A Very Parfit Knight 1 22/02/2005 (this is the first Sir Gawain adventure - the second adventure can be found here)Part OneSir Gawain answered the call, hurrying through the tunnels until he reached the Assignment Room. As ever, The Geek slouched casually in his chair, awaiting the knight."How goes it, Boss?" said Sir Gawain as he took up his usual position in the center of the room."Ah, there you are Gawain." The Geek sat up and rubbed his stubbled chin. "Normal day I guess. Got a job for you..."Sir Gawain snapped to attention and gave a mock salute. "Ready, as ever, to do your bidding, Boss. But you know what I mean. How is the girl?" He winked and grinned suggestively.The Geek shifted in his chair as though slightly embarrassed. "Oh, Gawain, she's just a girl. Tapping away at the keyboard like any other day.""Come on, Boss, this is me you're talking to. You know you fancy her." Sir Gawain winked again. The Geek looked at the ceiling in irritation but said nothing."Have you spoken to her yet?" asked the knight and, when the Geek remained silent, he continued, "You're going to have to, you know. Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.""I know, I know, Gawain. But this is my business, okay? Let me handle this one.""You know you won't unless I do it for you. Let me go over there now and speak for you. I'll be tactful, I promise."The Geek's eyes opened wide in horror. "No, Gawain! I'll do this my way or not at all. Just you keep your nose out of my affairs."Sir Gawain laughed. "Affairs? What affairs? The way you go about it, you'll never have one."The Geek frowned. "Gawain. You are beginning to annoy me. Do I have to turn you off before you'll do as you're told?"The knight snapped to attention again, this time in complete seriousness. "Sorry, Boss," he said, "But you know it's only because I want you to win this time. Can't blame me for trying, can you?""I suppose not. But let's not have any more jokes about it, okay?" The Geek relaxed and turned to pick up a sheet of paper from the table at his side. "Now, about this job. We're getting a bit of a problem in Stack 17. Nothing serious yet but I can't see what's going on. Want to catch this before it gets too bad. See what you can do, there's a good feller."Sir Gawain took the proffered sheet and glanced at it quickly. He saw the problem immediately, a slight but unusual anomaly in the rows of numbers covering the printout."Sir Gawain is on the case," he announced and turned to leave the room.The Geek shook his head and smiled as the knight disappeared through the doorway. That program was quite something, he thought. He'd had to build artificial intelligence into it so that it could outwit the nasties, but there were times when it got a little above itself. The very thought, talking to the girl on his behalf. The Geek shuddered and turned to gaze at the next cubicle, where the girl sat typing, oblivious to the world.Meanwhile the knight was hurrying through the tunnels of the intranet, on his way to Stack 17. His mind was only partly on his assignment, thoughts of how to help his Boss with the problem of the girl still nagging at him. He knew the Boss would never speak to her, too aware of his own geekiness ever to find the courage. But, if Sir Gawain could just find a way to spark things off, then matters might take a more natural course. Dare he risk dropping a few hints at her terminal, a few clues to make her think? Nothing obvious, of course, just enough to pique her interest.If the Boss ever found out, Sir Gawain would be dead code. Not something to rush into, he decided, as he arrived at Stack 17.He found the problem straight away, a few binaries switched to make a nonsense and the net looping around it in puzzlement. But this was not the normal glitch. There was something about it, something almost deliberate. This had been caused by something else. There was intent behind this apparently random disarray.It was only when he reached in to fix the problem that Sir Gawain found the note. A few characters dropped out of the chaos and fell to the floor. He read in growing disbelief.Catch me if you can. Signed, The Masked Avenger.This has to be a joke, thought Sir Gawain. One of the other geeks trying to make the Boss look stupid. But no, this was too clever for them. He'd seen their code and it was amateurish beside the elegant work of his master. This had to be something else. From the outside, maybe? But that was impossible; he'd checked and tested until he was certain that the firewall could not be breached. This had to be an inside job. But who? Or what?Suddenly he felt that he was being watched. He spun around but the stack was empty, empty of any intruder, at least. The code hummed and chattered contentedly, as always, only the unfixed anomaly still buzzing in infinite circles.Sir Gawain reached in, shifted the code to normality and left.(To go directly to Part 2, click here)
