The Spiraling Web

by Ryan Somma

  1.02

  Devin continued surfing the Web for several hours, browsing links in the form of caverns, roller coasters, riverboats, and whatever else the millions of Web Designers worldwide had constructed. It was late, but the residual energy his interactions with Flatline generated had left his mind too active for sleep. He clipped a few discussion forum threads flaming the hacker who’d crashed Clan War Machine’s Gaming Network tonight--although Flatline never acknowledged his own press.

  Devin hit the ideonexus portal, always bustling with activity. Every crazy possible avatar wandered through the vast space station, flashing out of existence as they reached the airlocks, which were links to various subjects. A panda bear wearing a purple tutu and carrying a matching umbrella plodded through the crowd. A bare-chested barbarian browsed the fantasy fiction links, an enormous broad sword resting casually on one shoulder. A multi-colored furry thing bounced a few feet away, its big floppy ears flapping and crossed eyes jingling. Devin thought it looked appropriate for the “Space Station” skin he applied to the portal, more so that the “Ancient Rome” or “Library” skins he’d tried before.

  It was a high volume of traffic for this time, especially for his favorites, which consisted of obscure philosophy, science, and technology news. California had passed out of prime time several hours ago, and soon, across the Pacific, Japan would wake up and fill the portal with kitschy cartoon animals. Devin preferred the Chinese web-surfers who would then follow and their preference for martial arts avatars.

  He opened a window to his music library, itching to hear the Beatles studio recording of “Hey Jude” he’d recently discovered, but dismayed to find he couldn’t afford to play it. It was two days until his next allowance, an eternity without music or movies. Devin toyed with the idea of getting a pirated version through Flatline, but he would need to go offline to enjoy it. While online, a copyright-enforcement bot might catch him.

  Devin opened a navigation window in the air before him and checked the science websites for updates. The space station disappeared and he stood outside the pristine, white building representing the Data Sanctuary for the Natural Sciences. Scrawled across the building’s face in giant red letters, graffiti read:

  Evolution is a hoax!

  There is only one true Savior!

  Devin met with a “Host Inaccessible” error when he pushed on the twin glass doors, and he shook his head sadly. Once again the Religionists had successfully orchestrated a denial of service attack against the organization, preventing Devin from accessing the facts he needed to inconvenience their Post-Intelligent Design arguments in the “Origins” Forum.

  He opened a window with his personal organizer and located the address for the Legion of Discord, an organization of hackers that had been around for decades. Every time the International Web Authority thought they had shut the group down, they sprang up somewhere else on the Web. Devin’s successful hack of an algorithm for searching research papers caught an LoD member’s notice, who was now sponsoring him for membership.

  Devin was practically ecstatic over this possibility. It was rumored the LoD had backups of the Library of Congress they gave to members. Devin didn’t know if it was true or not, but it did earn the group the nickname “Keepers of the Lame” among the Vectorialist pundits, but to Devin it sounded like a paradise. What would it be like to swim in so much data?

  He instant messaged his sponsor, and a connection established. Sun Wu Kong, the immortal shape-shifting samurai monkey king of ancient Chinese legend appeared in an explosion of smoke before him. He carried a bo staff in one hand and was covered in elaborate armor made of virtual bamboo, cloth, and ring-mail.

  “Hello Omni,” he said and a tiny world map with most of Asia highlighted appeared above his head to indicate his words were being translated from Mandarin to English through babble fish software.

  “Hello Mr. Kong,” Devin replied politely. “You said to check back and see if he was free.”

  “Let me ping him,” Sun Wu replied.

  “Thanks again for sponsoring me,” Devin said, but Sun-Wu did not reply. Devin waited uncomfortably for several moments before deciding to break the silence with some small talk, “How’d your date go Friday night?”

  Sun Wu Kong waved a hand dismissively, “Turns out it was just a chatbot trying to lure me to the Pleasure Dome Cybersex site in Thailand.”

  “You got tricked by a chatbot?” Devin scoffed, but choked down his laughter at the intensity of Sun-Wu’s glare.

  “Have you ever met a bot online Devin?” Sun Wu demanded.

  “No.”

  “Yes you have,” Sun Wu Kong replied. “You’ve just never realized you were talking to one. At least I know I’ve been duped—I’ve located him.”

  The connection established and Devin navigated to the address. The Web suddenly felt a few degrees colder, and Devin looked back at Sun-Wu, the monkey wore a smug smile, knowing exactly what thoughts he had just put in Devin’s mind. Devin made a mental note to read up on the “Chatbot Identification Act” that never seemed to go anywhere in Congress.

  The Egyptian God Horus, Traveler’s avatar, faded into existence. Another world map with the Middle East and parts of Africa highlighted accompanied him, indicating his speech was being translated from Arabic.

  “Greetings Omni,” Traveler said. “Are you ready to discuss your possible membership in the Legion?”

