"So you graduated high school?" he asked, eyeing my single- sheet resume with big fonts.
"Yes sir. C average," I nodded. He didn't approve of me, man, I just KNEW it; maybe it was the threads. I tried to wear my classiest outfit. I had the jacket, my rare STOMACH CONTENTS WORLD TOUR shirt and the jeans with no holes over the knees. Class all the way, but he wasn't buying it.
"What makes you think you'd be a good addition to my research team, Mr. Lopwagen?" the old fogey asked.
"I crack good," I said. "I only got a few skills, I know sir, those being flipping burgers, watching movies, and cracking code. I saw your ad for talented reverse-engineering programmers, and I figured it was the same thing as cracking."
"Boy, right now I have the best money can buy working on this project," he said. "Why should I employ some teenager scraped off the net on the basis of this resume alone? May I add that you misspelled resume on it."
"Sir, really, just give me a chance," I begged. "I'm through with the fast food scene. It ain't part of the PLAN, you see, the plan to get me some edu and top the charts like Willy Boy Doors. I think I can get whatever it is you need done, all I want is a college recommendation in return. I don't even need any money, just that signature on my 'app to get in and get my ass up the ladder, you know?"
"Aspiring," he said, nodding slowly. "I like that. However, I have no reason to believe that you have what I require."
"Lemme get a shot at the program you need hacked to bits. If I can't do jack with it, I'll go off and head back to McSpackle's. If I can, hire me. Man, it's that simple, nothin' to it. You can't lose jack. Sir."
"I can lose time. Time is very, very valuable to a man my age," he said, carefully pulling himself out of his antique chair, propped up by a silver cane. "My time is worth a lot to me. I'll let you do your little test, but realize that I would not do this for just anybody."
"Yes sir. You won't regret it, sir."
"Mr. Rinhurst will do," he said. "And I may call you?"
"Whacker Cracker," I said, automatically spewing out my nick.
Mr. Rinhurst peered at me over his spectacles.
"Rynard," I corrected. "It's Rynard, really."
This old fart was LOADED, man. Old money. He had antiques up the zarkin' wazoo, overloaded on 20th century and 21st century crud that I had seen in history texts before my schooling ended on a semi-foul note. Nothin' cool, though, like the Nintendos or the gumball machines... just this plastic furniture and weird paintings that reminded me of geometry class (which I failed twice). Why throw all that money away if you're not, like, gonna get stuff that's cool?
But hey, I can't complain, this guy could be my meal ticket to success. My life had been anything but productive and it was startin' to drag. I had my cracking and movies and bad food, which was cool, and my friends and buds which were superiorly cool, but my plan to be the ULTIMATE bad-ass coder was on hold thanks to a lackluster schoolin'.
Luckily, I could still work magic with interfaces 'n viruses I had never seen before, and if I could keep the old magic around a little longer, I'd be on the golden highway before you could say--
"Who's this?" some snotty guy in a white lab coat asked, looking up from his clipboard. "I thought part of this deal was to remain undisturbed during my research."
"Mr. McDoole, this is Mr. Lopwagen. He has... volunteered to work on the project. Rynard Lopwagen, Martin McDoole, professor of computer science and interfaces at the University of C'atel. Martin McDoole, Rynard Lopwagen, ...amateur programmer."
"Cracker," I corrected, extending a hand to high-five McDooley. He didn't return it.
"Sir, you're joking, correct?" McDooley asked. "I mean, honestly, I know you seem to think this project requires more help, but I certainly don't require..."
"Bitchin' setup!" I commented, taking in the spread for the first time. Really wild gear; latest Macroware-assured deck, the big black slab one that practically absorbed light. McDooley had it connected to a whole bunch of monitors, which I guess were monitoring it. A long cable ran from the box to some glass case, with a cheap tablecloth draped over it, and a wire from that went to a holoprojector unit; a BAD-ASS big one by the looks of it.
"Yes, 'bitchin''," McDooley said.
"All Mr. Lopwagen requests is to make an attempt at cracking the code you have yet to crack," Rinhurst said. "We're waiting, Mr. Lopwagen."
"Huh? Oh, okay. So, like, what's wrong with it?"
"The files are in an unbreakable code," McDooley said, reading off his clipboard. "Nothing we've ever seen before. My first guess was that they were just gibberish, scrambled random data as a decoy for whatever the doctor was hiding in his computer. Then we found the unit in the glass case and a connecting socket that matched a non-standard port on the hardware--"
"This thing?" I asked, tapping the glass through the tablecloth. McDooley ran forward and grabbed my hand.
"The case cannot be disturbed," he said. "It could hold the key to the encryption process. If we could get it working, that is. There is no on switch."
"What's in the case?" I asked, pulling off the tablecloth before Marty had a chance to object. "Whoa."
