Futura remembered the wars, those world-wide—the First, the Second, and the Third (which will surely occur). Helvetica then reminded Futura, or Long John J, as the people used to call her, that, as a woman, she could never have fought in the war.The tomboy of type scoffed. Helvetica, that delicate young man—or, as some called him, a sissy—could never have survived her younger years. Futura remembered his late father, Akzidenz, with particular clarity. To Futura, Akzidenz had always been nothing more than rubbish of a man.Before them lay a man, usually more pain-tolerant and less picked upon than Helvetica. He was breathing lightly, his face already gone cold, his skin as pale as a ghost. They knew him as a white man, but never so blindingly white. Gill Sans was fading away, completely and suddenly.He had been alive and well as he and Futura sat down for lunch. Yet, somehow, he was found to be nevermore.Helvetica later read in the papers about a great box-like machine called the computer, an American marvel. The people believed that it would go world-wide. Futura dismissed it as rubbish as well. Helvetica, however, understood what it meant.He knew that his older serif friends—Times being his closest—would soon disappear. He knew his enemies, of which there would be many more, would vanish alongside them. He knew that all the other faces were destined either to live no more or, worse, to rot away as cultural filth beneath the weight of this new invention.And he knew the worst fate of all:He would live forever.But immortality would come at a terrible price—through pain, suffering, and endless, clinical reproduction, a fate no other delicate soul would be able to stand. Helvetica the Almighty would endure, from hot metal... to digital void.The Swiss Army Knife was to be shot to bytes by the rifle.
