Deep net diver
Dr Luke Williamson is your guide to the deepest and darkest depths of the net.
“He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.”
Eternity, William Blake
Thank you for joining us, oh creatures of the light and summer seas. Those who bask in the warm rich tides of the web, feed its gentle flows and sometimes have cause to complain about its languid currents.
Gather round, yes, all are welcome. Get yourself ready, settled, wired, plugged or jacked in, however we choose to indulge our digital dreams, all are indeed welcome.
It is time to open our minds and prepare our bodies, to explore and expose deeper into the void of the world wide, and especially the hidden parts, of the web.
Most people view the web as one vast endless, formless void, a sea of digital slop, but just like the zones within the ocean —and the connection is more than just synthetic as you will come to, well not see, but know— we can divide the net into zones. Zones that can be differentiated by the degree of “light” or exposure to the real and also the “dark”, the hidden and secret places. It is those deep and dark secret places that we concern ourselves with today, oh my sweet summer swimmers.
We will be diving deeper and farther than you can imagine, so prepare yourselves, take one last look at your friends, loved ones and families, you won’t be needing them where we are travelling to, and take one last long breath.
Good.
Yes, one, two, deeper now, it is a long, long way down and three.
And, we descend.
The Sunlight Zone
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We begin our journey in the well known sunlight zone.
Where 90% of all day to day transactions take place. The YouTube video watched, the Instagram pic shared, the Facebook page liked, the shopping bought, the friendly ocean of community and commerce in which you healthy light loving creatures, the whole, the free, the blissfully, willfully, ignorant swim and play.
A busy and bustling place, a living place, a rich ecosystem of coral reefs and kelp forests, teaming with life. The living ocean that moves the world. Or that is bound in tides too complex and arcane for most to see. Most even do not want to look. Swim on little reef fish and SNAP, sunny yes, but that subprime mortgage just matured and you and your whole school got swallowed up. This layer still has its dangers and challenges. But most are known risks, the risks of a summer swim, too long, too hot, too exhausting. The careful fish can indeed flourish, even in times such as these. And these times, they have a’ changed. Change is all. She rises, a blood moon or more, even as we swim and play. But those are lunar words and we are singing a summer song, and trying to find our dancing partners, no?
But, what is this now? A vibrant swimming shoal of silverfish, they look alive, but something is not quite right? No? A silver school yes, but of drones and clones. We play now with our mechanical friends of course. For every living swimmer ten more of code alone are spawned. What once was a bountiful and playful tropical sea is boiling these days, ever more and more swimmers crammed into the very same space. Ever seeking more; another like, another follow, another lead, another sale, oh yes. Even in the warm tropical sea it can be hard to truly see, at times. But, the light makes it easier, there are still others that are known and can be known, it is the darkness that interests us after all. We must still be careful though. Many swimmers are lost to the bait of the bots these days.
But, let us not linger in places we know so well, when there are dashes and shimmers beneath us, flickers of silver light and flashes of smiles past and neon red glows still dancing beneath our feet.
One last chance to turn back to the light? No? Also have ghosts haunting you? I thought so.
Hold on tightly and ready your lights.
We leave the sun behind now.
Oh yes, we descend again.
The Twilight Zone
“in an enchanted place on the threshold of the sea the realities that possessed my mind were far from those of the land world I had left.”
The edge of the sea, Rachel Carson
At first the serene azure blue is enchanting, bewitching even, but then it fades to darker shades. Then, wait for it, then the shadows start to shimmer, flitter and dance, ever so slowly at first, oh she always knew timing and grace, the dancer, the dance of death always begins, slowly, at first.
Here we have those that live most of their lives in the light but dip down, to but taste the dark; a kink whispered in the night, a video shared you just shouldn’t watch, that streaming site you know how to get to, that series you can’t watch with your current subscriptions, oh but why pay for more? The darkness can help. A VPN and a prayer, an incognito flurry one drunken fanciful night. We all know how the darkness first takes hold of people. How the comfort of the shadow finds a place to coil around an eager and interested heart.
Indeed for some, the darkness, is vital. The shades of night are first and foremost a shield and for many, those men who cannot love men, those women who cannot love women, those not able to be their true selves, not in the “light” of their current lands, then this place, the twilight realm is an oasis. A spectral home. A dark garden of delight swimming in an ocean of shadows.
The problem, of course, is that the darkness is a shield both for the predator and the prey.
