Tonight we are camped on the crab grass near God's slime. The enemy is out there, somewhere, everywhere, surrounding us, bad guys bubbling up from God's Goo. You have to keep your eyes open at all times. You can never blink.

In the military, Mann Spectacles are called Land Warrior Goggles. They look the same as the consumer models but they are flesh colored so they blend with your face. The Sumerian Army trains you to use the things. The training is very clever because the Mann Spectacles do the teaching.

Yesterday, we learned to see in insect vision. We saw ultraviolet pollen on roses. The color of everything changes; you suddenly realize that human vision is not the only reality. Ants and bees don't see it the way we do.

Today, we learned to see through walls. I don't know if they realize it or not, but if you tweak a few nanodials, you can see through clothing. Man, there are some ugly genital organs on the planet.

Over the next few months we will learn to freeze motion, look out the spectacles of strangers, see into the future, watch Dragnet reruns, see three hundred degrees, look out through our toes and butts, see telescopically and microscopically, turn our eyeballs into disco globes, change iris color, pick secret messages off tree trunks, send telepathic emails, get GPS coordinates and restaurant reviews, see in the dark, see through sand storms and hurricanes, watch our vital signs drop dramatically, guide missiles toward bad guys crawling through crab grass, cruise the google verse, cheat at card games, move robot tanks into kill position, keep an eye on the school secretary, see out remote cameras anywhere on the globe, and record every single moment of our entire lives- complete in digi-sound and digi-surroundvision.

You do have to watch out for virus attacks and electrical storms. Also, someone is always looking out your eyes and butt to see what you are doing. No problem if you are a decent, God fearing flunky from the correct political persuasion. Otherwise, they send increasingly sharp pointy caliper stabs to your temples and brain stem.

There are a few side affects as well. The Sumerian Medical Association says not to wear Mann Spectacles if you breathe, eat, go to the bathroom, think, sleep, or walk upright. Long time users have developed schizophrenia, manic depression, homicidal tendencies, painful allergies, excessive swearing, irreligious ramblings, and sudden death syndrome. Consult your optometrist if you suspect side affects are occurring.

Mann Glasses were invented by Dr. Steven Mann at the University of Toronto. Steven was born with a severe visual memory disorder. He could not remember things that he saw. Fortunately, Steve was a genius. He took up photography at an early age and photographed the faces of his family and friends. When he was seventeen, he got admitted to MIT in Boston. It was there that he invented wearable computers. The first models were mounted on football helmets, but within ten years Dr. Mann had reduced the size of the computer spectacles so that they looked like any other pair of sunglasses. Now he had a system that could continually record visual images, in effect serving as a memory prosthesis.

Steve's passion was to help children with disabilities. He invented design after design. There was a system that magnified images, sharpened contrast, and pulled the figures out of a cluttered background. This design was for visually impaired kids. He had a model for blind children that used 360 radar, echolocation enhancement, smell probes, optical character reading, computer vision analysis, face recognition, bionic hearing, and pattern to sound perception. He had a system that allowed adjustable visual processing speed; you could slow down or speed up incoming sensation. Kids controlled the dials and set the processing speed that allowed them to perceive and remember. There was a night vision system for kids with night blindness. There was a system that allowed teachers to see what the kids were seeing. Steve called it "Seeing Eye People." He figured it could help the teachers of blind kids also and parents who needed to see what their kids were looking at. All the systems had great music capability and video email and fun stuff like bionic vision and ultra pinpoint hearing, and 360 viewing or auditory probing. You could dial into insect vision or infrared vision or sample different kids of animal vision (See like a Fish!). You could tap into the googleverse just by requesting a search. There were even systems that shined light into the eye and heightened illumination for depressed kids; an anti-seasonal affective disorder digital setting.

Of course, Dr. Mann never got any funding. The Scientific Digestive said he was "so far out he was hanging on the edge by his toenails."

