Chapter 6 - White eyed and bushy-tailed.

 The commander led them to a rear-exit, as it were, on the other side of the hanger, connected to a similar hallway to the one they entered from, and dumped them back to the circular main area. They got back onto the circular walkway and followed the ring around past a few archways and finally at one of the entrances at the rear of the complex, in relation to the Ritz. The complex was, after all, a circle. It couldn't, necessarily, have a “rear.” The entrance itself had two sliding blast doors opened up on either side of the rock outcropping. They walked down another longer hallway. This one was sheathed in metal and sloped inward until it reached “average” height, about 10 feet, what is generally referred to as a “story,” and terminated on another blast door, this one sliding vertically. They were walking abreast of each other down the hall, the commander on the right. As they approached the blast door, the commander broke stride and entered in a series of numbers on a control pad beside the door, and inserted her index finger into a circular hole underneath it.

Jim broke the silence, “What's that?” he pointed at the hole. He had seen a lot of security doors, but never something like that.

“The portal is lined with a series of scanners. It detects blood flow, temperature, and rapidly images the DNA. Essentially, it verifies I'm still attached to the finger and then uses my DNA fingerprint as authorization. This is the Lab area, Jim. The stuff that goes on here is highly sensitive, so security is about as tight as humanly possible. Access is identity-encoded. You are always under several forms of surveillance. Every action you perform is tracked. You need data access and security training before you're even allowed to touch a keyboard in here. Even then, the people who do have clearance here sign waivers that completely invalidate their right to privacy. One wrong move, and all of your privileges are stripped and your personal life put on lockdown,” The commander pushed a big red bar that had begun blinking and the door slid open.

“Why enter the code, if it knows who you are from the DNA scan, the keypad seems redundant,” Jim inquired as the commander once again gave him an open-palmed prod through the doors.

“There are several different number configurations you can enter in case of danger. For instance, there are several codes you can enter when you're under duress. They'll do things like alert the authorities you're being forced to access data you don't want to or change the data accessed so as not to breach security. There are a number of convenience codes, too. Entering in them will alert people you're on your way to their department, or prepare certain test stages of your intent so things are powered up and ready to go by the time you arrive at your lab,” The commander pushed on Jim's left shoulder and steered him down a side hallway. The steel-lined halls and their offshoots were all windowless, occasionally studded with more sliding blast doors and keypads. Each door had a colored light over it, no doubt indicating whether it was occupied or in the midst of an active experiment. The blast doors looked remarkably sturdy, as though they could each survive a direct bomb hit themselves, which they no doubt could.

“That's pretty ingenious. I never could have thought of something like that. Is the stuff contained in here really so important?” The endless rows of doors and halls were incredibly disorientating. Jim focused on the commander to ensure he didn't lose her, or else he'd never find his way out.

“This entire base of operations is one of the most important, and top secret, facilities in the IA. Some of the experiments going on behind these doors are the blackest of Black Ops. Some of it I wish we weren't doing. It can get pretty unsavory. There are server clusters in some of these rooms that, if compromised, would be the downfall of nations. Things that, even internally, would lead to revolt and revolution. However, this is also hallowed ground. In these halls our ancestors toiled tirelessly to preserve humanity and further our survival. In this very facility, Tyson Dale engineered the Adam Bug that saved humanity an eternal damnation of survival in the bowels of the planet,” the commander stopped in front of a door with a green light blinking over top it. “What goes on in these halls has, and forever will, determine the course of humanity, Jim. We take that very seriously.” The Commander inserted her finger into the portal underneath the keypad. A button underneath it illuminated green, the blast door opening as the commander pressed it.

The door opened up to a laboratory similar to the command hub in his dorm. Black slate tile with white grout. Digital chalkboards along the walls and monitors everywhere, dim blue lighting, bordering on black-light, and banks of computer clusters speckling room. There was also a large window looking into a surgery room, accessed via another blast door on its side leading into an intermediate prep room. The surgery room was lit only by the spill-over glow of the main room, which was full of bustling scientists diligently scrutinizing computer monitors and discussing things over digipads at the chalkboards.

