by C. W. Trisef
“They’re here to learn,” Coy said with a proud smile.
“Well, I don’t have all the answers,” Thorne told him modestly.
“We know, but you have some,” said Coy encouragingly. “That’s why I hired you. We’ll appreciate anything you can tell us.”
“Alright,” Thorne agreed hesitantly, doubting his own knowledge. “You’re asking about stuff that’s very complicated, but I’ll try to put it to you in simple terms, so please don’t quote me to any of the people out there who are actual authorities on this stuff.” After stating his disclaimer, Thorne took a deep breath and then readjusted his belt under his small gut. Mr. Coy smiled, happy to see Thorne catching the true spirit of the Manor.
Thorne commenced, “The secret to this stuff lies in things that are seen and unseen—understood and not so understood. Take a computer, for example.” He sat in a chair and rolled to the nearest computer. “When I write some words on here,” he opened a program and started typing a pretend memo, “and then save it and close it,” which he did, “what happens to it? Where is it? What is it?”
Thorne wheeled to a different computer and continued, “Let’s say I then hop on this computer and retrieve that very same document (since the computers are linked on the same network).” He found the memo and opened it. “Then I go to my email account,” he said, opening an internet browser, “and send this file to myself.” He turned from the computer and said, “Now I’ll get out my laptop to check my email and voila, there it is.” He turned around his laptop for all to see the document’s icon on the small screen.
“But what is it?” he asked. “Is it real? Does it exist? Is it physical matter? It’s not ink on paper like a handwritten letter; we can’t hold it and fold it and file it away, right? Yet, it must consist of something; why else do inboxes and hard drives fill up? And, if it really is something, then how did it get from the computer to my laptop? There’s nothing visibly connecting the two devices, is there? Are there any wires or cables hooked up to my laptop?” He moved his laptop about freely like a magician showing his captive audience that there were no strings attached.
“The secret,” Thorne repeated, “lies in things seen and unseen. When I type and save a memo on a computer, the computer encodes it. What that means is the computer has a system (or code) that it uses to assign a value to each different part of the document. So, in this case, it assigns one value to each of the a’s, a different one for the b’s, and so on even down to the spaces between words. It’s like the computer translates it into its own language—a language called a binary code. That means there are only two characters in the code: 0’s and 1’s. By using 0’s and 1’s in many different combinations, the computer can assign a unique value to each character.” Thorne then quickly executed a series of commands that converted the memo into this binary form he was talking about, which changed the text into a mass of 0’s and 1’s. “For example,” he said, looking at the screen, “this string of code here, 01100001,” he highlighted the eight digits, “is computer language for the lower case letter a. Each of the eight numbers is called a bit, and eight bits are called a byte.”
Recognizing familiar terms, the on-looking students each uttered a quiet “oh” as the information began to click in their minds.
One of them said, “So when a computer says it can hold something like 500 gigabytes, that’s how many of those eight-digit bytes of coded information it can hold.”
“Precisely,” said Thorne.
“Yeah, but what is a byte?” asked another student, in the spirit of the lecture.
“He said it’s eight bits.”
“I know, but what is it? Is it a real, living thing?”
“Yes and no,” Thorne grinned. “After I typed and saved my document, the computer encoded it (or translated it) into a bunch of 0’s and 1’s and then wrote it on its hard drive. Now, the hard drive looks like an old record player: there’s a disc with an arm next to it that reaches over to read what’s on the disc. The disc in a hard drive is magnetic, and at the end of the arm is an electromagnet. So when I saved the memo, the arm swung out over the disc and passed a current through tiny bits of the disc. The current magnetized each bit either with its north pole up or with its north pole down. (You can change the way a magnet is polarized by changing the flow of the current you pass through it.) So, depending on which of two ways a tiny bit has been magnetized, the electromagnet on the arm either reads it as a 0 or a 1.”
