Guardians of Liberty: Part 8

July 13, 2018July 8, 2018 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Drinking Deep

He was astonished. Not at his success, her faith in it. It would’ve been another knock against him were he not so certain unpredictability were part of her package. She delighted in it. He enjoyed it well enough too, if only to make things easier later on.

Calculated on her part or not, she’d awed him again. This time in devotion, commitment. If only to his ideas: her own belief of their power– natural forces courted great power and nothing less, after all. This, she believed, was as grand as he dreamed. More-so.

He spent six hours prepping the parts, examining them all in detail. She’d had the place and her day prepped to watch. Nothing if not thorough, curious. Ket had always been that way. Like the Goddess of her namesake; Se’Ket, Ket. Feline grace. Poise. Panthera appeal and ferocity.

She said little, spoke only when he took breaks to stretch or eat. Otherwise, she was observant, as comfortable a student as she was a teacher, artist, or scholar. Even if it required theatrics.

That was what he’d loved about it her, but then, that was what everybody loved about her. He simply loved it for a different, deeper reason. She loved him as she loved them all, as her adoring audience, but had chosen him for his promise. He was their emissary but her concubine; temporary pleasure, passing seasons.

Martin Black had misunderstood the nature of that relationship. He was special, but not that special. Not yet. Not then. He could have been, but then, the madness. N1T3’s rise.

Now, N1T3 had the same potential, but he wasn’t seeking to use it. They no longer played games, nor needed to; he loved Ket. She knew. That was all that mattered. It was a simple, binary yes or no, on or off, 0 or 1.

For anything to come of it required so much between here and there N1T3 might no longer exist. To say nothing of if he’d survive.

He’d been fighting to swallow that fact over the five, monotonous hours of the server build. His request and payment, had been for a series of SBECs with associated cabling and storage gear. He received several networkable storage servers. Frankensteined bit-boxes with basic command terminals, sure, but far more than required for proof of concept. Cheap, but effective and powerful, and designed to do little more than manage a few network connections, store a few terrabytes.

It was perfect, but far more than he’d paid for. He took issue simply: “More than I paid for.”

She stood beside him, arms crossed, “Consider it my personal investment.”

More than that he knew, it was the symbol of her commitment. She was entrusting him with her future as much as anyone’s, he needed to remember that as much as anyone in the know. What better way than to idolize his ascension? What more fitting way to ensure he was taken seriously? Especially if she felt all he needed was to do it, there was no reason not to.

Clear victors needed no swan songs.

At least, not yet.

He stood before the server, finally seeing it for the work of art it was. For a decade he’d been learning, refining, theorizing. He’d designed a million and one ways he could do it, but had never actually done it. The opportunity had never arisen.

He’d built servers for himself, but ramshackle, patchwork things. Like his old shack, they were never meant to be the work of art this was. At that, it was the most elegant combination of utter-junk and clever-recycling. Exactly the sort of thing the world needed now.

He’d dreamed of it for years; servers, like cell-towers, encompassing all of Earth’s habitable face with chaotic, but total coverage: constant, digital buoys and beacons, both reading and writing information from the waves they rode. Each one gridded, overlapping, and connected to its neighbors. Above all, each one free and filled with information from passersby depositing and hosts curating.

Those resources, always accessible, had yet to become attainable for one reason or another. The motivation remained buried and unbidden to the surface, slumbering. The attacks on the Hackers had simply forced N1T3 to react. He’d never thought, even given the chance, he could do it with any degree of style or lasting impact.

Until now.

It looked vaguely Romanesque, both in purpose and form. It hadn’t been intended as such, but rather came together as a naturalized shape. He’d never imagined anything quite so vivid, but he saw now the duality of Roman column and postdigital necessity.

Like a shaft of mech-gear covered in tech, the aquifer formed a black-metal rack and pipe wireframe of a Roman column. Its base was octagonal rather than square, and sat on evenly spaced wheels. While its skeletal paneled-sections were flexed and presently locked, like an accordion with its straps bound close behind it.

It was as much workstation as low-lit cinema, warm but open to cooling. Most of all, it could easily shapeshift, re-form:

A series of R-L wire-frames of steel rack-mounts, lever locks, and moddable peripherals weighted peg-board flattened or locked stiff against panels on hinges, or in various positions. Each interface therein was secured but articulable in most ways. Each station, or panel, connected to the next allowing for expansion into a single wall, or total reformation of the panels’ components themselves.

