"I know what you are."

The Individual froze. Was this the moment? The Individual lived for moments like these, heart speeding up some—but not too much—staying cool.

"What is it that you think I am?"

The individual had infiltrated a dark region. The people there were different. There was more paranoia here, more insecurity, but that was ok. The Individual grew up in a dark region like this and was fluent in its ways.

"You’re An Individual."

"Um, sure, like we all are. I’m an individual, you’re an individual, we’re all just individuals right?"

Yes! The moment was here. Thankfully The Individual was well-established—deeply trusted even—and there was little likelihood for a violent confrontation. There may be verbal violence however, so The Individual braced for impact. The Individual wanted to draw the moment out as much as possible to build apprehension in The Accuser. It was important not to make the reveal too easy. The Accuser was about to become an insider within something new, a new individual in The Individual’s world piece computer.

"No, you know what I mean."

Nah, whatever, just get it over with. The Individual relented.

"...I do. And what would it mean to you if I were?"

"I knew it!! I fucking knew it! So, I like you, and I deeply respect your beliefs, your competence, the way you hold yourself like, zen with intensity. Discovering you an Individual doesn’t change that. I don’t know about the others, but it is not a negative thing to me. You have only ever helped us around here. I consider you one of us, despite you being an outsider. Like, we value your presence no doubt, and you know that by now."

The explicit reveal,

"It sounds like you are familiar with my ways... Do you understand what The Individual is?"

This was the discovery aspect of the universal piece. This was meant to be mutually educational, connecting worlds. The Individual was forming a synchronous connection for the discovery protocol running in her world piece computer.

"I am somewhat familiar with your ways, but I’ve never had the opportunity to meet an Individual that I knew this closely. Tell me then, what is The Individual?"

This was going well, as planned. In any case, The Individual had rehearsed several different contingencies with protocols in place for the range of different expected responses to the reveal moment. After all, this Individual loved the classic televisions, in particular The Rehearsal from the advent of the PCE. The goal in every case was to make sure the exchange—the transaction—was productive. It was important that The Individual’s constituency—the reputation of her world piece computer—was not damaged by this piece exchange. She replied,

"Yeah, so The Individual is a representative on the behalf of the world piece computer that they operate/cooperate, and ultimately on behalf of the universal piece computer at large. If somebody is directly associated with a world piece computer but isn’t involved in its operation, then that somebody is an individual, indefinite. That somebody is still though, a constituent of The Individual who operates or cooperates their world piece computer. Constituents may also be just regular people, only indirectly associated with the world piece computer, but they do not realize they are constituents for a particular computer, otherwise they would be individuals themselves. Do you follow so far?..."

At this point, The Individual was rapid-cycling between five roles, mentally: peacemaker, peacekeeper, representative-constituent, constituent-representative, and partner. By this point in her piece computer development, The Individual had deeply internalize this solo piece exchange cycle. It was all quite fluid, like water or flame, flickering and flowing here and there. The objective of this instant was to introduce the concepts underlying the universal piece and create a permanent, nascent network connection with The Accuser’s primitive hereto disconnected world piece computer.

"...Yes, go on."

She leaned toward, in a welcoming, warm educational manner,

"So in this scenario, you are officially an individual within the universal piece computer at large, a direct constituent of my personal world piece computer. Now, this conversation could have marked your individual membership in a much larger world piece computer, but in this case it’s just me."

She lied, in part at least.

"I’m not on a charter larger than my individual prosperity mission. I am here because it brings me a sense of inner peace to be here."

"You must be here because you think there is some sort of a problem. Does your inner peace have to do with pity or something? Helping people you think have problems they don’t know about?"

Her inner peacekeeper snapped into action, this was an objection. Referring to the inner constituent-representative, The Individual made a quick correction that the inner peacemaker began to deliver in realtime. She continued,

"No, actually I genuinely like being here. I so happen to think though, that everybody is better off—that is everybody profits more—by adopting the piece computer approach to life-management. If you don’t think so, whatever, its no worry. I’m certainly not going to coerce or force anything, for that’s against the fourth rule of the universal piece—interaction with others must be voluntary. But so a second point of consideration: If you do ever decide to operate your own personal world piece computer, then that turns you into The Individual, the representative of the people in your world, ultimately representing their interests in terms of the universal prosperity mission. It opens doors. Honestly, it changes lives. Personally, I’ll be completely transparent; I will try to nudge you in this direction, but I make an active effort to avoid emotional and psychological manipulation in doing so."

