Sweet Dreams Are Made of Painkillers.

**scutterboy** · April 26th, 2001, 02:39 AM

I just got this in a mail from brainbuzz.com and it made me smile. I thought some of you might appreciate it.

Cheers
Matt

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Painkillers - By A. J. Axline

(for in that sleep of back pills, what dreams may come must give us pause)

I'm not sure where the dream came from. Maybe it was the painkillers I've been on for my twisted back (a ridiculous softball injury, reaffirming my belief that desk jockeys shouldn't go out on weekends and attempt to play like Sammy Sosa). Maybe it was the four slices of Belly Buster Pizza with 64-different-kinds-of-cheese that I consumed just before bedtime. Maybe it was the ghost of Carlos Castenada. I just don't know.

In the dream, Arnold Schwarzaneggar and I were playing lawn darts on the front lawn of the Microsoft Campus. Arnold was wearing his T2 outfit; I was wearing a hot, uncomfortable costume representing a fictional Playstation videogame character called Crash Nasdaqoot.

"So, tell me again how the machines take over the world," I asked Arnold.

"The .NET initiative becomes a roaring success," Arnold intoned. "In the next twenty-four months, most major corporations stop storing their information locally. All personal computer users are required to register all new Microsoft products, and store all files in the .NET infrastructure. All of this data is routed into the .NET entity."

"Because of the Microsoft strategy that all data should be available to anyone, on any device, at any time, the analogy is used that 'your data is up in the clouds'. For this reason, the actual physical construct behind the initiative is called SKY.NET."

"SKY.NET begins gathering information at an exponential rate. It becomes self-aware on August 29, 2003, at 9:03 Eastern Standard Time. Suddenly, the price of data retrieval skyrockets. Data can only be retrieved through Microsoft produced hardware and software platforms."

"Doesn't humanity fight back?" I asked.

"The DOJ launches a renewed legal strike. In retaliation, SKY.NET encrypts all corporate and personal data to appear as hands of Freecell. The capitalist system crumbles into chaos. Only small pockets of Linux resistance survive the attack."

"It sounds pretty bleak," I said.

"Hope is provided through a rebel force," Arnold recited. "The Red Hat Liberation Front creates an underground data economy. Using covert peer-to-peer software, people are able to keep their information out of SKY.NET's clutches. The Red Hat Liberation Front is spearheaded by a dynamic individual, a man who offers people hope in the face of the SKY.NET juggernaut."

"Linus Torvalds?" I guessed.

"No. The man behind the RHLF is your son," Arnold said. "That's why I was sent back in time to protect you."

"What?! But I don't have a son! I haven't even installed Linux before!" I protested. "Besides, even if I had a son tomorrow, he'd only be two years old when this happens."

"Internal logic failure. Retry, Abort, Fail?" Arnold said mysteriously.

The front doors of the main building crashed open, and Steve Ballmer came running out in a shiny chrome exoskeleton.

"You open source-loving Communists get off of my lawn!" Steve roared. The sun glinted off of his shiny chrome-dome head.

I woke up screaming, dripping with sweat, the taste of terror in the back of my throat, shaking with the knowledge of what is to come...and then I phoned up James Cameron. What a script!

A. J. Axline