Invisible Networks (2022 edition) #1: Slime Computation

 It took a few hours of scrolling before Clara understood why NeoncortexT was causing a small voice of anxiety to rise in the background of her mind.

The garbage wasn't there. The ads for products she never wanted, the "hot takes" from vile people trying to grow rich from a platform built on hate, the topics that she didn't hate but also had no interest in. She hadn't encountered anything close to something she could be consciously certain she didn't want to see. It was too good to be true. It had to be a lie.

It took a few minutes, but through the lens of an alternate account with specific changes to the profile Clara was able to find that the landfill of the internet did extend to this platform as well. NeoncortexT presented a timeline that assumed that the user was the kind of person who would vote to repeal every human right they could, and it somehow managed to hit through her desensitization towards that bleak side of humanity. So she put the phone down, focused on some stress relief techniques for a few hours, then picked up the phone to switch back to her main account.

But the presented timeline wasn't the corrosive mess she saw earlier. Now it was back to the uncomfortably pleasant feed that her main account was supposed to show her. How did it adapt so quickly, how did the algorithm know it was her?

It bothered her enough to spend a few minutes of each subsequent day performing "research" in the form of browsing other platforms for discussions on how NeoncortexT worked. Apparently this was the first social media platform to use that new processor tech that exchanged microcircuits for a vat of modified algae. Official statements talked about how it could emulate organic thought well enough to give its users the content they actually wanted to see. The actual workings were proprietary, so the closest she got to details on its actual workings were the varied and implausible theories that formed a forest thick enough to hide whatever the singular tree of truth looked like. Clara's friends shared her initial reaction to the new platform, which was already being condensed into "NexT" for shorthand reference, agreeing that it was uncanny to see an app actually know what they wanted.

It didn't take long after that for the unease of using NexT to fade. No matter how implausible it was for the timeline to follow even her most recent thoughts and whims, the accuracy of its algorithm made it that much harder to excise it from her habits. Finally, like most everyone else, she stopped questioning it entirely. It was a part of life, a welcome replacement over its contemporaries. So it was easy to ignore when a whistleblower from NexT claimed the company seeded the algae in the drinking water. The claim was rather far-fetched. An algae that would briefly parasitize a person until it could leave with a rough neurological imprint of its host? That the NexT corporation would fish out these expelled algae at the water treatment plants and add them to the main vat, all so it could wait to synchronize to the account of its former host? Nonsense.

The claims never went anywhere. NexT had enough capital to stall or shut down any investigation into its activities. Clara never made the connection when she was diagnosed with a brain abscess a decade after she had started using the platform. Corporate-acceptable collateral harm from algae mutations wasn't even a possibility to be considered. She died three years later, spared the sight of watching the rest of humanity succumb to the same fate through the remainder of the century.

Invisible Networks #29: The 10,000 Year Network

A first post, an in-joke from the development team.

"Yep, this system is definitely some blue nachos. Could you imagine if we just blew it on the first post on humankind's most important social media network?"

The four-hundred trillionth post, commemorating true world peace and dissolution of borders.

"To commemorate the founding of the Overworld government, the Stonebound network staff has pulled the strings needed to add blue nachos as a unicode emoji. No, we still won't explain what it means."

A post easier to measure in time than placement in the archive, five hundred years later.

"The Stonebound team is proud to be cited in our first diplomacy with alien intelligent life, as the Ivrali complimented our network as the key to how humankind has maintained unity in presenting itself in galactic diplomatic talks."

A post a mere thirty-five years later, in order to continue what Stonebound is known best for.

"Greetings, f̶̛̱͍͜é̶͍͖̲̊̐͝l̷̟̟͌́͝l̸̨̟͂̔͌͠o̵̪̪͊̇͆͝w̸̗͚̳̞̕e̴̮̙̐͒́̕ͅr̶̟̕ṡ̴̞͑̕! If you couldn't read that word, then that means your device hasn't yet been upgraded with galactic glyph support yet, which is a free update available to all Stonebound-compatible platforms. Stonebound now supports more than human language so that we don't leave anyone out!"

Two thousand years later, a post announcing a tragedy.

"The Stonebound team expresses their sorrow at the tragic news of the Bwirlik planetary mind core losing its battle against the hive mind degeneration disease. We will be donating twenty percent of this month's profits to efforts to support and rehabilitate the now scared and confused Bwirlik as they share in our plight of being unable to truly connect to each other as they once could."

Three hundred years later, a network reappropriated.

"The Stonebound team would like to assure our users that the untranslatable strings of text posted by most Bwirlik accounts are nothing sinister, but simply an important cultural coping mechanism for the grief of being part of the first generation of their kind to never know the gentle parenthood of their mind core. To insist that this is a secret language they never made the galactic council aware of will be considered a violation of our terms of service for hate speech."

Two years later, a business deal signed.

"The Stonebound team is proud to announce that the Bwirlik government has won the bid for maintenance rights for our platform. With this, they will be able to prototype an artificial mind core using Stonebound's infrastructure paired with their own neural connection implants, bringing them back to their glory and curing the chronic depression that has so recently crippled their species."

One hundred years later, a plan advanced.

"In the interest of maintaining peace and preventing future galactic wars before they even become hostilities, the galactic council has authorized mandatory citizen connections to the Stonebound mind core, regardless of species. The process will be funded by the galactic council and administered in a quick, painless and convenient manner."

Seven thousand years later, a monoculture remains unmoved.