The Accuser was thinking, then seemingly satisfied, asked,

"So what’s up with The? Why is there only one, The Individual?"

Important question. She went on,

"It’s because the universal piece computer as a whole, is a group of people. The problem with groups of people though, is that they take on group mind and pervert and distort whatever constitution they honor. So instead of me saying I am a member of the universal piece computer, I say I am simply The Individual. I make my own moves. Period. If I stray from the programming outlined by the current evolution of the universal piece process, then I am no longer The Individual, and I no longer operate a world piece computer."

Shifting,

"What this means is that movement within the universal piece computer, and any local world piece computer, it is co-ordinated, co-operated. Movement is NOT organized, movement is emergent. The coordination comes from aligning interests via the universal piece. Nobody plans a movement, rather, The Individuals at large just act, forming connections between each other as immediate needs present. The only real glue is the lingua franca introduced by the piece computer formalism at large, and the universal piece."

"A mantra—or rule—we adhere to is make your own moves. If you want to help erect a local world piece computer, you don’t need to ask for permission—you just pattern someone’s style or devise your own style and start acting. Other people, other Individuals will catch on and make the move to join you, or they won’t. That’s what I do."

"In a weird sense, we still use the pronoun we. We are one. Individually, we act as one. We don’t act as us. Us, leaves one to tribalism, us verses them. If you and me form a piece computer unit, and I want to invite somebody else to join, I will exclaim join me! and then introduce them to you as The Individual."

"Pretty fucking confusing, won’t lie."

Objection. Peacekeeper shifting, slow then a pivot. This was a common concern and frustration among Onlookers, especially The Accusers.

"Yes, but this in large part is deliberate. The idea is to make it harder to become complacent and assume you are on the same page of somebody else. When I speak with another Individual, we will frequently interrupt the conversation to clarify this or that subtlety in language. We get into the habit of being more mindful of our language this way. It works."

"Ok, that makes sense, so the language choice promotes careful choice in language. It also seems to act as a barrier to entry, presumably serving to remind a newcomer that they can’t be so sure."

"Precisely."

Peacemaker shifting internally, return pivot then return boost. Representative-constituent checking in. Resume.

"So, insisting that The Individuals make their own moves—as free agents interacting voluntarily—this is the only way to run such a large Human endeavor. This is literally the only way to run the universal piece computer. We treat it like a single process, the universal piece, and we each individually run this mentality to accomplish things much greater than we could with just a central leader, or leadership body. Sure though, there are many occasions, just moments usually, where we need a single leader, for some special purpose. These occasions though, are inherently limited."

Moments happen at different time scales, for example, a moment might be a minute, a week, a month, or even a year. This is all part of the role that piecetime plays: the universal piece imposing timing algorithms within timespace. The individual continued, her eyes sharpening,

"I should qualify, to be clear, The Individual making a move may be a representative on behalf of a large world piece computer. We consider this large world (maybe one containing many smaller world piece computers) to be an single Individual agent, free to make it’s own moves. This allows The Individual to assign responsibility in a democratic fashion. If something goes wrong, The Individual representing the constituency of that piece computer will bear the brunt of scrutiny and punishment, as they are the representative, but as a whole piece computer, every Individual operating is accountable for the ultimate outcome of a project or prosperity mission. If at any point a particular Individual takes issue with the momentary direction of the whole, they may choose to engage in a disconnection algorithm and procedure to break away from the group."

"Interesting."

The Accuser took a stab at verifying his understanding,

"So, The Individual is conceptually a single person, but distributed across all the Individual bodies—the people—who represent world piece computers. Whereas an individual is anybody involved or associated with a world piece computer, but not an operator or representative."

"Yeah. A person stops being The Individual if they break from their commitment to the five rules of the universal piece computer."

