Sunday, October 31st, 1999. 7:14 PM.
Halloween night. All of the normal people are skipping about, on a collision course with type 2 diabetes, the perfect time to go on-line.
...
......
.........
Knock, knock, knock!
Your hand smashes against a hardwood door.
step... step... step... step... step... step.
The door opens.
Who is it? A stranger.
???: Oh, hey guys!
You: Hey.
???: Trick or treat!
You: Shut up, man.
???: I take it this is about the whole being banned thing?
You: Well... We’re not here to discuss the ‘80s, so yeah, I’d say it is.
???: Well, come on in!
The stranger parts to the side as you and “a colleague” walk into their house.
Nothing wrong can happen by going into a stranger’s home.
As you, “a colleague” and the stranger walk through the house, various old looking pieces of furniture and trinkets dot the walls and halls, and every room bears an uncanny resemblance to homes of the 1950’s.
Various faint murmurs can be heard from other strangers inhabiting the house. But you don’t care about that. You don’t like small talk. You like long talk. Because you’re long. And you’re proud of that.
After a bit of incessant walking, you come face to face with a stairset, very obviously leading to the second floor. Your days with Encarta have not failed you yet, thankfully.
???: After me, gents!
The stranger takes the perilous climb up the rather long stairset, leaving you and a colleague to stand at the bottom. What’s “a colleague” doing? Trying their hardest to focus on something else. In all of the 18 years, 221 months, 961 weeks, and 6,732 days you have existed on this Earth, you have never seen anyone struggle so hard to not focus on the rear end of a woman going up the stairs as hard as “a colleague”. You should do something.
WHACK!!!
You hit “a colleague” in the back of the hand with your fist.
???: OW!!! What the hell, man?!
You: ‘Thought you could use the focus!
???: Man, shut up! You would’ve done it too.
You: Shut your stupid ass up and get up there!
“A colleague” shakes his head and begins walking up the stairs, rubbing the back of his head.
You step one foot onto the stairset, and begin climbing it. Unlike “a colleague”, you don’t focus on the rear end of people going up stairs, especially not another man’s.
Finally reaching the top, the stranger has been waiting for you and “a colleague” for a few moments now.
???: Come.
???: Jesus, Betty, how far up is your room?
You: You’ll live, now get your dumbass on.
???: He’s right.
You, “a colleague” and the stranger walk down the Americana-fueled hallway before stopping in front of a door that is certainly not Americana-fueled.
It has modern bands on it. And Weezer. A shit-ton of Weezer.
There’s a sign on it.
It reads: “Betty’s Domain! TAYLOR STAY OUT!!! Mom and dad, knock first, thanks.”
The stranger opens the door to reveal an extremely geeky looking room. Rock band posters, boxed figurines and various cassette tapes of science fiction shows and movies dot the room.
Betty: Welcome to my domain!
Wallace: Damn! It’s like a guy’s paradise in here!
Betty: Hey now! Girls can like sci-fi too.
You: She’s right, you know. Anyways, let’s pretend for a moment we don’t care about all of that, even though we really do, like come on! Look at it! We came here to get back at those tech morons.
Betty: Figures.
Wallace: Wait, that’s why we’re here? Why didn’t you just come to my place?
You: Because you live in the past, dummy. Ain’t no “getting back at” happening on a shitty WebTV box, genius.
Wallace: Give it a rest already, Wade!
Betty: You’re really not gonna get a computer, are you?
Wallace: If my folks would give me money, I would!
You: Whatever, man. Let’s get on-line already!
Betty: Right!
She leads the two of you over to a behemoth of a computer rig.
Three monitors, a full sound system, a custom Model M, an IntelliEye mouse, and even a high-tuned office chair.
Woah.
Damn!
CTRL+C
You:
CTRL+V
You: Damn!
Wallace.exe has stopped working.
A problem has caused the program to stop working correctly.
Please close the program.
→ Close the program
Betty: Pretty sweet, right?
You: Sweet is an understatement! This is incredible! How could you even afford all of this?!
Betty: Christmas comes and goes, you know.
You: We should get on-line before we die of a geek attack.
Wallace: Yeah, man! We gotta show those techies that we mean business!
He punches his palm.
Betty: Let’s get you boys seated.
step.
step.
step.
step.
KSSSSSSSH!
She opens her closet and drags two office chairs out of it. They make barely any noise against the slick hardwood floor.
