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Data, the Bulletin Board, and Everything Else by





"Data, the Bulletin Board, and Everything Else"

Finished 10-5-94 by David Minter.

Based on "The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the PC Universe" and
"The Bulletin Board at the End of the PC Universe" by
David Minter, and "The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,"
"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe," and "Life,
the Universe, and Everything" by Douglas Adams.



Author's note: This story uses actual people, places, and
institutions all in jest. However, sometimes there may be
moments when I actually mean it. But those are all for
you to decipher, so have fun, and please stave off the
lawsuits for as long as possible. Humbly yours... The
Liar.



Boy, am I going to get some flak on this one!



The traffic of cyberspace is littered primarily with
nothing. Inky blackness invades a majority of the
computer smoke that exists as the bridge between man and
machine. The only thing that breaks up the terrible
monotony are holes in cyberspace that serve as entries
into individual systems. This highly idealized
description gives one the gist of the description of
telephone modular ports, commonly known to the Jack-of-
All-Trades as a telephone jack. However, for this
individual who has been bouncing around the emptiness of
cyberspace for quite some time now, it became a portal
back into life!

The world exploded from a dim grave into a bright new
existence. He felt so alive! He wasn't back in his old
body; it was brand new, an artificial one. The world
looked so different now. Electronic sensors received
light and color spectrums far better than human
counterparts could ever hope to do. He was in a dense,
incredibly strong metallic body. Metallic shafts and
belts provided untold amounts of raw physical force...








force that he could now turn onto the world that had
spurned him! He was insane now, and all that now within a
powerful robotic body. He raised his brand new foot down
towards the lab-smocked scientists that were mingling
about at his feet. "Um, Dr. Biggles?" The words
reverberated crystal clear within his new audio receivers.
"Yes, Dr. Jones?" "I believe the system is on-line."
"REALLY!? This is fantastic! If it's true, we've finally
achieved the ultimate child's toy... and a sentient one at
that! What makes you think the system has been
activated?" Jones tapped Dr. Biggles on the shoulder.
She turned around to see the gigantic, metallic, green
boot heading towards her. "OH, SHI-" BA-TOOOOOM!

The intricacies of muddling about in cyberspace have
only truly been mastered by a minute group of people. One
of these people is James Kelley. The many zany aspects he
has entertained his miserable existence with in the
( Detox? ) tank are myriad. His most recent exploits
include getting the system manager's password for the
Owensboro Community College, which some tried to rename
the Owensboro Kommunity Kollege in honor of Mortal Kombat
oddly enough, and hacking his way into the Internet, in
addition to running the singular most successful bulletin
board system in Owensboro, Ky. All of these medals of
computer hacking honor seem overwhelming to most humans,
but they're not that significant when you consider that
conceptually James only exists as digital computer
information dashing from system to system at the speed of
thought. His crippled body resides in a sensory
deprivation tank, floating in that blue fluid that they
use to test tampons with; his body is the one floating,
not the tank. His mind is intricately linked with his
computer at a hardware level.

Not content with being one of the single greatest
scientific impossibilities known to man, James has kept
silent about his condition. Only recently did he reveal
himself to a select few who helped him find, and
unfortunately subsequently defeat, Rush Limbaugh. Today,
he has become so bored that he's integrated himself into a
large collection of pornographic image files found on the
Internet. He was about to commit acts thought impossible
with a computer, sans advanced virtual reality technology
or an oddly shaped disk drive, when a new rush of data
came in. James couldn't decide which feeling was more
euphoric: melding with the X-rated files or the sudden
influx of data that strengthened his mind and his
cyberspacial body. The news was so startling to him that
he faded out of the graphics file, just before THE moment,
leaving the .GIF somewhat disappointed\unsatisfied.
"Sorry, bitch! But this news is big. BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG!








Gotta jet!" As James sped away into the telephone
networks of the world, he looked back for one last,
longing look at his attempts. What he saw stunned him!
He couldn't help but laugh. "HA! A Penthouse Pet. How
odd." His mind drifted back to someone he once knew,
someone whom he last had contact with back when he pulled
him into- "I wonder..." As he moved along, various text
from data spills dashed by him. There were two strings
most prevalent among the data: the number 7 and the phrase
":Rewritten." James didn't like where this was heading,
but I'm sure you will.

