richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (01/05/88)
GADGET.Electronic Edition DECEMBER 1987
Copyright 1987 by Ray Radlein
This file may be freely distributed to public computer
bulletin boards provided this notice is included intact, but
may not be used or published in any other form without prior
consent of the author.
What the Gang Did At AmiExpo
by RAY RADLEIN
New York. The Big Apple. The Capitol of The World. A teeming
Metropolis even bigger than Columbia, put together. And, for
three eventful days in October, the center of the Amiga World.
Luminaries and celebrities from all over the planet were gathered
together to celebrate the best-kept Industrial Secret in the Free
World - the Amiga. Movers and Shakers and Industry Insiders and
People in The Know converged on the Sheraton Hotel for three
hectic days of Electronic Excitement.
And was Gadget there, you ask? Was Gadget there? Are you
kidding? The National Newsletter for Amiga Users? Have you been
in a coma recently, or what? Of course we sort of went! And boy,
oh boy, just wait 'till you hear about the goings-on! The
parties, the meetings - was that really Irving Gould swimming
naked through a vat of jello? Inquiring minds want to know!
Arriving in New York, we headed straight for the Conference
halls - there would be time for sight-seeing (and sleep) later!
There were so many conferences to attend, that we hardly knew
where to start. "Desktop Publishing and The Amiga"....."Desktop
Video and The Amiga"...."Engineering and The Amiga"...."Sex and
The Single Amiga"...."Commodore's Total Lack of Commitment, and
The Amiga"....the prospects boggled the mind! Finally, we decided
to go get something to eat.
As we approached the snack bar, we were stopped by an
officious-looking individual with a clipboard and a
walkie-talkie. "Where are your passes?" he inquired.
"We haven't signed in to pick them up yet," we replied. "We
were just going to get something to eat first."
"Well, think again, End-Users! This here is a very important
Conference in progress: `Modern Snack Food Preparation and The
Amiga.' So scram, before I call Security!"
"But you can't do that to us!" We protested. "We're
Journalists!"
"Oh yeah?" he sneered. "Well, I don't recognize you! Who are
you with?"
"The Gadget," we replied proudly.
"Never heard of you," he sniffed, and turned away.
Well, we were starving, but food was the farthest thing
from our minds at the time; obviously something was dreadfully
amiss. It was, of course, impossible that he had never heard of
Gadget, the National Newsletter for Amiga Users; hence, he was
lying. But why? What kind of Evil, Twisted Game was he playing?
We vowed to find out.
Our first stop was Registration, where we ran into a stroke
of luck: Perry Kibblebitz of ASDFG was at the Registration Desk,
arguing with a facile-looking attendant. "But I tell you," he was
saying, "I am a developer! If you'll just check that list again,
you'll have to find my name!"
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I can't find any verification of your
status. Is your alleged product a poorly-designed and sloppy port
from some lesser machine?"
"Well, uh, no; but -"
"Is it overpriced, overdue Vapor? Is it poorly documented
and ridden with bugs the size of Miami cockroaches?"
"Well," stammered Perry, "no. What it is, you see, is - "
"Well, then!" Interrupted the Flunky triumphantly. "You
obviously aren't a Commodore-Approved Developer!"
At that point, I decided that hasty action was called for,
so I distracted the Attendant with my spectacular Flaming Hair
Mousse Trick, while Jay and Perry scooped up a handfull of
passes. "Thanks," said Perry as we wlaked away, pockets bulging
with passes. "I don't quite know how to explain this, but things
have been decidedly....strange...around here."
We assured him that we, too, had noticed, and that we were
determined to get to the bottom of it. Just then, we heard a loud
clanging noise behind us, followed by muffled curses. Turning, we
beheld a strange figure with some kind of steel helmet clamped
over his head. He was obviously incapable of seeing out of it,
because he kept walking into walls and other obstacles. "Why
look!" Perry exclaimed. "It's Leo Schwab, The Guy In The Mask!"
"What's his story?" I asked.
"Well," said Perry, "Leo, it seems, was visiting a small
foreign country called Siggraphia, when it was decided that he
looked too much like the reigning king, Pixar. In order that
everyone know who was in charge, Pixar ordered Leo stifled in the
fashion you see before you."
"Scary! Fortunately, that could never happen in America!" I
said.
Perry just looked at me funny, and Jay muttered darkly,
"That's what you think. And, anywa^, I think something even more
sinister is afoot here..."
