Hyperion Dreams

1-My Name is Hyperion

I was feeling sick, and having massive headaches, so I went to the shrink.

–But not just any shrink; I employed the number one, most expensive psychiatrist money could buy, on this side of the Atlantic. It's so funny. He's one of those little professor types that look just like Sigmund Freud; he even talks with a German accent. I call him 'Siggy,' or 'Doc.'

But perhaps I should explain...

It all began when I started to have such realistic dreams, that I couldn't tell the difference between them, and the real world. At the same time, my coworker Boolean and I were working on the Tangle, and he found a bug.

This was not surprising, since Boolean is one of our local 'genius-hackers.'

We are both blockchain engineers, and we're working on a new platform called 'Iota' —which is short for 'Internet Of Things'. Now this platform's blockchain is really something else. It's actually called a 'tangle' because it is like a three dimensional blockchain, and we are building it...

"Run it again," I said.

Boolean ran the query again: 'No entry.'

"Why no entry?" he said. "—Why no entry?! Goddammit!"

"Calm down dude. What the hell is wrong with you?"

I've never seen him so upset, and his pissed-off-ness was really beginning to, well, piss me off.

"Because I know there is something there, I know it's there!

Boolean's I'D badge beeped a singular lonely tone. Was it a malfunction?

The door swung open.

The level one administrator popped his head in.

He is the oldest person in the building, and he has a beard and a big round face.

"Boolean, do I pay you to find bugs, or build the blockchain?"

"Uh...finding bugs is part of the job?" said Boolean.

"Right, so file a bug report, and then get back to building the blockchain—understood?"

Boolean clenched his jaw and squeezed out an empty "Yes."

The arrogant you-know-what slammed the door as he popped his head back out with the grace of a micromanager. A micromanager who has been practicing this one move his entire life.

He was a real atavism: with all of his facial hair and his bloodshot eyes, especially his left eye, it was always bloodshot.

His name is Dr. Fenter, but we call him 'Fender.'

I've always harbored a deep resentment against his round-faced-bearded-arrogance.

When Boolean and I got hired, (we were hired at exactly the same time,) he was not the one who hired us. We did not come to work for him; but through the many reorganizations of this big dumb company, fate would have it that he would become our domain manager...great.