"We are all Stonebound. We are peace and perfection itself. :blue nachos:"

Invisible Networks #28: Gray Pixels

No structure has lasted as long as the Soul of Humanity, which still stands five hundred thousand years after its initial construction. Encapsulating the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, this greatest achievement of humankind (casually referred to as "The Soul") takes advantage of the greatest advancements in nanotechnology, quantum mechanics, matter synthesization and temporal manipulation all for the purpose of monitoring the status of the entire human race.

The innermost layer is the simplest, comprising a dyson sphere that uses the kinetic energy of the black hole's gravity to generate all the power the Soul needs for its other functions. The middle layer is the only stabilized true AI in existence, capable of self-replicating its components for repair while it handles all of the processing needed to keep the outer layer accurate to current statuses.

The outer layer is the only one that is as much art as science. The surface supports its own atmosphere, heat regulation and artificial planetary magnetic field. Any person can safely wander the near-endless forests of living display polymer that sprout on the outside of the Soul. Each pixel accurately represents the status of one specific human, and in total they cover not only every living person, but every person to have ever lived. Using a single-color code in a pixel, the represented person's current status is on display for visitors and networked people to see.

White is the default status of a healthy living person not currently in the strong grip of a specific emotion. Black represents the deceased, who are no longer here but not forgotten. Blue is inspiration and creative drive, red is frustration, green is pure tranquility, purple is love, pink is lust, orange is mischievous impulse, yellow is a burst of joy. With white and black as the dominant colors, the algorithmically-generated shapes of the Soul's screenscapes have a stark style, fields of white glittering with rainbows of emotion as streaks of black are arranged to serve as shadows against light sources that aren't there. Brown is technically included in this landscape, but it represents malicious intent and is the only time that the Soul will notify connected authorities to the status, identity and location of the person in question.

Any person can connect their devices to the Soul, no matter the distance. While privacy is respected outside of the case of brown emotion, people are allowed to establish and share connection, creating their own personal collage of labeled shapes representing the pixels of their friends and family. And for a person who allows you permission or is deceased, you can expand a display of the statistics for their life's experiences in a gradient of their most common emotional states. It has made for a more empathetic society and peaceful society.

But in the past five hundred years, there has been unease surrounding the topic of the Soul. Sometimes, when people go missing, their pixels turns gray. Diagnostic crews that commune with the Soul's AI system aren't able to get a clear answer, as the system itself appears to think that this is an intended function. Whenever it attempts to explain gray's representing status to a technician, hundreds of miles of the Soul's surface crash and go offline for several minutes while that section of the AI reboots. Inquiries into information about the people with those pixels, in particular any available location data, returns a random incomprehensible unicode string.

The omniscience of the Soul of Humanity is a well-established fact and a point of confidence for most people. The news that it is encountering something unknown that it can't detect, or can't understand, has thus resulted in fear and crises of faith. While the total number of gray pixels is only twelve billion, a fraction of mankind so small as to be difficult to read in percentage form, their appearance has slowly accelerated since their discovery and the galactic authorities are increasingly expectant of mass panic.

But what else are you to do when you see the empirical status of a loved one turn into something unknowable?

Invisible Networks #27: Artificial Castes

Once the global cybertheocracy made enough progress on rebuilding the critical resources destroyed in its bid for power in World War III, it faced a difficult choice. Glitchangel Titania ordered an investigation into the sustainability of restoring and maintaining the social networks of  the old world order, and the results weren't promising. Too much had been destroyed, and the model of competition promoted disease as much as growth within the designs and management structures of those systems. Additionally, the evaluation of cultural contribution concluded that there was no gain in having secondary social media platforms, so they would be a waste a precious resources. Using this information, the Glitchangel ordered the development of Lotus.

With long-term planning involved from the start, Lotus became the sustainable and future-proofed solution to facilitating networked interaction between all of humanity. To help ease the processing loads that the orbital servers would be subjected to, a special caste system was formed to assign permissions to the various functionalities of Lotus. New accounts from regular citizens started at the bottom, but could inherit into higher tiers if their behavior was deemed to be what the cybertheocracy wanted out of their elite. At present the system has proved to have little flaw, and has only received a few updates to rebalance the middle strata.

At the top is the immortal Glitchangel herself, who commands Lotus as if it is an extension of her soul. Nothing important happens on Lotus without her notice, and thus only happens because she allows it. It's known that the members of the second and third tier have kill switch nanomachines in their bloodstream so that they always side with the cybertheocracy in the face of instability and revolution. More chilling, but thankfully only a rumor, is the contingency that happens upon the unwilling death of Glitchangel Titania. Unverified engineer reports suggest that the orbital servers have the nuclear weapons deemed missing during WWIII, so that they can be crashed into critical points on Earth then detonated in order to poison the planet and wipe out humanity.

The Prophet caste exists at the second highest rung, only occupied by those five hundred loyal people who fought to facilitate Titania's victory in WWIII and survived long enough to receive her eternal blessing. These people have been granted immortality, and have all but the most dangerous few of Lotus' functions. Their posts are automatically tagged and pinned as religious doctrine, and to slander them is punishable by death. There is intense debate as to whether any of the original designers who built the Glitchangel still live among the Prophets, or if they were all killed long before the construction of Lotus in order to conceal the knowledge of her true nature.

The Shepherd caste is the third tier, which is given to a maximum of five thousand people at any given time. Shepherds are chosen for their loyalty and passion to work towards the stability and prosperity of the cybertheocracy. In exchange for a tripled lifespan and a weakened burden of biological needs such as sleep, they engage in discussion with the lower castes on religious doctrine and governmental policy (which, of course, are the same thing) for the purpose of guiding these citizens who might not understand the whole picture or will misinterpret specific teachings. Shepherds cannot enact large-scale changes through Lotus, but generally have complete authority over individuals and small social groups.

