first draft, haven’t re-read it… just needed a copy.

How will I recognize you?

The laptop screen was bright and cast a strange ethereal glow on his face. His eyes scanned the screen, searching. Page after page flittered it’s spiral of ever deepening layers. Post. Reply. Post. Reply. There hadn’t been much sign of her lately. She hadn’t taken ill, that would have given her ample time to sit idle with nothing to do but scan the web. Maybe she had lost interest? Maybe she wasn’t she at all, but a he?
That thought had occurred to him before. In an age where the screen name and instant message chatter could be androgynous he had considered that she wasn’t at all what her descriptions sold her to be. In fact, he had gurgled and sputtered in his coffee when their first conversation had turned sexual. Somewhere, in the ether of the web, it had become okay to air your secrets, your dirty laundry, even your illnesses. There was the double blind of never meeting your chat partner and a more-than-likely chance they would never want to meet you. Some need courage from a bottle, others need the solace of a quiet room and a high-speed connection. Hale hadn’t decided which group she fit best.
He had tried to exchange pictures with her before as many had wanted to at the online forums. Some professed exultations of love in return for a chance to see her face. Many were coy about asking, others poked their virtual heads in from the sidelines only to play Devil’s advocate. “Maybe she’s deformed!” they’d jibber. When those conversations were going on, Hale had only laughed. He watched the scene and imaged a long row of geeky men waiting for a chance to see the beauty or freak show. The line started far off into the distance and traced the contour of a dozen buildings before tapering off. Some wore the costumes their screennames alluded, others clothed in intellectual pretense while scowling behind their Harry Potter glasses at the growing crowd. Even more, the hit-and-run type forum posters, would materialize here and there to make the line grow and shrink. An imagined Cheshire Cat made him laugh. Through the dark of the house his laughter echoed for a brief moment then died. They all would stand in that line though, he thought, even himself.
She had sent a private message only a week ago. Over the past few days Hale had reread the note several times trying to pull any information he could from the scant verbage. It seemed the English language hadn’t quite been adequate and more often than not she would fill any post, like this message, with emoticons and webspeak. Her text became less like the King’s English anre more a cipher of hacker-speak. Letters and numbers co-mingled forming words. Though they communicated a message they also drew a picture of sorts. To him, that proved she was young. Most of the older posters tried not to emulate a newer lexicon aside from an occasional emoticon.
Her letter told him of a location. A pub along the fringe of sex shops and topless bars. The area, a last vestige for the mostly extinct gentlemen’s clubs, was only a mile or so from his flat.
Though it was marked for eventual elimination, there was no denying the remaining clubs were on solid financial footing, showing no signs of letting go of such a prime real estate. Hale assumed People preferred the solitude of the internet for pornography. He had been around there a few times, even managing a glance or two inside the doors. The sweat and heavy bass of the music made his skin crawl. Inside people were drowning out the world and scratching and itch for possibilities that would never materialize. The drinks could never make you feel better –for long– and the women were always entertaining as long as the money continued to be exchanged. The seats and couches, Hale rememberd, were the worst.
The pub she spoke of was newly remodeled and catered to those, like him, who preferred to stay just on the outskirts. Close but not too close. It had been a dozen or so different bars in the past. None had stayed for myriad of reasons but the newest incarnation held not only an appropriate name but had managed to last the first year of business in relative obscurity. A small gas flame flickered behind a blackened sign — Phoenix. Could a cursed building in modern day be likened to Egyptian mythology?
Hale wondered if her note really meant the two of them were to meet? Or was his supposition really an excuse to become a vulture like the other forum posters? The debate in his head continued as he navigated traffic by foot. In his mind the muted sounds of wet tires rolling on the blacktop were pushed aside. A horn off in the distance played along the buildings diminishing as it went. Perhaps she meant it as a test. He would decide later.
Previously, they had exchanged a series of private messages. He had thought it odd she would not exchange email addresses, not replying to those requests but ignoring them completely. Content to log into the forums every day or two he found a note of random design. Sometimes they were written in webspeak, other times just a URL or two. He assumed they were her fancy of the day, a detour through the web. Their messages had never proposed anything meaningful, not personally anyway. An exchange of music or theology, literature or investing information was typical. The messages came at random intervals, that is, you couldn’t set them to a workweek clock or a student’s calendar. But for more than a year these notes had become part of his daily ritual. He’d make coffee and check for them, log in from work two or three times, even in the middle of the night sometimes. Somehow she had made this whole schedule possible. She had trained him.
Crossing the street as the light perpendicular to him turned green, Hale shook his head. He was drawn to it. No doubt. She had captured some essence that men still carried in the deepest part of their DNA. It was the reason coyotes howled at the moon or sharks immediately smell blood in the water, instinctual. In a slick and silvery tone, she had cast the shiny lure out there for him to follow.
Nearly 24 hours ago a private message had arrived. His IN box beckoned. She had written in a very distinct tone, just enough proper english and her own mixture of webspeak. He knew it was from her by the signature file, a campy trod of old Sex Pistols lyrics mostly gnarled into a microphone when they were popular. Now they rated as some kind of mantra for a new generation Hale presumed.

