HTTPE

Flops sits hunched at his workstation, three monitors glowing, a half-eaten biscuit going stale beside the keyboard. Cables everywhere. A whiteboard behind him reads "SalaScape Navigator v0.0.3 — DEFINITELY WORKS." He is typing with the energy of someone who has just discovered something nobody asked for.

Flops: (muttering, triumphant) HTTP. Fine. Works. But unencrypted. Anyone could be reading this. The postman. A squirrel. Doesn't matter. Nobody is safe.

He opens a new file.

Flops: I'll call it HTTPE. The E stands for Encrypted. Obviously.

Beat.

Flops: Now I just need a key size. Something serious. Something substantial.

He glances at the shelf. His eye lands on a dusty 3.5" floppy disk. A slow grin.

Flops: ...One point four four megabytes. Per key. Naturally.

He begins typing. He calls it FloppyCrypt. He seems extremely pleased with himself.

Dook waddles in from the kitchenette, carefully balancing two mugs of cocoa with both little paws. Steam curls off them. He peers at the screen.

Dook: Whatcha doing?

Flops: Invented encryption. Just now.

Dook: (setting a mug down carefully) Oh. How fast is it?

Flops: Doesn't really matter, actually. The real bottleneck — (finger guns) — by design — is the physical read and write speed of an actual floppy disk.

Dook: ...

Flops: (nodding solemnly) Mm.

Dook: So every time someone loads a webpage —

Flops: Both parties insert a floppy. Yes.

Dook: (very carefully) Flops. Are floppies maybe a little... bit... outdated.

Flops: (long pause) (opens new file)

Flops begins typing. Fast. Purposeful.

Flops: You're right. We scale up. Version two. HTTPE/2.

He reaches under the desk and produces a spindle of blank CD-Rs.

Flops: Six hundred and fifty megabytes. Per key.

Dook: Per—

Flops: CDCrypt. For obvious reasons.

Dook: (staring at the CD-Rs) Flops that's—

Flops: Scalable, Dook. Think about the future.

Dook: (gently) The future of... handing someone a CD before they can see your website?

Flops: Or burning one. I haven't decided if the protocol requires burns or reads. There are merits to both. I'll write a footnote.

Dook: Maybe it's also a little bit... outdated?

Flops stares at the screen for a moment. His ears go back slightly. Then forward again.

Flops: (already opening a third file) Fine. We skip a generation.

Dook watches, cocoa halfway to his snout, as Flops pulls an actual HD DVD case off the shelf — apparently he just had one — and holds it up reverently.

Flops: Fifteen gigabytes. Per key. HTTPE/3.

Dook: Fifteen—

Flops: HDDVDCrypt.

Dook: ...For obvious reasons.

Flops: Exactly. You're getting it.

Dook sets his cocoa down. He looks at the HD DVD. He looks at the router on the shelf — a modest little box with a single blinking light. He looks back at Flops.

Dook: Flops.

Flops: Mm?

Dook: Our router is fifty megabit.

Silence.

Flops looks at the router.

Flops looks at the HD DVD.

Flops opens a calculator.

The calculator works for a moment.

Flops stares at the result.

The result is forty-one minutes. Per handshake.

Flops: (very quietly) ...It's a feature.

Dook: (already waddling back toward the kitchenette) Good luck, Flops.

Flops: It discourages frivolous browsing—

Dook: (off screen) Mm-hm.

Flops: —which is good for society—

Dook: (further off screen) Sure.

Flops: (alone now, staring at the calculator) ...I could add a loading bar.

Flops starts typing again.

The SalaScape Navigator loading screen. A progress bar. It reads: "Exchanging keys... (39 minutes remaining)". The little spinning globe animation has fallen asleep.

END SCENE.