KSSSSSSSH!
She closes her closet.
Betty: Heads up!
She kicks the chairs towards you and Wallace.
Wait...
Wait......
Wait.........
CATCH!
You catch the chair with your hands.
Wallace emits a rather girly scream.
THUD!!!
Chair used Body Smash! It’s super effective!
Wallace fainted!... But not really.
Wallace climbs to his feet hastily and puts his hands on the chair, acting as if he caught it.
Betty walks over and sits down in her chair.
Glisten~!
You and Wallace lock eyes, competitively.
FACE OFF!!!
Wade used Sweet Ass Spin!
You spin the chair around roughly and sit in it mid-spin, stopping yourself slowly, ending face to face with the rig.
Wallace used Critical Spin!
Wallace spins the chair around roughly, but as he tries to sit in it...
WHACK!!!
One of the arms hits him directly in the stomach.
As he falls forward...
SMASH!!!
...he smashes his face into the violently spinning chair’s back, causing him to fall back and...
CRASH!!!
...land head first into a trash can full of soda cans and bottles.
COMBO!!! X3!
K.O!!!
Wade wins!
Wallace: Ow...
You: That’s what happens when you’re a poser!
Betty: Oh, Wallace... You’re cleaning that up.
Wallace: Yeah... I know.
He proceeds to not clean it up, and instead sits in his chair normally.
The three of you, rather awkwardly, all shove your faces right up to the monitor.
Unfortunately, there’s not much to be gained from... looking at a blank monitor screen.
Well, there are your reflections! How do they look?
...
Not good.
You wouldn’t look out of place in a horror game.
Or Janet Street-Porter’s works.
That fits you better.
Janet Street-Porter’s works.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
To the left, a “man” with short, frizzy brown hair wearing a spiked choker around his neck. He has a disoriented and unamused face, with a black left eye and bruising from his recent tumble, along with faint mutton chops. Disgusting.
In the center, a woman with luxurious shoulder length blonde hair wearing a hippie headband and a pair of rather oversized glasses, with a mischievous looking face. She has a band-aid on her left cheek. Wonder why?
To the right, it’s you! A man with long, curly brown hair wearing a pair of thin framed glasses that actually fit his eyes, and a brown flat cap. You have a tired looking face, with no facial hair, save for a faint mustache. Your jaw is crooked. Damn.
Click!
Whirrrr.....
Clickclickclickclickclickclickclick....
mrrrp!
....
Bip!
The pleasing sounds of a rather silent computer starting up fill an otherwise noiseless room.
Various commands and hardware checks and tests appear across the screen, as a Packard Bell logo appears in the top left. She’s a woman of culture.
“America grew up listening to us. It still does.”
After a surprisingly short wait, the computer boots straight to the splash screen of Chronospace Windowsill ‘99, and rather quickly loads the log-on screen, with a bitcrushed .jpg of the cover to Weezer’s Blue Album as the wallpaper.
“Please input your Chronospace Windowsill username and password.”
User Name: Betty
Password: *****************
Enter.
A rather cheerful tune plays as a rather well-kept desktop loads. There’s a mouse cursor in the center.
Betty: You’re up, Wade.
She rolls back from the desk, waiting for you to take her spot.
You roll your chair to the side, taking the helm, as she takes your spot.
You shove your faces back into the monitor.
The cursor moves over to a folder labeled “Dreamscape!”.
Double click.
The folder hastily opens, and equally hastily reveals the files inside.
The cursor hovers over “Dreamscape.exe” and double clicks.
What appears to be a mix between a Web browser, an instant messenger app, an electronic mail client and a phone dialer all simultaneously appear on the screen.
A pop-up appears on the screen.
It’s a log-in prompt for a dial-up network connection.
E-Mail: [email protected]
Password: ***********
Phone number: (484)-820-1337
Access type: Modem
Service: Dreamscape!
* Do you want to save these details so that sign-on is quicker next time?
Sign-on!
Click!
...
......
Rrrrrrrr-
Beep, boop, beep, beep, bop, boop, bop, bip, bip, beep.
...
Riiiiiiiiinngg......
Riiiiiiiiinngg......
Riiiiiiiiinngg......
Riiiiiiiiinngg......
Riiiiiiiiinngg......
Beeeeep! Beeeep! Beeeep! Beeeep!
Betty: Ugh... Excuse me, guys.
