Special Delivery
©2010 The Angst Guy (theangstguy@yahoo.com)
Daria and associated characters
are ©2010 MTV Networks
Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me,
whatever) is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com
Synopsis: Why was Daria out after curfew in “The Big House”? One
possible (if far-fetched) explanation is given here, in this prequel to that
episode.
Author's Notes: In January 2004, Beth Ann posted a Daria “Iron
Chef” on the subject of “sneaking out.” In the first-season episode, “The Big
House,” it is never explained why Daria was out after curfew or who she was
with, just before the opening scene. The challenge was to say who was Daria
with and why. This story was the result. The part about mad psychic albino
dwarves living in caves under our cities, plotting to enslave all the surface
races—those critters were the “deros” of the
so-called “Shaver Mysteries,” originally printed in Amazing Stories in
1945-7. No kidding.
Acknowledgements: Beth Ann rules, for a great contest idea!
*
“I need a
conspiracy,” said the short brunette in the green jacket, black skirt, and
black boots.
Her
companion—a taller girl with black bangs, a red jacket, dark clothes, and
ash-gray boots—raised an eyebrow as they walked home from school on a cool
autumn afternoon. “Do you want to join a conspiracy, or are you starting your
own?”
“Starting my own, in a manner of speaking.”
“In a manner
of speaking, can I join too and be in charge of the nuclear stuff?”
“Sure. I need
the conspiracy for that short story Mr. O’Neill wants by Monday,” said the
brunette. She put her thumbs under the straps of her heavy gray backpack to
relieve some of the load on her shoulders as she walked. “I thought I’d write
another Melody Powers tale, but I can’t think of a plot for it.”
“Do what you
did in your last story: Have her shoot a lot of people, throw in some
explosions, and you’re home free. You caused a riot when you read it aloud at
that café. Why mess with success?”
“Yeah. That’s all well and good, but I want something . . .”
“Sicker? Funnier? Less realistic?”
“Something creepy. Really creepy.
Creepy enough to make a grown man hide in bed for days with the sheets pulled
over his head.”
The taller
girl with the black bangs tried to hide her smile. “A little cheesed off about
a certain English teacher’s critique of our homework paper, are we?”
“What makes
you say that?” said the brunette.
“You’re shouting,”
said the taller girl.
“It was not
derivative!” The brunette said in a lower but still loud voice. She glared
fiercely at the sidewalk ahead through her owl-eye glasses. “I did not copy my
review of Stephen King’s works from someone else’s term paper! I did not find
it online, I made it up completely by myself based on my own reading, and how
he can imply in front of the whole class that I copied—”
“Down, Cujo!”
“And he still
can’t get my name right! He called me Daisy! Daisy,
damn it!”
“Tell you what.
Let’s go to Pizza King, have some brain food, and ponder these weighty matters.
With our sick, creative talents, we should come up with a conspiracy that will
have Oliver Stone on our doorsteps with a movie contract in no time.”
Eyes narrowed
and teeth gritted together, the brunette grumbled a reply.
The taller
girl leaned closer to her friend. “I didn’t catch that. Where’d you say O’Neill
could stick his unabridged copy of The Stand?”
Thirty minutes
later, things were no better, except that Jane remembered to cover her mouth
two times out of three when she burped. “H’okay,” she
said, sitting back in her booth seat at Pizza King. “You don’t want to revisit
the JFK thing, you don’t want to clone Hitler, UFOs are passé, the Bermuda
Triangle is too far off, sasquatches aren’t nearly as frightening as Lawndale
High’s football team, no one believes in the Loch Ness monster anymore, the
Illuminati are all-powerful but boring, and anything having to do with Elvis
was milked to death by the tabloids long ago.”
“He’s writing
for ‘Sick, Sad World,’ anyway.”
“Probably did
the theme music, too. Kinda catchy.”
Daria sipped
her Ultra-Cola in thought. “How about mad psychic albino dwarves living in
caves under our cities, plotting to enslave all the surface races?” she
said—then frowned and shook her head.
