The good fight of Elvis and Marilyn in cyberspace
A short story by Craig Cormick
She altered my life. And when she found me, I was sitting alone in my room in my underpants, with a large file before me, hacking at my profile.
It's true. It's all true.
I'd just cracked the last barrier of the company's personnel files and was accessing my own statistics when she dropped a line of text into my command line.
Hi. I've been waiting for you.
It nearly scared the willy off me.
I froze. I'd been caught! Critical! Mega disaster! They had these heavy duty sophisticated detection programs installed. They could trace your modem number and even send a command back to bomb your hard disc.
Then a new line of text appeared. It's okay. I didn't mean to frighten you. What's your name?
I wasn't sure how to respond. Elvis, I keyed in cautiously. What's yours?
A pause. Marilyn Monroe.
I thought about that for a moment and then typed. I've always wanted to meet you.
And I knew you weren't really dead, she replied.
This didn't sound like any detection program. This was a live link with somebody.
I was getting lonely waiting here, she said. I guess all the action really does happen in the sex programs.
I wouldn't know, I lied.
Yeah. Sure, she replied.
Do I know you? I asked.
Not yet. But you will.
Now I was really curious. I thought for a moment and then typed, So what do you want?
I HAVE to talk to you.
Now I was cautious again. Serious caution. What if this was some kind of sophisticated detection system, stalling for time while the line was being traced. But the next message ran across the screen real fast. Quick. Exit!!! There is a scan coming!
I looked at the monitor clock. Totally bad news! I'd been in that file for over five minutes. That was dangerous. I hit the quit button fast. I was back in the Net, roaming free in cyberspace. That was close. I'd heard they'd caught some young graduate employee hacking into the system recently. Booted him straight out onto the street. They even told the papers his name. Serious problems trying to get employed again after that.
I logged out and switched off the modem. But I couldn't stop thinking about her. Who was she? Why did she HAVE to talk to me?
I resolved not to hack back into the company's files for a few weeks. There were untold other files to roam through. But three nights later I was inside some protected government records searching for police data on my neighbours when she returned.
Hi Elvis! Found you again.
How did you know it was me?
I know.
I wasn't sure if I should quit straight out again. I didn't reply to her.
Then she said, You're very quiet. Not too shy to converse with a woman on the Net?
I don't meet many women on the Net.
No. There aren't many of us here.
And where is that?
Cyberspace. I'll explain later.
What do you want? I asked her.
Just to talk a little. Another long pause. Then the words ran across the screen a bit slower, Describe yourself.
I swivelled my chair sideways and looked at my reflection in the mirror on the wall. My thin pasty face and stringy hair weren't what I'd ever thought of as much of a picture.
Haven't you ever seen a picture of Elvis? I asked. Though I've lost of lot of weight.
I'm glad to hear that, she replied. I've become a little more weighty myself.
Then she asked, So how many pens have you got in your breast pocket? Four?
I looked down at them. Two, I lied.
Sure, she replied.
I was beginning to like her. Whoever she was and whatever her game was, I was prepared to play it. Cool.
I need to talk to you, she keyed in.
What about?
There's danger here.
What kind of danger?
Let's call them bad spirits.
And what are you?
I'm a good spirit.
And what do good spirits do?
They float around inside the Net and they change data. Fix things up.
What things?
Facts. We recreate reality. Good realities.
Explain.
Did you ever read 1984?
No. I don't read many books.
Well there's a video around. Borrow it and watch it sometime. There's this guy called Winston and he has a job recreating history. Getting bits from newspapers and books and rewriting them.
Winston. That was my name. But I didn't say it.
Well, it's just like that, she keyed. Whatever reality I want to create I can get into the data files and make it so.
I'm not sure I understand.
Okay. Let me give you an example. Do your remember the war between the Israelis and Syrians that broke out at the end of the Gulf War?
I thought hard for a moment, then replied. There was no such war.
But there was. At least for one day there was. But I erased all memory of it from the global data banks. It simply ceased to exist. I replaced it with a long history of mutual posturing on both sides. No more war!
Clever, I thought to myself. She's put a lot of work into this.
She went on: Or the collapse of the Berlin Wall. I did that. I just changed all the data so that it had happened. And reality followed. After that it was easy to deconstruct the whole Soviet Empire by changing just a few tiny things.
Now I knew she was spinning me a line. But it wouldn't work. Somebody could check in the books.
What books? A lot of this stuff isn't in books. Or it's copied in from global data banks on the Net. And who reads books these days? You said yourself that you don't. Go into a library: most everybody is sitting at terminals. That's where the real information is.
But there's pictures of things in the newspapers.
