Page 177 of Nearly Roadkill
Scratch:Yeah, we should do our signoff soon.
Winc:::gulp:: Right you are. ::waving::
By goddess, I hope the heck they learn to talk in real time.
END GWYNYTH DIARY ENTRY
NARRATIVE ENTRY, JABBATHEHUT
6:00 a.m., Manhattan Monday, still no traffic. No early-to-work types rushing to their offices. A gaggle of government types stand on the sidewalk, holding cups of sticky-sweet concoctions from the Papaya King. They’re all listening to Budge hold forth about his days as a beat cop. Only Shelly Dunlap notices that he keeps shifting his eyes to the EcoTech building, up to the fifth floor, where one light is burning.
“What’re we waiting for, Wally?” she whispers.
“For Henderson to wake up and give us the damned go-ahead,” says Wally. “Even though he thinks we’re on a false trail. Can’t say I acted without orders. Until then,” he grins, “we wait.”
He looks over at his shabby crew.
“Hey, you guys. And gals. Have I told you the one about busting the pickets at the abortion center in Chelsea?”
To:ScratchnWinc
From:Jabbathehut
Subj:Errant nodes
There appear to be only two nodes left online. One belongs to some kind of gun-rights group whose last message was “we don’t know how to turn it off.” The last node is mine. I assure you I will continue to operate as usual, as it is not my nature to be a joiner of any kind. Please excuse that inconvenience.
Fighting God,
—J.
To:Jabbathehut
From:ScratchnWinc
Subj:Naughty nodes
Gun rights? Wow. And um, did you know that if we all go offline you’ll be the only one left? Could you please consider taking a holiday for 24 hours? We wouldn’t really count you among the strikers, but it would make everything perfect.
—S&W.
END JABBA NARRATIVE ENTRY
GWYNYTH DIARY ENTRY
I might have to agree with Jabba about people’s short attention spans. Having had 10 minutes of no activity, Scratch and Winc goofed around online and, incredibly, discovered the Allied Consumer Industries database file. Perhaps because there were hardly any nodes online, it was easy to discover? How do they DO these things?
END GWYNYTH DIARY ENTRY
SCRATCH JOURNAL ENTRY
OMG, we found *the* database with all the Reg info, all the answered Reg forms!
I got off on just looking at it, but Winc went right in. Ze said Jabba had taught hir a few codes, and ze just started hacking away until ze was in. Fuck!!!
First thing ze tried to do was delete the whole thing, but it kicked hir out a few times. Ze found another backdoor and we got to the database spreadsheet itself, which showed all those stupid Reg questions we hated about Registration.
Then we got another note from Jabba.
