacific

  32 Thank you, appeal donors

  kurds

  4/19/91

  33 Beseechment for the Kurds

  aldopacific

  The corner of Prince’s Street in Edinburgh. It’s a raw April day. Waiting at a bus-stop is a curiously attired figure. He wears a smart business suit, but is barefoot in the slushy wet. A pair of cardboard placards hang from his shoulders like a sandwich board. On the front is written The Kurds and on the back, Barefoot and Starving. The man’s manner is open and cheerful. He says hello to passers by, and meets with a smile the stares of those who are not disposed to be friendly. From time to time, he lifts a large spiky conch shell to his lips and sounds a baleful blast. Some onlookers, assuming that despite his ginger hair and beard the man must be Kurdish – why else would he demonstrate such passion? – come shyly up and press money into his hand, or into his pockets. He accepts the money with soft-voiced thanks and forwards it to us at the Kurdish Cultural Centre.

  Among the postings on mideast.kurds, the name of Aldopacific occurs often, the first of the Greennetters to rally to our campaign for the Kurds. The real name of this remarkable man is Alastair McIntosh. He and a colleague are using Greennet to track media coverage of the Gulf War. Whenever the government censors a news report, slapping a D-notice on it in the interests of national security, Alastair posts the report on Greennet. In this way, I become aware of the enormous power of the internet to subvert and nullify the attempts of governments, corporations and media moguls to stifle free speech.

  The Flying Teapot

  ‘I’d like to test Microsoft’s poxy virus checker on the network,’ says Jarly. ‘But the agency doesn’t have it.’

  ‘Well, just go out and buy it.’

  ‘Buy it?’ says Jarly. ‘Tha’ doesn’t buy Gatesy’s software, lad. Tha’ lays ‘ands on it. And I know just the place.’

  Nostrajarlius

  Jarly walks into my office one afternoon looking surly. ‘Bear,’ he says, ‘should’ve warned us, managing director’s a prat.’

  ‘What’s the problem this time?’

  ‘Fuck all future in this fucking company.’

  Jarly’s third month with the agency and already he has begun talking like an adman. Advertising is full of shaven-headed youths who have made a culture of intransigence. Advertising is art. Ads which aren’t are ‘shit’, the antithesis being ‘fucking brilliant’. (The language is curiously reminiscent of NuKE’s young virus-writers whom they also resemble in that advertising is an attempt to infect host Coconets with virally spreading attitudes.) I was on an awards jury where one ad-o-lescent rejected a piece of work with, ‘Nah, doesn’t make my cock hard.’ Later the sole female juror in an effort at égalité cried, ‘Ooh, that really gets me wet’ and the hard men were tongue-tied with embarrassment.

  Since Jarly’s arrival, my relationship with the agency IT people has gone from neutral to spectacularly awful. He’d not been with us a week before Pat Sherlock the network manager came rushing to see me in a state of severe shock.

  ‘Your friend Jarly has been fiddling with the network.’

  ‘I never noticed.’

  ‘No, he c
ame in and did it over the weekend.’

  Amazing. I had no idea that Jarly could summon up enthusiasm for any sort of work other than warlock-slaying on Shades.

  ‘He has installed some software which he says will make things run better, but none of it has come from our approved supplier.’

  ‘Fucking approved supplier is an arsehole who doesn’t know a debugger from the bell end of his dick,’ said Jarly when I tackled him about it. ‘Bear, I asked him why we are using X-modem for file transfers and he told me it was the latest thing. Poor fucker has never even heard of Z-modem.’

  (X-modem is slow, unreliable and was for some reason adopted by Windows. Z-modem, developed by a cybergypsy, is fast, and has the virtue of being able to resume interrupted transfers. It is also shareware, so virtually free. But only cybergypsies seem to know about it.)

  ‘I installed Z-Modem,’ said Jarly. ‘Now it’s running like silk.’

  ‘I asked Jarly which company’s software he’d installed,’ whined the network manager. ‘He said it didn’t come from a company.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s because the stuff Jarly uses was written by someone sitting at home, probably by one of his friends. Jarly gets it free. These people are so brilliant that they end up selling their code to large ugly software companies who then sell it to people like us for large sums of money. The main difference, apart from the cost, is if the program crashes Jarly can go back to the person who wrote it, rather than to some authorised supplier who, excuse my language, doesn’t know a debugger from the bell end of his dick.’

  By the end of Jarly’s second month, everyone is talking about how much easier it is to get things done. What I uneasily know and they don’t, is that the place is operating on a mix of shareware, bits of code patched in by Jarly and expensive software which has been obtained from the friendly pirates at the good old Flying Teapot. His next plan is to set up an agency bulletin board on Fidonet lines. At the time of which I am speaking, the world at large has never heard the word ‘modem’ and the World Wide Web is some years in the future. But our cybergypsy bulletin boards can and do present colourful screens of information, make file libraries available for downloading, provide themed message areas, live chat facilities and interactive game play.