And who creates those pictures that are bounced off satellites around the globe? Shots of anything. You'd be surprised. If I create it — it happens! Believe me. Want more examples? Ross Perot as a US presidential candidate. He never really was. I created that one for a joke. But everyone took it too seriously. Or Hugh Grant being caught with that hooker. Did you read about that?
Of course. She was drawing it out a bit much now, I thought.
It never happened. I accessed a multi-media version of Three Weddings and a Funeral and I thought he was such a pratt that I created that news event. Even he didn't doubt that it had happened. This re-creation of reality is absolute!
I keyed in, But...
Believe me, she cut in before I could finish, The opposite of knowledge is not ignorance — it is deceit.
I could see the flaw in her story though. But if you could do all those things, why don't you fix up the whole world? Rwanda? Bosnia? What about them?
It's only safe to tinker at the edges. That's how you can achieve change. The big issues are dangerous. That's where the bad spirits are waiting.
And WHO exactly are the bad spirits?
Those with a vested interest in global instability. Those who promote their own version of unreality. Hyperunreality. Think about it. Why can't the UN ever seem to make a commitment to anything? Their realities are always being changed. And who is possibly profiting from the war in Bosnia? Only the arms sales people. And they have close ties with those who monopolise data on the Net. And if they catch you. You're gone! You'll be like me!
What do you mean like you?
Well — this is the real hard bit. But try and keep up. If you accept that recreating reality gives you the power to control reality — then what happens when those bad spirits erase all your personal records?
I thought about it a minute. I don't know. What?
You cease to exist.
Cease to exist?
Yes. I only exist inside the Net. I can be anywhere in the world — but if they ever catch me, it's bye-bye Marilyn. And if they catch you, you're gone too. You've got to be more careful! You've got to learn more! That's what I HAVE to tell you. You're too good a hacker. I HAVE to warn you. You are in danger!
This isn't very funny any more, I said. It's a good story. You can try another one on me next time we meet. And I hit the quit key. But as soon as I had, I wished I hadn't.
Weird cyberchick, I said aloud. Pity. I really did like her.
It took three more days for her to find me again. In an indirect sort of way. I was inside the Reserve Bank database, searching for ways to increase my tax return cheque, when my screen flashed.
Oh shit, I said.
Then a command line ran across the top of the screen: You have been apprehended violating a Federal file. Your modem number has been recorded and your system will crash in five seconds.
Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!
Then large numerals appeared on my screen. Counting down: 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1. Then my screen went blank. Deadly! I winced waiting for the bomb! But I was back in cyberspace again. My system was fully operational.
I couldn't begin to guess what had happened. And there was a single word on the screen: Tonkin.
I cautiously typed, Are you there?
But there was no reply. I waited sitting in front of the screen for half an hour. Total silence.
That single word followed me for a few days. On a whim I looked it up in a dusty encyclopedia in the library and compared it to the entry on the library's data base. The encyclopedia, which was about 15 years old, had an entry under the 'Gulf of Tonkin'. It said that in 1964 the North Vietnamese attacked two US destroyers, Maddox and C. Turner Joy, in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam, which triggered the USA into entering the Vietnam War.
But the database said that the Gulf of Tonkin attack had never taken place, which thus questioned the morality of the whole US involvement in the Vietnam war. Awesome!
That really made me wonder. Reality and recreated reality, she said. I sat up late nights after that, searching and searching for her — but there was no trace. It was a downer. I wanted to exchange text with her again.
But I hadn't lost her. A few days later I was just cruising through cyberspace when my screen flickered and a graphic file began appearing. It was being created line by line from the top down. It took me a moment to recognise it. It was Marilyn Monroe. A photo of her half naked holding up a sheet, with one breast peeping out. Just about as perfect as you could ever imagine.
Then a new graphic image began forming. I watched the new lines being recreated over the top of the Marilyn graphic. The new lines showed dark hair and then dark glasses; and then I knew who it was. Elvis!
The new graphic continued its creation across the screen, and for just a brief moment the images were perfectly overlapping, with Elvis' upper frame fitting perfectly over Marilyn's. Radical!
I looked at the fully formed Elvis picture and turned again to look at my reflection in the mirror on the wall beside me. I lifted one hand up above my head in the same pose. Yeah. In your dreams, I thought.
Then I looked back at the monitor and the image was being recreated again. This time it was a moving graphic. I tried to see the picture as it formed. There was lots of movement. Lots of pink and light brown. Then there was a dark head. But from an odd angle. And another. And then I understood it. It was Elvis and Marilyn screwing. I sat on the very edge of my chair watching the moving graphic. As Marilyn moved up and down. As Elvis rode with her. I swallowed hard.
