Jonny Neurotic

Robert Hurvitz

Copyright (c) 1991

Jonny stared intently at his reflection in the mirror, searching for a tell-tale glint of light on his forehead. There was none. Perfect, he thought, everything's working out perfect. He frowned and added as an afterthought, Too perfect. He glanced down at his workbench littered with drill bits, screwdrivers, random-sized pieces of wire, textbooks. Jonny smiled, reassured. In his right hand, he still clenched his Mitsubishi power drill. He looked back at the mirror.

He had been letting his hair grow unchecked for the last year, anxiously awaiting the day it would be long enough to completely cover his forehead. Jonny squinted at his reflection. Again, he could catch no sign of what lay covered beneath the wave of hair that flopped down past his eyebrows. He let out a short, sharp laugh.

They all said I was mad, Jonny thought. Said it right to my face. A combined major in electrical engineering, computer science, and neurobiology was insane, they exclaimed. Pure lunacy! And why such a major? All for an obsession with science fiction. I should be committed, they hollered.

Wait till they get their next phone bills, Jonny thought, then we'll see who's mad. He snickered at his pun.

He put down the drill and triumphantly swept his hair clear of his forehead, letting the sight of his newly-installed chrome modular jack dazzle him. The bleeding had stopped, and his skin bulged slightly and curled in against the cool metallic surface. It's beautiful, Jonny thought.

He picked up his well-worn copy of `Neuromancer' and headed to the kitchen, where he pulled a six-pack of Coke from the refrigerator. He went back to his bedroom, closing and locking the door behind him to assure his privacy from any jeering house-mates who might happen to barge in for a laugh.

He flopped onto his bed, pulled off a Coke, and chugged it down, impatiently waiting for the caffeine to hit his system. He threw the empty can across the room, watching the light reflect off the damp aluminum as it arced toward his recycling bin/laundry basket. The can landed, clattering loudly, and Jonny pulled off another Coke.

After the third can, he could feel nerves begin to twitch.

Jonny bounded out of bed, picked up his phone, and settled down in front of the wall. He turned the phone over and unplugged the jack; then he put the phone aside. He reached over to his bed and picked up his copy of `Neuromancer', tucking it snugly under his shirt, next to his heart. He twisted his legs into the lotus position. Now he was ready. With a trembling hand, Jonny positioned the plug just inside his jack. His heart pounding out of control, he broke out in a cold sweat as he jacked in.

And he screamed as his senses seemed to explode. Blinding chaos surged around him, howling in his ears, digging into the pit of his stomach. His arms flailed about, and his head jerked back then snapped forward.

When Jonny opened his eyes, he was sprawled on the floor in his room, his clothes drenched with sweat. His head pounded as if an alien larva was trying to escape the confines of his skull. He tried to sit up, but the room spun crazily around him, and he ended up flat on his back again. He waited a minute, taking several deep breaths, and tried again, this time succeeding. He looked at the wall jack, the phone cord spilling out of it and ending several feet away. He gingerly touched his chrome jack. I must have hit the cord with my arm and pulled it out, Jonny thought.

Then he tried to remember what had happened when he'd jacked in. He shivered. What I need, he concluded as he got up and headed to his bed, is more caffeine. He pulled off another can and gulped the Coke resolutely. After finishing off another, Jonny went back to the phone jack, bringing the last can with him. He was really wired now. This time, he plugged himself in without a moment's hesitation.

There was no chaos. Instead, he found himself in the middle of what looked to be a computer-generated image of a forest. From a dark green, pulsating ground sprouted hundreds of brown cylinders, complete with clusters of light green leaves surrounding the tops. There was absolutely no sound, but when he closed his eyes, Jonny could imagine the loa whispering through the treetops on a cybernetic breeze. Man, Jonny thought, this is SO cool. It's beautiful, just beautiful.

An idea dawned on him just then. William Gibson's phone number ought to be here, he thought. I've got to call him, tell him everything! He could feel himself clutch `Neuromancer' tightly to his chest. Yes, Jonny concluded, Gibson must know about this.

But, first things first. He'd have his revenge on his tormenters. He guessed that each tree handled a different function, that the leaves were data structures, and that the pulses flashing this way and that beneath his feet were messages being passed from tree to tree. So, keeping a lookout for any security programs, he moved cautiously towards the closest tree. When he reached it, he noticed a faint red tinge on the trunk. Probably security stuff, Jonny thought warily.

He carefully concentrated on the security system, and a few moments later Jonny had the program in mind. Scanning through the code, he deftly added a few lines to the program, thereby effecting it to ignore him. Jonny smirked. I rule here now, he thought.

He poked his head into the tree, and gasped. Billions of tiny bits of information skittered this way and that, like snow on a Sony television set. Jonny blinked a few times, then began to think intently. Soon, the tree's purpose presented itself: call waiting. Incredible, he thought, but not what I'm after. Jonny left the tree, marking it for future reference, and went around to the others.

