Dead Net
- Marco Etheridge
- prije 13 minuta
- 15 min čitanja
Dead Net
Eli weaves his way through the neighborhood, jinking around piles of garbage, dodging homicidal bike messengers, and slipping past shuffle-step smombies. Two blocks to go, and he’s cursing under his breath. He hates running this daily gauntlet, and his hatred grows with each passing day. It’s hard to believe that today could be worse than yesterday, but somehow, it always is.
As Eli crosses the street, a food delivery scooter nearly takes him out. The scooter pilot is head down, texting, and veering all over the pavement. Eli leaps between two parked cars as the scooter ricochets off a sedan, careens into the oncoming lane, and crashes into a bike messenger.
Ignoring the carnage, Eli squirts onto the sidewalk for the homeward dash, but finds his path blocked. He’s trapped in a canyon, a mountain of garbage bags on his right, brownstones on his left, and a narrow slice of sidewalk blocked by three smombies hovering over their screens.
“Excuse me.”
The trio ignores him. Tinny music blares from their devices. They shuffle in place in a weird Thorazine line dance.
Eli tries again, louder.
“Excuse me!”
One of them swivels to face him, a dreamy smile plastered across her twenty-something mug.
“Oh, hi. We’re watching the latest Sublima video drop. Check it out!”
The woman shoves her device toward Eli, screen forward at eye level. A tiny figure fills the display, screeching pop lyrics while contorting herself into impossible dance moves.
Eli looks past the screen, sees three staring faces now, all with matching smiles. The spokeswoman waggles the device in front of his face.
“Pretty great, right?”
Eli pushes down his irritation. He doesn’t have time for this shit. Wren is waiting.
“Yeah, right. Look, I just wanna, you know, use the sidewalk, for walking.”
“Okay, but what about Sublima?”
Eli’s temper starts to slip its clutch. He’s in a hurry, the garbage mountain stinks, and these three morons are blocking a public sidewalk, babbling about someone who’s not even real. And he wants that screen out of his face.
“She’s a bot. You’re a fangirl for a bot.”
The device falls away. The woman’s face crumples like a kicked puppy.
“What are you talking about? Sublima is, like, one of the coolest people on the planet. How can you say she’s a bot? That’s ridiculous.”
Eli speaks slowly, punctuating every word.
“It’s not ridiculous. Sublima is not real. She is a bot. Sorry, not she, it. It is a bot, created by other bots. AI, artificial intelligence, maybe you’ve heard of it.”
Hands over her ears now, shaking her head and screaming at her feet.
“Stop saying that! Jerry, make him stop.”
Jerry, the boyfriend, or maybe just a large pet, puffs himself up. Unfortunately for Eli, there’s a lot of Jerry to puff.
“Okay, dude, maybe go peddle your hater bullshit somewhere else.”
Eli takes a deep breath and a good look at his new nemesis. This guy is younger, bigger, stronger, and he’s gone red in the face. Time to walk it back down.
“Sure, I’d be happy to. If you could just let me pass, I’ll be on my way.”
Jerry the hulk shakes his head and points to the girlfriend, who is now crying.
“Not until you apologize to Chrissy.”
Indignation thunders through Eli’s skull, smothering common sense.
“Apologize for what?”
“For the nasty shit you said about Sublima. And for being a dick.”
Words pour out of Eli’s gob, all filters disabled.
“Right. Chrissy, I’m sorry that Sublima is a fucking bot…”
That last syllable is punctuated by a fist smashing into Eli’s face. The sky spins overhead, then disappears under an avalanche of garbage bags. He sinks into green darkness and a horrible stench. The last thing he hears is muffled laughter.
***
Eli staggers up the last flight of stairs leading to the walkup he shares with Wren. Agony lances his head with every plodding step. He gags on the stench radiating from his skin, hair, and clothes. A horrible blur of jumbled images stops him midstep.
Coming to. Crawling out from under the piled garbage. No sign of the three Sublima goons, thank dog. Pushing himself to his feet. Scraping off the nasty clinging bits, then staggering away, soaked head to toe with the foul juices of rotted food and disposable diapers.