Clive
Jodie Hope Part 2 isn't far away.... ;D Date Added: 22/02/2005
Gone Away Hopefully tomorrow, Jodie. ;) Date Added: 22/02/2005
Harvey Young Sounds like you have turned your server problem into an interesting story Sir Gawain. Can't wait to read part two as the mystery unfolds. I particularly like the added intrigue of "the girl." Will Sir Gawain help to get things started? Can't wait to see the end. Date Added: 22/02/2005
Gone Away Hmmmm, neither can I, Harvey. Just hope something turns up... ;) Date Added: 22/02/2005
Rusty Throwing a lot of worlds into one there. Funny too ;-) Date Added: 22/02/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Rusty. It's great fun to write, as well. ;) Date Added: 22/02/2005
w Right off, I like this Gawain. Now I must wait expectantly until he succeeds in pulling off what hopefully will happen next. Date Added: 22/02/2005
Rusty Everyone seems to be winking... is there something I'm missing here? AHHHH.... Date Added: 22/02/2005
Ned Geeks, masked avengers, knights, binary codes, firewalls, a girl... excitement galore. winks just cause everyone else did ;) Date Added: 22/02/2005
Keeefer Thanks Gone, I enjoyed that. IS the Masked Avenger the 'girls' programme sent in to entice the geek into a response? or is my mind being to active on this whole thing.....and do programmes gather at night around firewalls to warm their digits and share a tale or two? Date Added: 22/02/2005
Gone Away Okayyyyy, sorry folks, just taking a breather back there. Way: Me too. Have no idea how it ends. Rusty: You know, wink, wink, know what I mean? Hehehe... Ned: Makes a change, huh? Keef: Gee thanks, mate, now that's one ending I can't use. But I love the picture of the programs gathering around the firewall at night... Date Added: 22/02/2005
keeefer Sorry Gone....was just thinking in text, as you do, didnt mean to spoil a possible ending. I did have to reread it though to make sure that there was no possibility the geek could be female (now that would have been a twist!). I'll try to keep my other thoughts to myself so as not to limit your options....Im off now to hide in disgrace ;) Date Added: 22/02/2005
Gone Away Hey, no problem, Keef. If it was that obvious, I'm glad you stopped me from doing it. ;) I have a few options up my sleeve anyway and, if I know these darn stories, it'll have a few surprises for me along the way. Date Added: 22/02/2005
Mad As it goes Dad I suspected the same thing as Keef... Date Added: 22/02/2005
keeefer go to bed Mad :) Date Added: 22/02/2005
Gone Away Well, I admit I toyed with the idea, Mad. It is not how the story ended when I first wrote the idea down for Chris Evans but I could see it as a possibility. So now I can go with the original ending or follow some of the other tracks that are now presenting themselves... Date Added: 22/02/2005
Way Here is an odd site I came across. (hope I'm not breaking any rules by divulging it) http://midge.bloggage.com/readme/ Date Added: 23/02/2005
Harvey Young Way that is one very interesting site. Sorry that I forgot to wink. Date Added: 23/02/2005
Gone Away Odd, I agree, Way. Notice that it's quite old, from the early days of blogging, I think. That would explain why it is quite idealistic in assuming that people will take any notice of it (and that's if they read it at all). It looks to me like someone's attempt to establish some ground rules to blogging and, needless to say, it didn't get very far. But when has anybody managed to put rules on the internet? Date Added: 23/02/2005
Ned I know someone you could send that to. Date Added: 23/02/2005
Gone Away LOL Ned. I was thinking the same thing. :D Date Added: 23/02/2005
