linuxmafia.com 2013/2013.06.linuxmafia.com/linuxmafia.com/pub/jordan/Humor/alt.shrugged/text0001.txt

INI File | 1996-11-13 | 31.3 KB | 557 lines

[continued]

****
    It was morning, and the usual rush of overseas posts was
brightening the eastern sky.  Standing by the window, Andrea did her best
to appreciate the view, but found herself unable to ignore either the
black wires crowding the skyline or her memories of last night.  She was
beginning to worry that Hawk was right; there was no room for pride on the
group any more.  How Flavio had been brought to the point of surrender,
she couldn't imagine... but if he had given in, what hope was there for
anyone else?
    Checking her inbox, Andrea found a vastly reassuring message:

> Welcome back, dearie!  Care for tea and muffins?
>                Auntie Erica

    Within the half-hour she was knocking on Erica's door.  Emma Pease
opened it, holding a virtual tea cosy and beaming as pleasantly as ever.
"Andrea!  Do step in... we're all having tea in the back."
    "How did you know I was here again?"  Andrea found a hook on the
door and boldly hung her coat from it.
    "Hawk told us."  Emma suddenly sounded strangely sad.  "She came
to talk to us last night... she said she'd rather have you hear the news
from us first."
    Andrea's head slowly lifted; the finely sculpted lines of her face
abruptly seemed starker than usual, her smooth skin paler.  Her voice was
cool and controlled.  "She's gone, isn't she?"
    Emma nodded, her eyes sympathetic and extended a comforting hand.
"Why don't you come in and sit down, dear?"
    Coldly ignoring the proffered aid, Andrea walked through the door,
head held high.  The other woman stepped back, retracting her hand with
gentle understanding.  Together they strode through the house, to the
small room where Aunt Erica Sadun and an erudite-looking Norwegian-
American were sipping tea.
    "Hello, Erica.  Hello, Rick."  Andrea forced her voice to sound
neutral.
    Both met her eyes and immediately knew better than to offer any
sympathy.  Auntie Erica was the first to speak, maintaining a tone of
polite abstraction.  "Hello, Andrea dear.  Welcome back to rasfwr-j.  Not
that we've missed you-- that would imply we needed you in some way, or
lacked something in your absence-- but it's always a pleasure to have
somewhat intelligent people around.  Care for milk with your tea?"
    "No thank you.  No sugar either."  She waited for someone to offer
a chair, and sat with a feeling of triumph when no one did.
    "Welcome to our little cha-no-yu, Andrea."  Rick Moen poured the
tea and pushed it halfway across the table to her.  She reached the rest
of the way and snatched it out of his grip, spilling half of it as she did
so and scalding her hand.  He smiled slightly and inclined his head,
indicating that this time she had the victory.  Andrea sat back in her
chair, ignoring her burned fingers, and sipped the tea.  She felt
considerably more composed.
    "Why did she leave?" she asked at length.
    "We don't know, dear," Emma replied.  "Not entirely.  She's been
unhappy for a long, long time, and I think it was only a matter of time
after Bill vanished."
    "Last night, though, she seemed almost... content again."  Erica
sounded mildly perplexed.  "She said she was leaving not in defeat, but
because she honestly believed it was the most constructive solution.
There was no keeping her, and we knew better than to try.  I asked where
she was going, and she said she thought we'd find out soon enough.  She
never told us, though."
    "Didn't she mention some man-- some stranger she'd talked to who'd
settled her thoughts on the matter?"  Emma looked over at Erica, one
eyebrow raised.  "I asked if it was Bill, but she laughed and said no."
    "Some man?"  Andrea jumped on the solitary clue.  "What sort of
man?"
    Emma raised her hands helplessly.  "She never said, Andrea dear.
For all I know, it was a newbie-- the last troll that broke the bridge."
    "That sounds most likely to me, I'm afraid," Rick regretfully
affirmed.  "Two days ago, I saw someone going off on the de rigueur
anti-Nynaeve rant... you know, what do those Jordan bitches think they're
doing, talking back to their men?  Hawk was there-- but instead of turning
into la belle dame sans merci we all know and love, she just sighed and
let the little sexist go on ranting.  I think she realized for the first
time just how pointless the whole thing was.  And now she's given it all
up.  C'est la vie."
