Invisible Networks #22: Gifeodrome

At 3 AM, Alice finally completes the last changes to her current revision. She looks over it one last time, then compiles the code into the simulator to make sure it will hold up under field conditions. Fumbling for another sip of her energy drink as she waits for the check to complete, she finds that all four cans on her desk are empty. Sweeping them aside to join the fifty other cans in a pile on the floor, Alice checks her phone while retrieving another drink from her fridge. Most of her notifications are on the Alexandria app, where billions of others are posting their own updates on their progress. It appears the project is more than halfway complete and many of the participants to finish early are lending their time to collaborate with those that have fallen behind.

It takes the notification from her computer to snap Alice out of her browsing trance, realizing she's spent the past ten minutes standing in her kitchen and staring at her phone. She shuffles back to her desk where the integrity check has complete, showing that the code is under passable parameters. The weight is finally off her shoulders, and tears well up as the triumph of seventeen months of work begins to overwhelm her. Before announcing her success on Alexandria, she instead takes a moment to open up the project's image folder.

It contains her early artwork from when she was in middle school, embarrassingly simple but heartfelt. Photos of various travel locations in the solar system, most of which she hasn't yet visited but hopes to eventually. Waveform images of some of her favorite music. There's also diagrams and photos of some of the completed ecology integrations used in the current supercity designs, important to Alice because it is the proof that humanity has reacted true sustainability and environmental equilibrium. Finally, there's the message she's written and exported to be the final frame of the loop.

Hi! I'm Alice, one of the many members of humanity. Given how long it takes for light to get everywhere, I'll probably be long gone by the time you read this. But that's fine! As long as you're able to receive the wonders and technologies that we're sharing through this project, that's what matters. Humanity is in its golden age right now. Multiple colonies, post-scarcity manufacturing technology, perfect balance and integration with the other lifeforms that share our home, elimination of poverty and conflict. We haven't figured out how to travel faster than light yet, but I'm certain that we'll be better prepared to make direct contact with other species in the universe once we do. Maybe one of you will show up with that technology and share it! I know that most of the other tiles of this sign are looping through better-planned messages, the greatest of our cultural works of art and even the specific technology that has enabled our prosperity, but humanity is also individuals. So I'm using this space to express what is special to me, and hope that on an individual level some of you will share in my interests and joys.

Reading it over again makes the tears harder to hold back. Once this is submitted to Alexandria it will be transmitted to the construction crews in the solar system's far orbit. They'll load it into a polarized plasma hologram display covering several kilometers, then line it up to its place among the billions of other displays. When the last piece is in place, they'll begin looping the images of each panel as a GIF larger than Jupiter. With its own power source and facing outward, the display is meant for whatever intelligent life turns an advanced enough observatory towards our solar system. A message and a gift to other civilizations, meant to iterate on and overshadow the Pioneer plaques and the Golden Records.

Alice composes herself. With the integrity check having verified that the data flow of her piece of the GIF won't desynchronize, she presses the Submit button. The transmission is seamless and almost instant, and as soon as she receives the notification that its complete she flops onto her bed and almost immediately falls asleep. The celebration and remaining collaboration can wait.