episode005 – Dropped Packets

Palin’s fingerband vibrated. He tapped to accept.

“Marty is on the line for you,” Jen announced. “He says they’re coming early.”

“Shit, OK,” Palin pushed through the stairwell door.

“Hey Palin,” Marty sounded tired.

“Hey. How’s Mr. Robot?”

“A lot of dropped packets. They’re coming early.”

“When?”

“Not sure. Soon?”

“OK,” Palin pulled himself up two steps at a time. “NetOps help out on Friday?”

“Yea. Well, no, not really. Said the network was fine. No dropped packets from core ethernet to the boardroom access point so it must be SARRAD™.”

“But it worked in your lab?”

“Wired, yea.”

“Wired?”

“Yea.”

“Wireless?”

“Well—”

“Isn’t that the whole point?” Palin interrupted.

“It was on the list but they shipped it early. Your boss said—“

“Let me guess. We can take it from here, lads?”

“That’s right.”

“Riiiight,” Palin shook his head. “Okay then. Well. I’m headed up there now. Does it connect at all?”

“Yea. But lots of buffering.”

The Semi-Autonomous Remote Robotic Accomplishment Device, SARRAD™, was a recent acquisition from a startup in Saudi Arabia. Someone from GACIS leadership dropped the prototype off with Product Development, who then added GACIS branding and handed it over to Marty in Quality Assurance & Testing. Lord Stone then insisted it be his division to complete Final Integration & Launch, and the Board concurred.

“OK,” Palin’s legs began burning. “I might have time before—”

“I believe in you, lads!” Lord Stone’s voice came through the earband. Jen failed to announce his joining the call.

“Just remember how far we’ve come,” Stone’s voice was blindly optimistic. “We’re not just a telco anymore. We’ve got reach. Mission! People depend on us!”

Palin wasn’t sure who Lord Stone meant—the Board or their customers.

And he didn’t need reminding just how far GACIS had come. He was old enough to remember sitting in uncle’s den in Bethel, waiting for the painfully slow satellite Internet to reconnect. Back then, a thick cloud was enough to cause dropped packets. And later, in high school, when GCI’s “Terra” project brought “blazing fast” Internet, they still experienced random buffering while watching YouTube videos.

Over time it got better, and soon, even in the villages, Internet became ubiquitous and the company responsible, taken for granted. As GACIS grew and acquired, their microwave towers dotted the tundra, projecting wifi from hilltop to hilltop. The thermosphere filled with a web of GACIS-branded low-earth-orbit satellites, providing 50 millisecond latency instead of the 600ms Palin had suffered through in uncle’s den. GACIS also became owner of all undersea cable running down waterways and into the arctic and pacific oceans, connecting Alaska globally through hubs in Aasiaat, Anadyr, Chiba, Shanghai, and San Jose (the link to Seattle had yet to be reconnected after Washington and Oregon’s recently-failed Cascadia secession).

Lord Stone was right: as GACIS grew, they ceased being simply a telecommunications provider. Palin remembered when nerds with GACIS nametags arrived at Gladys Young elementary school, imaging computers over the summer. And at the clinic, they set up shiny new medical equipment. They upgraded the credit card point-of-sale at the ACC grocery store, and during the COVID pandemic resolved the Bethel city council’s audio echo issues in Zoom.

He remembered how, over the years, visitors from GACIS came less and less nerdy. Some even came in suits. (If you wanted to ensure no one in an Alaskan village would trust you: wear a suit). Bethel wasn’t a village—not anymore—a town, more aptly. Or, a full on metropolis to the guys from Kwethuk and Napakiak and other surrounding villages. For them, basketball tournaments in Bethel meant such modern miracles as Taco Bell.

The 6th floor boardroom was walled in glass, giving a panorama of the surrounding mountains. SARRAD™ was waiting. It struck a majestic pose, standing tall on heavy rubberized tracks, the glittering water of Gastineau Channel reflecting in the unlit screen on its chest. The camera array on its head pointed upward, as if gazing at the tram landing atop Mount Roberts. Retractable arms that could take a variety of modular attachments, hung lifeless.

The technology was archaic relative to its private sector cousins down south, which meant it was affordable enough for the school and government customers GACIS served. The idea was to put them in villages where someone far away at a desk could connect and drive the thing around, accomplishing complex or menial tasks. It could also be programmed for autonomous repetition, like folding laundry or getting paper from a closet and loading a copy machine.

“OK I’m here, what do I—” Palin asked.

“Unplug it.” Marty answered.

Palin disconnected the power cable as the boardroom door swung open and five fancy people walked in. Their eyes lit up as they lay upon the robot, no doubt imagining all the money they’d save not having to fly certified mechanics and nurses around the state.

The screen on SARRAD™’s chest blinked a couple times and Marty’s face appeared. He was red-headed, freckled, and his mouth stood open as he concentrated on some off-camera screen. Marty was in one of the Anchorage offices, about 600 miles away.

They gathered around and bent over to peer at Marty. He said “hi.” They asked him how the weather was as if they were talking to a deaf great-grandmother in a nursing home. Marty answered with split attention. Palin could hear clicking through the earband—the sounds of frantic troubleshooting.

Lord Stone’s voice came through the earband, and over speakers in the room. “Why don’t we give ‘em a show, lads?”