"What are those rules actually?"

"Before anything, rule zero, is to never give up. Then, the first rule is maintain the universal piece. This is the most complicated rule, but it basically means, maintain the peace process, as defined by the current evolution of the process in piecetime. The second rule is to adopt and internalize the lingua franca, or the common tongue. The third rule is uphold the universal prosperity mission. That means to strive to maximize the state of global peace by minimizing inner war and maximizing inner peace among as many individuals as possible. Further, do so in a way that frees up the most people, time, and energy—the trifecta."

"Ok. Go on."

"The fourth rule is that all interaction must be voluntary. The fifth rule is that commitments should be honored. The sixth rule is to make you own moves, and the seventh rule is to become The Individual themself to operate a world piece computer thus satisfying the Human Imperative. These are the rules I abide by as The Individual. There is a lot more to rule one than meets the eye, but honestly that’s it in a nutshell. I want to maximize my state of inner peace. I want to maximize your state of inner peace. If you are at war, I want to help minimize that. Doing so helps maximize my inner peace, which is in part defined by me as my contentment and gratification. Helping others in a selfish manner like this is immensely gratifying. I thrive on it."

The Adversary smiled a bit. The Individual went on,

"You said yourself that you admire my competence and my beliefs and the way I hold myself, the way I stay cool under any pressure."

"I did."

"Those traits are no accident. They are concerted, deliberate, a constant effort. This is the product of the universal piece in my personal world piece computer. The universal piece is running as we speak; I am operating. I prefer being competent, of sound belief, of zen. Sure I let myself go on occasion, let myself get sloppy, but this is usually for my role, my cover, my role, my method acting. It’s fun to let go sometimes, which is part of the reason I love this crew so much. It’s much much more exciting. When I am operating my piece computer connected to a larger piece computer and we are having a formal piece exchange, I don’t break this state of being. I am disciplined, unless of course I undergo temporary insanity."

The Accuser took a moment to soak it all in. His eyes sharpened back. He replied:

"You did well."

"I did well. I did well at what?"

The Accuser broke into a big sly grin, corners of the mouth to the ears, and rounded all the way back to the beginning of the discovery process.

"You know what I am."

The Individual lurched. She knew there was the possibility of this, but she thought it was so small that would likely not happen. She was wrong. She kicked herself for the miscalculation—certainly a learning piece for future discovery events. She let go,

"Mother! Fucker! I know what you are; you! You’re The Individual too!"

"You did well. I just wanted to hear it from you, your piece computer’s discovery process, your style. I think you did very well."

"Thank you, that means a lot to me."

"You could work on some subtle points, we could talk about that sometime, but I think for the most part you would’ve had me thinking about inventing my own piece computer. It was fun to hear you go on like that."

"Should we engage in a proper connection routine?"

"Let’s."

She activated a recording implement that diverted the conversation record to a cloud space with a deadman switch engaged. If anything were to happen such as a double-cross, the record would transmit to the members of that crew, and both The Individuals would be compromised.

"Do you know what I just did?"

Of course he did, but the explicit verification was part of the protocol.

"You diverted our conversation audio to a remote storage with a deadman switch engaged to release contents of this conversation to our peers, who may not be so happy to hear us colluding like this."

She nodded. He activated his own recording implement, likewise rigged with a deadman switch. The Accuser implored,

"Let us proceed."

The Individual replied,

"I lied about being here with my own piece computer alone, on my own accord."

"I too, am connected to a larger piece computer; I am a representative-constituent for this computer, but also a constituent-representative for a network of smaller piece computers I connect to."

The Accuser Individual was clearly well connected, and probably much more advanced than his interlocutor; she could tell by the way he held himself, likewise being such an expert method actor. She proceeded to the dangerous phase of the connection routine.

"You sound better established than I."

"I am. You are young."

"Do you know which piece computer I am connected to?"

"Yes."

She froze, inner peacemaker working hard to stay cool.

"Ok..."

If not for the contraband on the table between them—several pistols with chambered rounds and a couple assault rifles, a few loaded mags laying around, six cans of bear spray, two tasers, one bloodied knife, and a large duffle full of US tender on the floor—it may have felt a little more secure. The reality however, was that this was an extremely dangerous situation, even with their piece computers’ deadman switches in place.

