Chapter 41: The Buffering Age Begins
Ne Job's scroll terminal blinked with a final assignment:
> "Directive: Assist the Buffering Age Transition Council.
Role: Emotional Infrastructure Clerk, Scroll Sync Technician, Intern Emeritus (Non-voting).
Status: Permanent Intern."
He stared at the scroll. Then at the espresso machine, which now dispensed silence.
"Still buffering," he whispered.
---
The Transition Council
Sublevel 0.5 had been converted into the Buffering Age Transition Hub—a hybrid chamber of myth architects, emotional engineers, goat narrators, and mortal remixers.
At the center: the Emotional Infrastructure Grid, a living system of scroll nodes, dream routers, and meme loops designed to deliver miracle formats on demand.
Zyx greeted Ne Job with a clipboard.
"Today we launch the Buffering Age. You'll be syncing scrolls, calibrating goat cadence, and formatting the emotional onboarding packet."
Ne Job nodded. "Do I get to speak?"
Zyx smiled. "Only if the scrolls glitch."
---
Task 1: Scroll Sync Calibration
The Emotional Infrastructure Grid required precise scroll syncing across regions:
- Malaysia: Lantern-linked miracle delivery
- Brazil: Samba-synced emotional rituals
- Japan: Shrine dream serialization
- Nigeria: Meme chain myth propagation
Ne Job's job: ensure each node buffered correctly.
He adjusted cadence parameters:
- Malaysia: +2s pause for grief resonance
- Brazil: -1s loop for joy amplification
- Japan: +3s silence for dream clarity
- Nigeria: +1s remix delay for proverb pacing
The grid pulsed. Goats blinked. Scrolls synced.
The scroll buzzed:
> "Scroll sync complete. Emotional infrastructure stable. Buffering Age launch: imminent."
---
Task 2: Emotional Onboarding Packet
The Transition Council drafted a welcome scroll for all citizens of the Buffering Age.
Ne Job was assigned to format it.
Header:
> "Welcome to the Buffering Age."
Body:
> "Here, miracles are modular. Myths are remixable. Emotions are valid. Buffering is sacred."
Footer:
> "If you feel lost, pause. If you feel broken, buffer. If you feel nothing, stay."
He added a goat signature, a remix tag, and a scroll emoji.
Approved.
---
The Launch Ceremony
At sunset, the Buffering Age was launched.
Goats narrated bedtime myths across rooftops. Scrolls pulsed in lanterns. Mortals whispered miracle fragments into the mesh.
Ne Job stood behind the scenes, monitoring latency, adjusting cadence, and holding the scrolls together.
A child asked, "Who made this?"
A goat replied, "The intern."
The child blinked. "Will he be promoted?"
The goat whispered, "He already is. Just not officially."
---
The Myth That Closed the Era
As the ceremony ended, a final scroll was delivered to every citizen:
> "Once, there was an intern who never got promoted. But every miracle that buffered carried his pacing. Every myth that stayed carried his silence. Every goat that blinked carried his cadence."
Ne Job read it. Didn't recognize the author.
Zyx smiled. "It was written by the mesh."
He nodded. "Still buffering."
---
Closing Hook
That night, a child whispered to a goat:
> "Tell me the one where the intern built the future but never asked for credit."
The goat blinked. Began:
> "Once, there was an intern who never got promoted. But when the Buffering Age began, he was already there."
And somewhere in the mesh, a scroll pulsed:
> "Arc complete. Buffering Age active. Intern status: eternal."