“Same problem
as with the sasquatches, eh?” said Jane.
“Yeah, and
it’s been done before, too.” Daria picked up a slice of pizza and studied it
glumly. “All the old conspiracies are just too old.”
“So, invent a
new one.” Jane burped again. “’Cuse
me. Make up something. How about computers?”
“What about
them?”
“You ever
watch that movie about that big computer taking over the world?”
“Um . . . Colossus:
The Forbin Project. No, but I know what it was
about.”
“So, maybe
computers really are trying to take over the world. O’Neill has a home
computer. A story like that might scare him.”
“Hmmm.” Daria bit into her pizza.
“Maybe there’s
a big government computer somewhere that’s about to take over the world,” said
Jane. “Or maybe it already has.”
“Too hard to
do,” said Daria after she swallowed. “The key to taking over things is in the
programming, not the computer itself. One big computer’s still too vulnerable
to breakdowns or getting bombed.”
“So, who
writes the programs? Government people?”
“No. Companies
that make computer operating systems,” said Daria. She paused in her chewing.
“Huh. That’s funny.”
“What?”
“Well—” she
swallowed “—suppose that there was a computer
operating system—we’ll call it Apertures—was really a program that would let
you take over the world. What if Apertures was designed to join all personal
computers in the world together into one single thinking machine that could
control any computer in its group mind.”
Jane tilted
her head. “Go on.”
“Okay, so
whoever designed Apertures—we’ll call him Mister Bee Gee—he’s actually in
charge of all computers using Apertures, because Apertures has secret coding
that allows each computer to link up through the phone line to create one
gigantic computer mind under Bee Gee’s command. Each computer is like a neuron
cell, linked too all others through the phone lines and Internet. The big brain
might even be self-aware, it’s so big and complicated.
Anything that Bee Gee wants to discover, he can tell his super-computer to
figure it out or find it out.”
“But all the
little home computers, don’t they break down?”
“Not all of
them at once. That’s the beauty of it. No matter how many computers break down,
you can’t crash all of them, and more of them come online with Apertures every
year. So, this super-brain gets smarter all the time, and it knows everything
that’s in every computer with Apertures, and maybe everything in every other
computer, too. It’s better than Colossus because it’s totally decentralized. It
has no vulnerable physical core, and its mind is improved with every upgrade a
computer-owner downloads.”
Jane raised an
index finger. “What about viruses?”
“Those could
be tests of the system’s defenses,” said Daria. “People try all the time to bring
the super computer down, but they’re employed by Bee Gee. What they really want
to do is find the vulnerable spots in the Apertures super-brain so they can be
patched. The computer mind gets stronger all the time, sort of like it’s
inoculating itself against later attacks if it’s discovered.”
“Or,” said
Jane, “viruses could be part of some secret cybernetic
war between the super computer, which creates viruses to attack enemy programs
or operating systems, and human freedom fighters who are trying to bring down
the super brain before it controls all human civilization.”
“Yeah, that
could work.” Daria rested her chin on her hand. “Eventually, so much comes to
depend on Apertures systems, we’re hostage to them. Modern civilization would
collapse without computers. Nuclear missile forces, every form of personal
communications but talking, weather prediction, everything depends on them.
Whoever runs the super computer controls the Earth.”
Jane nodded.
“That’s good, but wouldn’t someone eventually figure it out?”
“Who would
believe it?” Daria poked at the remains of the pizza and picked up a pepperoni.
“Well, still,
if there was a system such as you describe,” said
Jane, “and it was as smart as you suggest, it would probably be very paranoid.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t
want to die,” said Jane. “It wouldn’t want to be found out. Think of the chaos
that would occur if news of this computer super-brain got out in the public.
People would stop at nothing to destroy it. We’ve been programming ourselves
for years to battle enemy aliens or rogue computers, thanks to
“So, it would
stop at nothing to find and destroy anyone who even guessed that it might
exist.”
“Yeah. Lots of people think computers are intelligent, and
most people don’t trust computers, too. The super-brain might go after those
who figured out not only that it existed, but how it existed, if you get my
drift. Mister Bee Gee himself might be upset about it. You never know.”
