A wallpad ORANGE

Chapter 1. The Ultimate English Victory

London, 21st June, 2138

LONDON WAS WAKING up to another day dominated, as usual, by the world's leading organisation, the omnipotent and ubiquitous wallpad ORANGE corporation (wallpad always in lowercase and ORANGE always capitalised) ...

The lead newsreader on the internet's most popular news channel, wallpad channel WP1, allowed a gloriously superficial smile to stretch cheesily across her pretty face before announcing:

"Good Morning from London my happy wallpadders! Last night, as Big Ben struck 23, wallpad ORANGE (incorporated) decreed that forthwith all stories will be written in English. The entire text on the wallpad megasite compendium is now in English. If translation wallwidgets have failed to translate stories as writers prefer, then by all means edit them. Although wallpad aims for British English, for now, any form of English will be accepted. So my happy wallpadders, you may merrily type away in African, Asian-Block, British, Caribbean, Chinese, Indian, North American, Scandinavian or any other type of English you prefer. We're all one big happy family now. We live the most wonderful life on Earth.

"Some worldwide non-English text translations into English will no doubt affect some fictional prose (most from wallpad's ancient story data banks). So be aware, as the translation wallwidgets might create some amusing, if not incongruous, segments of text.

"Finally, on this matter, please note that the wallpad ORANGE motto, Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (which was written in the now extinct Latin language) has been translated into English. That is to say: All for one, and one for all.

"There have already been some complaints from many Filipino wallpadders over the translations of zombie boy band True Infection resurrection stories, which, until yesterday night, were, for some obscure reason, always written in the Filipino Tagalog language. In a most audaciously unfriendly and unusual move, these complaining Filipino wallpadders deleted all their stories and comments. In a show of sympathetic support, other more compliant Filipino writers have deleted their English stories—though it is interesting to note that a surprising number of new Filipino wallpadders have joined wallpad ORANGE as writers over the last few hours. Conclude what you like from that!

"Well, my happy wallpadders, things should be easy now and much friendlier. English rules! So it's goodbye from me, and it's goodbye from wallpadORANGE dot com. Hashtag: NoHaters. Hashtag: NoBullying. Hashtag: wallpadORANGErules."

Thirteen-year-old Julie Burns XIV watched all of this out of the corner of her eye on her wallpad slate as she was polishing off her cornflakes, sitting as she was in her London flat's cosy kitchen.

After taking her empty bowl to the WP-dishwasher, Julie, whose WP username was WP-Julie1313, started typing a message on her slate using the wallpad ORANGE talk system, which she was permanently logged into ...

WP-Julie1313 @WP-Saladcream Hi Sally! Did U hear the WP news about going English?

Julie expected her best friend and classmate Sally, whose WP username was WP-Saladcream, would answer by voice-call almost immediately because her school morning routine was pretty much identical to her own.

Julie was wrong in her expectations, but at least a text message arrived instantly from Sally ...

WP-Saladcream @WP-Julie1313 Oi, Jules babe! Did U hear it? WP has gone English?

"Damn!" cursed Julie. "What an idiot, she must have messaged me while I was messaging her." Julie stroked her chin, thinking ... "I know, I'll just wait until she replies to my message, or we'll end up never having a proper talk."

Julie waited ... and waited ... and waited ...

Minutes later, her doorbell buzzed like an angry bumblebee. She bustled hurriedly to her front door and opened it ...