Perhaps this meant Zai's travels would go smoother from here on out. The last 24 hours were an exhausting mess. Getting from point A, her home in Toronto, to point B, Devin in Norfolk, was not a simple and direct process. First she had to get from point A to point C, Union Station, with a cabby who did not speak English or French and had no idea how to get to the train station without computer directions. The computer governing the cab's emissions and fuel consumption were also batty, causing the vehicle to lurch and stall like a rebellious horse. The train station presented another series of challenges without computers to maintain schedules, time arrivals and departures, and coordinate with other stations.
Then there was the problem of money, which was tracked electronically. Who owned what portion of the quintillions of dollars, euros, francs, yen, rupees, pounds, krones, marks, yuan, etc in the world's bank accounts were completely unknown, except in the memories of those who owned them. Luckily, the world was not going to stop working simply because the established currency system was inoperable.
Between Toronto and Philadelphia Zai had scribbled out nearly a dozen promissory notes. "IOUs" the cabby had called them. The train conductor referred to them as makeshift "Personal Checks." Apparently, a mere fifty-years ago almost all financial transactions were conducted with these tiny contractual agreements. Zai marveled at an economy constructed on written promises.
Zai smiled to herself at the irony of comparing this to the present system: an economy supported entirely with imaginary monies.
Pulling out her palm computer, she connected her headset to the hand-held device and tapped the "On" button. After a few moments, the digital connection to the satellite feed established and she was greeted with a welcome message as her avatar logged onto the Web. She waited, making sure the juvenile hacker wasn't lying in wait.
"Connect to Outlaw News," she spoke to the microphone after a moment.
A string of beeps and chirps came through her headphones by way of reply.
They stopped and Zai said, "Hello?"
More beeps and chirps, then silence.
"Dammit," Zai pulled off the headset, bundled it all up with her palm computer, and dumped them in her bag. She could hear it still beeping and chirping from under her seat.
"It is frustrating, isn't it?" came a sympathetic voice to Zai's left. It was the elderly woman who took the seat in Boston. At least she smelled old, which Zai did not find unpleasant, but could do without the residual salami sandwich odor from the woman's lunch. "We've become so accustomed to being inundated with media, that when it's gone, the silence drives us mad."
"Tell me about it," Zai huffed, and then turned to the woman. "You can't get online either?"
"Oh I can get online," the woman assured, "but there's nothing to see in cyberspace. Didn't you hear? The anti-virus destroyed the Internet."
"I can't get online at all," Zai said.
"I'm Jodie," the woman said.
Zai extended her hand, just in case. Jodie took it and Zai judged the texture of oxidation in the woman's skin to place her about age 60. "Zai," she replied. "Do you think we could try accessing some sites on your computer?"
"It's something to do," the Jodie's voice sounded like a shrug. "Where would you like to go?"
"Try Outlaw News," Zai suggested.
"Okay," Jodie's tone was hesitant, "but those independent medias are always so slow to download, if they even come up at-oh!"
"Welcome to Outlaw News," the grungy male voice of Samuel Jenkins, newscaster, announced, "You're only source for corporate-free current events analysis. We dig a little deeper for your peace of mind."
Zai smiled at Jodie's surprise, "I bet Earthtainment Online is your service provider."
"How did you know?" Jodie was even more surprised.
"They filter out competing news sources so you have to go to one of their vendors," Zai explained.
Jodie was skeptical, "But I was getting Faux's newsfeeds before the Internet went down."
"They're owned by Earthtainment too. That company owns about six newsfeeds to create the illusion of a free market," Zai continued. "With the Quality of Service architecture removed, that leaves only the anything-goes anarchy of the World Wide Web. We can tune into any newsfeed we want, corporate-approved or not." Cripes, Zai thought, I sound like Devin.
Zai could almost hear the paradigms crashing down inside Jodie's head, "I see."
"Would you mind turning it up?" Zai prompted politely.
"You don't want to read the-" Jodie dropped silent for a moment, registering Zai's eyes for the first time. "I'm sorry, of course."
Samuel Jenkins voice came up, "Today's top story is the supposed defeat of the Flatline Virus. For almost 37 hours now the virus has shut down shopping malls, airports, and banks across the world costing trillions of dollars in damages and interrupted sales. Today the International Web Authority released a statement that the virus was eliminated from computer systems worldwide and that it was safe to go back on the Web," the venom in the man's voice foreshadowed his impending rant.
"Safe," he spoke the word and paused dramatically, "Since when do we need to be safe from the World Wide Web?"
Here it comes, Zai thought, amused.
"Have we become so reliant on computers doing the work for us that a department store has to shut down because their cashiers are incapable of basic arithmetic? Have we become so out of touch with physical reality that we can't turn our lights on and off, adjust our air conditioning, drive our cars without a computer to tell us it's all right to do so?" Samuel's pitch elevated as he became more emotional, "What next? Computer's to follow us around, wiping our butts and..."
"Well," Jodie said, "he's certainly obnoxious."
"Yeah," Zai grinned. "He's great. Let's check out the Global Village Voice. They're less opinionated and more news-oriented."
"I prefer my news to be objective," Jodie sighed.
"I think objectivity's the problem," Zai countered. "Objective means giving equal time to every idea, no matter how uninformed."
The GVV feed opened, "Welcome to the G-Double-V News, the independent voice for a rapidly changing world. Today's discussion is on the destruction of the World Wide Web. Is it all that bad? We have with us Dr. Larry Lessig, author of the book 'Today's Ideas,' and DataStreams Incorporated spokesperson Rover Carl. Dr. Lessig, let's begin with your somewhat controversial idea that the destruction of the World Wide Web is a good thing."
"Not the World Wide Web, but Quality of Service." Dr. Lessig corrected. His voice was crisp and articulate, like Devin's, Zai thought. She liked him immediately. "Remember, the World Wide Web was an architecture laid over the Internet, and QoS was an architecture laid over WWW. It gave corporations the power to manage bandwidth more efficiently, but also gave them the ability to descriminate against competitors-"
"That's nonsense," Rover Carl broke in. "Such descrimination is illegal. Clearly-"
"Without being able to look at the code," Lessig returned, "the law is unenforceable."
"That code is proprietary," Carl snapped, "which is why-"
"Exactly," Zai and Lessig said together.
"...which is why DataStreams intends to sue the IWA for this obvious breach of public trust," Carl continued. "Someone in that organization decompiled proprietary information and used it to destroy not only the company I represent, but every corporation on this planet. This class-action lawsuit's magnitute, every major corporation suing the world-wide governing body, has never been seen in history..."
Zai suddenly felt immensely burdened, "Would you mind flipping it to SSDD?"