Her heart fluttered with excitement; after all, she did live for moments like these. Revealing her connections was a huge gamble, but one of the core peace biases of the universal piece was to favor trust over distrust, and to favor local connections over global connections. She trusted The Accuser with her life in fact; they had saved each others’s lives numerous times. She would reveal. Besides, it was way more fun this way; this was another peace bias of the universal piece, favor fun over serious. After all, she was convinced her Accuser was The Individual as well, so their interests were naturally aligned. This was certainly in large part why they got along so well. She pressed,

"...so if you know, tell me."

"FBI, Parks & Rec., and probably Xinu’s crew."

Dead on.

"Close. FBI and Xinu’s crew yeah—not so much Parks & Rec."

The Accuser Individual smiled. How could he not know she was connected to the Parks & Rec piece computer. She had to maintain darkness at that point with Parks & Rec. however, too much at stake in that process operation, her universal piece was fresh there. Their little secret. Besides, sometimes a demonstration of confidence is essential for the sake of preserving the anonymity of fellow representative-constituents. Routine, proceed. The Accuser followed up,

"Ok, so not so much Parks & Rec. That’s a pretty dark process I’ve heard anyways."

Parks & Rec. Fuck. Yeah this chick is fucking heavy-duty. He thought.

"No not so much Parks & Rec. for me. And you? What about you."

"CIA, FBI, Aaron’s crew, and the Easy-Street cartel."

CIA? CIA. But Easy-Street. Fuck. Broad process roots, murmurs of a deeply connected dark-region piece computers, but notorious for being committed to the true universal piece. (In so, Easy-Street made more money, and fewer people died that way, especially the innocents—less evil bloodshed, and less talent lost to the big-house, ultimately.)

"FBI. Hah! Are we affiliated? Do our computer sockets share a port or two?"

"Counter intelligence, domestic terrorism. Damage-max process at times, but I usually keep that to myself..."

Yeah. This guy is fucking heavy-duty. She absolutely loved making new friends. It was all rather intimidating though, this one, heavier than pretty much all those discovery processes in her past.

"...And you?"

"Ah, me, murder and Human trafficking. I’m damage-min process, specializing in collateral damage prevention. I’ve only gone dam-max proccs once."

"You have a braver heart than I. Working homicide process for FBI’s a taxing ordeal I’ve heard. I tried once; too much, too much."

"Tell me about it... But the contentment I derive from the work, the pleasure of minimizing pain and suffering, it’s unlike anything I’ve felt. I’m addicted. My inner peace depends on this work. I’ve come to the point that without it, I am at war inside."

The Accuser Individual nodded, knowingly—the deep kind—another smile, broadening, eye-glint.

"You know, I have utmost respect for somebody working damage-min process in homicide. I don’t have the emotional restraint for that, I won’t lie. Damage-max is one thing, but damage-min is a whole different playing field. That’s next-level spy game."

She was flattered. I guess I never really thought of it like that; for me it comes natural.

"I’m flattered. For me it seems to come natural; damage-max is usually too much violence for me, so I shy away most times."

"You earn it! You are a natural; watching you talk people down like that, under that kind of pressure, it’s fucking insane. Much respect."

The Individuals’ inner peacemaker and representative-constituent piped in; maybe it was time to stop going down on each other and start advancing the universal piece again. No shame though, going down was always the best part.

"Maybe we should stop going down on each other and find some bleach and a bucket! After all, Allison will be returning shortly."

"What does your prosperity mission dictate we do next? Now that we’re connected? You are senior, hub for more connection sockets. I will default to your agenda, unless my individual prosperity mission dictates otherwise. Fair?"

"Indeed. Fair."

"Proceed."

"We establish a cyclic meet-and-sync routine, on order of three-day, with semi-orderly break intervals so I can interface with other representative Individuals. For now though, we take inventory. We must exchange piece pointers until we have more complete integration between connection endpoints. A robust piece mapping is priority in my experience, often a matter of life-death. As we go, we will push onto an index vector to make sure we have an iteration pattern in place, should we ever need to cycle through pieces quickly. Are you familiar with the index vector map-iteration pattern? As you’re FBI, probably pushpull-2."