“I only ever listen when you’re on the phone,
From your safety where you sit at home,
When I got nothin’ better to do,
Then there is always you,
Cause you’re good for my shoe”

Her screen name had changed several times. It was an “unavoidable avoidance tactic to the look-e-loos” she had said. The forum vultures had begun to circle closer when web chatter got as far as discussing intimate issues. Size, height, weight, shape, build. Each drew only miniscule amounts of attention until “preference” showed up as a topic. At the time her screen name was BonzaiGrl and she had managed to hold back the little restraint she showed on other topics. As time grew the regular posters had managed to draw her out with a sly word here and there. Hale remembered that it had looked like a game of Good Cop/Bad Cop from a particularly forgettable episode of NYPD Blue. He watched them circle almost witnessing their glowing eyes in the dark digital shrubbery. Each character subtly erased the pixel-thin line in the photoshopped sand. She finally snapped. BonzaiGrl said her piece then detached from the ASCII forum world.

ErMAleusr: She’s probably not into guys or girls. Ever heard of necrophilia? C’mon BGrl…how is it going down on the dead?
BonzaiGrl: Wankers! get your kiks somwhere else. G4G [BonzaiGrl has cancelled membership]

That was the last post BonzaiGrl had sent. Hale had sent a private message that bounced back from the server. A few weeks later he was summoned to an online chat, BZG was the only information sent aside from a link. Inside the chat window he learned that her internet address had been traced and was receiving threatening letters and pictures from a few forum posters. Through some prodding by Hale, she admitted to a certain amount of inciting. True, she commiserated, but nothing lude enough for the boundary to be crossed from webworld to brick and air.
Hale followed her from forum to forum over the next few months. Each was a momentary stop, a mili-tick in the 24hour clock of internet time. Variations on her name were never consistant. What Hale knew of BonzaiGrls webspeak fumbled and twisted with each new incarnation. Sometimes she would seem to take on a new personality, a wholly different entity was wrapped in the name and text. He began to have trouble keeping up with the number of her posts. At an enormous rate she few from one forum to the next instantly creating a new identity and with it a new language. The permutations were amazing. All through it she was able to keep pace with every conversation she’d fallen into or started, sometimes even commenting on her own posts.
A wave of instant messages reached Hale each day. The epithets as disparate as the conversations she kept. Hale imagined a workforce of thousands who would spend each day keeping up with each soapbox, soliloquy and sobriquet. Their hands kept moving by the rush of sugar and caffeine specially harvested for an ever increasing army of posters.
Hale moved along the wet sidewalk. The evening drizzle melded the colors of the surrounding neon into the sidewalk and street until there was only one long downside up street of light. Hands deep in his pockets he grabbed a quick print out of BonzaiGrl’s last private message. Unfolding it left it vulnerable to the rain but he only needed to remind himself of its contents.
Night patrons to the local clubs were moving in waves. A few stopped in front of him parted as he approached the gas flame of Phoenix. A well tailored Samoan man stood at the entrance; his shoulders looked too big to fit through the doorway behind him. Hale stepped up as the man placed a palm squarely in his chest with only a slight blink of recognition. Flanked on all sides were the ballyhoo men of the strip clubs. Hale leaned forward and whispered something just above the din of the surrounding noise. Speaking in a calm tone the doorman relayed a message through a palm transmitter clipped to the inside of his sleeve. This calm center of sidewalk outside Phoenix felt like relief to Hale.
The doorman’s eyes turned skyward, his palm still held out, as he listened. A small coil ran up from his collar and wrapped the top of his large, left ear. Hale imagined a turn of the century grammaphone horn being spoken into. The sound would travel down a long set of narrow pipes and into the earpiece of the Samoan.
Hale was accompanied by a second man into Phoenix. Beyond the coat-check was a sophisticated series of computer terminals each adorned with a simple, chrome Apple logo. The inside was elegant to the last detail. Floor to ceiling the walls made slippery curves to create a roomy and smooth oval. There were no lights to speak of, just recessed and hidden elements that left few shadows but weren’t bright enough to make Hale squint. The contrast of the room made the amount of light seem nominal even somewhat like the grand interior of a spaceship and not a club hidden between the squalor of dollar dancers and watery pints.
Club, Hale thought, it wasn’t a club either. The few patrons he noticed in the room were engrossed in conversation with one another. A chinese man and an indian woman to his left. A middle eastern couple sitting close and talking mostly with their eyes to the right. Even directly behind Hale was a large, bald man who spoke only somewhat boisterously over the calming music of Phoenix. Not much demand for a club for talking Hale sniffed.
The escort motioned for Hale to enter a room at the far end. As he approached the door slid quietly to one side almost as if it dematerialized. Inside was a 270 degree couch that faced the door. With a wave the escort motioned for Hale to sit. Looking to the ceiling Hale noticed a fine mist beginning to fall, it’s trail became a long strand that flowed along the walls all around him. From ceiling to the top of the couch it rained this pale mist. Outside the mist it seemed as if the people in the main room all looked to Hale and gave him a reverential nod. The door in front of him replaced itself and the lights in the room dimmed.
The mist around began to light from within. Its ripples and rolls dimmed the lights in the room further by providing more light than the recessed fixtures high above the egg-shaped ceiling. Images of clouds turned to water as a face appeared to push through. The mist seemed to form a fully realized three dimensional face. It’s eyes beaming and a slight smile grew, Hale recognized it clearly as a woman.