"It's part of a human brain," the scientist replied, as I gazed down at the pink and grey lump of lumps in the bowl under glass. Several wires ran in and out of it. "Some of it is, at least. We can't identify the rest, nor can we get it awake."
"Sounds like me on any monday morning. Give it some coffee and a danish and it'll be fine," I said.
"No digestive system, even if you were not joking."
"Well, whack it around a little. Ma has to do that to me sometimes. HEY, Mr. Pus-Brain! Wakey wakey!"
I banged on the case a little, jarring the bowl of organs. Dooley freaked, but didn't do very much to stop me.
I bumped my hip on the case, and the bowl jarred. There was a little spark and the thing started pulsating.
"See?" I said. "Nothing to it. Got any coffee?"
"It's... it's alive!" McDooley said, gazing at it.
"Cool, huh?"
"Martin, please take care of Mr. Lopwagen for the day. If he makes any progress, let me know. He'll be working with us now," Mr. Rinhurst said.
"You're kidding," me 'n Marty said at the same time.
"I am not kidding. Even if Mr. Lopwagen is of little use, he'll be of SOME use. Time is of the essence, gentlemen."
"Fine with me," Marty said, scooping up some documents. "Alright. Lopwagen, you work on this stuff. You'll be lucky if you even find the on switch. Me, I'll be studying my daily tests in the other room."
"Hey, whoa, wait. What am I supposed to be doing?" I asked.
"Crack the code," Rinhurst said, on his way out the door. "It is what you do best, isn't it?"
"Yeah, but--"
"Best of luck," Martin said, before shutting the door behind him. Me 'n the brain alone. Terrif.
The deck wasn't wired for VR, which kind of bit because my text skills were incredibly rusty. I picked up textwork as a hobby after a bud of mine got me into Net Will Eat Itself, but it was never my element, yaknow? Gimmie an objicon and a trace router any day over an ASCII stream and a carriage return.
The files were coded, obviously, but I didn't see any repeaters. No form. It didn't follow any of the piddlyshit I was used to dealing with. For all I knew, it could be a bunch of random letters.
Something about that brain was weird, though. We've got a computer, linked to the brain that wouldn't die, linked to a holovision set. Someone had been watching too many bad science fiction movies.
Movies. I could kick with a movie right now, so I flipped on the holovision set.
The piccy was large; the man in the empty space of holo was about my size, and nicely detailed. What I wouldn't give for gear like this on weekly moviefests. I changed the channel.
"You tryin' to ignore me?" the image asked. Weird show. I flipped to another channel, but the same thing was on. Infomercial simulcast, maybe?
"Hey," the image said. "Cut that out. It makes my viz go all fuzzy. Who're you?"
Maybe the other actor was out of frame. Although it was like those cool pictures where the eyes follow you; he was tracking my movement.
"You in the leather jacket and concert shirt," he specified.
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. Who're you?"
"Whacker Cracker. I mean, Rynard. Rynard Lopwagen."
"Pleased to meat you, Whacker, name's Filbert. Used to be at least. I'm dead now."
"Dead?"
"Yeah, dead. Stiff, under the ground, bereft of life and joining the bloody choir invisible. See that brain?"
I nodded, seeing it.
"It's not really my brain. Nice replica though. I'm, or rather this recording's just an interactive guide to my autobiography. Neat house, by the way. How'd a kid like you afford this?"
"It wasn't me," I said. "It was a guy called Rinhurst."
"Rinhurst, Rinhurst... name doesn't ring a bell. Okay, kid, let's get some rules straight. See the deck there? I can decode that. It's an organic code, something I developed shortly before buying the farm. That's all I do, though. I can't answer too many background questions, I can't search the database or any shit like that, I just decode 'n spew and try to keep you company with my sparkling wit. Neat, huh?"
"You're an AI, aren't you?" I asked, pulling up a chair.
"No. AIs have fully recordable memories and easy brain access. I'm just an interactive recording. I can remember YOU, obviously, since if I couldn't I wouldn't be much of a conversationalist. That's it. I decode, I talk to you, I provide the key to the final log entry. That's my purpose."
"Hey, if you're dead, how're you talking?"
"I'm not. Bear with me, kid, this is a RECORDING. Just how I would have reacted to your queries if I WAS alive. I'm dead and very peacefully dead. This isn't me."
"If you're dead and not you then who are you?" I asked.
"Filbert. Used to be Filbert. All I know is that I used to be one of the original members of the Dirty Dozen black biotech club. Anything else you want to know about my past, you access the autobiography. It's encoded on the comp there. I decode it a page at a time for your reading pleasure. You wanna start at chapter one? I hope so, because that's all it is; chapter one and the last chapter. You coping?"
"Huh?"
"Coping. I have a preprogrammed warning that people'll freak when they talk to a dead nonintelligent yet strangely responsive living index for a book with two chapters."
