Sara Templer looks out of the abandon subway tunnel. Nobody ever comes here anymore. That's why they use the subway tunnels. They use them because nobody ever comes here anymore. It's the best place to hid and protect them. The best place to hide and protect the thousands of books. Books that would otherwise be recycled by the CBRRC (Committee for Book Reclaiming and Recycling Committee). Sara remembers when the printing and storing of books was outlawed to protect the environment and save the trees. But Sara and those who work with her knew the real reason for the new laws. It is hard to change the content of an existing book, but digital media, digital text is easy to change. Easy to change in very subtle ways. Easy to change, just enough change to bend history in just a slightly different direction. Bend it enough so that the bending becomes a new "truth" and what really happened becomes lost; really lost, like forever lost. But not with books. Books don't change their content. They speak an eternal truth. Their history never changes. It is more than just books that Sara and her outlawed group guards; it is the real history of what happened. The truth of what happened. The truth that MicroSuck and those that control it don't want you to know.
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Craven Sinclare is the Assistant Security Section of Home Office Legal Enforcement (you figure out the acronym), for the MSCC. He gets the hard-to-solve problems. Craven has been there longer then perhaps most people. He remembers the days when MicroSuck finally won the browser wars by buying out all of the competition. He knows how powerful browsers really are. A lot more powerful then most folks could ever imagine. They are, after all, executable programs, and, as programmers know, an executable program can have anything built into it... Anything, yes, anything. And that is exactly what MicroSuck had done, built everything into their browsers. Made them so they could read your Email, modify your Email, paste Email into your system that you never, ever thought you got. Send Email to anywhere so it looked like it came from you. Their browsers could keep records of where you had surfed, place photos and pictures on you computer, anywhere and at anytime.
Ever wounder how MicroSuck knows when your computer needs updates? Worse yet, ever wounder how MicroSuck knows when your browser needs updates? That is because your system is constantly being monitored by MicroSuck. That's why MicroSuck never, ever gave away any of its source code (even when being sued by countries all over the world). It is also why they make their browsers an integral part of their operating systems.
Craven remembered all of that. It always amazed him that people never caught on. But now Craven had a new challenge. A rouge operating system had been initiated and no one knew where. They knew when but not where. Craven suspects that it was Linux, because only Linux would have been powerful enough to destroy part of the MicroSuck distress signal. There was another thing he knew too, it didn't come from an OutTell hardware system, otherwise the distress signal would have been too strong to be damaged. Had to be on an outlawed system.
He was devising a scheme, one that had worked for him before. If it were Linux from an outlawed system, then who ever did it may just possibly try one of the virtual world games on that system. If that were the case, then Craven could find him in that virtual world. So all he had to do was get into the right game and at the right time. The right time seemed to be now. Yes, now. And now, for the right game.
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When Harry first moved into his SD, the person leaving left a bunch of trash to be sucked up by the TSA (Trash Sucker Agency). They were a day late, and when Harry first moved in, there was a pile of trash there. Of course Harry sorted through it, just to see what was there, and he came across a curious item labeled a PS-15. Looked sort of like an antique thing Harry thought when he first saw its black shiny slick case. So he kept it. He thought that some day he could sell it on MSEEB (MicroSuck Electronic Exchange Bay). What made him think about that PS-15 now, was that one of its connectors looked like it was made for that thumb-drive thingie he found in his food ooze.
Well, as you would expect, Harry does it. He plugs the thumb-drive into the PS-15 and sits back. The small, flat screen sitting on the slick, black box begins to flicker. Soon a message appears: WARNING: ROUGE SOFTWARE REMOVED BY MICROSUCK ANTI-VIRUAL PROTECTION. FUTHER USE OF THIS DEVICE IS IN VIOLATION OF THE FOLLOWING COPYRIGHT LAWS...
And a list of items follow with a date. Harry looks at the date and muses that was before he was born.
The light on the thumb-drive keeps buzzing on and off, as if it is really trying to do something. So Harry waits. Soon the message on the small screen begins to pixelate, then it comes back again, as if the message and the thumb-drive were in some kind of battle with each other. Then the message disappears completely and the tiny light of the thumb-drive could almost be heard giving a victory yell, as if it had just defeated some dark resident evil thing.
The screen now comes alive with an array of icons, the likes of which Harry has never seen. A small, tiny, almost insignificant pulse, child of the dead message, leaves the machine as the new operating system takes over. The small tiny pulse races through a tangled maze of networking fiber toward the MSSC (MicroSuck Software Security Center), behind it follows a larger, stronger pulse, racing to overtake it. It is caught, but not in time, as what is left of it makes an almost insignificant yet noticeable blip on the MSSC GSS (Global Security Screen).