A single station could occupy all panels, or all stations one panel, depending on type, configuration, and desire. Vice-versa depending on the tech’s inter-chaining. A more complex job than simply flipping a switch, sure, but not more than a few minutes of dedicated work either.

Despite her tendency to exaggerate, Ket guessed she’d taken longer to set a dinner-table than it took to demonstrate the aquifer’s use. That was good, she felt; it better fit the collective consciousness. More importantly, it could move. It didn’t have to.

Her emphasis on remaining close while he worked assured him of her investment: this would be her server. Her personal one. The one she relied on most but that others could interact with. It would be aquifer and fountain in her courtyard, centerpiece to her plays.

More than a bit-player now, he’d also become a craftsman. Something he’d never imagined himself. The difference was, he’d crafted an idea and built it in tech. One she would and could rely on– as any could, would, and should.

Until now, no-one had seen the importance of data. Not its security, but its existence and universality. Data was eternal in the eyes of a species naturally forced to live moment-to-moment. When that species then began to evolve, seeing they’d been right, they began to wonder why was data eternal?

The answer, N1T3 and Ket knew, was becoming clearer by the day.

Eternity was important to a sentient, living being without it. Anything regarding it was not only a doorway to knowledge, but an ideological beginning that would overtake and utterly transform its world. One could not consider the idea of immortality without considering the idea of what they might do with all that extra time.

Until now though, no-one had known how to manage or care for that idea. It was entirely new; as if Humanity suddenly realized it needed water, so dug a well. Then, knowing nothing of how to ensure it remained wet or clean, drank deep.

Like him, Ket had that knowledge. More than that, she had connections– popularity. What she didn’t have, he did. What neither had, she knew how and where to find it. As with the case of the servers themselves.

She’d set the terms of the deal, and so long as she didn’t burn him, was more than entitled to alter them. Especially if it meant getting more than either bargained for with no further risk. Then again, that meant greater responsibility to bear, and that could backfire superbly.

He hadn’t considered it until now, but aquifers needed to remain equal parts secure and not. They needed general oversight and protection. Otherwise, what good were they? More than that, they needed to remain clean.

Rome fell from unclean water. It wasn’t their fault, of course, their sciences were underdeveloped. To the Romans, lead existed only as a material to be formed. Not feared. What fear could a material bring anyhow? It was the Gods which saw to things.

It wasn’t until centuries later Human society was saved from the dangers of lead by scientific progress. But in a world where every person was a scientist, politician– and many other things– rolled into one, what good was turning to them?

Not everyone was perfect for the job, and that was acceptable, but they were all capable of it. It was impossible for that to be wrong and the world world the way it was. That was the theory behind the aquifer; self-regulation worked because any one participant could be wrong, thus each investigated themselves, to eventually base their knowledge off evidence therein.

Poorly-based conclusions in that evidence then lead to the miscalculation of compounding errors in Social understanding and Human living, borne of the neglected foundation of internal Human coexistence. Like with all systems however, the only way to correct these issues was to engineer their correction in successive revisions.

Or in other words, revolutions, waves, the massive, generational shifts recorded for all time in Human consciousness, deeper even than genes.

N1T3 discussed this with Ket. A pair of fingers curled about her cigarette as she replied simply, “That why it’s so important we do it.”

He cleared his throat, if only to admit his own discomfort to himself. She knew where it was headed, let him speak anyway.

“They want me dead, Ket.” She eyed him for signs of fear, backing down. He caught her expression, sensed its meaning, then corrected them both. “I may not live long is my point.”

“Then you need something of you to remain accessible, regardless.”

He thought to deride, but curiosity got the better of him. “A manifesto, you mean?”

She caught his shift, “I was thinking more… a product manual.”

He grinned. “I’ll get on it.”

Guardians of Liberty: Part 7

July 6, 2018July 1, 2018 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Old Friends Conquered

“I knew An33$a,” Ket said.

They were riding through town in the back of an old, blacked out delivery truck. It’d been upgraded to run on electric engines, rigged to roll out at a moment’s notice. More a thing of convenience rather than malice though– however intimidating.

Ket had learned to keep lines running through various, networked connections. Connections that included black-market contacts and rendezvous-points; first-name, former-Darknet associations; right down to local restaurateurs.

These were exclusive clubs, even for the excluding.

