“So where did you go yesterday in the end? You mentioned something about cycling on the Greenway and booking some of your travel, right?” asked Jenny while sipping her latte.

Fae nodded and she tried not to give away too many details while remaining sufficiently precise to avoid further questions, and she explained that she actually had a nice time with her brother for a change, and that they managed to get their travel to France booked. She also mentioned that they needed to meet again that day to discuss some possible accommodation for their stay in Italy, saying that a friend of a friend of a friend was hopefully able to put them up in Turin for two nights, so that they could save a bit on hotels and also take advantage of having someone local to help them out. Which was more or less the truth, to be honest, minus the odd meeting with some eccentric underground hackers at the abandoned airport.

She obviously did a good job of giving Jenny enough details on her activities, that she could immediately change subject and started telling her about her last date with Matt, and how much of a gentleman he was, and how she was really becoming genuinely fond of him. Fae really wanted to make some snarky comment about Matt probably becoming very fond of her breasts, but she decided to remain low-key and patiently listened to her roommate go on and on about her evening.

After breakfast, she started packing some tuna-sweetcorn-and-mayo sandwiches for yet another picnic with her brother. As she was mushing together the ingredients, the smell of them took her back to her childhood, before the Pulse. She remembered climbing into the back of a big car, her father fastening her seat belt, and going off somewhere. The smell of tuna-sweetcorn-and-mayo sandwich was the same as that day, when she opened the little lunch box containing sandwiches that she loved… while the car was humming steadily through the city traffic to then drive off along a fast road at train-like speeds. Was that Genoa then? It must have been. And that was probably her parents’ car, maybe even electric, driving fast on a motorway somewhere.

When Jenny asked her if she wanted a hand with her sandwiches, she snapped out of that mesmerizing daydream and finished preparing her lunch. She filled a bottle of water from the tap, got her wallet, and made sure she had enough cash for whatever she was going to end up paying for. She grabbed her DigiCard and picked up her DigiBook, examining it for a minute.

“You’re going to bring that? Don’t tell me that you are working today as well!"

“A real journalist is always ready for a story,” said Fae, meaning it, although she was mildly scared but also weirdly fascinated by having her new DigiBook unbricked. She put it in her backpack, that was starting to get a bit heavy. She said goodbye to Jenny and went downstairs. As she came out of the building and removed the bike lock from the wheel of her bike, she noticed a rather catchy advert on the wall:

What on Earth were they up to this time? She thought, alluding to EDS. They were always building a climax for days, even weeks before a product launch only to reveal… a new subscription. Or some new program. Sure, the DigiBook was (and she remembered the exact quote) “The coolest thing you could carry in your pocket since the Pulse”, but, well, they didn’t mention how big those pockets needed to be! That chunky oversized brick was indeed neither light nor fitted in her pockets, but it was still cool from her perspective, she had to admit.

She started cycling, trying to maintain a decent pace, as it was going to take about an hour to get to the airport, where she would have met with her brother before going into the control tower.

“Took you a while! What happened? Did you get lost?” said Finn as he saw his sister approaching. In reality, he had only arrived a few minutes earlier, but he loved teasing his sister on little things like that. For sure, it did help him to relax when he was nervous or worried, and he was a bit of both that day. He couldn’t quite make out how these people who embraced that underground lifestyle were like: some were definitely a bit hippie and pre-Pulse nostalgic like the keepers of HubLink 19, others were only a bit eccentric but seemed perfectly ordinary on the surface, like the jeweler they met, and others were exactly like them, like Kathleen and Eric. There was no hacker stereotype; they had no obvious trait in common, except the will to fight for digital freedom, right to repair, and similar ideals.

They decided to have their lunch quickly, and they simply ate their sandwiches leaning on one of the thousands of abandoned, stripped-down cars that had taken over the airport decades prior. They were both eager to get started. While they both had mixed feelings about these people, they couldn’t help being fascinated by their digital lives, and they wanted to know more: they spent the best part of their childhood in the country, and their parents actually made a point of not introducing them too much to technology, probably hoping that they would stay away from it and live their lives accepting the digital status quo… but as it often happens, when children are constrained or educated against something, they would eventually do the opposite when the occasion arises. And today was the perfect day for that.