A half hour later, he found the tree that handled billing information. After a few moments, Jonny figured out how to manipulate the data. He concentrated on his friends' phone numbers, reached into the data with his mind, and went to work. He added hours to the time spent on long distance calls, increased their rates, and tacked on more surcharges. That would show them, he thought, giggling.

He noticed as he exited the tree that the red tinge on its bark was spreading, moving towards him. That's odd, Jonny thought, did the security program notice me? I thought I'd fixed it.

Then the red tinge jumped. Translucent red tendrils grabbed hold of him and reached into his mind. Violent, chaotic thoughts raced through Jonny's head. But one thought rose above all the frenzied nonsense, and that thought was to spread, reproduce itself, no matter what the cost.

Jonny gasped in horror and revulsion as he realized was being invaded by a computer virus. He instinctively slammed down mental walls and lashed out at any remaining traces of virus.

The red tinge retreated back to the tree.

I bet it wasn't expecting anything like THAT, thought Jonny. He then marked the tree and left for a clearing in the forest in order to think.

A virus? he pondered. Why would someone put a virus in the phone network? Then again, why WOULDN'T someone put a virus in the phone network? A bored student, a professional hacker--could be almost anybody. Normally I wouldn't really give a damn, Jonny thought, but this virus attacked ME. He sighed, and then concluded, I can't let my cyberspace be overrun with these things.

Jonny smirked. From a cyberpunk to a cybercop.

Gibson just HAD to hear about this.

As he made his way back to that last tree, Jonny allocated himself a large chunk of RAM, wrote a search program keyed to the virus's code, and let it run. With the leftover memory, he made a box and fiddled with the access codes so that it could only be written into, not read from. Write-Only Memory. Jonny snickered.

The red tinge had been piling up on the ground next to him while he worked and showed no signs of stopping. He checked on the progress of his program and sighed. It would take many more minutes to finish.

Jonny sat down, and a wave of exhaustion swept over him. Damn, he thought, I can't afford to lose my mental edge; a mistake now could prove fatal. So he concentrated, felt his hand move to his forehead, and he jacked out.

Jonny opened his eyes, stared at the wall of his room, then slowly looked around. Everything--the unmade bed, the cluttered desk, the stained drapes--everything looked drab all of a sudden. Hmm, he thought. Then he shrugged, shotgunned the last Coke, and jacked back in.

He stood in the forest, next to his WOM box. The mound of red tinge reached his chest level. He checked on his program and found that it had ended successfully.

As Jonny reached forward to begin shoveling the virus into the box, the red tinge shifted, moved, sent out pseudopodia which coalesced into arms, legs, and a head, and became Richard Nixon.

Jonny screamed in terror and jumped back. This couldn't be happening, he thought frantically.

The Nixon figure crossed its arms and said, "Let's be reasonable, Jonny. I'm sure we can work something out."

Jonny cringed. "But-- but-- you're a virus!"

A shocked, insulted look came over Nixon's features. Nixon then lifted up his hands, his fingers in peace symbols, and said, shaking his head, "I am not a virus."

Jonny scratched his head.

And Nixon lunged, howling, arms outstretched, three-inch blades protruding from its fingertips. It grabbed hold of Jonny and squeezed hard, trying to rip his mind to shreds.

Jonny shrieked, backed away, and tried to slam down his mental walls. But this time he was too late, the virus had too strong of a grip. His mind was overcome with those destructive thoughts, and he struggled to keep a hold onto a part of himself in order to reach out, to do something against the virus.

He writhed in agony as he felt his brain being turned into cheese- whiz. He was vaguely aware of himself muttering, "I am not a virus. I am not a virus. Kill. Kill. Destroy."

Then that last dose of caffeine hit his system, and he managed to grasp the WOM box. With a dopamine and adrenaline surge, Jonny lifted up his box and slammed it down on the virus. It screamed, tried to climb out, tried to re-establish the grip on Jonny's mind that it had abruptly lost. He slammed down the lid, sealed it.

Then Jonny deleted the box, contents and all.

He sighed and leaned heavily against the nearby tree. As quickly as the caffeine jolt had hit him it faded away. I need another Coke, he thought wearily.

Jonny wandered about the forest in a daze. After what seemed days, he collapsed against the base of a tree. He peered inside instinctively and saw it was the main long-distance handling tree. At random, he picked a phone number, heard a ringing, and waited for someone to answer.

A minute later, there was a click, and then a voice that said, "Hello? William Gibson speaking."

Jonny's eyes shot open, and he could feel a second wind starting to blow strong within himself. He committed the number to memory and jacked out.

Robert Hurvitz is a student at UC Berkeley. His only other published story, `The Big Joke', appeared in the December '90 issue of Quanta. He wrote `Jonny Neurotic' 2 to 3 years ago and was content to let it sit compressed in a deeply nested subdirectory, but, after Dan's heartfelt plea for submissions, Robert dusted it off and sent it along.

hurvitz@cory.berkeley.edu