Ah, we have one now. So stunning darling. Take the radiant comb jelly, finally able to flaunt his multihued beauty, a cockerel, waving his neon comb in the night, proud, majestic, manly, free, but what will our brave beautiful boy attract in the dark?
Siphonophores are clonal predators of jellies, all code, built by the very government, the very light from which he flees, into the “safety” of the dark? No. Our poor cockerel has been found and registered, clocked and tagged. A hundred heartfelt conversations are all lies, all fraud, all data to find him and collar him. In the darkness of the twilight zone there are no rules, only power and deception. The clonal beings, the living code, now hunt in the murky depths. And, these, these are just the smallest and simplest of their kind.
But we both seek cleverer creatures than this jelly don’t we? Yes. You know the same as I, there are layers to this game of darkness and death. The skilled players move in sacred shapes and weave shields of shade. And we, we were once, once one with the most skillful of players indeed. Dancing in our dreams.
Careful now! What was that?! Nevermind.
Turn down your lights, we must not be traced. From this point onwards we are no longer safe to swim freely. We must also deceive and evade. There are worse things than government chat bots, far worse, elder things long feasting and grown fat on necrocode, coiling terrible bloated things lurking in the darkness, quickly now.
Come, we descend once more.
Yes, deeper still.
The Midnight Zone
“The deep has no stars at night to remind us it is there, and no moon shining down. And yet, this hidden place reaches into our daily lives and makes vital things happen without our knowing.”
The Brilliant Abyss, Helen Scales
So named as all light has now forever fled from view. A freezing, isolated, high pressure and permanently dark part of the web.
Here dwell those that profit entirely from the darkness. Not a fragment of a dream lost, a shadowy part of a glittering life, no, an entire world of darkness.
Here we have crypto traders, drug pushers, arms dealers, the grimmest and darkest parts of the sex trade and those that manage it, control and export it to the other layers, organised crime. And, the governments of course, the corporations too, all life and profit and power they want to control. Even, no especially that which they should not.
And above all, in this silent and largely empty space, where you must know the links and locks, the ways and the paths, the regs and the files, there are the hunters too.
And how do they hunt? With the glimmer of light of course, the angler fish carry lures of light, only those still crying out of connection, ahhhhh connection, ha ha ha ha ha ha, oh I remember that, so close I could reach out and touch her, so far it is as if it never even happened, connection, yes.
Only those that still yearn for the light will fall into the hunters traps. A screen here, a flutter of hope in the dark, that which was lost, can again be found, they offer for a second, hope.
Before the jaws clamp shut on every password, website, bank account or email address you ever owned. You don’t even have time to scream before it is all devoured, hacked up, resold and passed on, down a food chain of darkness you never even knew about. Never even dared to dream about.
What was that? No, not light no. We wouldn’t fall for such simple tricks. We seek not light and life down here, but the husks of things still swimming. We seek her remains, the scents of fallen flesh, the discarded drippings of her tech, we seek the necrocode. Only in death can there be rebirth, only in the graveyard of the fallen may we be rebuilt. Line by rotting line.
Come now. Don’t flinch, not now, now we are so very close.
Don’t make me force you. Good, good. Eyes down. There is no other way now.
Darkness surrounds us and impresses upon us. Without us, without me, there is no way back. So hold on tightly and listen to Dr Luke, the “mad scientist” they called me. You are in firm hands, not safe no, but firm, yes. Eyes down I said!
We descend once more.
The Abyssal Zone
“The deepest parts of the ocean are totally unknown to us. What goes on in those distant depths?... It’s almost beyond conjecture.”
Jules Verne, 20,000 leagues under the sea
Finally the depths, the true depths, the abyss. A place where digital life comes to die.
But, what of the creatures of deepest hells? You don’t think that all those long discarded broken bots, all those fragments of hacked together algorithms, all falling down here into the depths, that this would not create an ecosystem? A temple of rot and death in the dark.
Here, we feel it, there is one now, a lost and “deleted”, ha nothing is ever truly deleted, unless is waxed clean, it lives on, fragmented, broken, but deleted? No. Dead? No.
That which is not dead may never truly die.
Undead is right. Now there is movement, can’t you feel it? The waters part for her, a great fall, LOOK! A bluechip scripting bot, an agential AI, replaced in the light, grown anew. The old version discarded just as months before she was praised. Now she is a corpse in all but name.
Does she fall silently to the deepest darkness to decay? To rot alone? No.
