ALL THE THINGS WE USED TO DO BEFORE WE DID THIS

Wrightson was first, shotgun ready. Adams was behind him, with the industrial magnets; Cardy was next, stumbling sometimes under the weight of two full rucksacks, packed with leads, cables, laptops and USB memory sticks. Covering the rear was Thomas, another shotgun, backed up with a worn Heckler and Koch machine gun, Velcroed to his chest, for emergencies.
Thomas thought about his job before this one, IT Helpdesk Analyst, working for a law firm situated in London’s Blackfriars. That had been three years ago and things had changed since then; reminiscing, for instance was just a distraction. The distinct sound of two people, somewhere in the distance, trying to establish a network connection was his objective now.
Wrightson crested the remains of the base of the Brunel designed water pump, overlooking Crystal Palace Park. He signalled for the others to join him. From where they stood they could see groups of safe modes on foot, they tended to be harmless even as they orbited around the objective, drawn by the couple attempting to network, hoping for their turn, a link that would establish a connection and download the life they once had.
‘Same old scene,’ remarked Adam.
‘Would be nice if we could save the woman this time,’ said Cardy. ‘I miss the difference a woman makes.’
‘You mean’, Thomas was quick to add, ‘less swearing, farting and burping.’
Wrightson subdued a hearty laugh into a chuckle.
‘I just bet the bloke’s in safe mode with networking and she’s just in safe mode.’ Cardy said. ‘As per usual.’
‘Only,’ Wrightson started to move away for the remains, ’one way to find out.’
They followed him down towards their targets.
‘Thomas, watch the group over there on our right, they all look to be in safe mode to me but keep them under obs, okay.’
‘On them, Wrightson.’ And then to himself: I have been for some time. Oh great and distinguished chief; leader of what’s left of the connected world.
As the group had done many times before they formed a loose circle round the woman and the man. The woman was on top of an old looking man, probably in his fifties, a network cable had erupted from her wrist and was plugged into the man’s neck port. She was the one in safe mode with networking.
This was confirmed when she addressed the team members directly: ‘0001110101000111110,’ she said.
‘Okay, ‘said Wrightson, ‘we were expecting that. Let’s get to work then. Thomas, I’m on the left flank you stay on the right. Any other safe modes with networking form an assault team shoot them down. And make it a head shot, that’s were the bio processing chip, hard disc and motherboard are all located.’
Thomas did not reply, it was the same old routine, day in day out. Why, he wondered to himself, was Wrightson trying to make it sound fresh and new? It wasn’t and the outcome was going to be the same as it was every time.
The incompatibility of a dead monopoly.
Why not shoot them all, have it over and done with and retire to some shopping mall, spend the rest of their lives catching up on old fashioned DVD TV series box sets. Die happy, rather than wasting time on this pointless crusade, trying to reboot South London into the networked population it used to be.
Laughably, to Thomas, it had not always been this way and he was keen to pin the blame on something. So, in Thomas’ mind, where better place to start than mobilephones or cellphones, as what’s left of the United States of America used to call them. But that was not completely true, there was that DoreWare™ Operating System to factor in as well, running on 95% of the world’s personal computers and 99% of the world’s mobilephones.
The phones got smaller and people said their mobilephone ran their life, it was indispensable, lose it and they were nothing, disconnected from the social network.
Soulless.
The phones became diminutive enough to fit inside craniums. And, in less than a decade, where the mobilephone had gone, the personal computer followed. Human eyes became the start up screen and everybody was connected to everybody else; email, txt message and relationship Nirvana.
Gr8t.
And William Dores, founder of the DoreWare™ Operating system that ran on 95% of the word’s population, was the jovial face of corporate success and human beneficence.
Except for that remaining 5%, not convinced by DoreWare™ or that popularity alone made something reliable. For that remaining 5%, like Thomas and these men now, the Operating System of choice was Braeburn and whilst that had brought them ridicule from DoreWare™ users, Braeburn users had the last hollow laugh on that one.
Thomas looked quickly back at Adams, moving the magnets between the woman and the man she was rocking back and forth on, separating under the magnetic field. Cardy was a few feet away, setting up his heavily shielded laptop, uncoiling a loop of networking cable.
Thomas thought about the virus that had come bowling in from God knows where and shut down the entire population of the world running DoreWare™ software in their heads. Left them wandering around and in two distinct zombie classes, safe mode and safe mode with networking. The latter were both dangerous and needed; hazardous because they only knew one Operating System to network with and that was gone now. But required because there was a chance of re-networking them with a version of the Braeburn OS.
Mostly, though, it was just fatal errors and blue screens of death. They had yet to bring the DoreWare™ dead back.
Thomas looked back towards the groups milling around in the park. He thought it was funny how they liked open spaces. And it was the last thing he thought. A catapulted laptop caved in his head and he was disconnected long before he hit the ground.
The naked woman and the man were on their feet, their own network cabling shooting out of their wrists. Laptops were raining out of the sky above all their heads, selectively aimed at Wrightson and his compatriots. Wrightson got one shot off before a laptop smashed into his face. Adams was trying to get the machine gun off Thomas chest but Thomas has slumped sideways and was not giving it up.
Cardy was running.
The woman screamed, ‘1010100111100011100.’
Adam’s almost had the weapon free. The cable fastened round his neck and pulled him off his feet, machine gun rounds arced into the air. The woman had her cable jack into his port before he was on the ground. The hacking software tore through his firewall and disabled his defence software. DoreWare™ OS, complete with its virus reformatted Adam’s brain.
Cardy stopped. He had made it to the shelter of the athletics stadium, they was an entrance close by. He slipped through its battered doors. Down the passage way he could hear a faint noise. When he got to the opening into the main arena stopped. They were everywhere, men, women and children, moving with a purpose Cardy had never seen before in safe modes with networking. There were networking cables flying around, in and out of neck ports as if they were downloading something in turn.
Cardy started to back away.
He turned and came face to face with the man from the park.
‘There’s nowhere to go,’ a voice without inflection or nuance. ‘You can’t be different anymore.’
Cardy had never heard them speak before. He tried to run. The man was on him and accessing his networking port.
Cardy was milling around with the others now, passing spreadsheets, text documents and presentations to the other safe modes around him.
Food was mostly what grew in the wild.
Cardy hung around apple trees but he was never going to know why.