The Secret Lives of Emails.docx (5 page)

Emal waited for more information as this didn’t help him any, but no more information was forthcoming without another question.

“What’s that?”

“I’m sorry; I didn’t understand
that
, please . . .”

“What is a network?”

“Sure, I can help with that. A network is a system of interconnected things. Like computers or people.”

“And the Internet is a network of networks?”

“That’s what I said,” Jeeves said. This time with a slight hint of exhaustion.

“Right. So I’m a messenger in the Internet, and I need to deliver my message to this address you say you can see. And all these tubes are simply the connections between the networks?”

“That’s about as dumbed down as you can get, buddy. It’s also not quite right, but I guess it’s close enough,” Jeeves said with a sigh.

If Emal had been paying attention, he might have noticed the change in attitude from the floating paperclip. Jeeves was not just a simple program after all. He had thoughts and feelings like all the other beings in the Internet; but no one bothered to consider them. Quite frankly, he was getting sick of helping people out all the time without as much as a thank you or a howdy do. Jeeves thought that he might have more luck having a real conversation if he didn’t appear to people in such a creepy form. But, he didn’t have much choice there, did he? He wondered if plastic surgery would be an option, though he was pretty sure the surgeon would need more to work with than he could provide. Once you’re an ugly paperclip, you’re always an ugly paperclip.

“Where is it I am supposed to go?” Emal asked with excitement.

“Your header indicates your intended recipient is at 43.667409, -83.824405.”

“Uhhh . . . can you tell me how to get there?”

“Of course,” Jeeves said in his cheerful voice. Internally though, he was wondering if, as a floating paperclip, he had the physical ability to drown someone. He had never tried before, but this could be the perfect opportunity with the surrounding swamp. Jeeves was going to be very happy to get rid of this guy.

“Please note that the mapping function is still in beta at this time. Some tubes may not be available or may have changed since this information was last updated.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Emal said impatiently.

Had Emal been less impatient, he would likely have suffered a lot less in the end. Let that be a lesson to all of us, I suppose.

I mean really, what’s the rush?

Brittany, the investigator

~

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 to 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.