"Reunited..." - Chapter Nine

Reunited...

Chapter Nine

By Douglas E. Gogerty

After taking her leave of Prince William, Princess Angelina immediately left the hotel where she met him. In the intense daylight heat, she began walking the several blocks towards her living quarters. There was not a lot she could do to protect herself from the heat. The stifling sun beat down upon her from the cloudless sky.

After several blocks, she approached the single story brownstone building she called home. It was an ancient building built in the southwestern style. The size of the building showed the former wealth of the town. The building had plenty of space to hold the resources of the ancient city. It was not nearly as opulent as the hotels, but after all, it was a library.

The Princess set up her living quarters in one of the rooms of this ancient structure. She had the cooling system started, so she would not have to live in the intense heat. Although she could have taken any room in one of the many hotels, she wished to be close to the books. It was the books that were of most interest to her. However, she was also interested in thee strange machines labeled internet. She wanted to know more about these internets.

She was hoping to find information about the machines in the books she had collected. These machines were scattered throughout the library, so she had guessed that they may give her access to even more information. However, how was someone supposed to access this information? That was something she simply did not know.

Princess Angelina entered her room and sat next to a pile of books. She had spent the last several weeks simply attempting to absorb as much information that the books had to offer. The ancient library had information on so much of the ancient civilization that created this city. She hardly slept because she was so engrossed in her reading.

None of the information she was reading was available in her father's library. Perhaps there was purpose for that. She had discovered that the women of the ancients had power. They could participate in ruling the citizenry. Perhaps the king removed this information to prevent the women from rising in revolt. After all, the men of Morica used the women as bargaining chips. Marriage was for alliance and the leaders -- kings -- men -- had no other need for women. Women were there for starting and maintaining families. The men would take care of the important tasks.

The Princess devoured the stories of the ancient women leaders. Across the sea, there had been women heads of state. There were powerful women all over the world. However, when the struggles destroyed these ancient civilization, the warriors put the women into their current role.

The population plummeted because of famine, disease, and the constant battles. Thus, the successful warriors desired to protect the women. Thus, they could increase their population base. It became important to the men that women have children. Thus, they removed women from the military, the workforce, and other positions of power. Princess Angelina was incensed that women had vital roles in the ancient civilization but not in her own civilization. She was determined to fix this situation.

She was not sure how to accomplish this. How was she going to acquire a position of power? Nonetheless, she was sure that it was something she had to do. Perhaps the internets had access to information that would help. She dug deeper into the books around her. However, she was not finding the information that she required. Very few sources even mentioned internets and they were of sparse information. They did not mention what it was or how to work them.

She did find out that to get on the internet it required a computer. She was not sure what a computer was. Why would something that computes allow you to turn on the internets? She felt that source was not trustworthy. However, it was as close as she got.

Thus, after the frustration of not finding out how to work the internets, Angelina decided to sit at one. Perhaps she could figure out how they worked by using one. Certainly, everything required would be available there. It should not require anything else. Thus, since an internet sat outside her room, she sat down in the chair in front of the machine.

"Hello internet," she stated.

There was no reply. There was some sort of black screen and a keyed input device. Thus, she began pressing the keys. This had no effect either. The screen remained black. She noticed a special key on a box beneath the screen. She decided to try that button.

The black screen flashed and she heard the internet beep. It startled her and she jumped out of her chair. However, the once black screen showed several images with weird things on them. The ancient machine whirred and growled. A cloud of dust shot out the back and the Princess began sneezing.

It has a defense mechanism, the Princess thought as she backed further away from the machine.

She continued to watch it to see what else it would do. She was tempted to run away as she could not control her sneezing. However, she remembered how much of this substance covered everything when she first entered the building. This dust seemed to protect everything -- including the books. It did not appear toxic. It was just annoying.

The machine kept whirring and grinding away but eventually it stopped. It had a strange message on it. Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage, it read.

What does that mean?" wondered the Princess.

It had equally cryptic messages to attempt to solve the problem. She pressed keys to type words that she had found in some of the books she had read. They were of no help. She spoke some words, but they also did nothing.

There was this strange object sitting next to the key input device. The Princess moved it and an arrow moved on the screen. If she moved the object left, the arrow went left. Thus, she determined that it was another input device. However, apart from the arrow, she was not sure how it worked.

It made a clicking noise when she pressed on either of the sides next to the wheel thing. She determined that these were some sort of buttons. The one on the right would pull up a strange list of suggestions. However, the one on the left did not appear to do anything.

After clicking around, Princess Angelina figured out how to pull down items on the screen. The left button did do something. She found a "favorite" that actually came up with something. She had discovered the Google.