Unnaturals Read Free Page B

answering? What's going on!?
    @BunnyCuteSmart24: it's all right, Mom. Calm down.
    The boy looked at her again. His eyes held a bit more respect for her than a moment ago. Then, he ran.
    She didn't run after him. One running person might be more difficult to pinpoint and catch than two people running together, especially if they had been talking together earlier. Nicolas hadn't said it—but Meliora knew that it wasn't him who had brought back the interweb.
    It wasn't her, either.
    ***
    Yes, Mom, truly, it's all right. Just the interweb in the mall stopped. The GreatLifeExperiences, Inc. theater is broadcasting now, take a look there.
    The GreatLifeExperiences, Inc. theater was the theater in the mall. People went there for entertainment. A person would sit in a soft, nice chair beside other people sitting in soft, nice chairs, and a few tiny pieces of some computing device would be glued to their skin, so they could feel things like winter freezing temperatures, unbearable summer heat, being in a mild car accident, smelling a nasty unclean toilet, and so on. People could never feel these anywhere else. It would be unsafe to program them into individual computers. At least, so GreatLifeExperiences, Inc. said. The theater, however, was a safe, controlled environment, and its medstats could dispense relaxation pills stronger than those of the home medstats if someone thought they'd experienced a bit too much.
    A unique, new, UNHEARD OF experience! the theater was broadcasting now. WHAT would life BE without the interweb? ONLY in GreatLifeExperiences, Inc. shopping mall and theater. Coming soon! Tested with great success today in the shopping mall itself!
    But from now on, the corporation said, this wonderful experience would only happen in the theater. People were already buying tickets.

Annabella
    The boy Nicolas 0x12A14762, with interweb address Nicolas351, was from another city. It wasn't hard to find where he lived if one knew where to look. Mel did. She read his feed, too, but his old posts were natural—and after the outage the boy broadcasted nothing. It was almost impossible to believe. Had he been found? Had he been put into prison or into his own mind? Could one no longer post on their feed if that happened?
    She didn't know, and the old articles didn't explain. The fairytales did. He could have died, they said. He could have even been killed, which was like dying, only someone else did it to the person.
    Some tales said that dying was going to a place where white-clad children played music and sang. Mel wondered. Didn't they have musicstats in Death or even normal computers—and how could children play music, anyway? Mel had examined both musicstats and computers. Musicstats had better hardware for music than computers, but whatever their differences, they both had hardware children lacked.
    Other tales mentioned Death as a place where grown men went to drink and hunt. Hunting, as Mel understood it, was people going to find food. It sounded like a supermarket. Mel could not imagine Nicolas going to the Death where children played—and how long could a boy spend in a supermarket? A day, two at most, if he wanted to eat several times before he chose what to buy. A few more, if he forgot what he wanted, or if he took a nap in the supermarket's hotel.
    Mel had a feeling that Nicolas wouldn't forget anything. He must be back soon.
    Yet, time passed, a long time, and the boy didn't return in the interweb. He never replied to Mel's messages, never again posted on his feed. She couldn't break into his private message box, either, though she could break into anyone else's. Not that she cared to break into other people's message boxes, except for Mom's. People's messages were boring. Mom's were, too—but Mel had a responsibility for Mom. She had to care for her, to make sure Mom was happy, and checking her messages was a part of it. Mom still missed Dad. Mel knew it though Mom would never, ever say it. It was unnatural.