Playing the part of eye-candy, even for a single, proper night, meant making connections to webs most thought myth. It was the realm of doorways; a nexus point of paths she frequented, was traversing one-by-one, had been her entire life.

Fact was, born there or not, it was as close to predestined for her as was possible. The black-market, eye-candy burlesque-headliner: that was her niche. Her element. Force that she was, she was drawn to it; as water to a whirlpool or air to a cyclone. She dazzled…

And N1T3 he reveled, as allowed his momentary fascinations as any could be.

They emerged from one and he spoke on cue, “You were saying?”

She let a small, warm blink acknowledge his poise. “I knew her. Most did. We didn’t know it was her.”

He knew then whom she meant. The local hacker-ring was small, always had been.

“Small world.”

“These days, it’s smaller.” She lit a cigarette, offering him one. He took it, lit hers with a flip-top, then his own.

He slipped the lighter back into his pocket, “Making it more so only makes it more dangerous.”

She batted smoke toward the cracked, blacked-out windows hidden beneath dark, heavy curtains. They let in the sound of traffic riding bump-and-wave asphalt like oldschool surfers on low-crests. Their passing Doppler punctuated an already-humming soundtrack.

“The nature of a system dictates its likelihood to continue producing output, regardless of function. In essence, a system threatened with power cutoff continues to act as it does, regardless of its impending doom. It continues trying to revise itself or prolong itself.

“It’s not a thing of emotion,” she reminded. “But the culmination of successive revisions converging to another point of reference. That reference-point’s anything the observer of the system deigns when designing it.”

She took another, long drag, fingers near the window. They gave a delicate flick, disintegrating ash into a moving air-current before reeling back. N1T3 ashed beside his seat, in a tray velcro’d to a tabletop.

“You’re speaking of context; the purpose for any system’s use.”

“Precisely,” she said with another flick, keeping her ash in the wind.

Now that he fully understood her actions, he was curious why she cared to help. It was an earnest question. One he was equally entitled to, at least now and in said-context. He’d not been the most gracious loser or indeed, the most reliable partner, business or otherwise. It only made some sense to wonder what she saw in helping him.

He knew her well enough to know, but wished it clarified for posterity. In writing, so to speak– if only to the extent it could be, and if only for he alone to better understand.

“I care now for the same reason I cared then; potential.” She met his eye carefully. “Martin Black had potential. He did not live up to it. N1T3 has that potential now. And more.”

He said nothing. Their thoughts were aligned: other matters to attend to.

“I’m open to suggestions,” he said placidly.

“That’s not how this works. Not yet.”

He understood, “You want me to prove it.”

She didn’t need to nod. He saw it anyhow, suddenly understood where they were going, why.

“Anywhere I know?”

“No. Old storage unit. Meat-packing. City-Hub infrastructure.”

He nodded, knowing where she was headed, “Public. Relatively speaking.”

She smiled, “Rome conquered the public. They did it through toilets and water fountains.”

“I can do it with data-servers as aquifers,” he assured her.

There was no reason not to. Data was now a thing without existence. It had transcended time. Could not be lost. Not really. Only forgotten, then rediscovered. In a way perhaps, it had always been like that, because it couldn’t exist. Not physically. It was a realm without manifestation.

There were no digital borders.

Without a border, data was more than a single resource. It was every resource through its links to them. It was information. Vital. Equally powerful. Necessary; like water. Both a thing and a force. Like Ket.

Digital paradise was the next evolution of man’s social yearnings. One you could indulge regardless of reality’s shortcomings or luxuries. But it was absolutely out of reach in a world of Corporations. Especially, when those Corps owned the only true data-hubs and information infrastructure, were responsible for them.

If the Empire had done to Rome’s waterlines what Telecomms were doing to the Net, people would’ve lined up to punch holes and install taps without fear of reprisal. Not after the flow had been so obviously narrowed just to gouge people already working– or paying— to upkeep it.

Because of data’s reality too, every drop became as important as the next or last.

Thus, it became infinitely more important the pipelines were properly tapped and regulated. For now, N1T3 and Ket knew, they couldn’t be. The only pumps and lines in existence were locked behind fortresses, buried in Earth, and owned by sniveling heirs former Kings and Titans of Industry. Those old-timers had learned money-games played by different rules from a different world. However newer, more subtle their approaches, there were always the same strategies.

The fundamentally dissimilar nature of the old and new games though, dictated they were fucking up the boards. Irreparably.