We decided that it would be best to lay low and observe the
goings-on discretely for a bit, in case our behaviour had aroused
any suspicions. Accordingly, we decided to go out and see the
sights of the city. Outside the hotel, we bought food from one of
those Street Vendors, a small unshaven man who had a cart that
advertised "Disgusting Little Brown Things That Will Make You
Wish You Had Never Been Born!"
"Great!" We said, and bought a dozen.
Following the vendor's directions, we toured the city,
seeing all the sights that have made New York so famous: Staten
Island, The Statue of Liberty, The Empire State Building, The
Brooklyn Bridge, and, of course, the famous Barge That Nobody
Wanted, sitting in the harbor with its load of millions of
PCjr's, all quietly decomposing as swarms of flies buzzed around
and flocks of wheeling seagulls pecked at their cute little
detatched keyboards. "You know," I said, "it seems kind of a
shame. I mean, just think of all those infrared remote keyboards
and sensors going to waste when there are thousands of children
who can't afford to get their own Lazer Tag sets to play with."
With that somber thought, we turned and headed back towards
the hotel, filled with a new resolve to get to the bottom of this
mystery. So this is how Nancy Drew must feel! I thought to myself
as we neared the hotel. We had decided that our best course of
action would be to wander around the Exhibition Hall, looking at
the exhibits and trying to pick up any clues, any signs of
unusual behavior which might lead us towards a solution. To avoid
attracting attention to ourselves, we decided to split up, after
setting up a series of coded whistles and animal calls in case
any of us got in trouble or found a clue.
The first booth I stopped at belonged to none other than our
old fiends at Microsoft. Buoyed by the recent success of Word
Perfect Corp. in bringing Word Perfect to the Amiga from the
MS-DOS world, Microsoft has announced that they are going to be
porting their Word Processor to the Amiga. The Microsoft
representative referred to it as "the single most popular Word
Processor in the entire MS-DOS world. More users of MS-DOS have
this Word Processor than any other! Just wait until you get a
look at the Amiga version of Edlin!"
Undaunted, an official of MetaComCo announced that they had
been planning to port Ed over to MS-DOS for quite some time.
"However," he added, "we're having a lot of trouble making it
multi-task correctly...and we can't seem to get the front/back
gadgets to work at all!"
Nevertheless, he predicted a release date of "any day
now...really!"
Speaking of Multi-tasking, I questioned the Microsoft guy
about BS/2, their Vapor-Operating System for IBM. He swelled
visibly with pride, and said, "It's gonna knock your socks off.
It's gonna blow you away. We've got some amazing innovations in
store for the world...for instance, you'll be able to do several
things at once using BS/2! Right now, we're busy trying to come
up with a catchy name for that, and - "
"How about `Multi-Tasking'?" I suggested.
"Hmmm....`Multi-Tasking'. Ya know, that does kinda have a
ring to it. Let me jot that down.....anyway, we're also gonna be
into graphics with BS/2 and its revolutionary new User Interface,
Presentation Mangler. Who knows....if you Amiga folks buy enough
copies of Edlin, we might even be persuaded to port BS/2 over to
the Amiga!"
I assured him that most Amiga owners obviously are not
interested in graphics or Multi-Tasking, as was evidenced by
Logistix and dBMan. The Rep went on to explain the extreme
tardiness of BS/2 by saying that they "...had to fire Fred and
Barney, and hire a couple of new programmers. However, we are
confident that our new team of Moe and Curley will get things
straightened out in no time."
Also present in the hall was a representative from
Progressive Peripherals, the people responsible (or culpable, to
use Legal Terminology) for MicroLawyer. They were demonstrating
Beta copies of MicroDoctor, MicroDentist, and MicroCoroner, all
part of a new line of "Inexpert Systems." "The best thing about
these programs," the spokesman was saying, "is that they are
totally integrated. For instance, you can remove your appendix
with the help of MicroDoctor, contract apperitonitis and die,
perform an inquest with MicroCoroner, and, subsequently, sue the
hell out of yourself for malpractice using MicroLawyer."
"Sounds like what the Computer Revolution is all about," I
said, and walked quickly away.
I was becoming depressed. By the end of the day, all I had
collected was a pack of lies, a pair of blisters, and an
increasing sense of foreboding about the entire affair. At a
predetermined time, I met up with Jay and Perry. "Well, Jay," I
asked, after describing my wanderings, "what did you find out?"