As they entered, one of the scientists at the nearest computer terminal noticed the commander and greeted her with a salute, “General Cecilia. Interop alerted me you were on your way. To what do I owe the pleasure?” the scientist went at-ease. All of the researchers had on military uniforms beneath white lab coats.

“We have a special recruit coming through and I'm showing him around,” she extended a skyward-facing open palm to her side in presentation. “Magister Ronilado, this is James Ross.”

A look of surprise burst into Mg. Ronilado's face. He shakily extended a hand to Jim, who took it and gave it a pump. “I wasn't expecting to meet you for quite some time, Mr. Ross. If you're here, I assume the commander has already introduced you to some of the fruit of our work.”

“You mean the Augmentations?” Jim craned his head around, batting glances at the surgery room and the scientists at the chalkboards, as if to indicate his statement of the obvious.

“Indeed. I would also hazard a conjecture that you are dually interested in the program?” the magister gave Jim a penetrating and inquisitive stare.

“It's definitely something I'm interested in understanding. Standish and the commander have given me a cursory rundown of what all is going on,” Jim wrapped his arms around each other as he glanced down. The magister's gaze was quite intimidating.

“And do you have any questions,” Ronilado's visage locked in place.

“What goes on in there?” Jim pointed to the surgery room. The room itself was adorned with robotic surgeons and an array of manual instrumentation. Unlike the observation area they were in, it's walls were similarly lined with black-slate tiling and white grout instead of screens and chalkboards.

“These labs are outfitted with a set of standard-fitted rooms. This is a human-medical research dorm, so it comes with the surgery gear, regardless of if we use it or not. Which we don't. Augmentation is a relatively simple procedure. It involves an IV and a lot of computer instrumentation,” the magister extended a hand to his side indicating they position themselves in front of a screen lining a wall. He then went over to his desk and retrieved his datapad. “I have a presentation I cobbled together for Dyman when we first started on this program. It has a lot of really great models and simulations. I'll take you through the highlights.” Rinolado began gesturing on the datapad's surface and after a few flicks “threw” the presentation from his datapad to the screen.

A rendering of a mannequin in a stark white 3-D plane of gridwork was positioned in Vitruvian pose. “The first stage of the Augmentation procedure involves hanging an IV of nanomachines,” the magister gestured to the monitor over his datapad. A rendering of an IV appeared in the plane, connected to the mannequin. A diagram of rudimentary vasculature laid over the model with arrows indicating flow direction. The arrows showed blue-flow to the head, red arrows indicating the deposit of the nanomachines, and green-flow arrows indicating the evacuation of the payload-free fluid leaving the system.

“The nanomachines,” Rinolado continued, “are micrometers in size. They are coated in a sheath that makes them attach specifically to the brain, and not other fibers in the body. Each contain an impulser that can emit an electrical signal, a battery and inductor to absorb and store charge from your body's waste heat, a sensor that can detect electrical signals in the brain, and a transmitter that can broadcast information a dozen or so feet outside of the body.” The magister changed slides. A model of a human brain appeared in the grid-realm of the presentation. It was powdered in little flashing specks. “Once inside, the nanomachines latch onto groups of neurons in the brain. The resolution isn't quite 'one sensor per neuron,' but we're at roughly one nanomachine per hundred.”

With another gesture, the slide changed again. It zoomed into the brain to a microscopic level and showed a nanomachine floating in a group of neurons. The sensors had red wavy lines with arrows pointing into them, green wavy lines emitting away from them, and both the neurons and the sensors had blue jagged lines emanating from them, again with arrows showing direction, and each were flashing in a particular cadence. “The sensors absorb waste heat from the body via induction, convert it to electrical charge, and store them in a small super-capacitor. The sensors detect electrical activity in the embedded neuron cluster and broadcast that via encrypted radio wavelengths. An impulse can be generated from the sensor that will force the neural cluster to fire.”

Jim interrupted the presentation, “What would happen if all of the sensors fired off at the same time?”

