--Chapter Two Student Normal Student 4 98 2001-11-05T14:36:00Z 2001-11-07T15:09:00Z 2 1018 5805 mhhs 48 11 7128 9.2720

--Chapter Two

Gus "Smiley" Yellow, the happy, go-lucky emblem of the Minesweeper board, woke up at the sound of his alarm clock. It was time to go to work! Enthusiastically he got out of bed to do his job: sit at the top of the board, smile, look nervous whenever he heard a clicking sound, and hope he wouldn't get blown up that day. It was a dangerous job, but somebody had to do it. And if he was fortunate, he'd get to wear sunglasses at the end of the game.

So there Gus sat, smiling away as always, all the while unaware that his every move was being controlled by the will of an int colony in the computer. Neither did he suspect that the Rogue Int was currently trying to sabotage Gus's Minesweeper board.

Now, on a normal day, Gus would only actually see one other "living" thing: Arrow, the pet mouse of the computer. The objective of Minesweeper (from Gus's point of view) is for Arrow to walk all over the game board. Every once in a while, Arrow has a habit of stomping his feet on the board—Gus hears the "click" of Arrow's feet whenever the mouse does this—and the floor gives in under Arrow's stomp. If Arrow "clicks" on a safe space on the board, Gus is one step closer to wearing the sunglasses. But if Arrow stomps on a landmine, Gus dies, only to be resuscitated by Arrow stomping on a "New Game" space outside the normal boundaries of the game board. Arrow can also stomp on Gus's face to revive him, but Gus doesn't like that very much; that mouse's feet can hurt!

--

Meanwhile, inside the computer…

(Two ints sit and eat, leaning against a wall in one of the side alleyways of the colony in the computer)

Int A: Say, Joey.

Int B: (munching) Yeah, what?

Int A: Do you ever think to yourself that there's a bigger world outside the walls of this computer?

Int B: That's a silly question! Everybody knows that the only thing outside these walls is heaven. And only the Human can live up there.

Int A: Yeah, but, y'know, I've been thinking about that. And I think to myself, what's this "Human" person like?

Int B: I dunno. But he watches over us and gives us orders, and he's perfect in almost every way.

Int A: But how do you know that? What if this "Human" isn't perfect? What if he's just living inside a bigger computer, and there's someone he looks up to in the same way, like a really perfect being of some sort?

Int B: (Considering) Then we'd be at the bottom of the chain.

Int A: But if that's true, then why not go in the other direction? What if there are little creatures living inside our sandwiches that think we ints are perfect?

Int B: (Eating his sandwich) I pity those little creatures; they just got eaten alive!

Int A: Yeah, man. I pity anyone who actually looks up to us ints. Let's face it: we can't even run a computer right for three days without Fatal Error showing up.

The two ints had a good laugh at that idea and kept eating their lunches. Another int walked by the alleyway, though, a whole different thought on his mind.

He was Angus DeFrag, the janitor int, a short quiet guy with a love for MP3 music. He often tapped into the audio department of the colony to get new songs. Right now he was listening to Jimi Hendrix as he swept the street, moving his broom to the beat of "Purple Haze." When the song reached the interlude, Angus picked up the broom and pretended it was a guitar. To ints A and B, who could not hear the music from Angus's headphones, the janitor looked positively hilarious, now hopping on one foot, now playing the "guitar" over his head, behind his back, now break dancing on the floor. Angus could not hear the ints' laughter coming from the alley, so he kept going until the song ended. Then it was back to sweeping and cleaning.

Like all of the other ints, Angus knew by this time that only the Minesweeper personnel—the ints in charge of running Minesweeper—were currently required to be working, but the janitor loved his job and the free music listening time it afforded him. Besides, Angus knew what the other ints did all day when they were on break: sit around and talk about what's outside the walls of the computer. Angus didn't care to think outside the box. Rather, simpleton as he was, the janitor simply wanted to do his job right and stop to smell the roses on the way.

Speaking of roses, it's about time we were introduced to the heroine of the story, Brenda Presario. Like any other worker int, Brenda had her jobs to do, but unlike Angus, Brenda preferred to take advantage of her time off duty. At this moment she was headed toward The Motherboard, a local food joint and popular hangout among ints, when she ran across the dancing Angus in the street.

Brenda had to chuckle at the sight of the DeFrag, who was now singing along to a new tune in his head: "I can't sing! I can't talk! Only thing about me is the way I walk…"

As soon as Angus saw Brenda, he blushed and wished he had been listening to a different song. He turned off the mini-mini-miniature MP3 player, and greeted Brenda as well as he could.

"Um, hi, Brenda," he said, taking off his headphones and fiddling with them nervously in his hands as he spoke.

"Well, if it isn't Angus DeFrag, working overtime again," she said with a smile.

Angus wasn't sure how to reply to that. He was working overtime, but he actually did it for free. He smiled back and apologized in case he had been singing too loudly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Brenda laughed back, "You might not be able to sing or talk, that's true, but would you like to walk with me down to The Motherboard? It'd be nice to have some company on the way down there. That is, of course, if you aren't too busy right now." Brenda indicated the MP3 player attached to Angus's pocket.

"Of course not!" said an enthusiastic Angus. He set his broom and music aside. Then he and Brenda walked together in the direction of The Motherboard.

Angus couldn't understand why someone as pretty as Brenda would like him, but he nonetheless appreciated her friendship. And while Angus couldn't relate to most of what Brenda said in conversation as they walked—talk of a Fatal Error, the activities of soldier ints, and other matters—somehow the sound of her voice made him believe he understood every word.

--

"This is too perfect!"

Fatal Error grinned and snickered as he unloaded the contents of a grossly oversized duffel bag in a secluded area of the computer. What came out was an unconscious white lump: Arrow the mouse!

"Alright, little fella," the rogue int said, "We're gonna have a little fun now. First, let's get you chained to this wall. Now, don't you worry one bit, Arrow, because after this, all the rest of the work is mine."

When Arrow had indeed been chained to the wall, Fatal reached into the bag once more and pulled out a huge piece of white fabric he had bought earlier that day, as well as some sewing equipment.

Fatal sighed and said to himself, "It's a bad day in the Compaq when a villain has to resort to needlework, but that's life!"

His evil plan had begun.

--End chapter two