"Not a whole lot. I went by the Electronic Arse booth where
they were showing off some new sports programs, like Bobby Knight
Basketball, John McEnroe Tennis, Bo Jackson Base-er-Foot-ball,
and, of course, Billy Martin Bar-room Boxing. They were also
showing a new program called Smooth Printer. According to their
Rep, they figured that if they could sell people a $50 program to
make their Amiga talk, they could probably do just as well with a
$50 program to make it print. They said that by the time it is
released, you won't be able to tell it was ported from a Mac."
"Meaning?"
"They'll have taken the Apple logo off the menu bar."
"I think that I may have gotten a lead." said Perry. "I ran
into a friend of a friend of a friend, who told me that he had
heard a rumor about a big top-secret meeting and some hush-hush
new product announcement."
"From Commodore? When?"
"Tomorrow."
"I have a feeling," said Jay, "that that's where we'll find
the missing piece to our puzzle. All we have to do is sneak into
that meeting."
The next day dawned bright and sunny. The temperature was a
bit chilly, but the skies were clear enough to see almost all the
way across the street. My head was dizzy with anticipation as I
surveyed the prospect of the day ahead. Or maybe it was just the
lack of Oxygen. What spectacular new product would Commodore be
unveiling? Would it be the long-promised and long-forgotten
Transformer upgrade? AmigaDOS 1.3? The semi-mythical Electronic
Arse forray into CinemaWare, Return to Atlanta? The equally
overdue AT Card for the A2000? The 68020 MMU and UNIX System V
for the A2000? Or...could it be...the Amiga Lie! frame-grabber?
Whatever it was, it was bound to be something important! We
sorted through the passes we had swiped, looking for ones that
would be sufficiently important to get us in while being
sufficiently innocuous to not get us recognized. I settled on
"Vice-President in charge of Quality Control, Amiga 500," Jay
picked "Vice-President in charge of Dealer Relations," and Perry
decided on "Vice-President in charge of Overseas Developments."
We hid the passes in our back pockets and set forth to try and
figure out where this meeting would be held.
When we had not found the slightest clue as to the
whereabouts of the big meeting by lunchtime, we started to get a
little bit discouraged. It was as though no one knew anything. "I
just don't get it." I complained. "We've checked out every last
conference room in the hotel! Where are they holding this thing -
the Basement?"
You could almost see the lightbulbs above Jay's and Perry's
heads.
After lunch, we started on a serruptitious tour of the
basement. As the afternoon went on, our initial burst of
enthusiasm had started to fade. It was getting late, and we still
hadn't found a clue. We had checked out the basement as
thoroughly as we had checked out the upper hotel, without
success. We were on the verge of returning upstairs when Jay
called to us in an excited voice. Hurrying over, we observed him
pointing at an otherwise unremarkable patch of concrete flooring.
"Look!" he cried. "Right there - a piece of Vapor!"
I looked again, and, sure enough, there was a small bit of
Vapor on the ground. Someone from Commodore had been this way!
"There must be a Secret Panel or Hidden Door around here
somewhere," I said. "There always is on Scooby-Doo!"
Sure enough, a short while later, we found the Secret Door.
Behind a crate of avacados, a passageway lead to a narrow flight
of stairs spiraling down into the impenetrable darkness. After
one or two spirals downwards, we were in pitch blackness, and the
light from the world above was like a photograph of the moon,
pasted to the vault of heaven and shedding no illumination
whatsoever. A few more silent windings, and the stairwell opened
out into a great cavern, and the stairs came to rest on the damp
cave floor. The prospect before us stretched out into the
darkness in all directions.
"Well?" said Perry. "Which way do we go?"
"I feel like a Miner!" said Jay.
"We could use a little Luck," I replied.
"Don't look at me!" said Perry. "I can't think of an R.J.
Mical pun!"
Eventually, we chose a direction and set forth. We wandered
for what seemed like forever, lost in the gloom, until we became
aware of a low rumbling sound, like the thunder of a distant
cataract. As we made our way towards it, the noise swelled to a
deafening roar, not unlike a B-52 revving its engines in an echo
chamber. The walls of our cavern gradually became visible, as our
path was illuminated by some source of light from ahead, and
things were getting noticeably hotter. Just as we thought the
noise could get no louder, we rounded a corner and beheld the
most incredible sight it has ever fallen upon my eyes to witness.