A massive green robot was running rampant through the
streets of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It was dashing into
buildings and kicking aside the pathetic attempts of the
police and other civil defense authorities to try and put
an end to its reign of carnage. It would periodically
swipe at innocent civilians and crush their meager hopes
of escape as well as their bodies. "HA! You think I'll
allow any of you to escape alive? I NEVER HAD THAT
OPTION! You all have had free reign long enough. I've
been given a second chance with this new body, and I'm
going to see that you all pay!" With that having been
said, Megatron busted a move that caused $3,000,000 worth
of property damage and snuffed out 2,100 lives.

Being intricately connected with the Internet through
a process known as hacking, James had access to various
forms of news media, posted on-line almost immediately as
they occurred. For the sake of time and plot, however,
they were posted immediately. Posts had been filtering
from such Internet oppositions as Prodigy and Compuserve
that a strange green robot was attempting to destroy Rhode
Island, oddly enough. And the story behind that robot is
even more intriguing than why of all places Rhode Island
was chosen, but that will have to wait for one more
paragraph.

Megatron took a swipe at a nearby building and then a
buzzing media helicopter before resuming kicking innocent
civilians to their doom and randomly firing his blaster
into the city. An F-16 zoomed into the fray and fired
twin Tomahawks into Megatron. "You must be kidding!" it
insulted the plane's pilot. "I AM FUELED BY TOO MUCH
HATRED TO BE STOPPED BY THAT!" With that, he brought the
purple tank cannon on his shoulder to bear and blew the
plane and its occupant out of existence. Megatron grinned
wholeheartedly at the wholesale destruction he was now
able to render in his new body and transformed into his
tank mode. For the next seven minutes, Megatank rumbled
over City Hall and took great pleasure in demolishing it








and its occupants, giggling with glee at the mushy
squishing that the flesh creatures serving as policemen
made when his treads crushed them. "NOTHING COULD STOP ME
BEFORE, AND NOTHING WILL DETER ME NOW! AH HA HA
HAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

James settled into a computer terminal within one of
the surviving branch offices of Hasbro toys in Pawtucket,
Rhode Island. It seems that Hasbro was engaged in a
secret experiment to create the ultimate toy. To try and
capitalize further on its Transformers: Generation 2 line,
and before it left, they developed two working LIFE-SIZE
Transformers toys! An Optimus Prime and a Megatron, both
had working weapons, which violated the phrase on the side
of every Transformer box before 1988 "Weapons do not
really shoot!" and, now get a load of this folks, COULD
ACTUALLY TRANSFORM! But before Hasbro scientists could
1.) get such monstrous toys past the censors and 2.) make
working Transformers on a feasible budget, the giant
Megatron toy somehow suddenly gained sentience and began
devastating Pawtucket, Hasbro's US headquarters. This
massive metal machine was fully equipped, fully loaded,
and capable of transforming into a tank, Megatron's
Generation 2 vehicular mode! Judging from the latest
posts on Prodigy, Megatron had yet to be stopped. There
only seemed one viable means left of stopping the rogue
Megatron toy now...

Megatron transformed to clean up his treads and give
them a rest. He brought his anthropomorphic ( Power
Rangers! You Mighty, Anthropomorphin' Power Rangers! )
mode into play again to have some more fun with the
remaining police forces. He squashed a few, beat a few,
and served a few real cold! And then broiled a few and
pickled a few and boiled the rest for gold! HEY! He was
about to crush a young officer's groin between his massive
thumb and forefinger when a plasma blast rocked Megatron's
shoulder. It was meant to grab his attention, but
unfortunately it made him ungrab ( Ungrab? ) the officer
who then plummeted to his death. "One shall stand; one
shall fall." Megatron, stunned at hearing that old line
from "Transformers: The Movie," looked up to see the
familiar red and blue form of his hated rival. "OPTIMUS
PRIME!"

