WetWeb (30 page)

They wanted me to help them, they asked me to do something that I could not do.

Hans paused, reminiscing.

“What
,
” Franklin prompted, “What did they ask you to do?”

“The debate with Al McKnight,
” Hans said, and then drank deeply from the crystal tumbler. 

“The argument against the introduction of Warmbots into society,” Hans continued, “They asked me to win.”

The Skimmer bumped as the driver maneuvered off of the freeway and onto side streets.  They were nearing Franklin’s house.  The end of this strange conference was welcome.  Franklin was ready to be home.

Hans also sensed that the meeting was ending
, and h
e pushed to achieve his objective. 

Hans said,
“With the execution of Anand and McKnight tonight
,
you and I are the last people who recognize the Warmbots as dead people.  We are also the only ones who are aware of the loop.  I am prepared to offer you a contract as a Feature writer.  Your work will be seen as original.  You will be well compensated.  You will be protected from the loop.  But you will never publish what you learned from Anand Ramasubramanian.  The knowledge about the true nature of the world around us will stay with us.”

Franklin was not comfortable with his role as the only other person with this knowledge.  He reflected for a moment and then said,
“There are others who know the truth
,
others that were there
.  W
hat about Sahdna Singh?”

The skimmer came to a stop.  They were in front of Franklin’s house.  Franklin was anxious to get out of the skimmer.  He pushed open the door and cool night air rushed in drying the nervous perspiration on his face.

“What about Dr. Singh?” Hans repeated the question through the body of Titus Briggs.

“She was there,” Franklin said, “She knows the truth about the Warmbots, she invented the brainstem interface and controlled Anand remotely the first time they implanted one into a dead body.  She probably knows about the loop as well. Anand told her everything.”

As he spoke, Franklin struggled to extricate himself from the skimmer seat and exit the vehicle.

Hans Hoobler was incredulous, and the look of surprise registered on his
h
ost’s face.

“I am sure you are right
,
” he said, “I guess what I meant to say is we are the only two people left who know this, and are still alive.”

Realization gripped Franklin with a cold hand.  He pushed himself inelegantly to a standing position outside of the skimmer.  There were two executions tonight; there were two murders.

Hans continued asking,
“You did not know?  Anand did not talk about it? You never looked up the legal records from McKnight’s trial?”

Hans seemed amused by Franklin’s ignorance,
and
he continued stating flatly,
“You did not know that Sadhna Singh was murdered by Al McKnight on the same night that Christopher Mark was murdered by Anand Ramasubramanian?”

Franklin stood squarely on his own feet now.  He looked into the face of Titus Briggs and said,
“Mr. Hoobler, I reject your offer to write content for Brandon and Stern.  In fact, I intend to no longer write pulp.  You will have no more features from me.  I resign.”

Franklin closed the heavy door of the skimmer shutting off the sound of Titus Briggs voice and ending the discussion with Hans Hoobler.  He did not want to know anymore.  He did not want to carry Anand’s secrets
, and
he wished to unlearn what he now knew.

As he stood facing the closed door of the skimmer, looking at the skimmer, the dim moonlight turned the heavily tinted glass of the passenger window into a mirror and Franklin
could see
his own reflection staring back at him. The skimmer pulled noiselessly away and the image of his own face was gone, replaced by the scene across the street from his house. 

Standing silently, blending
in
with the black tree trunks
,
Franklin could see a mass of Warmbots; he counted six, then ten, twenty
,
and there were more down the street
.  Even
more were coming. The Warmbots were standing motionlessly
,
but attentively.
 
Waiting for him to return
, they were
watching him.  Their expressionless metal grills all turned towards him
,
observing him
and
waiting to add new behavior to their ever expanding database.

Franklin stared back at them, no longer afraid.  He looked at the mass of Warmbots and recognized them as the walking dead, mindlessly responding to an error in their programming.  The Warmbots no longer bothered him.  Looking at them now with their clean grills and thick hair, they reminded Franklin of the popular kids he knew in school, mindlessly following each other, imitating each other.  A group he used to wish he could join, but now he was glad to be standing apart. 

He turned and walked up the short steps to his door.  He was annoyed and bothered that the front door had been left unlocked.  After he entered, he carefully locked it behind him.

“Dolly
,
” he called out.  He walked towards the
k
itchen and
the
light snapped on, activated by his motion.

The kitchen was clean and bright.  Dolly had not prepared any food here today
,
or there would be dishes left in the sink or on the counter.

As he stood in the empty kitchen, realization pulsed into his numb brain.  Anand had murdered Christopher Mark; McKnight had murdered Sahdna Singh.  They had all participated in a desperate attempt to break the loop.  The murder of Christopher Mark and the murder of Sahdna Singh were carried out so that this new behavior would be added to the Warmbots database.  They had expected the behavior to be shared across the WebWeb and imitated by Warmbots everywhere.  Mark had synapped into Anand and Sahdna had synapped into Al McKnight.  And together they participated in a double murder suicide.

“Dolly, are you home?”  He called again.  He checked the clock on the wall, it was later than he expected.  She must be home
.  M
aybe she was asleep or Synapped into a feature.

He switched on the light above the stair.  He was anxious to see his wife
,
to find his way back to a world that somehow he left behind.  He was anxious to talk about mundane things, to plan another dinner with the Falsos; to hear about the latest pulp feature she was experiencing and blank out the new knowledge of the world from his mind. 

