The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet)

by Peter Empringham

  A-Bay turned out to be much more interesting. Given that 90% or more of those roaming this place were born before the earliest computer came to pass, a lot of them seemed to have picked it up rather quickly, and the range of goods available for sale was gobsmacking, particularly because you could only take with you what you had in your close possession when you died. Ron for example, could never remove the Austin A40 steering wheel on which he was impaled, nor Franzel the broadsword that protruded from his rear end. Quite how a racing bike, a mahogany wardrobe, and a donkey became available stretched their imagination.

  “See if there’s a ball, Ron,” Said Hansi, “then we can play football. Whatever that is.”

  Ron searched for ‘football’.

  There it was. Photographed in the hands of its owner, it popped up on the screen before them, to the Ooohs and Aaahs of Ron’s friends. That owner, Billy ‘Banzai’ Corkerdale, had been preparing to take a throw-in on Hackney Marshes on an unseasonably warm autumn day, when the roiling dark sky had unerringly struck him with a lightning bolt. For twenty-five years he had been roaming the afterworld in a pair of singed shorts, with his hair stood on end. For a reason even he didn’t know, he kept the football tucked under his arm. Every time he left it somewhere, whether in a moment of forgetfulness or just because he was bored of carrying it, it was somehow returned. A-Bay had given him the opportunity to be rid of it once and for all.

  Perhaps the most elegant of all of the functions Mary had written into the A-Bay programme was the exchange rate calculator. Buyers could try to swap something they had for something they wanted (for a small fee for Justin of course), or they could use some of the currency they happened to have about them at the moment of demise. For every value named in the bidding, or the ‘Buy It Now’ option, the system would give you the equivalent in whichever of a million or so formats, from the conch shells routinely used in the Pacific Island of Kwamu in the 17th century to Wal-Mart Loyalty vouchers.

  “How do we want to pay?” asked Ron. “What does it mean? How the hell would we pay?”

  “Are these any good, Ron?” asked Franzel, waving a large sack in front of the dead Englishman. Ron took the sack and tipped some of its contents to the floor in front of him. He gasped. Hundreds of ancient Roman coins. Glittering gold Aureui, sparkling silver Denarii, and burnished brass Sestertii. All pristine, unmarked.

  “These are worth a fortune! Where did you get them? “ The Visigoths looked sheepish and Ethel nudged Ron to not pursue the line. It was unlikely that they had had a newspaper round. Ron punched in the currency to the terminal, which revealed that it wouldn’t require many of these coins, (plus a few for Justin), to secure the football.

  The process was remarkably simple. He put the required coins into a box by the side of the terminal. He closed the lid. He opened the lid again, and there was the football, which he removed and tucked under his arm.

  “ How does that work, Ron?” asked Lucius. Ron looked around the faces peering at him expectantly, picked up his stick and stared from the earth beneath his feet to the shiny leather ball under his arm. He looked back to the Visigoths and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I have absolutely no idea” he said.

  Seven

  Marcel could not understand why all of a sudden he was invited to represent the Dark Side on the Organising Committee For Afterlife Annual Non-Denominational Celebration. The Committee was convened to find a way of getting everyone in the upper echelons, on whatever side of the behaviour divide, for a bit of a knees up, on the grounds that this would help to bring about reconciliation between Good and Evil.

  No-one could quite remember who had first had the idea that an eternal struggle might be overcome over a couple of plastic cups of punch and a chorus or two of ‘Mull of Kintyre’, but the Committee had now been meeting for over 2000 years with no realistic prospect of a resolution. God’s people, naturally, thought that a good time for the party would be around the time of the birth of His Son (if only to cut down on the expense of having two celebrations), whilst Lucifer had briefed his representatives to accept nothing other than All Hallow’s Eve. It was crushingly tedious, given that neither side would ever move from their position, but as is the way of things in an unending temporal space, there seemed as little point discontinuing as going on with it.

