Who Art in the crust of the planet
Desired be Thy properties
Thy nanos come
Thy clusters be implanted
In real life as in virtual reality
Give us this day our daily hitpoints
And forgive us our over-equipping
As we forgive Funcom's patches
And lead us not into lagged zones
But deliver us from the reclaim terminal
For Thine are the hunting grounds
And the power-levelling
And the grid
For hours and hours
Each day
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Bogosorter and The Shover in...
It's the Great Notum, Bogosorter!
by Elisa "Autumnleaves" Fadri
"Who said you could use my computer, man?" My robot, The Shover, was typing away at my terminal. I turn my back for just fifteen minutes, man...
It was a late night at R.U.R. labs. I was working on a, like, super-secret, super-sensitive project. Really. Super-secret, man. I can't, like, talk about it. Really, man.
Okay, okay, so I was adding some, like, attachments to the coffee machine. I like my coffee with a little Godiva or Irish Creme or Amaretto or, like, Frangelico, man. I was tired of hunting for the bottles myself. You know, I had to, like, keep them hidden from the other R.U.R. members. I didn't want no one bogarting my stash, man.
The Shover didn't answer me. I snuck over to the terminal and peered over his shoulder. The Shover was, like, a hunt-and-peck typist. It wasn't hard to keep up with him, even after a few, like, coffee flavored beverages.
"Who said you could use my computer, man?"DEAR THE GREAT NOTUM COMMA
I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO YOURE ARRIVAL ON LANDING DAY STOP WHICH IS THREE SEPTEMBER STOP I WAS MISTER SEPTEMBER IN THE R STOP U STOP R STOP CATALOG STOP SO WE HAVE LOTS IN COMMON STOP
I WILL WAIT BENEATH THE NOTUM TREE IN AVALON STOP SEE YOU SOON STOP
WITH LOVE COMMA
THE SHOVER STOP
P STOP S STOP I WILL BE THE ROBOT WITH THE GLOWING YELLOW RADAR DOME STOP
END
NO SORRY COMMA
SEND
NO SORRY COMMA
TRANSMIT
The Shover froze. His head slowly turned to face me. "Don't sneak up on me, Dad," he said. "You know I don't like it when people sneak up on me, Dad."
"What's all this, man," I asked. "Who's this Great Notum?"
"The Great Notum is my bestest friend," began The Shover. "He is powerful and wise. And once a year, on Landing Day, he comes out of the Notum Tree to give tasty notum treats and nanodeath cigarettes to all the deserving robots."
I asked the eternal primate question, "Why me, man?"
"You don't believe me, do you, Dad? But I'll show you! Come with me on Landing Day and you'll see the Great Notum yourself!"
"That's, like, months away, man. You'll outgrow it," I said, with conviction. "This is just like your obsession with, like, The Robot in Red, or The Milly. By Landing Day, you won't remember it all, man."
"Don't remind me of our brief-but-bitter affair, Dad," said The Shover. "It's all behind me now."
"Man... We've been over this, man," I said, knowing that arguments were useless. "The Robot in Red wasn't even real, man. And neither is this Great Notum."
"The Robot in Red was real! The Great Notum is real! I just knew you wouldn't understand!" The Shover got up and ran out of the lab, slamming the door behind him. A few minutes later, the door opened, and The Shover stuck his head through. "And you're not my real father!" The door slammed again.
I wondered if I might ought to work on the, like, logic circuits of the next generation of Quantum Positronic Thingies. I needed a drink, man. Some, like, coffee or something.
(Several Months Later... On Landing Day...)
"I can't believe you talked me into this, Shover." I was sitting beneath the Notum Tree with my robot. Hey, man, I needed some notum anyway for, like, a super-secret, super-sensitive project. I can't, like, talk about it. Really, man.
"Hey, Dad?" asked The Shover. "When do you think the Great Notum will show up?"
"Give it up, man. As soon as I'm done collecting notum we're out of here, man."
"Hey, Dad? Do you think this volcano we're sitting in is active?"
"It's been spewing lava for years, man. I'd say it's, like, active."
"Hey, Dad? What kind of leets do you think are best for getting chicks?"
"Man, I don't know. Why don't you ask--"
"Hey, Dad? Have you ever done something wrong? That you knew was wrong? And you did it anyway?"
"Man, what did you do this time?"
"Nothing, Dad. "
"Shover?"
"Nothing! Just a few small to mid-sized bets on a couple of hundred leet fights."
"What?! Those are illegal, man! How much did you lose, man? What were you think--"
"Hey, Dad? Do you think you could get Crattyjack to introduce me to The Robot in Red?"
I sighed. "We've been over this, man. The Robot in Red isn't real, man. And neither is this--"
"Hey, Dad? What's that?"
A dark shape was moving beneath the Notum Tree. Could it be? No, man! I couldn't believe it. The Great Notum stepped out from under the tree. It had... wings. And mottled, leathery skin. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Whew. It's just an Anun Tearer, man."
"It's coming right for us, Dad."
"Yeah, but it's not the 'Great Notum,' man. I, like, almost believed you for a few seconds," I chuckled. "It's just a deep red Greater Anun Tearer, man. A deep, deep red... Oh, Sh--"
The last thing I heard was The Shover's metallic voice. "Hurry back, Dad! I won't survive long on my own!"
I woke up. I hurt all over, man. I wondered why I wasn't at reclaim.
"When you blacked out, I was scared, Dad" The Shover said, "You know I can't survive on my own."
"What happened, man?" I sat up, trying to get my bearings. We were still under the Notum Tree, but there weren't any Anuns in sight. The Shover's not much of a 'bot. I mean, I'm not much of an Engineer, man. I can handle the truth, man. I'm always, like, upgrading The Shover with flamethrowers and kung-fu grip and all kinds of cool stuff, man. But I knew that he couldn't fight a Lesser Anun Tearer on his own, much less the ones here in Avalon with, like, glandular disorders, man.
"The Great Notum came! I saw him, Dad! I had a good heart-to-gears chat with him, Dad."
"That was just, like, an Anun Tearer, man. There's no such thing as the Great Notum, man."
"Not the bird, Dad. It was after you blacked out. The Great Notum came and he scared all the big bird monster things away. You missed it, Dad. But look what he gave me!" The Shover held out his hands. One hand contained a double pack of nanodeath cigarettes. The other contained a chunck of finely refined notum.
Could the Great Notum be real, man? No, man... It couldn't be. The Shover must have, like, hallucinated or something. I needed a drink, man.
((My apologies, Tothepoint. I couldn't resist the title.))
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