But
,
like a painful tooth that you can’t stop touching, his overly stimulated mind continued to reason out the events that followed the murders; unwillingly unraveling the mystery of the WetWeb.

As he slowly ascended the stairs, he pieced it together.  The desperate double murder suicide had not worked.  Instead of imitating Anand and McKnight by using their unconscious living hosts to shoot themselves in their brain stem devices, the Warmbots interpreted this behavior as an eradication of humans who had primary knowledge of the loop and the true nature of the WetWeb.

Franklin took another step up the twisting stairs.

The Warmbots imitated the murders by killing anyone who had been associated with the original experiments in the desert.  Hoobler said that they were the last ones alive who knew
,
therefore, Franklin reason that all of the original scientists and technicians who were involved in the project must have been already been killed by the Warmbots.

Franklin took another step.

Franklin thought about the uninvited people that came to his reading at the Chimneysweep.  These were Synapse
h
osts being controlled remotely by Warmbots.  They heard his reading.  The WetWeb
has
now recogniz
ed
Franklin as someone who knows the truth and soon the Warmbots would be coming for him.  The Warmbots will use a remote host to shoot him in the back of the head imitating the actions of Anand and McKnight.

Franklin took another step.

The Warmbots would also be coming for Claudia and her book club friends.  Franklin now understood the truth of the WetWeb.  In trying to break the loop, Anand, Mark, McKnight
,
and Sahdna had only accelerated the problem.  The Warmbots would now destroy anyone with knowledge of the true nature of the WetWeb. 

Franklin took another step.

Franklin did not know how long the loop had been expanding exponentially
,
but he realized that he must be among the last alive on the earth with individual consciousness.  The Warmbots who are watching him constantly and gathering outside his house are there because they were running out of original human behavior to add to their database.  They have run out of humans who were doing anything original because everyone is already serving as an unconscious
S
ynapse host, mindlessly repeating activities that have been stored onto the WetWeb.  The dead have displaced the living. 

Franklin took a final step onto the landing at the top of the stairs and paused to let his unwilling consciousness accept the new and complete realization of the world around him. 

He pushed open the door to Dolly’s bedroom tapping lightly as he did so.

The brightness from the stairwell cast a wedge of gold light that split the dark room.  He could see the bed was empty
.  H
e pushed the door open wider and the gold light wedge grew to reveal Dolly’s Synapse Suit.  And there she
was
,
s
ynapped into a feature as he had guessed.

He felt weak and nauseous from the stress of the conversation with Hoobler
.  Adding to this was
his ascent up the stairs and into a new realization of the world around him.  He fumbled into the room and sat heavily upon the edge of the bed.

“Let me wait here for her,” he thought as he stretched out across the cool bedspread.  He lay down and allowed his tense muscles to begin to relax.  He
propp
ed his head against one of Dolly’s soft overstuffed pillows.  He let himself start to dose while he waited for Dolly to finish her feature.

He regretted his ambition to write content.  He regretted his adventure into the night and into the Chimneysweep bar.  He longed for ignorance or even a Synaptic Derivation implant device.  Franklin could no longer be accepted into the crowd.  He was alone.

He looked at Dolly through half open eyes.  She was comfortably squeezed into her Synapse Suit; only the back of her head and shoulders were visible.  The room was only partially illuminated by the light from the stairwell.

Franklin considered Dolly’s bare shoulders and nape
,
her delicate pink skin
was
glowing softly in the dim light.  He felt a stirring of passion; a longing.

With his eyes he traced her spine up to the back of her head, and then noticed that her hair was wrong.

Now he was awake.  He sat up in the bed. 

This was not
Dolly
,
Dolly did not wear her hair in a flip.  Franklin’s amorous feelings turned cold.  His ears began to buzz with nervous tension.  Molly is back.  Molly is back and she is using Dolly’s Synapse Suit to control a human host.

Before this realization could completely register in his conscious mind, Franklin heard the front door opening downstairs and then in an exact imitation of his own entrance, he heard Dolly’s voice call out to him from the entry hall,

“Franklin,” Dolly called out.

He heard the front door lock as he had locked it previously.

He lay back on the bed.  He was uncomfortable now as he propped his head back onto the soft pillow. 

He knew now that he could never go back.  The bio-technical loop was here, it was all around him. It was in the crowd of Warmbots outside his house and inside his wife.  Dolly was being remotely controlled by Molly.

Dolly was in the kitchen now retracing Franklins path.

“Franklin, are you home?” she called, again imitating his own words.

Franklin hoped for something that would stop this.  He thought about the disease that infected the brainstem implant and killed Blanco.  Is it possible
?  C
ould that this disease spread from the Savant Organic Robotics dealership across to other Warmbots and then across the city destroying the Warmbots and breaking the loop? 

It was a dim hope.  He heard Dolly’s footsteps on the stair.

He thought of Claudia and the book enthusiasts.  Maybe they would read his book, this book.  Maybe if they learn the true history of the WetWeb by reading it in a book, disconnected from the network, then the Warmbots will not realize they are aware of the loop.  Maybe they would be able to make a stand against the Warmbots, these elderly people, who never Synap into features or Synapse hosts, who could never afford to pay to have a Synaptic Interface device implanted into their brainstems. Maybe they could rise up and stop this.