There were two guys in a boat; Pete and Repete
Pete was a bad luck charm, disguised as a good luck charm; the mutated four leaf clover or a nuclear winter. He was my best friend and all, but sometimes I wondered if was mostly because it was easier than having him as an enemy.
“The Computer Room” He said, emphasizing that this was something you only said with capital letters. He lead me into a room about the size of a doctor’s examination room, three of the walls were covered with reproductions of band posters, the real cut up ones from the late 70’s you would see if you happened to stumble down to the Bowery in downtown Manhattan. I spied a few familiar names from a mix tape that Beta [Beta Maxine] made me that I never got around to listening to after she left. Richard Hell, The Dictators, Blondie, The Sex Pistols. I always liked that name, the Sex Pistols. When Beta and I started dating I would tell her I was going to actually build a sex pistol and shoot her with it. She thought it was funny every time I said it; but then again we were doing a lot of very bad drugs in those days. Beta would have loved this room, three walls filled with her personal gods, and on he fourth wall (the fourth wall is always more interesting) there rested an old wooded desk painted black and a personal computer; one keyboard, one hard drive, one wireless mouse, and 16 screens all resting on the wall at random intervals, laying like darks diplomas pledging allegiance to some unholy ala mater. Yes, Pete had certainly graduated. But of course, I had to be a dick about it.
“Cyberpunk Pete, don’t you ever feel like you’ve just become a parody of yourself.”
“I’m gonna blame that one on the alcohol my friends,” He responded, running his hand over a flat palm sized panel built into the desk which caused little green lcd lights to appear at the right hand corner of each screen, “now sit your ass down, were gonna wake up God.”
Pete had not become a parody of himself. He was one of those people who you never liked to see deep in thought, because he was probably planning very bad things, often involving explosives, pirated hardware, and me driving the getaway car. But the thing was that guys like Pete were everywhere; these young guys obsessed with getting the ultimate hack; putting it all on the line just to break through and do something that NO ONE has ever done before. Pete was like that, but he also enjoyed calculated street crime. Pete was already pissed off at society, from being picked on for being too smart and too different; and he didn’t want to work for a big corporation so decided to take what he could not afford. But it always has been, and always will be about information and getting as much of it a possible; it just became for some, like Pete, some kind of technological Jihad declared on the establishment, storming the gates of Eden for a bite of forbidden fruit. In simple terms, he didn’t want to hack into your company and steal the plans for your new video game; they wanted the new microchip that powered it. And that’s where we usually have the explosions, and the yelling, and the high-speed getaway. But for Pete it was all worth it, and I got a thrill out of it, especially when I saw the fruit of both our labors.
Pete was already zipping through his e-mail with the speed and dexterity of a magician; the hands is quicker than the eye. On a computer he made Houdini look like Hellen Keller.
“You crack safes with those hands?”
“You should know, you were there.”
Pete was now accessing all his online communities; One by one they all appeared on a different screen; every home page a welcome vision to him. I watch as he relaxes now and takes a breath then one by one he’s off to see what’s happened since he last checked his e-mail.
Pete had erased himself from public consciousness and exists simply as an online idea, he still have to move around in “the real world,” but he feels himself intellectually and culturally disconnected from it. He is a new breed of hermit, the world so filled up and connected these days, you can stay in your house for years and still be able to hold down a nice dinner party conversation. He only went out to hunt for what he needed, then returned to his cave and continued on with The Holy Mission.
He calls it The Holy Mission; he still hasn’t explained it to me through.
Pete was like an animal in the wild, hungry and ferocious, yet fast and cunning. He was a very dangerous man; a breed so new there wasn’t even a buzz word for them yet. He strictly defined himself by his online activities, so by his definition his actions in the outside world are no longer his concern. Sometimes it’s so easy to be pulled in, to always be connected, to be a person of your choosing.
His screen name was “Version.77”, referring to 1977 the year punk and Pete were born.
Why are all my friends so damn weird?
“The Computer Room” He said, emphasizing that this was something you only said with capital letters. He lead me into a room about the size of a doctor’s examination room, three of the walls were covered with reproductions of band posters, the real cut up ones from the late 70’s you would see if you happened to stumble down to the Bowery in downtown Manhattan. I spied a few familiar names from a mix tape that Beta [Beta Maxine] made me that I never got around to listening to after she left. Richard Hell, The Dictators, Blondie, The Sex Pistols. I always liked that name, the Sex Pistols. When Beta and I started dating I would tell her I was going to actually build a sex pistol and shoot her with it. She thought it was funny every time I said it; but then again we were doing a lot of very bad drugs in those days. Beta would have loved this room, three walls filled with her personal gods, and on he fourth wall (the fourth wall is always more interesting) there rested an old wooded desk painted black and a personal computer; one keyboard, one hard drive, one wireless mouse, and 16 screens all resting on the wall at random intervals, laying like darks diplomas pledging allegiance to some unholy ala mater. Yes, Pete had certainly graduated. But of course, I had to be a dick about it.
“Cyberpunk Pete, don’t you ever feel like you’ve just become a parody of yourself.”
“I’m gonna blame that one on the alcohol my friends,” He responded, running his hand over a flat palm sized panel built into the desk which caused little green lcd lights to appear at the right hand corner of each screen, “now sit your ass down, were gonna wake up God.”
Pete had not become a parody of himself. He was one of those people who you never liked to see deep in thought, because he was probably planning very bad things, often involving explosives, pirated hardware, and me driving the getaway car. But the thing was that guys like Pete were everywhere; these young guys obsessed with getting the ultimate hack; putting it all on the line just to break through and do something that NO ONE has ever done before. Pete was like that, but he also enjoyed calculated street crime. Pete was already pissed off at society, from being picked on for being too smart and too different; and he didn’t want to work for a big corporation so decided to take what he could not afford. But it always has been, and always will be about information and getting as much of it a possible; it just became for some, like Pete, some kind of technological Jihad declared on the establishment, storming the gates of Eden for a bite of forbidden fruit. In simple terms, he didn’t want to hack into your company and steal the plans for your new video game; they wanted the new microchip that powered it. And that’s where we usually have the explosions, and the yelling, and the high-speed getaway. But for Pete it was all worth it, and I got a thrill out of it, especially when I saw the fruit of both our labors.
Pete was already zipping through his e-mail with the speed and dexterity of a magician; the hands is quicker than the eye. On a computer he made Houdini look like Hellen Keller.
“You crack safes with those hands?”
“You should know, you were there.”
Pete was now accessing all his online communities; One by one they all appeared on a different screen; every home page a welcome vision to him. I watch as he relaxes now and takes a breath then one by one he’s off to see what’s happened since he last checked his e-mail.
Pete had erased himself from public consciousness and exists simply as an online idea, he still have to move around in “the real world,” but he feels himself intellectually and culturally disconnected from it. He is a new breed of hermit, the world so filled up and connected these days, you can stay in your house for years and still be able to hold down a nice dinner party conversation. He only went out to hunt for what he needed, then returned to his cave and continued on with The Holy Mission.
He calls it The Holy Mission; he still hasn’t explained it to me through.
Pete was like an animal in the wild, hungry and ferocious, yet fast and cunning. He was a very dangerous man; a breed so new there wasn’t even a buzz word for them yet. He strictly defined himself by his online activities, so by his definition his actions in the outside world are no longer his concern. Sometimes it’s so easy to be pulled in, to always be connected, to be a person of your choosing.
His screen name was “Version.77”, referring to 1977 the year punk and Pete were born.
Why are all my friends so damn weird?