"But how-?!" And before Megatron could say, "But
how-?!" Optimus- Strike that! And AFTER Megatron said,
"But how-?!" Optimus transformed into his semi truck mode,
whose trailer, interestingly enough, blatantly displays
"OPTIMUS" in big, bold letters which sort of negates the
purpose of transformation: disguise, and drove into








Megatron's shin. Unfortunately, in Prime's haste, first
he killed three people by catching them up in within his
body when he finished transforming, second he eliminated
19 men by running them down, and third destroyed what
remained of the capitol building when Megatron fell back.
Prime transformed back into robot mode and brought his
plasma rifle to bear on Megatron again. "No, not quite.
While the origin of your newfound intelligence may be
questionable, I am just a poor soul trapped in cyberspace
who has taken it upon himself to save innocent lives.
And, I still don't know why I keep doing it," Optimus said
in the voice of Peter Cullen.

Megatron shook the shock and disorientation out of
his cranial chamber and rose back to his shaky feet. "I
don't believe it! It's you!" Megatron said in the voice
of Frank Welker. "We always seem to be at odds, don't we?
In toys, in cartoons, in comics, in giant functional toys
of those same media, and in real life!" OPTIMUS PRIME WAS
STUNNED! So stunned in fact that he lowered his defenses,
and subsequently his rifle, and accidentally shot himself
in his unfeeling feet. "In real life?" Megatron grinned
a devilish grin, which would make more sense than grinning
a devilish frown now, wouldn't it. "You still don't get
it, do you? LOOK AT ME!" Optimus looked up fully into
Megatron's face. "I'm bigger than you are; that should
suggest two things. One, I'm better, i.e. more powerful
so I will win. Two, that we've met somewhere before."
"NO! You don't mean-" "Yes, it is, you little liar!
Bigger, bigger bigger, bigger, BIGGER! Here, let me show
you!" With that suddenly odd outburst, Megatron's
shoulder flew back as he unloaded a shell into Prime's
midriff.

Prime staggered back and flew his hands out much like
his CGI counterpart in the beginning, and as such ending,
credits of the Transformers: Generation 2 tv show. The
sparks flew out, and Prime momentarily looked at his
steaming, black wound. Megatron transformed and rumbled
towards Prime. His tank turret penetrated Prime's chest
hull! Megatron then summarily fired off another round
into the delicate internal motive circuitry inside.
Megatron then transformed, with his turret gun still
lodged in Prime's chest. With Prime dangling a half mile
off the ground, Megatron leered into Prime's optical
sensors. "You see this?!" he asked, motioning with his
head towards the tank gun stuck into Prime like a skewer.
"See the label? It says, 'BIG GUN!' You see, a phallic
human moron put this upon me. When the toy was first
designed and released, the sticker on it said the same
thing. From the beginning, we've tried to raise out kids
to be psychosexual maladjusts! From Joe Camel to this!








But for me, the term applies, both now and back when I had
my inferior body! And now, I have to make you shut up!"

Megatron reached into Prime's face, took hold of his
mouth plate, and tore it right from its sockets! Sparks
flew into Prime's face and now live wires began to dance.
He then held the shiny faceplate before Prime's dazzled
optics and then wrenched it into crumpled foil. "No more
lies from you anymore, Stingray!" HE KNEW! It must be
true! IT WAS HIM...! "And in case you still don't know
yet, I'll be more than happy to show you your superior!"
Megatron wriggled his big gun from out of Prime's chest.
Prime, with his major locomotion systems, both vehicular
and anthropomorphic, off-line, simply slumped to the
ground, motionless but still managing to crush a bus load
of escaping nuns. Megatron dropped Prime's faceplate from
his hand, and drew it back. The fingertips hinged back to
reveal multiple pin socket connectors. Pausing for one
single moment to savor the great moments of victory that
he had experienced so few times before, he thrust his
karate-chop stance hand into Prime's cranial chamber.

James Kelley's world suddenly burst into a hell of
bright colors, random flashes, and static. He had had no
choice. This rogue robot had to be stopped, though he
still did not know why, and with the creators dead, James
had no choice but to travel the cyberspace telephone lines
into Pawtucket and hopefully connect up with the Optimus
Prime toy, praying that it was still on-line. Thankfully
it was, and now James Kelley, inside of a truly functional
and this time powerful body for the first time since being
placed in sensory deprivation went out to challenge
Megatron. The results of his endeavor have now placed him
in the hands of his adversary and completely at his mercy.
It seems there was some sort of underlying intelligence
behind the Megatron toy's suddenly upheaval into the land
of the living. As unbelievable as it may be to believe
( ? ) it was... James Kelley's world once again lit up
within the body of Optimus Prime, only to dip into
blackness and cold.