The floor fell away into an enormous cavern below us. Looking
down to the floor of the cavern, we beheld a vista of flames.
Flames were everywhere, dancing to and fro, flowing like the
fires inside a volcano. Inside the flames, dimly glimpsed figures
struggled and writhed in torment. "My God!" exclaimed Jay. "An
Apple III!"
Following his pointing hand, I was able to make out a
hapless soul, his face a mask of sheer terror, chained to an
Apple III. Next to him was a young woman, seated in front of an
Atari ST, with her mouth opening and closing in an inarticulate
cry of wordless grief. In fact, looking around the cavern, I was
able to make out PCjr's, Commodore 128's, Coleco Adams,
Timex-Sinclairs, TI-99's, Apple Lisas, PC Convertibles, PC-RT's,
and even an occaisional Mattel Intelevision Set. "Good Lord,"
muttered Perry. "I thought it was just a myth."
"What is this place?" I asked.
"Computer Hell."
How long we stood there I do not know. I thought of Bosch, I
thought of Munch's "The Scream," I thought of Blake and his "Dark
Satanic Mills"; however, I remain utterly incapable of fully
describing the sight.
I do not know which of us noticed first, but after a time we
became aware of another observer. Through the heathaze and
dancing air, we could dimly see a mysterious figure across the
cavern from us. As we watched, he beckoned to us, and turned and
disappeared into a tunnel behind him. It appeared to me that the
ledge we were on continued around the cavern to where our visitor
had departed. Perry looked very pensive. "I think," he said,
"that I might know who that is."
"Who?" I asked.
"I think that may have been John Faustus. Rumour has it that
he sold his soul for the ultimate Personal Computer. I think he
was sent here to guide us away from this place."
We followed our ledge around to where we had seen the
apparition, but were unable to discern any trace of him. We
proceeded down the tunnel he had apparently left through. After a
few minutes, the tunnel took a couple of sudden twists and turns,
and opened out into another cavern. As we entered the large
cavern, we suddenly became aware of the cessation of the noise
from behind us. Turning around, we could find no trace of the
passage through which we had just come.
"Like, Zoiks, Scoob!" I said. "I'm for getting out of here!"
"Right, Raggy!" woofed Perry.
However, it didn't appear as though we had much choice in
the matter, so we bravely pressed onward. With the cessation of
the noise from behind us also came the cessation of our
illumination; we once again groped our way through darkness.
However, from time to time we would glimpse our spectral guide,
hovering in the distance ahead of us, always just at the edge of
visibility.
On one such occaision, when we had an especially good view
of our elusive quarry, he did not dart away, as we expected he
would, but, rather, he simply vanished, like a candle snuffed
out. Moving over to where we had last seen him, we discovered a
large rock with the words "Jack Tramiel Sux" scrawled across it.
"Another secret door!" said Jay.
After a moment of searching, we were able to get it open.
Behind it lay a rough-hewn passage through the rock. "We must be
getting near," said Perry. "The walls are still warm."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"I dunno. It sounded good, though, didn't it?"
Cautiously, we made our way down the tunnel. After a minute
or two, things started to get lighter, and the walls began to get
noticeably smoother. Then we came to another door: Not a secret
one at all, this one had a knob and everything. And, best of all,
it wasn't locked. Turning the knob slowly, we opened the door and
stepped through. We were in what appeared to be a normal
corridor. The hallway stretched out to our right and our left,
and was well-lit by flourescent ceiling lights. After the murky
cave, it was almost blinding.
When our eyes adjusted to the light, we looked at the door
through which we had come; it was labeled "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
ONLY" and "DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE."
"Well," I asked, "which way now?"
"Ssshhhh!" said Perry. "Someone's coming!"
Sure enough there were footsteps scuttling nearer. We ducked
back through the door and listened as they passed. As soon as
they had gone past the door, we opened it and beheld a small
figure scurrying off.
"It's Irving Ghoul!" said Jay. "Follow him!"
At a discrete distance, we tailed Mr. Ghoul. "Did you see
the look on his face?" asked Jay. "I peeked through the door as
he went past. He looked like someone who had just gotten a new
Toy to play with."