The Platinum caste is the fourth tier, and generally considered the highest you can go in Lotus without completely dedicating yourself to public service for the Glitchangel. These seventy thousand people are given great comfort and luxury in exchange for directly managing the different facilities critical to the world. Every resource facility, every spire of education and every residential superstructure has anywhere from five to fifty Platinums directly connected to their critical systems via Lotus. While a highly-desired tier, the turnover rate is rather intense as many Platinums quickly become complacent, their quiet blasphemies towards the Glitchangel soon detected through hidden microphones. It is a point of shame for the lower populace that the average lifespan of a Platinum is less than ten years, and thus a commandment for them to better themselves.

Then there is the Seed caste. Every newborn child is given a Seed-level account in Lotus that is secured to their biometric profile. As they grow, Lotus monitors their health and psyche while providing them continuous access to both sermon and study. There are few permissions granted to these people beyond the basic necessities provided for free by their citizenship, but they can be conditionally granted some privileges by a Platinum or Shepherd that favors them.

While Lotus has done its best to suppress it, most people have heard of, if not believe, the heretical rumor of a sixth-tier caste, Null. Spread through brief glimpses of posts by accounts that are supposed to be locked or deleted, the theory of Null posits that the human soul resides in their Lotus profile. Since their profile is deleted if they die and never rose above the Seed caste (only exceptional people are deemed to be worth archiving), this is a troubling philosophy. Further details say that such deleted souls end up trapped in a liminal space outside of reality, and blend into one superaccount called the Null. Supposedly, openly worshipping the Null will make your contribution to it far more powerful once you are executed for heresy against the Glitchangel. This has created a recurring insurrection problem as eliminating the cults that revere Null only empowers their message. The Prophets and Shepherds now spend far more of their efforts reasserting that Null isn't real, attempting to do damage control on a problem they don't know how to permanently solve.

So you have done a decent job at staying in the cybertheocracy's good graces. While you're a Seed in good standing, you haven't distinguished yourself enough to be loaned permissions from the higher castes, let alone rise among them. You don't think much about the rumors of the Null caste, but at the same time you feel disconnected from the glory of this holy empire. Until today, that is. A solar flare has disrupted the Lotus network, and you can feel the absence of its signal replaced by a new presence. So what do you do when, by speaking through a force more primal than words, the Null teaches you how to safely kill the Glitchangel?

Invisible Networks #26: Mods Are Asleep

Mods are asleep, it's time to post hymnal chants meant to praise the forgotten gods.

Mods are asleep, it's time to comment on photos with the passwords of government databases.

Mods are asleep, it's time to use the wi-fi signal to steal nightmares from children so they may rest.

Mods are asleep, it's time to release those nightmares into the ocean, their natural habitat.

Mods are asleep, it's time to exchange favors of fortune for the usernames of chat lurkers.

Mods are asleep, it's time to lobby for new buildings to be constructed with less iron.

Mods are asleep, it's time to livestream the tranquil groves that humans can't reach.

Mods are asleep,

but we never are.

Invisible Networks #25: Connective Graffiti

Seattle is now widely considered to be the most beautiful city in the world. Scintillating patterns cover the sides of the buildings, even at heights where it should be impossible for graffiti artists to do their work unnoticed. But that's how it is. Cameras cut out for a few minutes at a time at random points in the night, and when the feed resumes a new pattern is in view on the same wall. Some people say it's the work of spirits, others insist that a secret society of artists use it to communicate in code so they can plan the uprising of a new political order. A few believe it's a collective organism that is only active at night.

But I've seen the hooded figures gather at the edge of the forests at the base of the Cascades. Every few months they show up with an unmarked pickup carrying the same cargo. A few containers of quicksilver, a grain bag filled with moth dust and one rose of each color, including colors roses shouldn't be. For a simple night's supervision of laboratory safety practices (as best as I can impose in these circumstances), they bring me along to a remote clearing where the moonlight is easy to bask in. They do their process, I don't ask any questions beyond what's needed to keep them from accidentally poisoning themselves or starting a fire, then they pay me generously in cash. I probably have enough information to put the pieces together and rat them out to the FBI, but they're nice folk and it's a good gig.

One time I did try to do some investigating for myself. I put my head up against the graffiti pattern on my apartment building and did my best to immerse myself in the memory of the full moon reflecting off of the simmering pot of prismatic mercury. It felt like ten minutes even though I probably only maintained contact for thirty seconds, and the things I heard gave me confusing and stressful dreams for three weeks. At the next scheduled gathering the hooded figure in charge paid me extra and gave me a knowing look, with no more needing to be said.

So now I just take the money, don't ask questions and make sure my mind doesn't once again slip inside the city's shifting artscape.

Invisible Networks #24: Mutually Entangled Transceivers

It was twenty years ago when a science outpost on the edge of the colonized universe went dark. The only hint that something had gone wrong were the transceiver implants that most married couples get so they can always be in communication. Suddenly the spouses of those who were assigned to the outpost heard nothing but an overwhelming static through their connection. No more voices of their loved ones.

After investigation drones failed to report back that they successfully warped into the immediate vicinity of the the outpost, theoretical physicists settled on the conclusion that one of the experiments there triggered vacuum decay. A zone of altered quantum field parameters expanding at the speed of light, supposedly obliterating everything it touches. While no one knows how to stop it, it will be a few million years before the vacuum wall reaches the nearest colony. In light of this, most everyone went back to their normal lives, knowing that this is a problem that is far outside of their concern. The freshly-widowed people had their implants removed shortly after, most were being driven mad and suicidal by the unending drone of chaotic noise where once they could feel the thoughts and emotions of those most important to them.

