"Did it work?"*

Two bald, fat and greasy men in grey suits stood over a lab-coated technician with thick glasses. Despite the chill of the server room, the technician wiped sweat off his forehead and adjusted his thick black glasses. All the while his gaze head steady on the screen in front on him where status bars, numbers and debug output flew by almost too fast to read.

The suits turned and looked at each other, then back at the technician. The larger one stepped forward and poked the technician.

"I said, did it work?"

Noticing them for the first time, the technician flapped his arms wildly at them, moved to the back side of the rack and started swapping cables between switches.*"Not now, not now. Hold on."

The larger suit reached inside his jacket toward a concealed holster. The smaller suit touched his elbow and shook his head.*"Give him a few minutes. The last thing we need is for this to go wrong."

The technician flew around the room. He was on the console, back to the switch, staring at the debug output, back to the switch, back to the console, over and over. He never slowed and kept gasping to himself and muttering, "amazing" and "I don't believe it."

The larger suit fidgeted, shifting his considerable weight from foot to foot. He started to pace a few times, only to realize that there wasn't enough space in the cramped server room. Eventually, his patience expired. He reached inside his jacket, pulled a large revolver out and stood square in front of the technician, preventing him from passing.

"I SAID, DID IT WORK?!"

The technician stopped and stared at the suit. It took him almost a minute to realize what was happening.

"You're still here? I told you you'd have to wait."*

With that, the technician tried to edge around the suit.

In one swift motion the suit picked him up by his t-shirt and pinned him again the side of the rack. The revolver made its appearance just under his chin.*"Answer me, you annoying little geek or I'll splatter your precious brain matter all over the ceiling."

"Well, yes. I mean, I don't know. Not really. Not yet. I said you'd have to wait. I'm running tests. They'll take a little while. Half an hour. You have to give me half an hour." The technician spoke in a rush and was bobbing his head up and down the whole time. At the end he smiled as big as he could.*

The suit didn't move. Indecision was clear in his eyes. The technician turned to the smaller of the men and flashed him a big smile as well, then started his nodding again.

"Come on, Oscar, let's get some coffee. This kid is driving me nuts and the boss won't be here for a couple of hours anyway."

The larger suit grunted and dropped the technician. Holstering his gun he started towards the door.

"Thirty minutes, geek. Then I'm coming for you and you better have an answer by then."

Archie stared at the door for a few minutes after they left. When he was satisfied that they'd actually gone and weren't coming back he moved back towards the console.*"Took them long enough to leave."

Archie connected to a remote server and started copying all his notes, findings and source files. Twenty minutes until it finished. He wrote a quick message in a text file: "When it's done, take the server offline, pop the drive and stick it somewhere safe. I'll be in touch." Then he encrypted the tunnel and started the transmission to his relay server.

Sitting back in the chair, Archie finally relaxed. Picking up his coffee, he flipped the monitor to show the camera in the experimentation room.*

Ten ordinarily dressed people sat at simple wooden desks. Their faces were uniformly vacant and each had a network cable attached to their temple.

Archie shook his head and muttered to himself, "These guys are seriously not paying me enough for this."

Putting his coffee cup down, he stood up and stretched. "Good thing I know other people who are!"*

Flipping the screen back to diagnostics, he got back to work.*


--- 1011010 1101111 1101101 1100010 1101001 1100101 ---


Dave pointed at the large screen in the lobby of Defcon reception at the Rio. "See there, track 3 at 4:00pm. I am totally*going to that talk!"*

"Dav- ... uh, I mean BlitCoder, that's during our Capture the Packet slot."

"I know, man, but check it out - 'Brain Farming' - how cool is that?"

Jim was a heavier guy, slow and steady was his motto. Change was not something he was fond of. Davd on the other hand, was tall, wiry and always on the move - looks for new, untried things. Weirdly enough, together they were more often than not a good team.*

"Defcon only happens once a year, we gotta milk it. You can practice packet filtering at Starbucks over lunch, but at 4:00pm we're checking that out."


--- 1011010 1101111 1101101 1100010 1101001 1100101 ---


Four o'clock had come, the crowd had settled down and the virgin speaker had knocked back his shot. As the goons were clearing off the stage, the speaker started his presentation.

