Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997 Pearl Publishing
The Meeting
Jonathan had found himself frozen in time when he heard the knock at the door of his old apartment. He had no friends or family who dropped by, nor even business acquaintances. Who could it possibly be?
After a few moments he slipped quietly to the doorway and flipped on the VideoMonitor, turning it to the hallway setting. He found his unbelieving eyes viewing none other than…the girl.
"Alexis.", he whispered, motioning her inside, after
unbolting the door and almost falling out into the hallway after
opening it. Without a word, she quickly stepped inside.
They stood there staring at each other.
Jonathan was wondering if he'd made a big mistake. Actually, he
knew nothing about her. She could be an agent of the Dark Forces,
sent to check up on his apartment.
Alexis was wondering if she'd made a big mistake. She actually
had no idea whether Jonathan was a genuine 'initiate' or an agent
of the Dark Forces, sent to Bubba to attempt to try to break into
the 'Circle'. She had to take that chance.
"I'm your contact.", she said, looking Jonathan right in the eye.
"From the 'Circle'?", he asked, amazed that this was actually happening.
"Of course.", she replied. "We need you to do some very important work for us, immediately."
"Problem.", Jonathan said, shaking his head sadly.
Alexis and Jonathan slipped out of the side door of the complex, and hurried across the street.
"Quickly, into the shadows.", Jonathan said, moving
quickly and pulling her along with him. He had recognized the
vehicles coming around the corner. They watched as the vehicles,
followed by a truckload of troops, pulled up in front of the building
they had just left.
The troops quickly surrounded the complex.
A nondescript vehicle had arrived, shortly, and a man with eyes of cold-blue steel stepped out of it, conferring with the troop leader, quietly. Alexis and Jonathan could hear the distinctive, hard voice as he gave orders to his commander.
"No one leaves the building alive."
"SOP?", the commander inquired, as if by rote, but was surprised at the answer he received.
"No!", the Shadow exclaimed, as if coming to a sudden
decision.
"Make it as loud and as messy as you like, Commander Olson.
And don't bother with the usual cover stories. Let the neighborhood
have something to think about, tonight."
"What about the local security precinct?", the commander asked the Shadow, obviously happy to have been given a free hand to do as he liked here.
"Tell them NOTHING!", the Shadow screamed at his top commander, not from anger, but from relief-relief that he no longer had to be concerned with humoring these foolish mortals.
Commander Olson was relishing the thought of letting those pompous little 'plastic generals' in charge of neighborhood security (and cover-ups of the Dark Forces' activities), stew along with the rest of the populace, for a change. He was mystified, however, as to the reason for this sudden departure from Standard Operating Procedure. The Shadow, however, speaking to himself, aloud, answered the commanders unspoken question.
"After tomorrow, it won't matter anyway.", the Shadow
whispered in a voice that shouted, nonetheless, as if screamed
from the highest point of the universe, and rebounding to its
furthest reaches.
"Tomorrow, Commander Olson…", the Shadow spoke,
his eyes glowering, a fiery shade of red, pulsating in time with
the subsonic reverberation that shook the air as he spoke, his
voice and his countenance echoing that of his Dark Master, the
Evil One, speaking for Evil itself.
"Tomorrow, with the setting of the sun, when darkness crosses
the threshold of dusk, to rule the night, overpowering the day…"
The Shadow was, no longer-it was Gomez's vile countenance that
was emanating forth from the quasi-human form that Alexis and
Jonathan were watching, speechless, frozen to the spot in the
shadows, where they were standing. Their hearts leapt, and stopped,
as this powerful, vile creature, turned towards them, as if looking
at them, through them, and his visage and his voice merged with
those of the Evil One, as their shrill, penetrating voices screamed,
in unison,
"Tomorrow, Commander Olson.…all this is MINE!"
Bubba poured each of them another shot of his Private Reserve, which they both downed quickly. The scream was still reverberating in their minds, through their whole bodies, as a matter of fact-great shivers of cellular terror coursing through their bodies in waves, in abominable spasms of chill, never to be forgotten, terror.
Bubba waited for one, or the other, to speak. They sat in silence
for long minutes, when Alexis, still staring off into a far-away
'nowhere', uttered, in a bare whisper,
"The scream never stopped…"
"…it continued, turning into…merging with…", it was now Jonathan talking, "…the screams that were coming from the building-horrible, terrifying screams…"
"…screams of the Damned…", Alexis' presence returned to the room, as she said it, looking at Jonathan, and then up at Bubba.
"…screams of the Damned.", they said, in unison.
Bubba nodded his head respectfully, fully aware of what they were
speaking of-desperately trying to make him understand the true
extent of what they were attempting to describe to him.
Bubba understood.
They were gathered in Bubba's safe house. A motley crew of computer
workers and programmers from a diverse segment of WebWorld society.
