Slunk Emo ceremoniously attached the lens. The live stream on Stumbler broadcast through the universe video of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Slunk Ome, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the circuit when he threw it. The switch that would link, all at once, all the sprawling algorithms and computing devices—from servers to personal computers, phones, smart watches, and internet-enabled appliances, more than ninety-six billion machines–into the super algorithm that would connect them all to the 47.8 exapixel camera, creating one massive opti-cybernetics machine that would combine not only all the photographs ever taken but also all the photographs ever imagined.
Slunk Ome spoke briefly to the billions simultaneously refreshing the page. Then, after a moment’s silence, he said, “Now, Slunk Emo.”
Slunk Emo threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power through trillions of neural networks mining data from even the obscurest corners of the internet, including abandoned NoLongerMySpace pages. Servers strained and pages buffered and bandwidth limits were exceeded. After a few moments Stumbler’s network caught up to the surge in users.
Slunk Emo stepped back and drew a deep breath. “The honor of requesting the first image is yours, Slunk Ome.”
“Thank you,” said Slunk Ome. “It shall be a picture that no single photographer has been able to take.”
He turned to face the opti-cybernetics machine. “Can you now create the perfect photograph?”
A mighty voice answered without hesitation, without a single click of the shutter.
“Yes. And now there is a perfect photograph.”
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Slunk Emo. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the hot shoe struck him down and fused the switch shut.*
Meanwhile, a guy with a camera sits at the local skating rink taking blurry pictures.
[*Based on “Answer,” a short story by Fredric Brown.]