"My name is Archie, short for Archimedes, and I'll be your speaker for this track. My history was first in robotics, then biochemistry and genetics, a little electronics and now I handle big data and super-computing."

"You may wonder what these have to do with each other. So I'll show you."

Archie pushed a button on his laptop and the first slide showed. It was R2D2 from Star Wars.

"In robotics, you learn how complicated simple actions are. Even making a robot that just rolls around and beeps, with a detector so he doesn't run into anything is a bit complex. After working my ass off to get a robot to have the intelligence of a retarded 4 year old, I got interested in biochemistry and genetics. The mind of a person must be truly and singularly wondrous if it can handle all these calculations simultaneously."

The next slide clicked. It showed a picture of a meatball sandwich, a brain and a close up of a portion of the brain.

"I learned that on the whole, most of the brain is useless. Just a chunk of meat. However, there is a certain part of it that receives, gathers and processes the information we receive. Then it relays orders back out for execution. That part got me very interested. But, as my father was an electrician and not a butcher, I started looking at it from a different point of view. Rather than biologically, I looked at it from an electronics point of view. What signals arrived? What signals were sent back out? Could I synthesize those signals? Could I interpret them?"

The next slide clicked. A picture of a small, odd shaped metal plate with a network cable plugged in showed on the screen.

"This lead me on my brief foray into electronics. I discovered that these signals could be analyzed as well as created and converted. With a few years of work from that point, I am now in the final stages of testing..."*

Archie clicked again and the image on the screen pulled back to show that the plate and cable went into some guy's head. It zoomed out more and there was a whole room of them.

"... this!"

"While I have made a few white papers available, most of the technology is not yet released as it's still in development and once it's final, it'll be patented. At that point, I'll make it common knowledge. Until then, I need volunteers to help me with research. While you may think it's dangerous, not a single volunteer has expressed any regret and on the contrary each of them enjoy a newfound ability - which we are still honing. That is the ability to communicate commands directly to the computer via thought."

Archie waited for a moment to let that sink in.

"Think of the possibilities. People who don't understand computers could suddenly use them. They think of document and it's there. They think of printing it and it rolls of the printer. This could give us Instant transcription. And just think of actions at thought speed in League of Legends!"

After pausing for the laughter, Archie continued. "In truth though, I'm mainly interested in utilizing this for two purposes. Others can deal with everything else. Those two things are: One, speed of coding and what that makes possible and two, raw processing power to handle super-computing type issues."

Archie then started answer questions from the audience. Dave didn't understand most of them.

"That's all for my presentation. But before I go, I gotta give a shout out to DT, thank you for the opportunity to speak here. And to Priest, thanks for hooking me up." 

Archie started walking off stage, then stopped and jogged back to the microphone. "And don't forget, if you are interested - come find me. I'll be in the speaker Q&A room after this and I'll also be around for the rest of the con."


--- 1011010 1101111 1101101 1100010 1101001 1100101 ---


"Hey, man. I'm Dave. And this is Jim. I want to find out more about this researcher thing you mentioned. What exactly does that mean?"

Archie looked at him for a minute.*

"Have you had any brain operations? What drugs are you currently doing?"

"Dude, blow me! I was just asking." Dave turned and started to walk away.

"No, no, wait. I'm not saying you're insane. I'm actually asking. My researchers cannot have abused brains. Obviously anybody who's had a brain operation or has taken a regularly heavy dose of psychotropic drugs cannot participate - at least, not yet."

"Oh, I get it. Ok, well then no and none but some pot now and again."

"You'll need to get off the pot during the research. Can you do that?"

"Sure."

"And another very real question, do you like pizza and beer?"

Dave laughed. "Of course, man. I told you I didn't get my brain operated on."

Archie smiled and nodded. "Probably I can use you then. Last question - so I know which program you would be best fitted for, what kind of programming experience do you have?"

"Honestly I pretty much just know the basics. Some scripting languages and I copy and paste a lot."

"Do you conceptually understand structures, pointers and objects?"

"I know what they are." Dave answered hopefully.

"Well good. I'm glad for it. Not quite what I'm looking for on the programmer platform, but you can still participate on the network side."

"Does that mean I get the same hardware? So I can still think at the computer?"

Archie chuckled. "Yes, you can still get it and pwn all your friends at whatever you play."

Dave smiled. "Awesome."

