When we last left our doleful band of playful Byte Warriors,
the StarChip EnterBoing had just been pre-empted by a roguish
unsigned character, Baron Piechart Von Windshield, the great
"Notorious Intergalactic Scoundrel", (or so it says on his business
card). Piechart was needing a StarChip to fulfill two lifelong
goals: #1 - to find out just who this GURU guy really was, and why
he had to meditate so darned much. And #2 Why was Manuel Noriega
so darned ugly. For the time being, we'll concern ourselves with
the first question, and leave the second to the dermatologist of
the world.
"Captain's Log, Boing Date, oh who really gives a damn. We've
been trapped in the evil grip of Piechart for several days now.
Coming fresh from the Ham-Paint wars, the crew was tired and
anxious to get home so as to enjoy the most recent copies of .Info
magazine. Being redirected to nodes unknown was not in the plans.
Well, at least it gives me some extra time to play the new hit
games SIM-UNIVERSE, Zork -37, Before Zork, Way Before Zork, and
Even Before the Zork's Author's Grandparents were Even Born."
Captain Dale sat back in a wait-state, and began to toy with
one of the new games. The first screen came up, "What is the
4,229th word on page 9976 of the manual?" A half-hour later he
tapped in "and." Another requestor popped up, "Now add the
numerical equivalent of the characters, take the logarithm of the
results, subtract it from the 2,551th word on page 712, divide it
by your age, divide that by your dogs age. What? You don't have a
dog? Tough! Get one. Everyone oughtta have a dog. Now multiply
that by the Cosine of 1.570796 radians and type in the answer." 45
minutes later, as the somewhat confused captain was beginning to
wonder how he ever got his job, the sirens began to whoop. "Whooop!
Whooop! Whooop! This whoooping sound is Copyright by the
WhooopPerfect Inc. and may not be used, or heard without the
expressed written consent of WhooopPerfect or the commissioner of
the National Baseball League, or else we'll come over and kick your
dog senseless!"
At the sound of the Whoooping ((c) WhooopPerfect Inc), the
Captain jumpstarted from his chair and darted onto the Bridgeboard.
The eyes of the crew were Locked onto the forward Digiviewer.
"What's going on?" asked Dale.
Bryce spoke up, "Oh, it's YAGFFIS".
"Huh?"
"Yet Another Ghostly Figure Floating In Space".
As they watched, the vapor-like form began slowly took shape.
It appeared to be that of a large older man, with pearly-white
hair. He was holding something in his hand.
"A drumstick! It looks like a drumstick!" shouted Jimm.
The crew could now clearly make out the confused
regular-expression on the face of the figure. His mouth slowly
began to move, as if he was talking to himself. He took a bite out
of the drumstick, and began to speak.
"Mmmm, boing, hmm, warning...hmmmm, Dale, mmphmmm, kick your
dog".
Dale approached the screen, wishing he was back in the
Spectrum-HoloDeck testing out the Playmates of Rigel database.
"Ghostly figure, we mean you no harm. Plus, we can't understand a
darn thing you're saying."
"Oh, sorry about that fellows, it's just that I haven't had
anything to eat for years and I'm famished. What I was trying to
say was," he now struck an ominous pose, shaking the drumstick at
the ship, "Beware of he who seeks the GURU, for all manner of
plagues shall come upon him." He took another bite of the meat.
"And should, mmph, should he succeed, he shall be, mmmph, his
wildest dreams, mmmmph." The form glanced at his watched. "Ooops,
sorry guys but I gotta go. There's a ship of Nintendoids that I
must terrorize and hold in my ghostly clutches until they can think
of a clever and dramatic way of escape. I tell you, this
ghostly-figure gig just isn't what I thought it would be. Long
hours, lots of travel. You get to meet alot of people, but they
end up hating you. Even being a Pagestream Beta-tester would be
more fun. Cheerio. And if you ever need my services, here's my
card!".
With that, the figure vanished in swirling rainbow clouds, his
card drifting to the floor of the bridge. "Have Warnings, will
Travel" it said.
The captain looked around. "Piechart? Hey, where'd the
ferocious Baron go?"
Dale caught sight of him hiding behind the captain's chair.