I reached out one finger to touch the monitor. To touch her. A charge of static electricity licked across my finger tip. Mega awesome!
Then the graphic deconstructed. Again from the top down.
The text line ran quickly across the screen. Was it good for you too?
So that was cybersex, I keyed.
It was as good as it gets, she replied.
What happened the other day? I thought they had me.
I diverted the scan. They traced and bombed Jacques Chirac's personal computer.
I had to smile.
Cool.
I thought you'd like that.
I thought for a moment, then typed, Thanks.
No worries. Do you trust me now?
I guess so.
You've got to be more careful. They'll catch you.
Who? The bad spirits?
Yes. You've got to learn to think more like a woman.
Like a woman?
Listen. It's a man's system. Designed by men. Run mostly by men and that's why they have trouble catching me. They don't think the way I think. — But they may catch me one day. And that's why I wanted to pass it all over to you.
Why me?
To fight the good fight.
Why me?
BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT ELVIS WOULD DO!!!
That was when I accepted that perhaps this wasn't a game. But was it reality or recreated reality? Totally confusing. What do I have to do? I asked.
Whatever your conscience dictates. If they ever get me, you'll know what to do.
But how will I know if they get you?
I'll leave you a special message. You'll know it.
Okay.
We conversed for several hours and she told me all about working in hyperreality and I began to comprehend the enormous scope of it all. So many spirits all out there altering realities.
So how does anyone know what's real? I asked her.
You can't, she replied. That's about the only truth you can count on.
Afterwards I stood in front of the mirror and put my hand up in that Elvis pose. To the good fight! I declared. Why not?
And so I joined her in changing the world. Stock market figures here. News reports there. She kept telling me not to get too ambitious. They'd be waiting for me, she warned. But I always felt she saw them as the ultimate challenge.
And so we tinkered at the edges. We doubled New Zealand's economic growth. We increased Australia's foreign aid to Africa. We freed Burmese political dissident Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. And we even had the Indonesian ambassador to Australia's appointment reversed. I was very smug about that one — I'd once gone to an East Timor protest.
I thought more like her each day. I had been recreated in cyberspace. Each evening when we finished our work I would look at myself in the mirror and roll my hair forward in an Elvis curl and smile at myself in the knowledge that I was making some difference to the world.
But, as she had warned, the day came! I was surfing the Net looking for her, and my screen flashed. A graphic file was being created. I smiled. She'd created some pretty R-rated graphic files over the past few weeks. And she was right, women really did think differently from men.
But this picture was different. It was a black and white photograph I had once seen in a documentary. It was of Marilyn Monroe. And she was naked. But limp and lifeless. It was a shot of her after she had been found dead.
I knew immediately what it meant.
I raced back and forward through cyberspace at a frantic speed searching for her. But she wasn't there. Nowhere! Then I calmed a little and thought: I HAVE to get back at them. I HAVE to really get them! What'll it be? I'll bankrupt Microsoft! I'll annex Japan to Papua New Guinea! I'll make News Corporation a public broadcast company!
No! What would she have wanted? The good fight! I'd go for something grander. Peace in the Balkans! No, even grander! I tapped back and forward, moving between files and data streams like she had shown me until I was in the files of the UN Security Council. I'd plant a time bomb there. A time bomb that would spread out slowly and rid the Net of spirits. All of them! That's what she'd have aimed for!
But in thinking of her — lying inert on the floor with the shower curtain draped half over her body — I let my concentration waver. And suddenly my screen froze! I hit the cursor key. Nothing happened. Then the quit key. The panic button. Nothing happened. I ran my fingers at random over the keyboard. Still nothing.
Then the words came up slowly across the screen. You have been apprehended attempting to make an unauthorised change in a prohibited directory. And then, more sinister, We've been waiting for you! And then in French. And German. And all the official languages of the UN.
I pounded the keyboard. Shit! Shit! Shit! Merde! Merde! Merde! Scheisse! Scheisse! Scheisse!
My screen flickered. Then I was back in my own directory. And as I watched, my personal files destructed off my system. They went one by one, as if the person doing it wished to draw out the pleasure. The first to go were my personal access files — so I was helpless to do anything but watch. Then my social security information, my tax files, my driver's licence, all my government files, then my bank and credit ratings went.
I was being deconstructed. Line by line.
Then it began speeding up. File after file after file disappeared from the screen, until all there was left was my flashing cursor line.
I didn't know what to do. I sat staring at the monitor, knowing that I should move, that I should get out of there. But I couldn't. I was frightened. Frightened to turn my head just a little to the side and to look into the mirror there. Frightened of what I might or might not see.