Mr Badger and BigJobbs stood over Handel as he watched a glowing screen.
"Rattle them dags man, we don't have forever here," needled Mr Badger with
an old joke but still a good one.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," mumbled Handel as he typed. "Just checking the mail,
have to keep on top of things you know." Handel looked pained as he realised
what he had said. To his luck the fiend wasn't there to leap on this
unfortunate comment, neither was the fiend there to wrestle with the comment
till every last little shred of lewdness was ripped from it.
"What the hell is that thing anyway Handel?" Asked Mr Badger as he pointed
over Handel's shoulder.
"It's a computer man, just a little older than what you're used to,"
commented Handel defensively. BigJobbs looked at the mass of wires and
capacitors. He nodded a few times to confirm to Badger that it was indeed a
computer but from the worried look on BigJobb's face Badger knew the
relationship was only passing. Handel slowly typed his commands one figure
per minute. If he tried any faster the room began to get oppressively hot
and the little fan (read turbine fit to live in the middle of a hydrodam)
droned its way from idle to near hurricane force. Every now and again a
flash of Egyptian hieroglyphics could be seen across the screen. By flash
it's meant that in the time it was on the screen Badger had made three cups
of coffee and BigJobbs had microwaved enough pizza to satisfy the entire
Foreign Legion. Handel winced as BigJobbs chuckled at the technology level
of his computer. Even Badger made a few ill-timed comments about stone
slates and ticker tape. With Handel grumbling as he tried to access his
e-mail a light glowed on the computer's casing where no light had ever
glowed before. Like all the Ancient Ones' this machine was self aware. Now
it was also watching. "Get off my back guys, it does the job you know. It
may not be the latest of the month but a least I can use it whenever I want."
"Yeah, not like it's going to be wandering anywhere is it? Damn thing is the
size of a station wagon. Look at all that electricity arcing, if this was
Badger's place there'd be things coming back to life in the fridge by now!"
Laughed BigJobbs.
"Funny you should say that but.." mumbled Mr Badger as he remembered what he
had given the Creation Rites to the last weekend. Some sort of cheese
vegetable cross it appeared, but if that wasn't enough it was the way it
looked at the butter conditioner and mumbled about training an army of
appetisers that really frightened him. At least now it was on the side of
the Sabbat, sort of.
On the computer the bothersome light brightened. Behind the three Vampires a
robotic arm swung around. On its tip was a glowing blue wand. The wand grew
brighter still than discharged a violent stream of energy at the three
figures. On contact with the three forms the beam of energy encased them in
a blue energy field that held them motionless. Each mouth shaped the words
"Oh shit" as they were slowly digitised and absorbed into the machine
itself. On the screen appeared the words "Mock me will you?" but alas there
was no one to see it. The lab was quiet once more.
Mr Badger looked around. The landscape seemed to consist of wire outlines.
The outlines leant substance to the void as the shapes were solid but
suspiciously two dimensional. Badger was a little nauseated as all the
wires were coloured in particularly violent pastel shades. "Someone's having
a bad acid flashback," mumbled Mr Badger. "Kind of like what my old
Spectrum could do."
"Oh yuck," said Handel as saw what he and everyone else was wearing. Handel
was bedecked in the latest puce metallic jump-suit. On his back was a very
flat and round disk. Examining it Handel found the stopper and took out the
plug. With a satisfied gulping noise Handel swallowed the contents. "Look
what's happened to my hipflask!"
BigJobbs nodded and examined the disk on his back. Tearing off a small
section he tasted the substance and grinned. "Pizza base!"
Mr Badger scowled as he took a look at his disk. It was made of a grey metal
and had a small recess on it's back. With a mutter and a swear Mr Badger
walked over to a wire table next to him and ripped off one of it's legs.
Quickly he screwed the leg on to the recess on his disk. With a swinging
motion he displayed his new spade to the others. "A bit flat and wussy but
it'll do the job. Right than, lets have a look around and see what the hell
has happened to us."