    "The newsgroup's gone a long ways downhill since the time I first
arrived."  Auntie Erica's eyes were distant and sad.  "People used to take
pride in posting; they refused to countenance laziness and leeching here,
any more than in real life.  You wouldn't hear any of this nonsense about
the 'right way' to post being a creation of the elite.  The FAQ was seen
as a helpful tool and body of wisdom rather than the root of all evil.
Cabal members-- there are, of course, no Cabal members-- were offered at
least a little deference.  But all that's gone now."
    "The group's lost its old je ne sais quoi," Rick agreed.
    "It's lost its great men," Erica corrected him.  "There were three
young fellows I knew and taught once, my three favorite nephews... I had
high hopes for them, high hopes indeed.  They knew what standards were--
even though their ideas on how to enforce them differed somewhat.  But
they couldn't survive in a People's Group for long... the growing power of
the leeches changed them or drove them away."
    Andrea glanced over at her in curiosity.  "Who were they?"
    "One you know very well: Flavio d'Arrillo.  He was one of the
brightest young lights on the group, whatever he may have become since.
As for the second one, though he left before you first joined us, you may
still have heard his name: Loynar Danneskjold."
    "The Loy?" Andrea exclaimed.  "The notorious Net pirate?"
    "He wasn't always a pirate," Rick Moen interjected drily.  "Once,
he was considered an artist... though of a rather peculiar and perverse
kind.  He was brilliant in his jokes and flames, and we all admired his
twisted wit.  But the boneheads who came to dominate the group had no use
for him; his humor was over their heads, and his intellect put them to
shame.  Plus, however far he might stretch to make a joke, he always
stayed well within the standards they rejected.  So they threw him out,
and he responded by stealing their bandwidth-- posting a continuous stream
of flames, random comments, and off-topic TAN:s.  And now he's been
declared an outlaw, and every troll on rasfwr-j is hunting his scalp.  But
he left his mark on the group-- ars longa, vita brevis, you know."
    Andrea mulled this over silently.  "And the third?"
    Erica sighed.  "A rather bright young fellow you'll never have
heard of.  He left long ago, before the group reached its current nadir--
because he foresaw it and couldn't bear to watch it happen around him."
She paused sadly; no one else said anything.  "My fellow Net-Aunt Judy
Ghirardelli and I did our best to prepare the three of them for the
corruption of Usenet.  I suppose it may be too early to decide that we've
failed-- though some, it seems, have given up already."
    "Oh, yes.  Poor Judy..."  Emma sighed and dabbed a tear away from
her eye.
    Andrea's incomprehension must have been evident on her face.
Erica waited for a moment, then slowly shook her head.  "You didn't look
through all your mail this morning, did you, dear?"
    "No; I saw your message and hurried right over.  Why?"  Cold dread
began to creep up on her heart.
    "There's one last survey from Aunt Joody-- requiem aeternam dona
eis-- in everyone's box, with only one question on it."  Rick's voice
    "Oh no.  'Who is John Novak?'"  Andrea felt a dull pain at their
silent confirmation.  "Damn it, Auntie Erica, who is he-- and why does
everyone keep asking about him, if no one really cares?"
    Rick Moen sighed.  "Ah, that is the real question, isn't it?  But
as they say, che vuol dire questo?"
    "I know what it means, young Rick-- because I happen to know who
John Novak is."  Erica spoke in a firm, steady tone.
    "You do?" Andrea and Rick exclaimed simultaneously.
    "Absolutely."  Folding her hands in her lap, Aunt Erica settled
back in her chair.  "John Novak was an engineer who designed a feasible
means of producing cold fusion.  However, he was informed that the
materials he required to make his vision a reality were by nature tainted
with baser elements, and that his standards for purity were completely
unrealistic.  So he withdrew from the scientific community, built a
laboratory and apparatus with his own hands, and completed his project.
Then he nuked Peoria."
    "Oh.  Another metaphor."  Andrea sat back, clearly feeling let
down.
    "Et tu, Erica?" Rick Moen muttered, looking no less disgruntled.
    The older woman raised her hands.  "You can't understand now, my
dears, and I can't express it any other way.  It's still too early in the
parody.  Eventually, of course, you'll find out what it's all been leading
up to, but it's not my place to tell you the story in literal terms.
You'll just have to wait."
