Idented

Den Holt had sketched a map of the office, partly from memory of the childhood visit, partly from the many articles she had read on the greatest Writing company in South East-Main Division - W.D.N.E. She ran her finger around the pencilled drawing, following the path she would take that morning, when she finally began her new job as their Identer.
Den had wanted to be a writer, creating the character applications that would be fed into the Life Computer to grow and bond and become the story that existed there. W.D.N.E. had created the largest story of all the companies; it stretched through the computers main frame and pushed against the reality that held it in. Some said it was dangerous, it would grow real, but Den, like thousands of other readers, didn’t care, and now she was part of it, up-loading the character apps and maybe one day writing them herself.
This company covered four main genres; romance, horror, humour and erotica, making the day to day Life that existed in the Computer straightforward, but easily broken. The characters could be tortured, ripped apart, and then fall in love. Sci-fi and fantasy were not encouraged at W.D.N.E., this world was to be authentic.
Den left the battered Tower-top via airbus, clamouring into its protective dome from her chambers, cramming in next to a large, oval shaped woman, herself squeezed too explicitly into a blue suit. Den had dressed as she expected Writers to dress; suited but with a flair, which in her mind meant a slightly patterned scarf at her neck.
Den glanced at the applicator at the side of her seat. It was broken of course, the buses were all broken these days, bashed and bruised by their World falling around them. Nobody cared anymore, not really. But the Applicators were the last to be torn, the plug for insertion into the neck still attached, the bitten and stretched wire curling at her fingers, ready to pump more stories from the W.D.N.E Life programme straight to her brain for as long as the journey took. Den sighed at the sight of it, and glanced out of the grubby window to her left.
The sight outside was no better; broken rooftops, jagged windows, and the sky reddening more and more. Dirty clouds ringed the airbus, momentarily blinding them from the view. It could be a relief at times, as the sour fog closed in and blocked out the dark, useless streets below.
But as the airbus moved along its way, the fog began to clear, the windows began to mend, and the sparkling skyline she longed for appeared in front of her.
The W.D.N.E. building shone more than any, rising and domineering the sky. Only the top floor of the building would be used by her, or any of the other employees, the rest was inhabited by the Life Computer, and it pulsed as the heart of the company. From it wires laced underground, leading to every home, every coffee house, every detention hotel, feeding us all with the only entertainment East-Main needed, or could want. Everywhere, applicators could be pressed into the brain, lives forgotten while they watched another’s. Den felt the slit in her neck as the airbus pulled up to the glass opening. Her finger slide along it, thinking of the times she had sat, knowing the Life Computer through that socket. Before the invasive plug all you could do was see and hear the World in the Life Computer, but now you could know it, and now she would help create it; an entire, if fictional, World.
The airbus connected up with the glass doors and they slid silently open onto a long, red lined hallway. The floor was a deep carpet and the walls a deep wooden panel. The ceiling was glass, in order to gaze onto the almost clear sky that covered the south-division, slight stars stabbing through, even in the bright morning.
Through the hallway and up to the towering double doors that would lead her into the W.D.N.E. offices. Den stopped just outside, readying herself, savouring it. But a push from behind ruined the stark, quiet moment, and she was propelled through the doors and into the office.
‘Who are you?’ A voice behind her asked. It wasn’t angry or worried, just distracted, and belonged to a man who dashed past her, looking down towards a red notebook, heading towards the reception desk.
‘I’m Den Holt, your new Identer?’
He stopped at reception and leafed through some notes. Without looking up he said, ‘take her through, show her the desk, Tawler will want to see her straight away, where’s my file?’
The receptionist thrust another sheaf of papers at him and he walked off towards and through a single blue door at the left. Den was left standing in front of the shiny receptionist.
‘Hello.’ She said.
The receptionist shone a shiny smile at her, eyes all sparkle and dark underneath. She had to be a Slave Beast; the creatures from Heath with no will. Den shivered a little; she didn’t like these creatures, these perfected things made for the behest of their masters. She hadn’t realised one would be here.
‘Hello! And welcome to W.D.N.E!’ Everything she said would be proceeded with surprise and delight. ‘You must be Ms Holt! If you’d like to follow me!’ the beautiful, smooth girl stood from her chair and walked around the desk to the same blue door.
Den followed her through the door into the office. The floor was a pleasant, deep pile blue, the walls a restful cream. A bank of computers sat nestled into the far wall, and in front was a row of desks smothered in paper and pens and lounging bodies. The Writers took no notice as young Den walked in, and the receptionist-thing left her standing there without introduction or instruction.
She stood for a moment, gazing around the room she’d dreamed of, watching pens scratched across paper and keyboards tapped in time with thoughts she would one day see made into the Life Computer.