“Good question,” the magister turned from his screen and acknowledged Jim. He turned to the commander and gave a smirk, “I can see why you guys like this kid.” He turned back and addressed Jim, “It'd be the equivalent of a Grand Mal seizure, a psychotic episode, an orgasm, and a horrible hallucinogenic trip, combined. We don't map the sensors in the brain stem for obvious reasons, so we can't control autonomic functions like breathing and heartbeat, but just about everything else is fair game. So, assuming the charge didn't melt your brain, the majority of your neurons would fire instantaneously all at the same time. However, the programs that attach to the sensor arrays are pretty competently coded. They have security features that'd prevent that from happening, as well as extraordinarily strong encryption to prevent unwanted access. And, as far as we can tell, the code is air-tight. You can never take such things off the table, but brute-force hacks and exploits seem like an impossibility. So unless you bring it on yourself, it seems highly unlikely such a contingent would occur.

“Continuing on,” the magister returned his attention to the screen and changed slides. On this one the mannequin had returned and green wavy lines were emanating from its head as the model brain inside it sparkled with simulated activity. The mannequin was also flanked by crude renderings of computers and imaging equipment. “Once the sensors are in place, scanners begin mapping them. Each sensor is assigned a permanently-ingrained (x,y,z) value. Once the sensors are locationally aware, the Artificial Encephelograpic Network, AEN for short, can come online. The computers then begin to map the entire brain, creating the Natural Encephelograph, NE for short.”

The magister changed slides. On it was a picture of billions of dots, some red, and some blue, forming a cloud the shape of a brain. “This is an actual picture of the graphs. The blue dots are neurons, the red dots are the nanomachines. Each position is accurate with a six-sigma level of confidence.”

“That is absolutely amazing,” Jim stared at the cloud, mystified. “That's a real brain?”

“It is, indeed. Watch this,” a huge grin crept across Rinolado's weathered, caramel-colored face, stretching his bleach-white mustache across his cheeks. He used his free hand to swipe his shaggy white hair away from his face and then made a gesture over his datapad. The blue dots began to flash, and the red dots began to glow. As the video played, regions and parts of the brain began to light up and shut off. “This is a video of the test subject solving a number puzzle at a pace of ten frames per millisecond.”

Jim was enrapt. His jaw dropped. Some regions of the brain flashed bright, some were barely used, others blinked into and out of usage at various interval. “That's someone thinking?”

“You are staring humanity in the face, Mr. Ross. This is an early test subject, so even his brain stem is mapped in this video, so that persistent strobing at the bottom is the brain controlling the autonomic functions. You can see things like the hippocampus light up as the subject recalls information from his short-term and long-term memory to solve the puzzle. This region right here,” the magister pointed to a specific region of activity flashing intermittently, “is his motor cortex as he moves his hand to write down solutions to his puzzles. Right now, you at looking at someone's entire encephelograph. Their soul.” The magister's voice was solemn and prophetic.

He changed the slide again. It was back to the mannequin. It was seated in front of a screen with abritrary images flashing across it. The brain had the green waves emitting from it and the banks of computers in the background had ones and zeros flashing across it. “Once the AEN and NE are synchronized, the AEN is attached to our super-servers. We begin training the subroutines to match your NE. Over time, the computer program begins to learn the way your brain processes information and your neural functions become programatized. Essentially, your brain becomes an ever-evolving code structure in our database. Because of the prodigious amount of information this generates, it is impossible to ever store your entire encephelograph, because that would require memorizing and storing the data of each individual NE state at nanosecond resolutions over the entire course of your life. There aren't, nor ever will there be, a system of computers and storage large and powerful enough to store and graph that data. However, we can get close, by developing a program to operate the way your brain does.”

The slide changed again. It was sliced in two, and on both sides was a large maze. One was labeled “Simulation,” and the other was labeled “Human.” There was a picture-in-picture in the lower corner of each. One contained a robot arm, and the other was the picture of a human male. The magister started the video playback. The solving of the mazes commenced. In the picture-in-picture, you could see the human solving the maze and the robot-arm doing the same. They each solved it in almost exactly the same amount of time, with the robot only making a small deviation compared to the path the human had taken. “This is the human versus the computer simulation of it. As you can see, the code, at it's highest level of optimization, is pretty close to the actual thought process of the human. Once we start getting into more complex things like emotion and decision-making, the unpredictable randomness of the human condition causes the simulations to break down, but at a base level, the code can generate subroutines to mimic the brain's function.”

