I found what I was looking for. I found the weak spot in the net, the place where the gossamer-thin cables that define the web of information meet and branch. If that spot were snipped, a ragged hole would be punched through the web; the web would be weak, unsound, and could be easily ripped into shreds with minimal effort.
I had been searching for this place for weeks, scanning the flow of data to identify the critical nodes in the net. One such node is in the Chicago net, another in London, and yet another in Saigon. If you projected yourself to these nodes in cyber-space, you would see nothing unusual. For example, the critical node in Chicago is presented as an ordinary junction filled with packages and people. But the data flowing through these nodes is the data necessary for the smooth function of the net. Maintenance programs, cable status, computer identification, and the like flow most thickly in these junctions. In my modified projection, I see a little glowing red dot for each packet of net-data that flows past me. Most places on the net appear to be covered with little fireflies that zoom by or flit about; these nodes have torrents of liquid fire streaming through them.
The billion-credit question is,
what should I do with this information?
I have the tools and the information to crash the net, tear it apart so badly that it takes years for people to weave it together again. I can punch a double-tailed phage into the data streams of the crucial nodes and eat out the heart of the net before the security anti-phages can respond. My phages will spread like fire and halt data traffic; they will crush the net and turn the perfect order into beautiful chaos.
People will no longer be complacent cattle. They will stop living in a dream world, and will have to address the horror that we've allowed our world to become. They will rely on another, and will know that they cannot expect eternal perfection from an inherently imperfect and chaotic universe. Most of all, people will become human again because they will have to interact with each other as they are.
Do I suffer from a God-complex? That would rob billions of people of their sole pleasure in a dreary world. Let's face it, there is dammed little chance our world is going to survive. Shouldn't we just die quietly under the illusion that we are happy?
What is better, cyber-happiness or real hardship?
It is an impossible question to answer. I'm dammed either as a destroyer of happiness or as a complacent pawn in an evil dehumanizing system.
I closed my eyes yesterday, and dreamed I was running out in the real city. I saw a small crack form under my feet, and swell and grow until it was a giant chasm that swallowed the entire city, scrubbing the grey blocks from the sky. I woke up, and realized that I am a part of chaos, I am an agent of entropy. The world is ultimately random and absurd, so why not make this decision even more so?
In my pile of private treasures, I have an archaic "coin," a disk of pressed copper metal. There is a face (a "head") on one side, a building ("tail") on the other.
I whispered to myself, "the head is for illusion, the tail is for turning our backs on our childhood fantasies," and I tossed the coin high in the air. The copper twisted and flashed in the light, bounced on the floor, and landed...
Tail side up.
And thus a small, tiny, random event decided a staggering moral question for me. I prepared the virus, aimed it at the nodes, and prepared to rip apart the giant web that traps all of us.
There is one small problem with my plan. In the process of attacking the major nodes, I reveal my exact location to basically anyone with the brain of an orangutan. As the net unravels, they will know who to blame for what just happened. They will see their crystal palaces fall around their heads, suddenly find themselves logged out, sitting in a cold concrete room, and they will know that I, JoAnn Walters, just ruined their lives. There will be a mob in my city, an assassin squad in my building, the whole works. I know that I will not survive very long after releasing the virus. I'm like a fly who tears a whole in a web, but in the process alerts the spider to my whereabouts.
But fuck all that, I've got to go on. What life do I have to look forward to? Subtle drugs and manipulation, loneliness ending in misery and a merciful termination?
So I've spent this evening gathering my stuff and creating this site as a kind of explanation for what I did. I have a small duffel bag packed for myself. After releasing the virus, I will put on my sneakers and RUN. At every intersection, I will take a random turn and will trust in chaos as far as I can in my last attempt to run away from the inevitable.
I'm crying right now. I've got to go. Forgive me.