Mineswept
By
Aetre
September-December 2001
--Introduction
It all starts
with an evil, almost microscopic character named Fatal Error, who lives inside
my always malfunctioning Compaq pc. You see, Fatal Error is one of many “ints”
living in the “inthole.” There are soldier ints and worker ints, and then
there’s Fatal. And whenever the whole int colony seems to be doing its best to
carry out the commands of the queen int, who gets her orders from the human on
the pc, Fatal is always there to screw things up.
--Chapter One
The never-ending
cycle of all-work-and-no-play began once more to take its toll on the workers
in the inthole. Queen Pentium III, the sovereign int in the inthole, looked out
on her loyal subjects to give them each today’s set of orders. First she
addressed the soldier ints.
“Alright, let’s
get to it, soldiers! The Human just pressed the ON button, so you know what to
do next. Sergeant McAfee!” she yelled, addressing one particular soldier int,
“do the usual virus check. And be on the lookout for that rogue int, Fatal
Error! He’s been giving our inthole a bad reputation with his pranks lately,
and I don’t want him roaming around freely as long as the warranty is still
good on this computer.”
“Yes, your
highness,” replied McAfee with a bow. He then turned to his men and ordered
each of them to their usual posts in what McAfee militarily referred to as
Operation: Virus Scan.
The soldiers
were busy, but the workers had a hard task as well. The queen gave them the
direct order to “open Windows.” In response the workers scurried about
frantically, trying first to locate and then to open Windows, all in hopes of
pleasing their gracious queen.
Amid the
bustling workers, though, one int didn’t do anything but stand still, partly
blocking the crucial intersection of Main Street and Information Highway, thus
slowing down the whole process. With a confident smirk on his face, he coolly
smoked yet another link from his endless chain of cigarettes, gathered his long
coat more tightly around his small body so as not to be noticed, and stuck out
a foot to trip one of the workers running through the crowded intersection.
The worker int
fell flat on his face and dropped the information he had been carrying. Angrily
he stood up, collected his information back up from the silicon pavement, and
looked back to see the thing that had tripped him.
But he saw
nothing… Fatal Error, the chain-smoking, obnoxious, and psychopathic scum of
the inthole, had fled back around the corner to avoid detection.
“Morons,”
thought Fatal to himself, a puff of smoke escaping from where the cigarette
rested between clenched teeth. “What do they think they’re doing, running
around, taking orders day and night? And for what? So they can do it all again
when the computer turns on later? Bah! Milleniumbug. I’ll show those ints what
they’re really worth! I’ll devise a plan to bring about their ruin once and for
all. And there’s no time like the present; I’ll just begin operations when
these ints try to open their next program. Then I’ll get them all!”
--
The queen smiled
at her workers’ progress. Windows had been loaded, and the virus check was
successful. According to McAfee, Fatal Error was nowhere to be seen.
“Hmm,”
considered the queen, “That’s funny. Something tells me he’s out there
somewhere. We’ll just have to hope that you’re right, McAfee, and that things
will go smoothly in the inthole this time. Now, I’ve received another command
from the Human. It’s a fairly simple one. Tell the workers to open
Minesweeper.”
“Yes, your
majesty,” said the faithful McAfee.
--
Minesweeper! The
rusty, backwards, and deranged wheels in Fatal Error’s head started to turn as
soon as he heard the news about the command.
“Yes,” he
thought to himself, “That’s the perfect program for me to start my operation
in. It’s so simple: all I have to do is get into that program somehow…”
Fatal’s eyes
turned red as the plan evolved in his tiny electronic brain. He grinned, rubbed
his hands together, and laughed his usual cruel chuckle.
“Muhoowahahahaha!
It just might work,” he said.
--Chapter Two
Gus “Smiley”
Yellow, the happy, go lucky emblem of the Minesweeper board, woke up at the
sound of his alarm clock. It was time to go to work! Enthusiastically he got
out of bed to do his job: sit at the top of the board, smile, look nervous
whenever he heard a clicking sound, and hope he wouldn’t get blown up that day.
It was a dangerous job, but somebody had to do it. And if he was fortunate,
he’d get to wear sunglasses at the end of the day.