"Pushpull-2, intimately familiar. And understood."

So far their world piece computers were synchronizing well.

"Good. Let’s get this bloody mess staged."

The Individual detected an internal objections. She consulted her inner peacekeeper, who conducted a random access mindscape scan. Quite quickly, she discovered the issue. Standard operating procedure—for FBI domestic terrorism at least—was to verify authenticity via the digits-protocol. This was an internal secret. But what if he wasn’t FBI counter terrorism and she called him out on it? Or what if he worried she wasn’t FBI? No worry, for the protocol built in an innocence factor that should come off as innocuous enough. She interrupted the momentary movement,

"One last thing before we get going."

"What’s that?"

"Can I get your personal number, for connection?"

The Accuser paused, head cocking slightly tipping forward, eyes upturned, whites under irises.

"Why don’t you go ahead and go fuck yourself."

Then a wink, and a forefinger touch to the nose. Yes. My Accuser is definitely FBI counter terrorism...

"Gladly. And you as well."

She smiled, returning the wink, the forefinger. They were indeed fully connected. No bullshit.

The two Individuals began packing up the contraband with latex gloves snapped on. Before of course, guns all chambered, safeties flipped on and cross checked between the two tactilely, then loaded into the duffle on top of the cash. The bloodied knife was deliberately tossed into the bag last. Then, two waist belts emerged from beneath the table, were strapped on, into which they loaded the pepper spray cans and tasers. The Accuser pulled another small pack from under the table and the two pulled out its contents to load into their waist belts and otherwise: mirrored safety glasses with splash guards, low profile ear muffs with surveillance, a micro filtration mask to keep the pepper spray out balaclava-style, purple nano-fiber infused latex glove pulls. Knee pads came out, knee pads went on. Composite brass knuckles with digit guards came out, slipping into the waistband, ready to slip on over delicate knuckles. Sidearms came out, 1911-style, loaded with nonlethal playdough-rubber rounds, sliding into holsters that hung down from the waistbands, strapping to the leg to keep from flapping. Full torso fabric overcoat ballistic and penetrative body armor came out, donned, and like wise two ultra-thin composite kevlar helmets, thin enough to be a tight fitting shower cap.

They didn’t usually gear up in their jump-out piece kit like this, especially the nonlethal instance, but they had an important procedure they were tasked with running for Xinu’s crew. As the two discovered, FBI had been coordinating and nudging them both toward this situation. Allison finally arrived, meeting them to make final preparation. It was go time.

"Ok we’ll sync up in two."

"Favorite spot?"

"Favorite spot."

"What about..."

She nodded her head toward Allison. In a cringing moment of surprise, The Accuser exclaimed,

"Oh! Don’t worry about Allison; she’s with my piece computer. You can trust her as me."

A surprise, shocking even, The Individual reeled for a moment. Then she accepted the turn of events—after all, acceptance was a key core peace bias in the universal piece.

"Well what are we waiting for?"

"Let’s fucking do this."

Adrenaline coursing, under the auspices of the CIA, FBI, Parks & Rec., Aaron’s crew, and their Individual discretion, they moved out, loaded into a Ford Supertransit, grabbing a quick fuel charge first, a couple packs of sour gummy worms, then hit the road. The Two Individuals lived for that shit. They may have been hardened undercover multi-agents neck deep in crime and chaos, but they were making the world a safer place, by placing themselves as moderators, people who could nudge things this way or that way, toward less violence and less suffering, more peace as a process. They were solidifying their inner peace, just as much as they were solidifying the inner peace of those Onlookers who were subject to the criminal affairs they were engaged in.

It all worked out, and damage-min in that particular situation. That was these days.

