Submitted by livebeta t3_119n7g6 in WritingPrompts
Professor_Entropy t1_j9nrt7z wrote
I typed help and the console filled with text. I was excited to find the object manipulation command translate among others. “Would it not be funny to levitate Ruff?” I thought to myself. Ruff, my dog, stared at me quizically as I typed on an invisible keyboard looking at an empty space in front of me. Ruff was a gift from my father. I should’ve ideally treated it better, but I was still resentful of my father leaving us without a goodbye.
“Okay, so the z-axis is obviously normal to the ground”, I thought to myself proudly feeling smart to get it all so soon. “And we hit enter.”
The dog didn’t realise it but one moment it was sitting on the floor looking at me questioning my sanity, and the next it was sitting ‘in’ the floor looking at me questioning my sanity. I screamed with horror. Instead of levitating 10 cm, the dog sunk 10 cm into the floor. I relaxed when I realised the dog was alright other than its obvious inability to scratch me with its paws. Or scratch anything at all including its itching ear. Unable to scratch its itching ear it started howling in its irritating dog-barking voice.
I tried reversing it but it didn’t work. After the next many minutes of frantically searching the help pages and asking my dog to calm down (leading to it barking even louder), I got frustrated and was ready to call 911. It was then that there was a knock on the door.
“Hello,” said a strange figure when I opened it, “do you need help?”. Looking at my puzzled face he continued, “oh I saw the error broadcast coming from the house. Some build conflict is it? Are you new to this? It’s okay I’ve helped a lot of noobs.”
He entered while I was still thinking about what to say. “Jesus, this table looks just like a real dog, you did a good job.”
“It’s not a table, it’s my dog.”
“Then where are its paws?”
“In the floor.”
“In the floor? Interesting is it some new technique to help with build stability? Now I see, the living matter may be able to stabilise the virtual gluons by transmuting…”
“No sir, it was a mistake, could you help me fix it?” I interrupted.
“Indeed. I’ve years of experience you see.” he started typing on an invisible keyboard focusing on an invisible monitor in front of him, “I’ll just run this select command, then I get the offset parameter, like this, and I type this update command, obviously, very easy, very easy, and enter!”
Nothing happened. Nothing happened after 10 different attempts by the stranger.
“Very interesting. All my commands are getting access denied errors. I haven’t seen anything like this before. Let me call the others.” Soon five other people arrived at my house.
While they were talking I was searching for help commands. “Oh this one is interesting, I can create a pizza!” I typed the command and pressed enter. A pizza appeared on the table. Suddenly the talking stopped.
“Did you just create a pizza out of thin air?” asked a girl horrified.
“He has the root access!” exclaimed the first stranger.
“What do you mean? You can’t do this?” I asked.
“No! We can manipulate matter but not transform it into another form. That’s restricted.” the stranger had a tone of caution. He continued “You have super privileges, that’s why we aren’t able to reverse your commands. But you should be afraid, boy. The last person who hacked the system and got the root access disappeared the next day.”
“Oh, I remember the man, briefly talked to him too, what was his name? Oh yeah, Theodore Anderson.” added the girl.
“That’s the name of my father,” I muttered as my focus shifted from the conversation to all his memory. I realised what he was doing all the time while he was away. I felt a sinking sensation – he disappeared against his own will, was he in danger?
I wondered how I got the root access. Was it my father's doing? I intuitively knew what to do next. I found a file named “README.md” in the home folder of my real name. I opened its content. It was a long file, it started with:
“Son, if you’re reading this, help me, I’m trapped inside the console. I’ve been trying to get you here for a long time.”
livebeta OP t1_j9ns8j6 wrote
> I screamed with horror. Instead of levitating 10 cm, the dog sunk 10 cm into the floor.
I see you have problems reading docs + css z-indexes too
IHaveNoTact t1_j9oq4gv wrote
Could’ve been a lot worse. Imagine if he’d tried position: absolute?
lucasmedina t1_j9pnzj5 wrote
It makes me sad that this couldn't be css. The only way not to mess up the dog in the process was if it used transform instead lol
HaniiPuppy t1_j9nzq0i wrote
> “Son, if you’re reading this, help me, I’m trapped inside the console. I’ve been trying to get you here for a long time.”
