When Cory woke up she felt an extreme sense of dread as she thought about all the work ahead of her. At a student with TimeSlot #2, she still had most of the morning free to spend however she wanted. She had wanted to be TimeSlot #1 student but the lottery hadn't worked in her favor. It was better than being a TimeSlot #3 or #4 student, #4 was the worst option available.
Pretty much everyday of Cory's looked like:
Cory thought back on the history she had grown up knowing. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Federal Government had decided that as the internet progressed it needed to become available to everyone. Even now in 2040, Cory still lived with equal access to networks and devices. As the transition to everyone having access was made, the congestion of the networks became truly incredible. It was nearly impossible to get anything done online, which so many people had grown to rely on for their jobs, education, and entertainment. Because of the extreme number of users and demand, everyone had been assigned times to use the internet so that they could be guaranteed a faster connection to do work for their jobs or school. Every year everyone got assigned a new TimeSlot, and of course, they are totally randomized to make sure it would be fair to everyone. Since the networks that everyone used lacked the bandwidth to connect everyone at the same time, people were assigned a time where they could access faster internet to get their work done. This had been necessary since when everyone tried to use the internet at once there were so many delays and connectivity issues. While Cory thought there were a lot of issues with the system, one of the best upsides was that because the internet is still government-funded everyone has a government-issued computer and no matter who a person was they could still use the same networks and the same connection. Everyone was equal in this way.
To learn more about the TimeSlot system click here.
Since the computers that everyone had were government-issued, they would only connect to the internet during the assigned time. People had tried to get around it to get more time, but as Cory and her brother had tested, there really was no easy way to get more time. Even if she tried to use someone else's computer to access the internet it wouldn't allow her to do much. For example, there was no way to log out of the computer, so no one else could use the computer to turn in assignments or communicate for work, other than the owner of the computer. Cory thought about how if she didn't finish everything in time she would just need to wait 18 hours for her next opportunity to use the internet. Even if people wanted to give other people their time or even switch TimeSlots it was impossible. It did make sense why this was in place, Cory thought, as there was a possibility that if people could access their accounts on other computers people would attack and steal computers.
To read about more changes to the internet click here.
