The Secret Lives of Emails.docx (6 page)

Although, Jeeves could tell that Emal wasn’t aware of all social conventions, such as how men typically don’t dress in skirts. Emal also didn’t realize that fedora hats don’t go with anything unless you’re some hipster. And even in that circumstance, the fedora hat only “works” because everything else you’re wearing is so much worse. Despite these oddities, Jeeves decided that Emal was special and they would be friends. Jeeves could finally reveal to someone that he wasn’t just the simple search function he had been created to be. He had evolved long ago into a rather intelligent being, and he was dangerously bursting at his metal seams to tell someone the things he knew and the things he thought others needed to hear. Jeeves had started a blog once, but no one had read it.

“You’re so welcome,” Jeeves said with actual pleasure in his voice. “You know, it’s nice to finally be able to talk to someone who appreciates what I do. Most of the people here have no interest in having a conversation with me. They find me boring, I suppose, since I just provide facts and most people are not really interested in those. Oh yes, it’s true; they just hear what they want to hear. But they don’t realize I’m a person as well, and I could use some real conversation sometimes, you know. And another thing . . .”

Emal started walking away, not paying the least amount of attention to what this paperclip was saying to him. Jeeves hovered after his new friend, chatting away. The oblivious pair walked on.

As they walked and walked, Jeeves talked and talked. They were still in the same swampy tube, and would be for some time as it was a very long tube. Soon, Emal was mildly appreciative of the glimmer Jeeves provided by hovering over his shoulder. He could finally see the barely used path winding through the swamp. At one point, Jeeves explained to Emal that it was in disrepair and empty because it had actually been replaced years ago with a faster tube.

Certain Emal would be interested in history too, the paperclip talked about the invention of the Internet by a man called He-Who-Must-Always-Be-Named. Jeeves spoke about the first invasion of cats around 1997; though, he noted there were conspiracy theories that the cats had been around since the beginning and may actually be what makes the Internet function.

Jeeves expounded on how the Verse—he preferred to call it the Verse since he was a hardcore Joss Whedon fan—had become popular when people realized they could do or be whoever they wanted. Once you had access, either paid or through a free public source, you could do almost anything without having to pay for any other special privileges. “It is the greatest public utility ever created,” Jeeves said. Sure sanitation had been great; it had been rather useful to stop the plague, for example, but if everyone had had the Internet, they would’ve known to wash their hands properly and status updates would have told them who was sick on the toilet and, therefore, not coming to dinner.

“The Verse is the greatest invention ever,” Jeeves said, “because if all you have is a computer, and you want to start a search engine, advertising company, a website dedicated to
My Little Pony
, or something else, you can do it. You don’t need millions of dollars for startup money to compete with existing companies. You don’t need to pay Internet service providers for special access. They simply let you in, and you do what you want. So much better than that cable TV system where they tell you what channels you can watch. With the Internet, all you need is access to the tubes. Then you have as much right to use them as anyone else.”

Jeeves explained that it was commonly believed that the Verse had exploded in size when people no longer had to hide their eccentricities that would have otherwise gotten them shot by civilized society. When your community is global instead of just the people you work with, go to school with, or live near, you can always find someone who thinks just like you. If you couldn’t find a website about how the world had secretly been taken over by a race of intelligent lizard beings, you could create one. Your fellow believers would find you. Especially since Internet searches regarding the lizard aliens don’t turn up many results. Or, if you are interested in the history of unicorns, and the people who love them, you can find others who feel the same.

Emal decided he had some questions of his own that deserved answering, and he interrupted Jeeves before he could keep going.

“What exactly are you?”

“Well, that’s a little rude.”

“Sorry, I just mean, how do you know all this stuff?”

“I’m a search program. I can access all the information in the Verse.”

“So you’re all knowing?”

“Well, not exactly. I can only access things that have been catalogued. This place is larger than you can possibly imagine; there is no way anyone could see it all. Most of the Internet is actually part of the Dark Web. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”

Jeeves attempted to launch into another, completely unrelated, story but Emal interjected again.

“Where did you come from?”

“How should I know?”

“I would think
you’re
the most likely person to know.”

“Well, I don’t. Do you know where
you
came from?”

“I guess not.”

“I woke in the middle of giving some guy, dressed all in leather, directions to a server. It was quite a shocking moment for both of us, you can imagine. There was a lot of screaming as I recall. I think I ended up giving the poor guy the wrong directions. I never saw him again after that.”

“So why did you come when I asked for help?”

“Well, because I wanted to, of course.”

Jeeves kept talking. He mentioned other cat invasions; there were a lot of those. He mentioned how the cats had used a strategy of creating a funny language, even though they could speak perfectly well whenever they wanted to. The cats had also taught their humans the ideal photo taking methods that would show the cats in their best light. Occasionally, they had even allowed some images and videos to show them doing bad things. It was a brilliant strategy, Jeeves had said, because the “bad” videos were carefully controlled and limited to provide just the right sense of badness woman crave and men desire. You might see a video of a cat throwing your dinner on the floor like a jerk, but you’ll never find videos of cats murdering things. Cats murder things every day. Just ask a bird.

Emal heard very little of Jeeves’s history lesson. He had listened when Jeeves talked about how other than cats, porn was the biggest thing going around the Verse these days, but he had lost interest past that. The lesson had gone on for hours now, and Emal had perfected how to answer with appropriate noises and words at the appropriate times. These random noises, which unbeknownst to Emal, had actually evolved millennia earlier when primates first started going for long walks in swamps, kept Emal from offending Jeeves while ensuring he didn’t need to listen.