  Devin nodded, “Sun Wu said you would need to interview me. I’m guessing you’re the clan leader?”

  Traveler shook his avian head, “We don’t have a chain of command. Sun-Wu and some other members thought I was the best choice to interview you. Do you know what it means to join the Legion?”

  “It means becoming a hacker.”

  Traveler nodded, “Why do you want to become a hacker?”

  “I…” Devin paused. This was not what he expected. He was thinking there would be tests of logic and programming in store for him, but this was something else. “I hate that I have to pay for every single experience online. I love data sanctuaries, but there isn’t enough information in them. Why do I have to pay others to know anything?”

  Traveler smiled, “Have you ever heard of the Library of Alexandria?”

  “Only that it’s ancient,” Devin replied.

  “It was once the greatest library on Earth,” Traveler said. “Knowledge from all over the world was gathered inside it. History, Science, Culture—everything the ancient world knew about their world was contained there. Do you have any idea what we could learn about our ancestors from the scrolls it contained Omni?”

  Devin shook his head.

  “We will never know,” Traveler continued, “because the Library was destroyed after centuries of data was collected inside of it. Centuries of data, Omni. Wiped out, and do you know why?”

  Devin paused, “Ignorance?”

  “Maybe,” Traveler shrugged slightly. “Whether there were motives or if it was an accident we don’t know, but we do know that much of that data was centralized in one place. It wasn’t replicated into many locations.

  “Today we have the ability to replicate data all over the world, but do we?” Traveler asked. “Instead we hoard it, make it proprietary, copyright it and manage content. Data has become the most valuable commodity there is, and only because people have engineered it that way.” Traveler spread his hands out in front of Devin, revealing a glowing data cube.

  Devin’s breath caught in his throat at this, the Library of Congress.

  “This library was once free Omni,” Traveler said. “Just as the Internet once was. Unix, Apache, WWW—the technological innovations that triggered the Communications Revolution were established on free software.” Traveler waited to let this last sink in. When he spoke again his tone was one of bitterness, “Then the Vectorialists divided it all up. They replaced Apache servers with Microsoft, phased out World Wide Web for Quality of Service—” he stopped, regarding Devin. “You want to say something.�
�

  Devin nodded reluctantly, “Those… market innovations, MS servers and QoS--they had their advantages, didn’t they? We learned in school they brought greater controls to how the Internet was run—”

  “At what price?” Traveler broke in. “They were innovations that allowed the existing corporations to prevent the emergence of competing innovations. They engineered all of this,” Traveler gestured around him, at the Internet, “to squash the competition.”

  “Hm,” Devin found himself suddenly burdened by all of this. “I see your point of view… but… I don’t wholly accept that complete data… uh… liberation is the solution.”

  “The Vectorialists are destroying innovation,” Traveler countered. “Their hoarding of ideas leaves nothing for others to build on.”

  Traveler regarded him in uncomfortable silence for some time. Finally he said, “I think you’ll make an excellent addition to the Legion of Discord, Omni.”

  Devin was surprised, “You think I’ll make a good hacker?”

  “That I don’t know,” Traveler shook his head, “but when presented with a paradigm, your first reaction is to challenge it. You challenged me just now. When we part ways you will be immersed in their paradigm once again and you will challenge that. If it is as wrong as I believe, then you will help tear it down. If I am the one who is wrong, then theirs’ was meant to be.”

  “Maybe balance is the answer,” Devin offered.

  “Here,” Traveler reached out and placed the cube in Devin’s possession. “This is why we hack Omni. Keep it safe.”

  Devin’s real hands trembled as he held up the cube on a virtual pillar of energy. It was terabytes worth of data. “It’s like holding the ocean in my hands,” he gasped.

  “Maybe fifty years ago,” Traveler said. “Now this is only a drop in the information seas. The Legion of Discord is an entity with decentralized controls. We are all leaders and we must all preserve data to share with others. What you hold in your hands is invisible to copyright enforcement bots. I don’t know how. Some guru from long ago developed and lost the secret to that encryption.

  “Be well,” Traveler and the room faded to black, but Devin did not notice. He continued staring into the cube and the incredible amount of data within. It was like a warm fire, which he huddled around, browsing its contents.

  1.03

  “Hey!” Devin jumped at the instant message alert. He was running invisible mode to avoid distractions, but BlackSheep was well aware of Devin’s anonymous browsing habits. He needed a break from his new toy, so hitting the “Accept” button came without much thought.

  The connection established and BlackSheep popped into existence before him. He smiled at the anime-style cartoon girl with big-brown eyes, pigtails, wearing a catholic schoolgirl uniform, and accessorized with a nose ring, tribal tattoos, and lace stockings. This was BlackSheep’s avatar.

  “Wanna play a game of chess?” her doll pirouetted and gently flapped her arms. Devin blushed awkwardly at this.

