Web Site Story (22 page)

Sunday came and Sunday went.

It really shouldn't have gone quite so quickly, but it did. Derek spent it attending to company business. And wandering the streets shouting, 'Kelly, Kelly, where are you?'

Many upstairs windows raised to Derek's shoutings.

And many chamber pots were hurled down on his head.

But Sunday came and Sunday went and Derek, now in a state of high anxiety, raved about the streets and raved into pubs and was thrown out of pubs and raved about the streets some more. On any normal day he would no doubt have been arrested. But there was nothing normal whatsoever about this particular Sunday. There were no policemen to be seen, only whistling workers. And there seemed to be fewer and fewer Brentonians about. The streets were virtually deserted.

Derek saw Mad John, but he didn't bid him hello.

Mad John was in the doorway of the charity shop, rooting out shoes from the black bin liners. He looked up briefly as Derek raved by, but feeling assured that this wasn't some upstart out to get his job, continued with his rooting and his shouting at shoes.

Eventually Derek went home.

He had no other choice. He was all raved out. And he had done all that he could for
the Company.
Leo had told him that everything
was
under control and that he should go and rave somewhere else or he really would have the dogs set on him. So Derek finally went home. There was really nothing else he could do.

And Derek, now with three days' stubble on his face, threw himself onto his bed and wept. She
had
gone. She
had
vanished. Raptured away. Suddenly it seemed all so possible. He could no longer ignore all the vanishing Brentonians. Pretend it wasn't happening. It was. It really was. Never a religious man, nor even a religious boy, Derek now questioned his faith. It didn't stand a lot of questioning. He didn't have one. It wasn't that he didn't believe in God. It was just that, well, he was young, and God was for old people. Old people coming close to death and beginning to worry. What if there was a God? Perhaps he should believe. He didn't want to end up in hellfire and damnation for eternity. Perhaps now would be the time to do a bit of praying. Best to stay on the safe side. And things of that nature.

But that was for old people. Yes, sure there
were
young Christians and young Runies, plenty of them. Runeianity was the fastest-growing religion of the day. The Prime Minister, Mr Doveston, was passing a bill to declare Runeianity the official religion of Great Britain.

And Runeianity did have the edge on Christianity when it came to having a good time. Hugo Rune had declared in his autohagiography,
The Gospel according to Hugo Rune,
that the only way to conquer the sins of the flesh was to try them out first. 'You have to know your enemy' Rune explained, and who was there alive to argue with such wisdom?

But Derek wasn't a Runie, nor was he a Christian. Nor was he anything else. But now, in his hour of need and his hour of loss, he really truly wished that he was.

Derek rose from his bed and locked his bedroom door, then he cleared a space on the carpet and knelt down in that space.

'Dear God,' prayed Derek. 'I expect you're a bit surprised to hear from me. Although if you know everything, then I suppose you're not. But I do want to ask you a favour. I know that people only pray to you when they want something. So that's why I'm praying to you. But you know that anyway. And it's not for me. Well, it is, sort of. But mostly it's for someone else. It's for Kelly. Kelly Anna Sirjan. One of your flock. I love her, God, and I miss her so much. Being away from her breaks my heart and I'm so afraid that something terrible has happened to her. And you'd know if it has. And
if it
has, will you please do something about it? Will you please bring her back to me, God? If you do, I promise that I'll try not to be such a prat in future. And not greedy. In fact I've got ten thousand pounds here and I'll give it all to charity. To the society for small and shoeless boys in need of a good hiding, or something. Anything you want, just you name it. I know it's not really my money, but you can have it. Please bring Kelly back to me unharmed. Please God, I beg you. Please. Amen. Love, Derek.'

And having prayed, Derek felt a lot better. No less fretful and no less worried, but a lot better in himself that he
had
prayed and so was, beneath all the greed and prattishness, ultimately a good person.

And, he noticed now, he was also a very hungry person, having not eaten a single thing all day. And a very thirsty person too.

So Derek went out again. Finally found a pub that he hadn't been thrown out of for raving, and as it was now too late in the evening to order a surf and turf, ordered ten packets of crisps instead and drank a great deal of Scotch.

And finally, crisp-filled and drunken, Derek staggered home, set his alarm clock, with inebriated care, for seven o'clock the following morning and dropped down, fully clothed and smelling bad and very stubbly now indeed, upon his single bed.

