Elias exhaled, the sound loud in the sudden, absolute quiet of the chamber. The FOP had done its work.

Elias exhaled, the sound loud in the sudden, absolute quiet of the chamber. The FOP had done its work. The friction of the digital world had been neutralized, replaced by a frictionless glide.

There was no more noise. No more contention between nodes. No more collision of packets. The network had finally reached its ultimate ambition: it had attained the stillness of a mirror.

Elias leaned back, his silhouette framed against the glowing sapphire tapestry of a billion bytes