Today we had an Internet outage. People from AT&T Fiber told us it’s a big one. They said their had to repair a large backbone cable. I imagined how it might look like: two ends of a large cable with hundreds of fiber lines from each end, and they had to splice all them together. What would happen if they made a mistake and I started receiving somebody else’s Internet feed? I would see different movies and TV programs, my Facebook and Instargam feeds would show me different pictures and articles. etc. What else could go wrong?
I asked Claude.ai to write a sci-fi story based on it.
Jake stared at his screen, bewildered. The AT&T guy had just left, proudly announcing the Internet was back up after the “Great Cable Splice of ‘24.” But something was off.
His Netflix queue, once filled with true crime documentaries, now overflowed with baking shows. Facebook served him ads for denture cream and mobility scooters. On Instagram, wrinkled faces smiled back at him, tagged #GrandkidsVisit and #BridgeNight.
Jake, 28 and childless, scratched his head.
He called AT&T. “Everything’s fine on our end,” the technician drawled. “You’re getting bits and bytes, aren’t ya?”
Jake couldn’t argue with that logic.
Days passed. Jake found himself oddly invested in Martha’s sourdough journey and Gerald’s gout flare-ups. He learned to play canasta and developed strong opinions on prune juice brands.
One evening, as Jake settled in for the season finale of “The Great British Bake Off,” his doorbell rang. Outside stood an elderly couple, suitcases in hand.
“You must be Jake!” the woman chirped. “We’re your internet grandparents! We’ve been following your life for weeks now. Such a nice young man, always liking our posts. We thought we’d surprise you with a visit!”
Jake blinked, then smiled. “Come in,” he said. “I just put the kettle on. We can watch Paul Hollywood together.”
As they shuffled inside, Jake’s phone buzzed. A text from AT&T: “Oops! Found the splice error. Fixing now. Your usual service will resume shortly.”
Jake glanced at his new guests, then at his phone. He typed quickly: “No rush. I’m good for now.”
He put his phone on silent and closed the door.
The cover image was generated by DALL-E based on the text of the story.