“Keep in mind the arm never physically touches the disc,” Thorne said. “It gets very, very close, but it doesn’t actually ‘write’ anything on the disc itself. The secret is electromagnetism. The arm can ‘write’ information on the disc by magnetizing bits of the disc, or it can ‘read’ information by feeling the way each bit has been polarized. So, to answer your question, I’m not sure if a bit or a byte is real or not. I mean, it is; but, then again, it’s not. This memo that I typed is literally just a bunch of tiny bits of a magnetic disc that have been magnetized up or down. So no,” Thorne concluded, as if realizing something for the first time, “I guess it’s not really physical matter. It’s more like a state of being—a state of being that can be changed by an outside force.”
“So how did the information wind up on your laptop?” a student pressed.
“Ah,” Thorne chirped, still puzzled by his previous thought, “that’s another marvel. Let’s take a trip into the internet, shall we?” He strode over to a side of the room where there was a closet with a glass door. He opened the door to reveal several racks of complex circuitry. They looked like the innards of a dozen computers, each blinking and humming. A warm air spilled from inside.
“This is the internet,” Thorne announced. “Well, a part of it, at least. The truth is, the internet is a lot of places all working together. What you see here is more or less a bunch of hard drives, each storing information that’s coming in from all over the Manor. This is Mr. Coy’s private data center, but there are data centers all over the world. It’s in these data centers where the internet lives. The webpages and blogs and images you see and share on the internet are stored on hard drives like these. The biggest data centers are as big as warehouses, and they’re filled with racks like this one—hundreds and hundreds of them. And they’re always running, which is why a single data center can use as much energy as a major airport. In fact, some centers even pump water in to keep their systems cool. So the next time someone tells you to go paperless to save the environment, well, doing so might not be as green as they think.”
“But I thought the internet was wireless?” someone pointed out.
“Yes and no,” Thorne gave his standard answer. “The internet is definitely not entirely wireless. Everything finds itself connected to a cable sooner or later. In fact, there are enormously long cables that cross the oceans.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes,” Thorne promised. “But that’s the seen part of the internet. There’s an unseen part, too. When I send an email from my laptop, my laptop’s wireless adapter translates the data into a radio signal and then sends that signal through an antenna. Then the wireless router over there,” he pointed to a blinking box on the floor, “picks up that radio signal, decodes it, and sends it through its cables where it becomes part of the internet. So the secret behind this type of wireless communication is radio waves, which are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The EM spectrum is the range of energy waves that is the backbone of today’s Information Age and modern living.” Thorne found an online image of the spectrum and brought it up on the screen.
“Radio waves have the least energy but are the biggest, which makes them ideal for carrying data,” he said, pointing to the left end of the scale. “As we move along the spectrum, the types of waves increase in energy: microwaves, infrared waves, ultraviolet waves, x-rays, and gamma waves. Visible light, which falls between infrared and ultraviolet, are waves that we can see with our natural eyes. Of course, we don’t really see them as waves be
cause they’re moving too fast.”
“How fast?”
“The speed of light is a dizzying 186,000 miles per second,” Thorne answered. “In fact, all EM waves travel at the speed of light. In today’s world, there are many waves passing by us all the time; we just can’t see most of them. Unlike sounds waves, which need something like air to travel through, EM waves can travel through the vacuum of outer space. They consist of an electric field and a magnetic field that travel together, perpendicular to each other. It might help to compare them to ocean waves. Ocean waves also transmit energy and have two ‘fields’: one is the horizontal direction the ocean waves are flowing, and the other is the vertical rise and fall of the swells.”
“Where do EM waves come from?”
“EM waves are energy,” Thorne taught. “They are odorless, tasteless, and have neither weight nor mass, but we can feel them sometimes, usually as heat. EM waves are created when charged particles change speed or direction. These charged particles, such as electrons, are microscopic bits of matter that are energized—you know, excited or buzzed. As they move around, they give off their energy before returning to a normal state of being.”
“How is information put on an EM wave?”