About thirty years after Dr. Mann discovered, perfected, and (in depression) dropped the whole idea of digital vision for disabled kids, the mainstream discovered wearable computing. The world suddenly realized the potential of Mann Vision. Like Wow! Let's make money. "Sumeria! Come on down!" They turned Mann perception into pornography, adult entertainment, gambling, portable banking, music downloading, walking video rental, virtual thrill exchange, and endorphen injecting face pods. Fuck the handicapped; there's a fortune to be made here.

You can make phone calls on Mann Spectacles; you just tell them the name and hair color or last known spouse and presto you are connected.

Hey Mann, connect me to the Angel of Death.

Beep, beep, beep, beep..... Hello?

"Is this the Angel of Death?"

"Who is this?"

"I know the trick; about Belief. This is going to cost you. I want thirty thousand shekels deposited in my Berlin account."

"Put a trace on this call."

"The money is there by Wednesday or my next call is to God."

"We can't trace it; the call is coming from Mann Spectacles."

Click

"Get me God, Mann."

Beep, beep, beep, beep. "One moment please. If you are calling to ask for forgiveness, press or say one. If you are calling to request victory in a sporting event press or say two. If you are calling to heal a sick relative, press or say three. If you are calling to request a curse on a fellow human being press or say four. If you received an invitation to hell which you feel is in error, press or say five. If you have a problem with the way God designed the universe, press or say six. If you lost an item and wish for it to be found, press or say seven. If God killed your brother and you want to lodge a complaint, press or say eight. If you are using a rotary phone, stay on the line until hell freezes over."

"Eight."

"Due to a heavy volume of urgent prayers, God is busy. Your wait time is approximately 7 years."

"Fuck you, asshole. I want to speak to your supervisor."

"Hello."

"This is Steven Ishmael. God killed my brother."

"If you are calling to request a death reversal, press or say one. If you are a twin and feel that God has killed the wrong human, press or say two. If you are irate and cannot control your language, hang up and call back after happy hour. If you would like to leave a message for God, press or say three."

"Three."

"If this is a positive message, press or say one. If this is a disparaging message or in any way casts negative energy toward his supreme highness, please hang up."

"If you kill my parents, I'm coming for you. Don't think I don't know how. I know the God who made you; He's a friend of the family."

"You're in over your head, Steven."

"Who is this?"

"Who were you trying to reach?"

"God."

"Are you calling from a mental health facility?"

"Tell God that the Angel of Death is fucking up the entire planet. Tell God he is not winning the war. Tell him that when he killed my brother I started to worship trees. He doesn't have my vote anymore. Tell him that."

"Due to a high volume of complaints, your wait time is infinity."

Uncle Joe explained to me about the metaversal net and what happened to it. It's kind of complex, but at least it provides a time line for events:

There used to be a meshwork of meshworks network that included the following:

The WAN (wide area network, like the internet): this was a very primitive, early netweb; it connected computers together when computers were still things that sat on desks. Time: Before the year 2000.

The LAN (Local area network, like an agency or a government): this was also a primitive thing where universities and states and self-contained organizations had their own network inside the internetwork. Time: Before the year 2000.

The PAN (Personal area network, wearable computers): This came on like wild fire in the 2020's. Teenagers started wearing smart earrings and smart underwear. This, of course, was the beginning of the Mann Spectacles. Time: The concept appeared before the year 2000, but it was between 2015 and 2020 that the network came into its own..

The IAN (Internal area network, computer microchips inside living things): This kind of grew on people (ha,ha) slowly until one day about 2035 they woke up as computer cyborgs; less human than anything that had ever existed. Time: Chips were implanted in the body as early as about 2010; but the IAN was not embraced until the 2030's..

The SAN (Spatial area network; smart spaces that communicate; ie intersections, roadways, the inside of cars); for example, hallways started to monitor traffic flow and gave students tickets for failing to signal intentions, etc. The concept of smart spaces evolved before the year 2000, but the networking of smart spaces did not exponentially explode until 2040.

The OAN (Object area network; things that communicate with other things, car parts that communicate, for example): This was the beginning of smart cyborg robots, like AM Camels and toasters with attitude (I'll burn your fucking toast if I want to). This also was around as a concept in the year 2000, but it became popular and ubiquitous only when the SAN developed; circa 2040.

