------------------------------------------------------------------------ Election DAY at UCirc Newsgroups: alt.devilbunnies From: adm4@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 00:11:23 GMT Organization: CWRU Aaron was awake when Sylvie returned. He was thinking about the squirrel he'd seen. Had it been his imagination? No, it couldn't have been. Well... maybe. No. Yes, of course it was. He was still waffling as Sylvie walked in. "How was the speech?" he asked as she sat down and leaned against his leg. "That bad, eh?" "Worse," she said, "I thought, when he originally scheduled the speech, that it was a mistake -- no one likes to be dragged out of bed or work to listen to an old squirrel ramble on yet again about the evils of the bunnies and how we had to fight them yada yada yada. But this time..." "What?" "I don't know what it was, but he was inspired. The speech was ad lib, it had to be, he responded to questions that changed the whole course several times, but it was... complete. A whole. He sucked everyone into his world and showed us... everything. It was depressing, but powerful. He had us." "Hmm," Aaron said, trying to ignore the chill that spread through him, "Will it be enough?" "Aaron," Sylvie said, lifting her head off his leg to look him in the eye, "*I'd* vote for him right now." She sighed. "We said we'd hold the election today, so we have to, but we'll just have to wait as long as possible and hope it wears off." "So what are the official warren laws on murder?" [The next morning:] "Yes. Yes. Yes. No. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. No. Yes. Yes. No --" "I told you we should have done this by computer," Aaron said, keying in the votes as Sylvie read them off. They'd held the election starting at midnight, or rather, 11:59 PM, and it had taken almost three times as long as they'd planned. They hadn't even STARTED the counting until nine. "Stop it," she snapped, "Now did I count this one already?" "Is it a yes or a no?" "A no." "Um... no, you didn't" "Fine. No. Yes. Yes..." [later] [much later] [much much later] "Yes. That's it." "Ready to break for lunch?" Aaron asked, rubbing his wrist, which was beginning to bother him a little from all the typing. "No, we're done," she said, "That's the last one." "Sheesh! Thank god! I thought we'd be doing this forever!" He hit 'tally'. The results appeared. "No: 3,216." "YES!" Sylvie shouted in joy, scrambling up his shirt to give him a victory hug, "We won!" "Yes: 12,211." Sylvie lept off him onto the floor, staring at the screen. "That's impossible! There aren't twelve thousand squirrels in the warren! There aren't even six thousand!" "The census file I downloaded listed 15,435." "That bastard made up names and had his friends vote six or seven times apiece! He won't get away with this!" "What can we do?" "We have to prove that most of these names are false. Come on, we'll demand a general assembly and send people out by name. It'll take a long time, but..." Suddenly the screen flickered, and a window opened up over the CLI. A silver squirrel appeared on the screen. It had to be Loren. "Loren," Sylvie spat, "What do you want?" "So," Loren asked, "How did the vote go?" "We won," she said, "Despite your treachery. 8,513 to 6,921. I guess some of your 'friends' weren't as loyal as you thought!" "What are you talking about?" Loren said, giving a good facsimilie of a puzzled look, "What treachery? What 'friends'?" "The ones you had vote eight times with fake names?" Aaron prompted, "Fifteen thousand squirrels in the warren? I don't THINK so." "Oh," Loren said grinning (to Aaron's relief, displaying perfectly normal squirrel teeth), "But there ARE fifteen thousand squirrels in the warren. We've been recruiting, you see." "WHAT?!" Aaron and Sylvie remarked together, Sylvie's tail freezing in it's twitching. "Over ten thousand new recruits in just the first week! A nice start, don't you think? Of course," he said, thoughtfully, "It'll slack off a little, since there aren't many wild squirrels left nearby now, and we have to look further afield." He paused to let the two of them digest the information. "But you won, despite this, is that what you said?" Loren asked, "So now I should step down, as per our agreement. But wait! I just remembered! Tech, play the tape!" Aaron's voice came from the background: "No: 3,216." Sylvie's: "YES! We won!" "Yes: 12,211." The tape cut off. "Well," Loren said, "How fascinating! In the minute or so between your counting the votes, and me calling you to ask, more than five thousand squirrels contacted you to change their votes! And you kept track of it all! And eight absentee ballots, as well! My dear Sylvie, you do work fast." His face hardened. "You will both stand trial at noon tomorrow, in the main auditorium, before the entire warren. The charge is murder." The window closed. -- Aaron Mandelbaum (I am not a crook!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Usenet Web 1.0.3 (development) / webmaster@netimages.com