He did not sleep the sleep of the blessedly drunk. Derek slept the tossing terrible sleep of the sweating tossing troubled. Horrible dreams tormented him.

Kelly under attack from something monstrous. Something that was all-consuming, everywhere. A black spiralling, tangling network of worms and snakes and evil curly things. And Derek was powerless to help her. He was on the outside of something and she was deep within. It was all too terribly terrible. And rather awful as well.

Alarm bells rang and rang and rang.

And Derek awoke to find his alarm clock ringing.

It was Monday morning.

Seven of the clock.

And Derek knew, just knew, that this was going to be the worst day of his life.

'Kelly,' he whispered. 'Kelly, where are you? Please come back to me, Kelly. Please God, send her back to me. Kelly, oh Kelly, where are you?'

Kelly was no longer anywhere in particular.

When she performed the foolish, but purposeful, dance that Shibboleth had bobbed and bounced before her and vanished into wherever he vanished into, her first thoughts had been that she would very likely not be dancing out again.

She had put her trust in Shibboleth, and Kelly felt that this was probably a mistake. Normally she trusted but one person in the world. And this one person was Kelly Anna Sirjan.

Bright light opened up before her. A sky of blue with a big fat smiley sun. And chorusing sparrows on treetop perches. And snoozing tomcats and all. She was standing in the Butt's Estate, upon the area of grass before the Seamen's Mission.

'Brentford,' she said. 'I am back in Brentford.'

Kelly was
not
back in Brentford.

'I'm
not
back in Brentford,' she continued. 'This
isn't
Brentford. It's wrong.'

'Which bit is wrong?' The old man sat upon a bench. He smiled a toothless smile at Kelly. 'Which bit don't you like, my little dear?'

'Little dear?' Kelly viewed the ancient. He had the look of a man who had once been someone. Even though his frame was sunken under the weight of many years, there was still an alertness in that face. A fearsome intelligence. A vitality.

He was dressed in what had once been an expensive suit of Boleskine green tweed mix. It hung from his shoulders and its trouser cuffs draggled in the dirt.

'What immediately strikes you as wrong?' the ancient asked.

'All,' said Kelly. 'It isn't real. It's a simulation.'

The ancient fellow nodded, withered dewlaps dangled, turkey fashion.

Kelly's composure was remarkable. 'Where is Shibboleth?' she asked.

'The bad boy who entered before you? He is no longer part of the game.'

'Game?' Kelly looked down at the oldster. There was something familiar about him. She'd seen that face before, somewhere. But younger. Oh yes, of course.

'Mr Remington Mute,' said Kelly Anna Sirjan.

'Kelly Anna Sirjan,' said Mr Remington Mute.

Kelly approached Mr Mute. 'I have much to say to you,' she said.

'I trust you also have much to ask me, little dear. Aren't you puzzled as to your whereabouts?'

Kelly managed a smile. 'I didn't know what to expect,' she said. 'But I didn't expect that whatever it was would be real. I thought perhaps some simulation of a cathedral with a great Net-serving computer system up on the high altar.'

'That's a bit old hat,' said Remington Mute. 'And I should know, I wear an old hat myself.'

'And are
you
real?' Kelly asked. 'If I were to reach out and punch your old face, would you dissolve, or would you hit the deck?'

'I fear that I'd hit the deck,' said Remington Mute. 'But I wouldn't recommend that you employ your Dimac, you are in my world now.'

'And are you happy in your world, Mr Mute?'

The ancient stretched out his arms. Hideous joint-cracking sounds issued from them. 'No,' said Remington Mute. 'Things have not gone quite as well as I might have wished.'

Kelly stood, swaying gently upon her holistic footwear. Somehow this didn't seem the time for a cosy chat. This seemed the time for action. Although exactly what that action should be, she didn't know.

'Raring to go, aren't you?' said Remington Mute. 'Do you want me to set you off running? I could give you something to fight.'

'Where is Shibboleth?' Kelly asked. 'What have you done with him?'

'Would finding Shibboleth be good for a goal? Could we make a game out of that, do you think? You as a warrior princess with a sacred sword, or perhaps you'd rather be a ninja?'

'So that's it then,' said Kelly. 'I'm inside your go mango game.'

'Or go womango?' Remington Mute laughed noisily, the sound resembling that of pebbles being shaken in an old tin can. 'You're not inside go mango, or rather go mango is not inside you.'

'Then I can leave here, if I choose?'