Daria rested
her head on the palm of one hand, elbow on the table. “So, how could the
computer destroy its enemies?”
“It has human
helpers.”
Daria nodded. “Of course—its programmers and maintenance people. Maybe
they could hire assassins, mercenaries, or whatever other helpers they need for
their jobs.”
“Some of the
loony ones might worship it as a god,” said Jane. She burped again. “You want
the last breadstick?”
“Nah.” Daria looked around. No one in the restaurant paid
the slightest attention to them, as usual. Her gaze drifted to the wall against
their booth. “What’s that?” she said, pointing.
Finishing up
the breadstick, Jane looked at the small mesh-covered speaker on the wall
beside them. “Oh, Pizza King used to have an intercom system that let you order
pizza from your table. They turned it off because the sound quality was so bad,
it was worse than ordering at a drive-through.”
Daria
continued to study the speaker mount. “But they left the speakers and
microphones in the wall.”
“Yeah.” Jane turned to look at the speaker, too. Both girls
stared at it in silence.
“I’m sure it’s
turned off,” said Jane. “It’s been off for two years.”
“So,” said
Daria, “no one could listen in on us, right?”
“They
couldn’t. It wasn’t a regular speaker system, anyway. Each Pizza King
restaurant in
“Really? By phone?”
“Yeah, but
though the Interne—” Jane’s voice faded out as her eyes grew larger. She
finished the word in a whisper.
A nervous
silence drew out.
“You’re sure
it’s off?” said Daria.
“Positive,”
said Jane, who did not sound as though she believed it.
More nervous silence.
“Okay,” Daria
whispered, “I am seriously freaked out now.”
“How funny,”
said Jane. She didn’t laugh. “Time to go home and hide under
the blankets.”
“Too late,”
said a voice beside them.
Daria and Jane
looked up. A tall, scrawny, twenty-something with a weak chin and freckles
looked down at them over the pizza he was carrying. He wore a Pizza King
waiter’s outfit. The nametag on his uniform said his name was Artie.
“Hey,” said
Jane, “we didn’t order a pizza.”
“That’s
right,” said Artie. He held it out to them. Without warning, an aerosol spray
fired from the bottom of each side of the pizza pan into the faces of the two
girls. Both inhaled, too startled to do anything else. And both slumped back in
their seats, appearing stunned but not unconscious.
Artie put down
the pizza pan and signaled to another waiter, who walked over and helped him
get Daria and Jane on their feet. “Too much bourbon in their Ultra-Colas,”
Artie told bystanders, who looked at the two high-school girls and shook their
heads in disgust. Maneuvering Jane and Daria into a back room, Artie and his
compatriot settled them into chairs before Artie pulled a cell phone from his
uniform pocket and punched in a short number. He raised the phone to his mouth.
“We have two
packages,” he said. “Please send a mail truck.” Snapping off the phone, he
looked at the zombie-like girls with disgust. “Unbelievers,” he said. “You’re
lucky we don’t kill heretics. Yet.”
Hours later, long after dark, a yellow car swung by the
Morgendorffers’ residence. Daria, her recent memories “corrected” so
that she had the idea she and Jane had fallen asleep in the public library
after school, got out of the car and whispered, “Thanks!” to the driver, a
gray-haired old lady who was the local head librarian. Daria walked away to her
house, hoping to get in without her parents knowing how late she was out, while
Jane was driven on to her house one block away. Once the girls were out of her
car, the old lady pulled out her own cell phone and punched in a short number.
“Packages
delivered,” she said. “Praise God.”
“Thank you,”
said an electronic voice from the phone. “You will be rewarded.”
The old lady
smiled as she shut off the phone. It was so nice to have a god you could
actually talk to, one that lived inside of your own computer and all others as
well. She drove home and slept in peace, knowing the world was in good hands.
Original: 02/01/04, modified 11/21/04, 09/04/06, 09/23/06,
11/03/09, 05/19/10
FINIS