Read Official Intelligent Beings: How Our Devices Became Us, And The World Consumed Itself for Free Online

wondered in confusion as he desperately tried to keep his balance.
    Jagz lost his footing. He couldn’t keep a tight grip on the ground. Just as he began to collapse, he bumped into someone.”
    “Oh my. How clumsy of me,” she replied, nervously looking away. “I’ve got a lot going on today and I just didn’t see you. Silly me.”
    She slowly turned to look at him, as if the world was in slow motion, as if there was no moment but this one. Their eyes locked. Jagz’s eyes went wide. Life instantly sprang back into him and the world was at peace again.
    She was an inch or two shorter than he was, her hair was a long strawberry blonde with some natural waves of brown tied up in a bun on the top of her head, with braided strands of an aquatic ocean blue falling down her face. Her eyes were like blue-green gems carved from the natural movements of the world, her skin with smooth, she had a slender waste, a perfectly curved bottom and a round and firm but relaxed chest.
    For a brief moment, he wondered if he found the pills after all. Peace spread throughout his being. He had not looked at anyone just for the sake of looking, or meaningfully gazed into someone’s eyes, for as long as he could remember. Until this very moment he felt more comfortable seeing everyone through a screen, but not her, she took his breath away.”
    Momentarily, having his confidence rebooted into him, he let out a phrase that seemed to have come from outer space, “It takes two to tango…”
    “Tango! I love tango! All good music really! And dancing! It’s the only way that I can really stay connected to the world around me.”
    “Dancing? People still do that?”
    She simply smiled back at him and said, “are you okay? You look as if you’ve just seen a spirit.”
    “Well, lets just say it’s been a crazy day and my mind has been elsewhere.” Jagz began to fall back into himself.
    “Anywhere but here sounds nice. I like crazy. “By the way, I’m Shera.”
    “Oh, I’m Jagz, and as much as I want to apologize for bumping into you and nearly knocking you over, I’m beginning to feel as though I’m not sorry at all,” he said, his confidence building once again.
    Shera smiled even wider, her eyes were like two perfectly formed ever changing green crystals, with infinite depth and absolute beauty. “You are just a big ball of funny! Did anyone ever tell you that?”
    “People don’t tell me all that much these days, not unless they are responding to one of my Quacks.”
    “Oooh! You have a Quacker account? What is your name? I’ll follow you!” She said with some real excitement.
    He hadn’t felt such excitement from a person in his entire life. He noted the feeling, he liked the feeling, he cerebrally recorded it on his device. It might even make for a good piece of content someday he thought.
    “@JazzIsDead” he replied.
    “Jazz is dead? Who is Jazz?”
    Just as she spoke, two chimes sounded simultaneously. One on Shera’s device, alerting her that her internal voice command successfully followed Jagz’s account, and the from Jagz’s device alerting him of a new follower.
    “My usage name is NaWonStay , but I’m just getting started. I mostly use it to read other people’s  Quacks and collect information.”
    “What do you collect it for?”
    “I like to take the information and look for patterns, try to find links between everyone, find what unifies us, what separates us, and what makes us feel alone. I know most people feel unified, but clearly not all of us do. It’s just a hobby that I have been keeping between my day and night jobs. I didn’t think people would want to read my Quacks, so I have found other ways to enjoy to connect, to relate.”
    “I used to think the same thing, that no one was interested in hearing what I had to say. But I shared my thoughts anyhow and, funny enough, over time, more and more people started to respond. As it turns out, there are a lot of people out there who connect