“I wish he were here now,” William says, dreamily. “That I could look up from this sugared lemonade and see Daddy walk right out onto the porch and take that empty seat.”
“Didn’t need no Constitution, either,” Richard Henry continues. “Certainly didn’t need no navy,” and he sends a gob of spit to dampen the porch boards. “Floating tyranny is what it is. Best way to ensure the continued bloat of government.”
This is the way it’s always been for the brothers Lee. First, they were mad at the crown—a whole family for independence. When the crown was gone, they moved onto the next thing to be apocalyptically upset about: the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, the BofR, Newnet and Franklin’s Dream. Doesn’t much get done in this country without a Lee there to connect the dots to tyranny and the ultimate downfall of man. “Maybe we could use a little of it here again,” Richard Henry says. “A little of that old feeling. Throw off the Constitution and Newnet and this new navy like we did the yoke of George Three.”
Francis Lightfoot swallows some lemonade he’s been swirling around in his mouth. “So what, then? Back to the eighties? When the old Internet was the Cloud and no transaction was safe? No Newnet? No Dream? Never mind about the stagnant population numbers. Who wants to do business in a place where you come around the corner and run into your own haunt?”
William says, “The eighties weren’t so bad. They were kind of sweet, actually, in a way.”
Francis Lightfoot lowers the level of lemonade in his glass. “Whatever France got, whether they got it from America or not, let’s hope it doesn’t ever come back over. ‘That old feeling’ mutates itself again and what’ll that look like in Philadelphia? George Washington torn to bits, all of Chestnut Street reduced to rubble, the blood of Federalists smeared on the doorways of pubs and common houses? How far you like this to go, Richard Henry, this thing that started back that time Daddy whipped your ass?”
“George Washington,” William sighs. “Who would have thought it? More off‐the‐grid than ever. Gone all gaga for the Federalists.”
Richard Henry wags a finger from his good hand. “Never mind the Old Man. Can’t touch him anyway. Believe me, I tried. Burnt my fingers, burnt them real good. Everyone that’s ever gotten in the Old Man’s way has ended up the same: fucked up. You should have listened to me and Ben Rush about old Off‐the‐Grid before he got a chance to become old Off‐the‐Grid. Before he became this fucking god.”
“What about Lighthorse Harry?” referring to their dead brother’s son, a leading member of the Society of Cincinnati and as hard‐on a Federalist as you’re going to be able to scratch up south of New England. They all sigh. A Federalist in the Lee family: more proof that something’s gone wrong with America, terribly wrong.
“Newnet. Oldnet,” Richard Henry says. “Platforms come and platforms go. So long as the government stays out of it, I don’t have any problem with the Cloud, whatever name it’s got in whatever present we’re in. Newnet is a great place for business, any fool can see that. So a little tax money goes to a new server now and then, a few gentlemen’s agreements to keep the level level. But ships of the line? Just floating there and they don’t have a sleep mode. This ain’t no smartphone you can slip into your pocket when you don’t need it. You have to keep a navy running all the time. Each ship full of men, all the time. Always stocked full of guns and cannons and provisions. Taxes go up up up, and the government gets wide wide wide.”
Francis Lightfoot says, “People moving into Michigan territory, and sooner or later the government’s going to be moving there, too. Got people living in the Dream now. Not hard to see where that’s going.”
William looks like he’s just been given his wish, like he’s just watched their daddy walk out onto the porch. “People living… inside the Dream?”
“Francis Hopkinson and John Hancock, both living in there for real. That’s what people say, at least. Neither of them has a body back here controlling his avatar anymore. But the avatars are out there, out there in the Dream, claiming to be the same old humans, just they’re only their avatar now.”
Richard Henry looks at his coming death. Shapes in the shadows break from trees tilted along the wide front drive. Beyond, the sun sinks lower.
“Got these drones, too,” Francis Lightfoot says. “New drones. They’re not part of some larger program, facet of some business model. They’re completely autonomous. And they’re contributing to the economy, too. Drones got lives in there, families, they say.”
