Ground-Up Secrets

I have friends all over the world. Colleagues and acquaintances also have me as a contact point. Occasionally, a stranger will give me information with no motive in mind. Overall, people communicate with people all the time and sometimes I'm one of those people. Like I say, easy and simple living in the moment.

Yesterday afternoon I ran into a person I don't know but with whom I established immediate rapport. The guy had a weathered face that he'd earned while working for an offshore oil rig company, transporting workers back and forth from the company's bayside docks. He called himself Johannsun, a unique spelling he attributed to his mother's sense of humor.

Johannsun told me he drove without an official government-issued driver's license because he believed in the freedom to operate a vehicle on the open road as long as he obeyed traffic laws. He wasn't a free loader, however. He owned a maintenance company that serviced equipment for a line of global speedy-service fried food restaurants.

He and I sat at the bar of a new Cajun restaurant and flirted with the female servers. His favorite server from another bar in town, Chaztutee, had just started at the Cajun place. For two straight hours, she kept both of us waterlogged and rolling on the floor laughing.

Chaztutee excused herself and left the bar. While Johannsun and I sat with our elbows propped up on the shiny, lacquered counter, an old Cambodian woman walked up between us.

"Hello, fellows."

I turned and looked down, drawn into the dark pools that served as the woman's eyes. "Hi there."

The woman grabbed our shoulders and pulled us closer to her head. "My name is Viven. Much is here is not what it seems."

Johannsun let out a big laugh. "You ain't kiddin', old lady. Why don't you set here beside me and share a brew?"

Viven looked at me. "You know what is going on, don't you?"

I searched my thoughts and then searched the Web for "viven cajun." In my vision appeared a set of websites and blogs about "Viven the Powderer." What in the world? I blinked my eyes and cleared the Web browser from my thoughts.

"You're Viven the Powderer."

Viven bowed her head at me. "And you are B the Knowledgeable."

Have I told you that I don't read science fiction, fantasy, children's, mythological, or other books and tales of make-believe? Well, I don't. I did when I was a kid, mainly because I thought that was the only reading source available, my parents having read such books to me in the crib. As an adult, though, I read business philosophy books, medical journals, scientific treatises, PhD theses and other information tied to reality which most humans on the street would agree with. In other words, I don't walk around with titles attached to my name, although I once carried business cards with me that gave my name, work address and the title, "Miracle Worker."

Johannsun punched me on the shoulder. "You're B the Knowledgeable. Well, fuck a duck. Glad to know you really exist."

I smiled and snorted a laugh at Johannsun. I looked around the restaurant and spotted an Asian man leaning against the kitchen door, his face hidden in shadows. He was texting on a cell phone. I turned back to Johannsun and the woman. "Yeah, I guess I do."

A man in his late 20s or early 30s with Chinese features walked across the room. "Are you having a good time?"

We all nodded.

"I'm Frank, the owner of 'Boiled and Cajun Mad,'" his accent a cross between the movie actor, John Wayne, and the basketball player, Yao Ming.

Johannsun stuck out his hand. "I'm Johannsun. This here's Rick, or 'B the Knowledgeable.' And this ol' lady is..."

We looked at the barstool beside Johannsun and no one was there. We snapped quick glances around us and couldn't find Viven.

"Pardon me?"

"Well, Frank, I was going to introduce you to our new friend but seems she had more important business to attend to."

"I see." Frank's cell phone buzzed. "If you need anything, let me know. Otherwise, Chaz will take care of you."

I nodded. "Thanks, Frank."

Frank patted me on the back and I felt a shock as if static electricity had discharged between us. However, on a hot July day it seemed unlikely that static would build up to that extent. He walked back to the kitchen.

Johannsun stood up. "Rick, when a person appears and disappears while you're sittin' at a bar, 's time to call it a day. Plus, them cops are cruisin' the streets extra careful-like this week. Think I'll skip out of here before I start seein' little green leprechauns promising me a pot of gold."

I shook Johannsun's hand. "See you later. I'm going to finish this drink before I go."

I looked around the room. I put my hand against my neck and felt for a pulse. Yes, I was alive and yes, the restaurant appeared normal.

I tilted my head up, eased the last drop of liquid lightning to the edge of the glass tumbler and let it drop onto my tongue. I sighed and slammed the drinking glass on the counter. Looking back at me in the mirror was Viven.

"Hello again."

I nodded, deciding to let my imagination have its way.

Viven scratched her chin and scrunched her face, her tightened eyelids barely revealing the obsidian orbs in her head. "There is no meat in ground beef. Sausage is made of rice."

I shrugged my shoulders, neutrality the very essence of my being.

"Crushed rocks become radio waves."

I scratched my crotch, my scrotum itching from the sweaty heat in the bar.

"You have no leaves without trees."

I felt an itch in the middle of my back and concentrated on it, knowing my fingers could not reach the space between my shoulder blades.

"You believe me but put on a show of indifference for Frank. Very wise."

I closed my eyes and yawned, not having slept well in the past few days.

"I will meet you again soon. Think about what I said. Dangling earrings make a woman's neck look longer. A woman should not powder her nose unless her lips sparkle like jewels."

I opened my wallet and put some money on the counter. I spun around a couple of times on the barstool for fun and stood up. Viven was gone.

Suddenly, in my thoughts I saw the plans for a network of amateur-launched UAVs and microsatellites communicating using the interplanetary Internet standards, bypassing government regulations through the guise of religious research called the UniVerseNet. A set of botnets on the ground controlled and operated the amateur UniVerseNet. Across the amateur network, I watched a computer program calculate the ease with which any ordinary citizen could create new substances using readily-available material like quartz, other rocks/minerals, water and cleaning products sold in internationally distributed general merchandise stores. The new substances turn everyone into their own home-based pharmaceutical suppliers, making expensive drugs no longer marketable. Holistic healing becomes universal. Expertise loses its exclusivity. Research and development moves out of secret corporate/government labs and into the public domain.

I walked out of the restaurant and into the sunlight, momentarily losing my bodily connection to the Internet. I was temporarily free. I took a deep breath and smelled Chinese food. I remembered the dim sum restaurant next door to the Cajun restaurant and realized they were owned by the same person or family, just like the French and German restaurants in town were owned by a different family. Several Mexican restaurants in the area were owned by another family, just like Italian restaurants before them. Probably the same for the Thai restaurants.

Family. That's what it's about it, isn't it? Get behind the "it" and it is us. People. Perhaps now's the time to tell my students about clustering and the value in virtual parallel computing, leading them to the Next Big Thing they carry deep in their thoughts. Let them figure out if they want to overcome the consumerism and retail shopping therapy ingrained in them from childhood and seek life outside the box. Time to close this box and spend time with the rest of the universe, networked long before our species showed up.