"Well... naah," I said. "I can deal. I've seen far weirder on holo. Bear with me if I ask naive questions, though."
"I can deal too, then," Filbert said. "Okay. Chapter one or two?"
"Two?" I guessed.
"Sorry man, chapter's locked."
"I thought you could decode it."
"I can. Only chapter two's got double encoding. The kind I can read and the kind I can't."
"So how do I read chapter two? I hate watching movies and not seeing the ending."
"That's the gag, kid. I've got a little quiz for you to fill out when you wanna access chapter two. If you can answer my questions correctly, then I can unlock it. Until then, nada. It's a kind of game, I think I wanted to make bloody well sure that whatever dork accesses my autobiography to find the secret of immortality will bloody well understand it."
"Immortality?"
"That's all I know. Chapter one's the autobiography, chapter two is the secret of immortality. I know, how is a dead guy immortal. Don't ask me, kid, I only WORK here."
I heard the plod-plod of sensible shoes approaching the room. I panicked and dove for the off switch on the holovision, but missed and hit the floor instead. I scrambled back to my feet, only to see a very, very surprised Martin McDoole standing there, clutch on his documents and printouts weakening.
"Who... what... is that?!" he asked.
"Err... Marty, this is Filbert. Filbert, Marty."
"I can't see or hear him," Filbert said. "You turned me on, Whacker, I only deal with you. Even if you told me who Marty was, I'd never remember him."
"What did you DO!?" Marty asked, dropping his precious data. "What did you do!"
"I... I just turned it on," I said. "It started talking, and I didn't wanna be impolite so I talked back."
"Do you know who that IS?"
"Yeah. He's Filbert. Who's Filbert?"
"Come on, we've got to tell Mr. Rinhurst," Martin said, grabbing my wrist and pulling.
"'bye," I waved to the image of the dead doctor.
"I'll be waiting here," he called after me. "Not much else to do, after all."
"I think it's about time we filled Mr. Lopwagen in on the project," Mr. Rinhurst said, lowering himself painfully into his chair. "Martin, do the honors."
"Dirty Dozen black biotech doctor Filbert Whack-A-Doo," Martin said.
"Neat name."
"It's a fake name, we can't find his real one. Filbert there came down with Yttian Flu, the weak-death strain, and had about two months to live. He holed up in his office and dropped his clients like hot potatoes. Two months later, they find his dead body, grinning like a maniac and the equipment in the main room."
"Equipment which I immediately purchased," Rinhurst said, "Knowing the nature of his work. Filbert was seeking a way to achieve immortality, a way to escape his death. He died, but my agents traced a holophone call to another member of the Dirty Dozen shortly before his death, in which he claimed to have found the secret of immortality."
"Livin' forever. Hey, I wouldn't put it past black biotech," I said. "I remember my cousin Jack had to have his head reattached after a construction accident, and they did it. I got to touch his scars. It was cool."
Rinhurst paused. He contemplated this, then moved on. "You see, boy, I need that immortality. I've sought it for years and years. Archaic Yttian herbal practices, long since outlawed by that world's oppressive government. Alien rituals and exercise and good food. Nothing has helped prevent the aging process, and I fear I do not have many years left."
Rinhurst got up, despite the cracking his bones made. Why'd he insist on getting in and out of that chair, anyway? Did he just want to show that he had enough life in him left to do it?
"This project is to decode what I believe to be the scientific journals of Filbert Whack-A-Doo, and find the secret. Have you made any progress?"
"Well, the recording said the immortality thing was in chapter two, which was locked. Oh, also that his autobiography was organically coded on the computer."
Rinhurst raised his eyebrows, and turned to McDoole. "Funny, how your degrees and recommendations had you working for weeks just to understand the nature of the hardware, and my boy Lopwagen here has it up and running in an hour."
"He was lucky," McDoole said. "Sir, if you please, I'd like to continue my research on this project now that the kid has it turned on. I think a systematic search of the data, now decoded, could turn up the answer--"
"Filbert said you can't do that," I said. "He said he could only decode a page at a time, and he couldn't do searches."
"I don't care about the given user interface. Sir, I think I could work my way around it by controlling the organic decoder."
"Could you do it without damaging it?" Rinhurst asked. "If the decoder is infected or affected in any way, it could destroy my best chance at cheating death. That would NOT please me."
"I assure you that with more controlled tests, I could very well crack the code after studying the organic unit. If I--"
"Why not just play by the rules?" I asked.
McDoole looked daggers at me for interrupting, but I continued anyway. "See, all encrypted information is meant to be un-crypted by SOMEONE, via a standard process of knowing the password. It looks kinda like this Filbert joeboy wanted people to find out about immortality. I mean, if he didn't, he wouldn't have written it down in any digital or script way. So, we just do what the recordin' says and play by the rules, and figure it out."