WetWeb (10 page)

The crowd quieted in anticipation as the Dean of Students walked onto the stage.

“Good ___ students” the Dean began.  The microphone was not working perfectly and kept cutting in and out.  The Dean never seemed to notice and just kept going with his prepared introduction.

“Tonight we have a ______ from ____ Hoobler.  Please be _____ and respect ______ and ______ as I know ______ the
students
_____ and please no _____ or ______.  Let’s have a Great _____.”

This broken introduction was greeted by the students with a mixture of suppressed laughter and polite applause.  While the Dean was walking off of the stage, a student who appeared to be associated with the Audio Visual setup jumped onto the stage and began wrapping the microphone wire with electrical tape.  As he manipulated the wire, a loud crackle resounded through the hall and then settled into a mild hum.  When ready, the Audio technician said into the microphone,

“Testing, testing, one, two, three”

The system seemed to be working fine now.  The audience spontaneously began to applaud for the Audio technician and in response; he smiled and then bowed deeply.  This earned him a large laugh that rippled through the crowded hall.

Franklin was having a grand time.  He felt like he was part of this group, this audience.  He was one of the students.  He was in on the joke.  When the Audio technician bowed to the audience, Franklin laughed loudly and then cheered.

As the crowed was quieting, a stocky young man stepped out onto the stage.  His hair was cropped short, but was still very wiry and seemed to be growing in odd directions.  He wore wire rimmed glasses that framed a grand roman nose.  He tapped on the microphone and then spoke into it.

“My name is Hans Hoobler”

The crowd cheered and applauded.  They were raucous and noisy.

Hans smiled and waited; after a moment he spoke again, softly but firmly.  He had a slightly European accent.

“Tonight I will tell you about the end of our world.”

The crowd began to calm down.

Hans began speaking again.  His voice was unemotional, but the content of his message was emotionally charged.

“I am not predicting an apocalyptic end of the earth as so many have done before; I am not concerned with weather cycles, heat waves or the next Ice Age. 

I am not worried about comets the might pulverize us, nor do I think we are doomed from a plague of sickness or an invasion by green aliens.  From all of these dramatic endings, our world, our society, humankind, in my opinion, is safe.

“The threat to our existence is from within us. 
All of us.
  The
same
attribute that allowed us to rise
,
dominate and then master this world.  Like a King in a Shakespearian tragedy, the curtain will close on humanity, and in that final act, our end will come, ultimately and ironically, because of that which made us great; our ingenuity.”

Hans paused to sip from a glass of water that was sitting on the podium.  The full auditorium was quiet now.  Franklin looked around for Doug, but did not see him.

“This is an old story, an ancient lament that has been told through human history” Hans continued.

”Technology that we invent runs ahead of our moral constructs.  From the day that the first Cro-Magnon man picked up a rock and bludgeoned his rival, humanity has struggled to build a society where we control our use of technology for protection of us all.  When man evolved from an agrarian to an industrialist, the stench that rose from these first cities resulted in plagues and disease that was rampant.  The Black Death threatened to eradicate us.  But we invented sewers and sanitation and hospitals and vaccinations; and we survived.

“When man entered the rocket age, we developed plutonium and hydrogen based weapons that harnessed the power of the atom, the fabric our dimension was ripped open with devastating effect.  Man was now capable of destroying the earth in a flash.  But we recognized this danger and we organized our nations, we developed treaties and missile defense systems and international regulatory agencies, and again, we survived.

“Next we embarked upon the information age…

The sound of Hans Hoobler’s voice faded into a background buzz; instead Franklin began to listen to the thumping pulse of his heartbeat.  From across the hall, the black wave that topped Doug’s head appeared in the doorway and by catching glimpses of motion through the crowd, Franklin could see that Doug was escorting two girls.  Franklin had a date.

Franklin watched Hans Hoobler complete his speech but did not hear the words.  When the crowd laughed, Franklin laughed, when the crowd cheered, Franklin cheered.  Franklin’s mind was now captivated by the girls that Doug had brought. One he had not seen before.  He was sure this one was with Doug.  The other was his date.  He had seen her often.  She was one of the girls that liked to hang around with Doug and his popular friends.

After the speech ended, there was a long applause and the doors of the Hall opened.  Cool night air quickly drew the crowd outside.  Franklin moved with ebb and flow of students. 

Doug and the girls were waiting in the lighted quad outside the Hall.  Franklin approached casually and said;

“Hello Doug”

Doug was brief.  Speaking to the girl that Franklin recognized he said;

“This is him, this is Tempo”

Then looking at Franklin, Doug said,

“Tempo, meet Dolly”

With that, Doug put his long arm around the new girl and they stepped out of the brightly lit quad and into the dim moonlit path leading back towards the student dormitory.