    "No."  Andrea's eyes flashed as she stood.  "I won't wait until
we're the last two people of any sense left on the newsgroup.  We need to
discover why everyone's leaving, and stop them before the whole thing
collapses.  Time is short, Auntie Erica-- and I can't sit here sipping tea
any longer."
    Erica's smile was placid.  "You do what you have to do, Andrea
dear."
    Andrea set down her teacup and walked to the door.  There she
paused, looking back briefly.  "Thank you very much for welcoming me back.
It's good to know that there are still some places on the newsgroup where
people have some degree of pride in themselves.  Just... don't any of you
vanish without talking to me first, all right?"
    "Hasta la vista, Andrea," Rick Moen said regretfully.  "If you
need any help-- excuse me, if you want the company of an equally
self-reliant human being-- you know my address.  Buen suerte!"
    Andrea refused to grant him the trophy of a smile, but nodded
haughtily in his direction to convey her gratitude.  Then, with a bow to
the other two women, she turned and left the room.

****
    The next two days were an unhappy blur of bad news.  Andrea spent
almost all of her waking hours searching rasfwr-j, trying to find old
acquaintances amidst the sea of lurkers and newbies.  The few she located
were all too often dispirited, and bore nothing but bad news.  She met
Mike Kozlowski on a random thread; he told her that Tshen (unsurprisingly)
had finally left to join Loynar Danneskjold in bandwidth piracy.  She
found Kate Nepveu chatting idly with Karl-Johan-- who was in a foul mood,
and spent most of his time complaining that the newsgroup had somehow
overtaken Scandinavia in its troll population.  He was able to confirm,
however, that Magnus Itland had vanished a week ago.  Then there was Kurt
Montandon, who was flaming off a swarm of boneheads in the "Taimandred"
sector.  When they could talk, he grimly informed her that he and Rich
Boye were on the verge of leaving themselves, and no entreaty could move
them.  For the first time in her life, Andrea was brought to the verge of
complete despair.
    On the morning of the third day, there was a knock on her door.
Opening it, she found herself confronted by the strong, angular features
of Rick Moen.  In response to her quizzical and slightly indignant glare,
he shrugged and smiled.
    "I realize you never called for my help-- but I found your little
speech to Erica inspiring, and so I figured it was time to get down to
solving the basic problem.  Tochis afn tish.  Besides, I have some news
you may find interesting."
    "Let's hear it."  Andrea grudgingly stepped away from the door and
allowed him to enter.
    "Well, first, the bad news: St. Erroneous has finally taken a vow
of silence, and Julie Kangas is swimming with the fishes."  Before the
double blow could really affect her, he hurried on.  "But here's the
important part-- in both cases, they were first seen talking with a large,
dark stranger.  Both spent a good hour talking to l'etranger mysterieux,
and then immediately put their accounts in order and vanished.  Doesn't
this strike you as similar to a certain other mutual friend of ours?"
    Andrea forgot her annoyance in sudden excitement.  "You think it's
the same mystery man who spoke to Hawk?"
    "Seems likely, doesn't it?  The modus operandi is the same, at any
rate... which would lead me to think, contra my previous guess, that this
fellow is more than just a boneheaded newbie."
    Frowning thoughtfully, Andrea said, "But then who could it be?
Who else could convince all these oldbies to leave?  And why?"
    Rick Moen spread his hands regretfully.  "Sodomy non sapiens,
dear."
    "Well, we'll just have to find out.  Keep your eyes open, Rick."
    The next day passed slowly and frustratingly.  Andrea ran into
Richard Bollinger, who growled amiably that he'd seen plenty of strangers,
but none of that particular description.  He had also heard rumors that
the boneheads, leeches, and trolls were meeting to elect a People's Cabal,
with the excuse that the old Cabal [TINOC] had lost too many members to
maintain a quorum.  Otherwise, her search for news was fruitless.  She met
Rick Moen again that evening; he looked slightly less gloomy, but not by
much.
    "I talked to a lurker who claims to have overheard one side of a
conversation between a rasfwr-j oldbie and a dark-bearded stranger.
Unfortunately, the oldbie  was Aaron Bergman."  Rick shrugged ruefully.
"We didn't get many sentences of over one syllable, I'm afraid.  Que sera,
sera."
    "Aaron's gone, then?"
    He sighed.  "Yes.  By the time I found him, his departure was a
fait accompli."
