20
yberspace. It was written 12 years ago. I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever read. I wanted my kid to grow up in a world where cyberspace was free -- and where that freedom infected the real world, so meatspace got freer too.
He swallowed hard and scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand. Van awkwardly patted him on the shoe.
"My beautiful son and my beautiful wife died today. Millions more, too. The city is literally in flames. Whole cities have disappeared from the map."
He coughed up a sob and swallowed it again.
"All around the world, people like us are gathered in buildings like this. They were trying to recover from last night's worm when disaster struck. We have independent power. Food. Water.
"We have the network, that the bad guys use so well and that the good guys have never figured out.
"We have a shared love of liberty that comes from caring about and caring for the network. We are in charge of the most important organizational and governmental tool the world has ever seen. We are the closest thing to a government the world has right now. Geneva is a crater. The East River is on fire and the UN is evacuated.
"The Distributed Republic of Cyberspace weathered this storm basically unscathed. We are the custodians of a deathless, monstrous, wonderful machine, one with the potential to rebuild a better world.
"I have nothing to live for but that."
There were tears in Van's eyes. He wasn't the only one. They didn't applaud him, but they did one better. They maintained respectful, total silence for seconds that stretched to a minute.
"How do we do it?" Popovich said, without a trace of sarcasm.
#
The newsgroups were filling up fast. They'd announced them in news.admin.net-abuse.email, where all the spamfighters hung out, and where there was a tight culture of camaraderie in the face of full-out attack.
The new group was alt.november5-disaster.recovery, with .recovery.governance, .recovery.fi