“Wait,” Jim held his hands up and shook them side to side, “You're telling me that robot arm was moving on it's own based on how it thought the test subject would solve the puzzle?” Jim stared at the looping video in disbelief. “This is insane.”

“You are correct. Our ancestors were pretty 'insane,' as you put it.” Rinolado changed the slides again. This one contained another split-frame. One was labeled “Displayed,” the other “Reproduced.” When the videos rolled, the sides were almost mirror-images of each other, with the “reproduced” occasionally having odd video artifacts. Overall, however, they were pitch-perfect recreations of each other. “This is a reading from the visual cortex. A picture-in-picture below the “Reproduced” showed the blue/red encephelograph, with heavy activity in the area of the occipital lobe. “This is a rendering of an interception of the data-stream being sent to the visual cortex before it is processed by the brain.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Jim excitedly extended a finger to the screen. “That's what he's seeing!” Jim exclaimed in absolute disbelief.

“Correct. With enough optimization and training, our computer programs can intercept all of the data streams your sensory structures produce. All of your five basics, if you would. Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. We can also interpret some of the more obscure data streams like your sense of orientation, balance, temperature, and so forth. We know where those data streams originate from, and our computer programs learn how to interpret them. We're not quite as good as your brain, obviously, but it's close. Again, the unpredictable randomness makes it hard to recreate exactly what your brain does with this data after it's received, but we can read it before it gets processed.”

“Can it recreate it? I mean, can you implant data onto those streams?” Jim cocked his head sidelong at the magister, batting his attention between the stone-faced commander and the magister, consternation riveting his gaze.

“To some degree, yes. The sensors are able to produce impulses and read impulses, but they have no way of interrupting them, so it is impossible for them to close you off from the world. But, if there is sufficient charge in the super-capacitors, they can generate activity to simulate the data streams.”

“Holy shit,” Jim's eyes widened and he gaped at the professor and the magister. “You can control them. Turn them into robots. You can tell them how to move and what to do and change the way they think and everything. Why would anyone do this? How can this be allowed?” Jim's brain was racing frantically. The implications were too immense for Jim to wrap his brain around.
“Slow down, Jim,” the magister turned to him and raised his hands in a flat-palmed halting gesture. “The programs aren't coded to handle all that stuff. 'Rational thought' is way beyond the purview of the program. With enough processing power and data collection we probably could figure out how that all works, but the program as it is currently coded can't map it and create subroutines. We're still unfurling how the computer program works, let alone how to expand it into such areas. For now, the subroutines are limited to basic logical deconstruction and sensory monitoring, with some light sensory generation routines built in. Essentially we can jump into your body and experience 'you' as you exist, and can listen how your brain does what it's doing, but we can't tap into what you're thinking or how you solve problems. We can't control your mind, Jim, we can just look at it.” The magister calmingly folded his arms over his chest, hugging his datapad in.

“That's still pretty scary,” Jim was a little more at ease, but still visibly shaken. “You no longer have even the privacy of your mind. Is this procedure reversable?”

“It is a little scary, yes. There is a lot of security in place, though. As I said, the operating platform is mostly unhackable, and the training process is lossy, meaning, save for some bits of historical data here and there, the training input is dropped instantly. There is far too much data to store in a histographic format. And, everything can be localized. Once the process is complete, a compactified unit will be given to you to sync up with that contains the subroutine programs. If you don't want it accessed remotely, you don't have to network it, meaning only things in the physical presence of your pod can access the streams. And yes, the process is reversible. There is a special “wash” that can be administered that will destroy the nanomachines and flush them out of your brain and into your lymphatic system.” the magister resumed his position in front of the graph and changed to the next slide.

On it was the mannequin with a small box in what could be assumed to be his pocket. The green lines were emitting from the head and the box toward each other. “As I said, after the training process has been completed, the subroutines are uploaded into a compactified unit. The training data and all of the program are stored on that unit, and no where else. If you ever lose that, you'll have to start from day-one again. The box itself is notably slower than our super-servers, so any subsequent calibration and training will need to be linked up to a processing farm.” Rinolado gestured over his pad again and a computer appeared behind the mannequin in the 3D plane, and yellow lines emanated from the pod and it. “This uplink is where the nifty tricks like controlling devices and the like come in. The first one we like to teach is how to turn off net-linked lights remotely.”