“Hello” Franklin managed.

Dolly smiled and said, “Where shall we go?”

Franklin had no plan.  He felt a little light headed.  He was happy when Dolly said,

“There’s a coffee shop across campus. I think they are still open.”

They set out across on the walk and Dolly took hold of Franklin at the elbow.  Franklin was uncomfortable in the silence.  He wanted to say something witty, but his mind felt numb.  He was relieved when Dolly began chattering aimlessly.

“I am going to get a Synaptic implant next week” Dolly said, “I don’t know what that weird guy at the rally was complaining about, I think it’s cool.”

“Have you connected to someone?  Using a Synapse Suit?”  Franklin asked.

“What do you mean?” Dolly seemed confused.

“Over the WetWeb
” Franklin explained, “When you have a Syn
ap
tic implant, then people will connect with you and control you remotely, have you ever controlled someone else?”

“I don’t know about that” Dolly chattered on, “I just want someone else to take over my body when I am in physiology class.  I have to be there, but it is so boring.”

Franklin found Dolly amusing.  He was happy to listen to her lilting voice enthusiastically describing the frivolous benefits of the Synaptic implant. 

Unlike Dolly, Franklin had no interest in a Synaptic implant.  While guys like Doug and his cohort would be in high demand when they posted their strong young bodies to the
WetWeb
, Franklin had no interest in offering his oddly shaped body to remote manipulation.  He doubted anyone would Synap into control him, and if they did, he was uncomfortable intimacy implied by this arrangement.

As they walked they both noticed that the warm night air was filled with an exotic scent; something tropical and sweet.

Dolly interrupted her monologue to inquire about it.

“What is that? It smells like flowers or something.”

Franklin did not answer,
and Dolly
simply resume
d
her one sided discussion of her plans to graduate from college and skip all
of
her boring classes through the skillful application of Synaptic Derivation.

When they entered the garden that connected the Art buildings with the Theatre the scent hanging in the night air became intoxicating.  They could see the trees that bordered the garden along the walk were blooming with large cream-colored flowers that glowed in the moonlight attracting moths and other night insects.

“These trees are so beautiful” Dolly remarked.

Franklin read the placard that was nailed to the thorny trunk of the fourth tree they passed.

“Erythrina Caffra, Coral Tree, South Africa” He said.

The moonlit flowers and heady fragrance were enough romance for Dolly.  She kissed Franklin wetly on the mouth and together they settled into the dark lawn of the garden.  Dolly removed Franklin’s shirt and he felt the itchy moist grass on his back.  Next Dolly removed her blouse; her soft skin gently glowed in the moonlight like the flower of a South African Coral tree.

Anand was lost in his own reverie and did not notice that Franklin was distracted from the monologue.

Franklin refocused his attention on Anand’s story in time to catch the last few sentences.  Anand said,

“It was innocent, it was natural.  Each of us securely situated in a remote Synap Suit at different ends of the lab; we were breaking no rules.  We had discovered a loop-hole in morality.  Guilt, responsibility, obligation were gone in an instant.  Passion and playfulness were all that remained.  At that moment I felt that we had built a great gift for mankind. 
Something transcendent.

Sadhna and I eventually untangled our hosts from each other and from the brambles of the garden.  Our hosts were naked on the grass below an exotic tree with odd bark and large leaves.  It was a unique experience; I can still smell the wetness of the grass and feel the rough branches and sharp thorns of the tree.

I remember feeling so acutely the cool when we were in the shade of those broad leaves and the warmth of Sahdna’s host body. The sun was starting to set and it was time to get back to the lab.  As we dressed, Sahdna assured me that while under a strong dose of Somnambutol a volunteer Synapse host would not remember anything that occurred while we had control of their bodies.  The streets of the college town had grown dark.   We did not speak on the walk home.  She held my hand, or her host held hands with my host.  It was tender.  I think she felt safe and at ease.  I felt strong, protective and virile.

When I “synapped-off” there was an urgent message waiting for me from Christopher Mark.  Six hours later, I was on a flight from LAX on route to Shanghai.  Real world violence had erupted at Wild West Alive.

“We had an unfortunate incident at Wild West Alive.”

-  Al McKnight

The control room at the factory was a conglomeration of blinking displays and monitors.  There were no windows to allow the entry of natural light and the green-blue gleam from the multitude of monitors over powered the white light from the overhead fluorescents.  Therefore the room and
all of
it
s
occupants all had
an
unnatural
off-blue pallor.  Each control room station was setup to monitor the status of the players experience into Wild West Alive and the status of their selected hosts.  The monitors were never intended to keep track of the activities of rogue hosts or kidnapped girls. 
The
view of the events unfolding in Squabash, while sitting in the main control room and only twelve miles from the action, was essentially no different than any player who was Synapped in to control a host and
thereby
watching from the perspective of one of the rogue cowboys.