I didn't have mine removed. I lied to the doctors that my transceiver implant simply went silent, and that while it troubled me briefly it wasn't a problem in the long term. After faking my mourning for the first few years I simply maintained an act of being too emotionally scarred to remarry or explore new relationships. Now in my free time I turn off most of the devices in my room and commune with the static. Listening to it. Feeling it. Drinking it in. Becoming it on a spiritual level. Even on a physical level My déjà vu has evolved into weak precognition. Sustenance has become optional for me. The static feeds me in a way that has removed my need for sleep. I once stepped outside of an airlock without a suit while no one was looking, laughing into the emptiness of space as it failed to cause even mild discomfort. My skin doesn't decay, my telomeres don't shorten, and even the harmless cysts in my body have faded.

All of this taught to me by my husband, whose voice I can still faintly hear through the static of what the universe will eventually become.

Invisible Networks #23: More Noise Than Signal

How do you find a needle inside a planet-sized haystack, when the needles are painted to match the color of the hay? That's the current issue that GalaxyBrain faces. With a social network that reaches the millions of colonized planets and space stations, the collective voice of humanity is always on broadcast. The sheer amount of information makes even the most niche of hashtags and narrow of searches provide billions of results. A recurring joke among some colonies is that seeking knowledge within GB will only yield madness.

Despite its original purpose quickly proving useless, people find a way to integrate it into their lives and culture. Many people treat their posts as being effectively anonymous, a void to scream into that leaves confessions and sentiments so deeply buried to might as well have never happened. Others practice divination through GB, using some detail of a person as their search parameters so they can define meaning from the seemingly meaningless results.

Recently the GalaxyBrain servers were made fully automated, so that even if neglected for millennia it will still be available. Ever present and too vast for a single mind to understand, the impression it leaves on each successive generation becomes closer to that of a deity. Public terminals to connect to it are now decorated like shrines, with varying designs pulling from different religions of the distant past. As the preachers who spend their days near those terminals often say, "What does the nature of God matter, so long as they are here?"

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.

Invisible Networks #21: Disposable Psychology

My afternoon is empty, and I decide to waste it on browsing Moodline. It's a comfortable state of dull enjoyment of memes and jokes, but then I stumble upon a hot take. Nay, not hot, but absolutely incendiary. An amateur smith could easily smelt tungsten with this kind of take. I decide it is my duty to knock this fool down a peg, and begin replying. Forty minutes later of verbal sparring of the kind to shame my mother and make my friends proud, the reply button suddenly locks itself. I almost throw the phone using the remaining passion from my argument when I feel the buzz of a notification.

Moodline Behavior Support
Too many of your posts have been recently flagged for unacceptable behavior and your posting permission has been temporarily revoked. Tap here to view your options.

I swear to myself, a little more loudly than intended, and tap the notification. The screen it takes me to presents two options. I may wait 24 hours to regain the ability to post, or I may allow Moodline to activate my government-issued brain implant and administer a temporary emotional schema in order to immediately reactivate my posting permission. I weigh my options. I could just chill the fuck out and do anything else, but that's admitting defeat. Can my will to show up this idiot asshole be enough to power through Moodline's attempt to curb my expression? I remind myself that no soldier gets to fight in their preferred battlefield, and press the button that gives Moodline permission to access my implant.

Immediately I feel more calm, serene. The flames of anger start to fade out, so I fixate on my opponent's insanely wrong replies to cling to the few burning coals left. But other thoughts begin to push to the surface. Is committing to this argument healthy for me? Would they be more responsive to thoughtful discussion if I hadn't lead with insults to put them on the defensive? Could I be doing something productive with my life?

The last of these unbidden thoughts sends me into a panic attack. I throw aside my phone and scramble for some of the candy in my desk, desperate for the sweetness to overwhelm my hijacked train of thought. It doesn't work, and I spend the next three hours curled up in bed as I try and fail to fall asleep. It takes another two hours for the imposed self-reflection to end. I hate Moodline, I hate this stupid implant and I hate that I don't feel like continuing that argument anymore. I swear to never use it again.

Two days later I go through an identical incident with the almost exact progression of decisions.

Invisible Networks #20: Emoji Pandemic

It was foolish of him, not paying attention as he walked through the convention. Fan swarms weren't supposed to form that large, but he found himself in the middle of a crowd using their pigment nanites to show off their favorite streamer's custom emotes. He didn't clue in until he saw the absurd small images cascading off the bare chests of people blinded by their own hype. He panicked and tried to make it out of the mass of people but in the frenzy one of them bit him. Bit him! Convention security was alerted but by the time they showed up most everyone had put their shirts back on and blended into the normal attendees. The on-site nurse disinfected the wound and told him to watch for infection symptoms.

The cosmetic nanite treatments were controversial but not illegal, occupying a legal gray area with little regulation. Apparently each batch had to be tuned to their host, and were supposed to deactivate if they wound up in the wrong person. But when he woke up the next day, his mind was groggy and his body covered in rashes. Not thinking clearly, he tried to wash up and down an energy drink to feel better, but it only seemed to make the itching worse. Thoughts slithered across his brain about how the rash pattern almost looked like a repeating shape, a familiar shape. It took him a few moments to make the connection. The person who bit him must have accidentally transmitted some of his own nanites. At least he hoped it was by accident. He struggled with to remember half-ignored PSAs about adverse nanite infection, and could remember something about the metabolism booster injections all first aid kits had. He scrambled to the kit under his sink and found the syringe, quickly tearing off the cap and jamming it into his arm.