“That’s a great question, the answer to which is beyond my understanding,” Thorne admitted. He glanced at Mr. Coy for help, but all Coy did was smile, as if to say, “You’re on your own, bud.”
“Well,” Thorne tried, “if it’s anything like how a radio station transmits music, then it has to do with modulating the waves. That’s what AM and FM mean: amplitude modulation and frequency modulation, respectively. By changing or varying the height (amplitude) or rate (frequency) of waves, radio stations can create many different channels and send them into the air for your antenna to pick up and translate back into electrical signals.”
“So when you send an email wirelessly,” one student said, trying to grasp the concept, “there are no real data on the waves?”
Thorne thought for a moment and then told him, “I guess not. Waves are not matter; they’re energy, vibrations—a force. But by manipulating them in certain ways, we are able to create a sort of code or language that can be transmitted by them. It’s a lot like the bits and bytes of computer storage, actually.”
As if trying to find a better comparison to give the students a more complete understanding, Thorne reasoned, “Maybe it’s more like the wind. Simply stated, wind is created when air is heated (or energized, excited). As the air heats up, it expands and becomes less dense, causing it to rise above air that is cooler and denser. So, as the warm air rises, cooler air rushes in to fill the space. Of course, we can’t see wind, but we can feel it. True, we can see ripples in a flag or dust and debris in a tornado, but our eyes can’t see the oxygen and other atoms that make up the air. But, even then, that’s not wind—that’s air. So what is it that moves the air? What is wind?” Thorne was now more speaking to himself, becoming a student of his own lecture. “I suppose it’s a force—a result of gravity, perhaps—some force of the natural world.”
Thorne was a little unsatisfied with how his discourse was going. It seemed to be leading to more questions. There were some things he honestly did not know the answer to, but there were other things that he couldn’t fully explain because mankind did not yet know the answers.
“So what’s real and what’s not so real?” Thorne said, wrapping up his remarks with a broad sigh. “We’ve discussed some things that are way over my head. I apologize for my lack of knowledge. But you know what? No matter how much we think we know, sooner or later we get to a point where we have to acknowledge there are some things in this world that we just don’t understand. Magnetism, electricity, gravity—these are some of the fundamental forces of the universe, and we understand how to use them more than we understand what they are. That’s because, by and large, they are phenomena. They are mysteries to man.”
Thorne’s concluding words got Mr. Coy thinking—not so much about computers and cables, but about elements and Mother Nature’s mysteries. He wondered how the Oracle felt toward this seen and unseen energy all around us. The three elements they had already collected—earth, fire, ore—had all been protected by mysteries. Could one of the Oracle’s three remaining wedges possibly be for the element of wind? He wished he had Ret and a scar to prove it. Of course, Mr. Coy had a scar. Maybe it was finally time for him to face his fears.
“Well, my head hurts,” Mr. Coy joked, resuming control at the end of the lecture. “Thank you, Mr. Thorne, for leading such a stimulating discussion.” Then, turning to the students, “I hope you all took good notes. Class dismissed.” The students gradually vacated the room, energized by the things they had just learned.
“This is quite a school you run here, Coy,” Thorne said, rubbing his head. “I did my best, but those folks gave me a run for my money.”
“Thorne, I need to borrow your plane,” Coy told him plainly.
“What for?”
“I need to run an errand,” said Coy.
“In a plane?” Thorne smirked.
“It’s a long-distance errand,” Coy returned smartly.
“Shall I go with you?”
“No,” Coy declined, “this is something I need to do alone. But maybe next time.”
“Very well,” Thorne obliged. He handed over the keys, a little suspicious but well aware that sparing details was Coy’s way of living up to his name.
“I’ll be back soon,” Coy reassured. “Finish up your work and hold down the fort until I return.”
“Be safe, Coy.”
Mr. Coy gave his old friend an appreciative slap on the back, then took the keys and left the room. Within an hour, Coy had packed a few provisions, visited his Studatory to get a map, and was on his way to a certain island in the south Pacific.
