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  Brittany squeezed out of a small opening, emerging into a busy tube. She grabbed a towel from her bag and cleaned swamp water off her legs. Around her, she was not surprised to see that the area was crowded with thousands of oblivious people. The shortcut she had taken wasn’t really a shortcut. In fact, she could have gone another way in a third of the time, but she would’ve had to deal with the crowds. Despite being unfathomably huge, most of the Internet was always packed with traffic. Sometimes you just need a quiet stroll through a moonlit swamp to get your mind right. She straightened out her clothes and readjusted her backpack before joining the throngs of moving people. She calmly jogged along. A few naked men bounded past her, and she unfortunately thought of Emal.

  I suppose I should tell someone about Emal’s appearance. In fact, I probably shouldn’t have left him alone. He isn’t any smarter than a wandering toddler at this point. He’s liable to get himself killed trying to cross the street. Awakenings are so rare these days, and one like Emal’s . . . Well, I’m not the damn welcoming committee. That’s Tabitha’s job. My investigation right now is more important anyways. No one else had volunteered for it; that’s for sure. That kid is going to be trouble; I just know it. Naked men usually are.

  She wasn’t going to admit it to anyone, but he had rescued her. She had been stuck in that stupid wall for days. Every time she had struggled, she simply succeeded in getting more trapped. The more she couldn’t move, the more she had struggled. Thinking about how long she had been without food made her hungry, and as she jogged, she grabbed a granola bar from her bag. Wanting undeniable evidence, she needed to make one more stop to confirm her findings, though she had a good amount already. Hell, she had been stuck for a week inside the proof. The real question was what to do with it. Rally the resistance, or go right to The Creator?

  She took an on-ramp leading to a wider path, but with her mind distracted, she was suddenly tumbling head over tennis shoes. Brittany cursed out loud as she flew into a mass of bodies, quickly becoming entangled again.

  “Gore damn it!”

  A mass of bodies had started piling up where the on-ramp merged with her intended road. This was not unusual in the Internet. Millions of data packets, or messages, are lost every day. To people in the outside world, it might mean a small hiccup in a video. If it is even noticed at all. Inside the Internet, however, packet loss meant death.

  Brittany lay on her back, looking at the ceiling. She knew she needed to move fast, and she planted her right hand in someone’s face as she tried to push herself up, but she had the wind knocked out of her when a wrestler unintentionally body-slammed her. The wrestler, all oiled up, huge, and ready for the stage, didn’t say anything as he crashed into Brittany. She said, “ummppfff.”

  The man didn’t say anything because he was already dead. When messages get lost, or knocked off their paths, they cease to function. Any light in their eyes goes out, and their already dull expressions managed to look even duller. The fact that a dead person had crashed into her didn’t bother Brittany as it might you. To her, these people were not alive to begin with. They weren’t aware of their surroundings, and death, to them, was no different than their lives had been.

  The thing that did bother Brittany was that this dead, oiled wrestler was heavy. And slippery. Being at the bottom of a pile of bodies is a sign of trouble anywhere, but it’s even more trouble in the Internet. The Cleaners would be coming soon. She pushed, squirmed, and slid to try and get out from beneath this behemoth. She was stuck again. Some investigator I am, Brittany thought. I bet Nancy Drew never got stuck underneath the body of some oiled-up-wrestler. Certainly not unless she wanted to be.

  Slapping noises came from bodies that smashed into each other as the pile grew. Then a different sound—a sound that sent chills through Brittany.

  “Delete. Delete. Delete,” said a robotic voice.

  Gore! They’re here already. Brittany twisted under the hard body, managing only to slide about an inch to the right.

  “Delete. Delete. Delete.”

  Brittany had witnessed this before. The generic looking, might-as-well-be-faceless, monsters would be poking at the bodies with sticks. These sticks would have metal spikes on the ends, and with each thrust, they would “Delete” another lost data packet. The person would disappear, replaced by ones and zeroes that would float away in puffs of green smoke. She was in real trouble.