Remington Mute shrugged his old and rounded shoulders. 'I suppose you could try to leave,' he said. 'But why would you want to? You still believe that in some way you can stop this thing. You
do
believe that, don't you?'

'I don't know,' said Kelly.

'Perhaps you could just switch it off? Pull out its plug.'

'Perhaps, if I knew where the plug is.'

'Should we make a game of that, then? Basic platform, ascend to the uppermost level, enter the inner sanctum, locate the golden key?'

'I won't play any of your stupid games.'

'Stupid games?' The old man raised a snowy eyebrow. 'My games may be crass, but they're never stupid. And for someone such as yourself, who has been playing for so long and are so near to winning, it would be a shame if you quit the game now.'

'Explain,' said Kelly.

'Everything has led you here,' said Remington Mute. 'Everything you have ever done throughout all of your short little life has led you to this moment.'

'Explain a bit more,' said Kelly.

Remington Mute examined the palms of her hands. 'I created you,' he said.

'You did
whatT

'Well,
not just
you. There's a lot of little yous about. But most of them fell by the wayside. They used up their energy and they lost their lives. You're my final hope, Kelly.'

'What are you talking about?' Kelly swayed forward. There was something about Remington Mute that she hated intensely. Well, there was
everything
really. He had created the Mute-chip, he was responsible for it all.

'Please hear me out,' said Remington Mute. 'If, when you've heard what I have to say, you decide to kill me, then I'll understand. In fact I welcome it. There is little enough of me left in this world anyway.'

'Say what you have to say,' said Kelly, sitting herself onto the bench next to Remington Mute.

'Some of it you know. But most of it you don't. You have me down as Mute the unspeakable, mad scientist creator of the evil Mute-chip that gave computer systems sentience and turned them into the enemy of mankind. Created the terrible, unseeable, all-knowing
It,
that networks the planet, encircles the globe, like a great black spider's web.'

'So far you're right on the button,' said Kelly.

'It's almost true,' said Remington Mute. 'But as with most things that are almost true, it's false. I didn't bring this thing to life, because it isn't alive.'

Kelly said nothing, because she had nothing to say.

'The game,' said Remington Mute. 'The go mango game has been running for a lot longer than you might imagine. It went online in the late 1970s. The first players were bright young men, yuppies they were called. They were the whiz-kids of the City. They loved a computer, those boys. They were fun to play, but the game was a hard one and most of them came to grief.'

Kelly shook her golden head. She had something to say now, and it was, 'I don't understand. How did it go online? Was this because of the Mute-chip?'

'There is no Mute-chip,' said Remington Mute. 'There never was. The Mute-chip is a Web Myth. Ultimately this has nothing to do with technology, this is all to do with evolution. No, don't speak, let me tell you. Whatever knows most, and knows how to exploit its knowledge to its own betterment, wins the race for existence, becomes top of the food chain. Mankind evolved, it adapted, it created, it became number one. What would have happened if man had never invented the wheel?'

'I'd be walking around in far more comfortable footwear,' said Kelly.

'I used to know Hugo Rune,' said Remington Mute. 'A man who, in my opinion, was most notable for his remarkable sense of humour. But please allow me to continue. I'll try to keep it as short as I can. Mankind created the wheel as a tool for his advancement. And so he did with the computer. This world that you and I inhabit at this moment would no longer function without computer networks, trust me, it would not.'

'Where is all this leading?' Kelly asked. 'You have explained nothing to me.'

'All right,' said Remington Mute. 'I will give you the brutal precised version. I would have preferred the uplifting pseudo-mystical version, even though it's all a pack of lies, but at least I can give that one a happy ending of sorts. So let's go for brutal and short. There is no mankind any more, Kelly. Everyone on this planet is dead.'

'What?'
said Kelly, as you would. 'What are you talking about?'

'The Millennium Bug,' said Remington Mute. 'It was no conspiracy theory, it was real. Systems crashed everywhere, defence systems, all systems. There was a nuclear holocaust, no-one at all survived.'

'You've lost it,' said Kelly. 'You are a mad old man.'

Remington Mute managed a bit of a smile. 'And how old are you dear?'

'I'm twenty-two,' said Kelly. 'What has that to do with anything?'

'And your date of birth?'

'First of the first, two thousand.'

