THE GOPHER BANDIT 
~prahou

0 THE INTERNET RISES

  It's the early 90's. The Iron Curtain has fallen. A small country in
  the heart of Europe grows comfortable with the gift of free
  information. Most personal machines are in the safe-keeping of
  universities and government facilities. The internet is slowly being
  rolled out to the public, but very few have the actual machines to use
  it with.

  This is the apartment of Mateas Novak's mother, a student of the
  Technical University in Prague. He's here with his younger friend
  Robin Kopecky, a student of chemistry.

    MATEAS:
        "It serves text, that's what it
        does."

    ROBIN:
        "Across the entire globe? Geez.
        They weren't kidding about
        freedom, were they?"

    MATEAS:
        "Don't get too excited. We're
        just rats in an experiment. Once
        they figure out how to profit
        off us, they will. We better
        make the best of what we have
        right now."

    ROBIN:
        "This... protocol... You think
        there's going to be
        monetization?"

    MATEAS:
        "Without a doubt. Everything you
        get to see today will end up
        costing you a pretty coin.
        That's the better outcome
        anyway. The price for the phone
        line will be negligible."

    ROBIN:
        "How do you mean?"

    MATEAS:
        "I don't know, I'm as clueless
        as you are. But don't you find
        it a bit irresponsible to
        disregard the decades of 'FEAR
        THE CAPITALIST'? Maybe there was
        something to it."

    ROBIN:
        "Don't know what to tell you.
        This sure beats standing in line
        for toilet paper."

    MATEAS:
        "That ever happen to you?"

    ROBIN:
        "I'm sure my mother mentioned it
        once."

    MATEAS:
        "Right."

  The men lift a large machine off the floor and carefully place it on
  top of a desk and plug it into a small device connected to the phone
  line. Mateas flicks a switch on the side of the monitor and the
  computer comes alive.

    ROBIN:
        "No way this is legal..."

    MATEAS:
        "It is not. Hand me the
        diskette."

    ROBIN:
        "They're gonna skin us alive, if
        they find we stole a fucking
        UNIX machine."

    MATEAS:
        "Yeah, well. The university was
        hellbent on wasting its
        potential."

  Mateas inserts the 5" diskette into the computer.

    MATEAS:
        "Magical, isn't it."

    ROBIN:
        "So, you're telling me we can
        create a sort of a service that
        people can connect to and.. read
        stuff we offer them? All from
        the comfort of our home?"

    MATEAS:
        "That's the idea."

    ROBIN:
        "Who wrote it?"

    MATEAS:
        "Some polish guy, Marketa
        brought it from her visit to
        Krakow. Turns out the border
        cops have no idea what diskettes
        are. Hell, nobody expects people
        to smuggle software across. Yet,
        anyway."

    ROBIN:
        "A fucking gopher server..."

    MATEAS:
        "A fucking gopher server."

0&1/2 HARD DAY'S MODEM

  A police station. A phone rings on the desk of officer Dvorsky.

    DVORSKY:
        "Sir? What's up?"

    PHONE:
        "Dvorsky, how about that
        advancement?"

    DVORSKY:
        "Sir?"

    PHONE:
        "BIS tells me they're forming a
        new department for what they
        call 'of cyber crime'. Turns out
        this brave new world is about to
        be abused by a whole lot of
        criminals. They tell me they're
        looking for the sharpest pencils
        in the case. Made me think of
        you."

    DVORSKY:
        "Cyber crime, sir?"

    PHONE:
        "Computers, the internet. I
        don't fucking know. War in the
        digital vacuum."

    DVORSKY:
        "I'm in."

    PHONE:
        "Pack up your desk. Report to
        the BIS offices in Dejvice. I'll
        let them know you're coming.
        Tomorrow."

    * The next day Dvorsky arrives at the BIS offices in Dejvice
    and is walked to a small room. There are cables everywhere, a
    few computers lie on the floor. The department is in the
    process of being set up. The place is a mess. There are
    engineers lying on their backs, twiddling with screwdrivers. A
    woman in a white lab-coat greets him. She fixes her hair when
    she sees  Dvorsky enter, wipes her hands on the coat and
    extends her arm.

    KAROLINA:
        "Hey! They told us you were
        coming! Well... this is us!
        Welcome to the offices of cyber
        criminology! I think we'll have
        to come up with a  better name
        ourselves. The name is Karolina,
        I'm a... was.. studying
        networking at FEL. Got picked up
        by some tie-wearing ominous
        character. And here I am!"

    * Dvorsky shakes her hand.

    DVORSKY:
        "Ondrej Dvorsky. I was a cop."

    KAROLINA:
        "Oh, cool. Shootouts and bank
        roberries?"

    DVORSKY:
        "More like dog shit and parking
        meters."