Eli shakes the evil memories away, climbs the final steps, makes it to the apartment door, and fishes for his keys. His pocket feels vile and squishy. He pulls the keys free. A glob of rotting fruit drops from his hand and plops onto the doormat. Nausea pulses through his guts. He slumps against the door, fighting the urge to hurl.
He hears footsteps behind the door and groans. Wren will not be pleased. Without warning, the door opens. Eli slides sideways, ricochets off the doorjamb, and staggers into a cramped foyer. Wren catches him by the shoulders, her eyes wide with an expression of concern which instantly turns to disgust.
“What happened to you—oh fucking hell!”
She pushes away from Eli and backpedals. Eli catches his balance and tries to speak.
“Look, I can explain…”
Wren cuts him off with one waving hand, the other clamped over her mouth and nose. Her voice is muffled through her fingers.
“No. Shoes and socks off. Then out onto the fire escape and get naked. Right now. Do it!”
Eli is too beaten down to argue. He does not bend over. Puking in the foyer is not going to help matters. He kicks off his shoes, then peels his socks off by stepping on the toes and yanking each foot free. Wren is already across the living room. She throws up a window and turns to him, waving like a traffic cop.
Trying not to drip on the rugs, Eli staggers across the room and climbs out onto the fire escape. He peels off his reeking clothes and drapes them over the railing. Pigeons fly past, smirking at his plaid boxers. He tries to climb back inside, but Wren blocks the window.
“Uh-uh, boxers too, garbage boy.”
Eli starts to protest, then sees the look on Wren’s face. He sighs, peels off his underwear, almost falls through the window, and dashes for the shower. Behind him, Wren and the pigeons giggle.
***
“I don’t understand.”
Eli sets his beer on the kitchen table and squints around the icepack that covers his cheek and left eye. It took two soap and rinse cycles, but he’s finally clean, swathed in his favorite tatty bathrobe, and explaining to Wren.
“Look, it’s simple. I told those idiots that Sublima was a bot, and the big one punched me.”
Wren sips her tea, wipes her lip, and smirks.
“Oh, I get why the guy hit you. I love you, Eli, but you’ve got a big mouth, and you tend to piss people off. What I don’t understand is how anyone could be a Sublima fan. I mean, even if she were human, yuck!”
Eli scowls.
“We’ve survived lots of horrible human pop stars, but a bot superstar is much worse. We’re drowning under a tidal wave of von Neumann machines, self-replicating bots. And yeah, humans created them, but we lost control years ago. The internet has been taken over by AI bots scraping data, even data created by other bots. Today it’s Sublima, an internet phenomenon. Next week, or next month, Sublima will be dead, and the bot farms will spit out a reincarnation, another virtual superstar.”
Wren raises her hands in mock surrender.
“Okay, got it. Remember who you’re talking to. Preacher, meet choir, right?”
“Sorry.”
“No need for sorry, but this is your department, not mine. You’re the one with thousands of followers, real human followers. Do what you do best: blog about this shit. Rally the troops, but no preaching, you hear me?”
Eli fake salutes with his beer bottle.
“Loud and clear, boss. You’re right, as always.”
Wren laughs, shakes her head.
“Poor Eli. I’m only right eighty-seven percent of the time.”
“What, you charted it?”
“Sure. It’s my job. You do tech, and I do numbers. Speaking of which, I’ve got two clients this afternoon. I’ll be home around six. Don’t get so wrapped up in saving the net that you forget about game night.”
“I won’t forget. I want revenge at Hive.”
“For a warmup, maybe, but we’ve got a four-way date for Root.”
“Carmen and Lydia?”
“Sure. Is that a problem?”
“No, but it might be nice to have another Y chromosome at the table for a change.”
Wren stands and carries her cup to the sink, speaking over her shoulder.
“Well, Lydia is at least as macho as you, my little Y, but you can brag about your black eye.”
“It’s not black.”
“It will be. See you later.”
On the way past, she ruffles Eli’s damp hair. No goodbye kiss. Kissing is one of the things Wren and Eli abstain from.
Alone in the apartment, Eli flops on the couch, opens his laptop, and gets to work. His head throbs, but the pain seems to focus his thoughts rather than distracting them. The blog title appears across the screen, as if it typed itself.
The internet is dead. Long live the internet.