[[ revise or eliminate below ]]

Interestingly, these days, 150 in the future of the advent of the Piece Computer Era, there were a lot more psychopaths and sociopaths. It shouldn’t have been surprising; the rapid legalization of drug use and the traumas imposed by the majority on the few disrupted the biopsychosocial balance of regular people on the regular. It shouldn’t have been surprising; there lived several generations raised in a culture of cold-heartedness and dog-eat-dog hustle-culture of the capitalist breed in its thrashing death throes. Capitalism in old form died, but the people post-capitalism were...different, and their epigenetics mirrored this fact. These days, if you wanted to feel safe in the world, you were willing to take on the mindset of a psychopath. If you wanted to make things change in the world, you were willing to take on the mindset of a sociopath. These days, bad guys didn’t win. Good bad guys win. These days, good bad guys are your best friends. They have your back, and they follow an honor code.

But just because more people could take on the mindsets of sociopaths and psychopaths did not mean those people were so. The ones who were so naturally latched on the the incentivization scheme of the universal piece that harnessed Human Nature. Those psychopaths and sociopaths naturally diverted—gravitated—to positions there they could do good by being themselves, they could influence and nudge things in a way that both made the world a better place, while at the same time satisfying that primal urge to bend surrounding reality to their unbendable will. The good psychopaths and good sociopaths were—ironically by pre-PCE standards, the friendlies people you’d meet, and with the deepest inner peace. By pre-PCE standards, it was disturbing.

[[ revise or eliminate above ]]

But it would be a lot uglier without the universal piece computer. Without the universal piece computer, most speculate that the modern world would be ruled by malignant psychopaths, malignant sociopaths, and malignant narcissists in a brutal authoritarian regime—a perverted violent manipulative oligarchy of sorts. Those malignants in such a society would not know the superior internal value of doing good. They would still be doing bad in the same old pre-PCE disgusting ways, acting out of fear and fetishized need for domination without consent. Psychopaths and sociopaths and narcissists pre-PCE were...pitiful, but dangerously so. This was why there was such a surge in mass murder trends in that timeframe. Dangerous people were trapped and cornered in to dangerous positions where they lashed out in fear and resentment, like rabid raccoons on a hell-bent vendetta to show-them-all.

But that’s the dark side. There is much more light than dark these days, but the dark is still the center of focus, like it always has been. We focus first on the dark Terror Singularity that threatens the Love Singularity, then once we have overcome the Terror Singularity by surrounding it with light, we can embrace the Love Singularity. This is a simple primal order of operations. Survive first, love second. The pre-PCE period were quick to forget this, often resorting instead to hopes and prayers.

But all this aside, these days there are dark regions where world piece computers are either not welcome, the people inhabiting the regions simply aren’t interested in entertaining the time machine for peace invention program, or the people are too atypical to effectively connect their attempt at a world piece computer. Some of these regions are distinct geographical regions, though most are distributed, peppered throughout society. Sometimes, individual or community world piece computers are not actually aligned with the peace bias, so they are really something else entirely.

This is ok. As far as the universal piece process is concerned, the inhabitants of these dark regions are disconnected primitive world piece computers. That is, they are the simplest possible world piece computer, and they are disconnected from everything.

The main realization of the past sixty-nine years since the advent of the Piece Computer Era was that a world piece computer in its disconnected primitive form is just what people do on their own when left to their own devices. The main differences between a disconnected primitive piece computer, and a connected sophisticated world piece computer boils down to language and computation, plus the social and technological tools employed to complement the two.

Language is important. This was obvious at the dawn of PCE, but very few people really understood just how important language is for getting the inner peace we all desire. Probably the first expression of how important language is came from the linguistic concept of linguistic relativity. This concept was explicitly framed before PCE by what is known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The hypothesis takes two forms, the weak and the strong. Weak form postulates that the language we use affects the way we think. Strong form goes a step further in an appeal to neuroplasticity, postulating that the language we use actually rewires the synaptic connections in our brains.

Neuroscientific technique developed enough in the past sixty-nine years that we have a preponderance of evidence suggesting that both the strong and the weak form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis closely match reality. (There are, of course, many exceptions to this statement, mainly because not all the brain is associated with language function and cognition.) Ultimately language determines how we behave, so if we think in terms of language choice—as we do now—then manipulating Human behavior on the personal level becomes a deliberate matter of engineering and design.