She gets up out of her seat and stomps to her door, opening it, before screaming down the hall:
Betty: TAYLOR!!! GET OFF THE DAMN PHONE!!!
...
You and Wallace look at each other in concern, before looking back at her.
click!
She shuts the door.
Betty: Try it now.
You shove your face back into the monitor.
Click!
...
......
Rrrrrrrr-
Beep, boop, beep, beep, bop, boop, bop, bip, bip, beep.
...
Riiiiiiiiinngg......
Riiiiiiiiinngg......
Dingdingdingbwooooobwaaaaaa... NOOOOOONEEEEEEEEEEEEEBWAAAAAAAKSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHBWBWBWBWOOOOOUUUUMMMKSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHH!!!
The shrill sound of dial-up never goes away.
[SIGN ON REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGED FOR: [email protected]]
[PLEASE WAIT]
[CONNECTION STARTED]
A Web portal with an abundance of hyperlinks and uppercase text appears on the screen.
The main page shows an abundance of hyperlinks to various websites.
The cursor hovers over a link labeled “Dreamscape! User Pages”
Betty: These techies like to put their websites in mundane categories. Try looking far back in the kids’ zone.
Wallace: Why would a techie put their crap in the kids place where... you know, kids can see it?
You: Considering you put your site in the kids zone for a brief period, it’s not that weird.
Wallace: It was a dare!!!
Click.
A list of categories for user websites prints onto the screen.
The available options are:
General
Adults Only 18+
TeenTalk
KidKorner
Search by name, keyword or theme
The cursor hovers over KidKorner and double clicks.
A list of user websites created on Dreamscape! slowly print onto the screen.
The cursor grabs the scroll bar, and slides to the bottom of the page.
A number list from 1 to 19, and a typical Chronospace property notice habits at the bottom of the page.
The cursor hovers over Page 19, and clicks.
A whopping number of TWO pages print onto the screen.
Kassie's Place by [email protected] (https://vinnyflowers.neocities.org/kassies-place.html)
jimmys home by [email protected] (https://vinnyflowers.neocities.org/jimmys-home.html)
You: I don’t think either of these are run by a techie...
Wallace: Hey, you never know!
Betty: He’s right, Wall. A techie always has a bit more than... that, on their page, even if they’re hiding from the public.
You: I don’t know about you guys, but I am not scrolling through all of these pages and clicking on every single page to find one techie.
Betty: Which techie are you even looking for?
You: Her screen-name is cinnapoodle.
Betty: Oh, Rae... I know where she’s hiding.
You: You do?
Wallace: She’s a she?
Betty: I do. What’s better is, she’s in the General tab! In plain sight!
You: Is that good or bad?
Betty: For her, bad. For us, good! This is the URL. (https://vinnyflowers.neocities.org/cinnapoodle) I’ve gone to it before, all I had to do was spoof my IP with that of a leaked Chronospace employee’s.
You: Kickass.
...
......
.........
Betty: What the fuck?
You: Betty, you said you went there! What happened?
Betty: They must have found out that the IP got leaked...
Wallace: But how did they know it was you, Wade?
You: I dunno, but however the hell they’re tracking me...
You look out the window to see a silhouette staring you down, with a glowing red eye.
It’s creeping me out.
Wallace: We should probably get off-line before they get you too, Betty.
Betty: Yeeeaaahh, sorry Wade, but I don’t want to risk my account getting the boot.
You: No trouble. If they’re banning anyone, it’ll probably be me.
You click the X in the top right of the window. A confirmation dialogue appears.
“Are you sure you want to sign off of Chronospace?
→ Yes
→ No
→ Maybe so?”
You click Yes.
The window closes as the modem speaker restarts briefly, emitting dial tone, before shutting off.
The cursor hovers over the Go! button in the taskbar, and clicks it.
The Go! menu, which totally isn’t a copy of the Windows Start menu, prints onto the screen.
The cursor hovers over “Shut Down or Sign Off” and clicks it.
A pop-up appears.
“What do you want to do?
There’s a dropdown. Clicking it, the options are:
Sign out of Windowsill
Shut down your computer
Restart your computer
Restart your computer in Chronospace Disk Operating System”
The cursor clicks “Shut down your computer”, and then clicks “Confirm”.
The desktop fades away as the splash screen reappears briefly, before cutting to black, and an ominous message.
It is now safe to turn off your computer.
Click.
The monitor turns completely black, with only your reflections on it.