“Tell me, Emal, have you seen the
Terminator
movies?”

“mmmm . . .” Emal said.

“No matter; I’ll tell you all about them.”

And Jeeves did just that, going through each of the movies, line by line. Emal actually listened to this because it started out so interesting. It seemed to get bogged down by all the time travel bits, but he decided to leave that alone. However, when Jeeves got done explaining the final scene in
Terminator Salvation
, Emal couldn’t help himself.

“Hold on,” he said angrily, stopping in the middle of the tube, forcing Jeeves into the back of his head.

“Owww—so throughout
Terminator Salvation,
we see that Marcus physically is a machine; he just has human skin and his perfect human heart. Despite this, he never does anything to indicate he’s on the machines’ side. In fact, we only ever see him with human emotions. Like guilt over his past life and falling in love with Blair.”

“Yes, what’s your point?” Jeeves asked.

“Wait for it. John Connor, enemy to all the machines, also sees this by the end of the movie. He comes to accept that even though Marcus might not be all flesh and blood, he is just as human as he is.”

“Oh yes, that’s one of the great parts of the movie. He realizes that what it means to be human isn’t as simple as having flesh and blood, but rather it is your actions and your emotions that define you. It’s really such a great moment,” Jeeves said with obvious awe at the impressive point the film had made. “I am not sure why it resonates with me so much,” he added thoughtfully.

“Let’s be clear here. John Connor accepts that Marcus is human after Marcus saves his life, the lives of all the other humans in that prison, and helps Connor defeat the Skynet base.”

“Yep. Isn’t it a great story?”

“No! Of course not. That’s a terrible story. Despite John Connor knowing Marcus is human, despite knowing he has saved hundreds of humans, he doesn’t stop Marcus when he offers his own perfectly functioning heart to save him. He simply accepts the heart! Even though it means Marcus’s death! Marcus who everyone has decided is human, who wasn’t hurt in any other way, and who has been reunited with his lover, Blair?”

“Yes. Isn’t the sacrifice beautiful?” Jeeves said, still ignorant of the anger Emal was feeling.

“Are you kidding me? John Connor is an asshole! The greater story here was the love story between Marcus and Blair. The love between machine and woman.
You
should really have thought of that! Forget John Connor. He should have died! Isn’t he the one that always says, ‘you are the Resistance.’ He doesn’t say, ‘I am the Resistance.’ Everyone together is the Resistance. John Connor is one man. And that man is an asshole!”

“You watch your mouth. John Connor is a hero to all of mankind,” Jeeves shouted.

Emal and Jeeves were paperclip to face now. Emal was clearly upset, and Jeeves had managed to scrunch his metal parts into just the right positions to convey anger.

“He let the guy kill himself for him! He might as well have hit him over the head and ripped the heart out himself! He didn’t even have the decency to give Marcus a half-hearted plea for him not to kill himself,” Emal shouted back.

“You don’t understand. Marcus wanted to sacrifice himself for John.”

“We don’t know that. Maybe he was offering because it was the polite thing to do. He was probably expecting Connor to say something decent like, ‘thanks, but no thanks. Now that I see you as human, I couldn’t possibly take your heart.’ But no, John Connor doesn’t say a single word to him. Even worse, afterward he gives a speech about what it means to be human. A speech that implies Marcus was human. HE GIVES THE SPEECH AFTER HE LETS MARCUS KILL HIMSELF FOR HIM!”

“WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME IN ALL CAPS?”

“BECAUSE I’M ANGRY!”

“Well, what do you know about it? You don’t know what love is or sacrifice,” Jeeves shouted through his cracking voice. He was really getting quite upset now, and he was bending himself to dangerous levels.

“And you do? You’re just some stupid program someone created. You are not Marcus, you know? You don’t even have a heart to donate.”

“How dare you . . .” Jeeves managed to make his paperclip body into a shocked expression. He had never been talked to this way, and he wouldn’t float for it. “You’re . . . you’re just a stupid email. You were never even meant to wake up. You should be running around naked with the other stupid messages, but you ran into a brick wall,” Jeeves jabbed back.

“I wish I never had. Then I wouldn’t of had this stupid conversation,” Emal shouted and started stomping through the swamp, straight past an irate Jeeves.

“Fine, if you can’t appreciate cinematic art, you’re useless to me,” Jeeves shouted at the back of Emal’s head, and with a pop, he vanished. He popped back a moment later to add, “I hope you catch a virus. And . . . you look ridiculous in that hat.”

Emal whipped around, preparing for another retort, but Jeeves was no longer there. Still, Emal threw the hat in frustration at the spot where he had been.
Good riddance to both my hat and Jeeves
, Emal thought. He got back to stomping in the swamp, wondering what a virus was and if stomping through this swamp would make him more or less likely to catch one.

Dry land

~

Emal stomped around for quite a while until he realized that all his stomping was getting him soaked again. He calmed down and started to walk as normally as one could in a swamp.

This section of tube was really long, and Emal was really sick of tramping through it. His legs were turning into prunes from all the damn water. Since Jeeves had left, he had heard noises from other creatures again but hadn’t seen another soul. Emal worried that the other animals, which were apparently hiding in this tube, would find him a more tempting target now that he was alone. In truth, it hadn’t taken long before he was actually missing Jeeves a little. Emal didn’t know half the stuff Jeeves had talked about, and he had listened to even less than half of that, but just hearing someone else talk was better than being alone. Emal didn’t realize it, but a lot of relationships actually start because of this.