A sharp bang to her left awoke her from this, as another blue door was thrust open and into the wall. A man came out, large and quick, towering like rock and headed towards her.
‘Who are you?’ His voice was strangely controlled when teamed with his bulk, like a restrained bull stood snorting at her, scraping hooves on the ground.
‘Holt, sir.’ She recognised him, not his face but his demeanour, as Tawler, her new boss, and head of W.D.N.E.
‘Ah, Identer, good, come with me.’ he turned and lead her back towards his door, next to which was a small empty desk. He pointed at it. ‘This is yours next to my office so I can get you quickly. All Writers go through you. All characters go through you. Things must change, we can’t continue this way.’ His voice boomed, he spat out certain words; writer, character. The others in the room looked up from their papers and screens, faces a mix of worry, disgust, resignation. Den felt the calm blue of the floor rise up, and the gentle walls close in. This place suddenly didn’t feel like the home she’d wanted.
The others continued to stare as Tawler led her into his own office. It was dark, decorated for function, not comfort. His desk sat in the middle with a chair either side. He gestured to one chair and sat at the desk.
Den’s duties were clear. The Writers would create a character application, which they would give to Den. She would give it an Ident-code, the character’s identity, ready for the Life Computer, then pass it into Tawler’s office.
After a week of work he called her in to explain his first change; she would now be responsible for inputting the newly identified characters into the Computer. Den couldn’t believe it. It was an even greater responsibility than being an actual writer; to choose what character made it in to live out a life and create a story. Tawler said the others would be jealous of this young girl from the Western-Division appearing from the dirty fog to reach even higher than them. So she was to keep it secret. How should she choose from all the characters, she asked. She wasn’t to choose, that was the change, she would simply input them in to the Life Computer and they would do the rest. Never before had the creating of the stories that fuelled the city’s minds been made so randomly, it would be innovative, Tawler said. Den said nothing.
Days went on, weeks disappeared, and Den continued Identing and inputting the new characters. The others watched her; they knew something was different but they seemed resigned to it. They didn’t speak to her. They simply handed Den their papers, printed out on bright white paper with think black ink, then returned to their desks to make more. The shiny receptionist continued to smile at her, greet her and even asked how here day was. And Tawler stayed in his office. The only time she saw him was when she walked through his functional room to the main keyboard and port, where she would feed in the papers containing the characters, straight into the Life Computer. Tawler didn’t look at her as she did so.
Then one day, it changed. Den reached the W.D.N.E. office early, ready to start her solitude in the corner of the room. The first thing that was different, was the slave beast not smiling. She sat behind the reception desk looking at Den, her eyes dark, head angled down, shoulders hunching, holding her down in her seat.
‘Hi.’ Said Den. Silence greeted her. ‘How are you?’ Den tried again.
The receptionist stood, slowly, her movements so controlled they unnerved Den.
‘You’re finishing it today.’ The receptionist said, and walked away from Den and into the little room behind the desk.
As she left, Den noticed another thing strange with the day. It was so quiet. Not a voice could be heard, not even in quiet discussion or muttered ideas.
She walked through the blue door into the office and saw it empty. Desks were cleared, screens were blank and chairs sat un-lounged. Only her desk had anything on it. A pile of papers sat waiting for her to Ident them. She didn’t know what else to do. So Den sat at her desk and went through the sheets, gave them their Ident numbers from her book, then carried them through to Tawler’s office. He wasn’t there either.
She began feeding the papers into the port one by one. The final page felt different to the others, that’s what made her look. She’d come to not read the papers, but she looked at this one, printed on a smoother paper, slippery through her fingers.
‘What’s wrong? Why have you stopped?’ Tawler stood behind her, silently appearing at her shoulder, his breath just scratching her neck.
‘This one, it’s weird.’ she managed.
‘What’s weird?’
‘The name, I don’t, I mean, I know it from somewhere. It’s already a character, isn’t it?’
Tawler walked round to face her and placed his hand on top of the paper. ‘You may have heard it through the feed, it’s a subject from inside the Life Computer, something the characters themselves made up. And we’re going to make it real for them. The Computer has become real, it’s given itself a name. The things inside it breath, they grow and they’re becoming complacent. So we need to wake them up. They don’t need us to add any more characters, they’ve been making their own, as they’ve been making up their plots. All they need is this final character, one of their own making, made real for them. Feed it in, Ms Holt, and watch the story grow.’
Den looked back down at the paper, where Tawler’s hand still lay and stroked. He moved it to show the character; first name, no surname, simple and clean; Lucifer.
‘What name have they given it?’ she asked suddenly, as if somehow it mattered.
‘They named it Earth.’ he answered, as she fed the paper into the port.