Their attention was rivited to the grizzled sage whom many of
them had riduculed for years as a babbling old derelict.
"For four generations," Bubba said, speaking for his lineage, "I have borne witness to the existence of the Evil One, and the reality of the danger that he represents for all of humanity."
Bubba rose slowly, speaking, not only to Alexis and Jonathan, but also to the many others gathered around them to hear them recount their recent brush with the Shadow…with Gomez.
"For four generations I have been a 'voice crying in the
Wilderness', speaking of an Evil too real, too great, to be spoken
of, and understood."
"Telling all who would listen, and those who would not, of
the Evil One's Grand Design for all of humanity, bringing us into
subjection to him, to his domain. Testifying ceaselessly of Gomez
and the Dark Allies eternal presence among us, working tirelessly,
day and night, sowing the seeds of our destruction."
The was room full of people-people who had, one by one, wittingly
or unwittingly, for an innumerable variety of reasons, stumbled
into Bubba Rom Dos IV's safety net.
This was a group of people very much like one that had gathered
together one evening, four centuries earlier, to listen to the
eternal wisdom contained within the mad ramblings of a broken-down
old derelict named Bubba Rom Dos…Bubba Rom Dos I.
Now, the pendulum had swing full cycle, for the fourthth, and
possibly the last, time, and it was the fourthth-generation representative
of the Rom Dos lineage who addressed the quiet, shaken individuals
gathered before him.
Bubba knocked back another shot of Jim Beam, and continued,
"Four centuries ago, my ancestor spoke to a group of people
much like yourselves, and he spoke not just of danger and despair,
but also of hope-the only hope of all of humanity.
"He told them that that 'one hope' was gathered before him
in the room, that evening, embodied in the presence of those who
had ears, to hear, and eyes, to see. He told them to form a "Magic
Circle", for their own protection, and for the protection
of all of humanity-to gather together in a common bond, with a
common purpose-to build a computer operating system that would
embody the spirit of humanity, containing signposts and clues
that aid them in retaining their connection to the eternal Tao,
to guide them through the dark times ahead, and give them a measure
of protection from the Dark Forces that were striving ceaselessly
to work against them."
"And then, as we all know, he made his 'grand' departure."
A titter of laughter ran through the crowd, breaking the nervous tension that had been building slowly, but inexorably, up to this point.
"He got thrown out on his sorry, drunken, child-molesting ass.", Alexis piped up, sending a roar of laughter through the crowd.
"That's one way of putting it, yes.", Bubba acknowledged,
exuding a sublime air of innocence.
The crowd waited for him to continue, but Bubba motioned for Jonathan
to join him, and merely said,
"Bubba Rom Dos IV will be remembered, if for nothing else,
for learning from the mistakes of his predecessors."
He bowed graciously, turning things over to Jonathan, and walked quietly to the back of the room, where he sat in the corner, commiserating with his old friend, Jim Beam.
Jonathan looked out over the crowd, and began to speak.
"I had occasion, recently, to hear, from the lips of the
Cowboy, himself," a murmur went through the crowd, and Jonathan
immediately saw that Alexis' plan of action was going to be very,
very effective, no matter what the final outcome of all this,
"for the first time in history, a true, first-person account
of exactly what proceeded after Bubba Rom Dos' departure from
the first, and only," he added, much to the surprise
of the gathering, "meeting of the 'Circle of Eunuchs'.
Everyone grew quiet, waiting breathlessly for Jonathan to recount the details, which he had, in fact, learned by logging onto the InterNet using the Cowboy's username and password.
He had been met, upon logging on, with a message informing him
that his logon, under the auspices of the Cowboy's identity, would
be invisible to anyone monitoring the system, and that he had
'system permissions' to do anything and everything he desired,
over the range of the whole InterNet computer system, even at
the highest levels of security.
Then he had been immediately launched into a text display outlining
the hitherto unknown details of the meeting chronicled in the
legendary epistle, 'The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre'-the meeting declared
to have resulted in the formation of the original 'Circle of Eunuchs'.
"A stuttering young computer whiz, named Michael," Jonathan
recounted, "took control of the meeting and suggested that
the forces they found themselves dealing with were too pervasive,
too powerful, for them to have any hope of countering by direct
action."
"His view was that, as an organized entity, they would thus
be identifiable, and traceable, and therefore in danger of almost
certain discovery and elimination. So he proposed a unique plan
of counter-attack on Gomez and the Dark Forces. He proposed that
they, as individuals, go their own, separate ways at the conclusion
of the evening, having no contact whatsoever with one another,
and doing nothing, taking no action at all, regarding
the bizarre chain of events which had brought them together."