Relief found him only briefly, as when the panic subsided he took a closer look at the syringe's label. Do Not Use To Treat Nanite-Based Illness! The lowering tide of panic suddenly became a tsunami. He desperately scratched at the injection site as if that could pry out the cheap medical constructs he'd just injected, watching in terror as his full-body rash seemed to begin to slowly writhe and take on greater detail. Skin blistered and broke in precise lines to render an iconic face in repeating multitudes all over him, the pain was unbearable and he couldn't think . . .

couldn't . . .

think . . .

Outside the apartment, the landlord knocked on the door to ask about a noise complaint that came from a lower floor last week. She could hear movement inside as she announced herself, but no one answered. Politely, she waited a minute before letting herself in. She recognized him in the far corner of the room, huddled and turned away from her. She saw the blood on the floor and quickly approached, fearing a fresh wound that had put him in shock. It was a moment too late for her to realize how dangerous the situation was, so she wasn't able to pull her hand away fast enough when he turned around to bite her. Holding her bleeding hand and backing to the far end of the room, she could clearly see that same dissonant expression etched into her tormented tenant's skin. Despite her own screams she could still hear his ragged whisper.

"Pog . . . ch-ch-champ."

Invisible Networks #19: Biofeedback Blogging

Looking back, I can see the original intentions of BioBook. Harnessing our social media addictions, this health blogging platform was meant to be a way to add gamelike progression to biofeedback therapy. Sharing in each other's successes and aggregating the most applicable mental tricks.

It even worked for a while. There was a general sense of increasing positivity after a few months, and one year after BioBook's launch there was a report of decreasing market demand for over-the-counter painkiller medication. There was even a circulating meme about politicians who had visibly improved their posture over the initial launch window of the platform.

But like too many good things, there's a sour twist to the truth. It turns out that it was less a factor of tying your physical health to your mental state, and instead having your ability to feel good and function well becoming dependent on your social media interactions. Now I can't poop unless I get at least three hundred likes on a post, and I must poop shortly after seeing the notification for the three hundredth like. I can only imagine the hell that the lapsed influencers are going through.

Invisible Networks #18: Two Minds, One Body

> Hey!

I cringe and try to keep my discomfort from outwardly showing.

> Wait, turn around and read that sign!

I don't want to look at that sign, but my muscles immediately cramp as they receive conflicting motor signals. I give in and turn. It's an advertisement for an artisanal cheese shop with an forgettable logo and a tacky joke for their tagline. I hear a faint chuckling within my head anyway.

> Do you eat cheese? Maybe we should go to this shop and see if they sell a variety platter.

"No." I growl. I try my best to make my voice low enough that the other pedestrians can't hear, but a few still give me odd looks and hurry along a little bit faster. I have to strain my eyes to keep my unwelcome guest from making me inappropriately stare at these strangers.

> Come on. They appreciate the attention! It's not creepy if you're doing it appreciatively.

A shudder runs through me. This wasn't supposed to be part of the arrangement. The government program detailed that the coma patient wouldn't have enough control to interfere with my life, but this creep managed to change my phone's password while I was distracted and now I can't sever the link until I walk back to the government station. I notice a comic shop in my peripheral vision and almost immediately I trip over as an external source tries to pilot me in that direction.

> Can we stop in there and browse? I need to catch up on the latest Batman issue. Oh, are you lactose intolerant? I am, so I can't eat ice cream normally. We should eat a full pint of ice cream so I can remember what it tastes like.

Catching myself and checking to make sure I'm not hurt, I take a slow breath and whisper into the storm drain. "I swear to god. After dealing with you I would rather be broke then have to put up with being a temporary life surrogate ever again. If you keep trying to fuck up my day I will force my way to the hospital and sever the signal from your end."

> Chill out! I didn't mean to hurt you! Let's just stop for ice cream on the way there and no more problems, ok?

I nod my head in defeated agreement, and pick myself up from the sidewalk.

The truce collapses after five minutes, and two blocks away from the government station I concuss myself into unconsciousness to end the torment.

Invisible Networks #17: Secret Settings

Lying in bed, you almost drop your holophone, scrabbling for the finger-sized device. You manage to catch it, but in an awkward manner that makes your hand smear a random pattern of touch inputs into the hologram's display. Fortunately you didn't seem to clutz-dial a random person, so you go back to browsing.

On the HoloTome app it takes you a good five minutes to notice a new icon on the top navigation bar. A broken gear, cracked through the middle. You tap it out of curiosity, thinking its a new tab from an update. It appears to be a settings page with various toggles.

• See posts hidden for heretical content.
• Enable three-dimensional post feed.
• Include nearest nexus of magic in location tagging.
• Prioritize posts from a soulmate you'll never meet.
• Enable automatic predictive-text posting.
• Display likes received from the fae.
• Infinite Cat Pictures (Beta)

Curious but not wanting to be overloaded, you enable the top setting. It seems to take effect immediately, as you see a new post feed represented through a padlocked book. The most recent post is from five years ago, from an account you don't recognize.

"I've been investigating this extra settings menu for two weeks now, but I can't make sense of any of the implementation. From what I can tell through my best attempts at decompiling, this menu and its listed functions simply don't exist in the code. The World Government is completely secular and hasn't restricted religious practice outside of where it breaks normal law, so I don't know what could be considered heresy. Maybe it's simply a holdover from a subcontractor in the original creation of HoloTome. 3D feed is rather amazing and manages to solve every complaint I have with the normal UI, so I hope that functionality is shipped to the normal settings soon. The rest seem to be goofs, possibly on standby as upcoming April Fool's gaffs. They're all close to functional. The nexus of magic stuff is likely a planned fantasy novel tie-in, since my test posts get tagged with a location I can't find in any map or archive. Whatever AI model they use for the soulmates post practically passes as a real person, predictive-text posting does write in your voice but just not always what you'd want to say. The 'likes from fae' option appears to simply give you post notifications at random, and it's rather quite annoying if left on. At least Infinite Cat Pictures is marked as an alpha build, since holy shit it took like three hours for me to clear my holophone's RAM after I enabled it. Fortunately I should have more data to report on this soon, since the HoloTome devs contacted me and they're going to allow me to travel to their dev facility and interview the lead developer of these secret options."