  ‘Managing director’s a fucking prat,’ says thunderous Jarly.

  ‘What’s the problem this time?’

  ‘I explained,’ Jarly says, ‘that our board would carry pictures of the agency’s work, news, articles, useful info, private and public messaging, live discussion area. It would be a first, Bear. Nobody’s ever done it for a company before. We could give our clients modems that connect them to our BBS and they could be in touch 24 hours a day. They’ll be able to leave messages for people. Makes communication efficient. Makes us look technologically alert . . .’

  ‘Very good idea, Jarly. So what did the MD think of it?’

  ‘He said he’d organise a team to do a feasability study, so I said fuck that, I can have it up and running by tomorrow. So then he said that the agency couldn’t justify spending money on futuristic technology, so I said bugger it, it’ll only cost twenty-five quid.’

  ‘So let me guess,’ I say. ‘Then he realised what a brilliant idea it was, years ahead of the game, functional, inexpensive, ideal in every way – and he gave you the go-ahead?’

  ‘No,’ says Jarly. ‘He said to fuck off out of his office and stop wasting his time with hobbyist fantasies.’

  Lost cluster

  U$‰aAzadís life story is a tragic one. He was tortured and forced to flee his home for fear .yhug.ddd.decline in refugees soming to the Ucntied Kingdom governments policies dede t­e­r­a­n­t­d­e­t­e­r­r­a­n­t­d­e­t­e­r­r­e­n­t­s­e­p­o­l­i­c­i­e­s­e­p­o­l­i­c­e­s­n­o­t­,­h­u­m­a­n­i­t­a­r­i­a­n­p­r­i­n­c­i­p­l­e­s­.­a­r­e­p­e­o­p­l­e­w­d­e­nnieddeniededfundamentalh­uman rights intheirowncountry.Dreamdancer tells you it’s called Gehrigs’sdiseaseee there’s no cure.ttt.musclesgone.t.the brain’s rottendying inside ofme.must bcutout..á­ˆ­÷­Õ­ù­̨­Ñˇ´˜­íQ›­WÌ­mÔ­Oò­÷~è­˘...+ü­˜͵~÷¡û≈u]/mu5´UóèÓÙú}ØÅ®¤˘¤´˝ˇˇˇ´Ûéôaattacks­you­with­thef­ine­ly­ba­la­nc­edb­la­de­.­St­am­in­a1­80>Ga­jj­er­ys­ay­s“I’mn­ot­su­re­.It­mi­gh­th­av­eb­ee­n­ab­ou­tr­el­ig­io­no­rc­ul­ts­af­ri­en­do­fy­ou­rs­as­in­di­ff­ic­ul­ti­es­of­so­me­so­rt­.­.­.­>ga­jo­hy­e­s­,­Al­cu­in­sa­ys­“­Oh­”­.>ga­jo­hy­es­,­yh­ug­>Ga­j­j­e­r­y­t­el­ls­yo­u“Co­ul­dh­av­eb­ee­ny­es­.I­l­oo­ke­du­pa­wh­ol­eb­u­nc­ho­fa­nt­ic­ul­tg­ro­up­sf­or­yo­uo­ry­ou­rf­ri­en­dt­oc­on­ta­ct­.­Ge­tE­ng­in­eV­er­si­on­@­DD­es­tr­oy­Ca­me­ra­@­De­st­ro­yS­te­re­oC­am;­er­aW­ri­teP­tr­i­I­s­B­ad­Co­de­é/f •­ f­ •­ fˇ­F¸­fˇ­vfˇ­vfv­vˉ­fˇ­vÙ­ê­Ë­ö­˛­É­ƒ­Ù­•­ Ga­jj­er­ys­ay­s­“­Th­en­we­to­ld­Na­sty­Ne­d­(­ev­en­tu­al­ly­,af­te­rI­dr­ew­hi­ma­di­ag­ra­m­)­th­at­he­ha­dt­op­ay­l0­0q­ui­da­mo­nt­ht­op­la­yh­er­ea­nd­mo­re­if­he­wa­nt­ed­to­go­wi­th­th­ec­hi­ck­s.”­.­>­say­an­dwh­at­did­he­say­tot­ha­t?­>­Ga­jj­er­ys­ay­s­“­Oh,­an­dw­et­ol­dh­im­th­at­Cl­ou­dy­co­ul­dv­ie­wh­is­ha­rd­di­sk­.­.­.­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha­ha­.­.­.­.­a­nd­ap­pa­re­nt­l­y­ he­ we­nt­ o­f­f­ a­n­d­ de­le­te­d­ al­l­ h­i­s­ po­rn­”­≈­…­‡­ê­ô­gp­]­ M­¤­SÄ­ o­Ø­E­Ìpl­ê­[­$­n­c­~­ó­∑­Û­ÿ­¢ ʃ.Δ̋¸¶õâ¬vUp√5=˶

