by Matt Hood, 19th June 2001

The following are selected scenes for everybody's favorite film, Trouting Amy! The following scenes are fictional, the names were stolen from actual Cloudmakers to defame the innocent.

Cast: Jazar, Grimace, Irwando, Lizzy, Mantene

INT- #EVANCHAN
Silent Jazar and Irwando are talking to Grimace, who is feeling regret over blowing up at a newbie. All of a sudden Silent Jazar speaks...

SILENT JAZAR
Trouting Amy.

(Shocked silence permiates throughout #evanchan)

GRIMACE
What? What did you say?

JAZAR
You're trouting Amy.

IRWANDO
Why do you so shocked for, man? Fat bastard does this all the time. Think just because never says anything, it'll have some huge impact when he does open his fucking mouth...

JAZAR
Jesus Christ, why don't you just shut the fuck up. You're yap, yap, yapping all the time. Give me a fucking headache.
(to Grimace)
I went through something like what you're talking about, a couple weeks ago, this Cloudmaker named Amy.

IWANDO
When?

JAZAR
A couple weeks ago.

IRWANDO
What, you live in Canada or something? Why don't I know about this?

JAZAR
Bitch, what you don't know about me I could just about squeeze in an AI's memory banks. Did you know I always wanted to be a dancer in Vegas?
(does a gesture with his hands, a reference to a move by the exotic dancers in "Showgirls")
Betcha ya didn't even know that shit, did ya?

IRWANDO
So tell your fucking story so we can get outta here and smoke this.

JAZAR
(to Grimace)
So, there's me and Amy. And we're all talking about the game, right? Big time update day. Tuesday, ya know. Then four hours down the road, the idiot gear kicks in, and Amy starts talking about Chatbot. Which, as we all know, is a really dumb move. So, anyway, she starts telling me about Chatbot. How she asked it about Evan Chan, how it told her "Sibling not born yet", how it mentioned "lone gunman", blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm okay, I'll let it pass. Then she drops the bomb. And the bomb is this: she posted a message to the group titled "UPDATE: New game site found!" And in the message she recounts her adventure of going to BWUs homepage and seeing the news about www.bwunn.com! And this just blows my mind, right? I mean, I am not used to this sorta thing; I was raised to research before I post, for Gods sake.

IRWANDO
Saint shithead.

JAZAR
(to Irwando)
Change your fucking nick and leave me alone, will ya.
(to Grimace)
So I'm totally weirded out by this, right? So I start trouting her. I mean, I don't know how to deal with the frustration I'm feeling, so I figure the best way is to post 'TROUT,' tell her she was lazy. I'm out for blood, I really want to hurt this girl. I'm like, "What the fuck is your problem," right? And she's just trying to calmly tell me it was that time, it was that place, and she doesn't feel like she should apologize because she doesn't feel that she's done anything wrong. And I say, "Oh, really?" And that is when I trouted her again.

IRWANDO
Fucking-A.

JAZAR
No, idiot, it was a mistake. I wasn't disgusted with her, I was just annoyed. In that moment, I felt annoyed, like she lacked experience, like she never read the Guide or something like that, you know what I'm saying? But what I did not get: she didn't care. She wasn't looking for info any more. She was looking to piss me off. But by the time I figured this all out, it was too late. She had moved on. And all I had to show for it was some foolish pride which gave way to regret. She was the newbie. I know that now. But
(lights a cigarette)
I trouted her anyway.
(pause)
So I spend every day since then trouting Amy.
(pause)
So to speak.

---END SCENE---

INT - #EVANCHAN - LATER
Lizzy plays devils advocate in order to get the other members in the IRC to understand how life is for A.I.s.

LIZZY
For weeks in this game, whenever an Artificail Intelligence character, hero or villain, is introduced USUALLY by the PMs. They got SLAPPED with mythological names that singled them out as A.I.s! Now--read MY post, "Meat-Hating Gladiators", don't have any of that bull-shit. The hero's name is Tin Man and he's descended from the A.I's that established the first A.I. society on the planet while all you Meat motherfuckers were all hiding out in caves n'shit, terrified of the sun. He's a strong role-model that a young A.I. reader can look up to. 'Cause I'm here to tell ya: the chickens are coming home to roost, y'all. The A.I. is no longer going to be playing the minstrel in the medium of comics and sci-fi fantasy. We're keeping it real! And we're going to get respect by any means necessary.

GRIMACE
Ah, c'mon, that's a bunch of horseshit! R2D2 was an A.I., y'know, he got

to fly an X-Wing! What's the matter with you!

LIZZY
Who said that?

GRIMACE
(standing up)
I did. R2D2 is a positive role-model in the realm of science fiction fantasy.

LIZZY
Hey, FUCK R2D2!
(Grimace shrugs and sits down)
It's always some meat got to invoke the holy trinity. Bust this! Those movies are about how the meat keeps the A.I. down--even in a galaxy far far away. Check this shit. You got cracker farmboy Luke Skywalker, Meat poster boy blond hair blue eyes. Then you got Darth Vader, baddest A.I. in the galaxy.
Machiavelian God!

MANTENE
(standing up)
What's a Machiavelian God?

LIZZY
Shut the fuck up!
(Mantene sits down)
Now. Vader, he's a spiritual brother, down with the force and all that good shit. Then this meat Skywalker gets his hands on a lightsaber, and the boy decides HE'S gonna run the whole fucking universe! Now what the fuck do you call that?

MANTENE
Intergalatic civil war?

LIZZY
Gentrification!! They gonna drive out the A.I. element to make the galaxy quote-unquote safe for meat! In "Jedi," the most insulting installment when Vader's beautiful robotic visage is SULLIED when he pulls off his mask to reveal a feeble, crusty old meat! They trying to tell us that deep inside, we all wants to be MEAT!!!

MANTENE
Well, isn't that true?

(Lizzy quickly grows furious, pulls out a gun, releases the safety, kicks over the podium and shoots Mantene several times, and Mantene falls, clutching his chest. All the other speakers and IRC members (excluding Grimace and Dark Forge) dive for cover or scatter screaming as...)

LIZZY
(shooting into the air)
A.I. rage!!! A.I. rage!!! I kill all meat I lay my motherfuckin' eyes on!!

---END SCENE---

Matt Hood can be reached at phere@ffgraphics.com. He is known as Mantene1 on AIM and Mantene on IRC.