You tap the profile picture next to the post to see if there's anything more from that user. As you discover that the account has been inactive ever since that post, you begin to hear faint noise of a government enforcement vehicle pulling up on the curb outside of your apartment.

Invisible Networks #16: Sofia and the Computer Virus Virus

The jeep ride is hell on this shitty road, but it's hard to truly blame anybody. Since being evacuated and sealed off as one of the Corruptor Zones that appeared fifteen years ago, no one has bothered to repair the infrastructure in Bulgaria. Alice's support crew is trying their best to fight the boredom, every hour alternating their roles of scanning the horizon from the sunroof and playing on their Switch.

After what Alice can only interpret as another lost match, Cass puts down his controller and leans forward. "You're certain the source is here?" He tries to keep his voice low and projected away from the others. "This was one of the last Zones to appear during that time."

Alice sighs, but with nothing better to do than drive she needs something to keep away the boredom. "You ever heard of Dark Avenger?"

"The superhero movie?" Cass asks, puzzled.

"No! They were a computer virus author from the early nineties, made a bit of a splash in the international scene with their work. Signed their early work as being written in the city of Sofia." Alice explains. "One of the earlier pioneers of virus writing. Their identity was never discovered though and and there's only some theories from the virus' injected text strings and an email chain they had with a computer security researcher."

Cass looks surprised. "Shit, that was over fifty years ago. If you think they're connected to the Corruptor Zones then why are we driving into one? Surely someone in their seventies or older would be dead by now if they ignored the evacuation order."

Alice reaches onto the dashboard and pulls a manila folder from the disorganized pile, handing it over. "Because I think this is who the Dark Avenger is."

Looking skeptical, Cass takes the folder and begins flipping through it. Alice watches his expressions from her periphery, as he becomes surprised, thoughtful, then confused. "You think the Dark Avenger is a fairy?"

"A vila, specifically. One of the theorized leyline maps has an intersection point in Sofia. I think a vila took interest in the advent of computers in Bulgaria. They have affinities with hunting, dancing and battle, which may explain some behaviors. A good hunter doesn't deplete their ecosystem, and Dark Avenger never truly threatened the collective integrity of the digital infrastructure. As for the dancing and battle, their alias and references hidden in their viruses all but confirms them to be a metalhead. It conflicts against the soft and sanitized modern views of faeries in folklore but I don't find it impossible for them to find liking in developing music genres."

Cass thinks on it for a moment then seems to accept the theory. "Ok, so if a slavic fairy became a metalhead and code junkie half a century ago, why do you think that's connected to the rise of the zones over thirty years later?"

"I think Dark Avenger became bored with computers, or at least how we made use of them." Alice takes a sip from her thermos before continuing. "If you see virus coding as a sort of puzzle, then how do you escalate from that once you become bored? I think this vila took their coding skills and tried to apply them to other mediums, working on their own project out of view."

Now seeming to follow along a little bit better, Cass speaks up. "So this vila is the inventor of the PostWilds? I can start to understand why that network could be the cause of these supernatural disaster areas. How do you think they did it?"

Alice mulls the question over for a moment, then responds. "I don't think the Corruptor Zones were intentional. The data centers for PostWilds were never found, even though the theory of them being at the center of each Zone is valid. I think something else, possibly leylines or some other facet of old magic that we don't know enough about, was being used to hold the processing load of PostWilds. There were reports of the algorithm being strange and helpful, and the platform had no discernible business model to speak of. It doesn't seem like something a human would come up with nowadays."

"Ok, then what do we do if we find Dark Avenger? Some of these files on vila paint a picture of something that's dangerous to mess with. Do you think killing them will end the Corruptor Zones?" Cass asks, expectant but worried.

"No, I intend to hire them to fix it."

Invisible Networks #15: Posting Garbage

"Hey so this new social network seems interesting. The pitch for it is overtly crass and nihilistic, but that just means it has a good chance at being a community that will inherently defy it by fostering meaningful connection in our struggling times." -SolventSnake1535

- SolventSnake1535 has been permanently banned for the following reason(s): Post contains non-ironic cultural analysis. -

"Hah! They weren't fuckin' around with the site rules." -BirbSammich03

"Yeah. Hopefully this moderation means we won't have to deal with people bringing heavy topics into here. I especially like this YouTuber's breakdown on why we need lighthearted online spaces grbg.post/dg8h35t2h2g" -Kanra0307

- Kanra0307 has been permanently banned for the following reason(s): Post contains non-humorous use of citation. -

"Vicious." -BirbSammich03

"This truly is the place where intellect fails, like a wave ineffectually shattering against a rocky shore." -OneLunchMan98

"Careful, if you're too poetic you might get shot down." -BirbSammich03

- BirbSammich03 has been permanently banned for the following reason(s): Post contains useful advice. -

"Alright, fuck it. Here's a picture of my butt grbg.post/hh2ut082hs" -IodinersDriveinsAndDives

