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For the first time in his 24 years of life, Buck was confused. It was a flood. His brain was working at full capacity to decipher the meaning of this "thing" that suddenly invaded his thoughts. His high-pink hair began to stand up on-end and translucent beads of sweat began to form at the base of his scalp. The sudden panic of disconnectedness gripped him so fully that he almost returned the contents of his stomach all over the dinner table. It was all he could do to hold his face in a manner that didn't express utter bewilderment. That thing which had crept its way in, slowly infecting his conscious thought was more than just a knowledgepoint. It was empty and devoid of knowledge. It was as if all of what he knew started to lose any semblance of meaning.
As his brain struggled to understand and his mind raced, he only generated more and more of these empty knoweledgepoints. Soon, he couldn't help it. His eyebrows began to furl and his mouth began to quiver. Luckily, his brain had already started to miraculously process this data, but there were some pieces still missing. Some of these knowledgepoints were still empty and his brain had already figured out the method for filling them yet couldn't grasp exactly how to execute. It was excruciating. He let out a harsh guttural scream that caused everyone at the table to look at him.
His father; Stanley stood up and walked over to him without a thread of worry on his face. Buck, entirely exhausted, collapsed in his chair. Stanley picked Buck up by his shoulders and walked him to Buck's bedroom. He laid Buck down carefully in the bed and then stood, seemingly staring blankly off into space for a minute. Though it didn't look like much, Stanley had alerted emergency services, and gotten almost instantaneous expert advice on the topic of "sudden disconnection syndrome" from over 2,000 peers. Even though Stanley had never seen this before, he knew exactly what to do. The only person that could help buck now is a technician. The technician was already dispatched as soon as Buck's disconnect happened. Stanley already knew that dispatch would arrive in exactly nine and a half minutes.
Stanley looked around Buck's stark room. The post-minimalism style of the walls and furniture reflected his son's love for the strange. They rarely spoke, but then, they never had to. All information between Stanley and Buck was usually shared instantly, and Stanley's Parental controls program allowed him to know when his son was facing some hardship or when his mind was wandering toward some dark part of the Outernet. He patiently walked over to the transparent, hexagonal desk in the far corner of the room. From the bottom drawer he pulled out a long cable and the Emergency Connector Unit which never needed to be used until now. Stanley already had interfaced with the dispatched technician and confirmed that Buck's diagnostics were necessary for a preliminary scenario test. Buck was fully unconscious at this point and laid still in his bed. Stanley placed the local network transponder next to Buck's head, and immediately saw a diagnostics object floating above the bed. The object began to quickly zoom and rotate, honing in and taking note of all discrepancies in his son's State of Consciousness Log.
Immediately, he noticed an anomaly and forwarded the entire log directly to the technician. The message he received in response was: take no further action, I will arrive in 8:26. That was when Stanley noticed his Outernet inbox was overflowing with queries from loved ones. He answered his wife and daughter first. They were still sitting at the dinner table. He forwarded them the diagnostics and correspondence instantly. He took the next 22 seconds to formulate a couple of responses to different layers of queries from loved ones which were auto-grouped and sent them out in mass. Everyone now knew that Buck was stable and that help was on it's way.
Stanley couldn't help but think: it is absurd that a technician would take so long to arrive. After all, their house was only 136 miles from the city center and the nearest tech dispatch center was still 48 miles away. He set an "arrival clock" widget up in his display zone so that he could keep track of each and every second. He was still very worried as well. He took the next 3 seconds to send a well formulated complaint to the New Holland Central Tech office demanding that there be dispatch offices closer to the western outskirts.
In the next 5 seconds, his auto-petition to central had already gained 7,224 followers and an 83% approval rating in his Outernet Social Circles. They were bound to do something about it soon. Stanley was sure that heads would roll at central if his petition reached half-a-million followers and over 90% approval rate. He knew instantly that this would take at least 3.52 days given the most probable statistical model. He set up another silent notification widget to watch his petition numbers and represented it as a progress bar. This made him feel relieved.
He then set out to occupy the next 8 minutes and 18 seconds. He started actively browsing the Outernet for other cases of SDS which could help him. He knew that the technician would know exactly what to do, but he wanted to be reassured that SDS is curable and that his son's fit wouldn't happen again.
While browsing, he came across a publication from a neurologist, P. Winter, who was convinced that
SDS was actually caused by a malware he was calling Dark Sentry. Winter's claim was that Dark Sentry was created by someone who wanted to gain control of the Outernet. The scary part was that it seemed the malware might have been spread further than just the cases of SDS that he had studied.
A little bit of adrenaline released itself into Stanley's body and immediately his brain went to work at filling in the missing knowledgepoints and meta data. Within milliseconds, his brain had auto-corrected, and the missing data streamed through from the Outernet, relieving his brain and stopping the corrosive chemical from causing unseemly behavior and stress. His Outernet connection, like all others on his block was standard issue ultra-bandwidth grade, provided by his sponsor corporation.
It turned out that Dr. Winter was available for direct thought exchange messaging to any family member who's loved ones suffered from SDS. Stanley put in a contact request with a copy of his son's diagnostic log attached, and the doctor accepted the meeting in 8 seconds. He almost didn't know what to do with the time, but before that could happen, a myriad of possible actions was presented to him and he subconsciously chose one. The thought nobody ever doubts crossed the rational divide between his subconscious and his conscious mind. This made him smile.
