Sydney Zombie Lurch

Originally uploaded by dreadfuldan

Can’t yet find a full body shot of my Zombie outfit for the Sydney Zombie Lurch 2008, but here’s a close up until I can get some more

Mark placed a hand to his temple and touched the smooth white disk attached there. It began to glow as the familiar spinning Twirl logo replaced the vision in his left eye. The customary cold shiver ran down his spine as updates from the TwitNet stream synced with his brain.

A number of messages caught Mark’s attention.

MarkyBoy What’s all this about @Falconar?

The reply was, as always, almost instantaneous.

eSparky @MarkyBoy Hey there sleepy head, did you only just log on? @Falconar died late last night.

MarkyBoy @eSparky What? I was just talking to her last night. How?

eSparky @MarkyBoy Fucking Fail Whale halfway through a FSU. She’s a fucking vegetable.

The Full Status Update – a complete scan of your blood preasure, temperature, toxins, organ, bone and muscle health along with a short term memory, recent thoughts, dreams and fantasies.

TwitNet had launched the FSU system late last year, following a decade of controversy over it’s first trial, and it was already enormously popular, allowing users to literally share experience and feelings with their trusted network.

MarkyBoy @eSparky Are you sure it was a Fail Whale?

eSparky @MarkyBoy Would I joke about some crazy Scoble Crew stunt?

Mark’s father had told him how in the early days of the TwitNet the Fail Whale had been a cute in joke, back when the scalability meant the service was occasionally down. Now, powered by the very minds that used the network through Organic Grid Based Servers, the Fail Whale was anything but cute.

One of the original users, who Mark and most knew only as The Scoble, had volunteered to be the first to try the new FSU technology. It was unclear whether there was something wrong with the theory or whether there was simply an overload, but when Scoble work up he claimed to have spoken to God and renounced all technology. Five minutes late he fled from the TwitNet HQ with only the hospital gown he’d been wearing and hadn’t been seen since.

The other updates were rolling past Mark’s eyes as fast as ever and pulled him back to reality. His Followers were scared.

JJPJr Apparently all the screens showed the Whale and then went black, there was nothing they could do. So Sad.

AlisonSayer How could he have done it though?

SubPixel I heard he’s hiding in a cave somewhere.

PureTea @AlisonSayer It’s not just him, he’s got people following him. There are cells everywhere.

CamillaReilly I’m recording a show later about @Falconar. DM if you want to be involved.

FunkCodette I read in the Herald the other day he can reach in through the network and control your Tweets.

aCD @FunkCodette Do you know the skills it would take to break that encryption? It’s not possible.

MarkyBoy @eSparky I’m going to switch off and go back to sleep.

eSparky @MarkyBoy Catchya l8r

Mark pressed TwitNet disk again and his temple stopped glowing. It was all too much to deal with this early in the morning. Sad to lose Falconar, but the Scoble’s attacks had been increasing for years now; everyone knew it no matter what the official TwitNet line was.

Mark closed his eyes and lay back down. He had to get up soon to get to the gallery for the LOLCat Retrospective launch, but hopefully by then it would all have blown over.

As Mark drifted off he was aware of a cold shiver down his spine and swore he saw the image of a whale flicker over his left eye…

[The characters in this story are based in no way upon real people. On a completely unrelated note the Twitter folk known as Eskimo_Sparky, JJProjects, AndrewSayer, Pixel8ted, NathanaelB, CameronReilly, Funkycoda and aDB are all very cool people.]