'Yes, a little after 00:00. Or one bc. One
Before
Computer.
I regret to tell you that you do not exist. Not as a human being anyway. You are merely part of a program that exists within a computer system that I created. This me, that you see, is the server. It's an advanced games-strategy system called go mango designed to simulate urban situations under threat, such as Brentford, created for the military in the late 1970s. It contains all the existing files for people then living in the London area. It's a system that is constantly building, constantly evolving, trying to recreate the world that was lost in the nuclear holocaust. All within a computer simulation.'

'So if I punch you in the face, you won't feel it?'

'Of course I'll feel it, I'm programmed to
be
human. You'll hurt me, you might even kill me.'

'It's rubbish,' said Kelly. 'Mad rubbish.'

'Is it?' said Mute. 'Then tell me about your mother.'

'I've heard that line before,' said Kelly.

'Yes,' said Shibboleth. 'I said it.'

Kelly stared. Remington Mute was no longer Mute, he was Shibboleth.

'Sorry,' said Shibboleth. 'I'm just another player in this game. We're all just players and this
is just
a game.'

'No.' Kelly rubbed at her eyes.

'Yes,' said Remington Mute, for he was Mute once more. 'And you can't tell me about your mother, because you have no memories of her, because none were programmed into you. You only came into existence when you walked into Brentford five days ago, complete with all the skills that had been programmed into you. The Dimac, the computer literacy. Think about it, think about yourself. Think about what you eat. Good grief, woman, no real human being could tuck into all that grub and keep a figure like yours. When you feed you gain energy, you're a very basic system, but you have some special refinements, which is why I still have such great hopes for you.'

'No,' said Kelly. 'This is all madness. I don't believe any of this.'

'It makes you feel very helpless, doesn't it? But then that's life, isn't it? We're all doomed, but some of us are more doomed than others. But sadly, unless something is done and done soon, all of us are doomed and all this, unreal as it is, yet all the life that we have, will cease to be.'

Kelly glared bitterly upon Remington Mute. 'I don't believe anything you say,' she said. 'I don't.'

'So,
have
you remembered anything about your mother?'

'No,' said Kelly. 'But my eighteenth birthday

'No,' said Remington Mute, shaking his old head once more. 'You only thought you remembered that because Shibboleth mentioned it to you. You can't really remember anything about it, can you?'

Kelly slowly shook her golden head. 'No,' she said. 'I can't.'

'Well,' said Mute. 'It is neither here nor there. Time is running out anyway. The system is crashing. Everything is falling to pieces. My lovely new town Mute Corp Keynes, my finest simulation. It started to fall apart almost as soon as it was built. The virus destroyed it. go mango is a virus all right. It started as a fun game, aiming purely to entertain, but inside the great Trojan there lurks a deadly, voracious virus. It's eating its way right through the system, putting people off-line. In a way, those who think it's The Rapture are right. But people are not really going off to Heaven, they're simply going off-line. Such a shame. We really could have all been immortal if I'd just had a little more time to iron out the glitches.'

Kelly's bitter glare remained upon Remington Mute. 'So,' she said, with braveness in her voice. 'I am not a real human being. I'm just a computer simulation.'

'There are no human beings any more,' said Mute.

'So what is my purpose? Or is there no purpose? Are we all just players inside a sophisticated game you invented to serve some purpose for the military? And where is this computer system? And if the world ended in a nuclear holocaust, what powers it?'

'It isn't on Earth,' said Remington Mute. 'It's in orbit, part of the American Star Wars system, solar-powered, nanorobotechnic. It has a million years of life left in it. And so would we too. Immortality, Kelly, for all of us. If we could purge the system of the virus that is destroying it.'

'How?' Kelly asked, 'Say I believed any of this.'

'Which means that you do. You could destroy it. It is why you were created.'

'And
you
created me?'

'Lots of little yous. Lots of little anti-virus programs. All with particular skills. But you're the very best of them. You're the pick of the crop. The golden woman. If anybody can put everything back online, it's you.'

'So I'm an anti-virus,' said Kelly, her hand now in her hair and toying with it feverishly.

'I don't like that habit,' said Remington Mute. 'I never programmed that into you. I hope you're not going off-line too.'

'I'm very much online,' said Kelly. 'And I'm very much alive. And I want to stay alive. If I am what you say I am and all of this is unreal, then ultimately what does it matter to me? It's the only "life" I've ever known and I'll be content with it. But I don't want it to stop.'

'Of course you don't,' said Mute. 'Which is why I'm offering you immortality. All you have to do is debug the system, destroy the virus, then we all live for ever, or at least until the sun goes supernova and there is no Earth with its satellites any more.'