It was early the next morning. The house was waking up. Jen was scrambling eggs and making toast for a houseful. Lou was sitting in the living room on the floor playing little piggies with Gabe’s toes.
Since Roops was still here and everything, I had a question for him.
“Say, Roops,” I began, “I’m wondering how hard it would be to set up some kind of ISP, if that’s the right thing to call it, that we could use here? I had been reading his books when we were over there, and I had some ideas.
“I think it might be time for us to hook up with the rest of the world, or at least find out what is happening out there. I keep wondering what people are doing in other countries. Also, I’d like to communicate with people elsewhere here in this country. I don’t see how we can continue all cut off from each other.”
Roops raked his fingers through his badger style beard and pursed his lips, thinking for a few minutes. He blew out some big breaths.
Finally, he said, “well, it’s sure been done before. Let me think about it.”
Now, it is true that Rupert D. Jones had access to the remaining internet. I thought maybe he would be able to just hook us up somehow. Of course, getting a functioning computer might be tricky or nearly impossible. But I suspected that our own Thumbie might be able to handle making one.
“Could we have our own little ISP right here?” I had been thinking about this. But I didn’t know much about it. We had never been online in our lives, Doug or I, or the girls for that matter. But I knew that in some form, the internet was still out there. It had just been cut off for casual public use about twelve years ago, when most of the server farms went dead.
“That’s hard,” said Roops. “My system is running on old phone lines connected to the Naval Station server down at the waterfront. I don’t see how we could hook you up to that though. The phone lines are mostly junk by now. I’m honestly surprised that it still works.
“Well, let’s talk to OZ. Those guys are online in some sense. They all know what each other are doing like some kind of massive hive being.”
So, we found OZ outside in the backyard looking hard at some garden tools and running his fingers up and down the blades until they looked all shiny and new. He never seemed to get tired of doing that kind of stuff.
“Hey OZ, I need to talk to you for a minute,” I said. He hummed and buzzed a bit and said, “I can talk to you.” But his eyes were on the tools.
“Of course, you know about the internet, what it used to be and how people used it, right? Well, we need to be able to use it again. I am wondering how you could help us do that,” I said. “Also, hey, could you make a computer?”
“Where is Doug? I obey Doug,” said OZ, rather truculently, I thought.
“Can’t you just talk OZ?” I stood my ground. I would get Doug in on this later.
“Yes. I will talk. Of course, I know the internet. It’s what all others call the signal. I can be a server. Very easy. No one asked me before,” OZ said.
“But can you make a computer, or do I have to go looking for one that you can fix,” I asked him. I had read books, but I really had no idea if or how any of this might work.
OZ turned from his work, his black eyes shining and looking thoughtful, as if that were possible for a face like his. His elbows went out and he plopped down in a lawn chair. So did we. Roops wasn’t saying anything, but he was sure taking note.
“I will make a keyboard for you if Doug says make it. I will also make a monitor so you can see what you are doing, and I will make a computer for you. Easy Elvin. Easy…” I could see the gears turning in his head almost.
About then Jen called us in to breakfast. After we ate, Roops gathered his mom up into the little wagon and headed back to Milltown and his radio station. I was pretty excited at the idea that some day we could communicate without actually being in the same room. You have no idea!
******
This is when things got incrementally stranger. I mean stranger than they already had been for some time. Doug told OZ to go ahead and make the computer and its parts.
Watching him do his thing was like watching magic. As far as we could tell, it was magic. He gathered some metals and some plastics and set about forming the components with his hands. When he was done and he presented them to Doug, of course, they didn’t look like anything in Roop’s computer books or like anything that he had at the radio station.
The keyboard was one smooth piece, no visibly moving parts. The computer itself looked like a shiny silver box about 8 inches on a side, a cube. The monitor looked pretty much like any monitor, like Roops’ monitors. We cleared off the desk Jen’s parents had used in the living room and placed our components there.
I had never typed in my life.
Ok, this is what happened. I may as well just tell it like it was. OZ got in touch with all of his others, as he called them. They decided that they could create a type of cloud of connectedness themselves without reference to any existing structures. They were able to connect to the same attenuated internet that Roops was able to connect to.
You remember that each Thumbie was either an OZ or a ZO, right, in effect a 1 or a 0? Well, it turned out that they could just be a type of living code. They realigned themselves in the cloud they had created as needed to cause the wanted effect. They made themselves into a huge loosely arranged server.
This was great. OZ’s handmade computer worked and connected. I began to learn to type. I began to explore the online world a bit. I could see the potential in it for many things. Communication was the aspect that both Doug and I were most interested in. The idea of talking to people outside of Milltown was just so compelling for us. Jen and Lou were excited about it too. Gabe didn’t give a hoot. Bubby pretended not to notice.
It turned out that Thumbienet was too loose and wide open. Its structure was its fatal vulnerability.
One week after we started using their system, we woke in the morning to find OZ lying on the kitchen floor next to his chair. He was still alive, but he was unreachable to speech. His great black eyes were closed, and his thin-lipped mouth was moving a little. He wasn’t buzzing or humming at all. Very, very bad configuration!
We were all afraid. I tried the computer just to check and it was dead. We didn’t know what to do next. The girls cried. Doug and I sat and just looked at each other...
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