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Chapter 5
Jack woke up the next morning and sure enough, there was a ticket to the Linux convention in the mail. Jack then went to boot up his computer when he heard the doorbell ring. We went to open it. He saw at the door two men in sunglasses and in overcoats. “Hello Jack.”, the first one said.
“Hey. Uh… how are you doing?”
“Just fine.”, said the other one.
“My name is Mr. Jones, and this is my assistant Mr. Spear. May we come in?”
“Well, Ok.”
The two men walked in, and sat on the couch.
“Can I do anything for you?” said Jack.
“No… but you could answer some questions for us.”
Jack suddenly realized that these people were probably sent by Microsoft or something. So he had to be careful of what he said.
“We understand you have been contacted by a certain individual named Linuxking666. We consider him to be the deadliest man alive.”
“Uh… hmmm… well, I have never heard of this Linuxking666.”
“No. You seem to be mistaken. Our sources are very reliable.”
“Hmm, well, maybe it was that kid down the street. He seems kind of weird.”
“It seems you have been living two lives Mr. Rear. In one life, you go by the name of Jack Rear: a humble student with an unhealthy love of computers. The other life, you go by the screen name purplehe/she0000: a rebel against every OS except for Linux. One of these lives has a… umm… well, the other life does not have a future for sure.
We would like to make a proposal for you. If you would hand over Linuxking666, we will give you free food and computer products for as long as you live.”
Jack thought this over for a bit. This was a very tempting offer. But he knew that his cause was greater. He could not let them have Linuxking666.
“Well, that’s a tempting offer,” said Jack “but how about this: how about I show you where the sun doesn’t shine...” Then Jack got up, turned around, and mooned his guests.
“AHHH!!! MR. REAR THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE! PULL YOUR PANTS BACK UP!!!”
The other one said, “NOOO!! IT’S TOO BRIGHT!! RUN AWAY!!”
And so, both of the men ran out the door screaming.
Jack smiled. He had never done anything that worked so well. Now he was out of danger.
“What did you do that for?” said a voice.
Jack turned around and Tux was speaking.
“I didn’t know you could talk!” said Jack
“Well, at first I didn’t want to startle you. But the truth is, they put a speaking device in me.”
“Wow! So whenever I am lonely I can talk to you?”
“NO! I am not your friend! I am your safe gateway to the Linux world around you! Don’t you understand that?”
“Oh…”
“Now why did you moon those men?”
“It seemed like a good idea. And it worked didn’t it?”
“You must think like an agent of the Linux Association! Didn’t they give you an operative’s handbook?”
“Handbook? I didn’t know anything about a handbook!”
“Ok… looks like we will have to get that mailed to you also.”
“Why don’t you just e-mail it to me?”
“E-mail? Are you crazy! With a 56k modem like that?!? Well, besides that, e-mail is very unsafe. Microsoft runs almost the entire Internet. If we tried to send you the handbook by e-mail, they would have it and all of our secrets the second we pressed the send button. Boy! You sure do have a lot to learn.”
Note: Similarity of any of the characters in this story, dead or alive, is probably not coincidental.