"Uh, I think my contact lens is around here somewhere."
"You don't where contacts!"
"Well, if I did, one of em would be around here..."
Without a moment to lose, Leo spoke up. "Hi guys, did you know
that we've been followed by a sinister looking StarChip for the
past 2 pages or so?"
"Digiviewer on reverse."
The view now looked behind the EnterBoing.
"We're gonna get killed!" screamed Piechart.
"Oh StuffIt!", snapped Dale, since the viewer showed
absolutely nothing.
"There sir!" And anxious Dave pointed to a dot of light coming
into view.
"Magnify a zillion times".
"Magnification, one-zillion".
"Oh poo."
On the screen now the old nemesis of the EnterBoing became
visible.
"Message coming in sir"
A sinister voice snap, crackled and popped over the speaker.
"EnterBoing, this is the SS-Odyssey. Captain Scullee speaking.
We're going to sue you down to your shorts boys. We warned you in
the last episode to go back to the game-zone where you belong"
"Engines to overscan!"
"There closing sir. And they've armed their Injunction guns!"
A worried Bryce glanced up. "How can they move so fast? I
thought we were the speediest StarChip in this and all other stupid
yet popular parodies?"
Dale placed his hand on the young ensign's shoulder, and in a
somber tone he replied. "We were son." He could be seen holding
back tears. "Let's face it, back then, our superior technology
kept us ahead. But now its only cleverness, luck, shear
determination and my monumental good looks. Somewhere along the
line, Mousefleet has simply dropped the trackball..."
Crackle, snap, "EnterBoing, Halt! Or we'll fragment your heaps
and dispose of your handles! Hah hah hah hah!. Let's see if you're
a Quickdraw or not!"
The Enterboing raced on closely trailed by the Odyssey.
"They're gaining sir!"
A blinding beam of fruit-shaped decals shot towards them,
striking the 'Boing on the starboard, or is it port side, I always
get them mixed up. Out of habit the crew leaned this way, then
that. The lights flickered on and off. "Quick, the flickerfixer!".
"Darned contacts!" said Piechart.
The ship lurched again. Dave knocked his header on a console
and was rendered unconscious.
"Take him to the diskdoctor..."
The ensign came to and leapt to his feet. "No!"
Dale smiled, "Works every time".
"Oh no, they trashed the Copperman list." shouted Bryce.
"Patch in the Supra-drives, plug in the Accelerator cards..."
"Still gaining ground sir. Great looking monitor they got,
huh."
Dale looked down. "Well, I guess we'll have to go to our only
advantage, our secret weapon"
"We have a secret weapon?"
"Sure, no StarChip captain worth his weight in Stickybits
comes prepared without his secret-weapon. Press that big red
button on your console.device ensign!"
"Oh, I've never noticed that before!" Jimm punched that Big
Red Button that said "Secret Weapon" in large friendly letters
underneath. There was a shudder throughout the ship, and
immediately they were enveloped by a solid >>Price-Barrier<<." At
that very moment the Odyssey fired a stream of Fillpats, PortBits
and grafPorts towards our crusaders, only to be deflected back
towards the attacking ship. The beam was sucked up into the
event-queue. Activating the program launcher, they fled trailing
a wake of dialog boxes behind them.
"So you see Ensign, this old ship still has a few hypercards
up its sleeve. But I'm afraid our time may be running out."
Meanwhile the EnterBoing sailed on towards Distant Suns, where
their ultimate destiny awaited them.
"Wait, none of this destiny stuff, we just want some hot
babes!"
With their latest battle over, the crew decided to kick back
and take a rest. Ensign Dave finally had a change to catch up on
the latest issue of AmigaWhirl Magazine. He casually began to flip
through the pages, looking for something to read, but something was
wrong. He couldn't find any articles! The Index to Advertisers
was 4 pages long! In fact, the entire magazine was nothing but
advertisements, stuffed among 2142 response cards. Finally he
discovered the editorial which totalled a single line. It said
simply, "Since we have nothing to say, we'll just say nothing!"
