King of the Worlds by M. Thomas Gammarino Page A

there. She might be happily married, with kids and a job. He could ask Omni, but some part of him preferred not to know. He was old-fashioned that way, romantic maybe, and anyway, no computer, however super, could ever really know the richness of her inner life, right? She was acquainted with the dark—that was clear. Maybe she had some of the same well-concealed dissatisfaction in her breast that he had in his? This thirst for something strange and wondrous and new? He was not happy; it had to be admitted. He had been at times, and sometimes he managed to recover the feeling for a spell, but it never lasted long. Maybe they could help each other again. Maybe this time she could save him.
    He didn’t have to wait long for a reply:
    Your message to “Mei-Ling Chen” has permanently failed.
    He sneered. What? He hadn’t seen a message like that in many years, and he’d never seen one on an omni. Omni messages didn’t “fail.” As long as someone was alive, any of their previous addresses would direct you to their current one. And if a person had died, you’d be notified of that too. Even if you opted to have your address unlisted, there’d still be some acknowledgment of your existence. Weird. He asked Omni some questions. The name alone wasn’t much help—there were thousands of Mei-Ling Chens throughout the galaxy—but when he mentioned that this was the Mei-Ling Chen who had cuts on her wrists and who had once written a fan letter to Dylan Greenyears, the omni returned 0 results. He had never seen Omni come up empty-handed on anything before. Normally it would at least redirect you somewhere, but this time there was no trail to speak of. This person, this Mei-Ling Chen who cut her wrists and wrote fan mail, simply did not exist as far as Omni, or his omni at least, was concerned. Omni was greater than the sum of all human knowledge. It made no sense whatsoever that he himself might be aware of a person’s existence while it was not.
    For a few minutes, Dylan contemplated the problem and fidgeted with the omni. Eventually, though, for want of any alternative, he gave up, went back in the box, and pulled out another letter.
    Dear Mr. Greenyears,
    I’m writing on a dare from my friend Melissa. We both think you’re super hot and amazingly talented. We even started a Dylan Greenyears fan club at our high school, and we’d be really honored, and would probably faint, if you’d come to talk to us sometime. Maybe next time you’re in the Baltimore area? We can’t pay you money, but we could all bake cookies or something and show you around.
    I can’t believe I’m writing to you!
    Ashley Eisenberg
    Now that was a little more typical, the sort of ego candy he’d been in the market for. He composed his reply:
    Hi Ashley. My name is Dylan Greenyears. You may remember that I was a fairly well known actor in the middle-nineties? Well, I was just looking through some old mail and I came across a letter you wrote me. This may seem odd coming so late, but I wonder if you’d like to get together sometime? I’m living rather far away these days, but I’d be happy to come to wherever you are if you’d like to meet up sometime. Are you still in the Baltimore area? Alternately we could meet at some midpoint. Just let me know what’s easiest. No pressure at all, of course.
    Sincerely,
    Dylan Greenyears
    He stayed awake another two hours, reading through some more of his old fan mail and waiting for a reply that did not come. Mei-Ling’s letter had served him like a cold shower, but his libido had warmed again and before retiring he took out his hardware and stroked it with his hand, remembering Fantasia, until in short order an absurd backlog of star stuff dripped down his fingers. He was reminded of Cinnabons. God, he hadn’t had one of those in years.
    What a pathetic fool he was! Clearly he should not have sent that reply.