After a couple of turns, he stopped in front of a door
guarded by two large, hairy men who stepped aside and saluted him
smartly. We dug out our passes and prepared to follow. Casually
walking up to the guards, we presented our passes. "You're late!"
the guard on the left accused. "You know that you shouldn't come
in after Mr. Ghoul! Why are you late?"
I realized that not even the Flaming Hair Mousse trick would
work on this guy. "Er, um, we had trouble getting FCC approval!"
I stammered out quickly.
"That's what they all say," muttered the guard, as he turned
and let us through.
Inside, we quickly found sets at the back. Irving Ghoul was
just taking the podium. "Whatever they are going to unveil here
has got to be pretty spectacular," said Jay, "after the great
lengths they went through to make themselves inaccessible!"
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Mr. Ghoul was saying at the front.
"I'm sorry for the two hour delay, but I had some problems - "
" - WITH FCC APPROVAL!" everyone finished in unison.
"Thank you. Before I unveil `Project X,' I would like to
thank all those senior Vice-Presidents and other toadies who have
helped to make this dream a reality. We are confident that this
is what is going to push the Amiga over the top.
"And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado..." he
said, and swept a cloth off of something on the table in front of
him, revealing what appeared, from our seats, to be an oversized
disk drive and some manuals.
The audience stood and cheered as he announced, "Ladies and
Gentlemen, I give you....the CP/eMulator! At last! A program that
will allow 80% CP/M compatability on the Amiga! This should
finally convince all those Commodore 128 owners to switch!
"And, best of all, your CP/M programs will run at up to 85%
of their original speed! We plan on a Massive Media Blitz to push
this product. We are going to bundle it with all of our new 8"
disk drives! And we should have them out by Christmas - if not
this year, then certainly by next year!"
The audience rose, en masse, and applauded heartily. We just
kind of looked at each other in disbelief. What was going on? He
didn't look like he was joking! Mister Ghoul then quieted the
applause and said, "But the best part of all is our Massive Media
Blitz! We've been promising increased advertising for a long
time, I know; but we've wanted to wait until we could get the
perfect Ad Campaign designed. And now, working in conjunction
with the Ad Agency of Akers, Sculley and Tramiel, we have
designed a saturation campaign which will raise Amiga awareness
among certain segements of the population which have been
identified as prime merchandise targets.
"Beginning in February, we will buy the next two entire
issues of Oral Hygiene Quarterly and Shocking Detective Stories;
and before that, in January, we will start running spreads in
Worldwide Wrestling Review, Teen Romance, Sgt. Splat! Comix, and
Redneck Hunting Monthly! And then there's television! We're
talking spots during Kick-Boxing from The Phillipines on ESPN;
we're talking about a major sponsorship of The History of Squid,
a ten-part series on the Discovery Channel! And, yes, even
network television! We're talking about spots on whatever show it
is that runs opposite Cosby on The Fox Network!
"And, as if that weren't enough, we're putting up three
entire billboards, just outside of Needles, California!"
By this time, the audience around us was giving Mr. Ghoul a
standing ovation so loud that we couldn't even hear him any more;
not that we wanted to hear any more. Was this supposed to be the
salvation of Amiga?
Suddenly, everything became very quiet. We became aware that
Irving Ghoul was pointing straight at us. "Those people!" he
screamed. "They aren't applauding! They're impostors! Get them!"
In a moment the entire room was a glare of angry faces
looking daggers at us. We stood up and I said, "But wait! You've
got it all wrong! We were - Oh my God! Mr. Ghoul, sir! Your fly!
I mean, er, your pants! That is, they're - Oh my God!"
True to form, everyone had, by then, turned to stare at Mr.
Ghoul. We scrambled for the door. "Special Mission for Mr.
Ghoul!" I said to the guard on the left as we passed through the
door. "And by the way, Mr. Ghoul is very worried that some people
may actually try to leave during his presentation - he would like
you to take all necessary steps to prevent that from happening."
"Right, sir!" said the guard as we walked quickly away.
As we reached the corner, we could already hear the growing
noise behind us. As soon as we rounded the corner, we took off at
a full sprint; and not a moment too soon, as we heard the pursuit
break past the guards. "We've....got to.....find out...the
reason...for this...strange...behaviour!" wheezed Perry as we
ran.
"If...we stay...alive...that is!" replied Jay.
Panting, just seconds ahead of the frothing mob, we reached
the "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY" door and left through it. The
last thing I did was remove my clip-on pass and flip it down the
hall as far as I could past the door. "Look!" I heard someone on
the other side of the door cry. "A badge! They went this way, all
right!"
