Doctor Benjamin Franklin's Dream America

by Damien Lincoln Ober

  Morris scoffs, returns his attention to the grounds. Together, they watch a hawk come slicing through the yard. Must have killed a crow or been eating eggs from a nest, because the whole murder is swooping and circling and squawking and pecking, high‐speed aerial chase through slanted pines, on into the back reaches of the property. Morrisania, the estate he built twice.

  “I’ve seen it,” Lewis Morris says.

  “Seen what?”

  “I’ve seen The Death.”

  “Dad, you can’t see death.”

  “No, The Death.”

  She stammers, watches her dad stand, heaving and shivering to his feet. He turns to look back at the mansion, hulking behind them with its long east‐leaning shadow. Sunset an hour away from the looks of it. He wonders if he’ll make it or if he’s seen his last. “When I was watching this estate burn. You know how air looks above an open fire. This was during the war and The Death was out there. And the Internet—the old one—was against the law. No one was using it. Wouldn’t have won the war if the Old Man hadn’t gone off the grid. I snuck back, after the British soldiers left, just to watch it burn. My Morrisania. And I swear, in that rippling heat, more than just the night sky was revealed to me.”

  “Dad, you’re talking kinda funny. You alright?”

  He sits again, back in his chair. “That’s when I saw it.”

  “How did you see The Death?”

  “The fire must have burnt away the surface of the air, a hole torn through the fabric of it. Or maybe the Internet, heated to the prefect temperature, became visible.”

  She’s about to speak, but the way her dad’s mouth is hanging open terrifies her.

  “It stopped,” he says. “Its huge, arched back, dark and mechanical. And it looked down and it could see me too, looked right into my eyes. Then the hole healed itself, sealed closed. The air became air again and my glimpse of The Death was over.”

  “Dad, how do you know it was The Death?”

  “Well, it was something. Something terrible in that Internet.”

  “Makes me sad,” she says, “thinking about that half‐read book.”

  He puts his hand on his daughter’s hand and she can feel how cold it is, growing colder by the moment. She looks at him, but her old dad has gone still in the darkening shadows of his mansion. Something terrible in that Internet, she thinks. The last words of Lewis Morris, master of Morrisania.

  James Wilson :: August 28th 1798

  James Wilson is met at an Edenton Dream Café by two women, neither of whom is Penelope Barker. “Where’s Penn?” he asks, but they just tell him to come with them. They go to the harbor where James Wilson is led onto a private barge, which the women navigate into the inner banks of Albemarle Sound. Leaving the main waterway, the boat cuts its own path through shoulder‐high reeds, all the way to an invisible tributary that winds around the base of a sharp hill. There, a lone figure stands in the glow of a small stick fire. “Penelope Barker.”

  “James Wilson. You old rat.”

  “Thought you were dead from The Death.”

  “Not exactly.” She starts to lead him into the thicket. “We’ve got a ways to go, so we best get going.”

  They pick up a trail that snakes upward and around the hill. After an hour of hiking, the trail has vanished. Wilson is just blindly following. He tries to ask a few questions, but Barker politely shushes him. They seem to be getting close to something, judging from the careful way she walks. Her head swivels, scans the woods around them. Wilson finds himself following her example but can’t see much deeper than the closest trunks and their wispy autumn leaves.

  Soon after, they break into a well‐hidden clearing, a small village completely surrounded by woods. Holding a finger over her lips, Barker hands Wilson a robe, which he puts on, hood and all. Now disguised, Barker picks their way to one of the twenty or so houses. Inside, Wilson takes the hood off and asks, “What’s this all about, Penn?”

  “This is The Community.” Barker lights a candle. “When The Death first surfaced, we came together—a few other war widows and I—and moved over to this side of the hill. A place some of us had heard about from our mothers and theirs before them.” She gestures toward the little village past the edges of the house. “This is a place where the Internet can’t reach you.”

  “We have a cure for The Death” Wilson tells her. “Still not sure what it was, but we got a cure. From the Off‐Worlders. Got 3net coming soon too.”