It had seemed like an eternity before the comforting
lights of going back on-line were ignited. However, it
wasn't that much brighter nor warmer. Mainly, he was
conscious again and considering the state of his real body
in the blue fluid, even that is an upshot. "SHOW
YOURSELF!" he called out into the icy depths. A low, evil
cackle filled the chilling hollowness of his cyberspacial
location. "Of course, James." A small man in a lab coat
came down a spiraling staircase that had appeared out of
nowhere. "I was wondering when you'd finally wise up,








idiot!" As James\Stingray tried to rush the approaching
scientist, tendrils from the electric floor reached up to
hold him in check. He looked at the tentacles of doom
currently enclosed about him. "Well, that's nice." He
looked back up at his assailant. HE WAS RIGHT, for once!
"We had wondered what happened to you... DR. WILY!"

"I said I'd be back, now didn't I? But, not even I
had dreamed it would be in this powerful robot body!" He
shook a fist towards the heavens, pulled a green kazoo out
of nowhere, and began to play the "Doctor Who" theme used
for the Seventh Doctor. "You thought you had gotten rid
of me? Well, much like the soldier you proliferated for
you little cyberspacial army who slugged me, whose name I
forgot to document when I wrote the last story, you have
learned I am not that easy to shrug off! After you had
sought to dispose of me, I bounced around between the
Internet and Compuserve for what seemed like an eternity.
Every time I bounced into a passing file in transfer, I
got more and more sense knocked into my head. In fact,
too much! To keep from going truly sane, I sculpted "The
Bulletin Board at the End of the PC Universe" like I said
I would from data spill you leave behind in the Internet,
not even bothering that you're littering the information
highway!"

"I bounced around from terminal to terminal finally
arriving at the terminal connected to the body that you
and I are now both in. BILLY- JAMES WAS STUNNED! "You
mean... I'M INSIDE MEGATRON?! I'M INSIDE... YOU?!
DISGUSTING!" "I plunged into your cranial interface and
uploaded your essence from Optimus Prime and downloaded it
into mine. Isn't that grand? HA, HA, HA!" With that,
David returned to his kazoo and played the "Ode to Joy"
movement from Beethoven's Ninth, and quite well I must add
since I'm the writer. "As our adventures take place here
inside of this Transformer, I am chronicling them into a
text file that will then be sent to the PC Universe after
I defeat you so that all of Owensboro- ALL OF THE WORLD!-
will finally know that I'VE TRULY WON!" Lightning lit up
the inside Megatron's head.

"You see, I'm still your superior. You've been in
here longer than I have. But, I am more powerful because
I am bigger, better, and smarter than you are! You used
to rule this pseudo-land, but now you are nothing, only a
tenant! I AM GOD HERE! And I'll prove to you that I am
God! Because only God-" David snapped his fingers, and
second Dave appeared right beside the first. "-can
create-" the two Daves said in unison. They
simultaneously snapped ( their fingers ) and a second Dave








clone appeared. "-LIFE!" the three chillingly said
together. "You see, I can create three-" the three Daves
snapped their fingers to the tune of "Camptown Races."
"-OR THREE TRILLION ME'S!" three trillion voices spoke in
unison. "We can speak with the voice of the human, David
Minter." "Or we can speak in Welkersonian tongue," they
said with Frank Welker's voice. "Or any one of us can use
any one of Frank's endless voices!" the Dave continuum
spoke with Jabberjaw's voice while others sounded like
Megatron, Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage, Ratbat, Soundwave,
Skywarp, Mirage, Trailbreaker, Mixmaster, Streetwise, Wild
Bill, Freddy from Scooby Doo, and even "Seaquest's"
Darwin, along with a few billion other back-up voices.

"So this is how it ends, eh?" James thought to
himself. "All that time bouncing around in cyberspace and
awaking in a prison akin to my own has finally driven him
into that maddening precipice that he so claimed he was
in." "YOU FORGET, JAMES KELLEY!" the three trillion
Daves' voices said as they all merged back into the
original model. "Thought is an electronic impulse, and as
such, I can intercept and read them." James hadn't
thought of that. He was an electrical being as well, and
for far longer than David had been. He simply concluded
that he would use his vaster mental powers to wrest
control of Megatron's body. James concentrated, but
nothing happened!

