A single, sweet tear slid from my closed left eye ...
DMan dropped like a sack of rotten potatoes. It was too easy, really ... these kids with their auto-noders and web-crawlers. Poor bastards. Half of them haven't even seen over the bleak horizon of sixth level. The attention to my next task is momentarily diverted as I watch jessicapierce slit pukesick's home node, ear to ear.
Most of them never even knew what hit 'em. The next time CaptainSpam tries to log in he'll be auto-forwarded to a Fed address and will find the I.R.S. has suddenly decided to audit his past five tax returns. Sarcasmo's password is "I'M A DICK" and it is case sensitive. Furthermore he has to really feel that way or E2 won't let him use the chatterbox.
I send fez into the sql server to take a look at the numbers. A low, steady whistle and dbrown takes up a cursory position at the base of moJoe's home node.
I wait until first light - 0400 utc - when most noders are asleep. I lay the perl script gently into place on a restricted superdoc I'd made months earlier for just such an occasion. It lay there quietly. I think I saw it smile.
I carefully slip on the backpack full of syringes and spliff's I'd found in a Herbman writeup with a rep of -14. He won't be needing them anymore. Maybe Disco can find use for them back in the M*A*S*H unit. Suicide is Painless. Indeed.
"The object of the game is find your adversary. Your adversary's game plan is to persuade you he does not exist."
One click of the mouse and I persuade General_Wesc that he doesn't exist. Kids. You let them put on a Burger King crown and the next thing you know they think they're generals. I quietly remove his "star-trekkin-kommando #1743" badge and "phaser". His mother will want these.
Zot-fot-piq is making his own gravy, blubbering about "brotherhood" and "family." I place my left boot tight against his windpipe and apply myself. His whining winds down.
I see Nate and Clampe just ahead. Knifegirl and Pingouin are the only ones left unaccounted for ...
An icon begins flashing in my Epicenter. Looks like the easter egg hatched. I climb to the top of News for Noders to get a better view. Pseudo_Intellectual's node string sliced clean through Everything New Nodes and collapsed to the dusty floor of the FAQ. I can just make out Pingouin and KG through the rubble and debris. They're a little beat up ... but who isn't? Everything is a goddamned mess.
I find Kit Lo sleeping in the EDB stalls. He's draped himself in what looks like the velvet ropes ushers use to close off theater balconies. He seems to be having a nightmare - twisting and tangling in the ropes and mumbling something about his "kooky leper rifle." I finish his dream for him.
"Damn this damn, dirty war." I mutter, staring off into the ashen sky.
"You know ... someday this damn, dirty war is gonna end." Cowboyneal breathes, wistfully.
"Shut up, dude."
"Right."