i lied.

yeah. thats right. i lied. sorry folks. but what I'm about to tell you was way too much to get off my chest at that particular time. So heres the real story as to what ncpx really is.

the place where I work used to be a massive Apple complex (apple as in the company that makes iPods and Mac computers etc.) and it was built in the 1970s. In it was stored a lot of Australia's prime technology - the best shit you could get in the country at the time and a lot of research went on there - a recently declassified joint venture between the Australian Govt. and Apple.

anyway, this place was vacated by the late 90s and has been vacant 'till we came in 08 and started building our shit. as part of the opening team I got to inspect the place during the final stages of construction. so walking around the main areas of the joint I got pretty bored and decided to go up some stairs (and I didn't get stuck in them).

So I ended up on the uppermost floor, and walked for what seemed like ages past odd pipes, access panels, gauges, a boiler room, and miscellaneous junk leftover from the 30-year party that Apple threw in here before we came. That was until I get to an interesting door - a fuckin' huge vault door with an electronic number pad on it, left ajar. Wahey, ace. I'd come across something interesting! The trip was worth it.

The thing was pretty damn large so I had to shove it with my shoulder for it to move. So, all 80+ kilos of me accelerating into this door made it move quite shy of 1 meter. After shaking the dust from the vault slab off my shoulder and making a few curious peeks around the corner from under the door frame, I walked into the room.

Wasn't that big. It housed 6 tall lockers (the really old school type), some bookshelves, rearranged computer desks (with very old monitors left behind on them) and files of shit allover the floor. What I found most interesting though, was a metal pillbox type thing I found stuck to the bottom of one of the desks. So I side-kicked that shit off. Picked it up, put it next to my ear and gave it a shake. And sure enough there was stuff in there. So obviously I wanted to open it because I was eager to know what was left inside here (instead of just being chucked around on the floor) but the top wouldn't budge. It probably seized up with age, with the rust and buildup and shit like that. So I ran back to the main area to get something to pry it open with.

All the tradeys, various contractors and my superiors were too busy overlooking the project so I just walked up to the nearest tool box and racked the biggest flat-head screw driver in there. I jogged past the pipes, access panels, gauges, a boiler room and miscellaneous junk back to the security door and stopped right under the door frame.

"Why. the fuck. are the lights on?"

It's kinda freaky when you stumble across an interesting room with a busted open vault-thing, at the end of a long hallway of industrial shit-and-mess, in dead silence with no one around - and then find that the lights are on . I looked around for a light switch - there was none. THe only reason why I could see in there before was because there was light from the hallway outside - just enough to dimly light the room.

Fuck it, I thought. Probably just automatic. I wedged the end of the screwdriver under the lid and levered it upwards. Wasn't easy but, after some good yakka and elbow grease it opened. And as soon as the lid flicked off, a caged red light on the wall to my right turned on. No coincidence, for sure. It must have tripped it.

Seconds after, I heard a computer boot from inside one of the large desk drawers. I'm assuming it was an old school computer because the fan was so fucking loud, and it sounded like the one my dad bought for me and my sister back when I was in first grade (it was so shit, but it ran Diablo 1 and that was cool enough for me).

But, yeah. I was pretty freaked out. But so interested - so I flicked through the neat piles of documents that were in the pillbox. I flicked the pages with my thumb until I felt a paper clip and decided to open it there. It was used to attach a little handwritten note onto an A4 page

Username: jbriggs_apple29
Password: **********(I don't remember what it was)

Cool. I just got a login and password for something. The computer turned on anyway, so I figured it would have something to do with that, captain obvious.

It was REALLY primitive. The type that only came in two-tone. That bright digital green in that terrible DOS font. And needless to say, it had no operating system. Only text based commands , Y/N , >run kind of thing yea?

at first there was just a flashing green underscore on the top left of the screen. So I hit enter, to see if I would get a response. The computer made some clicking noises (the type your PC makes when loading) and was confronted with a login screen! Woohoo, time to try out my login. So I type it, and hit enter.

...

nothing happens.

I hit enter again. And wait.

Shit, nothing happens. I try hitting enter again and again but it seems frozen. The underscore stopped flashing, and the computer stopped loading (because it stopped making clicking noises). So I kicked the drawer where the machine to maybe get the machine responding again, and sure enough it did.

"Confirm? Y/N "

I hit Y (Y means Yes, N means No)

more clicking noises.



Then . Shit got real.

My face pretty close to the screen with anticipation of some possibly cool info, a deafening beep sounded from the computer - and it scared the SHIT out of me. I jumped back, and the flashing underscore spammed over and over again, on the left side of the screen:

ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx
ncpx

Over, and over, and over, and over, and over.

I dunno, I just got scared. What the fuck? It beeps loud as fuck at me and I go into momentary cardiac arrest, and its telling me ncpx. I hit enter again.

"Initiate ncpx? Y/N"

Fuck I didn't know so I just hit Y.

The red light on the wall flashed, the computer made a louder fucking beep, and - yep, all the lights turned off. So here I am, shocked off my nuts, in complete darkness because EVEN THE LIGHTS IN THE HALLWAY WERE OFF.

I just stood there, for a few seconds, I didn't know what to fucking do. I completely forgot that I had a phone in my pocket with a light, I was just scared yo.

But then the tin lockers started trembling. Yep. Fuck that. I needed to get outta there, because I meddled and I came across shit I shouldn't have. I ran back towards the other direction, in complete darkness. I think I tripped like, twice. And I'm out in the main area... only to find that the last of the tradeys had gone home for the day. I was the last fucking person in the building.

.. yeah.



Love,

ncpx. x