"That won't hold them for long," said Jay, as we listened to
the ravening horde stampede past us. "We've got to get moving."
We secured the door as best we could from our side, and felt
our way back down the tunnel. Upon reaching the end of the
tunnel, however, we received quite a nasty shock, as we
discovered that the door was solidly locked. We were trapped! We
could not get out this way after all, and there was an angry mob
somewhere on the other side of the door we had come through. "So
this is it," I quoted. "We're all going to die."
"Could be," said Jay, reassuringly.
"I just wish I knew why!" Said Perry. "I mean, I still don't
really know what's going on!"
We all fell silent for a moment, as we regarded our
prospects. "Tell me something, Perry," said Jay. "There's
something I've always wanted to know, and I guess I'd better ask
you now."
"Shoot," said Perry, as I winced at the perhaps unfortunate
expression.
"The name of your company, `ASDFG'. Where did that come
from?"
"Well, Jay," said Perry, "that's kind of a funny thing. It's
actually nothing more than a typo! You see, we were originally
going to name the company after our first CEO, Mr. Qwerty, but
the typist sneezed, and, well, you know the rest..."
"You know," I said, "there has to be another exit somewhere.
I simply can't imagine all those executive types coming this way
to get in."
"Hmmmmm," Jay hmmmed. "I bet you're right! Only - how do we
find the other exits?"
"Simple!" I said. "We go out and look for them. I mean, it's
not like we have any other choice, is it?"
Thus, we made our way back to the "AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
ONLY" door. After listening to make sure that the coast was
clear, we cautiously peeked through the door. No one was in
sight, so we tiptoed through. "Now what?" whispered Perry.
"We start checking doors."
We had just checked the next door to ours when a couple of
guard-types loitered around the corner. "What are you three up
to?" asked the lead guard.
"We're looking for those fugitives." I said. "We thought
that maybe they had doubled back."
"Hmmmm...that's pretty good thinking. Hey!" he said,
pointing at me. "Where's your pass?"
"My what? Oh...gosh...I guess it must have fallen off while
we were chasing those desperados. By the way," I said, quickly
changing the subject, "what's behind this door here?"
"What, that one marked `AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY'? I think
that's some kind of service entrance or something."
"Hmmmm...they might have tried to make good their escape
that way. Are there any other exits near here?"
"Ummm, well, just the one around the corner up there."
replied the guard.
"Okay," I said, "I'll tell you what. Why don't we search
that other exit, while you two see if they got out this way,
okay?"
"Ummm, yeah, sure!" said the guard.
As soon as the guards were through the door, we turned and
sprinted for the other exit.
From that point, it was pretty much a matter of routine:
Ducking into a room, waiting for the lynch mob to thunder past,
and then emerging to follow them. It reminded me of some kind of
video game, even if the stakes were a bit higher than a quarter.
Aside from the time I had to outwit an alarm system with a couple
of pennies, a bar of chocolate, and my left sock (a little trick
I learned from watching MacGyver), the only real excitement was
the time when the door we hastily backed through proved to be the
Secretaries' Sauna Room. Thinking quickly, we pretended to be the
Laundry and Linen Service, and collected an armful of towels
apiece from the secretaries.
We didn't really want to leave, but duty called, and there
was only so long that we could stay there picking up towels
before someone would notice that we were wearing three-piece
suits. And anyway, we had so many towels that we could barely see
around them.
At length, after traversing several more miles of tunnel and
pausing several times to rest and eat twinkies and cheese
crackers from the vending machines we had passed, we emerged into
daylight, somewhere in New York City. It was early morning of the
third day. All we wanted to do was get back to the Sheraton and
collapse. "I still wonder," said Perry, as we walked in the front
entrance, "what all that was about! What can have caused people
to behave like that?"
We walked back through the Main Conference Area, on our way
back to our rooms. As we passed through the Hall, I was invaded
by a feeling that we were being watched; a feeling that something
was horribly wrong. It was akin to my earlier intuitions of
trouble in the same way that an object is kin to the shadow it
casts; there was something much deeper going on here. Hackles
began to rise on the back of my neck. Up until that point, I had
never really known what hackles were; but I had no doubts as to
their identity. I whirled about, almost in a panic. "There's
something wrong here!" I hissed.