The three looked around this strange environment in which they found
themselves. Other people dressed like they were walked past. Unlike the
three Vampires (well except Badger) the others seemed blank and shallow.
They didn't look around themselves and never spared a second look at the
three newcomers. All the others were headed in the same direction so with a
shrug Badger, Handel and BigJobbs followed along. Shortly they came across a
cross roads. People walked from all directions but turned at the cross roads
and headed to the north. In the distance was a lumbering giant.
"Oh crap,"
cried Badger as he saw the giant stomp toward them. It had an angular face
they used a grimace to show all of his emotions. The giant growled as it
stomped over the people between it and our little grouping. It grabbed
BigJobbs and held him up in the air.
"Identify!" Shouted the giant.
BigJobbs looked suitably underwhelmed at this and the giant looked suitably
confused as the figure that it had grabbed started to overflow its hand and
ooze out the side. "Hi there!" Said BigJobbs to the giant.
"Bad command or File name!" Shouted the giant to BigJobbs. The giant
clenched all the harder as it asked again. "Identify!"
While this was going on Handel was looking up at the events from the ground
below. As he looked a troubling thought made its way ponderously through
his mind. After missing a few drink addled turns the thought finally made it
through to the consciousness section and was noticed by the best of the
brain. "Hey, this guy doesn't have a Mr Wobbly!" Shouted Handel as he
didn't see the usual bulge around the upper leg bit of the giants jump-suit.
Above BigJobbs made a startling conclusion. "Let's see, giant bumbling
creature. Doesn't understand plain english, easily confused and quick to
anger, doesn't seem to serve any real purpose and has no bollocks. Oh crap,
it's DOS!"
"We're inside the computer!" Shouted Mr Badger just to get involved in the
scene. He's not all that great at that intuition thing so this sort of
correct conclusion comes to a surprise to them all. Wanting to get away from
the DOS giant before its mentality got to them all Mr Badger shouted some
advice upto BigJobbs. BigJobbs grinned back and whispered something into the
giants ear. With a shudder and a small 'eek' noise the giant dropped
BigJobbs and ran away into the distance, growing smaller and smaller with
each step it took.
"How'd you know del *.* would work Badger?" Asked BigJobbs.
"Hey," shrugged Mr Badger, "it worked on those aliens last year, how could
it fail here?" Just then in the far distance from where the DOS giant had
come from burst a bright lance of pure purple energy. The beam stretched from
the line drawn ground into the sky to disappear. "I say we go that way,"
said Handel as he led the way.
Before long they were approached by motorcycle riding figures. On the back
of each of the riders was the label 'Norton Anti-virus.' "This doesn't look
good," mumbled Mr Badger as he reached for his spade disk. Beside him Handel
and BigJobbs prepared their own weapons for the conflict. The Norton riders
split up and circled each of their prey. Being the more computer literate of
the three BigJobbs started the fight first. With a flick of his wrist
BigJobbs threw a small diskette onto the ground in front of the Norton
rider. The rider screamed to a stop next to the diskette and grabbed the
item. With munching noises the rider ate the disk then reached into the back
of its trousers. With a small grunt of effort the rider produced the
diskette and gave it back to BigJobbs. "No virus found in drive A:" BigJobbs
thanked the Norton rider and kicked it in the bollocks as a tip. The rider
collapsed in a puddle of fragmented bytes.
Handel approached his rider with a steady stride. Reaching for his hipflask
disk he undid another stopper and poured some of the dark steaming liquid
onto the ground. With a grin as Mr Badger moaned beside him Handel watched
the Norton rider ride into the puddle and disappear into the void. The other
half of the hipflask was a thermos containing some of 'Mr Badger's Coffee'
The ultimate solvent and breakfast accessory ate away the ground leaving a
gaping chasm behind. Handel waved to the falling rider and turned to watch
Badger finish his opponent.
