SWNOVELS Chapter NodlSat
NodlSat
Block 7,907,508
Fabian exited his hotel about 12 blocks after he woke up. He hit the gym, lifted weights for about four blocks, and finished with cardio. Breakfast was waiting for him when he got back to his room. He’d ordered the night before, but by this time, the Hotel AI would confirm it after he woke up.
He lifted the dome of the plate, revealing a large T-bone steak cooked medium rare with some light salt and pepper and topped with ghee. There was a bowl of scrambled eggs with cheese and a tall glass of whole milk. It was consistently the same with slight variation.
He sat at the table with the chair facing the window and, in the light of the day, saw Conchagua in all its beauty. He wished the hotel had a balcony for this room. But, unfortunately, he would have to be satisfied viewing it behind glass. He ate his steak with his fingers; no point in leaving any meat on the bone. He wouldn’t do this in public, however. Steak, eggs, cheese, and milk. “Man, I never get tired of this!” He thought.
He sipped some black coffee as well. He loved coffee from the state of El Salvador but preferred the single-estate coffee from the region around Lake Atitlan in the state of Guatemala. It was usually never a problem to get it whenever he wanted it, so he asked for it before he arrived.
As he sat there cooling down from his workout and eating breakfast, he reflected on his work at NodlSat. He enjoyed making a difference and being part of something bigger.
He finished breakfast and showered.
He was ready to work. Work hard, and work long.
He left the hotel and decided he would walk to work today. The heat and humidity weren’t that bad this time of day. He knew he would take an AV home, though.
He walked down Genesis block blvd. to the intersection at Chancellor St. NodlSat’s headquarters were here. He entered the office building and took the elevator to the 21st floor. His office was on the east side of the building. He entered his office and sat at his desk after grabbing another cup of coffee. This time he’d settle for the Salvadoran coffee. He made a mental note to get some Guatemalan blend for the office. He arranged his desk to face east with the view out over the gulf of Fonseca. Isla Zacatillo was right in front of him. He always kept his door open, so if he was ever daydreaming, he could get caught unawares. He didn’t mind. He figured this was his reward for having to work in an office building.
He checked his emails from his personal server and those from NodlSat. Nothing urgent.
He stared at the gulf again, swiveled in the chair, and headed out of the office. The node vision center was nearly the entire western half of the 21st floor and several stories up. The vision center gave anyone at a glance a picture of the vast Bitcoin node network for the Bitcoin blockchain. The nodes on terra firma were displayed on a large multistory flat monitor. In addition, any nodes in orbit, space missions, or other celestial bodies could be recreated within space.
NodlSat was most concerned about the node network on earth but occasionally needed to reference other node placements beyond earth’s atmosphere. Every node could be identified within a foot of its physical location. Personal privacy was encoded into the laws of every jurisdiction in FreeLand. It was inviolable, but monitoring every node’s status became essential to the security of FreeLand in the last century. The location of every node was known only to FreeLand, and no personal data was ever known.
Every node’s activity was monitored on a color scale representing 1-100. This referred to overall node status for uptime, routing payments, smart contracts, etc. Information was also available to determine how much data or memory was free for use for other applications and if the node allowed for servers as a service partition (SASP). The secret sauce behind what NodlSat did was its application of 7LT technology. It could nearly instantly determine the energy value at its source based on this vast node network. The 7LT could then quickly route that energy use to the most efficient spot on the network using the 7LT token. It was a way to exchange and pass energy from one part of the system to another to optimize efficiency and thereby optimize the Bitcoin base layer. It was effectively bringing full circle Henry Ford’s idea nearly two hundred years before to use electricity as money. Bitcoin started that evolution, and 7LT brought it to the next level.
Fabian walked in and stared at the node network. It was just as beautiful to him as Conchagua or the gulf of Fonseca. He loved it. Everything seemed to be in order on visual inspection.
He was always amazed when he looked at the visual graphic that nearly a third, maybe half, of the known landmass of the world was dark. There was no node activity in SO-Land. The void was a little larger than the territories of SO-Land because of the buffer lands, really no man lands, on the western frontier of SO-Land as a result of the Event. He was equally dismayed that even in the Free Lands, there were, if not dark areas, definitely gray. Places that did not fully embrace freedom or fully emerge from the Renaissance of Man’s Reason in the expected fashion. Node activity, at least for seventy-five years, was a leading indicator of freedom and innovation. But he knew, like many others, that you can’t force people to live or be free.
The managers he worked with approached him when they noticed he was in the room. They held an impromptu meeting where he stood.
“Guys, before we start, let’s all get on the same page.” He said.
“Oh, right.” A few mumbled.
“Let’s get the glasses on or your consoles up and ready to go.”
“Yep, OK.” He heard one nearby mumble.
Those who needed went back to their offices or desks in the visualization center to get their appropriate device.
“All right, where do begin?”
So began what would be a long day for Fabian.
He was looking forward to a trip this weekend he’d been thinking about since he got to El Salvador and would occasionally think about it during any lull of activity during the day.
He planned to take his mid-twenty-first-century Triumph Thruxton RS 1200 up the coast along old highway 2 to surf city and El Zonte, where it all began many years ago. The place where bitcoin was used first in a widespread community experiment. It was the spark that started the non-violent revolution. Well, that’s the way it was supposed to be. But, instead, the Event took a different course which was only inevitable in retrospect, given what was at stake.
It would be a hot and sweaty ride, but the speed and rush of air in the face would be worth it. He made sure his bike was one of the first items to get here when he moved down here. It was harder and harder to find original parts, but 3D printing technology made it so easy to get anything he needed for the bike or most anything else. He figures that one day he may trick out an AV, like a Pantera, but he’s content with his bike for now.