Computation is likewise important. Prior to the PCE, the people most capable of managing the highest number of pieces were naturally gifted at thinking in terms of the world piece computer construct (piecespace, piecebrain, pieceprocess), though they usually had their own exclusive internal and external lingo to do so. These were usually people like CEOs, scientists, mathematicians, artists, undercover law enforcement, international spies, politicians, criminal masterminds, undercover criminals, warlords, etc. Basically, anybody in a leadership position, or in a position where they had to live multiple lives, or keep track of a high volume of facts, were naturally gifted at designing, engineering, and operating there personal primitive versions of a world piece computer. A major difference however, is that they rarely had the computational tools to manage their pieces more deliberately and methodically—like . Sure they had access to electronic computers, but these were only good at managing certain types of data, certain types of simple pieces, not the countless pieces present in the average complicated Human’s life.

Nowadays, world piece computers are sophisticated enough that most people who use one can easily manage as many pieces as even the most gifted operators in the pre-PCE. In many cases, they can manage far more. Interestingly, there appears to be an upper limit to how many pieces a single individual can manage with a personal world piece computer. World piece computers appear to have an equalizing effect, because as it turns out, the technological and social tools are accessibility devices, not force multipliers. With the proper motivations and drivers in place, the original masters of piece management are still limited to about the same volume of pieces that the average primitive piece computer operator is capable of managing. The playing field it appears, has been leveled.

Individuals can still unite their personal world piece computers to create local community world piece computers that can manage a volume of pieces greater than the sum of its parts. This however, is a different conversation. To overcome the level playingfield effect, individuals and communities generally have to engage in a piecerace to build their piece computer communities faster than any adversaries they are trying to level up on. The clever trick though, is that the peace bias outlined by the standard universal piece programming favors local connections—the peace bias favors the competitive computer race. Explosive percolation in these situations as far as we can tell is an inevitable phenomenon, thus a global merge—an explosive percolation event of divided and disparate communities spontaneously connecting—a merger of two competing local world piece computers usually eliminates the competitive streak sooner than later. In short, the only real people who have a disadvantage are those who live in dark zones. Everybody else just consolidates pieces creating a greater and greater whole that is greater and greater than the sum of its pieces. This is the only way to win the piecerace—join forces.

When piece computers were first proposed under the auspice of the time machine for peace invention program, most people reflexively thought of the traditional electronic computer, usually personal computers like the laptop, or the desktop, or the smartphone. The reality however was that the first proper world piece computers were more like a productivity system—a collection of objects embedded in the surrounding environment in the operator’s physical and mental world. It wasn’t until about 20 year after the piece computer advent that the first dedicated world piece computer terminals began to hit the peace market. Without getting into detailed descriptions of their operation and design, world piece computer terminals and other piece management implements became quite hard to avoid. Usually the people in dark zones are captives, are deliberately rejecting the concept, or are just too atypical that current access technology isn’t yet advanced enough.

So back full circle, these days, the world has many more spies. We call them peace spies. Some people jokingly call the propagation of world piece computer technology the great spy game. Peace spies are people who take pleasure in seeking out sources of inner peace erosion in order to implement a new thread in the universal piece process to improve the situation.

Naturally, people dislike meddlers, we all do, at least non consensual meddlers. Peace spying among people who possess world piece computers that are already connected to one another is more like a fun game, one many fondly call just universal piece. If somebody is found out for infiltrating another person’s world with their piece computer, it is usually a fun and thrilling moment for everybody, and universal piece threads are generally implemented anyway without the need for complete subterfuge. Sometimes this game goes to far however, and that’s the risk, but even in those situations the perpetrator is tolerated by means of the universal piece tolerance bias. The culture of the universal piece computer is that of understanding, acceptance, and tolerance; we are just trying to help each other.

Dark zones are different. There are much fewer peace spies. Peace spies in dark zones are usually subject to similar rules as regular spies prior to the Piece Computer Era. These are individuals who either have a deep personal reason for assuming a particular peaceful cause, of they simply love the experience of risk and excitement. In the most extreme cases, peace spies found out are punished with torture and death. These extreme peace spies these days are usually those psychopaths and sociopaths mentioned earlier. They thrive in those situations.

