[NOTE: The atrocity of 9/11 has rendered one particular joke in this column offensive instead of funny. I have left it in for historical purposes. We should remember that things were once different--Lincoln Spector, June 11, 2003]

Fade in on New Year’s Eve party in Sydney, Australia. The camera glides past guests into a bedroom, where a teenage boy is playing a computer game. In the background, guests start counting down to midnight, as the computer starts to shake uncontrollably.

Cut to exterior, Sydney residential neighborhood. A house explodes, sending shards of glass flying in slow motion.

Cut to Washington D.C. People in uniforms and suits walk around with grim faces.

Cut to conference room in Pentagon. Dr. Tolken Blakmon is explaining the situation. "As soon as midnight strikes a time zone, systems go down, communications fail, and computers lock into an infinite loop, almost always resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent but insignificant people.

"We have only one hope. Buried six miles below Greenwich, England is the world’s most powerful clock, the Central Unix Cyber Unit. If someone can fix the Y2K problem in the CUCU Clock, we just might save the world."

An aide rushes in. "Dr. Blakmon, we just realized that the mainframe in the New York Stock Exchange basement is set to Tokyo time!"

"Good God! It will be midnight in Tokyo in only…five seconds. Evacuate the building immediately!"

Cut to New York Stock Exchange. The building blows up. A chunk of it flies into one of the towers of the World Trade Center, knocking it into the other tower. Both collapse.

Cut to conference room in the Pentagon. Dr. Blakmon says "Only one man can program CUCU, and he’s an American." Camera dollies in fast to close-up. "Brute Willies."

Cut to Brute trying to hack an ATM machine with his team of eccentric but lovable programmers—Cowboy, Egghead, Big Guy, Hangdog, Macho Chick, and Irving. Brute’s explaining his technique. "By crossing the Unix server with the floppy drive, we can empty my ex-wife’s bank account. That’ll show her for leaving me."

Cowboy asks "Why did she leave you."

"Because I hacked and emptied her bank account."

They all laugh and open another beer. Just as money starts shooting out the ATM, FBI agents come and take our heroes away.

Cut to conference room in Pentagon. Brute and his team sit across a long, sleek black table from Dr. Blakmon and his staff. Brute says "You mean you want us to fly to England and save the world?"

Camera glides to Dr. Blakmon. "Yes. And you must do it before midnight, Greenwich time, or it will be total disaster on a worldwide scale—worse even than bringing back Donny and Marie. You’ve got seven hours as we speak. It takes two hours to fly to Greenwich in our fastest jet. Figure another two hours to break into the CUCU facility, shoot a few confused guards, make your way down a six-mile elevator, and debug the computer. So you don’t have to leave here for another three hours."

The camera twirls around, dollies fast into Brute, and bumps him on the nose. "You can count on us."

Cut to airport hanger. Brute and his team are hanging around, smoking cigarettes. Zoom in on Dr. Blakmon as he enters. Brute turns on him angrily. "What’s the friggin’ delay for?"

"We decided you need one more person on the team; someone who knows the CUCU Clock and understands your work methods. So we flew in your ex-wife."

In a one-hour montage made up of 1800 two-second shots, Brute and his team fly to Greenwich. Brute and his ex-wife, Buddie, fight the entire way, while we cut away to various parts of Asia and Eastern Europe blowing up.

Once at the observatory, the hackers pull out their Uzis and fight their way past guards who have been ordered to stop anyone trying to prolong the twentieth century. The controls to the CUCU elevator are destroyed in the fight, but Egghead and Macho Chick hack into a mainframe in Casablanca and get the elevator working.

But just as three members of the team who we’ve never really gotten to know get onto the elevator, a vengeful, wounded guard shoots the cable and they fall to their death, the camera plunging after them.

The surviving programmers climb down the shaft on ropes, making it to the bottom at 11:53. The camera zooms in on the keyboard, then spins around to our heroes.

"There’s only one thing to do," says Brute. "Reboot."

"Uh-uh," says Cowboy. "This baby’s equipped with DogFood Security Software. Reboot, and it blows up."

"Yeah, but before it does, it tells every computer in the world to work properly in the 21st century. Just press Cntl-Alt-Delete and we’ll have 20 seconds to get back up that shaft to safety."

Brute raises his arms to press the keys, but he stops. "Oh no, it’s my carpal-tunnel syndrome!"

Buddie pushes him aside and presses the keys. "C’mon, we’ve got only twenty seconds to climb up this shaft!"

Shot of team frantically climbing when CUCU blows, shooting them up the shaft to safety. All over the world, computers start working again.

Buddie turns to Brute. "I just realized. I still love you."

Camera dollies in to Cowboy, who looks horrified. "Oh, no! I just realized! 2000 has a February 29th! Do you hear me? A February 29th!"

Huge letters appear onscreen: "Don’t miss Millennium II Thousand II: Leap Year!"

Fade out.

© Copyright 1999 by Lincoln Spector

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