In the end, who wouldn’t do it, with the skill and know how? Sure. It cost money, but money was a resource. Like with every flourishing resource, you stock-piled for leaner-times and drew down later.

There was no leaner time like one’s possible death-bed.

Why not try it? If it were crazy, he wouldn’t be here. Or at least, Ket wouldn’t be too. More than that, he had a plan for success far more powerful than any chances of failure. Even then, if he died before he completing his mission, he might at least succeed through others.

And it began here.

She led him into the warehouse, the truck still idling outside. Cheaper to let it run than start and stop it– long term, anyway. That was an electronic reality. Standby modes were easier than power switching. More stable too. Postdigital thoughts from postdigital children; the technological equivalent of sleep; the reason to never power down, but rather mete-out power into flowing or being stored for when needed.

But never did the power get cut. Powerlessness was not an option.

That was one thing imparted from Humanity’s rise from the muck: the reasons rape and molestation were capital crimes even in shadow societies. More-so, often, because of their need for discretion, to discourage future violation of its sanctity therein.

Shadows thrived on Honor Codes.

Making one powerless un-leveled the playing field everyone needed to be level. Otherwise, turbulence was felt. It was the reason the Mafia families put aside their differences after prohibition to fight the system– even if while still killing one another– the reason corps forced laws to change, made police obsolete; people needed each other even if they didn’t need other people.

Eternally, the problem was of relatability, familiarity.

Datum transcended that. It was a byproduct of Human existence. One Humans mistakenly thought of as passing– like waste, or semi-renewable, like water. It was needed, but what could be done of its properties? Their inherent corruptibility or susceptibility to manipulations?

In truth, Datum was Rome’s plumbing on a scale unseen since its literal era. Worse, that it was being ignored was sending humanity back to that time in history with its utterly-obvious and ignored toxicity.

Way N1T3 saw it, the bloodiest revolts had happened for less. One would happen for this, but it had to happen right. Otherwise, it would only restart the cycle.

History was a system, out of control in all but retrospect. Therefore, to correctly distinguish the causes of historical errors required examination, breakdown, and reverse-engineering. Only by then applying the learned information to the roots of historical errors’ manifests could history be engineered.

As it was, History was a complex record of Human social-interaction boiled down to its simplest form. That boiling meant reducing it to a series of reference-events, each with listed variables and constants– 0s or 1s– that retold its story the simplest way possible: in concepts at a time.

At its essence, History was a program eternally live, and always running in debug-mode. Therein, it was only ever possible to anticipate or react to problems, never prevent them entirely. Only a post-digital child could have understood that while Existence was binary– either you did or did not exist, people were not.

People had more states than Power/no-power. In/out. Off/on.

N1T3 once believed himself alone in the knowledge of this complimentary duality, its yin-yang of Human existence and their contrived reality. The truth though, was that everyone saw it, felt as he did. Some simply had not realized it yet or made the connection of what it was they saw. Some, never would.

That became dangerously apparent during the maturation of his generation– and thus, N1T3 with it– proving the collective consciousness had manifested.

Like all networked entities, it communicated as a group, as well as an individual. Another sign of its inherent binary-duality in its systemic redundancies. Difference was, these groups were cells, commands in code; comprised of people, individuals, their links through others whether personal or social.

That, N1T3 knew, required one thing above all else; datum. Information. Exchange of bits, or bytes; 0s and 1s; the essence of every measurable item in existence. More than that too, because of Human Nature, it needed to be nomadic.

In other words, Rome’s water needed public controls and access for anyone in need of, or willing to fix it or maintain it. Tampering with it was never a question because it rose above the need of even a great many to become universal. Ensuring it flowed right was the only thing that mattered. It was a human duty, an obligation, because one expected the same respect against powerlessness– and thus contributed too.

That the taps in this respect were digital simply meant anyone could learn to use and install them, regardless of status. So long as the interface were properly prepared and presented, it would function.

Like a public water-fountain.

In the end, that meant all anyone needed to ensure fountains caught on was a well-executed opportunity to prove their worth. After that, and if only in a niche, they would catch on. Even if Ket had planned to murder him immediately after, she would help N1T3 ensure it happened.

It was that important.

Guardians of Liberty: Part 6

June 29, 2018June 24, 2018 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Ain’t That a Bitch?

He was kicked back in his cot, thinking. He did it often enough to have formed a routine with it. Usually, before puzzling out bad code or troubleshooting something. This time, its origins eluded him.