This will be the first post of a new series. Eli’s fingers hover over the keyboard while his thoughts race ahead.
Gotta get this right from the start, but no preaching. Wren’s right about that.
The title is ironic but not without some solid truth. The net may not be dead, but it’s fair to say that it’s on life support. Bots are the majority users on the web, and more content is created by bots than by humans. We’re seeing the beginning of an AI dystopia. Yeah, that’s a good opening. Then you dive into the meat.
AI bots crawl the web, then create content from recycled data. In the process, bots strip away some portion of the original human intent or meaning. You’ve got bots generating content while other bots scrape more data. So, it’s inevitable that bots will mine content created by other bots. Then you pose the obvious question: how much information on the web is based solely on AI-generated content?
Sure as shit, someone’s going to raise the conspiracy flag. You have to get out in front from the start. Who knows if governments or shady corporations are using AI to manipulate the people? Real question: Does it matter? Answer: No, because human users are being manipulated by AI data.
The keyboard clicks as Eli types. Once his fingers catch up with his thoughts, he reads through his rough notes. Good enough for now. This is the work he loves best, the conceptualizing before the real writing begins.
Your lead shouts that the internet is dead. That’s an overstatement, but a good hook. Now you need a decent metaphor. Right, imagine a large animal weakened by an unknown disease. The creature sinks to the ground. It’s dying, but not dead. As it lies helpless, carrion beetles swarm over the animal. The beetles eat away the living flesh, millions of tiny bites, stripping the animal to bare bone.
Eli types this up before he loses the thread. Then he adds what will become a series of bullet points. There’s no shortage of bad players in this death struggle. AI mining data for Large Language Models, Chinese bot farms for YouTube engagement, scammers, and, of course, Russian troll factories.
Eli works through the afternoon, pausing only for piss breaks and a few painkillers. The ache in his head recedes as the post takes shape. By the time Wren returns home, he’s completed a solid second draft. He needs Wren to proofread the piece, but that can wait until tomorrow.
Now, it’s time to head out for tacos and game night. And he needs to polish up his story to explain the lovely shiner spreading around his left eye.
***
Two weeks slip past. Eli churns out more blog posts, amplifying the theme of a moribund internet. By the fifth post, his website clocks more than a thousand views in twenty-four hours. During the same two weeks, the superstar bot Sublima fades from the online cosmos, eclipsed by a new creation named MegaMiz.
Eli enlists Wren to help him sort through the growing avalanche of comments. After culling the obvious trolls and wankers, the majority of the remaining comments are thoughtful and on-target. Some are sad, others funny, sarcastic, or both. Many fall into the angry category, ranging from conspiracy rants to reasoned, point-by-point arguments on how human users are complicit in the trashing of the net.
Wren and Eli sit at the kitchen table, each working at open laptops. Eli reaches for a coffee mug, leans back in his chair, and catches Wren’s eye.
“Are you seeing this thread about holding a funeral?”
Wren nods, still scrolling down her screen.
“I’m trying to backtrack to the first comment. Give me a second.”
Eli knows better than to break Wren’s train of thought when she’s chasing something. He sips his coffee, replaces the mug on the table, and rolls his head to work out the kinks in his neck.
A smile lights up Wren’s face.
“Got it. The original comment came in yesterday morning from Sparky47. If the internet is truly dead, we should show some respect and hold a funeral. You know, that’s not a bad idea. What do you think?”
“Interesting, and not what I would have expected. We’ve got about sixty more comments in that thread, most of them agreeing with the idea. People are suggesting a funeral, a wake, a party. But what would that look like?”
Wren frowns into her empty mug, pushes back from the table, and steps to the sink. She fills an electric kettle and flicks the switch. She leans against the counter. Eli watches and waits. It’s like he sees the thoughts swirling around her head.
The kettle begins to rumble. Wren speaks over the noise.
“I see a lot of ways this could go, but two things stand out. First, you need to get out front on this. These numbers are serious. There’s a solid chance this might go viral. Second thing, whatever we call it, a funeral, a wake, it has to be a physical event.”
Eli nods, catching the flow.
