Eurochart #23

When Adam day by day woke up in paradise, he always used to say 'Oooh, this is very nice...'. Not so. Adam woke up, and he didn't find himself in paradise. He found himself in his dirty room, full of dirty socks and underwear, his bed was wet - what did he dream about anyway? Besides, the smell was terrible. And his mother was screaming, to make the disaster complete. So he got up, opened the door and screamed some words at his mum: something like 'fuck off, I'm sleeping', or the like. Apparently it helped, as his mother was now quit. He got back to his room - he always did this with his eyes closed, so he wouldn't be troubled by the mess - and tried to find a decent chair. One was lying under the bed: more than perfect. Time for a little computing. The ever so friendly system-guard at Internet informed him about the things that had been going on during the night, while he was away. He told him sorry for not being there, but SOME sleep had been essential: he had been logged on for a whole week without sleeping a bit, and his parents had started complaining about the phonebill. He didn't care, as long as he didn't need to pay it - and so far, nobody told him so. Now the reason for his recent addiction was a newly opened zone at the Net: a huge game called 'Lost Island'. He cut short the guard and entered the level, immediately welcomed by his friends on the Net: the inhabitants of the Island. Nothing really funny had happened while he was away, so he found out, so he set up a conference and started to discuss the things that had to be done that day. It was necessary to first wake up the crew of sleepers, and to relieve the guards that had been set out. A desolated island may seem to be harmless, but you never can tell. 'Welcome at the NET', a voice sounded. 'You are hooked up on the Lost Island. Today's task mainly conists of finding enough food to survive. A hell of a job, as you haven't really used your reserves well'. Adam sighed, he knew the problems. Some days ago, the ship that had sailed out had been shipwrecked, to the surprise of the crew - all inhabitants of the NET of course - and they had landed on the Island. At first it had seemed a wonderful place, with beautiful trees all over the place, nice blue sees, coconuts, you name it. InterNET had really overdone itself this time. But anyway, soon they ahd realized the task that had lain ahead: how to get off the island, and survive in the mean time... A hard task, as there didn't seem to be any living animals on the island, apart from them of course. A crew of twenty had remained, out of which 2 had already died of hunger, during the first day. A struggle had followed, in which a leader was chosen: this was Adam himself, lucky bastard. His friends welcomed him again, and together they spoke about the food they needed to get. They agreed to send out a search party, and wait for the rest of the day. The sun was shining, but nobody felt like catching a tan: they already had tan to spare anyway. Better do something useful today, like building a better place to live. Actually, they got stuck some days ago: time to ask the NET for a clue. So Adam hooked off, and entered the system-editor: 'Welcome at the helpline', the same voice responded, 'your amaount of clues has been restricted to one, as you haven't made any progress of lately'. Please ask the question, and use the right words!'. Adam sighed again, and typed: 'Hints wanted on survival'. The screen turned black, for a minute Adam thought the connection had been broken by his stupid mother - who was apparently always trying to call her friends when he was logged on, but then, he was logged on most of the day... - but there the screen came back, with a small message: 'your survival rate is not high enough to give full clues. Please ask a more specific question!'. Blast, Adam thought, but there one of the friends came to the rescue. 'Ask about the island', he said, and Adam didn't even need to type in the question anymore, as the voice sounded: 'Good question. The island currently holds foodstacks that will last one month. It's in the forest, but it's hidden'. Boredom ruled, as noone dared to get into the forests alone. There was always the fear of angry creatures, and they hadn't anything to defend themselves with apart from their bare hands - and those weren't too good for defending against tigers or wolves. Then it was time to simply make a small lottery: three freaks found themselves unlucky and had to go: Adam was one of them. Off they went, into the dense woods, not hoping to return anymore - but food was necessary, so were sacrifices. Who cared for a human life, when this was only a game? Or wasn't it? The woods didn't really scare Adam off, as he was always a step ahead of it: the slow InterNET computing made him see a danger minutes ahead. There was a trap, which consisted of a riddle: the whole island was full of these traps, and they were hard to avoid. The NET had the capacity to simply put a trap everywhere they went. Now there was a question, introduced by the voice: 'Answer this one right or out you go!'. Adam inhaled some fresh air, sniffed his nose and said: 'Fire away, stupid NET!'. The two guys standing next to him did the same, and after that the NET chose the question: 'Name the legendary section of TRSI who made a megademo'. One of the dudes screamed that he new the answer, and before Adam could intervene he had already answered 'Dream Design'. A long scream was the result, and then there were two. 'Bastard', said Adam, and he added, nervously: 'that wasn't the answer!'. Then he said: 'TCC of course, sod!'. The NET let go of them, for now: the search continued. With two guys it was even harder to find a way through the woods, still they managed somehow to get to a wide, open field, which was surrounded by a small lake. 'Here lies the answer to the question you asked', said the NET, and then logged off. 'In the lake', said Adam, and he undressed. The other boy looked at him, he probably was afraid that there would be piranhas or something, but Adam said: 'don't worry, the NET wouldn't get us killed by itself!'. Then the other boy undressed as well, and jumped into the lake. Again a long scream: then there was one. What the hell happened? Adam looked around him. Since when was the net capable of throwing out participants by itself? This was really new! He didn't like it one bit, as he now had to watch closely every move he was going to make... But the answer was IN the lake, that was for sure. How to get in there without risking to be thrown off the system? (TO BE CONTINUED!)