8.

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.”