    KAROLINA:
        "Well, I take it you're new into
        this whole thing, judging from
        what they told me. Unless you
        want to help with making these
        machines work, I might have
        something for you to get started
        on right away."

    DVORSKY:
        "I'll be honest, I never used a
        computer. But I understand the
        general idea of... computing and
        networking... I think."

    KAROLINA:
        "That's alright. You'll get a
        grasp of it real quick. We have
        a report of a stolen UNIX
        machine from CVUT."

    DVORSKY:
        "Why does that interest us? I
        thought we were going to be
        fighting crime in the uh,
        cyberspace?"

    KAROLINA:
        "Well, about 6 hours after the
        machine was reported missing, a
        gopher server went live
        somewhere in an apartment
        block in Modrany."

    DVORSKY:
        "Gopher?"

    TBC
THE RETURN OF THE GOPHER BANDIT
~prahou

I. NO REST FOR THE DEAD

  Gopher-criminologist detective Dvorsky enters an old apartment
  building on the outskirts of Prague. The street is dilapidated. Burnt
  trash cans and walls covered in grafitti. A bunch of kids are playing
  soccer with a plastic bottle in the middle of the road. The elevator
  doesn't work. The detective makes his way up the stairs until he
  reaches the 7th floor and walks underneath a POLICE tape into a small
  apartment. There are several police officers hovering about. A woman
  sitting on the floor is crying. Constable Konrad is inspecting a
  laptop machine from 2002 covered in a thick layer of dust. A body is
  hanging  from a soviet-era ceiling lamp. There are wires running along
  the floor.

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "What a shitshow. Konrad, what
        was lost?"

    KONRAD:
        "Detective. 72 gigs worth of
        pdfs and ebooks."

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "And the machine?"

    KONRAD:
        "Not exactly a poor man's setup.
        This little feller did most of
        the heavy lifting proxied behind
        TOR. Don't know what software
        did the hosting. We're
        suspecting gophernicus, but it's
        too early to say with
        certainty."

    * Detective Dvorsky points at the corpse on the ceiling.

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "Who's our unlucky winner?"

    KONRAD:
        "Some Mateas Novak. Unemployed
        for 13 years. The boys over at
        BIS ran a background check for
        us. Nothing permanent. Just your
        regular homebrew hacker with a
        taste for archivism and animated
        pornography. No criminal
        record."

    * The detective picks up the machine and inspects it closer.

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "Anything copyright protected?"

    KONRAD:
        "Not as far as we can tell. The
        disk is encrypted, but we have
        most of the access logs. The guy
        had a printer hooked up to the
        server. It printed out
        everything in real time. All
        files seem to have been in the
        public domain. My guess is the
        printer woke him up to reveal
        someone somewhere was scraping
        the entirety of his gopher hole.
        He pulled the plug and then,
        well..."

    * Konrad looks up at the corpse.

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "Who's the girl?"

    KONRAD:
        "A girlfriend. She didn't give
        us much. Woke up in the morning
        to find her partner hanging here
        like this. You think this was...
        him?"

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "I don't know what the fuck I
        think."

    * A policeman walks into the room holding a stack of papers.

    POLICEMAN:
        "Detective? You better have a
        look at this."

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "What is it?"

    POLICEMAN:
        "Well, the printer ran out of
        ink somewhere past the page
        2394, but among the lines of
        file retrieval, there is a
        single submission to a guestbook.
        It's a rudimentary script, but
        the logs list the string that
        was posted to it."

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "Let me see it!"

    * 'GB WUZ HERE'

    DETECTIVE DVORSKY:
        "Motherfuc-"

    TO BE CONTINUED



GOPHER BANDIT EPISODE 3
Polish clique

I

  Four heavily armed officers from the Special Internet Protocols are
  slowly advancing up the stairs in a dilapidated apartment building on
  the outskirts of Krakow. Every now and then someone peeks through a
  tight slit of an opened door. Light and shadow dances behind each and
  every peephole, as the curious inhabitants observe the team.

  Finally the four men reach the 7th floor and stack up by an apartment
  number 64.

    SIP#1:
	"Weapons check."

    SIP#2:
	"Hot."

    SIP#3:
	"Hot."

    * a flick of a safety switch echoes through the otherwise
    empty corridor

    SIP#4:
	"Hot."

    The leading officer #1 speaks over a wired radio in his right ear.

    SIP#1 (OVER RADIO):
	"SGO, this is entry team. We're
	in position."

    * a familiar voice of detective Dvorsky comes in.

    DVORSKY (OVER RADIO):
	"Entry team, this SGO, hold. We
	may have a development here."

    SIP#2:
	"What the fuck is it now?"

    SIP#1:
	"Quiet! Keep ready."

    DVORSKY (OVER RADIO):
	"Entry team, we just cracked the
	encrypted packets. We believe
	there are two non-hostiles in
	the  apartment. I repeat, two
	non-hostiles. Woman and child.
	Evaluate."