“RSB (Rough Software Breach), RSB”, yells an MSCC agent, and a hundred eyes turn to see the small, dead blip. The same thought runs through all of their minds: “Where is the breach?” The blip vanishes. A hundred people scramble to their personal terminals. There is no time to lose. No time to lose.
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In Harry's world, everything is controlled by MicroSuck. MicroSuck owns all of the SD's operating systems, their browsers, essentially anything to do with software. MicroSuck doesn't bother with hardware or communication links or anything like that. MicroSuck's grip not only determines what Harry can and cannot access but also what his government can access, what business can access, and, of course, what simulations Harry can access. As a matter of fact, Harry, and others like him do not know of the existence of any other operating systems except of the latest one sold to you by MicroSuck.
It is morning, and Harry's breakfast is to be is favorite of ham and eggs. But there is a problem with the FMO; it keeps buzzing at him every time he tries to morph it. The oven keeps displaying the OEM (Oven Error Message): Error 4,489.054 unknown substance in morphing product.
Harry fingers through the ooze in his FTT and finds a small unfamiliar object. You and I know this object as a thumb drive, but Harry has never seen one. He sees that one end of it looks like a connector so he puts it into his MMUC (Multi-Morphing Universal Connector) and after a few seconds of pattern matching the viewing screen lights up with information about the drive. It says, WARNING - Contains unknown operating system - Contact MicroSuck immediately.
Harry's first reaction is to first find out what is inside the memory stick. He isn't aware that any other kind of operating systems exists. What he knows about operating systems is that there were a few very primitive ones way back in the early 2000's and that thanks to MicroSuck, these were all upgraded and improved to the point where the older versions are no longer needed. Now there is only MicroSuck System 53.1, which of course, controls everything. Why would anyone want a different operating system?
He opens his VST (Virtual Software Toolkit) looking for an old program he hasn't used for some time. It is his PPT (Program Peeker Toolkit) which allows him to scan the major contents of a program without opening it. This would be a safe thing to do. At least it would allow him to see what this unknown operating system is all about. He finds it, poking it into the memory stick for a quick peek. He sees the message: LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM 4.87, OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT.
Well, he is now more curious then ever. What is Linux, never heard of this. And Open Source Movement; never heard of that either. So he searches for the word Linux. He waits and waits watching the buzzing of search engines all around him. He gets back other alternative words, as if he had misspelled the word. He double checks the spelling, yep it is L-i-n-u-x. Still nothing. He suspects that there is something wrong with his PPT. So he does the next natural thing, he scans for Open Source Movement. Wow, he finds it:
“OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT, an early movement by young rebels to undermine the software industry by producing intentionally faulty software in an effort to replace well designed and stable commercial software. Because of the potential security threats created by this kind of software, no links are available to any of their illegal sites.”
Wow, Harry thought, that really sounds cool. He wondered what would happen if he opened the thumb drive. Would doing that give him links to that Open Source Group? Of course he was just wondering you understand, just wondering.
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Harry, like others, has a food tube and a liquid tube routed into his SD. The food tube carries a dark green ooze, in itself, odorless and tasteless. But, when poured into a FTT (Food Template Tray) and zapped in a FMO (Food Morphing Oven) the ooze forms itself into the shape, texture, taste, smell, and content (minus the bad stuff) dictated by the FTT. Tonight, Harry is having a porterhouse stake with all of the trimmings that go with it. He pulls out the Porterhouse FTT, opens the FOT (Food Ooze Tap), pours in just the right amount into the Porterhouse FTT, pops it into the FMO, and within a few minutes he has a delicious and nutritious (without the bad stuff) balanced meal that includes all of the mineral and vitamin supplements that are just right for his individual biological needs.
He opens the CLT (Clear Liquid Tap – Because thats what it is a clear, orderless, tasteless, liquid), and fills his LMC (Liquid Morphing Cup), places it in the LMO (Liquid Morphing Oven), and within a few seconds gets a glass of his favorite red wine (without the bad stuff).
Harry has never seen the inside of a “real” store. With all of his virtual shopping, everything gets delivered. He sets the SD to an elegant French restaurant and settles down to eat. Last night it was an Irish pub, tomorrow night, who knows, perhaps a quite dinner with a virtual friend.
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