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                         Underground eXperts United

                                 Presents...

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         [    10th Generation    ]           [      By The GNN       ]


    ____________________________________________________________________
    ____________________________________________________________________
 
                             "10TH GENERATION"
                          by THE GNN/DualCrew/uXu
 
                        "Reach out and touch faith"
                                    (depeche Mode)     
 
 
  The fact that Brian Lawfeller was dead did not annoy me.  Of course, it
is hard to see a young man die, but as a police man you have seen it all
many times before.
  I arrived first and had to pick the lock to be able to enter the
apartment.  Neighbors had complained about screams and "strange" noises -
like someone was fighting.  Being only two blocks away, I was there in less
than a minute.  Silence welcomed me as I entered - not good.  It often
meant that something was over.  Inside the apartment I found Brian
Lawfeller on the floor in the middle of an arsenal of various computers.
Dead.  With interesting marks on the body.  I quickly made a list in my
head of what confused me.
 
  1. Brian Lawfeller was dead.
  2. The power was off.
 
  There had not been a murder.  I noticed that the door was locked from the
inside and that all windows where impossible to open.  Even if you managed
to open them you found yourself being twelve meters above the ground with no
ladders available.
  The power was off.  I know from experience that computers, and especially
MANY computers, need much power all the time.  But in this case the room
was dark and everything was shut down.
  I called for backup - status "murder" anyway - and begun to seal off the
important areas.  I kept an eye on the body while my mind worked with the
irritating question about what really had killed him.  How the hell did he
get all those marks on his body?  First impression was that Brian had been
riddled with thousands of mad needles.  Small stains of blood covered him.
  Then the answer to why the power was off came to me, even more unexpected
then i thought it would.  Brian held a knife in his hand, an ordinary
kitchen knife, that he had cut the main electrical cable in two parts with.
This made me even more puzzled.  Why had he done that instead of simply
turned the computers off or unplugged the cable from the socket?
  I do not call myself an super sleuth but something made be completely
convinced that there was a intimate connection between the death of Brian
Lawfeller and his advanced computer hardware.
  I examined the desk that seemed to contain his notes.  What caught my eye
was that he had a computer game laying in the desk between a bunch of heavy
programming and hardware books - "The Artificial Simulated Life Process!".
There was an odd feeling about a game in the middle of all the
"intelligent" literature.  I could, by reading on the back off the
package, get a brief understanding about what it was all about.
  "TASLP" claimed to be the first "real" AI game for home computers.  No,
let me correct myself, it was not a "game" - it called itself "a plain
entertainment program".  The program simulated the Universe as it probably
looked like minutes after the Big Bang.  Gas, material and space plunging
into each other.  You could watch the Earth come to life in realtime if you
wanted to, but it was probably more funnier to speed up the evolution.  The
program could handle speeds up to fifty thousand years per second on the
fastest computers.  Which meant that you could get to the first sings of
life after a very long time.  All the way to the human race would take
incredible long time.  But it was "very funny and interesting" anyway,
since the program was - as we know - "AI" supported.  One computer-created
universe was never repeated again.
  My knowledge of computers were - I dare to say - over the "average"
level.  I convinced the other people of the force who begun to drop into
the apartment, as if it were a bistro, to let me examine the computer
system.  They nodded and did what they were there for; taking pictures,
searching for hair or just looking around.  Murder is fun, especially for
police men.
  They system was easy to get into.  Since it was his private computers,
there were no passwords or security, but however a slight feeling of
disorientation.  Brian himself probably knew where to find everything he
wanted but I had some problems.  Something that made the investigation a
bit easier was the fact that I knew what I was looking for - and I
found it.
  Brian Lawfeller cracked the TASLP program.  A shame that he did not write
any notes, since it was very hard to get the point of his programming.
After a few hours I knew what Brian had worked with the last weeks on his
computer.  By some unknown reason, Brian had bought the TASLP program and
cracked it.  Then he had started to re-program certain routines.  It took
me some minutes before I realized exactly what he had done.  He had
increased the speed of the program.  Instead of fifty thousand years per
second, the program now easily handled - it was hard to believe -
three billion years per second.  I could not get a test of it, since
many important files was missing.  They must have been erased by mistake.
I searched other parts of Brian's small system, but found nothing that
could give me any clues about his death.
  I felt very unsatisfied when I walked home.
 
  But I had a dream that night. When I woke up I understood.
 