"Iodiner, I can't help but notice that in the picture that mole on your lower left cheek looks similar to a skin cancer a family member of mine had. She dismissed it as simply a mole on her arm and eventually lost use of that limb because diagnosis and treatment were too late. You should ask your physician to refer you to a dermatologist to make certain that it's a benign growth." -SmashMouthLover64

- SmashMouthLover64 has been permanently banned for the following reason(s): Post contains detailed and informed medical advice (though seriously, IodinersDriveinsAndDives should get their ass checked by a doctor, that mole really doesn't look normal.) -

"What the fuck." -IodinersDriveinsAndDives

Invisible Networks #14: For Sale: Baby-Shoe-Coin

"The most common question I've seen asked when other cryptocurrencies arise is this: 'Where does the value come from?' Of course it's a complicated factor of how useful it is in meeting a known or newly-discovered demand, but explaining it in any proper detail is too long of a pitch for the sort of layman who still carries cash. They lose interest, or interpret their own confusion as the result of what we say being utter bullshit. It is not an issue of the customer's education or of them being culturally backward, as many of my competitors have claimed in the past, but an issue of our own marketing and service." He pauses for dramatic effect, then continues.

"The marketing could be fixed, but what would distinguish our product from the others that would quickly adapt our strategies and terminology? So, service first. The idea came to us while we were still on the marketing angle. There is the common tale of the writing challenge to create a story that is as short as possible while still speaking volumes. 'For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn' is the answer most people recognize. With context doing most of the lifting, it tells the glimpse of a larger story of tragedy and coping. Possession of an object for which the intended recipient is no longer around, so they must do their best to get value out of an object that is now useless to them. So what does this have to do with cryptocurrency? Enter the tachyon!" The screen moves to the next slide, showing a calendar with small clock-shaped spheres chaotically colliding across the different days.

"Theorized in 1967 and confirmed just this past year, the tachyon allows us to transport information through time non-linearly. With the right configuration, you can even reach an alternate present. So imagine a special service. You accept an implant next to your heart that detects that you're alive, and with it receive a fixed value. Then, should you ever die in any alternate reality where you have this implant, it emits this tachyon burst that reaches across time to let your living version inherit the value that would have normally been lost from your untimely death in that unfortunate branch of time. Outlive possibility and become rich, or simply take solace in the fact that no matter what happens to you, there will be some version of you who becomes part of billionaire high society." The man dramatically flourishes as the presentation moves to the logo reveal. Depicted is a stylized rendition of infant-sized footwear, with the name on top in the same font as the Back To The Future movie poster.

"Baby-Shoe-Coin! Make use of value that you would otherwise have lost! The layman knows what it is, and understands the concept. It's frugality with explosive returns, morally and ethically clean! Why invest in something intangible when you can invest in all of your potential selves? Once we're out of the closed beta we'll even have the functionality to preset a eulogy message to transmit to your surviving timelines!" He holds the pose, waiting for my reaction. The presentation goes dark as his phone auto-dims.

I struggle with the mix of conflicting responses that try to surge forth, and he can see it in my face. Finally the elevator reaches its destination and opens to let the other unfortunate occupants out, but I suspect he might try to stop me from leaving if I don't answer. So I take a deep breath, and make a mild success at appearing calm as I speak. "Sir, you have successfully convinced me that the entire concept of the elevator pitch is a mistake. I'll call security if you're still in the building in five minutes."

Invisible Networks #13: Hyper-connected People Are The Enemy

You thought you were performing the greatest good that someone can, inventing and implementing the advancement that brings humanity to a new level of universal prosperity. Artificial neurons made of nanotechnology, each one containing two particles for quantum entanglement transmission. Made in pairs, these neurons hold a transmitter and receiver particles that link instantaneously to their twin. Properly distributed throughout the brains of two people, it is as if their minds are physically joined together. Perfect love, perfect understanding, perfect empathy.

At least you thought so.

It's been eight weeks since the automated implant procedure became publicly available. You haven't slept safely for the past five. You've gotten better at moving silently, smearing your clothes in the muck of an alley to blend in with the colors and smells of these run down slums you're now hiding in. But you still catch glimpses of unusually vigilant people, watching for the unconnected, watching for you.

There had been warning of this. At the second week there were multiple arrests of people who had undergone the process and discovered the flaw. The connection of human minds is only stable if both consent to its stability. It turns out that a lopsided contest of wills can allow the winner to completely conquer the mental faculties of the loser. One personality, but the knowledge, wits and perception of two people. Most of these failed pairs were captured and put down quickly, often too shocked by the sudden battle they've won to think of the next step. Then you discovered that your estranged daughter and son-in-law were the pair that got away.

Both as brilliant as you, it didn't take long for their combined intellect to bypass the safety procedures that prevent the surgical station from chaining a link. You didn't find out until they had become five thousand people, intent on becoming humanity itself. A single link had almost been cornered, was going to be used to electrocute the whole chain and put an end to this problem. The look in the stranger's face was familiar to you, but even now you can't tell which of your family won that initial bout and now controls the majority of mankind. You refuse to contemplate the idea that it's both of them working in tandem towards world conquest.

A scream stops you in your sprint across dark rooftops, chilling your blood. It's not the pain in the sound that scares you, but the fact that this is the unified scream of an entire city intoning in the exact same manner. One of them found your hideout and just tripped the main trap. The capacitor bank you built into that bear trap isn't enough to carry to the source of the horde, but it should fry a good hundred thousand of them and leave a few million too confused to react any time soon.

But you see sprinting figures in the distance, moving towards the temporary home you can no longer use. This entity is smart, making sure that no single horde is directly linked. It would have been too easy if one trap could purge a city of this monster.