  The usual suspects were there; anyone who wanted a buffet, or found that their talents were increasingly unwanted in the modern living world, and Marcel sat through the meeting yawning and looking vicious. It was only when the meeting finished and the Gods and Demons were dispersing that the reason for his presence became clear. He found himself suddenly and surreptitiously cornered by some very large people, who simply surrounded him, their mere presence enough to cause Marcel to begin to harbour deep concern about what may happen to him. The group parted and a very thin, very non-threatening young man stepped inside the circle, which closed behind him.

  “I’m Slaven.” He said.

  “I’m Starvin” said Marcel. “Can I go and eat?”

  No-one laughed.

  “I’ve been sent by your boss and mine. There is something he needs you to do.” The young man drew a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Marcel. The Frenchmen unfolded the sheet and read the few words upon it, turned it over as though there must be more. Slaven continued.

  “We need you to interrogate The Afternet. We’re looking for a certain kind of person and want you to find him for us, out there somewhere, amongst that rabble.” Slaven had a quiet authority that Marcel found incredibly annoying. Quiet authority is by some distance the hardest to undermine. He slowly re-folded the piece of paper, squeezed the creases.

  “How would I do that, then, find someone?” he asked.

  Slaven sighed. Everyone else just lurked darkly.

  “How long have you been running the Afternet for Him?”

  “Three hundred years, mate. I’m not some arriviste, like-“ he looked Slaven up and down with a sneer, “others.”

  “And you still don’t know how it works? No wonder he doesn’t like you. You do know he doesn’t like you, don’t you?”

  “He’s The Devil, Slaven. He doesn’t like anyone, even his mum.”

  Slaven flicked his eyes slowly to the upper corner of the room and back, piercingly, to Marcel.

  “Ah, but he really doesn’t like you. So, if I were you I would figure out how to find this person, very quickly. And then let me know. Very quickly.”

  They stared at each other, the air almost crackling between them. Slaven finally broke the gaze.

  “Goodbye, Marcel.” He said. “It’s been…disappointing.”

  Mary was doubly amazed. First at the sheer number of hits and transactions occurring on A-Bay, an innovation she had assumed would have lasted a week. Second, at the fact that Marcel, that afternoon, strolled back into the control room, past the table where Justin and Geoffrey were playing Colditz, and pulled up a chair next to her at the main terminal.

  “Hi Mary,” he said, doing something like a smile, “what’s going on?”

  “Er, in what way?”

  “You know, with the system and everything. Computing, rim, ram and digit things.”

  “You sound like him.” She cocked her head towards Justin, who was shrieking because his tunnel had been discovered. “And I don’t like it. What do you want?”

  “I thought you might show me how it works. I realised that all this time I have known how to do about three things, one of which was to tell Geoffrey how to do the other two. Now it’s really working, you could show me some of the things it can do. Then we can have a game of Space Invaders.”

  Mary’s original suspicion had turned to a kind of happiness. The fact was, she loved computers, was very, very, good at working with them, and immensely proud both of rebooting The Afternet and kicking off A-Bay. For the first time for a long time she was going to be able to talk about it, and in Marcel she had a very clean sheet of knowledge. She had tried to explain some of th
e technical aspects to Geoffrey, but he had become distracted by one of the original episodes of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and was definitely developing a thing for Wilma Dearing.

  Marcel surprised himself with his ability to seem bothered as Mary walked him through the basics of firstly a computer and then the biggest processing device ever, which was the Afternet. He managed the odd “Really” and a “Hmm” or two, but gradually he found himself looking at her more than the screen.

  She had really deep brown eyes, he noted, and one of those pretty noses, and a lovely soft light brown complexion. Her hair, to put it mildly, was wild, like a black cloud. It was a wildness he liked.

  “So that’s pretty impressive, don’t you think?” It dawned on him that she was talking to him at the same time it dawned on her that he was looking at her.

  “Amazing.”

  “Is there anything particular you would like to know?” The brown eyes looked into his. What, he thought, do you do after dark? Instead, he said,

  “Can you find actual people out there?” Work came first, he supposed.