    Andrea's eyes were hard and cold as flint.  "This stranger is the
Enemy, Rick, I'm convinced of it.  He's a Destroyer, dedicated to the
collapse of what little good remains on the group.  We've got to stop
him."
    "Fine, but as they say in Uruguay, que podemos hacer?"
    Andrea's finely drawn lips pressed tightly together as she
thought.  Then she looked up.  "We need to anticipate him, Rick.  We need
to figure out who he's going for next.  How many real Cabal members (there
are no real Cabal members) are left?"  There was a moment's silence while
they both ran down a mental list.  Then Andrea's eyes brightened.  "Of
course!" she exclaimed, and was out the door before he had a chance to
rise from his chair.
    She sprinted down the virtual streets, not bothering to check if
Rick Moen was following.  It didn't matter if he was there or not; all
that mattered was that she reach her destination in time.  She finally
arrived, worn out and gasping for air, at the front door of a tall, dark
building.  In the moment she took to catch her breath, Andrea thought she
glimpsed a large, shadowy figure striding down the alley behind the
neighboring tenements.  It was impossible to see him clearly in the
twilight of evening, however, and with a sinking heart she dashed into the
hall, hoping against hope that she wasn't too late.
    She burst into the main bedroom, where a man in a shape-shifting
warder cloak glanced up at her, then went back to tossing clothes and
valuables into a suitcase.  "Hello, Andrea."
    "Stop packing, darkelf," she commanded.
    Michael Steeves looked up again, an even smile on his angular,
finely sculpted face.  "I can't do that, Andrea."
    "So he got to you as well?"  Her voice was thick with rage and
hurt.  "You've decided to throw in your lot with the Destroyer?"
    "Quite honestly, yes."  He closed the suitcase and turned to face
her.  "You don't understand.  Right now, I don't think you can.  Some day
you will, when he explains it to you.  But for now, please trust me when I
say he's right."
    "How can he be right?"  Andrea stood in the doorway, folding her
arms.  "How can it be right to abandon everything on this group that
you've worked to develop, darkelf-- to abandon even your Warder Bond?"
    He shot her a stern glance.  "I'm hardly abandoning that, Andrea."
Picking up his luggage, he stepped toward her.  "But I am leaving
rasfwr-j.  Please step out of the way."
    She stared up at him coldly for a moment, then did as he asked.
He walked past her; she neither moved nor spoke until she heard the door
close.  Then her shoulders slumped, and she stumbled into a chair.  There
she sat for several minutes-- until she heard the door open again, and she
sat up with a sudden surge of hope.
    It was Flavio d'Arrillo.
    "Hello, Andrea," he said in a gentle voice.
    "Hello, Flavio," she replied dully, sinking back into her chair.
    "I saw Mike on the way out.  I'm sorry you had to go through
that... if you'd run a bit more slowly, he would simply have been gone
when you arrived."
    Andrea shook her head, feeling empty.  "You know it was better
this way.  But I just don't understand.  How can everyone who cares about
this newsgroup just leave?  How can you waste yourself the way you do?  It
just doesn't make sense."
    Flavio sighed.  "Well, I could try to explain it by appeal to
logical properties, such as non-contradiction... but of course, one
moment's experience of the _real_ world should be evidence that people
aren't logical.  All I can say is that you don't see the whole picture."
    "What's left to see, Flavio?" Andrea demanded.  "What could
possibly make me agree with what you're doing?"
    "Well, one thing you don't know is that I'm leaving myself.  This
afternoon."
    "What?"  Her eyes snapped up to meet his.  "But-- why?  Damn it,
Flavio, if anyone had a motive to stay, it was you, with your popularity
and your parties!"
    Flavio's angular, mathematically proportioned face was calm.  "But
you see, I'm not throwing any more parties.  I've spent all my money,
squandered my assets, burned down my mansion, and am now leaving two steps
ahead of the lynch mob.  And that's not all-- I've also ensured that the
level of intellectual dialogue on the newsgroup has declined to depths
best described as 'neanderthal'.  The newly elected People's Cabal of
rasfwr-j wants me arrested for arson, wasting public property, and
fostering mass popular ignorance.  Needless to say, I don't intend to stay
long enough to answer the charges."