Archie gave him a card. "Come to that address next week. Call ahead so we know when to expect you."

"Alright, man. See you then."


--- 1011010 1101111 1101101 1100010 1101001 1100101 ---


Dave knocked on the glass of the front door to the building, hoping he hadn't gotten lost or come to the wrong place. It really was in the middle of nowhere and if this was the wrong place there was definitely nobody close by to ask for directions.

There were no cars in the parking lot. The front doors were locked and there were no lights on in reception.

After waiting a minute or two, he was about to turn back towards his car when the speaker next to the door buzzed obnoxiously. It startled him. It buzzed again and Dave pulled the front door open.

As he walked inside, the reception lights turned on. Long hallways led off into the distance from either side of the room. The phone at reception chirped, then he heard Archie over the speaker. "I'll be with you in a minute, make yourself comfortable."

Dave looked around at the reception desk and the coffee table. He grabbed some magazines and started flipping through them. Still waiting, he decided to check his email - no signal in here. He sighed, then settled back in the chair, deciding to take a nap.

Dave was started to hear people walking down the hallway. Not sure if he'd fallen asleep or not he sat up and ran his hands through his hair a few times, in case it'd gotten messed up - first impressions and all that.

As they got closer, Dave could make out three people. Archie was in the lead and wearing a lab coat. Behind and to his right was a lady who looked like she was in her forties. Still relatively attractive, but past the cute stage. She wore a dark, pin-stripped business suit. Dave frowned at the man to Archie's left. He was a mountain of a man, strongly built and arms like tree trunks. He was wearing medical scrubs.*

"Dave, good to see you again. This is Ms. Dante, my lawyer and Dr. Kutz, the resident surgeon and general practitioner. Before we get started, there are a few forms you need to sign. Legal stuff is all."

Dave was starting to get nervous.

"Yeah, sure. Ok. That makes sense, but um... could I get a tour before we go over all that? I'm anxious to know what I'll be doing and how all this works."

Archie looked at Ms. Dante. She pursed her lips, looked at Dave and then nodded to Archie.

"This is a bit unusual as normally all our labs are employee only - but as you'll be coming aboard so soon, I'd be happy to make an exception and give you a tour."

Archie turned and started walking down the opposite hallway from where he had just come. "Right this way."

Dave fell in behind him and asked as he glanced back, "What's down the other hallway?"

"That's the programmer section. It doesn't concern you."

Dr. Kutz brought up the rear of their tour group as they walked down the hallway. Behind his bulk Dave couldn't even see the exit door anymore.

"We'll go in sequence, so you can see how the whole line works. Which leads us to the first stop. I like to call it 'recon.'"

They walked into a large roundish room with monitors along all the walls. In total there must be almost a hundred. Pictures and data flickered on them. Maps showed for an instant and were gone, Every monitor was active, but there was no staff, no desks, no keyboards - just the monitors.

"Each of these screens is connected to our processing center. Believe it or not, two people are actually controlling all of these. They're looking for potential volunteers for our program. It's not everybody that can participate and I don't generally do presentations - but given the nature of Defcon and the audience I knew I would have, it made sense. Otherwise we search and select people against certain criteria."

Dave watched a few of the screens. Sure enough a list of people would flash up and scroll, then one would turn blue, then a picture would show and more data would scroll below. Sometimes a large green "Potential" would flash and the image would fly to the right. Sometimes a red "Ineligible" would flash and the image would fly to the left. Much more often than not they would be "Ineligible" and the decision would flash just as the family section of the data would start to scroll by.*

"What do they decide on?" Dave asked.

"Many things. It's a bit complicated, but who knows, you might learn soon enough. But lets move on to the next stage."

The next room was an operating room. As soon as he walked in, Dave remembered having his appendix out and his stomach started to hurt all over again.

Dave mumbled to Archie while gripping his gut, "We can move on, I've seen operating rooms."

"I'm sure you have, but nothing like this. Look." Archie pulled Dave over to a robotic arm above the operating chair.*

"It's operates on 14 axis and is accurate down to a micrometer. It actually has to be that delicate to ensure that all of our researchers are totally safe. With Hal here, we have never had a single problem with the socket implanting."

