Subject: alt.Shrugged: A parody (Chapter Three)

From: People Covered In Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 03:46:50 -0500

[continued]

****
	"I don't know why I didn't get it before," Andrea said ruefully.
"Flavio and Chad practically waved it in my face."
	John Novak shrugged.  "Plot purposes.  When you're utterly
incapable of subtlety-- in foreshadowing as everywhere else-- you need to
give your characters some pretty impressive blind spots."
	"Huh?"
	"Never mind."
	Andrea relaxed back against the tree and stretched her ankle.  She
thought she'd be able to put weight on it again before long.  "But... Mr
Novak, I still don't understand what you were doing, or how you convinced
everyone else to leave the group.  Let alone..."  Her voice trailed off
bitterly, and she glanced up at him with a hint of the old distrust.  "Let
alone why you handed over rasfwr-j to _them_."
	"It's quite simple, really," said John Novak, smiling with
complete self-confidence.  "As you know, for years _they_ have accused us
of elitism... of imposing impossibly difficult and unnecessary standards
on newbies, of flaming anyone who doesn't fit into our little clique, of
dismissing all questions with reference to the all-hallowed FAQ.  They
have boneheadedly refused to adjust their grammar, their line lengths, or
their spelling for the sake of anybody else's comprehension.  They have
demanded the right to equal treatment... by which they mean that our great
rec.arts newsgroup must be reduced to equality with their bogus alt.group,
our standards reduced to equality with their standards, our knowledge to
equality with their ignorance, and our reasonable demand for evidence to
equality with their irrational glorification of opinion.  For years, they
have been trying to seize power, to devour rasfwr-j and drag it down to
their level.
	"So I have given them what they so desperately desired.  I have
removed the elite from their group and left the result to them.  As the
final implication of their demands, I have even arranged that unholiest of
all alliances: the merger with afrj.  They are free to make of it what
they will... and may they enjoy it!"  His eyes were fierce.  "I fear they
will not enjoy it long."
	"No!" Andrea exclaimed, horror in her face.  "You... you've
destroyed rasfwr-j?  How could you?  You spent more time on it than any
other _two_ people!  You were the standard by which everyone else
calculated their posting index!  Your whole life was poured into that
group!  Couldn't you have tried to redeem it instead of abandoning it to
destruction?"
	The Humblest Man on the Net smiled gently.  "How's that ankle,
Andrea?"
	Andrea was taken aback.  "Well... almost fine, thank you."  For a
moment, she almost suspected him of trying to evade the question.
	"Well, I'm afraid we allow no one who needs crutches of any sort
past this point... but when you can completely support yourself, I'll take
you through the valley and show you exactly how I propose to redeem the
newsgroup."
	She stretched again gingerly.  "That would have been sort of tough
on me if I'd broken my ankle, wouldn't it?"
	The Novak shrugged.  "We assume that anyone who has to rely on
others for support is a leech and a looter.  It's worked so far."
	Andrea managed a sardonic smile.  "I think I'll be just fine.
Let's go."
	"Very well."  He walked beside her, matching her slow pace, until
they reached the high outcrop of rock where the gateway had initially
formed.  Andrea gasped audibly; then she stood there for several minutes
in silence.  Finally, she looked over at John Novak with unspeakable
wonder in her eyes.  "It's... it's rasfwr-j."
	He smiled in proud satisfaction.  "Well, not precisely.  It's
rasfwr-j as it should be, in accordance to my standards, and built from my
chosen materials... here in this lonely virtual valley, which no bonehead
will ever discover."
	Down below, reconstructed in full shining splendor, were all the
buildings that were currently being bulldozed back on the rec.arts.sf
hierarchy.  But there were no scars or scorch marks in this newsgroup, and
the handful of people who walked its streets were all vaguely
recognizable.  John Novak captured the whole vista with a sweep of his
arm.
	"Welcome to alt.antis, home of the Cabal in Exile."
	After a long silence, Andrea looked at him questioningly.  "Aren't
you supposed to add '[TINCIE]' or something?"