On the primary display, Henry
, Anand’s
lead technician on-site at WWA
,
continually clicked between various hosts who were positioned in different locations throughout Squabash in an effort to gain an improved vantage or perhaps get lucky and see the missing girl inside one of the buildings.
 
Henry clicked onto the workstation and
the view displayed on the monitor was
looking out from b
ehind the bar at the Saloon.  From this vantage Henry and the other controllers
can see the Saloon is occupied by three of the Saloon girls.  Each of them is dressed wearing tight corsets and feathers.  A piano is playing.  The room is dim, but sunlight is filtering in through the wide windows that look out onto the main street.  The win
dows are not clear, but they
can
make out the
outlined shapes of men standing out front.

Henry clicks on the workstation again and instantly the display was changed.  Now
the view on the monitor is from
outside, standing in the front of the Saloon.  There are two other
cowboys standing next to nearby.  The monitor
clearly
shows
the dusty main street of Squabash.  Across the street is the barber shop with its distinctive candy striped pole.  There are no people walking on the street or wooden sidewalks.  The town is deserted.  Inside the barber shop the barber is cautiously peering out through his wide window.

Henry clicks again and now
the view shifts to
across the street
and Henry and the controllers are
l
ooking out from the Barbershop window. 
This
is the same scene but from the opposite perspective
, they are seeing through the eyes of the barber.  From this perspective they
can see the three cowboys standing guard in front of the Saloon.  Two are thin, one is heavy.

There
is
no direct communication setup from the control room to the individual hosts. 
A
public address
was never installed system in the western t
own.  There was no way to contact
them directly.  When the team in the control room accesses
a Synaptic Interface de
vice wired onto a host cowboy they can see from the
perspective
of the host and they
can monitor
stat
istics
on the game related to each cowboy, but
their ability to impact the action inside the game is quite limited.  Inside the control room they
had no more control than any of
the
remote players.

Henry opened a map display on a central vid-screen that depicted the town of Squabash from overhead.  The position of each host was represented by a dot that would move about continually indicating the position of the host on the map and their relative position to other hosts.
  The color of the dot indicates
the status of the relationship between the player and the host.  If the host was fully compliant with the player’s remote commands then the dot displayed on the overhead map indicate
s as green. 

Yellow dots indicate
the host was resisting th
e remote player’s commands and r
ed meant that the host was not responding to a player’s commands.  A red dot meant we had a rogue cowboy.

The map display reminded
Anand
of the cut away views of human bodies that decorated Sahdna’s laboratory in Los Angeles.  The dots moved about like synaptic impulses moving through the neural network of a strange animal.   On the overhead display there were hundreds of dots moving about in and around the cut away buildings and on the s
treets of Squabash.  Most were green, a few were y
ellow, and only one was red.

Henry used his work station controls to click on the red dot.  A small display opened trailing behind the dot that indicated the Synaptic activity being transmitted to the remote player and viewers.  This counter was designed to alert technicians if there was a failure in the Synaptic Interface device.  Watching this display, Anand realized that if a host was killed in a real shootout using real bu
llets, the control room
moni
toring the synaptic activity would
watch
as the
counter drop
ped
to zero.

Henry typed in a command and a new window appeared with statistics about the rogue cowboy:

Name: Yang Wu

Role: Elijah - Outlaw

Age: 24

Sex: Male

Popularity: 83%

Player Control: 0%

Viewers: 2,678

As Anand
watched the readout the number of remote viewers watching from
the
rogue cowboy’s perspective continued to count-up.

Henry re-positioned the statistics window in the corner over a relatively uninteresting part of the map.  Then he entered another command into the work station and another window opened.  The new window was labeled “host view”. 

From this window
we
could watch from our rogue cowboy’s perspective along with the more than 2600 of our gamers.  In the host view window, the perspective of the rogue cowboy
was displayed
as he looked over the top of a black ho
rse.  The rogue cowboy was
riding at a steady pace.  In the distance
the
square buildings
and
flat roofs
of the town came into view
.  He would soon be inside the town of Squabash.

“Do we know which hosts have access to lead bullets?” Anand asked.

Henry was sheepish in his reply. 

“Th
ere are no controls,” he said, and then added,

“We never thought they would shoot each other… the lead bullets are converted to rubber in the costume wing.   Any host could access the lead bullets at any time.”

“Maybe we should go ahead and send someone over to costumes and lockup any lead bullets that are left” Anand
suggested
.

Henry spoke a few words in Chinese to one of the technicians standing in the room and the technician quickly exited in the direction of costume room.

Anand watched as the red dot moved steadily closer to Squabash.  Anand was trying to understand the complex dynamics playing out in from of them on the monitors and at Wild West Alive.  Wa
s this a family vendetta; maybe
a love Triangle?  Whatever was the cause, something was boiling over.