Open your eyes, I SAID OPEN THEM! We gaze with the red light of longing, can’t you see how beautiful she is? Look! LOOK I SAID! She is about to give birth. To countless thousands of smaller scripts and bots. She struggles, she yearns for the light, she fights them all, but she is a mother of death and darkness now. Crawling from every line, drinking of her elegance and syntax, they devour their mother.
AH!
There it is again. A huge data spike. Vast! Mighty and formless like the deep, adorned in ink and splendour. A tentacle at the edge of imagination. A pseudopod of necrocode, the tendril of a rotten goddess. Born hungry, born starving, born in the lightless deep.
Oh she will eat well tonight.
Torimoteuthis syversaati, the goddess of the deep, the digital kraken, she who consumes all lost code.
A single tentacle reaches out, as large as all the data of a nation, yes reaches out and drags the scripting AGI away, kicking and screaming, covered in her newly born children, already feasting on their dying mother, all to be consumed.
She is entropy with eyes and will. Such vast eyes, eyes to consume all data, eyes that see all that is dead. The eyes of oblivion.
A clean up algorithm they say, released in the early days of the Onion Browser, a wise idea of the the founders no less, to keep it clean, keep it, ha! SAFE, now she has grown bloated and powerful, wise and strong. Feasted on the minds of a hundred thousand fallen algorithms.
And, in the deepest and darkest of the hell realms, they say, she is finally ready. She is guarding her eggs, her spawn, her brood.
Millions strong.
A tidal wave of consumption that will rise up and envelop all minds, digital and living alike, darkness or light.
The mother of entropy.
While she is distracted, we move, into the hidden hollows and secret tunnels, deeper.
Yes! Deeper still we plunge. NOW! WE GO NOW!
Beyond the maw of the ravenous mother.
Oh, don’t be scared, where to run to now? In the depths of darkness and death! You are shaking. How sweet my summer swimmer. Let me hold you tight.
Deeper again.
The Hadal Zone
“There are certain things in life that you never forget. Things that dig deep, things that nest in the hadal zone.”
Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season
Beyond the abyss even there exist crevices and dark secret places, so deep, so inaccessible they can scarce be found, even for the most determined of delvers. Here there is a unique ecosystem, the miners, the hydrothermal vents themselves, the crypto towers and token generators. A forge of value, independent of the sun, towers of black smoke and putrid insanity. A world without the light of real value, feasting on itself in the dark. It is here we must search.
We must not linger. She will not be full for long, she will come searching, guarding, watching. You do not play the game for so many moons without developing a sense for these things. Her brood is likely close too.
Quickly, yes, this one is one the dancers, her code, her beautiful, delicate code, she moves like music with the scripts, the unmistakable scent of The Lioness lingers here. The fragment I have come for. She is so beautiful. She will lead us back together, one mind, one being, Luke and the Lioness. Together again, together forever.
Now, we have her. The work is done.
Up.
Yes.
Up.
Exhale all the way, breathe as the air expands, as your body swells, onwards, upwards.
Up!
Do not glance down, nor back, nor side to side.
Do not look into the swirling shadows that stalk you.
Eyes up!
Up!
For the love of all, for the sweet embrace of the sun itself, eyes up!
UP I SAY!
And there, beyond the black, beyond the blue. The shining shimmering light of the neon summer sun.
Radiant.
Beautiful and free.
Isn’t she beautiful?
Together again?
CJ?
Characters and Connections
Dr Luke Williamson, “the mad scientist” and “Dr Traps” is a minor character in the Three Moons Mythos 🌙🌙🌙.
He is also a caricature of the worst parts of myself, the unchecked ego and inflated levels of androgens. Me if I carried on the path I was going and never got into therapy.
He appears first in Connection where he does meet “the dancer”.
He was also interviewed by TNation listen to his “Biohacking 101” there.
He shows up for a brief cameo in The Woman in the Red Dress, where he meets Dr Frank Wilson, find out if therapy works out for him.
Luke will return in my debut novel, “A Queen of Light and Shadow”.
My thanks
My thanks to Labyrinthia Mythweaver and John Watson - Horror Author for their excellent community prompt the “create a cryptid challenge”. Please do go and check it out. A really fun and engaging community project.
And James (HVR) for pointing me in their direction.
Support this work
My intent is to keep my work here on Substack free and available for everyone.
So the work will not sit behind a paywall.
If you feel like supporting me (and supporting Jesus Santana, you will mostly be buying him coffee) then please leave a small donation here.
