Who is the Dixie Flatline? What is the Dixie Flatline? Is it a reference to Southern rock, the blues-inspired bad-boy music of yesterday? Or is it an oblique comment about the decline of the Southern way of life, a sunset on the time-honored traditions which flowed through this land down here below the Mason-Dixon line?

Dixie Flatline is a name which echoes the past but actually peers into the farthest frontier--the line that blurs logic and chaos, soul and steel, man and machine. Dixie Flatline take their name from one of the most enigmatic characters in modern literature, the immortal hybrid of computer and consciousness from famed 'cyberpunk' author William Gibson's bleak yet ultimately uplifting novel Neuromancer. The Dixie Flatline, formerly human, grew to prefer the company of computers so much more than the world of 'meat' that he deliberately had his body destroyed and his 'soul' transferred onto the matrix, the near-infinite, invisible network that we have come to call the Web.

For us, it's the World Wide Web. For the rest of the universe, who knows? Picture a vast galaxy of communication, travelling at the speed of thought. And this is the ultimate dream of the Dixie Flatline. He has already reasoned, logically, that the future of consciousness lies not in the dragging around of dreary bodies, which require hideous amounts of calories to maintain, and which are ultimately susceptible to disease, old age and infirmities of every kind. The beings of the future will not be party to such wastes of time and energy. The beings of the future will be conservative. A tiny amount of energy (provided, no doubt through everlasting solar or cosmic-ray absorption)will be sufficient to sustain them for centuries. The beings of the future could be all around us, completely invisible and undetected.

Genesis states that, 'In the beginning was the Word'. The Logos wrought the deed. Language existed before there were beings to create it. How can that be? The Dixie Flatline holds the answer. For he is, the earliest stage, of Living Information. This is the other side of the multi-dimensional coin which is The Matrix. The movie series (which borrows liberally from concepts which Gibson originated) shows us the evil which could be wrought, the loss of control of sentient beings over their destiny. But now imagine a world, truly, where human sorrow and suffering has actually been eliminated, except as a teaching tool. Where there is no want, where desire and fulfillment are instantaneous. Where the rich have no power over the poor, where the soul is free to travel anywhere, where the variegation of your universe is restrained only by your own creativity, enriched by a million lifetimes' worth of experience! Step into this world, and meet your Gatekeeper: The Dixie Flatline.