Web Site Story

'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 BeforeComputer. 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?'