We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty.
craftwork_soul t1_j9ph6t0 wrote
Cleaning my keyboard of the coffee I just spewed... ;)
Professor_Entropy t1_j9oy97x wrote
Second part
“My name is Lavender” the girl reached out with her hand to shake. I re-adjusted my focus away from the screen. “My name’s Console. Uh, I mean Daniel. Sorry, it’s just a lot to take. Not talking about your hand of course, which is just the right amount of volume. I meant all this is very new to me.” I spoke and shook her hands fumblingly.
“I understand, you zoned out there for a moment.”
“Did you know my father?”
“We did interact a bit, but Roger knows him the best I suppose” she pointed to the first stranger, who was around the same age as my father.
“Knew him? He was like my dad.”
“Dad? But you are around the same age as him!”
“No, he was like my dad – arrogant. We were close friends alright, but we had a fight some months before his disappearance. I didn’t talk to him after that”
“Roger, my father is trapped inside the console, I found a note from him.”
“Let me see it. Do a screen share.”
“How?” But before I could finish, he bumped his forehead against mine.
“There you go, I can see from your eyes now.”
“Can I too?” Lavender asked. This time I was prepared. Compared to Roger’s leathery old skin, Lavender’s skin was soft and warm. Her beautiful eyes stared at me as they came closer. My heart skipped a beat, nobody had ever bumped their forehead against mine like that before.
“Jesus sudo christ! The rumours were real. He did get inside the virus.” there were all different kinds of emotions in Roger’s voice.
I had already read the note. It told me about a virus that was spreading and infecting mental consoles and how he tried to fight against it. He had to hack the system to get root access in order to neutralise the virus but got trapped inside it in the process. He had given me root access just before writing the note. The end of the note contained a long cryptic text.
“End the sharing, quick!” Roger exclaimed.
“How?”
“Close your eyes, obviously!”
I closed my eyes. Roger whispered to me, “Don’t trust everyone here. The cryptic text might be the key to retrieving your father.”
“I got the dog out!” a man behind Lavender jumped with joy.
“Jack my boy! I knew you were brilliant, but this exceeds my expectations!” Roger complimented.
“Thanks! I figured I can’t move the dog along orthogonal axes, so why not try to rotate it? thankfully he wasn’t buried too far and it worked!”
“Come here Discordant!” I called the dog my father gave me. I hugged and petted him; happy to have found out more about my father.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Lavender leaving the front door. At that moment Jack screamed, “Roger look!”
Jack was looking at the TV in my room, which was turned on but muted.
“Deadly earthquake rocks Turkey and neighbouring nations” the bulletin read.
“It’s just an earthquake,” I said.
“No dear. It’s not just another earthquake. There was no earthquake schedule in the logs. At this scale at least, I’m pretty sure.”
“Does it mean…” it was Jack who asked but Roger spun around abruptly and replied with fear in his eyes, “Yes. The virus is spreading faster than we thought.”
Professor_Entropy t1_j9qi56v wrote
Part 3
I had already eaten the pizza when I was reading my father’s note again. Roger and others had left. Roger hurried away saying he'd be back but he needs to go to his friend who was a ‘Centaur’, but Jack assured just before leaving that he meant ‘Senator’ and that Centaurs don’t really exist.
I heard a knock and Levandar’s voice “Daniel?”
“Anderson. Daniel Anderson”
“Oh. Ok. Daniel Anderson. Can I come in?”
“You can call me Daniel. It’s fine!” I tried to recover from my mistake.
“I’m coming in.” the door shrank - the wood squeezed, its width reduced to the size of a book. She came in and the door sprung back to its original shape.
“Sorry for coming like this but it was cold outside.”
“I’m sorry Lav. Lavender. Can I call you Lav, do people call you Lav? I was going to let you in…”
“You’re sweet Daniel. You can call me Lav. I apologise for leaving earlier without saying anything.”
“Oh no. It’s fine. It’s great. But actually, I was wondering why you left. But it’s okay now that you’re here.”
“I think you may not trust me right now. Roger doesn’t like me too much either. I had to go to pick up my mother and didn’t want to ruin your moment with the dog” she explained while stepping near me.