  “3net? Off‐Worlders?”

  “Yeah. Congress just passed a law making all these Newnet functions illegal.” Then with a touch of irony, “It’s for our safety.” Wilson smiles. “Really, they don’t want people in the Dream screaming about the war.”

  “War? We’re still at war?”

  “Not still. About to, like any day now.” He holds his hands out. “War with France.”

  “France?” she shakes her head. “This is why we don’t let any men live here.”

  “Really, no men? None at all?”

  “Piss, piss, piss,” she says. “That’s how you men fight these wars. A big pissing contest. Get the other guy to piss longer and harder and when he’s all pissed out, then you go over and piss in his face.”

  Wilson nods, smiling. “We’re into the next phase of pissing. All of Europe is at war.”

  “Why does President Washington want to get involved? What’s the use of an ocean between us and the Old World if you’re not willing to wait it out?”

  “Not Washington anymore. It’s Adams now.”

  “Samuel Adams is President?”

  “John. John Adams.” He shrugs. “And he’ll probably get reelected too. This war fever is the new big tickle. Adams is riding the wave.”

  “The people want a war?”

  “Big time. And that’s not all they’re going to get. Federalists say 3net is going to replace all of Newnet and the Dream too.”

  “Well,” she says. “It can’t get us here.” Barker takes a metal pin from her hair and drops it to the floor. The hairpin remains still for a moment, then begins to wiggle, bounce, like a fish gesticulating across a pier. It settles into a slow, even rotation, spinning lengthwise on its center axis, a perfect little circle. “We think it might be the inner core,” she tells him.

  “What, of the Earth?”

  “Or some layer closer to the surface maybe, spinning backward under this spot. Makes compasses go wild, hair all frizzy.” She rakes fingers through hair that might be more frizzy than Wilson remembers. “Keeps the Internet from working too. Try to access the Cloud here, you get interference that will destroy your laptop.”

  “No one uses laptops anymore.”

  “We didn’t have one case of The Death, James. Not one. Haven’t paid a single tax or tariff. Don’t have to rely on outside markets. We make everything we need here. And no men to muck it up. War, war, war, no matter what the system. Piss, piss, piss.”

  “Forget the piss, you missed a real shit show, that’s for sure, this huge financial panic. Lost a bunch on that one. Had to crawl back to General Washington, all but begging for something in the new government. Old Man set me up on the Supreme Court, some gigs for the Society of Cincinnati on the side. Bunch of bastards, but it keeps the creditors away.”

  Barker turns from him, showing only her back as she digs in a drawer. “I need you to sneak something back for me.” She comes out a moment later with an old digital camera.

  “Wow,” Wilson says. “That is old.”

  “The camera’s not what I want to show you.” She cues up a picture, turns the little view screen toward him.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “We think some kind of octopus or squid. Or maybe a jellyfish. Those look like tentacles of some kind.” Barker lets him take the camera. “Our fisherpeople, they go out under the cover of night for shrimp. Come back with all kinds of sailors’ stories. Finally someone dug up this old camera, got a few shots.”

  “How come you haven’t told an
yone?”

  “We don’t have the rest of the world here. That’s how we like it. This octopus thing gets out, in comes the federal government. All we’ve built will be destroyed. But hell, Jim, something’s got to be done. If this thing comes to shore.”

  Wilson watches the fear ooze.

  “Jim, I want you to get this to General Washington. He’ll know what to do.”

  Wilson drags his hand down his face. “Look, I know the people don’t have a very good track record of coping with pending disaster, real or imagined. But Washington’s not your answer. He’s gone…”

  “What?”

  Wilson shakes his head. “Something happened to him. To Washington. The Society of Cincinnati, these guys I work for. It’s this military junta in control of the government, and they’re going for the globe. Ruthless bunch of cold‐hearted fuckers. High Federalists.”

  “And Washington can’t stop them?”

  “He’s the president.”

  “I thought you said John Adams is the President.”

  “No,” Wilson tells her. “George Washington is the president of the Society of Cincinnati.”