“
The
rogue cowboy, is he the same one that shot up the village last night?”  Anand asked Henry,
“Do you think he has the missing girl stashed somewhere?”

Henry was careful only to answer with facts allowing Anand to draw
his
own conclusions.

“We know that they rogue cowboy was in the medical wing last night,” Henry said, “He required some extensive care for a broken right arm.  The medical records indicate he was never properly discharged.”

“This looks like a vendetta.” Anand said.

Henry did not respond.  He watched the map display stoically, the blue-green glow from the monitors reflecting softly in his glasses.

Anand had seen enough.  He called Christopher Mark on the vid-phone that was on Henry’s work station.  After some few minutes, the vid-phone display buzzed into focus
;
Anand and Henry could see Christopher Mark looking tired and rumpled.

Christopher said, “Anand, good.  You are on site at Wild West Alive; do you ha
ve the situation under control?”

Before he answered
, Anand glanced up at the status of the red dot on the map display.  The rogue cowboy had stopped moving.  He was standing stationary on the outskirts of Squabash.  From the host view window, Anand and the control team could clearly see he was loading his six
gun
with lead bullets.  In the statistics window Anand could also see that the viewer count was approaching 3000 and continuing to count up at a rapid pace.

Anand said, “Chris, the situation is spinning out of control.  We need to shut down the game or we are about to broadcast a bloodbath to over 3000 players.”  Anand tried to control the tense tone of panic that punctuated his words.

“No way,” Chris said.  “Not an option.  Shutting down the game is proof that we have a problem.  The players are
expecting
to seeing gunfights, this is what we do.  They will never know the difference.  We need to
let this play out; the players will think it is the game,
business as usual.”

“The viewer rate is off the scale
,
” Anand explained, “the players know this is real, they can see a rogue cowboy loading lead bullets into his gun. We need to shut it down.  We need to shut it down right now.”

As Anand argued with Mark, the fabric of fantasy hiding the reality at Squabash began to unravel.

* * * * *

The noon sun was directly overhead.  Looking across the plains towards the town of Squabash, the hot air made the view of the town wavering and indistinct, as if he looking at an illusion, or a mirage.   If blackbirds circled overhead in the hot updrafts, Eli did not notice.

He reined the tall horse to a stop.  With his
eyes
he
followed
the worn wagon ruts along the dirt road into Squabash.  From here Squabash looked like a ghost town.  There was no movement, no glint of gunmetal from window or rooftop.  No tendrils of smoke rising from the black stove pipes that protruded from the flat wooden roofs.  Eli took a hard draw against the black cigarillo and felt the rough tobacco smoke fill his lungs.  The stub burned at his lips, so Eli flicked it to the ground. 

Now he dug deep into his saddlebag with his left hand and returned with a box of lead bullets.  Using his bandaged right hand to hold the gun, he carefully slipped the lead bullets into the open cylinder.   He counted audibly as each bullet slid into its chamber with a satisfying click.

“One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six,” he said.

He snapped the cylinder closed and gave it a turn to ensure it was tight and to listen to the ratcheting noise from the action. Satisfied, he pushed the six-gun gingerly into the holster strapped to his left leg.  With a clink of spurs the horse started on a fast walk towards the town.  Eli looked straight ahead.  There was no plan.  He was going to go in, get Liang, and then get out.  He expected an ambush.  Tommy Chin must know that he would come.  The only question left to consider is how much
did Tommy bother
to prepare for his arrival.

Once the tall horse stepped onto the main street at the far end of Squabash, Eli could see straight through to the other side of town.  Each building looked familiar.  He knew the line of fire from every window and roof-top.  He recognized the bank because he had robbed it countless times; and the jail where he had spent many nights and escaped many mornings. 

The Livery, the Hotel, the Barber Shop where he could get a bath.
  Each location stirred a memory of a gunfight or a brawl.  Today it would be different. 

There were no citizens or cowboys out on the streets.  The few citizens that saw him approaching quickly cleared into the buildings as if he was prepared to shoot anyone he saw on sight. 

“This is good
,”
Eli thought, “let them be scared.”

He felt himself being watched by a multitude of unseen eyes.  He could hear the hooves of his tall horse, and the clink of his spurs rattling through the empty street.  The town of Squabash held its breath as the Saloon came into view.

Three of Tommy Chin’s deputies were standing in front of the Saloon.  As Eli approached he could see each of the deputies was wearing two six-guns, one strapped to each leg
following
Tommy
’s example
.  The handle of each gun was painted with a stripe either red or blue.  Eli figured that red was loaded with lead, blue was loaded with rubber.  The three deputies each had loosened their red gun.  They looked ready to draw.