Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/578.FEA1

Text File | 1993-08-16 | 13KB | 197 lines

From The Journal Of..
(c) 1993, Gage Steele
All rights reserved



                   "From The Journal Of..."   Part Two

     When I logged onto JEannie, my first thought was that it was some sort
of "no frills" service.  To be quite honest, I absolutely hated the place.
Until then, I'd been suckled and shielded by a system that was illiterate-
safe.  JEannie didn't have pretty pictures and graphic menus;  The people
that used the message bases seemed to REALLY know what they were doing, as
far as computing went, too.  And although I'd told my fellow refugees that
I wouldn't dare break the boycott, I kept my Paragon account active for
many months.  The people that had bailed the big P with me had set up
message areas and email chains for us.  They were highly trafficked places,
full of notes reeking of relief at having gotten away from Paragon.  I
participated in a good lot of those, but...  JEannie wasn't what I'd hoped it
would be.  Maybe it was just the vast difference between the two systems
that turned me cold.  It was so much harder, too, that I was always getting
lost somewhere in a back alley of the system.  I'd never thought of myself
as an idiot before, but for that very reason I began to seriously consider
canceling my JEannie account.  Maybe this Teleco stuff just wasn't for me.
     One afternoon, while doing my usual "let's press every last button
and see what the screen says," I wound up at a prompt that said:

                    Job: 37
                    Handle of <GAGE> will be used.
                    Ok <Y/N>?

and no matter what answer I chose, it kept trying to shove me forward.
Into what, I wasn't sure yet.  Telling the prompt "No" only caused the
system to ask me for a new name to use.  I felt like screaming at the
monitor "No, I like my name just fine, thank you.  Let me out of here!"
Finally, out of frustration, I said "Yes."  What I saw next made no sense
at all.  It looked something like this:

                    Cha/Use   Cha/Use   Cha/Use
                     1   6     2   3     5   2
                     13  1     24  5     25  11