“Right, because if the net is dead or dying, then we can’t hold a memorial on the net. It’d be like playing tic-tac-toe on the body.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, but a funeral is no good. We don’t have a corpse, not in any real sense. So,
let’s call it a wake. A party to mourn our dearly departed.”
“Then a wake it is, an Irish wake. Lots of boozing and singing and whatnot. We can
do this, Eli. You can do this.”
“We could put out a call for a flash mob.”
“But what happens if hundreds of people show up? The cops will get a case of the
chappy-ass.”
“Then we get a permit, like for a demonstration. We stage it in one of the big parks.”
“No alcohol allowed in the parks.”
Eli snorts.
“Like that ever stopped anyone.”
“Okay, we need to start a task list. Number one: apply for a permit. Are you getting this?”
“Yeah, jeez, give me a second.”
Eli’s fingers dance over the keyboard.
“New document, list, permit. Got it.”
“We can’t have a wake without a preacher. That’s number two.”
Sure. Wait, how about…”
On the counter, the kettle reaches a rolling boil and clicks off. Busy making plans, Eli and Wren ignore it.
***
The woman behind the permitting counter exudes an exasperated patience punctuated with expressions of severe doubt. She gives Eli the raised eyebrow look. He feels like he’s playing Dungeons and Dragons with a really grouchy dungeon master.
“You want to hold a what for the what?”
“Uh… a wake for the internet.”
She shakes her head and holds up a form.
“How about we try again? Picnic or other? Say picnic.”
“Picnic.”
“Thank you. Noncommercial, right? Say yes.”
“Yes.”
“See, we’re making progress. No stages, electronics, or structures, right?”
“Nope, none of the above.”
“How many people?”
She raises her eyes again and waits. Eli takes a wild stab.
“Maybe a hundred, if we’re lucky.”
“Mm-hmm. Let’s say one hundred plus, in case we get a cop who can count.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right, Mister Jacobs, that will be one hundred and thirty dollars. And a word of advice. Make sure you clean up after your whatever or the city will send you a bill. A big one.”
Eli walks out of the permit office with a receipt, a permit, and the conviction that this whole event will blow up in his face. He races home to promote what will surely be the worst-attended funeral in history.
The blog post goes out, the date is set, and Eli frets. Wren tells him to knock it off. What’s the worst that could happen? Eli has a dozen worst-case scenarios on the tip of his tongue but wisely keeps them to himself.
Wren spreads the word on social media. Eli begins fielding a growing flood of comments on his blog, everything from what folks might bring to what they will wear. In a matter of days, the event is out of his control, running ahead on its own steam.
The big day arrives with final certainty. Wren looks like a Goth dream in black-on-black lace. Eli opts for a tuxedo tee and black jeans.
The sun shines down on a perfect Saturday. Wren and Eli walk through the city streets. Eli carries a rolled banner on two poles. As they round a corner, the park comes into view. Eli stops in his tracks. A crowd of people mill about on the withered grass, many wearing black costumes.
“Holy crap! There’s gotta be two, three hundred people here.”
Wren pokes him and grins.
“See? Told ya. C’mon, raise the banner. Let’s get this party started.”
They unfurl the banner, hoist it high, and march into the park.
The Internet: 1983 - 2025
Rest in Peace
People turn, see the banner, and begin to cheer. The crowd parts to let them pass. Eli feels like Moses walking across the Red Sea. He’s blown away by the size of the throng and the myriad costumes. There are ghouls and banshees, undertakers and hooded reapers, a dark dazzle of all the many cosplay versions of death and mourning.
On the far side of the crowd, a knot of people waits under an ancient maple tree, exactly as planned. Wren and Eli hand off the banner to two standard bearers. Then Eli turns to the crowd and raises his voice.
“Welcome, everyone. Thank you for coming. You guys look great!”
Cheers ring through the warm air. Eli waits for the noise to die down.
“Okay, we don’t have amps or anything, so let’s have everyone pull in close. If those in front could sit down, that would be great.”
Folks ease forward into a rough semicircle. Wren leans over to whisper in Eli’s ear.
“I make it more like five hundred.”
Eli answers out of the corner of his mouth.
“I’m nervous as hell.”
“You got this.”
The crowd settles. Eli clears his throat.
“I’m Eli Jacobs. I’m guessing some of you read my blog.”