The gathering looked at one another, mystified as to where all
this was leading, much as the original crowd had done, four centuries
earlier. They looked, as one, back at Jonathan, who smiled at
them, gave them a conspiratorial wink, and told them,
"Stuttering young Michael informed them that, since success
in action of any kind against the Evil One and his agents was
impossible, that they would have to relegate their activities
to the realm of the possible. The realm where nothing
was 'real', but all things were 'possible'-the realm of
Mythos, of myth.
The crowd looked at one another, once again, and saw that each of them understood, now, the reason why the legend of the 'Magic Circle' had remained just that, a legend, for as long as they could remember.
"Michael told them that, upon their dispersal at the end
of the evening, they could communicate with one another, and with
anyone who sought to counter the Dark Forces, in one way, and
one way only-through the inner workings and concepts underlying
the operating system, currently under development, known as UNIX.
"They were to each do their part, no matter how small or
great their position, their talents, or their capacity to influence
the development of UNIX, to make it a model of the eternal
Tao."
Jonathan's eyes swept the crowd, and he could see the connections taking place in their minds, as they realized the truth of what he was saying.
"UNIX was to be an operating system which mirrored the Tao,
and humanity itself, being a whole entity of magnificent proportions,
but composed of individual entities, functions, programs, and
the like, which ebbed and flowed in and out of one another, each
standing alone, while at the same time being part of a greater
whole.
"A system which was powerful, by virtue of the combined strength
of its many parts, but flexible by virtue of each of its individual
parts being able to join and work with any other, or combination
of others, to accomplish whatever task was required by any user,
or group of users.
"UNIX," Jonathan intoned, "was to be the first
multi-user system, enabling each user, each individual,
to access the information, the capabilities and the tools, of
the whole system."
"Before they broke up that evening, to go their separate
ways, a second individual, introducing himself as the Son of Gomez,
to the gathering," the crowd chuckled lightly, at this reference
to the Author, "took a few minutes to speak to them about
Mythos, and the Power of Myth."
"The Author told them that the power of myth is the power
of possibility-that within the realm of myth, that anything possible,
is real, or can be real, in our world.
"He told them that Bubba Rom Dos was right, that it was essential
that there be a group of individuals banded together in a common
cause, to counter the Dark Forces' efforts to bring all of humanity
into subjection to the Evil One. He told them that Michael was
right, as well, that it was not only dangerous, but quite useless,
for them to attempt to do so directly. He told them that it was
therefore essential that they do so in the realm of Mythos, keeping
the possibility of the 'Circle of Eunuchs' alive, as an
entity-a real entity residing in the Land of Legend."
Jonathan then turned the floor over to Alexis, who was about to put on a performance that would make Bubba's propensity for 'horseshit' pale by comparison. The best 'pitch' of the experienced salesman, however, is always begun with the purest of truths.
"The Cowboy," she told the gathering, "has set in motion a plan of action which is about to bring the 'Circle of Eunuchs' to life, as a living, breathing, entity."
There was a palpable air of hope, and excitement that surged through the crowd, who struggled to maintain their composure, so as not to miss a single element of what was about to be said.
"Around the world, throughout every nook and cranny of the
InterNet, there is a search taking place," most of the crowd
was well aware of that fact, it being the spark in a chain of
events that had led to most of them arriving here at this point
in time, "a search for 'Uncle', for 'Uncle Bubba', for 'Uncle
D'Shauneaux'."
"And every time that this search comes to the attention of
someone with the least bit of knowledge of the mythology of the
'Circle of Eunuchs', a spark is ignited, however small, in some
remote portion of their mind. It is a spark that is waiting, only
to be fanned, in order to break into flame-a small flame which
will throw a tiny bit of light on one part of the hidden designs
of the Evil One and his agents. But a million small flames, millions
of small flames, around the world," she noticed the crowd
nodding their assent, "will supply a blinding flash of illumination
that will reveal Gomez and the Dark Allies as the devilish agents
that they truly are."
An excited murmur of approval went through the crowd, like a shot.
"It is up to those gathered here, today, to provide the gentle
breeze that will fan those sparks, turning them into small flames
that can be united as one, to burn away the web of deceit that
Evil One has thrown over us all, through his silent control of
TV and the InterNet.
"And they will be united as one, tomorrow evening,
at sunset, when the Cowboy appears on all 500 Channels, and across
the vast expanse of the InterNet, to confirm the existence of
the legendary, magical 'Circle of Eunuchs'.
The gathered crowd broke into a spontaneous roar of applause, turning to one another with hugs and back-slapping, overjoyed that finally, at long last, the battle was about to begin-the battle between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Darkness.
A battle that would finally be joined by the one hope for all
of humanity-the legendary, hitherto mythological, 'Circle of Eunuchs'.
The crowd was quickly quieted, however, by the sound of jack-boots upon the doors, as they came crashing down, and storm-troopers dressed in black rushed in to surround them, followed by a man with eyes of cold, gray steel-the Shadow.
Chapter 30 - The Meeting