"Yes, I know," said Jay, sotto voce. The strain was evident
in his voice.
"It's so quiet!" observed Perry, in a whisper.
"Almost...too quiet!" I announced, in my best `The Natives
Are Restless' voice.
Jay shot me a slightly annoyed look. "Listen carefully," he
commanded. "There's none of the chaos; none of the bustle. It's
so quiet you could hear a bomb drop!"
"You can actually hear conversations!" said Perry, in an
awed voice.
"And My God!" I said, tuning in on a couple of nearby
conversations. "Just listen to what they're saying!"
Nearby us, a couple of men in impeccably bland suits were
talking to one another with all the animation and expression of
two spies at a rendezvous, trying hard to look inconspicuous as
they mutter coded inanities about the weather and this year's fig
crops. Listening closer, I discovered that they were talking
about this year's fig crops. Across the aisle, a bored-looking
sales rep was doling out product - er, sorry, Vapor - information
to another bored-looking sales rep. In the next booth over, two
men were talking about how overrated advertising and product
support were in today's marketplace.
"My God!" said Perry, nodding his head towards the latter.
"I know those guys. Or at least, I thought I knew them. Just the
other day they were up in arms about the total lack of interest
Commodore's `Management' was displaying regarding those same
topics!"
"There's something funny going on here!" said Jay, marking
at least the fortieth time that one of us had been moved to make
that observation. "These folks aren't acting like themselves!"
"Oh My God!" I exclaimed, as it suddenly hit me. "The
Stepford Wives. It Came From Outer Space. Or, better yet,
Invasion of The Body Snatchers. These people aren't sounding like
themselves - "
" - because they aren't themselves!" finished Perry.
"Someone's taken them over!" said Jay.
"Yep," I said, " it's The Invasion of The Brain Snatchers.
It's The Night of The Living Brain-Dead. It's - "
" - I hate to alarm you," interrupted Perry, "but do you
remember what happened to the un-afflicted in those movies?"
"Er...why don't we get moving - " I offered.
" - before they become The Livid Dead!" said Jay.
Indeed, I thought I detected some darkened looks and
ill-concealed glowers from behind the clouded brows of the
hypnotized throng. We left in haste, packing our bags in a hurry,
and left through a side door. As we did, we thought we could hear
the beginings of another Lynch Mob forming. We grabbed the
nearest cab, pulled out our English-to-Cab Driver phrase-books,
and told our driver to "get us to out of here in a hurry" in as
many Dead Languages as we could. I think it was Linear B that
finally did the trick, or maybe it was the Sanskrit; at any rate,
we were soon running over Virtual Pedestrians at around Mach 4 or
so. The horror dwindled gradually away behind the clouds of dust
in our rear-view mirrors, but the shadow it cast seemed to grow
larger still in flight. We knew the Fight was far from over.
EPILOGUE
"And We Alone are Left to Tell the Tale"
(a Quinn Martin Production)
We have all lived in terror ever since. Jay has been forced
to move repeatedly to avoid detection, finally ending up far
enough out in the country that he stands a fair chance of never
being found - by either Commodore, their Mindless Minions, or
even the U. S. Post Orifice. Perry, living as he does in New
Jersey, is in constant danger. On his frequent trips into New
York City, he is forced to don a grease-streaked Bruce
Springsteen "Greetings From Asbury Park" T-Shirt with a pack of
Lucky Strikes rolled up into the sleeve, a pair of very worn blue
jeans, and some cheap sunglasses; all for the purpose of passing
himself off as just another Bridge-and-Tunnel Tourist. As for
Ray, he has been under enormous financial strain as a result of
infinitely subtle financial pressures, undoubtedly caused by
Commodore; and he has been forced to the ultimate recourse of
working with and teaching MS-DOS in order to diguise his true
identity.
The story is not a pretty one, but it is perhaps not too
late to give up hope. No, wait - that didn't come out right, did
it? Or maybe it did. Only time will tell. The Ignorant Armies of
The Night are on the march; but at least we know that they are
coming. Perhaps we will know which side is winning by the next
Ami-Expo. Of course, I'm not planning on going anywhere near Los
Angeles in February; but then, as we all know, things don't
always go according to plan....
--
Well they say my too dark keys are in Santa Fe, or something like that.
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM
{ihnp4!scgvaxd!cadovax, philabs!cadovax, codas!ddsw1} gryphon!richard