	The Novak shook his head.  "In this place, no one is allowed to
hide their innate superiority.  No one needs to."  He smiled slightly.
"After all, I _am_ the Humblest Man in alt.antis... which leaves very
little room for either modesty or humility in anyone else."
	"Of course," Andrea breathed, nodding slowly.  "Is Flavio here--
or the Loy?  I assume you're the third of Auntie Erica's favorite
nephews."
	"Yes, they're both here... and Flavio, in particular, will be
overjoyed to see you.  He chose the most demanding course of us three:
remaining in rasfwr-j and ensuring that everything of any worth in it was
eroded or destroyed.  It took a heavy toll on him, especially since it
meant becoming that which every true rasfwr-jian must despise."  John
Novak shrugged.  "But now it's over, and we're all here.  Would you like
to see the group itself?"
	"Of course!"  Andrea couldn't keep the eagerness out of her voice. 
	The Novak continued talking as they walked down the long slope.
"In alt.antis, anyone who can support their point of view with solid
evidence is welcome to post on anything they like-- whether on the
impending oil crisis, the existence of God, or even the Taimandred
question."
	"That seems more than reasonable.  Who's that?"  She pointed at an
older Cabal member a few paces away who was lying back in a reclining
chair with his ears plugged.
	"That's Joe Shaw.  He was one of the first to leave rasfwr-j out
of insistence on standards.  We see him as something of a godfather to our
movement."
	"Oh.  Why is he living way out here-- and why the ear plugs?"
	"Spoiler protection," said the Novak shortly.  "Care to keep
moving?"
	As they descended further, he began to point out individual sites
and their purposes.  "From here you can see the centers for Discussion of
Future Plots, Prophetic Interpretation, Prose Critique, Character
Analysis, and Looney Theories.  Of course, that last one is considerably
more limited here than on the old group."
	"Naturally," said Andrea doubtfully.
	"And see that area over there?"  The Humblest Man on the Net
pointed to a region that was surely the most colorful, cheerful, and
hyperactive in alt.antis.  "That's reserved for tangential subjects-- ones
that have nothing at all to do with the Creator or his works.  Quite a bit
of our more amusing interaction goes on there.  Of course, we only allow
TAN: topics if they meet the strict criteria of being interesting,
intelligent, current, edifying, and lively."
	"Such as?"  Andrea queried.
	The Novak smiled.  "Babylon 5," he said.
	They walked on.  A half-mile or so down the road, Andrea stopped
abruptly.  "What's all that garbage doing in the middle of your private
utopia?"  There was, to all appearances, a junkyard two hundred feet to
their left.
	"Oh, that's strictly temporary.  Loy's been sending it all to the
old rasfwr-j group for months now, just to add to the bandwidth clutter.
Now that the whole place has gone permanently to the dogs, he'll dump all
the rest on them and have done with it.  Tshen's taken over most of the
venture with considerable zest, I understand.  Look, there's the Loy
now...  Ahoy there, you old pirate!"
	Loynar Danneskjold looked up and waved cheerily at them.  He was
working on some project that seemed to involve whipped cream, a nylon
fishnet, three rather bedraggled chia pets, and five hundred pounds of
indiarubber.  A familiar-looking redhead stood next to him, offering
assistance and constructive advice.
	Andrea blinked, then looked up at John Novak.  "Does Lara know the
Loy-- and what on earth are they doing?"
	The Novak cleared his throat.  "Well, Lara and Loynar are sort of
like twisted siblings... well, no, there's admittedly more of the
'consort' element than that... kindred spirits, I suppose you might say,
though there's more to it.  Um.  Let's just say they have a certain, well,
unique unity that can't really be grasped without grave danger to one's
sanity.  And quite honestly, I don't want to know _what_ they're making."
	Andrea threw back her head and laughed in amazed delight.  When
she spoke again, her voice was almost incredulous.  "But how can all this
possibly exist?  Where do you get the power to run everything?"
	"Oh, that."  He gave a dismissive wave of his hand.  "It all runs
off the perpetual motion machine I invented over there in the corner.