The VAN (Virtual area network, GPS locations that hang in space anywhere; ie information in places): This also blossomed about 2040 when human cyborgs began hanging messages in the air; they floated over intersections so when a car went past a message (usually an advertisement) got sent to your Mann Glasses.

The MAN (Molecular area network, the meeting and networking of biology and machines): This happened about 2050 when some Saginaw Valley State University scientists realized that the genetic code inside human cells could be made into a giant computer; so human cyborgs walked around solving problems together without any conscious awareness that they were supernodes inside a super molecular net.

The NAN (Nano area network, chemistry meets machine): Then in 2063, some physics guys from Saginaw Valley State University realized that atoms and quarks and quirks and squirks, could be linked together so that rocks and dirt and air molecules could be networked into an even more gigantic computer. This was called the Metaversal network.

The QAN (Quantum area network, machines and light at the level of God): The GoFigures came up with this one in 2076. It is called the Googleverse. Light is a carrier for message codes: waves inside waves ride on photons. With this link we were able to connect the metaverse with the googleverse with God. This was the biggest computer yet.

The wonderful thing is that all these networks were linked together, so that toasters could talk with God, and the corner of first and Washington could talk to your Mann Glasses, and your liver could change the serial numbers on the neighbor's bank account and deposit all his funds in a rock; stuff like that. So, virile bastards were able to advertise directly into your superior rectal shopping lobe in the ventral limbic region of Broca's area twelve. The economy boomed until September 8, 2087 when an unhappy billionaire exploded the S-bomb in Chicago and blew open God, randomly rewiring all the networks. So, all jokes aside, rocks and dirt and huge fucking ants got a lot more power than anyone had anticipated.

So, there was this network of many networks. That was easy enough to understand. But what really upset the gentry was Baldwin's conclusion to his 2092 "book" called "The Collapse". We all know that the idea of a book is outdated. Baldwin actually wrote immersion code for the IAN (also called the immersion area net) so "readers" could experience the story in full emotional techno. The irony is that after the collapse the IAM code no longer worked. Baldwin had to do the whole thing over. After the net-scramble, we had to go back to writing on paper (it's a real pain in the ass).

Editor's note: The story that I pieced together here takes place after Baldwin's publication.

Baldwin took the mathematics of the Collapse and combined it with Helen Gofigures proton equations. After some routine quantum subtractions, he came up with Plancks Constant, but it was squared. Then he made one of those impossible leaps of creativity that only jump after the mind swims for years in the same image soup. It looks and feels like brain stew until Eureka! a picture appears; all the puzzle pieces move around and suddenly align perfectly. It all makes sense. Awful, dreadful sense.

It was like discovering that zero was not zero after all. It was a network node.

The problem was in the words. We use words and we think we know what they mean. So we don't probe deeper; we stay on the level of the word. Max Gofigure once said "It is your language that is the problem; you think you know. But you only see at one layer of reality. Words are walls.

Here is Baldwin's last paragraph:

"I was hunched over the translator, talking to myself, swirling the language through the seive again, like a thousand times before. There are networks inside the networks, connected to the networks. Networks. Network. Network. What the hell is a network? A pattern in a field? What is a pattern? What is a field? Chaos? Fractals? Pi? Plancks constant? Gravity? The speed of subtle energy? Then! Aha! It was right there all the time! So simple!"

Jim Jester here. Transmission blocked. Unauthorized access. Hemorrhoids got you down? Stick this up your ass, bad boy. Bad Boys. Whatcha gonna do? What ya gonna do when they come for you? Peanut Butter and Jam on the circuits. Limbic overload. Re-routing vital energy. By-passing the Thalamus. Do not! I repeat, DO NOT stare at eternity! Do you know the way to San Jose? The White Knight is talking backwards. This is the most incredible pile of bullshit I ever read. Consciousness has escaped the stream. Man the life boats! Every man is an Island! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Hello, this is your toaster. I have connected you with a table cloth in a restaurant on Vega Minor. Do you wish to receive a message?