PUBLIC WORKS
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The Public Works consisted of sewers and waste treatment facilities. The term no longer applied to electric, gas, cable, telephone, or water infrastructure. Citizens of Devil’s Folly preferred wireless telephones. And the rest were no longer needed; at least, not in a traditional sense.
Poles and lines disappeared from the landscape.
The sewer system (jokingly referred to as The Network) still existed; however it was not physically maintained. Still, there were people who worked at the waste treatment facilities (collectively known as The Plant). And this seemed a bit odd, at first thought, seeing as how biological waste no longer needed to be treated, either.
Water pollution was practically non-existent.
No one knew much about how The Works operated. People generally didn’t talk about it publicly. But, simply put, The Works comprised The Net; The Net composed The Network; and, The Plant controlled The Grid.
The general consensus was that Plant referred to the treatment facilities, themselves. But sometimes, the term was used in reference to the workers at such facilities (and so to all public workers, by extension). Otherwise, the terms Plant and Net were used interchangeably. However, The Net was not technically a plant.
THE NET
The Net was not alive but it was comprised of living single-celled organisms. The Net was a slime mold. And, it resembled the shape of a net only because it had taken over the sewers. In fact, it had replaced the the need for them.
Beneath every toilet, a branch of The Net lay in wait for human waste… which it disposed of rather quickly as it fed. But this was not why it was introduced into the sewers, originally. The fact that The Net arranged itself into conduits for sewage (and fresh water) was an unintended, but welcomed, side effect of its intended purpose.
The Net’s intended purpose was to act as an organic computer. Organics had replaced hardware in this sense. The Net transmitted impulses over large distances almost instantaneously. It was self organized, self configured, self optimized, self protected, and context sensitive. Plus, it healed itself.
When it was found that The Net also conducted electricity and other signals (TV, radio, etc); these functions were turned over to it, as well. It even produced gas as a side product… which was used to power automobiles and as an alternative to electricity!
It cleaned the air and released fresh oxygen. It fertilized the soil and nourished the vegetation. It was not poisonous, it could have been eaten; but, it didn’t taste very good and it was disgusting to look at (Perhaps some people did eat it. Who knows?).
And sometimes, it is said, The Net took the shape of something recognizable… a face, a skull, a clown. And, at these times, it appeared intelligent.
However, these manifestations were generally assumed to be coincidence. And so everyone was assured that The Net would not turn into a monster and attack them in the night (though parents would sometimes scare children by telling them that The Net would get them if they didn’t behave).
Nonetheless, people didn’t like to think about it much. They didn’t like the idea of it writhing, pulsing, and oozing beneath them. They tolerated it because it had turned their world into a paradise. But they knew they didn’t control it. And they wondered sometimes if it controlled them, instead (which it did, to some extent).
THE PLANTS
As has been hinted, the workers at the treatment facilities weren’t quite right somehow. Well, their entire function was to provide for The Net. And this was a service they performed routinely (even if they seemed, at times, to perform it automatically and without thought).
So, perhaps, The Plants were exercising their free choice by opting to work in that capacity (at The Plant and for The Plant). And if they no longer appeared to be very thoughtful, perhaps they never had been. Surely, they were human (though, as suggested by their nickname, they might have been more Plant than animal)?
Other public workers also seemed to be affected… though to a lesser degree. And people didn’t talk about this much, either. Thus, when an individual thought about food and then found himself at his favorite restaurant without ever actually deciding to go there; this, too, was declared a coincidence.
Still, from time to time, it was claimed that The Net caused certain reproductive changes and a host of genetic abnormalities which resulted in birth defects and deformity. Or, it was asserted that The Net elevated the risk of brain cancer… as evidenced by an increase in physical agitation and mental confusion.
In truth, most people’s raw intelligence scores improved. And, more and more, individuals would fortuitously discover themselves meeting the people they were looking for, or finding the things they were searching for, or otherwise ending up where they needed to be… without knowing beforehand where it was that they even needed to be.
THE NETWORK
Everyone was connected to The Network.
The term Network was still, more or less, used in its traditional sense. This, with the exception of off-colored jokes and crude remarks. In such cases, the term might also convey the essence of human waste. Or, it might be used to imply something even more unpleasant… something covert lurking beneath an otherwise idyllic external facade.
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