Part One (633 KB) - Whoa is (Not)

Marty sighed, sitting up in bed and throwing an impassive glance around his room. His gaze finally
settled on one of the three books some classmate had given him for his seventeenth birthday that year –
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, the second book in the Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy series. The other two he’d received had been the first and third in the series. Marty
had already read the first one (he thought it was funny, though still stupid all the same) but hadn’t
touched the sequels yet. He never really had time to, and they weren’t exactly his kind of books.
Besides, the later half of 1985 had been a particularly stressful time for him. He had too many things to
worry about to have time to read anything outside of schoolbooks and lesson notes.
Reaching over his pillow to the shelves at the head of his bed, Marty picked up the paperback and
flipped aimlessly to the last few pages. “Six by nine. Forty-two,” he read. Forty-two: The Ultimate
Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, as he had learnt from the first book. So six by nine was
the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer
What the…
Marty turned back to the front page and read from the beginning, immersing himself in the crazily weird
world of Arthur Philip Dent and Ford Prefect. He could well do with some cheering up.
Several chapters later, however, he learnt what Disaster Area had named themselves after – Disaster
Area was the name of a band from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Was that legal Hadn’t
the name been copyrighted or something
Just what I needed, Marty thought bitterly, chucking the book aside and slumping back down onto his
bed. Why did everything have to remind him of the competition
Disaster Area. The one he knew comprised of six members: Lewis on lead guitar, Ashley on bass, Eric
on keyboard, Ivan on drums and two kids named William and Theodore who just seemed to hang
around backstage and help move things around.
Disaster Area. The bane of The Pinheads. The members of the two bands had met before, once or
twice; that of the D.A. were actually quite nice people if not for the fact that they had a nasty habit of
always winning all the competitions Marty’s band hoped to.
They’d probably win this one too, Marty thought morosely, wondering if it might not be better to just pull
out of the competition and save his band the embarrassment of losing to Disaster Area yet again.
Chapter Twelve
Inside the Matrix
Two months earlier
The knocking on the door repeated itself a third time, more insistently than the last. A short moment
passed as the knocker paused to listen, but no sound was heard coming from the apartment.
“Thomas” an elderly woman’s voice called out. There was no reply, so she tried again. “Thomas, are
you there”
When only silence met her ears, the landlady dug into her pocket and withdrew a set of keys. Holding
them out to the dim light to make out their labels, she chose one and stuck it into the lock of Neo’s
apartment. The door creaked open, and Mrs. Thatch stepped into the blackness beyond.
Blinking as her failing eyes tried to get used to the dark, she fumbled for the light switch and flicked the
lights on. The overhead lamp lighted up after some hesitation, for it had not been used in a while; the
room’s owner had a certain penchant for living only by the light of his computer.
Better able to see now, Mrs. Thatch surveyed the mess in the apartment and wondered how anyone
could live in such a cluttered place. A light covering of dust over everything gave rise to the inference
that the place didn’t seem to have been touched in several days, but at the same time, it didn’t seem to
have been deliberately abandoned either. The computer still on, equipment strewn all over the tables,
old food packets in the dustbin, unwashed cutlery in the sink…
The room bore an eerie resemblance to one that Mrs. Thatch had read about in the newspapers some
time ago – the room’s owner had spontaneously combusted, and no one knew she had died until
several days later when they found her charred skeleton sitting in a remarkably unscathed chair.