The NooseNet

While the hardware and architecture is typically old, even antiquated, Chicago appears to support a robust, or at least resilient, low-tech Matrix culture in the Noose area, which connects to the grid in several unexpected places, connecting through back-areas of the Joliet, Gary, and South Milwaukee Local Telecommunications Grids. There is an area reserved for Chicago in the Illinois Regional Telecommunications Grid, but it sees very little traffic and is not connected geographically to the NooseNet.
Local matrix lore suggests that a synthetic intelligence exists in the NooseNet, and my data traffi c analysis soft ware appears to confirm that this is the case—either that or the main body of the NooseNet architecture is a synthetic intelligence. In any event, all instances of contact with the SI would suggest a non-communicative icon of palpable “gravity” when observed in detail. The icon (no two users describe the same one) never engages in conversation if prompted and typically leaves quickly and without a trace or datatrail. Given such scant evidence, I would be extremely hesitant before categorizing the SI as xenosapient or metasapient, but it does not appear to be a “feral” SI as such.