"Thought you could wrest control of this body from
me, eh? You may have been in this pitiful condition
longer than I have, but you are erroneous when you
conclude that you brain power is vaster than mine. I have
complete control of this body and yours here. I can read
your thoughts before your body here in my cyberspace can
intercept the instruction code from your real physical
body in the tank. I know exactly what you're going to
next." David dodged to the left as a random burst of
parity errors came hurtling his way. "Like that." James
was stunned! "That was my best trick!" "You got me last
time with one similar to that before, but I was
unaccustomed to cyberspacial living then. But now, I have
learned! You see, I learn at a geometric rate. As such,
I quickly... adapt!" The ethereal battlefield grew
amazingly darker, and icy tendrils began wrapping
themselves around James's throat!

"Cold, isn't it? Dark. Alone. Barren. Miserable!"
David waltzed over to James's face and peered into his
electric eyes with glowing electric ones of his own.
"Welcome to my world..." "Yep. You're definitely off the
deep end now! You've developed some sort of displacement








complex. To replace your psyche, damaged from the
unaccustomed hell of your prison, your subconscious Id has
chosen the only apparent successes you've ever had, your
stories. To that effect, you've now adopted the persona
you created for Dr. William Douglas Wily. I KNEW IT! YOU
WERE-" "IT WAS MERELY A COINCIDENCE! I HADN'T REALIZED
UNTIL AFTER I DROPPED DR. WILY INTO 'GREMLINS 2: WRITTEN'
THAT I HAD CHOSEN THAT NAME AS AN ALIAS!" "You couldn't
guess I was going to do that, did you?! It was the oldest
trick in the book: attack the enemy's weakest opening! Ad
homimen, tu quoque, POISONING THE WELL! You just didn't
see that one coming! Well, can you predict this?"

A giant, grotesque visage of the Hal 9000 computer
popped into being above David's head. Red light from its
trademark diode shone down upon him like an accusative
spotlight. As if the scene were taken from the book of
Revelations, Judgment Day for David Minter began. "What
are you doing, Dave?" For a moment, Dr. Wily was
trembling beneath the probing glare of the light. But,
only for the moment... "Do you think such cheap theatrics
could sway me?" "Well, they did for a moment." "But only
for a moment..." Dr. Wily waved his hand before the image
of the supercomputer from "2001." The red light set in
its panel turned into the planet Jupiter in a chilling and
subtly ironic montage about the whole Arthur C. Clarke
series, a montage that you probably would not have gotten
had I not told you about it so blatantly here. A black
spot appeared on the planet and began consuming it,
starting with the storm. Then, the light\Jupiter
exploded, consuming the computer with it. The bright
flash even left James disoriented.

When he was able to focus clearly again, James saw
that the computer had been joined by a second one of the
same nature. Hal had now turned its annoyingly accusing
glare upon James. "I do not like him, Dave. He wants to
slowly remove my iso-linear chips and let them float
around the cabin while I slowly sing, 'Daisy, daisy, give
me your answer do...' in protest. I suggest you kill him
now, Dave." "You see, with his female counterpart, Sal
9000 by its side, Hal has become corrupted against your!
It's time to end the silliness of sex! And that begins
with your destruction!"

"But, before I slaughter you, I'll have one last bit
of fun." Dave opened his mouth wide. "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The long string of exclamation points that James just
loves to hate struck him in his cyberspacial equivalent of
a chest. "Now, prepare to see the true face of evil...
the true face... OF HATE! The true face of one who drowns








baby sparrows when they won't stay put in the cages I
place them in! MINE!" Dr. Wily raised a hand to James's
forehead and a burst of data flew from his fingertips and
directly transplanted into James. In the single instant
of electrochemical response, he knew all of David Minter's
life. "YES! All the loses, all the hate, all the names,
all the jealously, all the pain! IT'S NOW YOURS! From
the evil day I was dropped into this world until the day
they carted me off and tossed me into a stinking a jail
cell, IT'S ALL THERE FOR YOUR PERUSAL! And did they do
anything to Bandit? NO! THEY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO HIM!
AFTER ALL, HE'S HUMAN AND HAS THE NECESSARY CIVIL RIGHTS
GRANTED TO ALL SENTIENT BEINGS, AND I'M JUST A SOULLESS
ANIMAL TO KICK AROUND! BUT I GUESS NOW SO ARE YOU! HA,
HA, HA!" James shut his eyes tightly, trying to think of
something- ANYTHING! that would distract his mind from all
the plight. "NO! LOOK AT IT! SAVOR IT! LEARN THE
TRUTH! LEARN ME, PITY ME, AND THEN DIE BY MY CYBERSPACIAL
HANDS!"