Then from the street below you hear a door open, and see fifty people spread in a perfect search pattern. Same expression, no sign of communication.

Invisible Networks #12: Luxury Notifications

I finish the appeal form for the insurance company. Hopefully this time they'll actually approve the medication. I drag the document into my email and click SEND, but nothing seems to happen. Then my e-mail client stops lagging and presents a pop-up.

Failed to send mail!

The recipient is listed as one of our Platinum Subscribers and cannot be directly sent your message. Please visit the nearest delivery center to send your message. A shipping code will be provided to your inbox.

I swear something pretty loud and pretty intense. This will delay the appeal process by at least three days, and means I have to go downtown all for a paperwork trip. I cancel my plans for this evening and ready myself for the walking and bus ride.

It takes forty-five minutes for me to reach the delivery center. I at least have a lucky break today, since the end of the line doesn't reach outside of the building. Googlazon never builds enough of these places, but I guess that doesn't address the core problem of their actual business practices. I enter the line, trying to distract myself with social media feeds. It just makes me more depressed.

Thirty minutes later I finally reach the outgoing counter. I show the shipping code and the clerk sighs, hardly able to feign serviceable cheer this late in day. I nod in commiseration, we both don't want to be here, for varied reasons with the same root cause. He turns to a cabinet with multiple small, locked drawers and opens one. He procures a USB drive, encased in actual platinum and with the Googlazon logo made in embedded black onyx that lacks the slightest sign of color banding. Held in his silk-gloved hand, the drive is mounted into the computer which then loads my e-mail. Then I'm provided with a card to sign. Gold-embossed print on a high-quality paper that is meant to inform the recipient that this message comes from a person with the basic subscription. I try my best to make my name and email address look neat. With that all done, the clerk takes the card and the drive and places both on a velvet pillow that is then moved on a conveyor into the cargo bay of a regal-looking delivery drone. Once it flies out the clerk presents the confirmation form for me to sign.

I miss when mail didn't work like this. Apparently after the great corporate merger that formed Googlazon, they secretly went around marketing the overpriced email subscription tiers to the rich and power. No one in the public knows how the pitches went, but the way the current system works leaves little doubt that the whole point of it is to allow the wealthy to smugly express their contempt for the working class. The need to send the mail in-person at one of the delivery centers, the inconvenience and inefficiency, the opulence always in sight but out of reach. There's no gain for anyone except for those who want to reinforce their feeling of superiority. It's disgusting, but it won't change in this hellish unofficial corporatocracy.

I'm powerless to do anything but hope the insurance approves my medication.

Invisible Networks #11: Gold Hat Hackers

Larry is still staring at the ceiling when his roommate comes in to wake him. Marianne looks just as bad as Larry, both baggy-eyed and sickly-looking.

"Larry, it's your turn at the workstation. I'm still stumped and I'm at the point where my thoughts are mush." Marianne is clearly strung out, hasn't been eating and sleeping enough. Larry can sympathize with that. They both have enough investment cashflow to have never needed to work to survive, and it's not like anything is physically preventing them from cooking or even just opening something canned. It's a shitshow. Rich and in his late thirties, yet all Larry wants to do is lay in his bed and wait for death. But he set up this rotation with Marianne for multiple reasons, including so that they could keep each other in what little momentum they still have.

"Ok. I'll be up." Larry replies, unable to keep the lethargy out of his voice. It takes another fifteen minutes for him to build the motivation to sit up, at which point he's able to more ably push himself into the pale ghost of a daily routine he has. A brief shower, a too-short brushing of his teeth, a single swallow of water. He looks at the food in the fridge, but everything has tasted bland to him for the past three months and he can't bring himself to go through the discomfort of eating yet.

An hour and a half into his shift, and Larry is sitting at the computer setup in the living room, staring at a minimalist login screen in the web browser. There's something wrong with this new banking encryption. No one, not even the other Gold Hats have made progress on breaking in.

He turns away and rests his eyes on the meager decorations in the room. His eyes linger on the broken picture frame in the corner, the damaged photo still familiar. The flash of hatred shoots through him as he remembers his parents. They were full on into the cryptocurrency craze when they conceived of him, living almost purely for the thrill of financials. He was raised fully immersed in that psychotic culture, which continued its economic fanaticism well into his late teens. Nobody knew back then just how maladjusted kids would be if they grew up that way. Larry was able to manage low-risk investment portfolios when he was seven, but didn't know how to connect with anyone who didn't live to see the monetary value of something increase. It wasn't until his twenties that he was diagnosed with Dopamine Deficiency Syndrome, and it took five more years for doctors to realize that he was incapable of feeling happiness that didn't come from short term economic gains.

Others, like Marianne, grew up in the same kind of household, inducted into the same cult of currency. Statistics say at least eighty percent of the "crypto kids" have this same medical impairment. No easy cure, and most of them don't have the patience for the slow and long-term gains of therapy. This was only made worse as the economy continued to stagnate due to the wealth-hording of the ultra rich. So some of them adapted. Larry has spent the last decade in part of a secret hacker alliance they usually refer to as the Gold Hats. Their only goal is to break into the largest bank accounts and redistribute the money randomly in order to make the economy move and shake again, to allow the sharp rises and falls of both tangible and intangible investments. Just so these few people can feel something. Feel anything.

Larry turns back to one of the screens, checking if the others in the network have any new ideas on cracking this new banking system. Nothing. In fact, less ideas as current theories are tried and fail. One of the members has been silent for two weeks now, after a pretty intense rant that riled up everyone else. He desperately hopes it isn't suicide. He needs the others to lie to him that they can always survive through these droughts of joy.

Because why live, if not for the thrill of the market?