  There’s a knock on the door. Barker looks like she’s looking for a place to hide. But before she or Wilson can move, the front door swings open and two older women are stepping in. “Mr. James Wilson,” one says. “It’s an unexpected pleasure to have you here among us.”

  “This is the mayor,” Barker tells him. “And Sister Ingersoll.” The other woman nods solemnly, a mean look sunken into the lower half of her face. She’s all forehead, this one. “They’re the leaders of The Community.”

  Wilson shakes their hands. “Is that The Community, like with capital letters?”

  The mayor laughs. Wilson can see how she gets elected, bubbling over with charisma. “I’m just the one who enforces the rules,” she says. “The rules keep us safe from all that’s tearing the world apart out there.” The mayor begins a slow loop around the room. “Here in The Community, we cherish our privacy and our liberty. Which is why you will not be allowed to leave.”

  This stuns Wilson. When he makes eye contact with Penn Barker, though, he can see she knew this already.

  “We have never allowed a man to live among us, but we are willing to make an exception, for one of your legal stature, a Signer of the Declaration, no less. And, of course, there are other needs we have.” She shows him her small palms. “We hope you will abide and live here in peace. But know we harbor no reservations about extreme measures when it comes to securing the way of life we have built.”

  Wilson eyes them both. “The American people ought to know about a giant sea monster living just off the coast.”

  The mayor and Sister Ingersoll share a look of concern. “We’re sorry you feel that way.” Five other women enter the little house. At gunpoint, they escort Wilson to a holding cell in the basement of what looks like town hall. The mayor visits an hour later with a meal and apologies. “But there simply isn’t any choice left in the matter. We don’t allow anyone who comes here to leave. And certainly not with this kind of information.” The mayor leans back. “I’ve heard you men are rebuilding the Internet again.”

  “So you know about Newnet at least, the Dream probably, too.”

  “It is essential, to protect this place, for some of us to know what’s happening back in your savage version of America.” She eyes him hard. “When something goes wrong with the Internet, maybe the solution’s not to rebuild it, but to get rid of it. Once and for all.”

  “Good luck selling that to a voter.”

  “What is God trying to tell us with a disease that’s transmitted through the Internet? Not very hard to figure out, Mr. Wilson. God is trying to tell us that using the Internet is a sin. That the Internet is a curse.”

  James Wilson is left alone in the cell, wondering if they really do intend to keep him locked up here forever. Execution would make more sense.

  It’s late night or early morning when Wilson is woken up by a loud noise. He gets out of bed to find one wall of his cell replaced by night sky and a settling cloud of dust. Penn Barker and a young woman rush in and then all three of them are scrambling for the tree line. “I’ll buy you guys some time,” the young woman says, and she turns, bounding back toward lights winking to life throughout the small village.

  Barker gives Wilson the camera: “I’ll show you the way out.” And off they go, barreling through the woods, somehow on that same path despite the pitch black. As they break into the swamp, Wilson hears a sharp report and then the sound of Penn toppling into the marsh reeds. He keeps running as more shots ring out, doesn’t hear the one that gets him. A sudden pain deep in his torso spills him forward. He clutches that camera to the last, but then it too slips away, sinks deep into the muck to never be found.

  George Read :: September 21st 1798

  George Read is seated between Thomas M’Kean and Caesar Rodney’s young nephew, Caesar A. Rodney. They’ve been gathered to celebrate the first public review of Delaware’s contribution to the new national army, right now being assembled to take on France and finally win America’s right to free and independent trade. They sit in a press box above the parade ground, the two remaining Signers from Delaware and the nephew of the third.

  “Look at this army Adams has built,” Read says, beaming. “The old owl really has the Republicans on the run. Come 1800, Jefferson will be defeated… again. He’ll scamper back to the plantation and we can start forgetting all about him and his fancy little ideas.”

  Just elected to represent New Castle County in the Delaware General Assembly, young Caesar A. Rodney is one of the bright rising stars of Mr. Jefferson’s struggling party. And he doesn’t take too kind to people talking smack about his political associations, even if that person is a Signer. “Politics can change, Read. And change quick. Still two years before the election.”

