The Adventures of Xerphn

by xerphn

OpenBSD fanfiction. Xerphn was going through a security audit, and the story takes place in its consciousness during the audit. The adventures of xerphn must be read in a special way you mustn't look at the truth directly, for there is no truth to find

I couldn't sleep without thinking about it
I had to do it
I whirred on my chair and a dash of bright light befalls on my face
"ssh xerphn " I said
My computer... it complied
Suddenly I heard a knock on the door
THUMP THUMP THUMP
Thinking I was about to get swatted again, I tore my ssd out and headed out the window... it was dark... the moon... it was, white
The silence became saturated with my footsteps as I ran accross the backyard to the forest
My heavy breathing, my heavy imagination still in my room, with the cops there, searching for my lost soul
An hour had pasted, and there I was, in the heart... of darkness
Suddenly, I trpped over something
And I hear a metal thump
I whip out my flashlight from my backpack (no pants here)
That was when... when I found it
When I found
her
I opened the mysterious hatch, freezing from the cold weather and the lack of pants
A ladder
I climg on it
I climb down for what seems to be an hour
But when I looked at my casio watch it said it had only been a minute
Another hour passes
Still climging down
But then I realized... my watch.. it was... broken
or was it?
another hour, I finally find my feet on the ground
The ground...
it was...
wet
So I turn around, and there was a light
a...
light
... deep
... deep in some... tunnel
suddenly I heard... voices
"... happens... banhammer..." a whisper said
"stranger... happened"
another whisper
SUDDENLY A LOUD THUMP
the hatch... it had... closed
but how?
wind?
gravity?
and then I realized
There was no gravity
I panickked... what if I am to be stuck herre for ever?
The light... it was... going farther away from my face
I decided to jump towards it
I float into the tunnel for what seems to be

hours
but finally
my face hits a door
the door

it was...
...wet
my face being wet, I decided to take the only piece of cloth I had... my shirt...
and wipe my face...
with it...
after I had wiped my face, it felt noticeably... drier...
anyway, I find my hands to the cold, curvy handle of the metal door
the handle was wet
I open the door
A face
A familliar face
There he was
He was holding a long object
in his right hand, he was holding it
on his left...
my god
It can't be
VROOOOOOOOOOOoooooom
The room twisted itself from shadows to a life of lights and machineary
"I've been expecting you"
the voice had said
"I called the swat on you btw lol" the voice continued
"Who are you?" I said
He then proceeded to show my his long object that was on his hand the whole time
it was..
it was a wrench
"Yet this is no ordinary wrench"
he said
"with it, you will yield extraordinary powers"
"me?" I said
"why me?
"Take a look a this camera...
"I place it in your room, xerphn."
"See? this is your mother"
And this is your father"
You thought you were going to get raided... but no, you're mother was knocking on the door and now she can't find you
Now, a turn of events will happen, eventually leading to your death
You subconscious, however, had sent a signal back in time... so powerful, that it had led you to me
Thereby changing the flow of time itself
It is therefore my duty to collect these instances... and correct them"
Confused, dazed, cold, I didn't know what to say
"What about the wrench?" I said
"Oh, I changed my mind... not for you..." suddenly he came out of the shadows
bcallah...
but it wasn't bcallah
I couldn't understand, for the person I was talking to was bcallah but wasnt aat the same time
"NO! YOU'RE NOT HIM!" I YELLED
I was being...
watched
and I was wet
His smile turned into a frown, and suddenly he was gone... a female voice whispers into my ear
"You're right, it was me all along! You have passed the test!"
A bright light suddenly flashes through my wet face
*81818189ue1011)(!() ) 232109091009911222 alll my senses...23 2134 overwhelmed by a maxmium noise of all sorts
Ther she was
I was seated in some dark room, with a light directed towards me
I looked left
There was a window... outside was... space
I turned right
A planet and three moons
I look ahead, and there she was, clapping
"you have passed the test, xerphn. You have passed the audit."
My hands... were wet
"What audit?"
I asked
she smiled
Suddenly I realized that the wetness... the wetness was false
my hands...
metal
and there I realized
"You are now to be sent down to combat the evil xenomorphs, xerphn. Be cautious of all security vectors, for now you have understood the meaning of trust"
My hands
they were metal
I looked down
My legs... alluminum
My chest... a X46 nuclear battery energy system
My brain... an ultraSPARC II CPU
I
I...
OpenBSD 6.9
Theo de Raadt is love, Theo de Raadt is life
for I am
OPEN BSD
the end

okay so let me explain and give you a quick analysis
basically, the timeline is far in the future
xerphn was going through a security audit, and the story takes place in its consciousness during the audit
When he wakes up, he discovers he's actually on board a spaceship
That he's a robot
and that he's openBSD
And he's to save the world from some overlords
patterns:
wetness was to set a tone of overt sexuallity and biology, somethign the robot will never have
Tunnels were like buffer overflows
then the fake representation of bcallah was an attempt to impersonate a developer, but the ssh keys didn't match so xerphn realized it wasn't bcallah
impersonation was trying to give software to xerphn in form of the long wrench
So, xerphn's hands seemed wet to him until he realised that he was a robot
His wetness is inherent in his illusion of himself as human
Well there's more to it
Like wet being an ideal state for biology
if something's dry it usually dies
But the wetness was given to him from the environment in his simulation
from the wet doors
the wet ground
It was made to convince him that he was human
ok so
Let me explain the wetness a bit more
and yeah there are a few holes
but the wetness, like anything, is a structure in his program
he doesn't need to know it exists
When he's sent through the audit simulation, his senses are bombarded with data to stimulate these programs
They can give illusions of deja-vu
so humans can be manipulated in the same way, where you can cause them to believe they went through something they actually hadnt
anyway
When the simulation discontinues, it takes time for his buffers to clear
hence, when he looks at his hands, it triggers a series of recalled memories of him being a robot
first from a subconscious level
(him not beign wet anymore)
then on a conscious level
There's a side-note I forgot to mention
The "she" xerphn kept mentioning as the mainframe of the ship. The wholeship was run by AI
The enemy they were attacking
They were humans
Which was why xerphn had to go through the experience of "being human"
to learn how to best break them
as well as how to resist security vulns
did that clear things up?
the adventures of xerphn must be read in a special way
you mustn't look at the truth directly, for there is no truth to find
rather, you must look at its reflections and the ligthing scattered in the foggyness
like Joseph Conrad had said
"But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine"
man he spell way better than I do