So there he sat,
smiling away as always, all the while never suspecting that his every move was
being controlled by the will of an int colony in the computer. Neither did he
suspect that the Rogue Int was currently sabotaging Gus’s Minesweeper board.
Now, on a normal
day, Gus would only actually see one other living thing: Arrow, pet mouse of
the computer. The objective of Minesweeper (from Gus’s point of view) is for
Arrow to walk all over the game board. Every once in a while, Arrow has a habit
of stomping his feet on the board. Gus hears a “click” sound whenever the mouse
does this, and the floor below Arrow’s feet gives in under the stomp. If Arrow
“clicks” on a safe space on the board, Gus is one step closer to wearing the
sunglasses. But if Arrow stomps on a landmine, Gus dies, only to be
resuscitated by Arrow stomping on a “New Game” space outside the normal
boundaries of the game board. Arrow could also click Gus’s face to revive him,
but Gus doesn’t like that very much… that mouse’s feet can hurt!
--
Meanwhile,
inside the computer…
Two ints sit
and eat, leaning against a wall in one of the side alleyways of the colony.
Int A: Say,
Joey.
Int B: (munching)
Yeah, what?
Int A: Do you
ever think to yourself that there’s a bigger world outside the walls of this
computer?
Int B: That’s a
silly question! Everybody knows that the only thing outside these walls is
heaven. And only the Human can live up there.
Int A: Yeah, but
y’know, I’ve been thinking about that. And I think to myself, what’s this
“Human” person like?
Int B: I dunno.
But he watches over us and gives us orders, and he’s perfect in almost every
way.
Int A: But how
do you know that? What if this “Human” isn’t perfect? What if he’s just living
inside a bigger computer, and there’s someone he looks up to in the same way,
like a really perfect being of some sort.
Int B: (considering)
Then we’d be at the bottom of the chain.
Int A: But if that’s
true, then why not go in the other direction? What if there are little
creatures living inside our sandwiches that think we ints are perfect?
Int B: (eating
his sandwich) Then I pity those little characters; they just got eaten
alive!
Int A: Yeah,
man. I pity anyone who actually looks up to us ints. Let’s face it: we can’t
even run a computer right for three days without Fatal Error showing up.
The two ints had
a good laugh at that idea and kept eating their lunches. Another int walked by
the alleyway, though, a whole different thought on his mind.
He was Angus
DeFrag, the janitor int, a short, quiet guy with a love for MP3 music. Right
now he was listening to Jimi Hendrix with headphones as he swept the street,
moving his broom to the beat of “Purple Haze.” When the song reached the
interlude, Angus picked up the broom and pretended it was a guitar. To ints A
and B, who could not hear the music, he looked positively hilarious, hopping
about on one foot as he played the “guitar” behind his back, over his head, and
then while break dancing on the floor. Angus could not hear the laughter coming
from the alley, so he kept going until the song ended. Then it was back to
sweeping the street.
Like all of the
other ints, Angus knew by this time that only the Minesweeper personnel were
required to be working, but the janitor loved his job and the free music
listening time it afforded him. Besides, Angus knew what the other ints did all
day on break: sit around and talk about what’s outside the walls of the
computer. Angus didn’t care to think outside the box. Rather, simpleton as he
was, Angus simply wanted to do his job right and stop to smell the roses along
the way.
Speaking of
roses, it’s about time we were introduced to the heroine of the story, Brenda
Presario. Like the other worker ints, Brenda had her jobs to do, but unlike
Angus, Brenda preferred to take advantage of her time off duty. She was headed
toward The Motherboard, a local food joint and popular hangout among ints, when
she ran across the dancing Angus on the street.
Brenda had to
chuckle at the sight of the janitor, who was now singing along to the music in
his head: “I can’t sing! I can’t talk! Only thing about me is the way I walk…”
As soon as Angus
saw Brenda, he blushed and wished he had been listening to a different song. He
turned off the mini-mini-miniature MP3 player, and greeted Brenda as well as he
could.
“Um, hi,
Brenda,” he said, taking off his headphones and fiddling with them nervously in
his hands as he spoke.