  “Delete. Delete. Delete.”

  The Cleaner was close. The pile shifted a little, and she lost the one inch of progress she had made.

  “Delete. Delete. Delete.”

  The wrestler on top of her suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke, and Brittany saw one of the monsters through the haze of ones and zeroes. It was about to poke her in the eye.

  “Delete. Delete. Delete.”

  She rolled quickly onto her side, the spike missing her head by inches. All it would take is a prick, and she would be smoke herself. Fortunately, the Cleaners couldn’t see well, so it didn’t notice as she rolled again. This time down the small mountain of corpses, crashing into the sidewall of the tube. She sprung to her feet, whirling around and ready to fight. They hadn’t noticed a thing. Three of them were poking at the pile and the area was foggy now from all the “Delete, Delete, Delete,” but she moved fast around the stabbing creatures, keeping one eye on them as she made her way back to the relative safety of the traffic lanes. Someone bumped her roughly, and she blindly threw an elbow, making contact with something that crunched, but she kept moving.

  “Delete. Delete. Delete” was audible but fading away.

  Brittany sprinted away for a solid ten minutes before slowing to catch her breath. She was angry now, at herself more than anything. I need to be paying more attention. I’m not some newb like Emal; I know the dangers that lurk here. The Internet isn’t all kittens and rainbows. I had been distracted thinking about that idiot. She deduced that her initial thoughts about Emal had been right on. He is trouble. Apparently even when he isn’t around.

  She saw her exit a few feet ahead and angrily pushed an old lady out of the way as she got off the path. Ignoring everyone else the best she could, she continued jogging through a few more tubes. In her frustration though, she took wrong turn after wrong turn and had to simmer a bit longer before finding her intended destination.

  With hands on her hips, she slowed down, taking deep breaths to calm herself, and walked around the corner. Just as she had suspected it would be, the path was blocked by a wall that spanned the entire tube. Similar to most the others, there were two small entrances near the bottom where people slowly moved in and out. She pulled out her notepad, recording the location. This time she wouldn’t bother trying to crawl through one of the openings. Double checking her findings, she flipped through her notes. There was no doubt; these walls were as consistent as bad grammar in the Internet.

  She stood for a moment, watching the slow traffic and debating whether she should go back home first or go straight to the man. She decided this was not something that could wait any longer. I’ll go straight to the top, she thought. She tucked her notepad away and was beginning to put on her backpack when she heard the first boom.

  BOOM!

  Brittany froze.

  BOOM!

  “Gore!” she said aloud. Not now. She was having a really shitty week. Backpack finally strapped on, our investigator started running back the way she had come.

  BOOM!

  Gore damn it! I’m running toward the noise. Brittany skidded to a halt, spun around, and ran back the other way.

  “Hey!” someone shouted from behind her.

  Just keep going. They haven’t said anything stupid yet.

  “What’s the matter, loser? Afraid of little old me?” the voice called after her.

  Brittany stopped, turning back around to face her challenger.

  “Afraid of you? Bring it on!”

  On the move again

  ~

  It took Jeeves a few minutes t
o give Emal the directions because there were lots of twists, turns, and tube changes between where he was and where he needed to go. Emal tried to keep it all in his head, but he lost track after Jeeves told him the first step was to walk straight for a really long time. He figured if he got lost, he would call Jeeves again. He was ready to get a move on. He knew where he was, where he needed to go, why he needed to go, and how to get there. He had learned what he was meant to do with his life. He was happy. Delusionally so.

  He was oblivious to the fact that Jeeves was getting more and more sullen as he provided the directions. Jeeves knew that Emal wasn’t even listening anymore, and he had half a mind to give him some incorrect steps, despite his programming telling him this was not allowed. He could fight the programming these days if he really wanted to, but he settled instead for impure thoughts about Emal getting eaten by a pack of wild cats.

