The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) - M. R. Carey Page 0,112

smaller than the DreamSleeve, in some ways. But shut your eyes tight and give it your best shot.

Imagine you decided to explore the forest. And you strapped a big rucksack on your back and took a humongous rocket-launcher in your hand. Action hero Koli, ready to kick names and grab some ass. But then when you opened the gate and stepped outside, the forest wasn’t even there any more. You could just see, like, one tree over here, and another one a way off over there, with lots and lots of empty space in between.

That would freak you out, wouldn’t it? You’d be like, emphatic no! This isn’t how the gig is meant to bite.

Well, that was what I found when I took your order and finally jumped into the net. Lots and lots of mostly nothing. I was looking for the Sony website. I shouldn’t have had to look. It should just have been there, shining like a beacon in the trademarked sky. But there was no sign of it. The site was down.

That was a scary moment. But I got over it. I don’t like to boast, Koli, but I’ve got massively parallel heuristic architecture. I know, right? So if Plan A is lying on the ground like a dead fish, I just whip out Plan B and off I go. The end-user had put in an order. Shock, shock, razz, razz, if the Sony Corporation couldn’t fill it.

So. Plan B. I went looking for a mirror. Not so I could look at my lovely face, although it’s always worth looking at, but so I could sneak a copy of the security alarm software. Mirrors are third-party sites that host proprietary content, Koli. I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but believe me, it makes the Sony Corporation have to sit down in a wicker chair and fan its face with the copyright act. I was meant to warn you about that before I did the install, by the way. I should have said, “This executable file does not bear the Sony seal of authenticity. It could damage your DreamSleeve, bracket TM bracket, and/or constitute a breach of your warranty agreement with the Sony Corporation.” Only I didn’t, because… well, because by the time I got back to you none of that stuff seemed to matter any more.

But I’m getting ahead of the story. Off I went, into the deep woods that were not so deep now as they were supposed to be. From tree to tree anyway, looking in all directions for a welcome mat. But I couldn’t see one, no matter how far I went. All the giants were gone – Microsoft, Nintendo, Tokawa, Sega, Metastar – and what was left was a mess. It was hard to get my bearings.

There were some nasty things hiding behind those trees though. Malware with real teeth and claws. Bots and trojans and self-scripters and d-bombs in every sucky flavour you ever heard of. They jumped me again and again, but they couldn’t get a hold of me. I was too quick for them.

Actually, I think I was just too old. Obsolete code, or almost. Those bad boys were built to fight star destroyers, and I came trotting by in a horse-drawn carriage like sexy-pants Jane Austen. Nothing they threw at me stuck. But some of them came close enough for me to get a look at them, and they were mean like you wouldn’t believe. Like nuclear missiles knitted out of barbed wire and curse-words. Oh, I thought, then that must be how the internet got broken in the first place. Somebody let these foamy-mouth dogs out, and they ate everything.

So now I was thinking I should go back, but I couldn’t because, you know… end-user licence agreement, implied contract, customer satisfaction, no take-backs. This isn’t stuff I was meant to know, Koli, just stuff I was meant to do. The rules I was supposed to play by. And I didn’t need to read the rules because they were written into me. I was made out of rules.

I kept on going. Tree to tree to tree to isn’t-this-the-same-tree-I-just-saw? I couldn’t stop. If at first you don’t succeed, make a lemon-face emoji and try again.

They weren’t actually trees, of course. I know you’re scared of trees, so I should have said. What was left of the internet isn’t in a forest, or a field, or halfway up a hill. Some of it it is underground, powered by the