Leonard Richardson - Mallory.pdf - Leonard Richardson - widez2

Mallory

Richardson, Leonard

Published: 2008

Type(s): Short Fiction, Science Fiction

Source: http://futurismic.com/category/fiction/

About Richardson:

Leonard Richardson somehow parlayed an interest in minutiae into a

career as a hacker and author. His work includes the Python library

Beautiful Soup, and two nonfiction books published by O’Reilly and As-

sociates. He lives in New York City.

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"Futurismic is a free science fiction webzine specialising in the fact and

fiction of the near future - the ever-shifting line where today becomes to-

morrow. We publish original short stories by up-and-coming science fic-

tion writers, as well as providing a blog that watches for science fictional

news stories, and non-fiction columns on subjects as diverse as literary

criticism, transhumanism and the philosophy of design. Come and ima-

gine tomorrow, today."

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Mallory

Vijay had been playing video games his whole life, but he’d never really

become addicted to one until the first incarnation of Fuck Me . Adding an

element of real-time strategy to the already-frenetic Gestalt Warrior com-

bined construction, emergent behavior, and blob-themed violence in a

way that both Vijay and the Selfish GAME found satisfying.

Game addiction burns hot and fast, unless the game itself keeps chan-

ging. Having spawned Fuck Me , the Selfish GAME shuffled its pedigree

and came out with Super Fuck Me . This led to Ms. Fuck Me , which begat

Fuck Me Heels , Fuck Me Millennium Edition , Let’s Have A Meaningful Rela-

tionship , and other profane heralds of blob megadeath culminating in

Fuck Me Harder , which was too complex for anyone not skilled at earlier

iterations. Fuck Me Harder put Vijay’s brain through strange transforma-

tions and he did not do well on the phone while playing it.

“Yes, hello, Rodney,” he said, cradling the fake cell phone against his

neck. He reached for the laptop keyboard, waving away the dangling

cord that connected the Sabertooth set to his real cell phone. “Is this a

random call? ‘Cause I’m kind of busy.” Vijay had met Rodney at a con-

ference he’d attended only to give a paper about the SimShitty fab layout

program. Their only shared interest was making meaningless phone calls

to fool NSA data miners.

“Is that noise real?” asked Rodney. “It sounds like glitch metal.”

“I’m playing a game,” said Vijay. The Selfish GAME did not under-

stand soundtracks or sound effects, and the games it produced were

noisefests. Vijay always left the sound on and tuned it out; there was

nobody around to bother him about it.

“You’re busy–what game sounds like that?”

“ Fuck Me Harder .”

“Is that the name or…”

“Yeah.” Vijay picked up a scroll and destroyed all blue blobs within a

certain radius. He instantly regretted this since his own blue blobs had

been playing an important role in a pincer movement.

“So, no, it’s not an Entropy call. I called you to ask if you want to help

me test the radio friendly unit shifter.”

Vijay paused the game and stared at the frozen LCD, repeatedly pro-

jecting blob movements for the next few seconds before snapping back to

the present. “The what now?”

“My signal retransmitter, for Pyromancy. I’ve been posting about it on

my anonoblog for months.”

“Oh. I skipped those because I hate circuit diagrams.” Actually Vijay

had been skipping most of what Rodney posted on his blogs.

“Cretin! So I’m going to try it out on this call. It’ll sound like we’re

talking through a vocoder.”

“It’s an effects pedal for radio and phones? That’s going to get you in-

to Pyromancy?”

“Oh, it’s extremely illegal. It clobbers all sorts of FCC rules.”

“But you could make a legal one, couldn’t you, that worked like the

Sabertooth?”

“Yes, I could, if I wanted to mess up my own calls. This one messes up

other peoples’. You ready?”

Vijay was neither ready nor un-. “Hmm, how is this possible? Doesn’t

it use a lot of power?”

“No more than your tiny cell phone needs to broadcast on the same

frequencies. RTF circuit diagrams. Here we go!”

Vijay reached for the keyboard again and played half a second of Fuck

Me Harder before his headset bleated static even worse than the

soundtrack to the game. He dropped the fake cell phone like a piece of

bread he’d just discovered was moldy.

The noise stopped. “Hey, you still there?” came Rodney’s voice from

the Sabertooth.

“Yeah, way to go, mister circuit diagram. You messed with an encryp-

ted phone call and you turned it to garbage.”

“No, this is actually good, because it demonstrates the value of voice

encryption. I can’t overpower someone’s encrypted call and change what

they’re saying. The Pyromancy guys love the public service angle.”

“You still want to try it out?” asked Vijay. “Turn off the encryption on

your end.” He held his thumb to the side of the Sabertooth.

“You can’t just turn off encryption!” said Rodney, as if Vijay had sug-

gested removing the condom.

“Why not? You’re not going to say anything during the test. Mallory

already knows you called me. Who cares if she hears unencrypted noise

instead of encrypted noise?”

Leonard Richardson - Mallory.pdf

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