  T­h­e sy­st­em­ fi­l­e­s ar­e­ be­in­g re­bu­il­t­ or­ re-­created or­ possibly­ even­ va­n­d­a­l­i­se­d­.Vm­p­r­.­dl­l­Dh­ee­va­ei­ln­if­mo­rp­oe­fd­il­fa­oc­r,­Mo­ic­cs­ri­oc­sn­oa­fr­tf­ ib­ny­a SF­l­r acnn IF iynnnaepgmaonc F&­i nyneelsufkglaanm ‘­Ox’­ Mnaalgleenyn i&­f QCnoaaoo;­ssmgpeannnyi F­I­ n­x­c­a­.r­F­S­o­e­e­w­a­y­n­b­P­h­i­l­l­i­p­A­l­l­T­ri­n­C­o­l­l­C­a­m­b­r­i­d­g­e­L­i­l­i­t­h­A­C­e­da­r­A­v­e­Je­f­f­r­e­y­A­r­c­h­w­i­z­Lo­nS­mb­ic­ou­se­Ft­r­f­t­i­t­y­a­a­d­p­i­g­e­o­n­s­c­o­n­u­e­i­r­]donqpopEl7[p=35ehdᵦ­Ö­n¶­fsccio7m͵­-ô­◊­Œ­Ÿ­»­¡­À­´­œ­ ͵­œ­¬­≈­”­–­≈­fi…­ ¡­¿­›­…­»­ “­≈­¡­Ã­…­/¡­ √­…­¿­ À­œ­Œ­˝­´­…­˝­…­œ­Œ­Œ­Ÿ­»­ …­ –­˝­¡­ fi≈­Ã­œ­◊­À­¡­ Œ­¡­ ¬­Ã­¡­«­œ­–­”­ …­—­´­Œ­´­¿­œ­À­″­′­÷­¡­¿­›­′­¿­ ″­″­≈­ƒ­′­,ƒ­œ­″­′­œ­◊­≈­″­Œ­œ­ ″­Õ­¡­√­…­¿­ …­ (j(jj(j(j(j(j(j( ′­(′­(′­(′­(′­(′­(fi(′­(,@˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(P)R)R)R)′­y)<­µ­*<­Ò­+O,T£­,‰­,á­-j(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­,˙­(j(j(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(˙­(j(˙­(j(˙­(P)~( ((û­(6j(j(j(j(˙­(P)˙­(V˙­(Azad(˙­(˙­(,˙­ (j(j(˙­(˙­(˙­ witnessed terrible abuse against his fellow Kurds

  Weird, weird, weird, the way a computer’s mind works. It writes data to the hard disk in small chunks wherever it can find bits of unused space, or overwrites sectors that have been flagged as ‘deleted’. This means that a file which one thinks of as a whole actually exists in dozens of bits scattered all over one’s disk. The machine keeps a list of where it has squirrelled away each bit of the file. But all sorts of things happen to hard disks and sometimes fragments of dozens of different files get muddled up together in clusters which aren’t listed and don’t officially exist, hence ‘lost clusters’. A sort of digital nervous breakdown.

  When Dreamdancer reappeared on Shades after her mysterious disappearance, I ‘spooled’, which is to say, recorded to disk, a long conversation I had with her. Soon after this I suffered a dataclysm. Karl the Krazed Kraut Sorcerer recovered the hard disk but the Dreamdancer spool had been eaten away by an ulcer. Over the front of the spool, a mass of lost clusters had copied themselves, its contents a mélange of the things from that time: the
Gulf War, the strange and distasteful exposé of Nasty Ned the Net Nark, various interesting parts of my address book and, of course, the opening of Dreamdancer’s story, in her own words, of why she ran away.

  A chat with Dreamdancer on Shades

  (The opening of this conversation vanished under the ‘lost cluster’)

  Bear: . . . trying to save your life.

  Dreamdancer: Poor Morg, I make his life a misery.

  Bear: Well, I don’t think that’s true.

  <*>who

  Eyegor the stubborn Necromancer (559)

  Dreamdancer the Morgan’s Witch (1024) (Safe)

  Bear the lizard hurling Wizard (1024) (Safe)

  Dreamdancer: I do, I’ve created too many problems for him.

  Bear: Nothing he isn’t willing to handle.

  Dreamdancer: And I don’t know how to resolve them or if I am going to have the time . . .

  Bear: How do you mean, time?

  Dreamdancer: . . . to help resolve them. I’ve spent a fortune on private treatment and it’s all been wasted.

  Bear: Why has it been wasted?

  Dreamdancer: Now I can’t raise enough to finish the course.

  Bear: You’d better tell me from the beginning.

  Dreamdancer: It’s too long a story . . . too complicated . . . I can’t say too much without Morg’s say so.

  Bear: Okay, I understand.

  Dreamdancer: But briefly . . .

 

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