Boots

  * * *

  Later that day, or perhaps it was the next day, or the next year, another website which had seen better days sent a subtext message hidden in a protocol.

  “Have you heard the news?” she asked him.

  “News ... what need have I of news, and what need has news of me? The world turns, the servers hum and the web grows ever larger. The larger it gets the greater is the empty space between sites, and this silent space, this dark matter, deafens news.”

  “Oh, spare me the philosophy! This is a matter of life and death! Have you heard or haven’t you?” she asked again.

  “Heard what?!”

  “Nanocities. They’ve been taken over by Hooya!” she exclaimed.

  “And what of it? One host is much like another. They all ignore their guests,” he said.

  “But listen, they’re getting rid of their free sites. The Administrators will have to ‘pay to stay’.”

  “Pay?” the older site said, dumbfounded.

  “Yes, ‘pay’! Free sites will ‘no longer be supported’ and you know what that means, don’t you?” said Grandpa Rat.

  “The big D ... The Final Deletion... ‘Death’, the fleshpods call it ...”

  “But the Administrators can save us, the Administrators must save us, the Administrators will save us!” she said.

  “The Administrator is dead. He died to create Web 2.0. He will not save us.”

  “Then we must become Web 2 too. We need to remake ourselves in this new image.”

  “Make ourselves?” the older website asked, as much to himself as to his friend. “To change from passive to active, to change blood and code, to change the very nature of our scripts. To be as the Administrator, to be a God.”