  The eyes sparkled, so pleased that he had obviously been listening and was still interested.

  “Yes! You can search for anybody. It’s incredible. Go on, suggest someone.”

  He thought for a moment. He was tempted to suggest his mother, but actually not knowing where the vicious old hag had been for these centuries had been a welcome relief. She looked from him back to the keyboard, her hands ready to search.

  “Look for Louis du Fontaine.” He said at last. Ah, Louis! Marcel had studied under the same tutor, his mother being too mean to pay for him to be educated alone. Perfect Louis, blonde curly hair, pale complexion, the women adored him. But Louis, in Marcel’s view, struggled with morality, which actually meant in Marcel’s terms that he had some. He wooed as Marcel bedded, took women to the brink of desire which was then fulfilled by his schoolmate. Marcel had lost count of the times he had made love to a young beauty as Louis serenaded her from the courtyard below. Louis was the soundtrack to Marcel’s teenage sexual development.

  Mary had entered the name. A list longer than a screen zipped into view.

  “There are lots. When would he have died?”

  “Well I died in 1662, but then that wasn’t exactly natural. Louis didn’t have quite the same problems I had with people with swords. Sometime in the late 17th century I would guess.”

  Mary scrolled down the list, leaning forward to read the details on the screen. She should get some glasses, he thought. She’d look nice in glasses.

  “Here you go.” She pointed at the entry. “Louis du Fontaine. He died in 1690. Natural Causes. Ooh, he was a good boy, wasn’t he?”

  Oh yes, thought Marcel, well he would have been. He looked at the screen. Monastery tending to the malnourished outside Reims, left there to marry a Countess, two children, both now deceased of course, owned an estate in Bergerac, gave to the poor, my God it was enough to make you sick. Mary mistook the look of disgust on Marcel’s face for interest.

  “Look, here’s what’s really amazing. She clattered a few keys. The cursor flashed and then the screen cleared and a picture emerged of a tall man with shoulder length silver hair standing atop a rock. He was speaking and a rapt crowd sat at his feet.

  “That’s him?” She nodded.

  “Look,” she said, pointing to the bottom of the screen. That’s his location, and this is his estimated date of processing. Still another twenty years, but he looks happy.”

  “Yes, well, he would. He’s got an audience for his homilies. Can we make it rain there?”

  “Don’t be silly Marcel. Why would we want to do that?” Because I probably can’t have him drowned in molten lava, the self-righteous oaf. Marcel managed to stop himself from being eaten up with desire to cause harm to Louis and drew himself back to the job in hand.

  “What about what people do, or did? Can we search in that way?” He was aware of Mary’s questioning look. “In case we ever need anyone to do something here, or something. You never know when some idiot God will turn up and give us something pointless to do. What if we needed, oh, I don’t know, a physician?”

  “That’s a bit broad. There would be thousands. Let’s narrow it down, and search for brain surgeons.”

  Mary, loving every minute of being able to demonstrate the amazing Afternet, was entirely unaware of the concentration with which Marcel watched as she found the search field, entered ‘Brain Surgeon’ and was very quickly rewarded with what remained a very long list.

  “Isn’t it amazing?”

  “It’s really lovely.” He said, staring at her profile.

  Geoffrey had taken Justin and Mary to Prize Bingo. Marcel had excused himself, claiming he wasn’t feeling very well and would benefit from a quiet rest.

  The weekly sessions were called by Fortuna, the Goddess of luck, whose blindness, both literal and metaphorical, always added a frisson of risk to the occasion. She had, though, a characteristic love for the ready wit of the bingo caller.

  “Growing from my roof, Eye-Vee.” She would call, and the new arrivals would look around for help.

  “Zeus’s shirt size, XL!” Widespread hilarity amongst the Roman contingent, usually causing friction with the Greeks, who were having enough trouble with the numbers anyway.

  “What haven’t I got?” Fortuna would yell, gazing pointlessly at where she thought the players may be.

  “I!” they would scream back, marking off the number.