Meanwhile Jimm was playing with Basic++, and Leo was finishing
up installing some patches to the ships user interface. "Hey guys,
I've just added Voice Recognition to this ship thing of yours,
using the new Hear It! Do It! software from SpeakEasy
Enterprises. This is definitely the wave of the future, no more of
this mucking around with this mouse thingie, merely speak your
command and it will be done." Leo turned towards the front of the
ship and slowly addressed the EnterBoing. "Ship, Digiviewer On!".
There was some whirring, and the combination word-food processor
opened up its door to deliver a hot cup of coffee. "Uh, I think it
still has some bugs." The food system door shut then opened up
again with a plate full of bugs, cockroaches mainly. Full of bugs,
cockroaches mainly.
An unknown voice came over the message port. "Enterboing!
Prepare to be boarded for Standards Investigation!"
What the crew was in for was a surprise visit from the ANSI
Delegation which enforces standards across the universe. A large
confused mass materialized before them. Limbs poked out in every
direction.
"Darn, why did they have to arc themselves!" complained Dave.
Unarc'ing the mass revealed 4 rather humorless individuals,
all members of the ANSI police, each carrying a clipboard. They
immediately split up into four directions. "Hmmmm." Said one. "The
colors on this bridge are slightly off the accepted values. You
will have to repaint." Another took out a tape measure. "The
height of the captains chair is 18.33 inches, according to the ANSI
standards manual of StarChip Captain's Ergonomics, page 6,
paragraph 3 sub-paragraph 1.2, it should be 18.36 inches." Yet a
third was checking over the flight controls. "That Big Red Button
that says 'secret weapon'? Well the type font is wrong for the
label. I'm afraid we're going to have to cite you on that one!"
Captain Dale heard the commotion and came out of his office.
"What's going on here?" he asked. One of the delegates glanced up
from his clipboard and waved the other towards him. "We must form
a committee to answer that Captain." They huddled, periodically
hands were raised as votes were taken. Finally they broke up.
"Captain, I'm afraid that you have many severe segment
violations on board this ship. For the price it is just much too
fast..."
"And capable!" said another.
"And capable. Definitely confusing to the uninformed. Too
much power for the average user. Oh by the way, your uniform is
too large. We'll have to cite you for that. Beards aren't allowed
either, neither are capes." He glanced over to Leo. "Marketing
people just don't know how to handle capes".
Another delegate spoke up. "And we've decided that you're
going to have to get rid of this AmigaDoss stuff you use. There's
the new WeenieDos, designed to simplify stuff for the user. It has
one command, 'dir'..."
"But a very good 'dir'..."
"If you can't do what you want with 'dir' its just too
complicated..."
"For the average user. . ."
"For the average user. We'll head back to our ship gentlemen
to fill out our reports, and we'll see you tomorrow. Good-day, or,
er, night, or whatever-the-hell-it-is when you're in space."
The delegation re-arc'ed themselves and dissolved in a
whirlwind.
Dale pondered the meaning of their visit, and how to escape.
Simply firing up the drives would be much to easy. Nah, he'd earn
his pay on this one.
The crew gazed out the X-windows at the ANSI Ship, wondering
if they would all have to learn how to use 'dir'. Just then they
noticed a ghostly form appear before them.
"Hi guys! Nice to see ya again!"
"Hi ghostly god-like creature, what are you doing here".
"You'll never guess! No longer do I have to go around
terrorizing innocent starchips, I quit that job, now I deliver
interdimensional singing telegrams! I have to sing happy birthday
to someone on that craft over there." He pointed his drumstick
towards the ANSI ship.
"Well..." the captain said slyly, "Did you know that everyone
on that ship is having a birthday? All 1,203 members of the crew
and delegation? Amazing coincidence, isn't it?"
"Oh really?" The figure's face lit up. "Maybe I should sing
happy birthday to each of them, then I'll make alot of friends!"
"You do that! You do that."
"Ciao!" The form vanished, only to appear in front of the
other craft. Thru the vacuum of space, the crew could hear an
agonizingly clumsy rendition of "Happy Birthday", sung to each of
the ANSI people in alphabetical order. He was only down to "Alan"
when Dale thought it was safe to back away.
"Gee, that sure was clever sir. But what's to prevent them
from coming after later on?"
"Simple, I sent them a message asking them to clarify
'TermCap'. That should tie them up for years."
[ABEND error code $4ff76]