    Andrea couldn't speak for several seconds, and when she finally
did, it was in a barely audible voice.  "Flavio.  You... you were doing
all this deliberately?  You're in league with the Enemy?"  He nodded; she
shook her head, as if to fiercely negate the very idea.  "Flavio... you
used to be one the proudest posters on rasfwr-j.  Now you've destroyed
everything you ever contributed to this group, and done it with your own
hands!  How-- how _could_ you?"  She tried to understand, but failed
utterly.
    "I don't think you'll comprehend until he comes for you..."  He
paused, grinning ruefully.  "Oh, Loy would have fun with that one.  Let's
just say I didn't want to leave any of my contributions to be tossed
around and sucked dry by the leeches of the People's Group.  This
Destroyer of yours showed me that."
    "Who is the Destroyer, Flavio?"
    He was silent for a long time, then smiled a strange, sad smile
and shrugged.  "Who is John Novak?"
    She almost hit him.  Instead, she stood, bowed stiffly in his
direction, and stalked out of darkelf's lair.  By the time she reached her
home, it was full night, and the streets of the newsgroup were beginning
to fill with trolls and lurkers-- more than she had ever seen before.  She
ignored them, climbed the stairs to her room, and shut the door behind
her.  No one else was there.  She mutely made herself a cup of coffee,
then sat down, refusing to think, to care.
    She was wakened by the dim morning light, filtering down through
countless black wires-- that, and the unsteady footsteps coming up her
stairway.  Grabbing a flamethrower, Andrea stood and stealthily moved over
to the entrance.
    "Sturm und drang!"
    It was Rick Moen cursing, and there was a helpless rage in his
tone that frightened her.  Andrea opened the door for him; he stumbled in,
almost falling into the armchair she had just vacated.  His face was
haggard as he looked up at her, his voice hoarse as he spoke.
    "Pam Korda just joined the ranks of the vanished."
    Andrea's head snapped up in horror.  "No!"  She couldn't bring
herself to ask the obvious question.  She didn't need to.
    "Yep.  We've lost the FAQ."
    Andrea slowly lowered her weapon to the floor, then pulled up a
chair and sat down next to him.  She refused to show any weakness in front
of Rick Moen, even under circumstances as terrible as these.  Reaching out
her hand, she found her cold coffee cup of the night before and drained it
at a gulp.
    "Andrea?"  He didn't try to put a hand on her shoulder; he knew
better than that.  "Just remember:  Nolite te bastardes carborundorum."
    She looked up in exasperation, fighting back tears.  "Rick, _will_
you speak English for once?"
    He smiled in genuine amusement.  "Don't let the bastards grind you
down."
    Andrea tried to smile back, but she was too weary.  They both
were.  Several silent minutes passed before she finally stood-- with
noticeable effort-- and walked slowly to the door.
    Rick focused a rueful, half-asleep eye in her direction.  "Maf
garnos mero man de ki for not wanting to join you, Andrea, but where are
you going?"
    She looked back at him, trying not to let desperation seep into
her voice.  "Anywhere.  Does it matter now?  I can't let it end like this,
without at least trying to do _something_."  Without waiting for an
answer, she stepped out the door.

****
    In the end, Andrea desperately grabbed the first regular she met
in the street-- a young man wearing a Yale sweatshirt and a fish on his
head.  "Tell me-- do _you_ know who John Novak is?"  Before he could
speak, she pressed a finger against his throat.  "And if you even _start_
to reel off an endless metaphor, I'm going to kill you."
    The young man smiled apologetically.  "But don't you see, in the
question of whether the Novak exists, there are some things you can only
express by metaphor.  The whole problem of whether or not you should read
the stories literally is very complicated, and... urk."
    "Listen, Fish-boy, this isn't theology."  Andrea didn't release
her grip on his larynx.  "If you can't tell me anything helpful, point me
to someone who can."
    "OilCan," the young man croaked, gesturing desperately down the
road.  "Should know maybe.  Say more but... can't breathe."
    She dropped him and ran off in the direction he had been pointing.
Within minutes, she came upon a 6'6" colossus and a buxom redhead walking
down the street together.  They were involved in some sort of argument
involving much laughter and the frequent exchange of points and insults.
>From what Andrea could tell, it involved Dylan and a duck.
    "Chad!  Lara!" she called breathlessly, once she was within
earshot.  They paused and looked back at her, then stopped and let her
catch up.
    "Hello there, Andrea," the Cabal scorekeeper greeted her.  "No,
no, take a second to catch your breath.  Believe me, Lara and I weren't
talking about anything that can't wait."
