But pushing the buttons did nothing. I felt frustrated and a little angry. I didn’t even realize I was deploying my filaments until they had actually latched on to the mouthpiece of the telephone.
Of course, as soon as I noticed what I was doing I recalled them back into my body, but not before they had made an infinitesimal adjustment to the mechanisms of the telephone. I felt scared—my grandfather wouldn’t have been pleased to find me tinkering with his antiques—and was about to replace the handset so I could slink away when I heard something.
Something that wasn’t a just a distant crackle on a long-dead telephone.
Something that sounded like a human voice, speaking a single word.
I put the receiver back on its cradle and crept out of the room.
I stopped playing with the phone after that. It suddenly scared me.
I never told anyone what I thought I had heard.
A single word.
It sounded like: remember .
Analogue equipment, analogue people.
When I heard the Kyle Straker tapes for the first time, I found myself thinking about the telephone again. That solitary word: remember . Kyle and Lilly begging: remember us.
Analogue ghost voices from analogue equipment.
The 0.4.
The world-that-once-was which, if Kyle is to be believed, is mere centimeters away from us, separated only by a perceptual filter that weeds out their data and screens it from our senses.
I remembered the telephone and shuddered.
And that is the reason for this book.
I wanted it out there in the world in a form that the 0.4—if they really exist—could access too.
Analogue text for analogue people.
If you are reading this, even though the world moved on and left you behind; if you feel like ghosts haunting this brave new world of ours; if everyone you knew and loved has forgotten you, then I offer this volume as our reply.
I have called it 0.4 , so that you will know it is about you.
Proof.
We.
Remember.
You.
Mike A. Lancaster,
Editor
Mike Lancaster's love of scince fiction was forged at an early age by reading Gulliver's Travels, The War of the Worlds, and A Journey to the Center of the Earth, and by watching Gerry Anderson's shows, Doctor Who, Quautermass movies, and Star Trek. He lives in Cambridge, England, with his wife, children, and veritable menagerie of pets. Visit him online at www.mikelancaster.com
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