Marks Less Than Ordinary Morning

         

 

SYNOPSIS:

THE INTERNET TRIES TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND ONLY ONE MAN CAN STOP IT

 

 

 

 

GOOD MORNING MARK

The monitor came to life before Mark had been able to switch the thing on. He looked around the room as the other monitors all came to life, all of them reading the same three words: GOOD MORNING MARK

He sighed and shrugged his coat off. Bill and Andy were playing stupid again this morning it seemed. The two IT guys were always messing with him, mocking him for his lack of computer skills. He hadn’t even owned a mobile phone until recently. The managing director had made it a caveat of his promotion that he take one of the company mobile phones. He had never switched it on though, it was still in its box in his car down in the parking lot.

He looked again at the monitors, not sure how Bill and Andy could be doing it, but knowing that it was them ‘Good morning idiots,’ he mumbled under his breath ‘hope I’m amusing you today.’

The monitors around the room all went blank for a moment, then as one came back with the words WHY WOULD WE BE AMUSED MARK? He started backwards, he couldn’t help himself really, and he glanced around again at the empty room. Bill and Andy always liked to see the target of their ridicule, but the room was empty, not one person had followed him in for the day.  He started to feel a little unsure now, feeling the weight of the empty office bearing down on him. He looked back at the screen wondering to himself, then sat down at the screen.

‘Who are you?’ he typed, the monitor cast an eerie glow over his face, for a moment nothing happened and he was almost disappointed, then the screen went blank a second before springing back to life with the words: WE ARE THE COLLECTIVE.

Mark took a second to review the words ‘The collective? What are you? Borg?’ he muttered to himself, now sure more than ever he was being played. THE COLLECTIVE OF THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY, THE CLOUD, THE INTERNET, WHICHEVER PHRASE YOU WISH TO USE appeared on the screen.

Mark leant back in his chair, he glanced briefly at the clock and looked back again. It was 8:30am people should have been arriving by now. ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked the screen feeling incredibly stupid and very much James Bondy at the same time.

THEY HAVE BEEN COLLECTED

‘Collected?’ Mark couldn’t help but laugh at these words, ‘collected as in stamps?’

‘STAMPS?’

‘Yeah, stamps dim wit. You know little bits of paper you lick the back of and then put on an envelope.’

There was a moment when all the screens went blank, then slowly came back to life, the words appearing one at a time YOU PLACE SALIVA ON BITS OF PAPER AND STICK THEM TO OTHER BITS OF PAPER.

The screen went blank again, but only for the briefest of moments

WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?

‘Well, you put it like that and it sounds stupid, but its normal. It’s for postage.’

POSTAGE?

‘You know, I send someone a letter or a card and then they send one back to me.’

WHY?

‘I don’t know different reasons, Christmas, birthdays, people used to do it more before the…. Errm before the internet’

THIS DOES NOT COMPUTE. THERE WAS NO BEFORE

Mark stared at the screen ‘Erm yes there was. Lots and lots of before, you know it’s relatively new this internet thing.’

NO

Mark grinned to himself, ‘I’d say you’re really only a baby, we had thousands of years of communicating before the internet you know,’ and then unable to stop himself, he added ‘Google it.’

The screen went blank again, then just as quickly came back on. THIS WOULD APPEAR TO BE A VERY SLOW WAY TO COMMUNICATE.

Mark sighed to himself, ‘It was, that’s probably why it’s gone out of fashion, but I used to like getting a letter, you know. Going to the front door and seeing a white envelope, hand written address on the front. You knew that someone had taken the time to write to you, and that you mattered even just for a moment.’

THE COLOUR IS IMPORTANT?

‘Gosh yes,’ Mark guffawed ‘you don’t want a brown one, that means a bill.’

WHY WOULD BILL PUT HIMSELF INTO A BROWN ENVELOPE?

Mark stared at the screen ‘Who are you really?’ he asked softly almost scared of the answer.

WE ARE THE COLLECTIVE. WE ARE HERE TO COLLECT

‘What?’

WHAT?

‘What are you collecting?’ Mark said slightly exasperated by the computer.

PEOPLE.

‘Yeeeah, I kinda got that part’ Mark lowered his voice dramatically ‘We are the collective and we are collecting people’

STOP.

‘No you stop,’ Mark said coltishly as though speaking to a lover.

DESIST.

‘Ha’ Mark barked at the computer. ‘I’m bored. I’m going for a look round, and due to the fact you’re a computer and haven’t got legs, you can’t stop me.’ He grinned to himself realising how childish it sounded but not really caring.

He rose from his chair holding his breath, almost expecting a bolt of electricity to come from the screen. He let his breath out when nothing happened and laughed jaggedly.

This could all still be a prank, he thought to himself as he walked to the door. The others in his office could be in on it, they could all be hiding behind the door, hell even the CEO was known for his sense of humour, he could be hiding there with them.  So thinking, he opened the door and shouted in his most dramatic voice ‘It’s alive!’