As soon as they were about to open the entrance to the abandoned control tower to let themselves in, Pat opened it for them, welcoming them. Morgan was sober this time, and she definitely looked more alert than last time: she invited them to sit down and offered them some tea and biscuits, saying that it was time they had a proper chat. The siblings welcomed the hot tea after their rushed lunch outdoors on that cloudy, cold, and windy day; plus it looked like the couple was doing their best to make them feel at home, and they appreciated that.

“Before we go any further,” started Pat calmly, “you got to understand that this is not a secret society or a cult. We don’t have rituals of initiation, we don’t have code words, and we don’t dress funny. Well, not intentionally anyway. We are ordinary people who ultimately realized that after the Pulse, the world took a turn for the worse, especially when it came to computing, but also in relation to the economy and supply chain. And believe me, that is saying something, because the world before the Pulse was far from perfect, despite all the flashy touchscreen devices. If before the entire world relied on a few countries like China for manufacturing, because it was cheaper to produce something in China at a scale than in your own country, now we are at the polar opposite: countries were essentially forced to reintroduce a solid manufacturing industry if they wanted to have a shot at rebuilding their future, or go back to the 1800s at best. So governments stepped in, at least here in Europe, and subsidized most of the necessary heavy industry development, resulting in essentially government-controlled tech, and by definition, government-controlled progress. Then of course, the Berlin Declaration and the Lyon Accords – at least here in Europe – did the rest, as you know, and all digital devices had to be strictly regulated, and so had sourcing of electronic components. Everything manufactured outside the European framework had to be declared, pay hefty tariffs, and come in under strict import quotas. That’s why you rarely see chips made in Asia or the USA in consumer devices: the tariffs make them prohibitively expensive for most, and the quotas mean only government-licensed operators can import them in any quantity, and even then only under supervisory authorization. Of course, none of this applies to the Americans. They signed Berlin in principle and then wrote their own rules, in practice.”

Fae and Finn knew about most of this; they lived it themselves, even if they were probably too young to care. Still, they wanted to hear where Pat was going with this contemporary history lesson.

“But anyway, the point is, if you were like us and lived through the Pulse, none of that made sense: for the first few years after the accident, everyone was doing their best to get by with whatever they had: bricked mobile phones, unusable cars, house appliances… nothing was working really, and after the basic needs like food and water got under control, people started tinkering with whatever they could find. A lot of people actually made a business out of fixing and modifying electronics so that they could have a post-Pulse life; it was the obvious thing to do, and everyone accepted it. After 2030 came government-backed tech, and corporations like EDS were given exclusive rights to sell electronics. What you consider normal now is actually batshit crazy from the point of view of people like us: why would I want to rent (not even buy!) their crippleware and also keep paying hefty monthly subscriptions for the privilege of using their dumbed-down software? And then there is DigiNet… at least with the old pre-Pulse Internet, you could talk to someone in India or the US in real time and essentially for free (leaving aside unreal things like video streaming services for entertainment purposes). Now we only get a paid national network, maybe special rates to the UK or France, but the fact that I have to spend 10-20p every time I want to send a single message outside the country is just a joke: there is no technical reason to justify that. See, DigiNet is actually what brought us to create The Mesh… come this way.” concluded Pat, inviting them to go over towards one of the terminals in the room. “Let’s see if Paolino sent us some more information about your staying in Turin.”

$> run echo
*** Echo Global Messaging v3.5.8 ***
* Connected to node @ieork via HubLink 19.
> fetch
* fetching 1 message...
* OK.
> list --unread
* 1 unread message
* 1 - Travel info - paul33n0@itivr
> read 1
* ID:
  756C0C077EC18585925EAB78E5BC3945
  2099DEF4B12955183130A8956940AEC9
* From: paul33n0@itivr
* To: pat~postmaster@ieork, morgan~lefayyy@ieork
* IZT: 805507120 (Sun 2050-12-04 08:27:52)
* Subject: Travel info

  Thank you for your payment. I was able to secure a room witb two beds in one of our private safe houses in Via Cesare Lombroso 16, not too far from Torino Porta Nuova station. Mr Giordano and family are vouched normies and they also speak English, if needed.
  
  I have also given them the train tickets to Genoa. When they arrive, they should just say that they are "gli amici irlandesi di Paolino", and he will let them in.
  
  I will probably be around too. By the way, are the siblings on the Mesh too? Would be good to keep in touch in case there are... developments. Would also make it easier to organize the pickup.
  