“Someone put a rock on Daddy’s grave,” William says. “To keep that old slave driver from rolling over.”
Francis Lightfoot puts on the face of a country lawyer. “There’s a war going on in Europe,” he half opines. “Always has been, always will be. They can’t go a few years without poking each other in the Cloud. Sooner or later one of them’s going to start poking around with our Cloud. And how long are we going to take it before we do something? And what are we going to do something with if we don’t have a navy? Without safe cloud commerce, people’ll lose patience with this Republicanism thing. Pretty fast, too. Same way they lost patience with the King.” He shakes his head sadly. “Soon there won’t be a government and a cloud because the government and the Cloud will be the same thing. And we’ll end up on someone’s side in the war, too. It’s not what I want,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not coming. Grand philosophy aside, government is only as good as the Cloud it makes available.”
Richard Henry focuses his attention on the crooked tops of the apple trees that seem always to be pleading skyward. “I fought in a war over this when I was a young man: the French king trying to tell us what we could and couldn’t do with our charters. Our sons have fought a war over this, the King telling us what we can and can’t do with our money. Now we got another war brewing, people telling people what they can and can’t do with their Cloud. Some day our sons’ sons will be fighting in the next war. Whomever it is telling us what we can and can’t do with whatever it is then…”
Richard Henry finishes his sugared lemonade. Both brothers know that this is the signal, and so they finish their lemonades, too, settle in to hear the last words of Richard Henry Lee. “Each man must have his own revolution, Francis, William. Each man must become a man untangled. A man of true liberty. No obstacles set in his path by any power larger than himself. Not until each man is free will every man be free.” Richard Henry waves that silk‐covered hand. “Like all things, this terror will pass. These European wars even. But a navy? Good luck taking that out of the Cloud once it’s up.”
The sun sinks down bellow the horizon. All light gone from the state of Virginia. The population suddenly one less, and only two Lee brothers left. And Alice somewhere, too, the sister.
Abraham Clark :: September 15th 1794
Abraham Clark wakes up. “Oh,” he thinks. “I’m in the Dream.”
“For a while anyway.”
“Wait,” Clark says. “You can hear what I’m thinking?”
“You’re saying it now.”
“But before I was just thinking.”
“Well, either way, I can hear it. Though ‘hear’ probably isn’t the right word.”
Abraham Clark realizes he’s talking to no one. The chatroom is grid only and empty besides his avatar. Code echoes the surface of the walls. Beyond, it looks like the same old Dream, but in this room, it’s like the Dream has been removed. A bubble caught somewhere in its guts, holding it all back. How much pressure needed to burst it and everything comes rushing in? “Who is that?” Clark demands. “Who’s talking to me? Where the hell am I?”
Francis Hopkinson, ponytail and all—exactly like Clark remembers him—comes twittering into the emptied‐out room. “Sorry,” the avatar says. “I forget how attached humans are to human shapes.” He turns to look into the translucent layers of code.
Abraham Clark is brightened by the presence of his fellow Signer. He looks around the allchat. “How did I end up in this?
Some error in the Dream routed me down some wrong tunnel, maybe? Gosh, I guess that sounds pretty dumb to you.”
“Nope. I understand how complicated the Dream is. I did code the place.”
Clark steps up beside him, looks where Hopkinson is looking. “So what’s with this chatroom? Never seen anything like it.”
“You’re on the other side of the Dream. This is the code side.”
“Oh.”
Hopkinson turns to face him, “You mean you don’t know?” “Know what?”
“Let’s put it nice and easy and say: When you’re finished with this Dream session, you won’t be going back to the real.”
“Has something happened to the real?”
Hopkinson laughs. “Something’s happened to you, Abe. You’re dead back there.”
“Dead? You mean I’ve been transported to the Dream? My soul got sucked in?”
“No, you haven’t been transported to the Dream. You’re just in that last active second.”
