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0wnz0red

Salon

Swedish translation (Johan Anglemark/Enhörningen Magazine)

Slovak translation (Pavol Hvizdos)

I wrote this while at a summer writer's workshop in July, 2002, at an arts-center on Toronto Island. Like most of my fiction, this reflects a lot of what's going on in my life at the moment. In this case, it was my immersion in copyright issues, nerd culture and posthumanism. This is the first SF story Salon ever published, and it made quite a splash -- and was nominated for a Nebula Award in 2003.

Ten years in the Valley, and all Murray Swain had to show for it was a spare tire, a bald patch, and a life that was friendless and empty and maggoty-rotten. His only ever California friend, Liam, had dwindled from a tubbaguts programmer-shaped potato to a living skeleton on his death-bed the year before, herpes blooms run riot over his skin and bones in the absence of any immunoresponse. The memorial service featured a framed photo of Liam at his graduation; his body was donated for medical science.

Liam's death really screwed things up for Murray. He'd gone into one of those clinical depression spirals that eventually afflicted all the aging bright young coders he'd known during his life in tech. He'd get misty in the morning over his second cup of coffee and by the midafternoon blood-sugar crash, he'd be weeping silently in his cubicle, clattering nonsensically at the keys to disguise the disgusting snuffling noises he made. His wastebasket overflowed with spent tissues and a rumor circulated among the evening cleaning-staff that he was a compulsive masturbator. The impossibility of the rumor was immediately apparent to all the other coders on his floor who, pr0n-hounds that they were, had explored the limits and extent of the censoring proxy that sat at the headwaters of the office network. Nevertheless, it was gleefully repeated in the collegial fratmosphere of his workplace and wags kept dumping their collections of conference-snarfed hotel-sized bottles of hand-lotion on his desk.

The number of bugs per line in Murray's code was 500 percent that of the overall company average. The QA people sometimes just sent his code back to him (From: qamanager@globalsemi.com To: mswain@globalsemi.com Subject: Your code... Body: ...sucks) rather than trying to get it to build and run. Three weeks after Liam died, Murray's team leader pulled his commit privileges on the CVS repository, which meant that he had to grovel with one of the other coders when he wanted to add his work to the project.

9 Responses to “0wnz0red”

1. batche khoshgele says:

   June 30, 2005 at 11:38 am

   i absolutely love your site! the fact that you so generously share you writing talents with your readership online is fabulous. down and out and eastern standard tribe are two of my favourite PDF's! merci! kheily merci!!!
2. Erica Olsen says:

   August 22, 2005 at 5:09 pm

   This was my favorite story of all. Interestingly, I read it while running on the eliptical machine during a lunch break from my geeky job. Sigh.
3. Jake says:

   October 14, 2005 at 11:46 pm

   This was the first of Doctorow's work I read. Although it is still my favorite, I have become completely addicted.
   Thanks to Cory, I became inspired to follow my own dream of writing (although the genre is completely unrelated!). Check me out.
4. fanat says:

   January 11, 2006 at 2:32 am

   I envy your admirers not �¸�¼�µ�µÑ? to an opportunity to read through your products .
5. fanat says:

   January 11, 2006 at 2:40 am

   Excuse Cory, the typing error has passed through the translator. I wished to tell " I Envy your admirers not having an opportunity to read through all your products "
6. Barry says:

   September 13, 2006 at 2:43 am

   I recently read this story after it was linked on Boing Boing, and it's a great story indeed. I share some of your fascinations (posthumanism & geek culture) and this story carries so much of both. Very enjoyable read.
7. Organic Arts says:

   September 18, 2006 at 9:19 am

   Hello. Got any good short stories that you'd like turned into a short film?

   chi
8. Brian says:

   July 10, 2007 at 6:53 pm

   I just googled 'ownzored' and found http://www.ownzored.net ... I am confused as to the origins / meaning of this site!
9. Tinkoo says:

   October 27, 2007 at 1:47 am

   This is your 3rd story I read, & the best so far. Also, among my top 20% from all authors.

   My first impression was: crazy plot - software hangs, & my heart stops beating! As the idea started sinking in, it didn't quite appear that crazy - though probably very far into future, if at all it ever comes to be.

   Good work. Thanks.

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