“Discordant,” I added.
“Is that its name, isn’t it sweet?” she was standing very close to me now.
“I don’t know, I haven’t tasted him. I don’t lick pets usually. Or ever, to clarify. But you probably meant his name, yes that’s a sweet name. Yes”
“Shhh” she whispered coming very close to my face. Next moment our lips met and we kissed.
I stood there frozen for the most part, not because the kiss was cold, which was in fact, very hot, but because I didn’t know what else to do with my hands.
“I really wish you find your dad soon. Ping me when you need me, here’s my console ID.” She handed me a slip of paper which had just appeared in her hand. The door was already squeezing when she started walking back to it.
I wanted to say “will do”, “bye” or “see you later”, any of that would have been fine, but instead I stammered, “will do you later”. Fortunately, she smiled and waved me bye instead of stuffing me into the wall.
When the dust settled, and I meant literal wooden dust from the door, I got hit with a pressing question, “Did she just materialise paper from thin air?”
I messaged her on the console chat app and asked how she managed to do it without root access since it was supposed to be impossible.
Later in the night, I was thinking of the README note again. I hadn’t heard back from Roger, and I didn’t know his console ID. I hadn’t heard back from Lavender either. I re-read my father’s note.
“I love you, sorry I couldn’t spend more time with you and your mother” one line read.
I skipped to one of the later sections.
“I don’t know how much time is left. This virus will sooner or later destroy me”
I jumped to the last section.
“Take help of others. Don’t do it alone like me. Destroy this virus. I’ll share some of my tools. Be careful with them, they’re very advanced. Give my love to your mother and her dog. Also, use the dog.
ㅝკ⊗ቱഝഐŊཙᆿᗶᆰⵥჵᆰⴴ᧐㊿ყⅻഐঃᆹŊཙᆿᗶᆰⵥჵᆿ⋋㊿ᄯቿᗺᆰⴴᆿŊཙᆿᗶᆰⵥჵᆿ⋋㊿ᄯቿᗺᆰⴴᆿკ⊗ቱഝഐ ”
My attempts at decoding the message had failed. I also had no idea what he meant by "using the dog." As far as I could tell, that mutt had gone to great lengths to prove his utter uselessness at any task I could think of.
I don’t know when I slept but I was very sure of the moment when I woke up.
I woke up for two reasons. Firstly, while dreaming, I realised that the note had read ‘Give my love to your mother and her dog,’ but the dog was never hers. The only dog she had was a stuffed dog in her bedroom. Secondly, and more effectively, there was a loud roar that came from beneath the floor.
The voice grew louder and suddenly the floor gave away in front of my bed creating a large hole. From the hole, a black box began to rise, which I soon realised was an elevator.
The door opened and Roger emerged from it. He didn’t look too happy, although he was apologetic “Daniel my boy, sorry for baring in like this, but it’s an urgent matter. Lavender has taken over the weapons.”
“What? Which weapons?”
“All of them, of course.”
“All of them? What’s she doing with them.”
“Nothing good you better believe. She controls the parliament now. The president’s life is at risk. She demands full control of the projects.”
“My father talked about the projects. What are they?”
“Oh. These are the top-secret projects being developed by RARPs. They are really big and important projects.”
“What’s RARPs”
“We are RARPs Daniel. Us programmers. Well don’t ask why we are called RARPs, it’s an embarrassing history. Oh, what the hell, you’re gonna know sooner or later. We started by calling ourselves Real Programmers.
Because we truly were the real programmers you know. Programming reality. But then javascript became popular and those who knew C and C++ started calling themselves real programmers, so we had to change our names to Actually Real Programmers.
Before long, people started developing all sorts of things using AI, so the Javascript folks began smugly calling themselves real programmers too. This bummed the C/C++ folks, who then switched their name to Actually Real Programmers.
That’s how we finally ended up with Really Actually Real Programmers – RARPs to truly distinguish ourselves from mere computer programmers.
Boy, you distract me. Lavender shouldn’t be able to do this unless she hacked the console to get root, which mind you, is near impossible to do.”
“Roger, I think she has root access. Last evening she conjured a piece of paper from nowhere just after we kissed.”