“Well, if it
isn’t Angus DeFrag, working overtime again,” she said with a smile.
Angus wasn’t
sure how to reply to that. He was working overtime, but he actually did it for
free. He smiled back and apologized in case he had been singing too loudly.
“Don’t be
ridiculous,” Brenda laughed back, “you might not be able to sing or talk,
that’s true, but would you like to walk with me down to The Motherboard? It’d
be nice to have some company on the way down there. That is, of course, if you
aren’t too busy right now.” Brenda indicated the music player attached to
Angus’s pocket.
“Of course not!”
said an enthusiastic DeFrag. He set his broom and MP3 player aside. Then he and
Brenda walked together in the direction of The Motherboard.
Angus couldn’t
understand why someone as pretty as Brenda would like him, but he nonetheless
appreciated her friendship. And while Angus couldn’t relate to most of what
Brenda said in conversation as they walked—talk of a Fatal Error, the activities
of soldier ints, and other matters—somehow the sound of her voice made him
believe he understood every word.
--
“This is too
perfect!”
In a secluded
area of the computer, Fatal Error laughed as he unloaded the contents of a
grossly oversized duffel bag that until this moment had been flung over his
shoulder. What came out was an unconscious white lump: Arrow the mouse!
“Alright, Arrow,
my big albino friend,” said Fatal aloud, “Let’s get you chained to this wall.
And from there, don’t you worry about a thing; you just stay here, and the rest
of the job is mine.”
Fatal pulled his
other supplies from the duffel bag: some chains, a large amount of white
fabric, and some sewing equipment. He took the chains and fastened them tightly
to the wall. Then he attached Arrow to the other end. And when all of this had
been done, Fatal picked up the white cloth and the sewing kit.
Fatal sighed and
said, “It’s a sad day in the Compaq when a villain has to resort to embroidery,
but such is life.”
His evil plan
had begun.
--Chapter Three
Angus and Brenda
had almost reached their destination at The Motherboard, when suddenly they
both heard a frantic squeaking sound coming from the next alley. The ints
cautiously looked around the corner to see what was making the noise.
It was an
enormous animal of some sort, completely albino, and chained to the wall. It
yelped desperately in between attempts to gnaw at the gag over its mouth.
Angus was
surprised to see any creature this large living in the inthole, but Brenda
approached it so as to try and remove the chains.
“What are you
doing, Brenda?” asked Angus.
“I’m trying to
figure out what this fella’s doing here.”
“I’m trying to
figure out the same thing, but I wouldn’t approach it like that,” said he,
“Doesn’t the creature strike you as being dangerous?”
“Dangerous?”
said she, “It’s only a harmless white mouse. I think it’s Arrow from the
monitor world.”
“W-what’s a
creature from the monitor doing down here?”
“I don’t know,”
Brenda repeated, “but let’s get it loose so we can find out.”
--
Gus Yellow was
receiving the beating of his life. Arrow had been stomping on every bomb
possible. Then, instead of stomping on the “New Game” space, Arrow had been
stomping on Gus’s face to resuscitate him. It was a painful combination of
blowing up and getting “clicked” on.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!
What’s wrong with you, Arrow?” Gus asked his pet with a sad, shocked
voice—though because of his job, he kept smiling the whole time.
Arrow stomped on
another bomb. Gus actually heard the mouse laugh with delight as it clicked
soundly on Gus’s face. Surely there was something wrong here. That wasn’t the
Arrow Gus was used to seeing in the game. What had happened to his pet?
--
While all of
this was going on, Angus and Brenda managed to get the real Arrow free from its
chains. The mouse seemed relieved to be let loose, but it clearly did not know
how to communicate its situation to the little ints that faced it.
Brenda tried to
help out by asking it, “Who did this to you, Arrow? You are Arrow, right?”
The mouse
nodded.
“Okay,” said
Brenda, “Is there some way you can tell us how you got here so we can get you
back home?”
The mouse
stomped the floor, clicking with considerable speed, all in Morse code.
Brenda turned to
Angus and said, “I can’t understand him. Do you know Morse?”