and so on.  I really thought that I'd finally, out of not paying attention
to the menus and hitting the keys arbitrarily, broken something.  It
looked Greek to me, so I pulled the plug on the modem.  The "NO CARRIER"
message that greeted me was a welcome one.
     A few nights later, I found my way to that set of screens again.
This time, I actually read the choices thoroughly.  The corner of JEannie
that I'd managed to wander into was called Chatlines.  It sounded
interesting.  I was curious, more than anything, to see people typing
realtime - something Paragon didn't, and still doesn't, have.  However,
from my experience on the JEannie bb's (being called "a lamer newbie, groan,"
and the feeling that no-one really cared if I found my way around or not),
I figured I'd better learn the new area alone.
     There was an option on the Chat menu for entering the "test"
chatlines.  All of the infofiles said that "test" was a good place for new
users ("newbies!"  Ah, that's where they got that!) to learn the commands
without too much else going on around them.  It sounded like this "test"
place wasn't used much, so I tapped in the corresponding number and was
booted into it.
     When I felt I was ready to graduate to the real chatlines, I made
sure I had the list of commands printed out and taped to the side of the
monitor, along with notebook on the desk beside me with "cheat sheet" type
definitions of "chat slang" in it.  You see, I never was a chatlines
"newbie" in public.  The crap I'd been dealt in the email groups and
message bases was enough to show me that new users weren't worth these
"elitists'" time.
     Chat was full of lonely people with nothing better to do but login
12 hours a night, talking with people they'd never met about decidedly
personal things.  I found quickly that the majority of them were grossly
overweight, sexually inexperienced, socially inactive, and they read a lot.
I know, I know, that's a terrible generality to make.  I'm a horrible
person for saying it, but it's true.  I'd rather be an honest bitch than
sycophantically glorify something, you know?  Also, the people in the
chatlines were not quite like the people in the message bases.  Although
they seemed to loathe "newbies" just the same, they knew very little
about computers.  Dialing a modem and being able to recite chat commands
was about where their expertise stopped - brakes locked, tyres squealing,
no ABS, no airbag.
     About 15% of the people were staff.  They ran games like trivia,
word scramble, and Dungeons & Dragons.  Many sat around each evening as
acting chat helpers, greeting the new ones that stumbled in (That made me
feel better.  It seemed that most of chat's dogmatic supporters bumped
into it just as I had - by error).  The staff were nice enough when you
had a question, but they were among the most "cliquish" bunch I ever typed
at.  Groups of staffers clung together, be it during games or help time,
it seemed to make no difference.  I also noticed that not ALL staff were
part of the same clique.  At the time, I didn't know exactly why, so
chalked it up to basic personality conflicts.
     I'm not sure what order this should go in, so I'll come back to the
staff stuff later.  It's sort of a long story all by itself.  Right now,
though, I want to tell you about someone specific.  I think it's important
that you hear about her.  Now, what I'm going to tell you is going to be
very hard to believe (don't worry, I had trouble "buying" it, too), but
trust me on this one.  I did my research.
     Even though it had its downside, I was learning the system and the
concept of chatlines still held my curiosity.  That strange notion of
people seeking affection and interaction through a screen and keyboard had
me poking and prodding even more.  Mostly, I logged into chatlines on
nights like... like the odd Wednesday when there was nothing much on TV
and nowhere else to hang out.  I liked to play the TSR Dungeons & Dragons
games and thus became known as "one of those RPGers" (translation: "one of
those role playing gamers").  I guess I joined in those things because it
was a lot like a round-robin story.  You know what I mean;  Everyone did
those in school, at one time or other.  We had a general "world" with
"laws" and characters that lived there and did stuff.  Sound like a soap
opera?  Yep, those are close cousins of the online games I played.  Oh,
well, it was creative and fun.  That was where I met up with Eidolon.
     Now, Eidolon was her customised JEannie id (or rather, the one I've
assumed for her.  The real one was just as arcane), but she went by many
nicknames.  I guess that is why I have always referred to her as Eidolon;
It was easier than guessing who she was at any given moment.  You see,
Eidolon has Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).  Now, don't get lost in
Sybilisms.  Come back here a minute and listen - you might learn
something, like I did.
     At first, I thought Eidolon was like any other of us playing the D&D.
The only "oddity" I'd found was that she very much enjoyed playing various
characters, and changing her nickname the the time;  I figured was she was
another creative lost soul (or a Gemini, you pick).  However, when the
staff began banning Eidolon from the games, I naturally demanded an
explanation.  I never got the full story, but I have since been able to
piece together a skeleton tale.
     They told me she was female, maybe 25 years-old, and was a Multiple.
She had grown up in some slummy neighbourhood.  Her parents had locked her
in wire cages and stuff from the time she could talk.  The core
personality, they said, was a toddler child that was never allowed "out"
by the rest of the facets, for fear that she'd be hurt again.  Eidolon had
been in the modem world since any of the oldest old-timers could recall,
telling me they knew her from the defunct Q-Link service, as well as the
first days of JEannie itself.  They'd sort of patted her on the head and
ignored most of her (what they called) antics and disruptive behaviour.
You see, not all of Eidolon's personalities were "nice."  I later learned
(I took two Psychology classes and interviewed a psychiatrist because of
this girl) what each of the personalities' functions were and WHY they
acted the various ways they did.  Some of them, for very real reasons,
were nasty, acid-mouthed little curs.
     But, before all the classes and the learning, I was stuck with my
helper/fixer self and angrily questioning why the staff and players
didn't seem to care.  Here they were telling me these childhood horrors,
but not one of them said "And I wish I could help her."  No, they said
"And I wish she'd just go away.  Be mentally ill someplace else."  I
couldn't very well tell them how I felt, though.  Well, that's a cop-out.
I could have and should have, but I didn't for fear of being outcast from
the games.  The first thing I did do, however, was get her reinstated in
the RPGs, agreeing to be the one held responsible if she got out of control.
     Eidolon got out of control pretty often, but I tried to be there on
the nights that I knew she might play, hoping to keep the pseudo-peace
treaty intact.  Always, it began with her making some violent action and
ended with me receiving a string of private messages ordering me to get her
out of the game.  So, Eidolon and I would go play elsewhere, by ourselves.
She seemed to enjoy the attention - who wouldn't?  Anyway, it made me
realise that the people running the D&D were anal retentive when it came to
the "storylines" of their games;  Spontaneity nearly always met with icey
ostracism where they were concerned.  I didn't mind Eidolon's outbursts.
Hell, I don't know if I did the right thing or not, but if "biting" or
"whipping" a character of mine allowed her to vent some anger...  I always
excused with "At least she isn't doing this in real life."  I know parts of
her knew that, too.
     No, this didn't all happen over night.  The chapters of her
background were unfolded to me over many, many months.  To this day, I
occasionally hear something more about her, as well as her disorder.
Slowly, I made friends with 7 of 19 facets that I encountered.  All 7 were
fully formed, not mere splinters, and two were... hmm, how can I put this
without getting all shrink-zoid on you... two were big dudes/dudettes on
campus, real aggressive types, loaded with memouries of the past.
     I remember when I registered for the intro to Psych. course, the
counselor looked down at my newly declared Major in English and gave me
this funny-ass look.  I got that same look from the psychiatrist I
consulted on numerous occasions.  I think they both thought I was nuts;
The first for studying something so unrelated to English that I must be
whacko, the latter, well, at first he thought "my friend with MPD" was me.
A lot of people shy away from stuff like this, often backing away from me
in bookstores when I asked for the latest release on the subject.  It
echoed the emotionless attitude of the JEannie-ites.  I still don't
understand it.
     I never assumed the role of a shrink around Eidolon.  That would have
been a major disservice to her.  I did, though, keep her from lying to
herself and hurting herself and those around her.  I needed the classes to
know how to do that without hurting her, or "screwing her up more."  Many
of her personalities hated me with passions unknown.  I took strength from
that, as dippy as that might sound.  If they absolutely HATED me, I must
have been doing something right.  Afterall, any emotion, be it love or
hate or whatever, denotes caring on some level.  I reminded myself of that
every time one of them invited me to blow myself and die.
     Today, Eidolon is in therapy.  4 of the personalities that I knew are
referred to as "dead," but I read that to mean that they're either no
longer needed or have been absorbed by others, maybe a little of both.  I
don't get to chat with Eidolon much anymore.  Things are tough inside of
her.  The "Demon" is out most of the time.  I know who that is:  The one
that threatens to kill the body should all the memouries resurface.  It
means she's close.

     I feel good thinking about that.