  Chief inspector Roger Raven looked up from his pile of papers and stared
at me.  - Albert, did you say "Light Penetration Test"?  You know perfectly
well what the price of that kind of operation would cost us.  I don't think
they even would use if it was The President who was the victim!
  His reaction was expected.  But I knew Roger.  If you just twisted and
shouted a bit, he gave up after a while and let you have whatever you
wanted.  It took me about ten minutes before he agreed to do a LPT at the
scene of the crime.
  The light penetration test was expensive, but had to be used in cases
where it was necessary.  It simply analyzed the contents of material that
had been in close range of the crime and created a very dizzy film about
what had happened.  The analysis was based upon marks from molecules that
light leaves behind.  Actually, I did not really understand how it worked
and frankly - it had been very unsuccessful in solving mysteries due to
the very bad quality of the final result.  But I was convinced that it
would be very useful to me in this case.
  The technicians who were in charge of the LPT came one hour after we
called for them.  Things had to go fast, because the marks from the light
slowly fades away as new visions of light constantly crashes into walls,
floors and ceilings.  They worked in an incredible speed.  Everything went
fast, they even had a permission from the government to drive 100 mph on
all roads.  As we arrived to the apartment they rushed into it and quickly
began to search for "good" areas of the room.  After thirty seconds they
decided to try a piece of wallpaper which they cut down from the wall and
stuffed into a black bag.  When it was done they slowed down and started to
act normally again.
  - We are finished, one of them said with a voice that sounded like a
great sight of relief.  The results from our penetration will be on your
desk tomorrow.
                                                         
  That night I dreamed the same dream again.
 
  Roger Raven handed me the brown envelope from the Light Penetration INC.
His red face betrayed him as usual.
  - Uhm, he began as usual when he was about to say:  I'm in a damn hurry
right now!  Since this was your idea, I think you should look at it and
leave a report if something extra pops out.
  He limped away ("Shot by a damn junkie three years ago!") to his office
and closed the door behind him.
  "We have successfully done the LPT at the scene of 35M victim:  Brian L.
The tape will begin two hours before, what we believe is, the incident.  We
are very sorry about the bad quality.  Mark Haywood - L.P INC"
  They were right - the quality of the film was very bad.  But still, it
was possible to see a dark shadow that must have been Brian Lawfeller as he
was sitting by his computers.  It looked like he was programming something,
his hands were moving in front of a light area that must be the monitor.
Now and then he leaned back and watched the monitor flash.
  I knew that he was working on the TASLP program.  If I was right about
this one, I also knew that he tried to speed up the code.  This part of the
film would not help me.  I pushed the FF button until I found what I was
looking for.
 
  Brian was looking at the monitor.  Then he obviously executed the program
he was presently working on.  But he did not lean back and watch the monitor.
Instead, he suddenly got to his feet and walked away.  Why?  Anything could
have happened - the phone maybe rung, somebody maybe knocked on his door,
anything could have happened.  We will never know.
  The monitor flashed alone.  After thirty seconds the light increased and
it looked like parts of the light was flying out of the screen and landed
on the table.  There it continued down on the floor and placed itself over
the area that I knew was the place where the power-sockets had been
installed.  The light that still moved around over the table began to grow.
Suddenly, Brian entered the room.  Like a flash of lightning, the light
threw small parts of itself towards him.  His body twisted in pain and he
turned around and ran away.  Not for long.  He came back with something that
must had been the knife that I saw in his dead hand.  The light now
stretched itself out from the monitor like a snake and rolled around in the
ceiling.  Brian threw himself to the floor and begin to crawl towards the
sockets.  The light attacked him but he probably managed to reach the
cable, because everything suddenly turned black.
 
  My hands are shaking.  I know that the bizarre idea that popped into my
head after the dream is true.  I am right.
  Brian Lawfeller tried to speed up a program that simulates a Universe
with worlds, similar to our own.  The worlds have true evolutions - both
natural and technical ones.  The creatures involved in the program wants to
survive.  They hunt for prey and kill their enemies like our own
civilization always have done.  But they are fast.  Too fast.  With the
help of Brian Lawfeller's skill of programming they managed to reach a level
of knowledge that made them understand what they really were.  The speed
helped them to produce technology to survive before it was too late.  They
tried - but failed!
  Roger Raven enters.  He asks:  Did you find anything?
  I shake my head and he leaves.  But deep inside myself I know that there
will come more people like Brian Lawfeller.
  Some day, the speed will be too fast to be stopped in time.
 
 
   (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
           Call THE STASH - Home of Underground eXperts United.
   Or check the INDEX file for a complete list of where you can find us!
   )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

                      Until then... Listen carefully.
