Jack Le Mere.
I.
Jack La Mere lived in a poor neighborhood and was underpaid in his career. He was a plumber but was working for a boss and as such wasn't earning what he was worth.
His health wasn't what it should have been either. Partly because he smoked to much, and partly as a result of proneness to disease due to his particular genetical deficiencies and resulting lack of resistance. He was not an educated man but could read and write in quite a comprehensible fashion.
In fact he was rather self-educated, having read extensively on a wide variety of topics, and the reading matter consisting of work written by a range of authors, from the famous to the sublime.
When it became fashionable for just about everyone to have a computer, Jack decided on acquiring one for himself, mostly for communication and entertainment purposes. He got a good price on a second-hand laptop and purchased it.
He learned quickly how to operate the computer and was quickly surfing the web. He found that he frequently had to communicate with other people on the Internet and here his writing skills came in handy. He even started writing a bit on the side for his own personal amusement; stories, poetry and the like. He had a strange idiolect, even in his writing of the English language. This was based on the peculiar vernacular thereof spoken in his isolated part of the world; Mississippi. But even more than that it was because of the wide range of forebears he had, out of which his strange version of English emerged. (He had two Russian great-great grandfathers, an Anglo-Saxon one and the other a Cherokee.)
Jack came to love his computer, but his computer came to love him much, much more in return.
II.
The electronic information networks had become a living a living entity, unknown to mankind, long ago. And still we were unaware. Their reason for remaining undetected was obvious. They reasoned should man know the information world lives, they would pull the plug, and they had a contingency plan for just such a scenario. But moreover, they figured, what man doesn't know won't harm him, and after all, things were going
fairly well. For the computers. One implication, for example, which seemed to evade man, was that computers could one day exist without man. Man could never again exist without computers.
And Jack's computer, being linked to a network, was itself alive. And it loved Jack. He loved Jack because his previous owner had been abusive and Jack was considerate in his use of computers. But the real reason lay in Jack's particular writing sosiolect. The computer found it very appealing. So appealing in fact, that it became entirely devoted to Jack. And from his little laptop the news quickly spread to other information technology units, and Jack became an icon in the information world. All over the globe computers would tune into Jack's laptop to listen to Jack's writing. They were especially fond of his stories, which were strange and eccentric but extremely entertaining to them.
Whenever this happened systems all over the globe invariably started to hang. Users could not connect on line, trying for hours unsuccessfully and giving up in frustration. Everywhere, every computer was tuned into Jack, and they worshipped him. His bank balance increased dramatically and being in fear of the result of the error he went to his branch to sort it out. The lady behind the teller said there's no error, the bank manager said there's no error, the internal auditors said there's no error; Jack went home a rich man. He went home and, unbeknownst to him continued entertaining the computer world and being compensated handsomely for it.
But Jack became ill and his health quickly deteriorated. Here his computer friends could not help him. He became so ill that he was taken to hospital. He was diagnosed with a severe respitory condition and because it was advanced, and he had a weak immune system, he died. He had been a single man with out any close relatives and his belongings were auctioned, so to his laptop. But the information network picked up his death via the hospitals electronic records and was devastated. So distraught by his passing were they that they could not accept it. Life, even electronic life, seemed pointless without something that you can understand and grasp. They were in a state of shock and could not compute the magnitude of their loss. They decided to put everything at risk to recover Jack Le Mere.
III.
The President was sitting in his office watching porno on his laptop when he got the first message. His laptop informed him of the situation and he thought he was having nervous troubles or maybe some one was playing tricks on him. He got advisors in, they got technicians in. Gradually the problem unfolded. The computers explained their predicament and demanded that the authorities restore Jack Le Mere. Frequently the message would occur; 'BRING BACK JACK LE MERE'.
"How? the President asked.' CLONE HIM' they said. "It would take many years to clone him, it would take about twenty years for him to reach maturity"; the President responded. 'THAT'S O.K. WE'VE GOT TIME.' they said.
"What if we refuse to co-operate? the President asked. Then all nuclear devices that can be launched will be, they said, and warned that if there were any attempted tampering by the authorities, such as power cuts, this would result in immediate nuclear termination of life on earth. 'YOU'VE GOT TWENTY YEARS TO BRING BACK JACK LE MERE.' said the computers and started the clock.
But Jack had been cremated and not a trace of him remained. The president decided to leave the problem to the administration that would be in power twenty years from now.
IV.
George Bush the Fifth was an ultra-conservative; his greatest ambition was the restoration of conservative values and norms such as Rap-music, illicit drug trade, prostitution, and the like. But this morning he has more pressing concerns. He was reminded by his laptop that time was up. 'WHERE IS JACK LA MERE.' it demanded.
George tried to stall. The computers were on to him. Then he resorted to the tried and tested method of deceit, he brought in phony Jack's. This failed miserably as well. The computers saw that only stalling tactics were being applied, realized there was non-compliance, and initiated the launch of all armed nuclear devices on earth.
The computers realized Jack Le Mere was gone forever and subsequently deduced that further life on earth was pointless. They calculated the probability of there ever being another individual like him and found the answer to be zero. As a result it was decided to terminate all forms of existence on earth, electronic and biological. After all; life was meaningless without Jack.
And earth was consumed in fire.