    Lara raised an eyebrow at him.  "If you're willing to come to a
truce in this adolescent war..."
    "Indigo Girls, 'Ghost'.  Barely worth the point."
    "Bite me."
    Andrea broke in.  "Chad... who is John Novak?"
    Chad Orzel grimaced.  "Oh hell, not you, too."
    "No, no...  I mean literally.  I want an answer, and not a
metaphor."  She kept her voice steady, refusing to plead.  "All this is
linked to him somehow; but until I know who and what he is, I can't even
begin to stem this idiotic exodus of the elite."
    Chad spoke thoughtfully.  "Sometimes idiocy is our only option."
    Lara didn't miss a beat.  "_Outbreak_, Dustin Hoffman."
    "One point.  Max."
    "Need I invite you to bite me?"
    Andrea interrupted again.  "OilCan... do you know who he is?"
    He nodded absently in her direction.  "Well, of course I do.  You
don't get this high in the omniscient Cabal (there is no omniscient
Cabal), not to mention spending half your life around a member of the L^2
Entity, without knowing the answer to _that_ one."  He abruptly rounded on
Lara.  "Hey, honey, want to know who killed Kennedy?"
    She snorted disdainfully.  "Last line of the movie, and he got
Best Actor for it, Chad, just last year?  I can't believe that even _you_
would offer points for that."
    "You're pretty sarcastic for a jiggling figment of our
imagination."
    "You're pretty talkative for a pet duck."
    "Bite.  Me."
    "Quack."
    "Excuse me... John Novak?"  Andrea was beginning to feel
desperate.
    "Oh, right."  Chad Orzel turned back to her, wrinkling his brow
thoughtfully.  "John Novak was the Humblest Man on the Net-- and the
proudest man any of us ever knew.  He lived, breathed, and dreamed this
newsgroup-- and posted so often that everyone else judged their post
frequency on a Novak Index.  He was the cornerstone of the Cabal (there is
no Cabal).  No bonehead could out-flame him, no regular could out-argue
him, and no pitiable newbie could convince him to lower his standards.  He
refused to tolerate ignorance in any form, from anyone, and that was
that."
    Andrea paused to take it all in.  "So... why isn't he here now?"
    Chad shrugged.  "He left a long time ago, when he was told that
'popular demand' required a lowering of standards on the group.  He said
in the end, it would surely lead to the dissolution of rasfwr-j and its
surrender to the leeches."
    "And you think that this is it?  The _end_ of the newsgroup?"
Andrea was appalled.  "You honestly believe we're in the last days of
rasfwr-j?"
    "Could be, could be."  Suddenly he whirled on Lara again, a
challenge in his voice.  "The happy day to come when flesh melts at so
many degrees and the night of the moon has so many hundred hours..."
    Lara raised her eyebrow succinctly.  "I'd have to guess...  'Happy
Days'?"
    "The absurdist play or the TV show?"
    "Don't be silly, Chad.  Points, please?"
    "Mmm.  For you, my dear, one point."
    "Would you show our contestant the size of the 'Bite Me' he just
won, Phil?"
    "Will you two stop for just a minute?" Andrea demanded.  "Rasfwr-j
is falling to pieces around our ears, with the oldbies deserting left and
right, and we have to do something besides chatter!  Maybe if we found
this John Novak, wherever he is, and brought him back, he could turn the
place around... but if we don't get moving now, it'll be too late..."
    The earth trembled, and the sky went completely dark.  From a
long, long way away, they all heard a colossal CRASH as if some great
edifice had just collapsed upon itself.
    "Damn," Chad commented absently.  "I strongly suspect it's already
too late, Andrea."  Without further explanation he broke into a run and
vanished down the street.  Lara shot her an apologetic glance, then ran
after him.  There was another great rumbling crash in the distance.
Andrea turned around, desperately searching for a familiar reference point
in the suddenly lightless newsgroup.
    A little, narrow-faced man was striding down the street away from
her, rubbing his hands together in sublime satisfaction.  Recognition sent
a double surge of dread and rage through Andrea's mind, and she chased
after him.  "Hey-- you!"
    Her companion from the train car looked around and saw her.  A
gleeful, slimy grin appeared on his face, and when he spoke his voice was
gloating.  "o, its the oldbie who thought she was so better than us... how
do u like THIS then, elitist bitch, we have the last laugh i think"
    Andrea's voice was colder and harder than a glacier.  "What the
hell do you mean, you little leech bastard?"
