The God Equation and Other Stories by A.R. Co Michael

Author:A.R. Co, Michael
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Published: 2010-12-28T16:00:00+00:00

“The Off Season” copyright © 2007 by Michael A.R. Co. First published in the Christmas edition of the Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, 2007.

IN THE EYES OF MANY

In the eyes of many, he was “paranoid about privacy, passionate about porn, and”—as his public profile made plain—“prevalently peppered his phrases with P’s.” Later, when the police finally caught up with him, he was prosecuted for “perverse and predatory behavior” in an indictment that was also written, on purpose no doubt, in preposterous purple prose. The judge was not amused and dismissed the charges for lack of merit. The prosecutor was also cited for contempt.

But for now, Pete Portacio enjoyed what seemed like perfect anonymity. Almost. Every morning, after checking his cell phone for text messages, using the toilet, and abusing himself in the shower, he’d switch on his PC screen, check his torrents, access his inbox, and ritually delete half a dozen or so emails from the wife/daughter/son of a very important, but recently deceased, government official. Then he’d make himself a cup of 3-in-1 instant coffee, a cup of instant noodles, return to his workstation, and read the rest of his emails. On this particular morning, however, he received no word from his Nigerian pen pals, but more disconcertingly, none from his online friends.

This was strange because one of his online identities, pinoy_playboy69, was a popular professional blogger, moderator of several adult-only social networking websites, and the best "friend of a friend" anyone could have. He was tolerant of queers but very hetero; liberal in his politics but staunchly anti-commie. He was a lurker who didn’t offend anybody and didn’t make any demands. Although he had more pet peeves than guilty pleasures, he never imposed his opinions on anyone, and he knew the difference between revelation and denial. He also loved to chat with strangers, especially bored housewives, teenage girls, or even guys who pretended to be girls. After all, he was a tolerant man.

Kittycutie15 was currently online. He met her three weeks ago while lurking in a singles group, and they’ve chatted a number of times. He instant messaged her: “Hiya! wazzap :)” Seconds later, her smiley icon went to sleep, indicating that she had gone offline. He would’ve felt slighted if he had actually met her in person. Instead, he shrugged and assumed she wasn’t in the mood.

He checked out the blogosphere (no updates in the last 12 hours), logged on to his Friendster, Facebook, and MySpace accounts as “Pedro Potenciano” (nothing new there either), then scanned the news: Terror plot foiled in Germany - Beijing police to patrol the web - EU official seeks to ban access to bomb-making websites - Russia and China deny cyberattacks -YouTube no longer banned in Thailand - Burma blocks Internet - Facebook adds safety measures -

A dialog box popped up. Koji Hentai’s Bathroom Spy vol. 19 in .avi format had just finished downloading. He ran the video, and after a few minutes of un-subtitled opening credits that featured a blue-haired man

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