    SIP#1 (OVER RADIO):
	"Copy that."

    SIP#1:
	"Gentlemen, rules of engagement
	just changed. Not all targets
	are hostile."

    SIP#3:
	"Fuck..."

    SIP#4:
	"Jesus Christ. They tell us
	now?"

    SIP#1:
	"Two, camera under the door."

    * Officer #2 pulls out a spy-cam and sticks it through an
    opening at the bottom of the apartment door, after a few
    moments he reports:

    SIP#2:
	"No one in sight."

    SIP#1:
	"Alright, fuck it, we're going
	in. Mind your targets."

    SIP#1 (OVER RADIO):
	"SGO, this is entry team, we're
	proceeding as planned."

    DVORSKY (OVER RADIO):
	"Understood, keep us posted."





II

    The Special Gopher Operations team is gathered around a single CRT
    monitor in a repurposed Tatra van  parked just outside the apartment
    building. Detective Dvorsky and Karolina, the Gopher Specialist, are
    both here, so are two other men.

    KAROLINA:
	"God, I hope this is it."

    DVORSKY:
	"Don't we all."

    All sip cold coffee from paper cups.

    Eventually officer #1's voice comes through the radio.

    SIP#1 (OVER RADIO):
	"SGO, this is entry team. You
	might want to see this."

    Detective Dvorsky rushes out of the car and up the stairs. He
    reaches the apartment 64. The lock is blown away and the door wide
    open. Officer #3 stands by it, giving the detective a slight nod.
    Dvorsky proceeds through the apartment.

    It's a small Soviet-era apartment with a single bedroom and a
    kitchen. In the bathroom, on the toilet, sits a corpse of a young
    man with several bullet holes in his chest. Dvorsky recognizes the
    man as Mateas Novak, a suspect in the stolen university machines
    case.

    Dvorsky continues to the bedroom. Another dead man, Robin Kopecky,
    Novak's friend. Officers #2 and #4 hover about.

    SIP#4:
	"In the kitchen, detective."

    Dvorsky enters the kitchen. Officer #1 stands by a corpse of a dead
    woman, killed by gunfire. There is a  Soviet Agat personal computer
    on the dining table with a floppy drive connected to it.

    DVORSKY:
	"Talk to me."

    SIP#1:
	"No live targets. We found them
	all like this."

    DVORSKY:
	"What?!"

    SIP#1:
	"Looks like your intel was off,
	detective. These boys are the
	least of your problems now."

    By now the rest of the SGO team arrives at the apartment. Karolina
    sits down by the Agat and boots it up.

    SIP#1 (POINTING AT THE DEAD WOMAN):
	"Who is the woman anyway?"

    DVORSKY:
	"Marketa... Marketa Patrasova...
	She was the boys' schoolmate at
	the Prague Technical University.
	She  smuggled the software over
	the border..."

    DVORSKY:
	"Karolina? What do we have?"

    KAROLINA:
	"Well, this machine is incapable
	of networking, but judging by
	the floppy drive, it's safe to
	say  our suspects planned to
	copy the gopher server software
	and sell it. Very little else to
	go on here..."

    Officer #2 walks into the kitchen, holding a piece of paper.

    SIP#2:
	"This was in the boy's pocket."

    * #2 hands the paper to Dvorsky

    There's a date on in two days old and below it, the initials G.P.

    SIP#1:
	"Excuse me, detective, but from
	what you told us, we're a kid
	short."





THE WELL NEVER DRIES 4

  The bandit finds himself in the city center, a floppy clenched in his
  hand, buried in the pocket of his coat. He finds a café and seats
  himself by a table on the busy street. A stream of tourists trickles
  around the astronomical clock, just as the bell tower begins its
  deafening concert. One in the afternoon, coffee for 125 crowns. The
  air is cold.

  A man in a striped waistcoat sits down next to the bandit.

    WAISTCOAT:
        "Mister Cheblik?"

    BANDIT:
        "I have it."

    WAISTCOAT:
        "Not here, Mister Cheblik. Meet
        me at the entrance of the Jewish
        cemetery in 4 hours."

    BANDIT:
        "I can just give it to you
        now..."

    WAISTCOAT:
        "You're being followed."

  The man in a waistcoat stands up and disappears into the trickle of
  tourists. Detective Dvorsky rushes in to the café, wire in his ear.

    DVORSKY:
        "*into the microphone* He's
        gone."

    DVORSKY:
        "What did he want?!"

    BANDIT:
        "He asked for spare change. I
        have hardly enough to pay for
        this pisspoor coffee... Wasn't
        he an extravagant beggar."

    DVORSKY:
        "Damn it!"

    DVORSKY:
        "*into the microphone* The
        bandit slipped away, I'm going
        back to the office."


TBC