CHAPTER XV

It was the second day of the Rolling Stones concert at the island with no name, deep in the Indian Ocean, and all web-links led there. Display-drivers, network-adaptors, and even worms, all jostled for bandwidth, as pretty much the entire universe of rock fans tuned in. (Reader Note 4: It is little wonder that the Rolling Stones are still alive and will be too, for a while. Robert Johnson can eat his heart out; these guys had actually sold their livers and gall bladders to the Devil himself. There is an internet legend doing the rounds that Mick Jagger threw in a couple of inches of experienced rock-vocalist dick too. And they even corroborated Johnson’s claim (In ‘Oh Brother Where Art Thou? (Paramount, 2001) that the Devil is a white man. This they did in a 2017 interview with Mojo.) Among the many avid fans hooked on to the broadcast was none other than the yet-elusive Stan. After he’d camouflaged all his tracer programs and cookies, he found himself a cosy corner on the Worli-Bandra sea-rail, and didn’t budge for the next week, knowing well that they would never look in there. The last he heard of the situation was that Operation Bongo might be activated, and not knowing at all what that meant, he had informed Mario to keep all systems on go. The concert started soon after, and he didn’t really care what happened now. He was happy, a soft mellow overpowering Keith Richards kind of happy. Then, he looked askance at his usual processing unit, lying on the seat next to him, and saw the light blinking furiously. They must have gone mad trying to get in touch. Suddenly, his own alternative gamma-cranium buzzed! But how could it, he wondered, no one but Mario knew this handle of his. And Mario, of course was too lazy and too stupid to even worry. He logged in...

Stan Da Man: Yo Mario, whassup dude?
Fat Bastard (Mario): Emergency, boss... emergency!
Stan Da Man: Yeah?
Fat Bastard: Yep boss, they’ve asked to activate Operation Bongo.
Stan Da Man: So go ahead and do it, bozo.
Fat Bastard: But boss...
Stan Da Man: Don’t ‘if’ and ‘but’ me, mo’fucker, just do whatever you have to.
Stan Da Man: And don’t bug me for every little thing!
Fat Bastard: What about the cyber-nukes?
Stan Da Man: What cyber-nukes?
Fat Bastard: The one we need to activate, along with my boys.
Stan Da Man: No one told me about no frikkin cyber-nukes!
Fat Bastard: But you told me to get it all moving for Op Bongo, didn’t you know about the nukes? All eleven of them
Stan Da Man: Fuckin hell!
Fat Bastard: They’re good to go, anyway... just gimme the word. All I need is the password
Stan Da Man: Who has the password, Einstein?
Fat Bastard: You do, boss, you do
Stan Da Man: And who’s Da Man? Huh?
Fat Bastard: You are... You Da Man
Stan Da Man: So go fuck yourself and don’t bug me no more... I’ll ping you when I need to. And don’t talk to ANYONE, understand?
Fat Bastard: Roger that.
Stan Da Man: Over and fucking out, freak.
Fat Bastard: Yessir, Boss.

Stan logged off, beads of acrid sweat streaming down his face and back. Cyber-nukes! He thought. No way. Even Bob wouldn’t dream of nuking all of cyber space. It had to be that evil witch Aloysia, sweet little Aloysia (sweet my arse, he thought). He logged off the concert broadcast (what the heck, he’d see them the next decade anyway), fitted his original issue gamma-cranium (which was by now buzzing with missed pings) and packed up his hacked alternative processor unit. He decided that he’d have to save the world now. He strapped his bum bag on, walked to the edge of the speeding craft, and executed a perfect swan dive into the cold waters of the Arabian Sea with practiced ease. – D.H