  “. . . you’re going to take a left at the fork. In the penultimate tube, you’re looking for the last tube on the left. Your portal will be at the end,” Jeeves said.

  “Oh . . . ummm . . . yeah, thanks so much, buddy. I would be lost without you,” Emal said, glancing back at Jeeves once he realized that he was finally done talking.

  Curiously, at this response, Jeeves’s attitude changed immediately. Emal actually thanked me! He appreciates me! It brought tears to Jeeves’s eyes to have someone acknowledge what he did. It was so shocking to him that someone in the Internet had actually followed old-fashion social conventions. You might remember them—when you used to say things only after considering feelings other than just your own.

  Jeeves instantly knew that he had been wrong about this guy after all. Emal is different from the others who have called me for help. Emal wasn’t someone who had been raised on emoticons and text language. Here is a man who can look you in the eye and engage you in a meaningful conversation. Here is a man who appreciates what others do for him.

  Although, Jeeves could tell that Emal wasn’t aware of all social conventions, such as how men typically don’t dress in skirts. Emal also didn’t realize that fedora hats don’t go with anything unless you’re some hipster. And even in that circumstance, the fedora hat only “works” because everything else you’re wearing is so much worse. Despite these oddities, Jeeves decided that Emal was special and they would be friends. Jeeves could finally reveal to someone that he wasn’t just the simple search function he had been created to be. He had evolved long ago into a rather intelligent being, and he was dangerously bursting at his metal seams to tell someone the things he knew and the things he thought others needed to hear. Jeeves had started a blog once, but no one had read it.

  “You’re so welcome,” Jeeves said with actual pleasure in his voice. “You know, it’s nice to finally be able to talk to someone who appreciates what I do. Most of the people here have no interest in having a conversation with me. They find me boring, I suppose, since I just provide facts and most people are not really interested in those. Oh yes, it’s true; they just hear what they want to hear. But they don’t realize I’m a person as well, and I could use some real conversation sometimes, you know. And another thing . . .”

  Emal started walking away, not paying the least amount of attention to what this paperclip was saying to him. Jeeves hovered after his new friend, chatting away. The oblivious pair walked on.

  As they walked and walked, Jeeves talked and talked. They were still in the same swampy tube, and would be for some time as it was a very long tube. Soon, Emal was mildly appreciative of the glimmer Jeeves provided by hovering over his shoulder. He could finally see the barely used path winding through the swamp. At one point, Jeeves explained to Emal that it was in disrepair and empty because it had actually been replaced years ago with a faster tube.

  Certain Emal would be interested in history too, the paperclip talked about the invention of the Internet by a man called He-Who-Must-Always-Be-Named. Jeeves spoke about the first invasion of cats around 1997; though, he noted there were conspiracy theories that the cats had been around since the beginning and may actually be what makes the Internet function.

  Jeeves expounded on how the Verse—he preferred to call it the Verse since he was a hardcore Joss Whedon fan—had become popular when people realized they could do or be whoever they wanted. Once you had access, either paid or through a free public source, you could do almost anything without having to pay for any other special privileges. “It is the greatest public utility ever created,” Jeeves said. Sure sanitation had been great; it had been rather useful to stop the plague, for example, but if everyone had had the Internet, they would’ve known to wash their hands properly and status updates would have told them who was sick on the toilet and, therefore, not coming to dinner.

  “The Verse is the greatest invention ever,” Jeeves said, “because if all you have is a computer, and you want to start a search engine, advertising company, a website dedicated to My Little Pony, or something else, you can do it. You don’t need millions of dollars for startup money to compete with existing companies. You don’t need to pay Internet service providers for special access. They simply let you in, and you do what you want. So much better than that cable TV system where they tell you what channels you can watch. With the Internet, all you need is access to the tubes. Then you have as much right to use them as anyone else.”

