Tuesday, July 31, 2012

"The Rat Patrol"




http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/quotes

IMDb

The Internet Movie Database

Memorable quotes for

WarGames (1983)


Computer Voice: Skybird, this is Dropkick with a red dash alpha message in two parts. Break. Break. Red dash alpha.

Captain Jerry Lawson: [grabs red binder] Stand by to copy message.

Computer Voice: Red dash alpha.

1st Lieutenant Steve Phelps: [grabs his red binder] Standing by.

Computer Voice: Romeo. Oscar. November. Charlie. Tango. Tango. Lima. Alpha. Authentication: two, two; zero, zero; four, zero; Delta, Lima.

Captain Jerry Lawson: I have a valid message. Stand by to authenticate.

1st Lieutenant Steve Phelps: I agree with authentication also, sir.

[they move to the red lock box, unlock it, remove cards from box, return to stations, snap open the card cases, and compare the card text to the message]

Captain Jerry Lawson: Enter launch code.

1st Lieutenant Steve Phelps: Entering launch code.

[Phelps enters DLG2209TVX]

Captain Jerry Lawson: Launch order confirmed.

1st Lieutenant Steve Phelps: Holy shit.










http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/80261/King_-_The_Stand.html


Stephen King

The Stand - The Complete & Uncut Edition [ RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 ]


Chapter 17

Starkey was standing in front of monitor 2, keeping a close eye on Tech 2nd Class Frank D. Bruce. When we last saw Bruce, he was facedown in a bowl of Chunky Sirloin Soup. No change except for the positive ID. Situation normal, all fucked up.

Thoughtfully, hands locked behind his back like a general reviewing troops, like General Black Jack Pershing, his boyhood idol, Starkey moved down to monitor 4, where the situation had changed for the better. Dr. Emmanual Ezwick still lay dead on the floor, but the centrifuge had stopped. At 1940 hours last night, the centrifuge had begun to emit fine tendrils of smoke. At 1995 hours the sound pickups in Ezwick’s lab had transmitted a whunga-whunga-whunga sort of sound that deepened into a fuller, richer, and more satisfying ronk! ronk! ronk! At 2107 hours the centrifuge had ronked its last ronk and had slowly come to rest. Was it Newton who had said that somewhere, beyond the farthest star, there may be a body perfectly at rest? Newton had been right about everything but the distance, Starkey thought. You didn’t have to go far at all. Project Blue was perfectly at rest. Starkey was very glad. The centrifuge had been the last illusion of life, and the problem he’d had Steffens run through the main computer bank (Steffens had looked at him as though he were crazy, and yes, Starkey thought he might be) was: How long could that centrifuge be expected to run? The answer, which had come back in 6.6 seconds, was: ± 3 YEARS PROBABLE MALFUNCTION NEXT TWO WEEKS .009% AREAS OF PROBABLE MALFUNCTION BEARINGS 38% MAIN MOTOR 16% ALL OTHER 54%. That was a smart computer. Starkey had gotten Steffens to query it again after the actual burnout of Ezwick’s centrifuge. The computer communed with the Engineering Systems data bank and confirmed that the centrifuge had indeed burned out its bearings.

Remember that, Starkey thought as his caller began to beep urgently behind him. The sound of burning bearings in the final stages of collapse is ronk-ronk-ronk.

He went to the caller and pushed the button that snapped off the beeper. “Yes, Len.”

“Billy, I’ve got an urgent from one of our teams in a town called Sipe Springs, Texas. Almost four hundred miles from Arnette. They say they have to talk to you; it’s a command decision.”

“What is it, Len?” he asked calmly. He had taken over sixteen “downers” in the last ten hours, and was, generally speaking, feeling fine. Not a sign of a ronk.

“Press.”

“Oh Jesus,” Starkey said mildly. “Patch them through.”

There was a muffled roar of static with a voice talking unintelligibly behind it.

“Wait a minute,” Len said.

The static slowly cleared.

“—Lion, Team Lion, do you read, Blue Base? Can you read? One… two… three… four… this is Team Lion—”

“I’ve got you, Team Lion,” Starkey said. “This is Blue Base One.”

“Problem is coded Flowerpot in the Contingency Book,” the tinny voice said. “Repeat, Flowerpot.”

“I know what the fuck Flowerpot is,” Starkey said. “What’s the situation?”

The tinny voice coming from Sipe Springs talked uninterrupted for almost five minutes. The situation itself was unimportant, Starkey thought, because the computer had informed him two days ago that just this sort of situation (in some shape or form) was apt to occur before the end of June. 88% probability. The specifics didn’t matter. If it had two legs and belt-loops, it was a pair of pants. Never mind the color.

A doctor in Sipe Springs had made some good guesses, and a pair of reporters for a Houston daily had linked what was happening in Sipe Springs with what had already happened in Arnette, Verona, Commerce City, and a town called Polliston, Kansas. Those were the towns where the problem had gotten so bad so fast that the army had been sent in to quarantine. The computer had a list of twenty-five other towns in ten states where traces of Blue were beginning to show up.

The Sipe Springs situation wasn’t important because it wasn’t unique. They’d had their chance at unique in Arnette—well, maybe—and flubbed it. What was important was that the “situation” was finally going to see print on something besides yellow military flimsy; was, anyway, unless Starkey took steps. He hadn’t decided whether to do that or not. But when the tinny voice stopped talking, Starkey realized that he had made the decision after all. He had perhaps made it as long as twenty years ago.

It came down to what was important. And what was important wasn’t the fact of the disease; it wasn’t the fact that Atlanta’s integrity had somehow been breached and they were going to have to switch the whole preventative operation to much less satisfactory facilities in Stovington, Vermont; it wasn’t the fact that Blue spread in such sneaky common-cold disguise.

“What is important—”

“Say again, Blue Base One,” the voice said anxiously. “We did not copy.”

What was important was that a regrettable incident had occurred.






- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 3:59 PM Pacific Time USA Tuesday 31 July 2012