At first, he figured it for his parting from Ket. Her words rang clear long after she’d left. They stung, but he’d expected worse. Only while breaking into his new rations, eating, then sorting them to to be stashed through his safe-houses, had he begun to understand her words’ true source; grief.

His and Ket’s relationship dictated she got last licks. Especially after the way things went afterward. Simple fact was, he knew Ket. Everything she did was carefully planned, executed. She’d expected their reunion all along, however uncertain of its particulars.

He also knew she phrased certain things in certain ways, however unafraid to speak her mind. Anyone but N1T3 might have missed the subtle reality of what she’d said. Then again, she always said more with what was left unsaid.

It was only then, flipping mental switches at random in aimless thought, that it came to him: she had loved Martin Black. Did not love N1T3.

A few of the million, random switches in N1T3’s head flipped together randomly. Right place, right time: Loved. Past tense. Not. Present. She had loved Martin Black because of his passionate love for her, but that had long since ended. Martin Black no longer existed. The man that had taken his place was N1T3, and she did not love N1T3…

But that did not mean she could not.

N1T3 was something more than a man now though. More than a symbol, even. He was an actuator of change. The lever identified and appropriately fitted to ensure the system(s) he was part of functioned properly, nominally. Who could love that? What was there to love?

Transactional. Business-like. A cog in a machine. It’s what he’d become. The thing he’d always feared being, hated having to be. Then again, there was no guarantee he would forever be that way. He might, provided he made it through the madness to come, find the Human within again.

Until then everything he– and thus they– did, would be transactional, passing.

The wound was deeper than he’d thought, yet he lived. Because he lived, he learned. So long as those two things continued, so would he. Whatever that meant about Ket couldn’t be known yet.

With that, he rose from the bed and flicked off a message-alert. It had been 22 hours since they’d first met. Impressive, even for her. Though he admitted that meant he’d somehow underestimated her. He didn’t like the idea; it meant he’d miscalculated somewhere.

That only happened if you slacked off. Cut corners. Like the hacker kid that started the raids.

There was a way to cut corners right, of course, but you had to know what you were doing. You needed to be so far beyond recognizing you were doing it that you’d come back ‘round to forgetting it again through muscle-memory.

With code, it was keeping something structured so it never exceeded the line between small and large, project and undertaking. That was easy if you knew what you were doing. Easier, if you were experienced enough to know how to do it.

But miscalculation meant errant thoughts. Broken code. Unforeseen consequences. It meant the systems in question had begun to run rampant and unguided by their parameters. The digital equivalent of cancer; viral injections riding collective missteps and spreading disaster with quiet, insidious corruption in cells at a time. Cell-by-cell. Bit-by-bit. Byte-by-byte. Until all required erasure and reset.

Except in this case, that corruption was mental. The consequence, death– or near enough.

N1T3 was immediately certain of the misstep’s source. He’d written Ket off as a variable. One for whom constance did not exist. The truth was, Ket would always be a wildcard. Even when and where he least expected it.

Most people would’ve been stopped at the gates of understanding Ket, never even allowed in the grounds. Martin Black had made it in by sheer grace of fortune and luck. Now, because of his transformation, N1T3 was not only within, but part of the heart of the mansion. There were no deeper secrets to be known. He, like a reserved few others, had reached the very core of her palace of arms, traps, and facades.

More than that, he’d been led in. By virtue of his past applied to the present.

He’d been cast from Eden for feeding Eve a poisoned apple. Rather than blame her for the rest of history, he left and returned a wiser man, prepared to accept his mistakes. It was a conformity– the same thing the corps wanted– those now hunting him and sworn as his enemy, but he accepted it. Irony dictated it run deeper than anything the corps could have reached, and that made it different, acceptable.

It was the difference between love and sex. Passion and commitment. 0 and 1.

Corporate marketing knew all about that difference. Their PR and ad departments had been trying to sell sex that didn’t exist for decades. Now, people were finally tired and irritated by it, unhappy. N1T3 had seen it everywhere; in shambled economy, the crippled markets, the greed-laden stock and media manipulation. It was outright propaganda and failed control measures take to extremes.

People world-wide had already been battered by war for a decade and more. Then, their governments failed them. Back then, it was people like N1T3 hardest hit. People that found themselves out of options. Society had herded them through educational degradation and indirect, ethnic cleansing, and let them out into a desolate, barren pasture expecting them to graze.

