The sour scent of rancid meat and decaying flowers was faint in the air, this evening. Bally thanked the heavens for small mercies, before catching himself. Any thanks that made their way through the thick clouds would certainly echo in empty halls of marble and gold.
Who had said the halls of the heavens were marble and gold? Bally scratched his nose in thought. It hadn’t been Old Grunby, the dottering hag-priestess, whose joints cracked like crumbling cliffs every time she moved, and spoke of the gods with the passionate furvor of an ancient shaman dancing around a bonfire. It hadn’t been the dottering monk…what was his name…Teek? Yes, that was it. The perpetually grinning old soak spun tales of the heavens like a father lulling his children to sleep, slurring his littanies with both ale and wandering tangents. No. It hadn’t been him…
Who had it been?
November 15, 2048 Serious discussion begins on the Boards on how to restructure the governments of the world, given the advances in communication and Nanocule technology. Some in America suggest decentralizing the major halls of policy; demolishing the White House, 10 Downing Street, the Kremlin, et. al., and moving all official correspondence to the Boards. Others argue for dismantling the concept of representative government entirely, and moving to a pure democracy.
June 20, 2036 An upgrade is released to the Boards, allowing Nanocules to record sensory input, rather than requiring an external phone or recording equipment. Hand-held devices are now unnecessary to completely utilize the Boards, as video recording is done through the users eyes, while audio recording is done through their ears.
Physical recording equipment begins to disappear. Professional cameramen begin to train themselves to keep their gaze steady without blinking for long periods of time, while sales of professional recording equipment drops sharply, as even the high end recording devices cannot compete with the perfect quality and ease of Nanocules.
May 29, 2034 Per capita use of Nanocule Browsing outpaces the use of every other method of board browsing combined. Economists and Market Analysts claim this is the tipping point for Nanocules as the status quo of board browsers.
July 4, 2034 The UVote program is released to the Boards. This experiment in democracy displays all the bills and laws currently in committee, or up for a vote in representative countries across the world.
7:18 am, October 3, 2055 Jack stared down at her limp form. Part of his brain was working furiously trying to think of what had happened, what was going on. The rest of his brain was calm and detached.
He had met Connie on the train five years ago. She had been reading an old paperback book. He knew the author, and loved the old paperbacks himself, so he worked up the courage to introduce himself.
November 29, 2028 In reaction to rampant globalization and free trade policies, the Universal Workers Rights Act, or UWRA, is released by the new International Union Movement. The Movement’s aim is to utilize social media to unionize the global workforce. “If companies can move across the world,” the preamble of the UWRA states, “then it is only just that the workers of the world are given the same opportunities. We are human the whole world over, and deserve the same basic human rights, no matter which country we were born in.
July 9, 2027 Nanocules become capable of administering major gene therapy. Nanocules are injected that scan and record the patient’s entire genome. The Banks then instruct the Nanocules how to painstakingly reconstruct the patient’s genes, removing minor flaws and genetic risks. The process is anonymous, non-invasive, and takes one month to perform.
Nicknamed ‘scrubbing,’ the process is prohibitively expensive, except for the richest.
October 1, 2027 Gene therapy prices drop to the point where the majority of Nanocule users can afford the process.
April 14, 2027 An impassioned speech given to the North Carolina State Legislature goes viral on the Boards. Anti-IAN groups see a massive increase in donations and memberships. The Naturalist Movement takes the forefront of this surge, becoming the defacto spokes-party for anti-IAN sentiment, demanding that all copyrights and private information regarding IANs be released into the public domain.
April 21, 2027 The first documented use of Nanocule as a proper noun for IANs is published in a popular blog.
November 24, 2026 The FDA officially declares IANs safe enough for over-the-counter use.
Competing protests shut down Boston. The news reports from inside the city explain some protesters are demanding cheaper access to Nanocules for the lower classes, while others demand more regulation and research into this new and potentially dangerous technology.
November 25, 2026 Over the counter ‘IANdigestion’ pills are made available for sale, marketed to prevent indigestion, heart burn, gas, and constipation for a full day if taken in the morning.
7:46 am, October 3, 2055 The door opened to Erin’s office. She entered, followed by Jack shaking the last few drops of rain water off his coat as he wiped his eyes, and looked carefully around the darkened room. A split second later the heat/motion sensor near the door flicked the lights on, bathing the room in a soft white sheen, and turning on the picture-wall to reveal Erin’s collection of photos.