  The three men turn their attention to the advance guard marching past. “You look just like your uncle,” Read tells young Rodney. “I mean, you look like he looked back when he was the age you are now. Before The Death came and drove him mad.” Read ponders. “Whatever happened to that sister of his? She was a babe.”

  M’Kean unfolds his hands. “The Death drove a lot of people mad, Read.”

  Caesar A. Rodney shakes his head sadly at the army marching past. Flies in the face of every political principle he’s nurtured over the years. “Something’s gone mad, that’s for sure. We started out building a republic. How is it we ended up with a standing army?”

  “Democracy is how.” Read gestures toward the soldiers. “The people want an army, they vote for representatives who will build them an army and then the representatives build the people their army.” He looks at young Caesar A. Rodney. “Oh, that’s right, Mr. Rodney, you weren’t there for the Revolution.” He nudges M’Kean. “That’s why these kids are so into the Dream.”

  “I was a little young for the Revolution, Read. Like six‐years‐old too young.”

  Read nods to the soldiers, all men who were boys back then. “If we’d had an army like this, the Revolution would have been over in a year.”

  Caesar A. Rodney tilts his head a little to one side. “But can we really trust just a man to wield this thing? Because that’s where it’s going to end up, in the hands of one man.”

  “George Washington is no mere man, young Rodney.”

  “And what happens after Washington?”

  Read smiles. “I’m beginning to think the Old Man’s going to live forever. Every time a national crisis comes along, it’s down with the plow and up with the POW!”

  “And I’m beginning to think that I might just be seeing this curse I keep hearing about.”

  Read laughs, a big belly laugh. He stops himself long enough to glance Caesar A. Rodney’s way, then bursts out laughing again.

  M’Kean doesn’t seem to think it’s so funny. He leans back to put a boot on the railing that separates them from the dusty parade ground. “Not su
re I’d be laughing about the curse, George.”

  Read looks sort of face‐slapped. “The curse is only going to be a curse when respectable men like Thomas M’Kean start worrying about it.”

  M’Kean clicks, “My job is to worry about it.”

  “I was in Congress when we voted to stop investigating the curse,” Read says, “after Doc Bartlett’s data was examined and we found nothing. Nothing worth continuing to worry about.”

  “It’s not Congress I’m working for.” M’Kean taps that Society of Cincinnati badge, hooked there and gleaming on his belt. “I’ve been put in charge of monitoring all supernatural developments. The curse falls into my portfolio.”

  Read thinks it over. “Well… if it’s good enough for the SOC, then it’s good enough for me.” All three watch the soldiers going by, all three thinking about the curse and a standing army and drawing three sets of different connections. Finally Read can’t keep it back. “Tell me, M’Kean, where does one begin to look for this curse?”

  “The old Internet. It’s full of it. Every place you look, postings about the curse.”

  “Oh, come on. Why you messing around in the old Internet, M’Kean? No humans even use it anymore.” Read waves it away. “Probably some old search drone in there programmed to archive curse reports. Got mixed up with an ad drone, maybe got taken over by a worm.”

  “Damn,” Rodney says, “if only Doc Bartlett hadn’t destroyed that crystal.”

  “I’ll tell you about the curse,” Read says. “You don’t need to go to the old Internet to find it. It’s right here in the new.” He spits it: “Doctor Benjamin Franklin’s Dream America. There’s your curse. Group avatars? Subverts the fundamental idea of representation: one person equals one voice.” Reed waves it off. “All of Newnet is polluted with auto screamers and drones and haunts and old ghost platforms from the original Internet. All these hulking softframes that were never finished properly. Those aren’t things Benjamin Franklin ever dreamed about.” Read holds his hand out to indicate the street below them, filled with troops in American military uniforms, ready to march out into the world and make it ours. And at the head of this army, the greatest man who ever lived, George Washington. “It’s time to pull the break on these technologies and leave things the way they are, right here, right now.”