I woke in the middle of the night covered in a tepid sweat. I turned my head on my pillow. Being greeted by a frigid pool of wetness, I was shocked instantaneously in consciousness. I had left a small portable heater in my room on all night and, in the heat, had almost drooled myself to death. Slowly I let my eyes adjust to the light emanating from the street light, that softly buzzed below. This is taking too long, I thought to myself.

    "Lights!"     

    The ten, two-hundred watt, halogen lamps that lit my room snapped

into life, blinding me at once. "Off... off... OFF!!!" My pain amplified screams pierced the night. Once again I sat on my bed, letting my eyes adjust lethargically to the dark. I can't wait to get those low-light amps for my eyes. When my eyes were adapted enough to the gloom, I got up from my bed and started to walk in the direction of the heater. The next moment I suddenly found myself flat on my face eating my hard green shag carpeting. I twisted my body enough to see that I had tripped over what felt like mytransmitter. Feeling the warm air blowing from the heating elements of the mini-furnace, I pulled myself off the floor and reached over to clicked the contraption off. When I was finished I went tumbling back to my bed and threw myself upon it. Looking up into infinity, I counted the cracks and the water spots in the deteriorating ceiling. I lay there, alone and bored. I reached behind my ear and removed the dust cap from my datajack. I pulled the thin fiber-optic ribbon off the floor and plugged the trodes in. In one swift motion I picked up my deck and hit the power stud. In the bloodlit dark behind my eyes, silver phosphenes boiled in from the edge of space, hypnagogic images jerking past like film compiled from randomframes. Symbols, figures, faces, a blurred, fragmented mandala of visual information. The smooth cool light of the 3D chessboard extending into infinity, known to most as the Matrix, slide into place. The warmth of the simstem flowed through my veins. I punched in the coordinates for The Amp. The amp was a high energy techno dance club on the south side of the matrix, at least it would be if the matrix had any sides. I was cruising along and stopped as if I had hit a brickwall. Before me stood a wall of gray ICE that I had never seen before. I punched in a code of some lamer I knew and it let me through.

    The frothy water at the bottom of the cliff crashed unmercifully against the broken rock faces bellow. A wave sent a spray of seawater high in the air, filling it with the tangy smell of saltwater. The scene was entrancing. I had to shake my head to bring myself back to my senses. Even though I have seen things as vivid as this before, I'm still amazed every time I jack in, there is always something new, something exciting. There was an unseen hum, like that of a power station at night, I blew it off as if it was nothing. Still, a deep fear nagged at me somewhere in the farthest regions of my mind 'Danger! Leave! Go back!' It would say to me. I paid no attention to it, and kept gazing on..... All went black.

    I could see visions of decaying connections and corroding copper wiring. The acrid smell that filled the air and the buzzing of electricity, which seemed to be coming from inside my head, slowly faded away. They're killing ME!!! said the voice of that fear, a voice that I had heard before, off in the distance. So detached, I didn't evenrecognize it as my own. The view gliched, as if some had pulled the video plug out a bit then, in blink of an eye, put it back into place, as if nothing ever happened. Then.... I fell. Not forwards, mind you, backwards. The buzzing within my cranium grew again, getting increasingly louder by the second. I closed my eyes and screamed.

    After what felt like eons, but probably only lasted nanoseconds, it stopped. When my head cleared I felt udderly alone and helpless. Remembering an old saying the cyber-"gangsters" used to say 'In Cyberspace, no one can hear you scream', a shiver ran down my spine. I open my eyes and found myself back in my room. I began to panic What the hell happened? I franticly clawed at the fiber-optic electrodes behind me ear. Ripping them out, I threw them away from me as if it was the tainted with the Plague. Leaping off my bed, I ran to my junk drawer. Rummaging through it I found what I was looking for, a Yamamitche Diagnostic Board. Carefully I plugged the optic cord, that I had recently flung away, in the socket of the board. I flipped the power and the board sprang to life. Red, yellow, green, blue lights danced too and fro to some unseen electronic beat. As soon as it started it was over. Bright, bold letters stood out on the LCD screen "DF 107,1.01,.01" it read. Grabbing the manual, I flipped back to the error ago. I flipped through the manual reading the codes at the top of each page, DF 10, DF 37, DF 63, DF 92, Ah! DF 107."

Device Failure code 107

Syntax: DF 'code',DF Time: 'minutes.seconds',Relay Reaction Time : 'minute.seconds'. i.e DF 107,0.30,.0.01 would equal a 31 second flatline.

    DF 107 is a built in fail safe device that activates if user flatlines while online. The relay will automatically"Jack" the user out if DF time approaches one (1) minute, any long amount of time wouold induce brain damage or in some cases even death...

    "Damn, that total time equals one minute two seconds, cheap Japanese crap, I need to get that checked out."

    "That deck you sold me is a piece of crap!" I yelled at Bob, a part time ninja, full time warezman.

    "What are you talking about?" He said, looking at me through the view screen with that innocent look that all warezmen seem to have. I heard a giggle that came from somewhere behind him. I recognized it has his "girl", which he seemed to have a new one every month, but for some reason this one had stayed around for awhile. She came over and kissed him gently on the cheek. Her silver hair reflected the light, sending rainbows of color over her "mans" face.     

    "I gotta DF 107 error."

    "A what?" he said, shooing her away.

    "I flatlined damn IT!"

    "Blah, it happens all the time. The relay kicks in and your fine, a little light headed but fine."

    "Yeah, it kicked in all right. Kicked in two seconds too late."

    "Really, hmmm, how long you say you were out for?"

    "A little over a minute."

    "And what were you doing at the time?" He listened intently as I told him what had happened.

    "Sounds like to me that you hit a patch of black ICE. I'll check it out for you, of course."

    "Thanx man." I said as he hit the off button. I sat there looking at my own reflection in the dark screen.