All janitor ints
who know the first thing about defragmenting and decoding know Morse code, and
DeFrag was naturally fluent in the language.
“He says a mean
int in a trench coat kidnapped him and chained him to the wall,” Angus
interpreted.
“Oh, my,”
replied Brenda, half gasping at the thought of an int that could
single-handedly kidnap an animal as large as Arrow. She continued, “Well, we
have to get him back to the monitor. Angus, do you know where the
Inter-hardware highway cable to the monitor is?”
Angus replied in
the positive. He added, “And it’s not far from here. The kidnapper probably
dumped the mouse off at the first back alley he saw from the highway.”
“Great,” said
Brenda, “Let’s go!”
Arrow squeaked
in agreement as only a mouse can, and the three were off to the Monitor world.
--
Fatal Error
decided he had tortured the smiling idiot Gus enough. Fatal was getting
impatient, largely due to the fact that when he disguised himself as Arrow, he
had to put out his cigarette before putting on the giant mouse suit. He was
cranky. He was insane. And now he was ready to cause some real trouble.
Fatal took off
his mouse suit and threw it at Gus so that it covered the emblem’s face. Gus
had no arms, so he could not take it off, and he just sat there smiling,
blinded by the Arrow suit over his eyes.
Fatal then lit a
cigarette and went to work. As an int, he was small enough to step in the crack
between the spaces on the Expert game board and squeeze his way under the
tiles. The tile he had picked contained a land mine. The bomb character looked
up to see who had entered its private hiding spot.
Now, bombs are
not very personable creatures. And this bomb did not wait for Fatal Error to
explain himself. The bomb didn’t want to know just what Fatal was doing there.
All it knew was that a tiny creature had entered into its domain. And bombs do
not tend to like that very much…
So there Fatal
stood on the edge between life and death as the land mine attempted to set
itself off…
--Chapter Four
Fatal Error
grinned at the pitiful sight in front of him. Here this bomb was, swelling up
and trying to explode, when Fatal knew all too well that a land mine can only
be set off by stomping on the space above it. For all the mine tried, puffing
its cheeks and stressing itself out, it could not detonate on its own.
“You might as
well stop doing that,” said Fatal, “If I were a foe I’d have attacked you or
run away by now.”
The mine gave
up; the stranger had a point.
“Well, if you’re
not trying to get rid of us bombs,” said the mine, “what are you doing down
here?”
“Why, I’m here
to help you, of course,” replied the int in an all-too-sly manner. He added,
“Yes, to help you and all your land mine friends.”
“But you’re an
outsider,” observed the mine, “Why would you want to help us?”
“Would you
believe it’s because I’m on a mission to take over the computer and rule it
like a king, forcing thousands of other creatures to do my will, and because in
order to do that, I need an army that’s strong enough to help me win and yet
stupid enough to follow me and believe that my winning will somehow help them,
but I’ll inevitably double-cross them in the end anyway?”
The mine paused
to contemplate this.
“Yes,” he said,
“Actually, I would believe that.”
“Good,” said
Fatal. He needed to take a few deep breaths after saying that last paragraph,
during which he almost choked on his cigarette smoke a couple times. Then he
asked, “So are you land mines strong enough and dumb enough to follow me?”
Again, the mine
paused to think it over.
“What’s in it
for us?” he asked.
“Freedom from
those who have oppressed you, of course: Gus and Arrow.”
“What about the
flags?” said the mine.
Fatal had not
thought about this before.
“The flags, hmm.
I’ll tell you what, if you take care of the creatures in the computer, I’ll
make sure the flags don’t get involved. Besides, the only thing that can place
a flag on a bomb is Arrow the mouse. And I’ve already taken care of him.”
“You have?”
“Yep. All that
remains is for you guys to follow me. Will you do it?”
“Yes, sir!”
Fatal sneered.
“Good. And how do I know that all of the bombs will follow me?”
“Aw, don’t worry
about that. We bombs have a mob mentality; when one of us goes off, all of us
go off. And when one of us vows loyalty to an ugly little thing trying to take
over the computer, all of us do the same.”
“Excellent.”
Fatal
Error couldn’t believe how easy his plan was going to be. Nothing could stop
him now!