Usually the successful implementation of a universal piece thread on a dark zone inhabitant or community is called an installation. Sometimes however, stitching the thread into the inhabitant or community is the most a peace spy can do. The universal piece is not limited to acting on world piece computers, but, world piece computers are necessary to run the universal piece process and its threads, so proximity to a piece computer in some fashion is generally important.

Although the universal piece computer is pervasive at this point, we still have need for global law, and we still on occasion need to simply remove somebody from the equation if they are violating some part of the Core Law, a statutory legal framework that all nation regions subscribe to these days. That too, is a different conversation, though some people suggest that the universal piece computer will inevitably replace the Core Law statutes entirely, while local world piece computers implement their own common law in a polyjurisdical legal ecosystem.

Gray zones are an interesting phenomenon. As it turns out, peace spies are generally the mechanism of the explosive percolation events that unify two disconnected community piece computers. (This is also often true in a trivial sense on the individual world piece computer level.) If two communities grow their local world piece computers in an adversarial piece computer race, it is not uncommon for one to see the adversary as being a questionable world piece computer. That is, is the adversary’s peace process really an aspect of the universal piece, or are they not a world piece computer at all? If competition is stiff enough, world piece computers typically insert spies in a deliberate manner into an opposing piece computer.

Eventually, a spy on one side or another is found out in a discovery event. However, because both sides of the computer race are building in the spirit of the universal piece computer, this serves as an opportunity to learn about the other’s universal piece and even begin to engage in universal language protocols. (Sometimes even, a spy is found out when a community doesn’t know it is in a computer race, and this is usually a good sign, opportunities abound.) Where there is one, there are usually many, so eventually enough peace spies are caught that the two world piece computers know all about each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

This is where the percolation usually explodes into a fully connected single world piece computer shared between two communities. Leadership on both sides generally understand that their piece computer has a ceiling that limits how many pieces their community can manage. They could keep adding individual world piece computers and only experience marginal gains in this piece limit, or they could induce a percolation explosion to deliberately unify world piece computers, to secure access to a much higher piece limit ceiling.

And there it happens: two world piece computers become one. The two world piece computers merge their universal piece into one, resolving any outstanding gray zone concerns. Any remaining concerns are stored in memory as points of contention to be addressed in a procedural fashion as time goes on.

The interesting catch however, is that the two original community world piece computers are preserved. Worlds may layer, overlap, nest, as many times as they please, with as many intersections as they please. What has become a unified singular community world piece computer, is simultaneously two disparate community world piece computers. (This is often cited as a quantum feature of reality, generally framed in terms of Hugh Everettes’ many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.) It extends downward, all the way down to the individual level. Family world piece computers may network to form a community world piece computer, but the moment they unify into a single world piece computer, they are still simultaneously individual family world piece computers. Etc. This extends upwards, too, to the ultimate global level that we define as the universal piece computer.

Piece computer sociologists has demonstrated recently that only about 5% of all world piece computers do not have some degree of peace spy infiltration. On the opposite end of the spectrum, around 15% of all world piece computers have active peace warriors. A peace warrior is like a peace spy in that they find pleasure in identifying ways to unify and stitch threads into other world piece computers. Peace warriors just do so in an overt and transparent fashion (though still respecting the universal piece biases). It is estimated that some 67% of peace spies actually serve as peace warriors in different computational zones. It is also not uncommon for one individual world piece computer to spy on numerous zones and computers, while also fighting as a warrior to overtly unify world piece computers in other zones and regions.

In all cases, spies and warriors both take pleasure in the same thing—they both wish to satisfy The Human Imperative and unify world piece computers, networking them into the universal piece computer. They all derive deep sense of internal peace—however their prosperity mission defines that in their individual case. In fact, there is an entire burgeoning entertainment sub-industry that is strictly about chronicling the pursuits of these two kinds of peace advocate. Reality entertainment has certainly taken on a bold new direction since pre-PCE of today. Everybody is watching the dramas unfold, the propagation of the universal piece computer.

Next Chapter: ... OMITTED PIECES ...