Don't bother with such silly technical questions."
	"Oh."
	An hour later, they stood at the outer perimeter of alt.antis
proper.  The Novak turned to her, arms folded across his chest, and smiled
arrogantly.  "Well, have you been adequately impressed by our paradise on
earth?"
	Andrea looked up at him sadly.  "John, I appreciate all this--
it's quite honestly amazing-- and I truly wish I could stay.  But I have
to at least try to salvage our old newsgroup.  I refuse to let it go this
easily, however pleasant an alternative you've created."
	There was a long pause, and then John Novak rolled his eyes in
exasperation.  "Ms Leistra, have you any idea how long this fucking parody
_is_?  It's reached ludicrous proportions already... and you want to add a
whole new chapter to it?  It won't be postable.  No one will want to read
it.  Have you any idea how short the average man's attention span has
become?"
	She spread her hands helplessly.  "What can I say?  There has to
be some adequate closure for my character-- and anyway, _Atlas Shrugged_
goes on for about one hundred fifty pages after this bit.  Are we supposed
to ignore that entire plot and wrap it all up with a happy alt.antis
ending, as if this were some kind of cheap Disney animated version?"
	"All right, all right," the Novak snarled.  "Can we at _least_
skip the scenes where you meet all your old friends again in alt.antis?
We fucking know Flavio and Rick and Hawk are here, along with basically
everyone else.  Everybody on the damn group has got their name mentioned,
so no one's going to complain if we omit the shlock reunion bits."
	"Okay, fine."  Though reluctant, she understood.  "And hey, as
long as we're at it, why don't we cut out the love scenes as well."
	There was another long pause.  "Oh.  _Now_ I see," the Humblest
Man on the Net said sourly.
	"No, no, really... it's a question of parody length."
	"Fine, dammit."  

****
	Andrea's first sight of the old rasfwr-j was as painful as her
first glimpse of alt.antis had been exhilarating.  The once-inspiring
heights of human discourse had been deliberately smashed and hauled down.
Flamewars spiralled out of control, laying waste to vast tracts of
newsgroup and leaving countless casualties sprawled to either side.
Misformatted posts collided clumsily with each other, while contextless
responses flew off in random directions, without any intelligible
grounding.  Looters and leeches did their best to survive off what little
skill and sense was left on the group-- but Flavio's impressively thorough
program of barbarization had taken its toll.  Battles wracked the streets
over such issues as the identity of Osan'gar and whether Thom was Elayne's
father.  Nearly all of the old order was gone-- vanished with the reviled
elite.
	Andrea walked cautiously across the newsgroup boundary, dodging
the occasional random flame and trying to keep out of sight.  She had no
idea of how or where to start defending the cause of rationality and
netiquette in this wasteland, but she had sworn to at least try.  For want
of any better ideas, she decided to look for any regulars who might (by
some chance) have not reached alt.antis yet.
	As it happened, she found Dylan.
	He was seated on the burned-out shell of a bulldozer, stained
ash-gray from head to foot.  There was a strong smell of gasoline all
about him, and several indistinguishably charred forms lying at his feet.
She took a few steps closer to him, feeling surprisingly tentative, and
ready to duck any flames he might hurl.
	He glanced up at her; his eyes were slightly glazed.  "The
hell?...  Oh, Andrea, it's you.  I thought the Novak had already claimed
you for his little zoo off in the cyberRockies."
	"He did.  I came back."  As she stepped closer, a startled badger
scuttled off Dylan's lap and vanished into the darkness.  "What about you?
Didn't he come for you?"
	Dylan grinned.  "We spoke.  Alas, our views on how to handle the
situation differed slightly.  Besides, I'd only be a fire hazard in
utopia.  Here, I'm doing some _real_ good."
	"I... can see that."  She glanced around a bit anxiously.  "Is
anyone else left?  Any of the oldbies, I mean?"
	"Nadie.  I'm the last holdout."  His eyes went out of focus again.
"And frankly, I think I'll be going out in a blaze of glory myself pretty
soon.  There's only so long a man can live on flames alone."