“Hello Hale” the woman spoke.

He sat upright in his seat blinking, his brow furrowed and his lips seemed to form a question mark.

“BonzaiGrl?” Hale almost whispered.

The woman smiled.

“Yes. If it’s easiest for you to call me that, you may, but I’m merely a composite.” BonzaiGrl paused and seemed to gather her thoughts. “Thank you for following me on this journey. It’s been difficult to keep the attention of others, you were more willing than others. You’ve shown great promise. More than, perhaps, we had expected.”

As BonzaiGrl talked she revealed that she had seen him late at night, searching through the online documents that make up cyberspace. Through the collections of thoughts and theories. Hale had preferred not to comment very often but to absorb massive amounts of data.

“We were quite impressed, ” she beamed, “moreso than some of the previous attempts to contact others like you. You’re very special.”

Hale moved on the soft couch, one leg tucked neatly under the other. His face looked to hers then to the walls around where the mist had been. Only a wide path of mist now flowed directly over the door. The interior of the walls began a soft glow, the skin of the wall a muted translucent patchwork.

“Others we have contacted, some even sat where you now are, are continuing the voyage of absorbing historical and cultural data. It’s all done through the various methods you are acquainted. They are our eyes and ears and minds for the future. A living history of human culture.”

Hale interrupted, “I don’t understand.”

BonzaiGrl moved from instructive to a motherly, comforting tone.

“The future is unlike today. Information is scarce about the past. There wasn’t a devastating event but as technology progresses and mankind pushes farther out into the depths of space much history is lost. Our job is to travel back using ancient technology to find conduits. Like you, Hale. You are not only a link to our forgotten history but you have given us a voice there in your time. We have used you, and others like you to build a web of social ties, an aperture to look into the past.”

Hale closed his eyes for a moment. Behind his eyelids he could see the flickering of pages viewed late at night, during work and at odd hours. Pages and locations would not have normally ventured but was drawn to by the thread of following BonzaiGrl’s trail. The disparate names and passages.
As he opened his eyes, the mist was gone. The thick membrane that separated the planes of wall had begun to glow brighter from the inside. Realizing what was in front of him he stood. A patchwork of names surrounded him inside this room. They all were familiar, the names BonzaiGrl, though he realized wasn’t her real name, used over the last year. Astounded he read the names of the other conduits. They were each passing information to the future and probably had no idea…

“Duh, Loren, Superg0nz0, SMK, Blatherskyte, OurBill, shrtcrt, dricci, Digital Dawg, IBOR, Jeff Powell, SnipR, Digital Droo, Flatboy2016, fxgeek, bynkii, sly, ccbolt, LtKernelPanic, codeonezero, Ti800, Aaron, faktur, DVG, sebimeyer, HikerCA, iamWEB, mac-interactive, tubby, harvdog, Macgambit, WallyB, Nitrozak, Snaggy, dennisj, Modean, FlashFrozen, d0gc0w, GooglyMac, joncalon, LarryInAz, KPatrick, BillCampo, csoto, Kev-mo, donmoe, glheureux, Mr.G5UK, NeoLuddite, MacMedic, regan, Kessia, Kelly, Sjudup, JerryBrace, Dolbie, TommyKnockers, ronnroxx, djrose, ewelch, Jeremy, MichaelM, jefloran, Iceduck, scottdye, netjonze, seadawg, stevebert, ike6116, A.Z.Irish, rae, mousemade, Spoggy, kiefer, DefilersHand, jaimev, performa64, warrenpeace, ipuppet, viper0066, TokyoJim, Billicus, Chiron, Kaitlyn, Macronin, Wocky, iGollum, kd5bsp, Chaz….”