Chuckles and cheers.
“Thanks! I’m not much for public speaking, so I’m going to turn this over to Reverend Spike. Reverend?”
A tall, grey-bearded man steps forward. He wears a purple robe and a battered cowboy hat. Reverend Spike addresses the crowd in a deep, strong voice.
“Beloved sisters, brothers, and everyone in between. Thank you for being here today. We gather to mourn our dearly departed internet. Words fail on a day like this, but I will do my best to put words to our grief.
“Now, old Mister Death is a sneaky fellow. When a loved one has suffered a long illness, death can creep up on us unawares, catch us napping. I believe this is what happened with the net. We knew the internet was sick, maybe even seriously ill, but did it occur to us that our old friend would die? I think possibly not. Yet here we are, my friends.
“So, let us mourn, but let us also celebrate a wondrous life. To that end, please welcome the Anarchy All-Star Choir, who will sing ‘Death Don’t Have No Mercy’ by The Reverend Gary Davis. Raise your voices, people!”
Reverend Spike steps aside, and the choir moves forward, a dozen singers in shades of black. To an unspoken signal, they begin stomping and clapping a dirge. Clap—stomp, clap—stomp. The crowd picks up the beat. The choir breaks into the mournful lyrics, lifting their voices above the gathering. Folks sing along, raising the chorus, until the song fills the park.
A coffin appears out of the crowd, borne on the shoulders of six steampunk pallbearers. The casket is wrapped in black crêpe. Lines of binary code adorn the shroud, zeros and ones, white on black. Someone has fixed a decrepit monitor and keyboard to the coffin lid. The frayed wire of a broken mouse dangles over the edge.
Reverend Spike steps forward and raises his hands over the coffin.
"It's hard to imagine a world without the internet. And yet, all things have their season. Alas, our dear friend is gone. And we who are left behind, what then shall we do? I say we honor our fallen friend. That is why we gather here today. So, let me speak of our loss, our grief, and our dead.”
Reverend Spike delivers a heartfelt homily. He closes with words they all know.
“Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. And now, let us set aside grief and celebrate our friend.”
Bottles appear from inside cloaks and robes. Folks come forward to offer toasts to the dead. The wake carries on into the afternoon, acquiring a life of its own. Eli and Wren stand beneath the banner, taking it all in, grinning from ear to ear.
A local news crew shows up. A few of the city’s finest patrol the edges of the park. Luckily, no one is arrested.
And through it all, people take videos with their phones. Before the wake comes to a wobbly finish, some of those videos are already streaming across social media.
Finally, the banner is furled. The crowd filters away as folks carry the celebration to local watering holes. Eli and Wren help gather up discarded plastic cups, stuff them into bins. After a final round of hugs and congratulations, they head home on foot, tired but elated.
Over the next few days, Eli and Wren cull through a flood of social media posts. Recaps of the wake make waves in the city, then spread geographically as posts are shared. Videos start to go viral. Meanwhile, Eli works on his blog, thanking everyone for attending the celebration.
The buzz grows, and in its aftermath, the first AI videos emerge. Bot farms spew slop posts. The wake is repackaged and spun as a stunt, a protest, even a riot. Misinformation spawns a host of comments.
The leaders should be prosecuted. A beautiful piece of civil disobedience. Nothing but a conspiracy theory. Who cares about another Millennial stunt?
Flame wars erupt as bots scrape the internet’s corpse. Eli and Wren can only observe the virtual carnage. The internet is dead. Long live the net. Sitting at the kitchen table over beers, they view the latest travesty. Wren waves a bottle at her laptop.
“Had to happen, I guess.”
Eli shakes his head.
“No, it didn’t have to happen, but it did.”
Biography: Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in over one hundred and fifty reviews across Canada, Australia, Europe, the UK, and the USA. Marco’s short story “Power Tools” was nominated for Best of the Web for 2023 and is the title of his latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a ‘Zine called Hotch Potch. In his other life, Marco travels the world with his lovely wife Sabine.
Image: Unsplash, downloaded (https://unsplash.com/photos/a-group-of-people-sitting-on-top-of-a-lush-green-park-q59IJ5O01EY) 17. 9. 2025.
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