title: issue number: 00/volume 00 page: 00 of 00illdave.com/downloads/comics/nulldevice.pdf ·...

Title: Issue Number: 00/Volume 00 Page: 00 of 00

<info id=”author” title=”David S. Marshall” web=”www.illdave.com” />

<info id=”copyright” title=“Marshall Art Studio” year=”2009” />

<synopsis>

A lone agent travels through a UNIX landscape,

deep into enemy territory, fights an army, rescues

a damsel in distress and saves the world.

Dot dot slash.

</synopsis>

<The Null Device>

David S. Marshall Email: Portfolio: Story: The Null Device [email protected] www.illdave.com of 26

01

Somewhere near the end of the world...

Jesus,what was Ithinking?

Tooerratic.

Can't workin chaos.

Drinkstoo much.

Toocorrupt.

lost a legin Nairobi.

Far Too bloodthirsty.

even bytoday's

standards.

Hold on, K.

Help'scoming.

You wereright allalong.

Toogreen.

Checkedinto a mentalinstitution.


rm /home/ds-em/usr/var/run/remote-codenameB-dribble 1>/dev/nullrm /home/ds-em/usr/var/run/remote-codenameB-tty.log 1>/dev/nullrm /home/ds-em/usr/var/run/remote-codenameB.pid 1>/dev/nullrm /home/ds-em/usr/var/run/remote-codenameB-socket 1>/dev/null

rm /home/ds-em/usr/var/run/remote-codenameK-dribble 2>/dev/nullrm /home/ds-em/usr/var/run/remote-codenameK-tty.log 2>/dev/nullrm /home/ds-em/usr/var/run/remote-codenameK.pid 2>/dev/nullrm /home/ds-em/usr/var/run/remote-codenameK-socket 2>/dev/null

The Null Devicestory + art: David Marshall©2009 Marshall Art Studio

02

Butwe're outof time.

Too muchlike me.

Sloppy,arrogant.


03


04

What the “dot-dot-dash” does he want now?!!


05

... EVERYONE ELSE must be unavailable.

If he's calling ME ...


06

How could Ihave been that

stupid?

You doremember

firing me --

Time'srun out.

Thought you'dnever get here.

Gimme thethumbdrive.


Don't do drugsto be cool, do'em because youhate yourself.

07

I always forget how buggy his encryption mode is.

Then again, he is in charge of protecting a world ...

Jocks are taughthow to handle adversity

a lot better thanbookworms.

Doing somethingyou love can costyou your health.

Technology companieshave screwed us by creating

a dependency we somehowgot along without.

Fear is normal;panic will get

you killed.

Most of the racehassles are really

money hasslesin disguise.

Depression isanger pointed

inward.

Girls grow quicker than boys, men grow faster than women.

The only reason I can'trecommend heroin to kids?

The effects wear off.

A girl's legs areher best friends,but the best of

friends must part.

The food here isso tasteless, youcould eat it, belchit, and it wouldn't

remind youof anything.

Sometimes it'sworse to win a fight

than to lose.

We never knowwhat is enough untilwe know what's more

than enough.

I feel like afugitive from thelaw of averages.

There are10 types

of people inthe world:

those whounderstand binary,

and thosewho don't.

Beauty may beskin deep, but

ugly goes clearto the bone.

Health nuts aregoing to feel stupid

someday, lying in hospitalsdying of nothing.

The point of drinkingin moderation is thatsometimes you don'tdrink in moderation.

Nature givesyou the face youhave at twenty.

Life givesyou the face youhave at thirty.

At fifty youget the faceyou deserve.

Heroes are cowards who’ve

run out of options.


08

... that couldn't possibly care less.

I need alift to thewar zone.

One of ouragents is in

trouble.

Will Iknow him?

Her name is Agent K.

if we'renot too late,she'll find

us.


09

The TV'sset onPORTAL.

Don't worryabout my old

shell.

Go!


10


11

Panic will get you

killed.

What's left ofthe enemy will

try to stop you.

Olderversionsof us.

Fear isnatural.

Muchbetter.

We need tofind Agent K.

They knowyou're here.

Who arethey?

Stay calm.

No shit.


12

A life plan wasdeveloped, debugged

and released ...

...long beforewe were born.

“ Nearly 50 years ago, a dependency file gotbadly mangled by arookie programmer.”

“At first, disruptions caused by applications using this corrupted file were relatively minor.”


13

“ More recently, legacy programs from the archive partition began rewriting our world.”

“ We sent Agent K in at root level to Rebuild the damaged file.

“ Sadly, she was unprepared for the rogue system's powerful defense.

“ The dependency file's raw data is embedded in my consciousness, and can only be loaded from the moon.

“ To do this ...”

... we needAgent K.

Bornready,sir.

Are youready?


14�


15


16


17

if you'reFinished

posing ...


18

... You mindgetting me

out of here?

butthanks.

Launcher'son the dresser

behind you.

Keeping itold school,

I see.Time’s

run out.Got the

Thumbdrive?

I got inthrough a

fetishconvention.

Niceoutfit.


19

We're notgetting bettershot than this.

Sure you'reup for this,old man?

Just get me18 inches ofdaylight.

happy as abastard on

father’s day.

You soundjust like --

-- You okay, dad?


20

So,what justhappened? A long

time ago ...

... I must'vebeen in first

grade ...

“ To this day, no one knows why.”

“ Could he have known this was coming?”

“ He spent years modding it out.

“... he stole a booster transmitter, and hid it on the moon.

“ Perhaps ...

“ Using his mind as user credentials, he's loading the file's raw data into the transmitter.

“ My mistake was trying to restore the file as a background process, while the system was still running.

“ He's rebooting the universe.

“ The sync operation will send the legacy apps directly to dev/null.”

“ Where?”

“ UNIX-speak for black hole.”


21

A place to send data where it can't escape.

You meanlike the

Phantom Zone?

Ugh.

You donegood, kid.

Ready.Zillions ofapplications areshutting down

at once.

Ready?


22


23


24


25


_pwd=`pwd 2>/dev/null` ::shutdown:/etc/rc.d/rc.shutdown Jan 26 01:13:69 reboot: rebooted by root

26

Looks likeit worked!

in other words: The End!


title: issue number: 00/volume 00 page: 00 of 00illdave.com/downloads/comics/nulldevice.pdf ·...

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