by Debra Littlejohn Shinder, MCSE etc
Reprinted from www.swynk.com
Certification – the Final Frontier.
These are the voyages of the M.C. Essey, his continuing mission: to explore strange new bugs – er, features, to seek out new TechNet articles, new certifications – to boldly go where many men and women have gone before (Sylvan Prometric) …
CertDate 122209, Captive’s Log
This morning, as I sat in the small ready room in the testing center, I mentally prepared myself to face a dreaded new enemy, one I had only heard about up to now. But his infamy is legend throughout this quadrant of the galaxy, where he’s best know by his designation: Species 70-240. Many brave souls have been sacrificed as they strove to defeat him. Would I be next?
I watched as two weary warriors stumbled out of the arena where I must soon go, to face my enemy. Their eyes were dull and drained of spirit, their bodies broken, no fight left in them. They were proud warriors, and they had fought the enemy courageously, but they had lost – like so many before them. I heard one of them mumble something about needing a strong belt of blood wine as they passed.
Then my name was called, and I was directed to take my place at the helm. “Battlestations!” I heard the cry, and I began to weave and wind my way through an asteroid field of case studies, furiously clicking on tab after tab, barely escaping destruction with each new screen.
On and on the battle went, until I felt that I could not fight anymore. My eyelids were getting heavy, I could feel the will to go on slowly seeping away. I drifted, dreaming of another place, a wormhole where the profits live, longing to make it to the celestial certification temple, but knowing my chances of getting there were diminishing by the moment. My weapons systems were offline, but the questions kept coming at me, hard and fast, never ending.
Then, to my surprise and joy, I thought I saw light at the end of the transwarp conduit. Could it be – was that a green bar waiting for me, so far in the distance? I squinted, sat up straighter, strained to see.
As the object approached, fear rose in my chest. Its shape was familiar, square – almost cubical in nature. It got closer and closer, until it filled my view screen. I wanted to run away, screaming. It was worse than I’d imagined. It was … “Mastering Windows 2000 Server.” It was HUGE.
There was nowhere to go. I’d lost warp drive and impulse engines. I could only wait for the inevitable. Then it came, that eerie, English-accented voice, a voice that was half-human and half machine:
“I am Locutus of Microsoft. Braindumps are futile. Your time and your money will be assimilated. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will study … us.”
The cube hovered for a moment, then turned and was gone. And I woke, slumped over my MCSE study guide at the kitchen table. “Thank goodness,” I muttered. But I had a heck of a headache. I raised my hand to touch my optical implant, its red laser beam scanning the TV (tuned to UPN), which was blasting in the background. “It was only a dream.”