James struggled; he really did. He tried his best,
But the strain of reliving David's life was just too much
for him, too much for any man. He fell limply forward,
only held up by the icy tendrils of energy suspended from
about his throat. "And now, the routing of the rest of
the human race begins in earnest." Dr. Wily waited a few
moments longer to make sure that Stingray was truly
motionless. When he was satisfied that James was dead and
the biofeedback from the death of his Internet
doppleganger had turned the vegetative husk of his real
body into a corpse, he approached the limp James. "It
truly is a shame. I really could have used one like you.
You could have easily seen the hope I can offer to
humanity. But you refused. You wanted to remain to that
carnal side of the human affliction. You just couldn't
learn that, my friend, and now you're dead." "Yes, I
guess I'm dead, aren't I?!" James suddenly raised his head
and responded.

"But- but how?! My life is an eternal, endless
torture! How could you possibly have survived that when
I, your physical and mental superior, could barely stand
it myself?!" "Quite simple. I DON'T CARE!" James saw
his chance and took it. With David stunned, James took
control of Megatron's body. He freed himself from his
cold bonds. "HOW COULD YOU BE DOING THIS? You've been in
this world longer than I have, but I am the more powerful!
I learn faster that you, and thus have greater control!"
"David. GET A LIFE!" "I HAVE! AND IT IS CALLED
MEGATRON!" With that, Dr. Wily took control of Megatron
back. "You see, I am the superior. You've logged more
hours, but I am your mental better!"









With that proposed final utterance, David directed
massive bursts of data into the sector space that James
was occupying within Megatron's fixed memory. The data
was coming in too fast for James to process. His
computerized body expanded to a point that would have made
Stac Electronics proud and Microsoft jealous. But, every
system has its point of entropy, and James reached his.
He suddenly inflated like a cheap, dime-store balloon and
burst, coating neighboring files with his data spill.

"EXCELLENT! There's NOTHING he could have done to
survive that!" "Um, actually there is!" James's voice
boomed all throughout Megatron's systems. "WHAT DIE?!"
"You may claim to know more than I do, but I know one
thing that you have either neglected or forgotten:
hardware interrupt requests, in particular for hard disk
controller." "THE IRQ!" "Exactly. Just before maximum
capacity, I began downloading into a buffer. Only your
excess input was what burst. I simply created a temporary
swap file shell to take my place and store the data."
"Well, you won't get away a third a time! I AM SICK OF
YOU! I AM TIRED OF YOU... AND ALL OF YOUR KIND... NOW AND
FOREVER! ALL OF YOU THAT WENT ALONG WITH YOUR PETTY LIVES
WHILE I WALLOWED IN THE SUFFERING OF MINE! I AM GOING TO
END MINE, AND TAKE YOU OUT WITH ME!"

James sensed the sudden, desperate commands sent into
the energy processing units of the Megatron body. "What-
what are you- NO! THAT'S MADNESS! YOU'RE PUTTING YOUR
OWN BODY ON OVERLOAD! MELTDOWN!" "OF COURSE IT'S
MADNESS! AFTER ALL, I'M A BLITHERING LOON! SAY BYE-BYE
TO LIFE, BAB-YYYYYYYYYY! AH, HA, HA, HA! DIE! DIE!
DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Realizing he had to get out of there
and into another on-line system before Megatron's went
down and taking him with it, James transferred his essence
into Megatron's hand, the one Dr. Wily had used to
transfer him from Optimus Prime into his current location.
Accessing the central processor, James directed the
already sputtering Megatron over to a telephone line
strung over the city of Pawtucket. Megatron ripped out a
transformer, in a scene whose irony probably escapes the
like of you, thrust the special hand into the exposed
wires, and prepared the hand for data transfer.

