Author’s
Notes: This is the same excerpt of the story that was on my NaNo profile, but
there’s extra context at the beginning and end so that there’s new stuff to
read even for those of you who’ve already read it. I chose it for my profile
excerpt because I think it’s a good representative of the story content, plot
and style. There’s a mixture of narrative and online chat (and I admit, I’m not
sure how accurate my descriptions of BBS chat are, but I based them on the
information I have available), a bit of late 80s technology, some familiar
names from the Peter Pan canon, an
interesting revelation or two and hints towards the larger plot. I wanted to
give people a flavour of how the characters will be depicted in this universe,
and give them a sense of the setting. By and large, I used the same criteria
when I picked the first excerpt to post in this blog.
On with
the show!
---
The building was dark, but not deserted at this time of night.
There were a couple of guys sitting at terminals who looked up and nodded as
Wendy came in, then went back to what they’d been doing. Wendy sat down and
dialled in the number for the CompuChat BBS, which by now she knew off by
heart. It felt like forever since she’d last accessed the board at home.
By now, Wendy’s reply to the secretive user ‘Tiger Lily’ had
disappeared off the board, and in the week or so since she’d made the post,
nothing had come of it. Wendy was relieved and disappointed in equal measure.
Her search for ‘The Neverland’ had already hit a dead end and she wasn’t sure
where to go from here.
At almost the exact second she thought this, her screen split in
two and a chat opened up on the right-hand half of the screen, headed by the
words,
TIGER LILY WANTS TO
CHAT
Wendy sat bolt upright in her chair, accidentally banging her knee
on the underside of the table. A hundred questions whirled through her mind,
but before she could begin typing any of them, Tiger Lily was already talking.
I’ve been waiting to
run into you again.
Well, that
doesn’t sound ominous, Wendy thought.
You should stop
trying to look for The Neverland. You don’t know what you’re involving yourself
in.
And nor
does that. Wendy frowned as she read over Tiger Lily’s second message. She was looking for The Neverland, but Tiger
Lily couldn’t know about the notes that she’d scribbled onto a pad of paper or
the board histories she’d read through trying to find a mention of the place.
The only thing that Tiger Lily had to go on was the post that Wendy had made on
CompuChat a week ago, but all she’d done was make an observation. To then
assume on that basis that she was actively searching for The Neverland seemed
like a bit of a leap of logic. Tiger Lily was pretty obviously paranoid – but
why?
Wendy realised that she should say something in reply. It was
clear that Tiger Lily had some vested interest in The Neverland; maybe they
were a hacker. This could be the lead that Wendy had been looking for. With her
heart in her mouth, she began to type.
You’ve obviously got
some connection to The Neverland. Are you a hacker?
The reply was almost immediate.
That’s none of your
business.
Wendy’s eyes narrowed. How could Tiger Lily say that when they
were the one who had been forcibly involving themselves in what Wendy was doing
on-line?
It’s none of your
business whether I’m looking for The Neverland or not, but you’re interfering
anyway. What’s so bad about looking for a BBS? Non-specific ominous
declarations won’t get you anywhere unless you elaborate.
The problem with BBS chat systems was that the text appeared in
real time on the other person’s screen as you typed, and if you changed your
mind about the wording of something and deleted it, they could see what you
were doing. Wendy slightly regretted the rudeness of what she’d just written to
Tiger Lily, but there was no taking it back. She waited to see how the other
user would react.
The message she received took her by surprise.
Are you female?
The user name ‘Wendybird’ was fairly obviously feminine, but Wendy
refrained from a sarcastic response.
Yes. Are you?
Yes.
Wendy felt strangely as if she’d just made a connection with the
other girl. In spite of her annoyance towards Tiger Lily, they’d found common
ground. Women were rare enough on BBSes that there was always a sense of
solidarity when you encountered another woman. Female System Operators – and
female hackers – were rarer still.
Perhaps prompted by this, Tiger Lily began to open up a little to
Wendy. Wendy read with interest as her typing appeared on the screen.
I’ll be honest with
you. Until quite recently, I was involved with The Neverland and
There was a pause in Tiger Lily’s typing; Wendy imagined the girl
at the other end (though she had no idea what she might look like) hesitating
with her hands poised over the keyboard.
with the System
Operator. That’s finished now, but I’m still quite protective of that board.
It’s hard for me to disassociate myself completely.
Wendy had not expected that one. She was dying to question Tiger
Lily about this history and euphemistic “involvement” with Neverland’s SysOp,
but she felt like it would be too forward. Instead she asked,
Why did you say that
I don’t know what I’m involving myself in?
There was a long pause, and a few times words appeared on the
screen and then were deleted as Tiger Lily changed her mind about what she
wanted to say. Either she was trying to find the best way to express herself,
or she was withholding some information. Or both.
The Neverland isn’t
just an ordinary hackers’ hangout where illicit users gather to download warez
and exchange trade secrets. It’s nothing so pedestrian as that.
Which was all very well, but Wendy didn’t really want to know what
The Neverland wasn’t, she wanted to
know what it was.
Then what is it
like?
It’s hard for me to
summarise. The Neverland is a closed community made up of elite hackers. They
can do things with computers that developers haven’t even thought of yet.
What’s more, the SysOp
But before Tiger Lily could finish her sentence, something strange
happened. The screen blinked, quickly, and the text when it reappeared was
altered somehow. There were odd symbols dispersed throughout the chat history.
Then a message appeared below what Tiger Lily had been writing.
TIɴKƎRBƎLL H∆S ƎɴTƎRƎD
THƎ CH∆T
Wendy stared in disbelief. It wasn’t possible for three users to
converse in chat at once. Sure, the idea had been thought of and there was a
possibility of it developing somewhere down the line, but as of the moment no
BBS on BITNET or ARPANET could support three-way chat. What was going on? The
modem began to whir and gutter even harder, as if struggling to cope with the
presence of this intruder.
I thɨnk you’vɛ saɨd ɛnough
now, Tɨgɛr Liɬy.
Goodnɨght.
The strange font appeared instantly in a line on the screen, with
no laborious letter-by-letter assembly. In the next instant, Tiger Lily
disappeared from the chat.
TIGƎR LILY H∆S
LøGGƎD øUT
Wendy sat stunned, with no idea how to react to what she had just
witnessed. She tried to type something, to communicate with this ‘Tinkerbell’,
but the computer only beeped at her in response. Then, abruptly, the screen
went black.
“What?!” Wendy exclaimed out loud. “No, no, what just happened?!”
“Someone must’ve tripped a wire,” said a voice, and Wendy jumped
as she remembered that she wasn’t, in fact, alone in the room. One of the guys
from earlier was still sitting at his terminal; he gave her a sympathetic
smile. “It happens at times, but the system will be back on-line soon. Were you
working on something important?”
Wendy blushed slightly. She must have looked like a real madwoman,
shouting at the computer screen. “No, I just thought I’d caused an error or
something. My screen was doing these weird things…” She trailed off, unsure as
to whether it was a good idea to tell anyone about what had just happened.
“What number terminal are you at? I’ll have someone take a look at
it,” the guy offered.
“Don’t worry, I think it was just a bug in the BBS,” Wendy said
quickly. She didn’t want the university technicians to start investigating an
error which Wendy was sure had nothing to do with the hardware. She stood up.
“I should get back to my dorm now, it’s quite late…”
“All right,” said the guy, smiling at her. “See you later.”
---
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