No-one knew then whom to blame, but postdigital children like N1T3 and Ket had been watching. Now, they were figuring it out. Fast.

In the end, they realized, it couldn’t be the governments. Governments were too big. Even then, they were too indebted globally and locally from wars; prison industrial complexes they’d built up; black-market bazaars they were half-fighting, half-funding. They were already drawing blood from people. There was nowhere deeper to go.

Not for them, anyhow.

The next logical source was politics as a whole, but in effect, politics had never changed. The game had always been the same. Although the source seemed perfectly political, it wasn’t until shortly after that the source’s politics– and lack thereof, truly revealed themselves.

That was done through legal bribes, lobbying; via third parties effectively laundering said money through themselves to their politicians of choice. Again, nothing new, but the reasons and intent behind it were. Entirely.

N1T3 remembered sitting in the now-rundown apartment with Ket the night the DCA had passed. It was then they knew the days of the net were limited. They’d begun stock-piling then, squirreling away bits and bytes in their own little ways.

It was never so big then as it became, but few things so volatile remain stable.

He and Ket both knew the future was bleak, regardless of whether they shared it or not. For those moments they loved, they loved deeply and madly. They were storing motivation, joy and euphoria, to sandbag them against the coming storm.

Then, when it came, it damn near drowned them. The aftermath left them seeking joy and euphoria elsewhere. The greater storm collectively growing though, the one that came about once a century, had already begun through them; revolution was incubating in them.

It just so happened their own revolutions coincided not only with one another, but with the world’s. That, above all, ensured the next one would be done right, or not at all.

In the end, he found that as the source of his misstep; thinking he could outwit a system he was the product of. The programming had been done, the system engaged. Now, the output was coming through.

Yet all of their worth and aligned stop-bits meant nothing in the face of what he was planning. He, and the others like him. Without him, they would fail. Vice-versa. The question then became, she could love N1T3, but could he love her?

Caution and delicate finesse. He wasn’t very good at it, but he was learning.

He found her waiting for him again. She had a habit of that; everywhere early, appearing to have nowhere to be. Like you weren’t important. Weren’t worth more than a passing interest. Fact was, if you were smart, you knew she wasn’t that way. That was Ket’s facade. The one she wore regardless of company. Taking it off was simply too time-consuming, too pointless.

If you knew her, and she was there, it mattered. If you were a fool in love, you were torn between worlds. If you ‘d been the latter and were now the former, you were in as deep as you could get. All the same, there was distance. No kiss today, but then nobody’d tried to kill him yet.

Herself included.

She kept to the outer edges of the main room, circling like a stalking predator. She did it subtly, slowly enough it was only obvious to one whom knew her so well. N1T3 didn’t bother following her with his eyes. It was an intimidation tactic meant for the facade-goers, the ones come to see the show; Vampirella. Bride of Frakenstein. The Tigress pacing her cage.

It wasn’t meant for the people whom actually knew her. Whom knew the act was required to keep her in the motions. That the show could easily be ignored, the information retrieved through it anyway otherwise.

But then, what was the point of being there?

She circled in aural-stereo. Her voice and essence orbited his head. His eyes fixed ahead and glazed, speaking volumes without words as he voluntarily submitted. The very air hinted at questions and immediately answered them. He recalled just how much a force of nature she was, and felt comforted by the momentary obscurity she provided.

“I know what you’re doing,” she said finally, decisively.

“Can it be done?”

She circled back in front of him, stopped. “Nothing’s impossible. Not with the right tech. You know that, N1T3.“

“I don’t follow,” He admitted.

She stepped away before stopping to about-face like a headmistress. “Tech is like every force; it is dictated by referenced levels of rules interacting via context. For minerals, in markets, it’s rarity. For gems, its clarity and cut.” He nodded, catching on. “For tech, it’s revisional history and progenitor.”

He knew what she meant; all progress was the culmination of thousands of next-generation, referential changes. In essence, successively refining a variable-based system with each new iteration. It was a brute force hack beginning at 0000 and ending at 1111, each time stopping to check for a solution. That was society. History. Existence. It was cause and effect. Karma.

But that was it. There was nothing beyond it. The extent of its supposed divinity was its order in the chaos that ruled the universe otherwise. Tech though, wasn’t a benevolent manifestation of divine connection. It was an indifferent variable in an equation. Not even numbers could define it as more.