CHAPTER 5
WINDS OF CHANGE
Not long after his midnight chat with Leo the orphan, Ret the runaway reached the city limits of Tybee Island. Even though the small community was the only home he knew, he strode right past the marker without so much as half a glance back. In fact, he quickened his pace, entering on foot the expressway that took him into Savannah just as the sun was rising behind him.
Ret didn’t have a particular destination in mind, but he tried not to worry about it. He was turning over a new leaf—many new leaves, actually: one that didn’t overthink things, one that didn’t agonize over circumstances that were largely out of his control, one that simply went with the flow. It was now his intention to be a completely normal person—run-of-the-mill from here on out—the kind without lofty ambitions or improbable dreams. And although he knew very little about what it must be like to be such a commonplace individual, he was pretty sure the average Joe wasn’t stressed out about how to “cure the world.”
Deep down inside, however, Ret knew that to graft in a branch with such foreign leaves would betray his core roots. In fact, becoming just another person who refused to challenge the status quo was exactly what this world didn’t need—it was what it needed less of if it ever wanted to be cured. But, true to his new mantra, Ret tried not to worry about it. Instead, he would graciously let someone else take over the all-consuming task to “fill the Oracle.” After all, didn’t his entire family line have “the rite” to do so? Ret had already filled it halfway—more than any of his relatives had been willing or able to do. Yes, he had done his part. Now it was time to live his own life.
Using some of the little money he had, Ret boarded a bus that would take him out of town. He rode it to the end of its line, which was in Atlanta, where he spent a day walking around the big, bustling city. It was getting closer to summertime each day, so the days were hot and sticky while the nights were warm and not quite as sticky. He took a nap in a city park before getting on another bus, this time to Birmingham where he, like before, spent the day and got a feel before continuing on.
In Memphis, Ret became a stowaway on a barge that was heading north on
the Mississippi River. He marveled at the size of this important waterway, which he had only read about in books. A few days later, when his ride made port in St. Louis, Ret stayed with the cargo and snuck on a train headed first to Indianapolis and then to Columbus.
It was during his time in Ohio’s capital city when Ret observed something unusual. He was sitting contentedly on a bench, looking out over the placid waters of the Scioto River with the downtown skyscrapers looming overhead, when a man walked by. This gentleman, wearing a collared shirt and dark slacks, was talking on his cellphone, which was nothing out of the ordinary except for the beam of light that seemed to be shooting out from his phone. The cone-shaped beam started out small and then increased in width the farther it extended away from the man’s phone. It was a light shade of red and wasn’t exceptionally bright but could still be seen in broad daylight.
Once the man passed, Ret rubbed his eyes and shook his head. Perhaps he was just tired. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. Or, more likely, the flash of the phone’s camera had been left on, or it was some special app that turned the phone into a sort of flashlight—Ret had seen that before. Yeah, that was it.
But then it happened again—this time with a woman who had one of those Bluetooth contraptions in her ear. Just as before, Ret could see what looked like a beam of light radiating from the device. He glanced around to see if anyone else was noticing the peculiarity, but they weren’t. He reasoned it must be a local thing. And so, trying not to worry about it, he sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and headed for the nearest bus station.
Ret’s woes followed him on the road, however. Somewhere outside of Pittsburgh, he saw through the smudgy bus window a metal apparatus in the distance, rising high above the trees. It was one of those communication towers with large drum-looking equipment attached to it, erected most likely for purposes of radio or television. Ret studied it with a stupefied look on his face, for coming from it was not just a single beam but dozens of them, each shooting into the air in all different directions. These rays traveled far across the landscape, out of sight, some so wide that they seemed to fill the entire sky. If they collided with anything, some bounced off like light being reflected on a mirror while others passed through the medium without obstruction. A few even washed over the highway, getting caught inside the bus and bouncing off the walls, but no one except Ret paid any attention to them.