Rusty Kind of makes you think about the radio. When you listen to it, you know its playing. It is playing when you turn it on. Maybe it plays just for you. Outside of your need for it, there is no radio! You hear other people playing it sometimes, but this is simply a reflection of the lie that is the RADIO! A tree falls in the woods, but there is noone there to hear it. Does it make a sound? -- Yeah... this has nothing to do with the case at hand. I felt like writing something and didn't want to clutter my bloginess any more... See if you can use that in the story! .oO(Now I found a reason to relate it! Muhahahahahahahahaha) P.S - Sorry for stealing your thought bubble. Date Added: 23/02/2005
Gone Away An age old problem, Rusty. Are we really real or is this just a movie put on for my benefit? (I have to say "my" because, if this is true, you're just a figment of my imagination and there is no "you". Or maybe the whole thing is just a dream in a giant's mind and at any moment he's going to wake up. As for the tree falling in the woods, it makes no sound because sound is relative to the human ear drum: if we can't hear it, it's not sound. Unless you take the view that a butterfly flapping its wings in a Brazilian rainforest can be the root cause of a typhoon in India... Endless questions and no answers. But fun to think about anyway. The thought bubble comes from chat and I have no copyright on it. Enjoy! Date Added: 23/02/2005
Rusty Why can't it be for my benefit? Of course you would assume it would be for your benefit, because you have to fight for the existance I gave you. Guess that would mean I created the world in my image. Thanks for feeding my god-complex!I think about the fact that maybe TRUE color isn't how we really percieve it, that our eyes can't adapt to see things like they really are. Then again, it doesn't matter. There is no color outside of our own perspective. Does it follow then that noone else's perspective matters outside of our own? Is every man REALLY an island then?The chaos theory is just too much though. I can go so far into anything and then have to take hold of rationality somewhere. Chaos is the complete opposite of rationality, and it destroys the will of a person.Wow, too philosophical not to be my own convictions. Was fun thinking about though. Date Added: 23/02/2005
Gone Away That's my point, Rusty. In my movie, you're one of the actors, so it's meaningless for me to use the word "you" since you are just a figment. But in your movie it's the other way about and I'm the figment. And you're only imagining that I'm answering your comment. You ask whether anyone else's perspective matters and I would have to say, in the context of the movie, only in so far as you, the director, make it matter. You are creating the whole thing after all. But I agree with you on chaos theory. Especially as the theory has to be rational and therefore non-chaotic... Date Added: 23/02/2005
Keeefer CUT!.......start again and this time do it with feeling....sheesh someone get me a cigarette ....and get that goddamn cow outta here. Date Added: 23/02/2005
Gone Away .oO(Oh no, now I'm imagining movie directors. What on earth made me do that....?) Date Added: 23/02/2005
Way Imagine this. Ned and Gone both percieved my true intentions. So why am I not surprised? Date Added: 23/02/2005
Way (I am getting love letters from the UK. Anyone else?) Date Added: 23/02/2005
Gone Away ROFLOL. I don't think so, Way. But it's nice to be wanted... ;) Date Added: 23/02/2005
Way (grins contentedly) Date Added: 23/02/2005
Mad Everyone say "belated Happy Birthday Keef" :D Date Added: 23/02/2005
Gone Away Umm, yeah, belatedly Happy Birthday, Keef. Date Added: 23/02/2005
Way BHB, K Date Added: 23/02/2005
Rusty Happy Belated Birthday Keef. Wrong order? Date Added: 23/02/2005
Hannah Great story so far (I've resisted the urge to read ahead until I've commented on each section). I, too, immediately thought the girl might be the masked avenger. I LOVE how you're taking elements of several genres and mixing them into a whole new pot of soup.There is a race (in the Hitchhiker's Guide) who believe the world was sneezed out of a being they call the great Arkelseizure. They live in fear of what they call "the coming of the great white handkerchief." Hey-- it's as sensible a theory as most :P Date Added: 25/02/2005
Gone Away Thank you, Hannah, for you kind and astute comments. And I love that bit about the Great White Handkerchief! Date Added: 25/02/2005
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