* * * * *
News spread through the small community of book readers that frequented the Chimneysweep bar. Not by email or vid-phone. Not by any electronic means, but by simple word of mouth. This was a group of people who talked to each other - face to face, and person to person.
“An author is coming tonight,” One would say when they met at the market or on the street.
“I hear he is writing about the History of the WetWeb,” The other would respond.
And so the conversation began. From person to person, when books were exchanged, or over tea. Sometimes an emissary was dispatched to knock on a door if someone may not have heard. But, usually the person in question had already heard. The author and the new book was big news.
Claudia Eckwood herself was also the subject of much interest in the gossip being exchanged around the book circle. It was widely speculated that there was a romantic involvement with her new author friend. Over breakfast that morning, when this topic was broached, a husband said, “Good for her.”
And then his wife responded, “Poor Dear - has been alone long enough.”
In this way, the news was spread. Chester anticipated a small crowd and he recruited his good friend Thomas, who had met the author. Together they prepared the Chimneysweep with extra chairs and a podium at the back.
At last the appointed hour approached. The soft murmur of quiet conversation filled the small room. Chester and Thomas kept busy pouring drinks.
When Franklin entered, he found that Chester had reserved a stool for him at the bar. When he settled there, Chester quickly poured him the same vodka martini that he had enjoyed the evening before. Franklin took a deep swallow and surveyed the audience. There were more than he had imagined, but less than he had feared. They looked friendly.
When Claudia saw that he was here, she stepped up to the podium and quieted the room.
Claudia introduced him succinctly saying, “Friends and fellow book enthusiasts, we have a special guest tonight. Please welcome Franklin Tempo, who is a distinguished author of many features published by Brandon and Stern. Franklin is currently working on a new book; a traditional book. Tonight, he will read excerpts from this new work the topic of which is a history of the WetWeb.”
Franklin stood up and made his way to the podium amid polite applause. Chairs scuffled across the floor tiles as the audience worked to widen the aisle and allow enough room for Franklin to pass.
Once he was at the podium, he nodded to Claudia who was now settled into a chair in the front row, and she smiled to him encouragingly. Franklin gripped the podium with both hands, an action which he did unconsciously to steady himself. Looking at his hands he thought that if he was controlling a Synapse host as a remote user, he would do the same thing in order to anchor the host to the podium. He consciously released the podium, straightened his back and stood on his own two feet.
Looking out across the group, he saw wrinkled faces shining back at him. From reflected candle light, white hair illuminated. The pale white gleam of candle light on white hair created a visual pneumonic for Franklin. The softly glowing white hair brought forth a memory from the start of his walk only one night ago. The pale white he saw in the audience was the same color he had seen reflected off of the white patches on the cat that crossed in front of him.
Thinking about that cat now, he considered that if he had turned back at that moment, if he had simply gone the other direction back towards his home, then he would not be here now. He would have remained a character in someone else’s story. But now, some mere twenty-four hours later, it was too late to turn back. The first chapter of a new story was now already written. The protagonist already encountered the critical plot points that were propelling him through the story. The characters were already struggling with the inner conflicts that defined them and drove them inexorably to resolution and climax. But, more importantly, Franklin, now the hero of his own story was ready to confront his antagonist. The challenge that waited for him was the challenge of the dark houses. Dark streets and dark windows, instead of people in these neighborhoods, Franklin realized there were only Warmbots or Synapse hosts. Franklin, through his writing, would tell the truth of about the Warmbots. It was a truth that he himself had only just realized that previous night. The realization was like something instinctive that had been suppressed. It was like a tribal knowledge that had been forgotten. Franklin now understood the truth about the society around him.
Walking past those dark houses last night and seeing the uniformity of decay had made him realize something had happened, not gradually, but all at once. A silent cataclysm.
“Where were all the people that lived in those houses?” he had wondered.
Now, Franklin was putting it together. The houses were not empty. They were occupied, but not by people. Warmbots had replaced everyone that used to live in this neighborhood. Warmbots had converted these neighborhoods into de-facto graveyards. Franklin and the others in this room were trapped inside neighborhoods, now cemeteries, with neighbors who were no longer among the living. Warmbots were not organic robots as the Savant companies marketing campaign would trumpet in every advertisement. Franklin’s eyes were opening, and he was seeing the world around him. Last night he recognized Molly for what it really was. Standing in the kitchen, looking at its pink skin and active yellow grill, Franklin realized that Molly was the reanimated body of a deceased girl. Warmbots were dead people.
Franklin did not open his notebook at first. He started by addressing the group directly and succinctly. He spoke in a clear and confident voice, in a voice loud enough to project across the room.
“I am here to say something original,” he said.
“A waste bin by the door was full of purple ribbon. Intrigued I looked more closely and saw it was a mass of Purple Hearts. Sitting in Wheelchairs or standing on artificial limbs, the soldiers in that room had cast away their medals. Bodies broken, but fighting spirit intact, these men were going back to war.”
-General Mueller