“You did what? You kissed? Boy, you are an outlier like your dad, only while he’s smart, you’re as dumb as Clippy.”
“What’s wrong with a kiss?”
“She kissed away your root privileges Danny boy. Kissing is an intimate act. During the kiss, she had access to all your secrets. She probably modified all the access files.”
I felt cheated and distraught. I got up only to sit back down with a thud.
“Don’t feel bad for yourself now. You’re only learning. Now. We have much to do. I had a guy research the encryption algorithm that created the cryptic code. I’m pretty sure we’ve found the algorithm. We just need the passphrase to solve it.”
“What could it be?”
“Well, you should be telling me this. Think boy, didn’t your father ever tell you some secret phrase?”
“No, but I have solved a clue in his note. We should go to my mother’s bedroom right now.”
I found the stuffed dog in my mother’s bedroom which my father hinted at in the note. Hidden inside it was a piece of paper which read:
‘astp://yasdlxkas.de/U9axz’
“It’s a link to a console website. Let’s open it”
We tapped our foreheads together. Roger opened the link to reveal a map of the world. There were multiple blue dots spread throughout it.
“Dev nulls of dev nulls, unbelievable!” exclaimed Roger “look at all these names. All of them are RARPs. Amazing!”
“I can see one Lavender! She’s in Europe.”
“Nice boy. This will be very useful. However, we’ll be powerless against her.
We still need to recover the root access. Maybe the tools your father built can help, he must’ve used them to gain the root access after all. Do you think any of this will help us crack the code? What should I try in the passphrase? I have already tried your name, your date of birth, your father’s place of birth…”
I wanted to ask how he got all that information but there was a feeling of dread inside me. I was hoping that the stuffed dog would lead me to the passphrase, but it had nothing but a link to a map. “Stupid stuffed dog,” I cursed to myself.
“Wait a minute, have you tried my dog’s name?” my eyes lit up “Use the dog! The note said to use the dog! Use Discordant”
He started typing in quick strokes. "It worked!" I felt an immense sense of joy, but it was short-lived. The message read:
“Beat you again Roger. Love - Lavender”
Ultra980 t1_j9pcfg3 wrote
The "Jesus sudo Christ" got me lol
araxhiel t1_j9p6vop wrote
This is a really awesome concept!
MOAR, please ?
standish_ t1_j9p02mp wrote
I'm intrigued!
MagicTech547 t1_j9qhgr3 wrote
Nice!
jamiez1207 t1_j9omumv wrote
The image of a bunch of reality bending tech support guys trying to un noclip a dog is hilarious to me
gdishot t1_j9o6ikl wrote
Like in Tron?
gerenski9 t1_j9o8xep wrote
Why did your dad leave a README in your home dir? Is your home directory a git repo, or was he just trying to get your attention?
Professor_Entropy t1_j9p01ts wrote
README is usually the first file you open in a package, and people have been using them since before Git. So yeah, it was meant to get attention.
XanderJayNix t1_j9oe9lu wrote
At what point, and how, did the father implant the data into the kid...?
Sorrybuttotallywrong t1_j9ogzbd wrote
It’s in his dna?
XanderJayNix t1_j9oy49w wrote
If the message is in his DNA, that means he disappeared before he was born and he would have no memories of him. The letter would have to be written before conception for that to be possible. And if he was missing before conception, the narrator would not exist.
Ultra980 t1_j9pclfg wrote
They're probably in an ssh session to a main server or sth, maybe everyone had a home directory.
Cyber_Cheese t1_j9o7emw wrote
Love where this is going
Cannelloni1 t1_j9oirn9 wrote
Moaaaaaar
... pretty please
iamunderstand t1_j9p0ic4 wrote
"MISTER ANDERSON"
livebeta OP t1_j9r4u6x wrote
> MISTER ANDERSON... We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty.
MrRedoot55 t1_j9pwtww wrote
Cool story.
Smash_Nerd t1_j9ps6l3 wrote
Doesn't seem that hard to fix. Just run the command again but instead of +10cm do -10cm. Simple enough fix.
Or bust out the power tools.
livebeta OP t1_j9r4z1u wrote
> Or bust out the power tools.
ah yes the offset-around-immovable hack
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