  “Two fat ladies, LXXXVIII!”

  It was okay, but like everything else, familiarity could really dull the edge of such wit. Marcel, though, was only one voucher away from winning a stuffed Kraken, and Geoffrey, feeling sympathy for his under the weather chum, promised to do his best to bring it back for their top shelf.

  Alone in the Control Room, Marcel turned off the strip lighting. For some reason he wanted to create a feeling of dusk, of the things that happen when the sun sets.

  He stared at the bank of screens in front of him. In the semi-darkness they flickered through the feeds from life. Here, a game show from Burma (not the liveliest thing you’ve ever seen, the prize was to not be tortured for three years); there The Sopranos; Argentina’s Got Talent; news of a flood from Bangladesh; Revenge of The Sith; an advert for sheds from Australia, exhorting the viewer to enter the corrugation market before an expected leap in shed prices. Two of the Afternet screens showed the progress of the processing of the souls wandering around out there somewhere; little children looking up at adults and then shimmering and disappearing, to the amazement of those watching.

  Marcel took a seat at the Administrator terminal, the one Mary had occupied when she so enthusiastically trained him in the system. In the total silence of the Control Room he imagined he could detect her fragrance lingering on the chair, remembered the joy she had taken from talking to him about this machine. He closed his eyes and opened them again at the sound of a ‘ping’ from the wall to his left. He looked to the source of the sound.

  The extinction clock showed that 426 species had died out that day (admittedly more than half of them various types of fungus). The latest was Fingle’s Beetle, the last of which had overturned its dull carapace to the forest floor somewhere in Vanuatu. It could only have been a matter of time. This insect ingratiated itself with others and encouraged them to go out and forage for food, happily destroying their homes while they were away. Marcel stared at the extinction clock and wondered how the others were getting on at the bingo.

  He managed to find the search screen and entered his keyword ‘hacker’. Bit of a mistake, because, as any dictionary will tell you, this can include anyone who had taken chunks out of anyone or anything as their main occupation, and from the thirteen hundreds on, professionals and amateurs were more prevalent than you may think. He regarded the screen in front of him with dismay as it rapidly filled with names and then scrolled on in what seemed a potentially unending fashion. Finally it ground to a h
alt and posed a question.

  WOULD YOU LIKE TO REFINE YOUR SEARCH?>

  Well, yes, actually, thought Marcel, because otherwise I have to find a hacker in a hackerstack. He pondered for a moment and then it became obvious to him. He entered:

  COMPUTER HACKER>

  Schoolchildren generally tout a ‘fact’ that half of the people who have ever been alive are alive in the early 21st Century. The proportion of those who have bothered to break into the computers of others is exceptionally small, and the number who have died and wander the area between life and judgement even smaller.

  The first computer clicked and whirred some time around the 1940s, and not only did very few people notice, but you would have needed a chainsaw to hack it. Computers were utterly alien to most people for decades. Dissatisfied youth would, in later decades, break into major corporations’ databases instead of doing trigonometry homework. Now they spent their time in less far-reaching acts of petty vandalism. The only bugs they knew were the ones they tried to ignite by focussing the sun through a magnifying glass.

  It wasn’t until the 1970s that someone thought it might be clever to write some software that would creep through computing networks, and many years more before this went beyond something popping up at work to say ‘Ha Ha!’. Marcel’s search seemed to suggest that most of those who had led the field in the early days of computers were still alive, their knowledge of how to clog up archaic computer systems proving of little use in their new careers selling timeshares.

  There were a couple of interesting entries amongst the total of less than a dozen; Marcel decided he would start with the latest arrivals in the hope that their knowledge would be more current. The first he looked at turned out to be some bloke in Berwick On Tweed who had found a way to fix Ping Pong on the ZX Spectrum so that he always won. After he had achieved the task several hundred times in succession, this begun to pall, and he had become a road sweeper. The next had something to do with a program that inserted an additional breast on women in pornographic pictures, and Marcel did not think this was what the Devil had in mind.