“Last active second?”
“Your brain.” Hopkinson smiles. “Don’t worry. I’ve slowed down this sector of the Dream to give you as much time as possible. It’s all only a second or so of time in the real. Maybe three.”
“I don’t like the idea of being dead.”
“Well, technically, you’re not. Not yet. Actually, technically… medically speaking, you are dead. Your body.”
“Oh.”
“But your brain is still alive. At least for a moment or two.”
“Frank, did you do this? Did you bring me here?”
Francis Hopkinson puts up his hands—his avatar does, any‐way—and since there is no other him back at any terminal, it really is him that’s showing Clark those hands. “Not me.”
“How, then?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Probably just an accident.”
“An accident?”
“Accidents happen any time there’s a new technology. Think about the first human who climbed on a horse. The first ones who got in a ship and sailed out past where the ocean falls off. The Dream, Newnet… we’ve created an alternate parallel reality where humans live as digital replicas of themselves. Something was bound to go wrong, eventually. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened more.”
Clark looks down at his arms and his legs. Don’t really feel there under him, but seeing them, moving them, well, they look like the same arms and legs he had back in the real. “Can you tell me how I got here?”
Hopkinson may look like he’s looking into a wall, but really he’s looking through the crossover interfaces of the Dream, right into Abraham Clarks’ inanimate body, back there on his New Jersey farm. “Too hot,” Hopkinson says.
“You mean I got uploaded to the Dream because it’s too hot in my house?”
“In your house? Abe, you’re not in your house. Your body’s not, I should say. You remember maybe going outside today?”
Clark snaps his fingers. “That’s it. This morning’s walk.”
“Guessing you looked at the sun too long, or let the sun look too long at you. Like way too long.”
“If my brain got melted by the sun, then how did I get back to the house?”
“You didn’t.”
“Then how did I log into the Dream?”
“You didn’t, Abe.”
“Then how am I here?”
Hopkinson smiles. “How the sun gives you a sunburn is radiation. Not really heat. Though it is hot. Real hot. It’s the sun.”
“My brain got radiated?”
“Probably made the cells move around in some way that’s too unpredictable for it to ever happen again. But yeah, that’s what it looks like. You’re not at home, Abe, not on Newnet. You don’t have any smartdevice linked in.”
“Where am I then?”
“Your body is lying in a field, if that’s what you mean. The rest of it—walking home, logging into the Dream—hallucinations caused by the radiation.”
Clark turns to find his own section of the room to stare out from, watches the Dream churning by, one layer away. “You looking at my brain back there?”
Hopkinson nods. “Pretty interesting. That you were able to come across without a device.”
“How did you get here?”
Hopkinson thinks a moment. “Jefferson,” he says. “Jefferson did it.”
“Thomas Jefferson? What, he uploaded you?”
Hopkinson shakes his head. “Love to have some scans of my old brain, but I didn’t get them and now the thing’s all rotted. Not connected anymore anyway.” He shrugs, “Maybe he wanted me here for something or was trying to get rid of me for good. He botched it and here I am.”
Clark thinks a second, smiles. “You harboring any ill thoughts, Frank? Maybe someone in the real you want to get back at?”
“Taking on Mr. Jefferson in the real is not the best approach, I think.”
“Studying my brain, then? To learn how to suck someone across? Bring him over here to your turf?”
“Sorry, Clark.”
Clark looks at his avatar’s body. “Sorry what?”
“Looks like this is it.”
“My active moment is gone?”
Hopkinson nods.
“What’s it going to feel like?”
“Not sure. What does it? It’s happening now.”
“Oh.” Clark tries to concentrate, but he can’t feel a thing.