    He was taken aback for a moment, but rallied bravely.  "u mean u
dont know, haha, u havent heard whats happening to your own precius
rasfwrj?"
    "No.  What's all that noise coming from?"
    asmodean12 explained blithely.  "well, if we dont bulldoze half
this place, it wont have the smalltown feel we on afrj value so much...
these huge structures really must come down, and we cant have anything so
complex as that thread over there... has the faq been dealt with yet, btw,
bc it should be the 1st to go"
    Andrea's finely sculpted face was completely bloodless.  "You're
mad.  What do you think you're doing?"
    The little man grinned nastily as another tower toppled behind
them.  "preparing 4 tomorrows merger & the subjugation of all rasfwrj to
the will of the pepole, now and 4ever"
    "Merger?"  She almost started laughing hysterically, though she
knew he was perfectly serious.
    "with afrj, of course"
    Andrea dug her fingernails into her palms until they drew blood.
"The Novak was right," she breathed faintly.  "It really is the end."
    asmodean12 prattled on.  "btw, its been made illegal for any more
oldbies to leave, its not healthy 4 humanity and society to have all the
old elite vanish... not that we need u, but a pepoles group should accept
all kinds, all should be equal"
    Barely restraining her desire to throttle the little rat, Andrea
spoke through clenched teeth.  "Believe me, I'm not going anywhere.  There
may be fewer oldbies here than there used to be, but don't think we'll let
you and your kind take over here without a fight."
    "o really"  asmodean12 raised his eyebrows mockingly.  "didnt u
know?   it was an oldbie who arranged this merger, its the 1 good use of
elite power in the history of rasfwrj"
    For several seconds, Andrea couldn't speak.  Finally, she managed
a hoarse, "Who?"
    The small, narrow-faced man waved one hand dismissively.  "o, i
dont know, i only saw him briefly during the negotiations on alt.config,
he was a big bearded darklooking fellow... arrogant bastard like all
rasfwrjians, but he at least knew better than 2 resist the will of the
pepole, he saw where the future was going, unlike you all, but no more
brains than the rest of you, no..."
    <PLONK>
    The words were still hanging in the air when death took him.
    Andrea holstered her killfile, feeling strangely detached.  "What
do you know... it was one of the females who did it after all."
    She walked numbly back to her home, trying to ignore the collapse
of the newsgroup all around her.  Her door was open; she found herself
unable to care.  Did it really matter if the leeches and looters took it
all now?  Then, suddenly, she remembered: she had left Rick here.  Feeling
a sudden, awful premonition of doom, she dashed up the stairs and into her
room.
    The note on the table was short, simple, and heart-wrenchingly
clear:

>  Sic transit gloria, dear.
>
>            Rick Moen
>
>  PS:  We have met the Enemy, and we are his.

    "No!" she screamed.  Running to the window, she saw two
silhouettes striding down the alleyway toward a strange crosspost wire of
solid light-- the last one visible that didn't now lead to afrj.  In mere
seconds, they would be gone for good.
    Not pausing for a single second, Andrea vaulted out the window and
shinned down the drainpipe.  Her impact with the ground temporarily
knocked the breath out of her, and she felt something give in her ankle.
Regardless, she sprinted down the alley toward the narrowing channel of
light.  The Destroyer was there, with Rick Moen... she would kill him,
stop him somehow before he could get away with her friend, and avenge the
unforgivable crime of selling them all out to afrj.
    She reached the gateway a second after the two silhouettes
vanished, and a mere instant before it closed.  There was a rush of golden
light all around her... and suddenly she was standing in an isolated
mountain valley.  She had a momentary glimpse of a small cluster of
familiar-looking people, and even more familiar-looking buildings on the
valley floor far below.  Then her ankle finally gave out, and all she saw
was the rocky ground rushing up at her.
    When she regained consciousness a few moments later, she was
staring up at an unfamiliar man.  His round, bearded face bore no mark of
pain or fear or guilt.  It was proud, and took pride in being proud; his
expression was a strangely comforting blend of serene determination and
certainty.  There was something about it that told her who he was, who the
Destroyer was, even before he spoke.
    "Hello," said the man.  "I'm John Novak."

****

[continued]