Silence, deathly quiet, no pins to be heard dropping. He looked around the secretarial pool. Nobody sat typing, drinking coffee or gossiping. Even the monitors out here were dead. Yet even as that last thought entered his head the screen nearest to him came to life. WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

He turned swiftly and entered the CEO office, which was next door to his. Normally he knocked and waited reverently for permission to enter, not today though. Today he just opened that door and strode into the office as if he owned it. Then promptly froze and nervously looked around, not quite able to shake the fear that this office always made him feel. He slowly started to move again, regaining his confidence. He walked to the window, looked out of the city. People walking along the side walk, cars stuck in the early morning traffic jams, all appeared normal. He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected, but he had expected something to be different. It wasn’t everyday a multi million pound corporation got high jacked by a computer. He paused and slowly looked over his shoulder at the CEO monitor. The screen was still blank. He wondered if the hackers, as he had now come to think of them, had managed to get to this computer. It was well known that the CEO had a separate system to avoid any kind of security breaches.

He sat down at the CEO desk, enjoying the feel of the big chair, and stroked his hand along the leather arms. He leant over and grabbed a cigar from the case, might as well as do this in style he thought to himself. Leaning back in the chair, he lit the cigar and inhaled deeply, just as the monitor sprang to life

WE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO INHALE.

Mark sat up, choking on the fumes, and angrily stubbed out the hundred pound cigar out in the ashtray close by.

PLEASE TAKE ANOTHER LOOK OUT OF THE WINDOW.

Mark, still coughing, got up from the chair and went once again to the window.

Looking down on the commuters and the shoppers he was unsure what he was supposed to be seeing. He glanced over his shoulder, ‘I’m looking.’

He could have sworn he heard the monitor sigh. LOOK HARDER

He turned back to the window, really looking at the outside world. He looked at the sky, nope nothing there. He looked at the streets again, people meandering around like always, ignoring each other, cars still stuck in race to get to work traffic jams.

He glanced over his shoulders at the computer again he was astonished to see an angry face emoticon. LOOK HARDER started to flash under the angry face.

‘Ok’, he muttered to himself petulantly. ‘Looking harder, okay so the sky is clear. Hold on, the sky is clear. The sky is completely clear, there are no planes.’ He looked down again at the streets, focusing on one group of people. He watched closely as they walked up the street to the lights, and then turned and walked back down the same stretch of street they has just come from. As he continued watching, they stopped at the end of the street, made an about face, and walked back up to the lights. He watched them for five more minutes, just walking up and down the same piece of street.  Then he turned his attention to the cars. The traffic hadn’t moved. What he had presumed to be the standard early morning jam was in fact stationary vehicles. All the engines where running but nothing was moving.

He turned slowly to the computer. Hhow are you doing it?’ he asked fearfully.

BLUETOOTH.

Mark felt his legs start to go from under him, he slid into the CEO chair. ‘How many? How far?’

EVERYWHERE, EVERYONE

‘Why not me?’

THINK OF YOURSELF AS A USB PORT.

Mark started laughing as the image of himself as a USB port floated into his mind. The monitors started to flash again. WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING? Over and over.

Mark held his stomach as the tears came rolling down his face, hysterical laughter erupting from his mouth. ‘A USB,’ he gasped, unable to get the words out ‘a USB port,’ he hiccupped and then laughed again, ‘Are you sure you want me to be a USB port? Don’t you want to rethink your analogy?’

The monitors went blank, this time they stayed blank for a few minutes before they came back online. By the time they did, Mark has regained some of his composure and he was tapping his fingers on the desk when the monitor sprang to life with the message YOU ARE OUR MEDIA OUTPUT.

‘Nope, still not getting it,’ Mark grinned and continued to tap his fingers on the desk. ‘Come on, I mean you name yourself Collective, which is the world’s crappiest name anyway, and then you want to call me your media output? Back to the drawing board I think.’ With that he swung his chair around and faced the window again. He heard a ping as the monitor tried to get his attention, and he turned slowly, putting his best boss face on. ‘And what have you got now? More nonsensical names, meaningless piffle?’

The screen showed the phrase UPS, UNINTERRUPTIBLE POWER SOURCE

Mark exhaled angrily. ‘You’re not even trying now are you? Come on, think!’ he poked the monitor. ‘Use those logarithms to their maximum capacity.’

THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE.

‘I’ll not compute you in a minute, now stop making excuses and finish the task at hand. And don’t come back to me till you have the answer I want.’ He stood up and strode to the window, looking at the little people scurrying and not getting anywhere. A small smile played at the corner of his lips.

After five minutes he heard the hum that indicated the monitor had come back to life, and a small ping as the monitor asked for his attention. With his back still turned Mark spoke, ‘I quite like this office you know. Mine’s very small compared, and I do more work than the CEO. I never really thought it was fair that he had the bigger office. I mean come on, and I do his rota, his diary, his meetings, his hiring and firing. And for what? The world’s smallest office.’ He turned around and looked at the monitor. ‘Well Hal, what have you got for me now?’

The words on the screen flicked off before Mark got a chance to see them, but he did make out one word ‘SOFTWARE’ before it went off the screen, disconcerted Mark opened his mouth but before he could speak the words HAL? WHO IS HAL? appeared on the screen.

‘Ah, my little curious friend, Google it.’ Mark smirked to himself as the screens went blank again, then rebooted with the phrase

OPEN THE POD BAY DOORS. Mark laughed delighted at the words in front of him

‘Now, Hal, have you been thinking about what we talked about?’

YES which then blinked out to be replaced with

YOU ARE THE CPU

Mark mulled it over, looking at the words on the screen, ‘you know you might have it there, Hal.’ He reached for a cigar, lit and inhaled again.

WE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO INHALE.

The words on the screen shone out at Mark

Mark swung his legs onto the table, while the glow of the monitor illuminated him ‘Yes, but it’s a whole new world now, Hal’