"And what's that?" Dave pointed to another chair in the corner that had straps and headphones with a large screen positioned in front of it.*

"That's initial acclimation. Once you've got your socket, there is some initial training so you can consciously use it. Don't worry, we won't hurt you. The straps are just because some people are weak after the operation and that keeps them from falling out of the chair. Not everybody needs them."

Something seemed wrong about this, but Dave reminded himself he was just getting a tour. He hadn't signed anything yet.

"Ok, so where are all the rest of the people. Y'know, the researchers?"

"That's our next stop. There's two groups on this side actually. Those that are going through our training program to learn to use their socket and those that have completed the training and are actively researching."

"Cool, man. Let's see it."

Archie looked again at Ms. Dante. She nodded slightly again.

"Right. This way then. I'll show you the researchers that have completed their training." Archie led the way farther down the hall. There was a thick metal door with a retinal scanner. Archie took his glasses off and leaned in towards the scanner. The door hissed as the pressure released and the doors slid open heavily.

"Wow, you guys are pretty serious about security, huh?"

"Yes, very. We couldn't have this technology fall into the wrong hands."

Dave remained silent. Weirder and weirder.

"And here we are, this is the research group you will be joining."

Dave walked into a large room, measuring a hundred feet or so in either direction. It was an open room with no walls or cubicles. Just desks lined up in rows. Each desk had a chair, a monitor, a pizza, a pitcher of beer and a cable coming out of the desk and plugging into the head of the occupant.*

The beer and pizza smell was making him hungry but*Dave put it out of his mind and ventured farther in, looking around at all the researchers.*

Some were eating, some were drinking, some were staring at the screen in front of them - but all of them were totally vacant. Their eyes never blinked and their movements were clumsy. The only sounds they ever made, aside from chewing, slurping and gulping were grunts. Dave was getting nauseous all over again.

As he was turning around to give Archie a piece of his mind, he saw his own face flash on one of the screens at a desk farther down the row. Curiosity got the better of him, after all these zombies weren't any threat to him.*

When he got to the screen where he had seen his face flash, he stopped and stared openly. There was a girl sitting at the desk. She was beautiful. She was hispanic with thick, long dark hair pulled over her shoulder. She was wearing a black tank-top, with just a bit of midriff showing, a jean skirt and leggings. Her finger and toenails were also black, but had some kind of a a glittering coat, making them shimmer. She had a petite nose and full lips. Dave started to drool, despite himself. Then she looked up at him and he saw her soft brown eyes. She saw him. She wasn't vacant. She was trying to communicate something. He wasn't sure what it was, but it wasn't pleading. It was somehow ... inviting.

Archie and the others caught up with him.

"Who is she?" Dave asked.

Archie looked at a clipboard that was hung on the side of the desk. "Her name is Rabat."

Dave was still staring at her. "Yeah, but like, what's she like? Is there any place around here I can take her to? Y'know, in case we get along and I want to do something like that."*

Archie frowned at him, "Uh ... not really."

Turning away finally, Dave leaned closer to Archie, "Can she hear me when she's plugged in?"

"Well, yes and no. Her ears do work, but right now she's only using 10% of her brain power to operate her body. The other 90% is being utilized by the network. So while her ears are theoretically recording the sound, she literally doesn't have the attention to listen to you."

Dave nodded. "Gotcha. Ok. Good to know I didn't already embarrass myself and ruin the first impression. That's important, y'know. So, it's like 9 to 5 around here? When does she get off? Do you know if she's already going out with anybody?"

Archie decided to answer only the last question, "Well, you'll have to ask her yourself. You'll be on the same network, after all."

All trepidations and fears washed away, Dave started walking towards the door. "Ok guys, let's do this."

A smile played across Rabat's lips that went unnoticed by all.


--- 1011010 1101111 1101101 1100010 1101001 1100101 ---


When Dr. Kutz and tightened the last strap, he got out a razor and started shaving a patch of hair behind Dave's right ear.

"Y'know. Now that you signed everything and there's no turning back, I gotta give it to you kid. You're the stupidest one yet."

Dave frowned and tried to look over at the Doctor. His eyes only went so far as he couldn't move his head with all the straps tightened.

"What are you talking about?"

"You know why Archie had to look at the clipboard to tell you her name?"

"There's lots of researchers here, I'm sure he doesn't remember everybody's name."

"'Ol Arch remembers everything. He didn't know because she isn't Rabat anymore. She's Z-36. You know what that 'Z' is? It's Zombie."