Tech was merely a mechanism of action. The rest was up to chance. Really, it was all up to chance, but try explaining that to billions of people over the net.

Simply, in tech; be it in design or sales, some things were variables and others, constants. Their output decided by the type of system involved, its internal components and their arrangement.

Ket was a variable; even within her own, personal constants. It was the reason she’d scoffed at his supposed offer of payment for food, never wrote him off otherwise. N1T3 was the opposite; a constant despite his own variable; such as the part of him that had loved her, even if now a newborn phoenix risen from ash.

He made no inclination otherwise toward it. He didn’t need to, They were still tailor-made for one another, but by way of mass-production’s interchangeability rather than artisanal want or desire. The difference was a want-or-not of illusion, delusion. Their lines therein.

Ket was theatrical, grand. She needed movement. Martin Black had been fine without it; with wallowing, daydreaming. She wanted to show, to display, always. He wanted to watch, admire. All of that was different now. Then, he’d not recognized his own part in the play. Nor its purpose. Now, he did.

And he’d come to play it because it needed to be played. Otherwise, there was no telling how many more would die.

Guardians of Liberty: Part 5

June 22, 2018June 17, 2018 ~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

*Ahem*

“Never would’ve thought you had the balls to contact me again.” She said, rightfully.

He didn’t move. Her fingers thrust her switch-blade deeper into his side, blade still retracted.

“I swear to you, Martin, I’ll do it.” His steady silence conveyed his belief. The blade eased back, though by no means away. “Convince me not to.”

“Five confirmed hits. All corp-sec. I was one of the lucky ones. We’re off-grid. Wanted. Hidden. But they’re coming for all of us, Ket. You’ll be later. All of you.”

She sucked wounded air through her teeth; a sign of the last vestige of hatred for he and his eternal rightness escaping. Her grip remained firm. “Putting me under fire’s your response?”

“You’re smarter than this, Ket. Our past is behind us. Our future is dark. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t need you. And I wouldn’t need you if this weren’t bigger than myself or us alone.”

Another hiss, albeit quieter. Her panthera purr in full-effect, “What makes me care, Nite!?”

Addressing his persona directly said was willing to deal. However quickly that could change was another matter.

“Ket, Corp-sec’s murdering hackers.”

“An33$a.”

“And Clockwork. Five hits. Two deaths. Three others that made it away, including me.”

She finally eased off. It was subtle, but the knife retracted. Noticing was as important as it was civil. Ket was the kind of woman who thrived off the smallest measures of affection. If ignored or shunned, things went haywire. It extended elsewhere to her personality, of course– and especially in his presence, was lethal if not given considerable attention.

He knew that now. He hadn’t before, but now he was older, wiser, considerably more flexible in mind if not body. That was fine, she was enough of the latter for both of them, even if he couldn’t enjoy it himself presently.

She knew he’d sensed the easing, and with it, sensed his attempts at maturity. Too many years and too many missed opportunities had passed for them to deny the spark’s existence. Besides, the spark was never the problem, the idiot trying to control the fire was.

“Turn around,” she said, easing to full height.

He found her presence more gracefully imposing than he remembered. She was Venus Di Milo; larger than life. Eternal. He knew it. She knew it. He was her love; she, his. Yet their time together had taught them that, then at least, they couldn’t stand being together.

All the same, he saw her again; the olive skin, muscled as some ancient warrior goddess. Like every other time, it was as if the first time. She threw herself at him, kissed him deep, hard, wet, sloppily. He submitted fully.

A moment later it was over and the world was rushing back.

As if nothing had ever happened, she retook her rigid grace and led him forward into shadows. She spoke like a General meeting a trusted informant, on-edge but openly-so; from the severity of circumstances surrounding their very meeting, if nothing else.

Ket was business-like. N1T3 allowed her to set the tone. To her credit, she spared him further groveling. “Everyone saw what happened last night. No-one’s surprised it happened. Just at how.”

She led the way between a pair of old buildings, weathered by time and soot-blackened from an eon of pollution. N1T3 suddenly understood how the original torries felt. If this what they pined for, they could keep it.

N1T3 knew where she was leading him, but refused to believe it until he arrived. He’d only just seen her again, after years, and it seemed nothing had changed.

Well, almost nothing.

She led and conversed with gestures completely unaltered despite the years. Two conversations still took place at once. The surface one, audible and obvious; the other in a subtext of shared memories and memetic resonance from shared, mental-wavelengths.