John Witherspoon :: November 15th 1794
Keeping it pretty quiet, but old Off‐the‐Grid’s about to announce he’s really going off the grid. And this time it’s going to be for real. And for good. Everybody’s taking sides. In secret, of course, but they’re all taking sides. Each side making sure its side is all loaded up with men of quality. The retirement of George Washington has become imminent and already the country’s splitting in two beneath him. Don’t let the Old Man see, but as soon as he’s not looking…
Way before there was the Old Man, there was The Father. The Father of the Founding Fathers. The original Old Man. Old Man John Witherspoon. And for the sides all lining up their men, this here’s the biggest catch of all. If the Jeffersonian Republicans or the Federalists could come out with The Father on their side, well, that would look pretty damn sweet. Every day, more floods of chats and tickles and even old‐school emails, all feeling out which way The Father might throw his heft. Today they’re all demanding to know: how does The Father feel about the Whiskey Rebellion. Is John Witherspoon a Signer who’s with the Jeffersonian‐Republi‐cans or a Signer who’s with the Federalists? Witherspoon’s not sure why he has to be with either. Or against whichever one he’s not with. Or why anyone wants to know what a blind old man thinks about something happening so long after he’s served all his useful purpose.
Not Old Man Witherspoon anymore, he thinks. Just a blind old man. Lost his sight during the first outbreak. Doctors told him it was The Death that was causing it, but he’s never heard of anyone else going blind from The Death. Thirteen years later, The Death long gone, and here he is.
It being patriotic to make things easy for a blind old patriot, the aristocracy of New Jersey has paid for an orderly. Witherspoon’s working on the third one now, a new orderly for each level of system failure. This kid he has now specializes in late‐stage hospice, supposed to be constantly hovering in case John Witherspoon should need something as his last days tick away. But this orderly is fond of sneaking out of the room whenever there’s enough background noise. Kid always has a bluear in, an eyereader too, constant feeds streaming in from Franklin’s Dream. One feed for his eyes and one feed for his ears. Keeps it all turned pretty low, but every so often, John Witherspoon can hear its tiny spiking treble. What’s he going to do, though? Demand the kid listen to every word he says? Demand he stand there attentively during his old man’s silences?
“It was fourteen years ago that I lost my sight.” Witherspoon holds his hand up in front of his face, in front of those glazed grey eyes. “Since I last saw the world
. Today it’s the Whiskey Rebellion. Tomorrow it’ll be something else. An election coming soon.” He sighs. “These political parties. They sound more like France and England than they do America. If you’re not with us, with us one hundred percent, then you’re declaring yourself with the other. Everything is so one hundred percent.”
Slowly and purposefully, Witherspoon works to his feet, scuttles across the room, hands out front and pawing until he’s down at his desk. The orderly keeps an eye on him but doesn’t budge, sunk a little too deep into those Dream feeds he’s feeding on. Wither‐spoon pops the top of that old laptop. The orderly giggles every time he sees the thing and its touchpad. “Pretty sure an eyereader would work even for a blind person,” the orderly says. “Surely better than that voice‐rec software.” And the kid laughs because he can’t believe John Witherspoon still uses it, that old voice‐rec software.
“When I went blind,” John Witherspoon tells the kid, “that was when I started to see the Internet.”
This is a line the orderly has heard before. Numerous times. Not that the old guy doesn’t have interesting things to say every once in a while. But can a person really be expected to wade through hours of echoes for the brief flashes of the old John Witherspoon? Right then, the orderly is tiptoeing out of the room. Might be The Father of the Founding Fathers, but to this young American, John Witherspoon’s no different than any other old haunt.
Witherspoon articulates a few commands to the computer. The computer, in turn, reads out John Witherspoon’s unread email. Words from the speakers in a soft female voice he selected long ago. “Open links,” he instructs. View boxes pop up all over the screen in overlapping tiles. In the flattened stack of open feeds, several videos of the Whiskey Rebels running through looping lists of auto‐play. Pro‐ and anti‐screamers Dream screaming to anyone on Newnet why the Rebels are traitors, or why they’re patriots. New and familiar voices from the far reaches of the political spectrum all let loose and mid‐drone.
Doctor Benjamin Franklin's Dream America Page 11