	"That's really the only solution you can see?"  Andrea found it
hard to believe that her return to the group was completely in vain.
	Dylan chuckled drily.  "Now that the Novak's stolen every decent
poster except my pleasant self?  I think so.  You can't redeem a newsgroup
from such a small base, sweetheart.  Maybe in a decade or so he'll bring
back the Cabal to rebuild on my ashes.  Until then, though, this place is
going to hell in a hundred mile-per-hour handbasket."
	Andrea checked her watch gloomily.  "We'll see.  He said he'd be
sending a message at about this time, to tell everyone who's been asking
'Who is John Novak?' just who he is and why he's done what he's done.
We'll see how that affects them."
	Dylan laughed cynically.  "Oh, believe me, honey, I can't wait."
	Even as he spoke, the western sky grew bright with one colossal,
incoming post.  Its golden cord led back to alt.antis, and in the squalor
of debased rasfwr-j, every eye could see it.  It had a simple subject
header: WHO IS JOHN NOVAK?  As they watched, it opened up, and an image of
the Novak's great bearded face loomed over the rubble.  Distant screams of
fear and hatred rose from all around them.  Dylan grinned fiercely and
rubbed his hands together.
	The image spoke.  "This is John Novak speaking.  I have a message,
addressed to every current inhabitant of rec.arts.sf.written.robert- 
jordan... or should I say, alt.fan.robert.jordan.  And listen up,
boneheads, because I'm definitely NOT going to say this twice." 
	Fifty pages later, the entire ruined group was completely silent.
Andrea blinked twice and shook her head, trying to recover from the
shell-shock.
	"I didn't know it was _possible_ to use the word 'fuck' that many
ways," Dylan said softly.
	"Well, I suppose we can only wait to see how they react..." Andrea
offered doubtfully.
	Five seconds later, a deafening howl of mass rage went up from all
corners of the group.
	"I'd say that answers that," Dylan grimaced.  A band of trolls
charged past them about twenty yards away, smashing whatever happened to
be in their way.  They were followed by a far more organized group that
caught sight of the two regulars and began to stalk warily down the alley.
	"Damn.  Here comes fafnir again, and I think he means business
this time."  Standing, Dylan stretched lazily.  "Well, hey, might as well
go out while doing all of Usenet a favor."
	The great afrj bonehead approached and threw down the gauntlet
with a window-shaking roar.  "Hey, badger boy-- Asmodean was killed in a
WINE CELLAR!"
	"Wine cellar.  Beautiful."  A fierce, fixed grin appeared on
Dylan's soot-stained face.  "If you'll excuse me, milady, I believe I have
business down the street."  He started off, then paused.  "Incidentally,
you can tell Flavio when next you see him that I swear I'll flame him dead
for resurrecting _that_ one."
	She watched him go, then shrugged, sighed... and ran for her life.
	Ten minutes later she was standing at the border again, where
Rick, Flavio, Hawk, and John Novak were waiting for her.  The newsgroup
below was an empty black sheet, with occasional flickers visible in the
streets as flamewars began to spark.  They could see the last convulsions
beginning-- lights darting through the streets, trolls charging like
animals trapped in a maze.  And suddenly a great pillar of fire went up
from where Dylan had been standing... a self-immolating pyre that wiped
out the equivalent of five city blocks.  
	Andrea moistened her lips.  "All right.  Enough closure.  Let's
all go back to alt.antis now."
	"About fucking time," growled the Novak.  "I _told_ you so."
	"Be nice, John," Hawk warned, taking Andrea's arm.
	"Welcome to the Cabal, Andrea-- because yes, there most definitely
IS a Cabal," smiled Flavio.
	"Novus ordo saeculorum," mused Rick.
	"Let's go home," sighed Andrea.  "It's over."
	A second before they left, she cast one last, reluctant glance
back.  Far in the distance, on the edge of the now-dark newsgroup, a small
flame was waving in the wind-- the defiantly stubborn flame of Dylan's
Torch.  She found herself smiling in spite of herself; then she stepped
through the gateway and was gone.

				THE END