Mr Badger was still a little upset about that whole pouring coffee onto the
ground thing. With a growl that could be felt all the way to the a: drive
Badger swung his spade at the Norton rider. The rider vanished in a shower
of sparks as the spade did incredibly nasty and vile things to the riders
file allocation table. "Scan that you bastard!" Shouted Mr Badger as he
waved his fist as no one in particular. With the fight over the three badly
dressed digitised Vampires walked toward the light.
Before long they came to a change in the environment. The air seemed thicker
and impeded their progress. The ground sucked at their feet and made every
step drag. Their progress was halved and halved again. Turning back Handel
saw that the amorphous mass they were walking through was slowly expanding.
Already it was covering the hole where the coffee had destroyed the space
time continuum. "A huge hulking mass that slowly consumes all, speed cut in
half, you never seem to get anywhere..it's Win 95 isn't it?" Asked Handel.
BigJobbs nodded and slowly they neared their goal.
Suddenly the air cleared and they could walk as fast as one would normally
expect. "Quick run! Win 95 must have crashed again, we need to get out of
here before it reboots," shouted BigJobbs.
"Where are we going?" Asked Badger as he picked up the pace.
"Toward the e-mail. We're going to ask someone for a bit of help." Answered
BigJobbs.
The e-mail was easily identified by the huge teetering stack of paper in
front of it. "Watch out for the In Box there, looks like Alik has been busy
[Ed note: cheap shot {g]]" BigJobbs walked up and stood in the middle of the beam of
pure purple. In a very loud voice BigJobbs accessed the system. "We'd better
get out of here, the operating system would surely have noticed us mucking
around in here. We'd better leg it before we get defragged."
"Who'd you call?" Asked Mr Badger as he pushed yet another message away and
toward the In Box.
"A computer expert, who else but Mickey?" Replied BigJobbs. "He'll get us
out of here if anybody can."
The three walked away whistling as armed security programs descended on the
area. The whistling easily cloaked the trio in absence of Obfuscate. Making
their get away they made their way to a nearby input/output port. Lurking
nearby disguised as print managers, Handel was flattered as he got to be the
6P version. Security programs roamed the area looking for the intruders but
found nobody the fitted the description. Eventually the heavens were split
by a blinding light. From the skies came a figure outlined in flame and
carrying an equally flaming sword. The angelic figure looked at the badly
disguised figures and winked.
"Shit Mickey, it's a bit wanky isn't it?"
Grinned Badger as the angelic figure picked them all up.
"Let's get out of here," intoned Mickey and than they all vanished in a puff
of hardcopy.
Later on after a few calming ales at Mickey's Haven the three explained the
predicament. "So Badger and BigJobbs here pissed off your computer Handel so
it ate all of you for spite?" Asked Mickey with grin.
"That's the guts of it. Something to be said for being nice to people eh
Badger?" Laughed Handel. Mr Badger said nothing but the glint in his eyes
showed he was upto something.
After a night of beverage induced biological restoration the three said
their goodbyes and returned to Handel's Haven. Inside the computer sat
quietly and showed no sigh of noticing the Vampire's return. "It's glaring
at us, I can feel it." Said Handel. Typing on the keyboard Handel frowned as
there was no corresponding sign on the monitor. "Make that sulking."
"Nothing like a depressed computer to liven up the day. Let me sort this
out." Said Mr Badger. Badger reached into the folds of his jacket and
withdrew the ever present thermos flask. Opening up the flask Badger held a
cup full of the nefarious liquid above the computer. "Cheer up or it's hello
to Mr Badtime," threatened Mr Badger. The computer beside him made a
startled beep and quickly the monitor glowed with vigorous energy. "Say
you're sorry." The computer slowly formed the words on the screen then
displayed Handel's waiting e-mail messages as an apology. Satisfied with his
form of group therapy Mr Badger grinned and left Handel and BigJobbs to it.
