Robert Rankin - Web Site Story

'So you would have locked me in this room until the virus killed me and then what? Dissected my brain?'

'We have to find a cure. An anti-virus.’

‘You bastards,' said Kelly. 'You utter bastards.’

‘You don't understand.' Mr Bashful jerked about in his bondage. 'It's clever. Very clever. It knows everything. It could have infected everyone by now. But it doesn't. It hasn't. Myself and a few others are working behind its back, so to speak. In secrecy. The autopsies are carried out manually, using no computer technology. Nothing that could have a Mute-chip inside it. That's why there's no CCTV in this part of the building. Mr Pokey doesn't know what we do with the bodies, he thinks we just dispose of them in a tasteful and discreet manner. Once it has finished playing with them, they are surplus to requirements. It is in control here, don't you understand. People don't control this company, it does. And it has some kind of purpose. We don't know what it is yet. We few who are trying to stop it, we don't know what it wants.'

'What it wants*. You really believe that this virus is alive, don't you? Not that it's just some kind of rogue program that's gone out of control?'

'It's much more than a program,' said Mr Bashful. 'And it's much more than alive. If your particular skills hadn't earmarked you for this room and you'd got some other job in the organization, you'd have learned in time. You would have been told when you'd reached sufficient status in the company. When your rank admitted you into the inner circle. To the elite. Then you would have been taken to the chapel.'

'The chapel?' said Kelly. 'You have a chapel here?’

‘Not here,' said Mr Bashful, shaking his head. 'It's in Mute Corp Keynes. In the black hole of cyberspace.

Only the elite are taken to the chapel.’

‘And what do the elite do in this chapel?’

‘We do what it tells us to do,' said Mr Bashful. 'We worship it, of course.'

'God?' said Kelly. 'It thinks it's a God?'

'And why not?' Mr Bashful wriggled uncomfortably. 'It's well enough qualified for the position. It knows virtually everything that there is to know. It's hooked into every network, it is the World Wide Web. Every time you make a telephone call it listens to your conversation. It knows more about you than any human does. It can remember more about you than even you can.'

'This is very bad,' said Kelly, twisting strands of her golden hair into tight little knots. 'This is very bad.'

'You don't understand the situation, this is far far worse than very bad. Now will you please untie my hand from this mouse?'

'No,' said Kelly. 'I don't think I can do that.'

'But why not? I've told you everything. I'm on your side. You want to stop this. You wouldn't have done this to me if you didn't. Which group are you from?'

'Group?' said Kelly. 'I don't know what you mean.'

'There are anarchist factions everywhere. Hackers, well-poisoners.'

'Well-poisoners?'

'Don't pretend that you haven't heard of them. Factions dedicated to destroying the Web. They overload the information wells with irrelevant rubbish or bogus information.'

'I'm not with any faction,' said Kelly.

'Oh come on, of course you are. You can tell me. What harm can it do? Come on, I told you everything.'

'Not, perhaps, everything.'

'Please release me, let me go,' said Mr Bashful, which rang a distant bell.

'No,' said Kelly. 'I think not.'

'Then what are you going to do? You have my Unicard, you can let yourself out. If you're careful you might escape the building.'

'And what of you?' Kelly asked.

'I'll say you attacked me, or something. What does it matter? You'll be on the run anyway. And you'll have to run hard and run fast. Although you'll have nowhere to run.'

'It's tricky, I agree.' Kelly released her tangled hair. 'But you're an intelligent man, you should be able to reason out just what I'm going to do next.'

'Probably,' said Mr Bashful, guardedly. 'Where exactly is this leading?'

'I am thinking', said Kelly, 'that there might still be a job opportunity available to me here at Mute Corp.'

'I cannot imagine by what possible reasoning you can draw that conclusion.'

'I think I might rise up through the ranks quite quickly,' said Kelly. 'In fact it is my firm conviction that by this afternoon I will be sitting behind your desk.'

'What?' Mr Bashful's eyes bulged from his face and veins stood out on his forehead. 'What are you intending to do?'

'I am going to sacrifice you to your God,' said Kelly and the coldness in her voice sent chills of fear down Mr Bashful's spine. 'I suspect that you told me some of the truth, but not all. I don't believe that you're some subversive element working within the company for the good of mankind. That was all a lie told to me in the hope that as a gullible woman I would swallow it whole. You are a company man, Mr Bashful. And you would have left me to die in this room.'

'What else could I do? I had no choice in the matter.'

'No,' said Kelly, shaking her head. 'And nor do I.'

'He did what? Mr Pokey stared at Kelly. If her sudden return to his office had been unexpected, the tale she had to tell was equally so and more too besides. Also.

So to speak.

'He did what? asked Mr Pokey once again.

'He took me up to the games suite,' said Kelly, tearful of eye and breathless of breath. 'He took me up to the games suite and sat me down at the terminal. And then suddenly he said that he couldn't go through with it. That he couldn't sacrifice another victim, that's what he said. And then he told me all about it, about everything. About Remington Mute and the Mute-chip and about the go mango game and what it did to people. And he said he couldn't let it happen to me.'

'Go on,' said Mr Pokey, shaking his head.

'And then when he'd told me all this, he said that I should thank him for saving my life. So I thanked him. But he said no, I should thank him properly and he took off all his clothes. He literally tore them off and he attacked me. But as you know from my file, I am an expert of Dimac. I struck him down and he fell across the computer terminal. His hand fell on the mouse.'

'I see,' said Mr Pokey. 'You don't have to say any more.'

Kelly made sobbing sounds. 'It was terrible,' she sobbed.

'I'm quite sure it was.'

'I took his Unicard and let myself out of the suite.'

'And you came back here to my office. You didn't try to run from the building.'

Kelly looked up at Mr Pokey. Her face was streaked with tears and every man knows how sexy a woman looks when she's crying. 'Where would I run to?' she asked. 'Mute Corp security would track me down wherever I went. I didn't come here to die. I came here to work for Mute Corp. I have skills that would be of use to you.'

'Indeed you have,' said Mr Pokey. 'You are a very clever young woman.'

'Please don't have me killed,' wept Kelly. 'I'll do anything you want.'

'Anything?'

'Anything.'

Mr Pokey nodded thoughtfully and looked the beautiful weeping woman up and down and up again. 'So many twists and turns,' said he. 'So much deceit and duplicity. One never knows whom to believe any more. What is the world coming to, I ask myself? And do you know what I answer?'

'No,' said Kelly, snivelling somewhat. 'I don't.'

'Nor do I,' said Mr Pokey. 'So why don't we just drop all this pretence. You can stop all that crying for a start. It might convince some and there's no denying just how very sexy it is. But as you didn't start doing it until you were outside my door, when you messed up your hair and your dress and forced your thumbs into your eyes, I think we can consider it redundant now. Don't you?'