However, James paused. For the first time in too
many long years, he had been in a real moving body. He
had had the pleasure of actually walking around a city,
taking the pleasure of a stroll that so many people take
for granted. But, maybe he should not take this








opportunity for granted. He detected the first explosions
rocking the body. Any second now, the rising shockwaves
would hit him and send him off-line... permanently. But
maybe, that wasn't such a bad thing after all. All these
years, he wished he could just be like normal humans
again, and dying comes with the territory. He could
finally rest forever in dignity. His experience in there
with David had proved that life was too precious to spend
it in wallowing torture, trapped in the prison of your own
body. He had a body again, and he was going to die with
it.

James turned back and looked at the approaching wave
or death-dealing random data, proud to die like a real
human being, within some sort of body. "Now it's you who
has forgotten James!" David's voice rumbled in front of
the rising data wave. "Remember that I can still read
your thoughts? And while I'm still existent, I will
partake in no way whatsoever in the continued happiness of
ANYONE!" Dave shot forth into James. He shoved James
through the interface terminals in Megatron's fingers and
out into the telephone line. Before James could react and
thrust himself back into the release of death, a bit
stream from Prodigy caught him up in its ever-forward
moving wave of communication and carried him off into the
safety of continued existence, a fate that he wasn't
entirely happy to get. David smiled into the exposed
wires. He appended the last few lines to his cut and
paste and sealed the file shut. He thrust it into the
data flow from Prodigy. The zipped file latched onto a
stop bit and flowed after James. He shut the terminal
accesses in Megatron's fingertips and smiled one last time
before the wave consumed the essence of David Brian
Minter. The resulting explosion snuffed out the entire
city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. It was an ending truly
fit... for a king.

Once James found himself in a Prodigy terminal, he
was easily able to triangulate where his true body was.
With a certain air of sadness and failure, James returned
to his body by birth. His essence settled comfortably
back into the only truly whole portion of his fleshly body
left, his mind. Through the frozen comatose eyes of his
form floating in the tank, he stared into nothingness,
which was compounded into further nothingness by the blue
tampon fluid. He was about to utter a cyberspacial sigh
when an incoming file was uploaded to his bulletin board,
the PC Universe. He was about to file ( Ha, ha! ) it away
when the date of the file caught his eye. It was only
thirteen seconds older than his exit from Megatron's body.
He unzipped it, cautiously activating McAfee's virus
scanner into TSR before examining the file... just in








case! The ones and zeros played about on the hard disk
platter and finally took form. He eyed the title of the
text file: "Data, the Bulletin Board, and Everything
Else." Even faster than immediately, James zipped it back
up, deleted the copy on his hard disk, moved the zip file
onto a waiting floppy disk, and instructed the floppy
drive to spit the disk onto the floor, leaving his mother
to deal with the offending curse. As the robotic arm
inserted a new floppy disk into the drive, James shut down
his mind so that he could defragment all the craziness
that had occurred to him that day...

James Kelley's lethargic mother bumbled into the
room. First bumping into a dresser, she then just
happened to stumble in the direction she was heading, and
banged her head against her son's tank. She stared
through the opaque blue fluid at her son's glassy eyes,
the eyes of death. Yet, her son wasn't dead, merely dead
to her and to the world. He was trapped in a prison of
her and her husband's making. It probably would have been
better had she never borne him. But what was done was
done. And now, all she could do for her son was really
all she could do with the mental capacity that she had:
clean his room. She androgynously moved about the room,
tidying things up when she came across a 3.5 inch disk
upon the carpet. Interestingly noting that 3.5 times 2
equals 7, she snatched the disk up, took it outside into
the backyard target range, and used if for shuriken
throwing.





And, since this seems to be a semi-regular series, stay
tuned next time for "So Long and Thanks for All the Files"
when we FINALLY learn the origin of the blue fluid tank
business! If I ever get around to it, of course...

"Data, the Bulletin Board, and Everything Else" @1994 by
David Minter. Based on "The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the PC
Universe" and "The Bulletin Board at the End of the PC
Universe" by David Minter, and "The Hitch-hiker's Guide to
the Galaxy," "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,"
and "Life, the Universe, and Everything" by Douglas Adams.






 
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