  A presto,
  Paolino
>

Fae wrote down the address and the name of the person as “Hotel Giordano” on her notepad, although Pat told her that she’d send them a copy of the message as soon as her account was created. Pat told them that for £10 each he’d create two accounts for them and store the keys safely on their DigiCards, with virtually no risks whatsoever… and he was also willing to unbrick her DigiBook for £30. That was definitely a bit riskier, but it was well worthy according to him, because they would have had access to the Mesh wherever they were, without having to find a repurposed terminal or similar device they could use.

Fae already thought about it and she said she was probably willing to do it, and Finn agreed and gave his DigiCard to Morgan as well, along with a £10 bill. After a second of hesitation after taking her DigiBook out of her backpack, she handed it to Morgan too, along with her DigiCard and £40.

Morgan thanked the siblings and told them that they were doing the right thing, as she pocketed the money and gave the hardware to her husband.

He examined the DigiPad for a few seconds, turning it over and back a few times, and then took out a Swiss Army knife from his pocket! He unfolded the bottle opener and pushed it in between through a gap on the back of the case. He obviously knew what he was doing, because afterwards he heard a click noise and the back of the DigiBook popped open, revealing some of its internal circuits. With his fingers, he then added pressure on two sides and was able to open it fully. Fae noticed that there was a bit of printed tape broken: that must have been some sort of seal put in by EDS! Pat saw that Fae noticed that, and signaled something to Morgan, who brought him two small chips and a printed tape exactly like the broken one.

He then carefully extracted what looked like a main board from the case, while Morgan handed him a small soldering iron, and, like a surgeon implanting an organ, Pat soldered the contacts of one of the chips onto the board. He then carefully slotted in the other chip into a socket that was presumably meant to be some sort of external extension slot for memory or similar. He then proceeded to put the main board into the case, replaced the broken tape with the new one, and closed everything up. The couple then inspected all sides of the DigiBook: it was like it had never been opened.

“When it comes to creating pocket terminals, my dad is as precise as a surgeon,” said Morgan with a proud tone in his voice.

Pat explained that he had just put in a custom chip they made to enhance the DigiBook so that it could perform some more advanced cryptographic operations, that would be necessary for managing Ma$h transactions, and a new EEPROM memory chip containing the custom software needed for the DigiBook to act as… something more than it was originally intended for: it could become a Mesh-capable pocket terminal, be used to send and receive Ma$h, run custom images and scripts, connect to many different peripherals without needing a license, and so on.

He then handed the machine to Morgan, who inserted one of their DigiCards in the appropriate slot and turned it on. Right when the machine was starting up, she quickly pressed some sort of key combination, which caused the DigiBook to restart:

*** Welcome to xywOS v3.7.23 ***
* Checking devices...
* System...   OK
* Clock...    OK
* Terminal... OK
* File...     OK
* Beeper...   OK
* Network...  OK
* Crypto...   OK
*** System Ready ***

“What did you just do? What is that?” asked Fae, worried that she had lost her files on the DigiBook.

“Chill, girl! CTRL+XYW. Remember that. That’s what I pressed when your computer started. CTRL+XYW. It’s kind of a dual boot sort of thing. Basically, it tells your DigiBook to look for an operating system on our EEPROM, and well, there is one, which will then start up. Your files and stuff are still there, on the other memory chip? Got it? You don’t press CTRL+XYW, you boot your DigiBook normally, with all the subscriptions and crippleware. Easy. Of course, you can also change the key combination to use other keys and words too. Now, lemme do what I was doing because it’s important,” said Morgan, trying to make sure she remembered the key combination at least.

$> run keygen
*** Mesh Key Pair Generator v2.33.7 ***
* Running preliminary checks...
* Checking OS.................xywOS - OK
* Checking processor..........Z80w - OK
* Checking processor speed....4MHz - OK
* Checking available memory...436KB - OK 
* Checking crypto processor...Rashid - OK
*** Preliminary checks complete.
*** Determining best algorithm for hardware...
* OK - ED25519
* Retrieving random data from radio...
... 
...
...
* Press some random keys to increase entropy
> 34k4b3423452"!fasgd 1\k1""! qwfe5&1@++
*** Ready.
*** Generate keys? [Y/n]
> y
* IZT: 805531103 (Sun 2050-12-04 15:07:35)
* Generating public and private keys...
.........................................
.........................................
.........................................
..........