“Oh yeah. I saw that one already. Which reminds me, how come the eyes turn that weird blue-white color?” Jim recalled Standish's menacing gaze. It caused him to shiver slightly.

“Some of the fluid casing of the nanomachines, as it's washed out, has weird interactions with the fluids in the cornea. It is entirely harmless, but it bleaches out the the color and causes them to be phosphorescent in the blue wavelength. I meant to put a slide in about that, but I thought it was a minor detail so I left it out.” The magistrate let out a chuckle that caused is body to quake a little and his white lab coat to flap a bit.

The slide changed again, and this time, a Core-shaped mannequin appeared in the grid-realm, with the human mannequin sitting in the Core. The disproportionately-large pod was docked inside the simulated cockpit with green lines emitting to and from it and the core. More rudimentary lines of vasculature with arrows to the pod were laid over the Core. “This is the last slide. Unlike the traditional sensor harness, by directly inputting the data streams from the core into your brain, synchronization rates increase ten-fold. This will increase the control you have over the Core, integration of the Core sensory data, and understanding of the Core's operating platform. Obviously we highly recommend this to all of our Core pilots. And, also obviously, not all of them like the idea of undergoing the Aug.”

“Do you have any more questions, Jim?” The commander's voice was startling. It felt like ages since he last heard it.

Jim shook his thoughts into place and then looked at the commander. “No, not right now at least. There's a lot to absorb. I definitely need to think about all of this.”

“Thank you, Magister. I'm going to get Jim back to his dorm. I appreciate you taking time out of your research to help Mr. Ross here.” The commander put a hand on Jim's shoulder and began guiding them out of the lab.

“Any time, General. It was a pleasure meeting you Mr. Ross. I hope to work with you very closely in the future.” Rinolado's beaming smile returned as he hugged his datapad to his chest and waved his goodbye to the two.

Once outside, Jim halted as the blast door slid closed. “If I'm understanding this correctly, Commander,” Jim began as the commander halted and turned to face him, arms folded across her body, “the Aug program is, essentially, installing a brain scanner into my head that can also make me think things?”

“That's about the long and short of it, yes,” the commander cocked a hip out in anticipation.

“And if I don't Aug? How do I pilot the Cores?” Jim furrowed his brow a bit, already knowing the answer.
“We hook up a crude external rig that does the same thing, but not nearly as efficiently or effectively. It's imperfect so it'll be mentally exhausting. It's can, at times, be somewhat painful. It will inhibit your ability to perform at optimal levels. Some of the pilots are so good they don't need it, though. Adrian is a sniper and he has not undergone the procedure. By Contrast, Tomah is Augmented, and is an excellent marksman on the range, but couldn't snipe for the life of him inside a Core. However, it is questionable if Tomah could have succeeded at all as a Core pilot if he hadn't Augmented. The procedure won't make you a better pilot, Jim, it just makes everything easier.”

“If I want to Aug,” Jim looked sheepishly at Commander Cecilia, “when would I have to choose?”

“Never. It is always available. If you never want to undergo it you don't have to. If, half-way through training you decide that the Augmentation is worth your time, we'll start you the next day. It is entirely optional. For all we know, you could be the best pilot we've ever seen with nothing but a harness, and the Augmentation won't change a thing. I'd like to think that's not true, as any advantage is always going to help, but there may be a skill-cap that we haven't hit yet, that you will.” The commander's gaze softened and she smirked a soft smile. “It's not something you need to worry about yet, Jim. You haven't even started any training. You have no idea what you'll need. It can wait. For now, just focus on being the best you can. If you feel like it's something that can make you better and you want to do, we can go from there.” The commander turned her back and craned her neck. The soft smile creased her round cheeks. “Let's get you back to your dorm. It's getting late around here.” The commander turned back forward and began walking again.

Jim looked down at his watch. Without any access to natural light, he hadn't realized what time it was. With a skip and a shuffle, he fell back in line behind the commander as they made their way to the dorms in silence, rapt in thought.