Ket was doing it on purpose of course, as much for his sake as hers. Looks and gestures were easier than unnecessary words. Losing that had been one of the realities of their relationship that made her detest him so. He doubted she felt any hint of intimacy now, regardless of the kiss. It was a simple effect of being glad he’d survived; more Human than personal.

She turned transactional, business-like despite the obvious intimacy belying their words. Ket was little if not a career-woman at heart, however it manifested. It was that world that raised and bred her, taught her how– if need be– to take it out.

She, like N1T3 was one of those stop-bits. The 1s ending binary-strings of 0s; referential identifiers– embodiments of society via their existence at particular points in space and time. In effect, they were two of the postdigital-world’s first fully-digital children, formed and perfected en-masse whilst in-transition between worlds– the pre and postdigital.

But like N1T3, Ket was more than just that. Everyone that knew her, knew it. She could do whatever she wanted in both worlds; the remnants of the old and the blossoming new one, that was knowingly building itself in her image.

She had connections, money, property. Wit and clout to keep and protect them, illicit or not. Was the prototype chosen for mass-production, knew it, and used it.

And everyone let her.

She led N1T3 inside a neglected building, through it to an apartment. Even then, part of him refused to believe reality. He ignored the disbelief, knowing it would transform eventually.

The place was considerably more rundown now, partially reclaimed by nature. Otherwise, it was empty and undamaged enough to have kept anyone from squatting. It might still be reclaimed by one determined enough, but no-one would be.

The place meant nothing to anyone. Even those that knew of it most intimately. For any, it was merely another reference point. A place of known-congregation, now abandoned but capable of purpose. Any purpose– and thirsting for one at that.

That was one of the things Corporate lifestyle never understood. Mostly, because it required feeling. Not necessarily intense feeling, but any feeling.

The place felt as a refuge or sanctuary might, via obscurity; through a want of steel and stone to sing so its inhabitants might breathe again beneath it. Those feelings were what gave credence to Japanese Shinto Kami, their sister belief-systems dictating spirits resided in all things.

In a way they were right, however unwittingly after thousands of years of proven science, via electron microscopes, advanced physics and metaphysics. What Shinto called soul and energy, scientists called matter and energy; the effects of super-strong bonds formed in infinite ways, and radiating properties like auras; hot and cold, powered or not, 0 or 1.

Ket led him into their old room, a padlock already removed from it. They’d taught each other a lot over the years. Nothing consciously of course, but over the same half-telepathic link that had kept her from killing him only moments ago.

She let him, shut the door behind them.

It was smaller than he remembered. What wasn’t these days? He figured it an effect of age. After you’d seen so much, a single room could never be so large again– save if containing a live nuke. Then again with Ket, there was no telling; it very-well might– especially given the rather large, tarp- covered pallet in the center of the otherwise-empty room.

He hesitated just inside. She pushed past, whipping the tarp off. There, in three tiers, were a series of Rations purchased in bulk.

“You knew?”

“I had them stashed years ago.”

He stepped forward to examine them, squinting at her, “For me?”

“Yes,” she replied curtly. Then, “No-one’s surprised. I know you too well. It was this, or you’d be dead. Either way, I’d move ’em.”

He eyed her, searching for anything beyond the business-like facade she’d put on, finding only it. She was on now, thus he needed to be. Otherwise, he might as well have ended with the blade. He produced a flash-key.

“I’m insulted,” she remarked.

“Not for this,” he corrected respectfully. “I need something else. Two things. Actually.”

She wiped off her smugness and pricked up her ears. He produced a list. “This. Quantity there.” “And something… defensive.”

She eyed him through a squint, “Dangerous.”

He said nothing. What could he say? He knew it was dangerous, but the whole world was dangerous. Especially now. And especially for him. Yet he’d take the risk over losing the chance. Way he saw it, he’d be murdered or die going out. The responsibility to his mission dictated he protect himself if necessary, though if only to an extent of attempting to protect it.

Ket caught the wave of his thoughts, his mind-frequency attuned to hers. She folded the page, took the flash-key. “Two days. Meet me here then.”

“If it takes less?” He asked, only internalizing the, “where will I find you?”

She eyed him levelly, a fairly-injured party still nursing its wound, however potentially forgiving. “I never left.” He winced. She expected as much. “Let me make one thing clear; I loved Martin Black. I do not love N1T3.”