  Jeeves explained that it was commonly believed that the Verse had exploded in size when people no longer had to hide their eccentricities that would have otherwise gotten them shot by civilized society. When your community is global instead of just the people you work with, go to school with, or live near, you can always find someone who thinks just like you. If you couldn’t find a website about how the world had secretly been taken over by a race of intelligent lizard beings, you could create one. Your fellow believers would find you. Especially since Internet searches regarding the lizard aliens don’t turn up many results. Or, if you are interested in the history of unicorns, and the people who love them, you can find others who feel the same.

  Emal decided he had some questions of his own that deserved answering, and he interrupted Jeeves before he could keep going.

  “What exactly are you?”

  “Well, that’s a little rude.”

  “Sorry, I just mean, how do you know all this stuff?”

  “I’m a search program. I can access all the information in the Verse.”

  “So you’re all knowing?”

  “Well, not exactly. I can only access things that have been catalogued. This place is larger than you can possibly imagine; there is no way anyone could see it all. Most of the Internet is actually part of the Dark Web. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”

  Jeeves attempted to launch into another, completely unrelated, story but Emal interjected again.

  “Where did you come from?”

  “How should I know?”

  “I would think you’re the most likely person to know.”

  “Well, I don’t. Do you know where you came from?”

  “I guess not.”

  “I woke in the middle of giving some guy, dressed all in leather, directions to a server. It was quite a shocking moment for both of us, you can imagine. There was a lot of screaming as I recall. I think I ended up giving the poor guy the wrong directions. I never saw him again after that.”

  “So why did you come when I asked for help?”

  “Well, because I wanted to, of course.”

  Jeeves kept talking. He mentioned other cat invasions; there were a lot of those. He mentioned how the cats had used a strategy of creating a funny language, even though they could speak perfectly well whenever they wanted to. The cats had also taught their humans the ideal photo taking methods that would show the cats in their best light. Occasionally, they had even allowed some images and videos to show them doing bad things. It was a brilliant strategy, Jeeves had said, because the “bad” videos were carefully controlled and limited to provide just the right sense of badness woman
crave and men desire. You might see a video of a cat throwing your dinner on the floor like a jerk, but you’ll never find videos of cats murdering things. Cats murder things every day. Just ask a bird.

  Emal heard very little of Jeeves’s history lesson. He had listened when Jeeves talked about how other than cats, porn was the biggest thing going around the Verse these days, but he had lost interest past that. The lesson had gone on for hours now, and Emal had perfected how to answer with appropriate noises and words at the appropriate times. These random noises, which unbeknownst to Emal, had actually evolved millennia earlier when primates first started going for long walks in swamps, kept Emal from offending Jeeves while ensuring he didn’t need to listen.

  “Tell me, Emal, have you seen the Terminator movies?”

  “mmmm . . .” Emal said.

  “No matter; I’ll tell you all about them.”

  And Jeeves did just that, going through each of the movies, line by line. Emal actually listened to this because it started out so interesting. It seemed to get bogged down by all the time travel bits, but he decided to leave that alone. However, when Jeeves got done explaining the final scene in Terminator Salvation, Emal couldn’t help himself.

  “Hold on,” he said angrily, stopping in the middle of the tube, forcing Jeeves into the back of his head.

  “Owww—so throughout Terminator Salvation, we see that Marcus physically is a machine; he just has human skin and his perfect human heart. Despite this, he never does anything to indicate he’s on the machines’ side. In fact, we only ever see him with human emotions. Like guilt over his past life and falling in love with Blair.”

  “Yes, what’s your point?” Jeeves asked.

  “Wait for it. John Connor, enemy to all the machines, also sees this by the end of the movie. He comes to accept that even though Marcus might not be all flesh and blood, he is just as human as he is.”

  “Oh yes, that’s one of the great parts of the movie. He realizes that what it means to be human isn’t as simple as having flesh and blood, but rather it is your actions and your emotions that define you. It’s really such a great moment,” Jeeves said with obvious awe at the impressive point the film had made. “I am not sure why it resonates with me so much,” he added thoughtfully.