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Synopsis of “Pickman’s Modem”
A long time contributor, Pickman, is back on the internet after being away for a while. His modem has died and he had to get a new one. After getting another one second hand, the Miskatonic Data Systems one, he logs back on, and in perfect English (very much not his forte) welcomes back to the forum he haunts.
A day later, an imagined slight by another person from Kansas City about something in his welcome back post is viewed as anti-Mid West. He lays into Pickman, and a flamewar begins. Pickman’s attacks are perfect English and extremely gross, vile, and beyond the norm. After a while the flamewar grows, and the inventive goes to a whole new level.
Not sure what happened, our narrator heads to Pickman;s house ot meet up. Pickman shows him the used modem he got, and that the messages and such the modem showed him showed his flamewar opponents were misquoting him and such. After exploration, they realize that the Modem is cleaning up his English. So he decides to try his hand at writing, his posts becoming more and more florid and archaic, and then he is never heard from again, save for one e-mail to the narrator about how he turned off the modem and is sending a quick e-mail about it, and the modem is still on, and connecting to someone, and then the message cuts off. There is a fire in the apartment and Pickman never heard from again.
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