YOU'VE GOT MAIL

By Mike Gone

Colin Matthews had just finished lecturing a class of 150 on the ethics behind universal Internet access at UCLA. Since the on-line boom fourteen years ago in the mid 90’s the question of whether universal Internet access should be given had widely been debated, even though nothing had ever come of it. Colin was 26 he was smart and one of the leaders in Internet ethics, Internet law, along with a successful Fortune 500 company. As a boy Colin had been a computer prodigy starting his own CD-ROM company at fifteen and developed several successful titles so that by seventeen he had paid for college and bought his mother a new house. Even though being such a success in the CD-ROM industry his first love had always been the Internet. In college he had majored in computer science, and later went back to get his masters in law. Since he had spent the last ten years of his life going to school and teaching it was no wonder that he was not married and for the most part socially inactive.

As Colin walked in to his thirteen room house in Bel Air house he turned on the Microsoft v999 computer on his desk next to the door and sat down. Quickly a screen with several icons appeared he clicked on the icon with the phone on it and typed in his password. At the Eworld-Net (Colin’s service provider) screen he clicked on the icon to log on. Within seconds he was looking at his ev-mail, ev-mail had come to replace e-mail three years ago with ev-mail it was a recorded video of someone giving you a message. Of course you could still send old e-mail messages but ev was the latest trend and it was what was what most people used. He had only a few messages that he would look at later. Deciding that he would like to interact with some others people Colin double clicked on the icon at the top of the screen to take him to VR-chat. VR-chat was face to face communication with people from all over the world just like the old text only IRC rooms. It had been a long and frustrating day so Colin indulged himself in the VR gamer’s forum for the rest of the night and then went to bed.

When Colin awoke in the morning to the preset alarm on his computer it was six o’clock and though Colin was accustomed to getting up early it was a little more tedious on this morning. Colin walked over to the computer, turned it on and sat down in his familiar chair. As he logged on to Eworld-Net he saw that he had twenty messages he clicked on the icon so he could view them. He looked at a few one from Mike asking him if he wanted to play some Ultimate with Will and Stephen, and replied that he did not want to. Then he scanned his other messages to see what he would look at next. The one that caught his eye was from a name he did not recognize. As Colin clicked on it he realized that it was not his and it was directed to someone at a government address. When e-mail first came to be back over two decades ago it was common to accidentally receive someone else’s mail but for it to happen in this day in age was not something that was even subconsciously thought about. Out of curiosity Colin felt he had to see what had been accidentally sent to him.

Colin clicked on the play icon and turned the speakers volume up a little so he could hear every thing that was said. A modern tall sleek man appeared on his screen wearing hiking boats, a fleece coat and olive green pants. “After using the new underground equipment that you sent to us, we have located over forty possible oil well sites and that is just the beginning. We must get this war underway soon so it is imperative that we tap this right away.” After inspecting the screen Colin noticed that this message had been relayed from the Middle East. Over the past few years with the rise of Iraqi power, anti-American revolts where common. American troops had been sent over there for the past several months and in Washington there had been talk of war.

Press conferences were not the President's favorite things to give but since this was a major event it was required. “We are presently at war with Iraq, because of the cruelty of the Iraqi government to it’s bordering countries we have been forced to wage war.” “At this moment I have nothing more to say other than that I hope this can be resolved soon and without many American lives being put at stake.” The President walked from the press room and straight to his office to meet with Senator Smith. “What is it that you wanted to see me about,” the President said as he briskly walked into the room.

“Well, when my field researchers send me the message that everything that we needed was there, the message had somehow been send to two addresses mine and a man named Colin Matthews the computer guy in LA that was recently featured on the cover of Wired,” a stressed Senator Smith said.

“Yes, I know who you are referring to, we can’t let this get out we need the money from that oil and this getting out in the public could mean Impeachment I don’t want to see that happen, I want this taken care of!” the President said with such fierceness the words rattled in the room.

Colin had spent the day at his company’s headquarters in Santa Monica because his staff wanted to show him some new things that there were doing in the games section. When Colin arrived home that evening, he entered his house and walked past the kitchen entrance up the stairs and to the den. Upon finding the remote he turned on the news and sat down on his leather couch. The headlining story was that the President had declared war on Iraq. At first Colin thought nothing of it a war had been expected for a while and it was no surprise that it had finally happened. Colin got up and walked downstairs to check his ev-mail upon reaching the mail screen Colin double clicked on his only message. “Mr. Colin Matthews it is urgent that we speak with you immediately. You have been advised at the Presidents request to come to the Beverly Hills City Hall at exactly 2:00 p.m. tomorrow to meet with Senator Smith,” Colin recognized the speaker on the screen as the President’s Chief of Staff. And then getting up from the computer Colin remembered the accidental mail that he had gotten that morning, at that instant everything fell into place for Colin.

MCGski@aol.com