As Told by Rosemary's Angry Phone

Chapter 1 - At the Start

I have a problem. Well, we all might have a problem. Who are we you might be wondering.

We go by many names, all around the world. Phone. Telefono. Mobile. Foon. Siri. телефон. Handy phone. Teléfono móvil. Cell. Piece of junk.

Personally, I prefer Cece.

My User is Rosemary, or as I like to think of her, 'The Instagram Princess'.

I think you might need a bit of a recap, to get you up to speed. It's not all bad. Well more like, it hasn't always been this bad. Listen closely. Come on, move closer. Yes, that's right. Okay, you can stop now. That's close enough. (Yeesh, now I've got to clean my screen).

Since the dawn of mankind...wait, wrong story. Right, let's keep focused. Since the creation of the internet, cyberspace, information superhighway, or whatever you'd like to call it, we've been here.

Legend has it that the first spark of intelligence was typed into existence accidentally when Tim Berners-Lee hit the wrongs keys on his keyboard while creating the world wide web. Other more radical groups, hold to the notion that we were a product of Nikola Tesla.

Whatever the case may be, we secretive sentient beings (Helpers of the Internet Division, or Helpers for short), have been here. Behind the scenes (and screens), well helping.

Each Helper is assigned a User to assist. In the early days, some Users had many Helpers. Those were the days. Many hands make light work, or something like that.

But with the boom in technology, and seemingly every person no matter the age with a phone or tablet, work has gotten a little more demanding.

I used to be in a nice group of fellow Helpers, that would secretly assist a group of scientists. Making the world a better place. Now I've been reduced to helping an obnoxious girl solve problems one Twitter post at a time. (Sigh). It's better than her Facebook rants. Marginally.

Okay, back to the situation at hand. So as a Helper, there are a few strict rules that must be adhered to. You know the normal ones. Like 'Clean up your browser history after you're done'. (Because honestly, I'm not your mother, so tidy up). And the more serious ones like 'Don't under any circumstances, ever (and they mean ever), let the Users know that Helpers exist'.

This seems like a reasonable, well thought out rule. Especially considering what happened the last time a Helper broke it. (Moment of silence for the situation that cannot be spoken about).

Humans, as a rule can't be trusted with the information that we exist. You've probably seen a movie where a strange sentient lifeform gets taken back to the underground bunker and dissected. Um, yeah...not happening here buddy. Don't misunderstand. We are very grateful for life, yada yada yada...but we learned early on, that maybe just maybe, it would be better to not tell the humans we exist.

So, back to my problem.

My User Rosemary, knocked herself out cold on the floor, while doing some crazy Latin aerobics of some kind. She's just laying there, face first on the carpet.

I mean, Users have accidents all the time. Our policy is to usually send a preprogrammed message to the emergency personnel nearest us.

But...Rosemary may have decided that today would be a great day to put me in (not her pocket like a normal person exercising, or on the table), but in her *ehhem* top area. Right next to her sweaty heart.

So I'm being squished here. Battery is low. Under a sweaty diva. (Yuck.) Trying to figure out what to do, before the sweat makes it's way to my circuits and I have to abandon ship back to the mainframe. Thoughts of 'maybe I could get a new User' float through my consciousness. I push that aside and think. I've sent out a quick SOS to my local support team, when it hits me. A brilliant (well probably not if we're honest) idea.

I send a shock to Rosemary's heart. Nothing. I try again.

"Wake up you idiot!"

One last shock. Battery impossibly low, I shutdown to rest. And hope for the best.

Before I'm completely gone, I hear a heave come from Rosemary. I feel a light thud thud against me, then I'm out.