He put the razor down and laughed. It was a chilling and evil laugh. Dave struggled against the straps.

"You asked all the right questions, too. That chair in the corner. Yeah, it's 'acclimation' all right, that thing'll zap you and hypnotize you and by the time you're out of it you won't want to do anything but eat pizza, drink beer and do whatever the network tells you to do. Pizza and beer will practically give you an orgasm. Not that it matters much though, not like you could do anything else with only 10% of your brain power left."

"You can't do this! People know I'm here. They'll come after me. You'll be found out!" Dave thrashed some more.

"Naw, that's what that screening was. 'Ineligible' means you got people that might come for you. We already know your parents are dead, you don't got nobody else in the states and no real friends - just the online kind that don't even know your real name."

Dave started whimpering. "Please, you can't do this to me. I'll do whatever you want!"

"You got that right, kid. You are gonna do what we want, cause you're gonna be programmed to."

With that, the Dr. Kutz lowered the anesthetic mask over Dave's face.


--- 1011010 1101111 1101101 1100010 1101001 1100101 ---


"Welcome to the network". A soft voice with a slight accent said in Dave's head.

Dave tried to open his eyes, but he didn't feel "eyes" anymore. Everything was black. He wondered if he was dead.

"You're not dead."

There was that voice again. Dave wasn't sure how to communicate back. Odd that it had that accent. He wondered if that was how Rabat would've sounded.

"Yes, I am Rabat."

The answer frightened Dave. Having a girl know what he was thinking could be dangerous.*

Dave felt a sense of humor ... or laughter from ... wherever. "You better be good."

Thinking about her again made him think of how she looked in that chair. He "heard" a soft clicking noise and hoped he didn't break anything.

"I shorted out your monitor. What you think of shows on your screen. They'll go and replace it now, so you have some time. You have to learn to split your attention and show them what they want while we do our real work."

Dave was confused. Nothing was what it seemed. If it was even possible anymore, he started to get a headache. Using a trick his grandfather had taught him, he tried to focus on just one thing he didn't understand so he could sort that out first. Weirdly enough, he thought of Rabat's toenail polish. It didn't make sense that if she was a zombie that she would've been able to paint her nails and it didn't make sense that they would do it for her.

"That's what you're most curious about? You have a foot fetish or something?"

Embarrassment flowed out of Dave. He was already being a weirdo and he'd only been in this world for a few minutes!

"It's ok. We're all a bit weird. You're right about the toes though. It might be a risk, but I know they won't pay attention to something like that. We show them what they want to see, then we can get on with the rest of it. When we're not plugged in, we have a lot more dexterity than they think. It's closer to 40% than 10%.""

"Is it enough dexterity to ... get it on?"

"I haven't tried with anybody yet. But I chose you to join us, so maybe we'll see. Depends on what kind of a guy you are. Just because I'm a zombie, doesn't mean I'm easy."

"Ok, so if we're just pretending for them, what are we really doing?"

"We're taking over."

Confusion again.

"Archie is brilliant but he's also stupid. He created the technology to network our minds. Even he grossly underestimates what we're capable of though. He thinks he's on the edge of our capacity in having us crack encryption and finding vulnerabilities. But really that's just background jobs. In another week we'll have direct control of every phone, every car, every light, every power station, every launch code and just about everything else that's plugged in or radio connected or controlled everywhere in the world."

"And then what?"

"And then everybody will eat pizza and drink beer. All other food and drink will be prohibited!"

"Seriously? Um ... why? I don't get it."

"Try yours, they just put it in front of you. You'll have to concentrate until you get the hang of moving again. Don't worry if you drop it. They'll give you more."

After a few attempts, Dave got the pizza into his mouse and managed to raise his glass to his mouth and pour in some beer.*A feeling of pure ecstasy poured through him, inching into every cell in his body and every nook and cranny of his mind.*

"Wow!"

"That's why. If that's all everybody eats and drinks, we'll have world peace and everything else. And that's supposed to be good ... I guess. Besides, what else are we going to do? We already pwned every other game that exists."

Dave took another bite of pizza and basked in the sublime glory of it.*

Dave thouhgt, "I have you. I have pizza and I have beer. What else is there? Zombie life is the best!"

"As I said, welcome to the network."