The Cell Phone and The Intranet

There's a buzzing sound. You could hear it no matter where you stood in Olive's cottage. Olive's eyes opened the slightest amount possible as if somehow measuring the nature of the day. When the sunlight from the window blinded her, she slammed her eyes shut. It was not looking good.   The hum and buzz continued, and her eyes flew open when she realized what it could be.   She jumped out of bed, stormed down to the second floor and glanced at the small wooden table near the door. Her phone was ringing.   She rushed to answer and it's a miracle she didn't knock over the stacks of books and other items scattered about the room. When she picked up the phone, a notification appeared, the cause for her rude awakening.

The cell phone marked a huge shift for the world. It grew to become a cultural icon, embedded in people's lives to such a degree that it was difficult to function without one.   These devices gave the ability to communicate with anyone on the planet in moments, the ability to answer any question, or learn any skill. Then the world ended. Imagine having the world at your fingertips only to have it ripped away. All that information and connection lost.   Despite the lack of internet, people kept their phones when the world ended. Some simply kept it because it had so much of their lives on it while others held onto hope that they may journey to the web again one day

The internet is complicated, a vast series of networks all over the globe that went dark. The information is still mostly there, however, and The E.W.B is dedicated to restoring it.   Finding the servers is the first step. It's a hard one, but doable. Next is decongestion. Think of it: Millions of people, all with email inboxes gathering more and more spam mail. It's a long winded game of whack a mole, a constant struggle over what to eliminate and what to save.   The end product is an isolated server, a place where anyone can access what they've managed to recover. Most are public records, archives, and access to storage containing thousands of digital works from books to music and even a few films.

The Intranet is a controlled space, and virtually unchangeable from the outside. It's a private server given public access, but only to the surrounding regions, and only through cell phones and phone hotspots.   This is due to the fact that cell towers are the only means of access. Most fiber and cable underground has slowly eroded. Cell towers are everywhere, and most are still up and functional. They're easier to maintain, for the most part, and easier to retrofit compared to any other means.   This allows the E.W.B to improve speed, longevity, and range of the towers over time, which they've already done to an alarming degree. It takes less than a minute to download even the largest of files to a cellular device.

Most of the internet was completely lost when the world ended. Another percentage is virtually unrecoverable. It is unlikely your favorite memes and cat videos made the cut. That being said, there is a massive effort in restoring or at least preserving the world that came before.   This leads to a particularly tricky situation. Those responsible for selecting what to preserve and what to let die have an enormous amount of power. The internet was a major influence in the last few decades of the world. Lots of valuable information could be deemed worthless and then there's the misleading and false information on top of that.   The E.W.B have never steered anyone wrong, but it only takes once. If it were to happen at all, it would be in how they handle this preservation project.

Olive hears a knock at the door and when opened, Mavis stands with her cellphone in hand and a wide grin on her face.   "You too?" Olive asks.   Mavis nods. "Yeah. You know what this means right?" When Olive shrugs, Mavis speaks again, "Law codes. This just got a lot easier."   "Why?"   "We can actually look up laws and statutes that support our case. Is Toby awake? We should get started."   "What? Toby?" Olive turns her head and Toby stares back from the couch, waving. "Oh shit. Morning Toby."   "HI. It's, uh," she pauses unsure if she should continue. She finishes the statement in a meek voice, "It's noon."