“OK, now we wait. In a couple of minutes, it will show you two keys, a public key and a private key. You must write them both down. Make sure you write the private key somewhere and always keep it safe,” explained Morgan. “Your private key is stored safely on your DigiCard, and will be used for signing when sending echo messages to someone, and pretty much anything involving the Mesh. You won’t have to type it, ever; it will just work if you plug in your DigiCard, but you should set a pin to input every time you attempt to access it, for extra security. But if for some reason something happens to your DigiCard, you’ll have to set up a new one, and you’ll need to manually input your private key again during the recovery procedure."

As soon as the keys were displayed on the terminal, Fae wrote them both down in her notepad, before Morgan issued a command to clear the screen.

“Now… a couple of more things, let’s get you known out there! Pick your nickname…” said Morgan, handing Fae her now-unbricked DigiBook to type in.

$> run meshjoin --key public.key
*** Mesh Joiner v1.5.8 ***
ID: CCE500CF48D194A95E47CEBE5E0A4FD3
    9829CA89489D1B2B9581DE5747A35E5D
User Alias:> free~phaerie
* Joining the Mesh as free~phaerie@ieork...
* ...
* Checking availability within ieork... OK.
* Joining registered by ieork.019
* Propagation in progress...
$>

“As you can see, your user alias is tied to an area, in this case ‘ieork’, which is the LOCODE for Cork. Your identity is your public key though, so you can change your alias and even add more, in different areas. That could be handy if you are staying abroad for a while.” clarified Pat.

Morgan then requested her DigiBook again so that she could transfer her keys to her DigiCard. A process —she said— that was going to be virtually risk-free even in case of inspections: the key files were simply going to be copied to the DigiCard alongside the @-dgir content, that was it. Unless someone was actually going to confiscate and run diagnostics on the DigiCard, it was going to be OK. She also told Fae to think of an 8-digit pin that she would have to remember and type in every time she needed to access her private key.

$> sys --storage
*** xywOS System Information ***
* Storage Areas
  0: DigiTech FS - 512KiB
  1: DigiTech FS -  32KiB
  2: xywOS FS    - 512KiB
$> exp public.key 1
$> exp private.key --pin 1
PIN:> ********
Repeat PIN:> ********
$> rmv *.key
* Removing:
  - public.key
  - private.key
Confirm? [y/n]:> y
$>

Morgan explained that after exporting the keys to Fae’s DigiCard, she deleted them from her DigiBook, so that she could re-do the same key generation and mesh joining procedure again, for Finn.

Finn was actually surprised to hear that: it looked like they could use the same DigiBook but with two different DigiCards! Normally, that was only possible with industrial-grade DigiTerms, like the ones he used at work; consumer DigiBooks had to be registered to one DigiCard only.

“Yet another example of EDS monopoly and completely artificial constraints. You will not have different storage areas for your accounts, but at least you will both be able to access your pocket terminal when booting xywOS, of course.”

Fae was happy to hear that, of course, but she was also a bit nervous of having her brother accessing her DigiBook. She had always been good at sharing when they were young, but Finn being quite a bit younger than her often had unforeseen consequences on her toys.

Ten minutes later, Finn was set up with his new berry~finn@ieork user alias. A homage to the most well-known “Finn” in literature, who was also similar to himself, at least personality-wise. Pat told them to use the man command within xywOS to learn more about the built-in commands and some of the most widely-used images like echo. He also handed them a small printed copy of a technical manual:

Finn immediately grabbed it. Not that her sister minded in the slightest; he liked to feel he was a techie, but Fae knew her way around computers just as much.

Pat said that should cover the basics of the xywOS operating system and teach them how to use the basic commands and programs useful for free computing. He then forwarded the message he received from Paolino to both their accounts and asked them to see if they could read it. Finn immediately jumped in at the opportunity of trying out the echo image, which didn’t look too different from DigiMail.

$> run echo
*** Echo Global Messaging v3.5.8 ***
* Connected to node @ieork via HubLink 19.
> fetch
* fetching 1 message...
* OK.
> list --unread
* 1 unread message
* 1 - Fw: Travel info - pat~postmaster@ieork
>

It looked like it worked: they were on the Mesh.