  Anonymous avatar, he reminded himself, and cognitively slowed down his accelerated heartbeat.

  “Sure,” he replied and logged into the game room to meet her waiting at the table she had loaded.

  BlackSheep held out two cartoon mitten hands. “Left,” Devin said and she opened the pouty fist to reveal a white pawn.

  “Devin takes offense!” she announced as he pushed the king’s pawn forward two spaces.

  Devin dug BlackSheep’s style. Her base-stats were 24y.o. SWF residing in Toronto whose interests were limited to music and chess. He was terrible, however enthusiastic concerning the latter, and all he knew about the former he’d learned from her. For whatever reason, she enjoyed his company, and maybe that was his reason for enjoying hers. She was easy-going, without hang-ups. BlackSheep simply didn’t give a $#!+.

  Devin stared at the knight BlackSheep casually added to the mix. The slight snicker she let escape as she set the piece let Devin know there was an advanced scheme at work here, and he set himself to deciphering it. So much of chess was foresight; how many moves a player could see into the future before the variables grew too many, chaos theory set in, and unpredictability reigned. If he took her pawn, she would take his with the second pawn, which he would take with a knight, which she would take with the bishop, then they would exchange knights, and he would have to bring out his queen to even the pieces--

  “WHO’S FLATLINE?” Devin’s instant messenger raged, wrecking his train of thought. He instinctively blocked the user as if it were a spammer and swallowed uncomfortably.

  “I want to know who your friend is!” the voice roared inside Devin’s head, overriding his block. Before he could react, a connection established, banishing BlackSheep and the game room. Devin found himself face to face with a hunch-back of a cyborg bristling with saws, claws, and guns.

  A vise-grip clamped down on Devin, rendering his web-navigation inoperable. The cyborg’s neck telescoped out from its metal body and one eye extended from the half-human, half-robot head, scrutinizing Devin’s disembodied eyeball. The human half of the cyborg’s mouth smiled, revealing toothless gums and strands of saliva.

  When it spoke, a chorus of harmonized artificial voices came out, “I slaved over that dungeon for two years. Then that mutant-mutt comes along and corrupts it so badly I can’t even restore from my back-ups! My employers need to know who to sue.”

  “So look him up,” Devin snapped, and considered the word employers. This guy was a vectorialist.

  Daggers stabbed Devin’s brain through his eyes as the cyborg overrode the VR helmet’s display safeties, blasting him with stunning light. “Don’t you dare pull it off!” the chorus warned and Devin’s hands froze to either side of his head. “I’ve got your system pegged and I’ll fry it all inside out.”

  Devin’s mind went right to the newly acquired Library of Congress and his hands fell to his sides, “You’d go to prison.”

  “The company lawyers wouldn’t allow that,” saws, claws, and drills darted and danced before Devin’s eyes. He noted an Iron Fist logo on one arm subtitled “Clan War Machine,” “What’s Flatline’s name?”

  “I never looked it up,” Devin said truthfully, “I only know him by handle. You’re a vectorialist. You’ve got the connections, the software, the corporate sponsorship,” he spat this last out in disgust. “Why don’t you find him yourself?”

  The pressure was off and Devin could navigate once again. “He’s completely anonymous. It’s impossible,” the cyborg said, suddenly tired. “He’ll try this crap again and I’ll be there to get him. I’m on to his technique. You just watch yourself Devin Matthews in Norfolk, Virginia.”

  Then Devin was in the chess room again, BlackSheep staring at him with one eye quirked, “What the hell wazzat?” she practically squawked.

  “Huh?” Devin shook his head and looked at her dumbly.

  “Your avatar just dropped dead! It was freaky. I’ve never seen that before.” The doll stood up on her chair to leer over the board at him, “Are you okay? You’re voice is a little fuzzy.”

  Devin nodded, “I think I just got schooled by a vectorialist.”

  “A vectorialist?” BlackSheep exclaimed. “You mean like ‘corporate sponsorship,’ let’s-see-how-many-lawyers-we-can-cram-up-your-butt vectorialist? What’d you do to peeve off one of those?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Devin raised his hands defensively, a gesture his avatar could not replicate. “A friend of mine trashed the guy’s server.”

  “That’s not smart,” Blacksheep stated.

  “I think you mean that’s not wise,” Devin corrected. “It was very smart.”

  “You be careful with that crowd. Elite hackers have a high turnover rate,” BlackSheep warned.

  “Yeah,” Devin smiled to himself and tried to sound nonchalant, “I’m watching out for myself.”

  “Uh-huh,” she sounded skeptical; “We can finish the game another time. It’s way past my bedtime, which mean
s it’s time for you to be getting ready for school.”

  Devin checked the clock, “Dammit! I forgot to go to sleep again!” He logged out without saying goodbye.