For the first time in his 24 years of life, Buck was confused. It was a flood. His brain was working at full capacity to decipher the meaning of this "thing" that suddenly invaded his thoughts. His high-pink hair began to stand up on-end and translucent beads of sweat began to form at the base of his scalp. The sudden panic of disconnectedness gripped him so fully that he almost returned the contents of his stomach all over the dinner table. It was all he could do to hold his face in a manner that didn't express utter bewilderment. That thing which had crept its way in, slowly infecting his conscious thought was more than just a knowledgepoint. It was empty and devoid of knowledge. It was as if all of what he knew started to lose any semblance of meaning.
As his brain struggled to understand and his mind raced, he only generated more and more of these empty knoweledgepoints. Soon, he couldn't help it. His eyebrows began to furl and his mouth began to quiver. Luckily, his brain had already started to miraculously process this data, but there were some pieces still missing. Some of these knowledgepoints were still empty and his brain had already figured out the method for filling them yet couldn't grasp exactly how to execute. It was excruciating. He let out a harsh guttural scream that caused everyone at the table to look at him.
His father; Stanley stood up and walked over to him without a thread of worry on his face. Buck, entirely exhausted, collapsed in his chair. Stanley picked Buck up by his shoulders and walked him to Buck's bedroom. He laid Buck down carefully in the bed and then stood, seemingly staring blankly off into space for a minute. Though it didn't look like much, Stanley had alerted emergency services, and gotten almost instantaneous expert advice on the topic of "sudden disconnection syndrome" from over 2,000 peers. Even though Stanley had never seen this before, he knew exactly what to do. The only person that could help buck now is a technician. The technician was already dispatched as soon as Buck's disconnect happened. Stanley already knew that dispatch would arrive in exactly nine and a half minutes.
Stanley looked around Buck's stark room. The post-minimalism style of the walls and furniture reflected his son's love for the strange. They rarely spoke, but then, they never had to. All information between Stanley and Buck was usually shared instantly, and Stanley's Parental controls program allowed him to know when his son was facing some hardship or when his mind was wandering toward some dark part of the Outernet. He patiently walked over to the transparent, hexagonal desk in the far corner of the room. From the bottom drawer he pulled out a long cable and the Emergency Connector Unit which never needed to be used until now. Stanley already had interfaced with the dispatched technician and confirmed that Buck's diagnostics were necessary for a preliminary scenario test. Buck was fully unconscious at this point and laid still in his bed. Stanley placed the local network transponder next to Buck's head, and immediately saw a diagnostics object floating above the bed. The object began to quickly zoom and rotate, honing in and taking note of all discrepancies in his son's State of Consciousness Log.
Immediately, he noticed an anomaly and forwarded the entire log directly to the technician. The message he received in response was: take no further action, I will arrive in 8:26. That was when Stanley noticed his Outernet inbox was overflowing with queries from loved ones. He answered his wife and daughter first. They were still sitting at the dinner table. He forwarded them the diagnostics and correspondence instantly. He took the next 22 seconds to formulate a couple of responses to different layers of queries from loved ones which were auto-grouped and sent them out in mass. Everyone now knew that Buck was stable and that help was on it's way.
Stanley couldn't help but think: it is absurd that a technician would take so long to arrive. After all, their house was only 136 miles from the city center and the nearest tech dispatch center was still 48 miles away. He set an "arrival clock" widget up in his display zone so that he could keep track of each and every second. He was still very worried as well. He took the next 3 seconds to send a well formulated complaint to the New Holland Central Tech office demanding that there be dispatch offices closer to the western outskirts.
In the next 5 seconds, his auto-petition to central had already gained 7,224 followers and an 83% approval rating in his Outernet Social Circles. They were bound to do something about it soon. Stanley was sure that heads would roll at central if his petition reached half-a-million followers and over 90% approval rate. He knew instantly that this would take at least 3.52 days given the most probable statistical model. He set up another silent notification widget to watch his petition numbers and represented it as a progress bar. This made him feel relieved.
He then set out to occupy the next 8 minutes and 18 seconds. He started actively browsing the Outernet for other cases of SDS which could help him. He knew that the technician would know exactly what to do, but he wanted to be reassured that SDS is curable and that his son's fit wouldn't happen again.
While browsing, he came across a publication from a neurologist, P. Winter, who was convinced that
SDS was actually caused by a malware he was calling Dark Sentry. Winter's claim was that Dark Sentry was created by someone who wanted to gain control of the Outernet. The scary part was that it seemed the malware might have been spread further than just the cases of SDS that he had studied.
A little bit of adrenaline released itself into Stanley's body and immediately his brain went to work at filling in the missing knowledgepoints and meta data. Within milliseconds, his brain had auto-corrected, and the missing data streamed through from the Outernet, relieving his brain and stopping the corrosive chemical from causing unseemly behavior and stress. His Outernet connection, like all others on his block was standard issue ultra-bandwidth grade, provided by his sponsor corporation.
It turned out that Dr. Winter was available for direct thought exchange messaging to any family member who's loved ones suffered from SDS. Stanley put in a contact request with a copy of his son's diagnostic log attached, and the doctor accepted the meeting in 8 seconds. He almost didn't know what to do with the time, but before that could happen, a myriad of possible actions was presented to him and he subconsciously chose one. The thought nobody ever doubts crossed the rational divide between his subconscious and his conscious mind. This made him smile.
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