Robert Rankin - Web Site Story

'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 Before Computer. 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?'

Kelly slowly shook her golden head. 'No,' she said. 'I can't.'

'Well,' said Mute. 'It is neither here nor there. Time is running out anyway. The system is crashing. Everything is falling to pieces. My lovely new town Mute Corp Keynes, my finest simulation. It started to fall apart almost as soon as it was built. The virus destroyed it. go mango is a virus all right. It started as a fun game, aiming purely to entertain, but inside the great Trojan there lurks a deadly, voracious virus. It's eating its way right through the system, putting people off-line. In a way, those who think it's The Rapture are right. But people are not really going off to Heaven, they're simply going off-line. Such a shame. We really could have all been immortal if I'd just had a little more time to iron out the glitches.'

Kelly's bitter glare remained upon Remington Mute. 'So,' she said, with braveness in her voice. 'I am not a real human being. I'm just a computer simulation.'

'There are no human beings any more,' said Mute.

'So what is my purpose? Or is there no purpose? Are we all just players inside a sophisticated game you invented to serve some purpose for the military? And where is this computer system? And if the world ended in a nuclear holocaust, what powers it?'

'It isn't on Earth,' said Remington Mute. 'It's in orbit, part of the American Star Wars system, solar-powered, nanorobotechnic. It has a million years of life left in it. And so would we too. Immortality, Kelly, for all of us. If we could purge the system of the virus that is destroying it.'

'How?' Kelly asked, 'Say I believed any of this.'

'Which means that you do. You could destroy it. It is why you were created.'

'And you created me?'

'Lots of little yous. Lots of little anti-virus programs. All with particular skills. But you're the very best of them. You're the pick of the crop. The golden woman. If anybody can put everything back online, it's you.'

'So I'm an anti-virus,' said Kelly, her hand now in her hair and toying with it feverishly.

'I don't like that habit,' said Remington Mute. 'I never programmed that into you. I hope you're not going off-line too.'

'I'm very much online,' said Kelly. 'And I'm very much alive. And I want to stay alive. If I am what you say I am and all of this is unreal, then ultimately what does it matter to me? It's the only "life" I've ever known and I'll be content with it. But I don't want it to stop.'

'Of course you don't,' said Mute. 'Which is why I'm offering you immortality. All you have to do is debug the system, destroy the virus, then we all live for ever, or at least until the sun goes supernova and there is no Earth with its satellites any more.'

Kelly's hand left her hair. 'Just a couple of questions,' she said. 'Firstly, you say that you created this system for the military, so is the real Remington Mute dead?'

'Dead,' said Mute. 'I am his downloaded file, I have become service-provider, my program is to rebuild and extend the parameters of the simulation.'

'To create simulated life?'

'If you like. That is what I do. And each individual system is unique. They couldn't be more real.'

'It's almost a Godlike role,' said Kelly.

'Yes,' said Mute, chuckling. 'I suppose it is.'

'Oh come on,' said Kelly. 'There's no suppose about it. You are the builder and creator. You are to all intents and purposes the God of this simulated world.'

'Yes,' said Mute, chuckling further.

'And this rogue program, this go mango virus, that could be seen as the Devil, couldn't it?'

'Yes,' said Mute. 'It could.'

'And yet,' said Kelly. 'Within this simulated system, which you say could last for a million years if the Devil was cast out, you have grown old. How do you account for that? Surely you should be forever young.'