I take half a second to scoop up a carbine from a mall cop who won’t be needing it anymore. Then I run like hell.
Before I’ve even turned tail I can see the smoke belching out overhead, black stuff, darker than oil and coarser, somehow. It reaches for me. That’s not a metaphor. This shit doesn’t disperse, it hunts. I can see cords of it, big ropy tentacles of smoke thick as telephone poles, reaching around in huge sweeping arcs and circles. It looks a lot like what they always said battlefield nanotech would look like, if we could ever get it to work.
These aliens, they’ve got it working just fine. The suit’s finally back up to full strength and I’m driving it as fast as I can, don’t even dare look back, but I can feel the sky going dark behind me. I can see my shadow fading against the pavement and just like that it’s got me, it’s like being caught in a goddamn tornado. It lifts me right off my feet; it slams me onto the pavement. I can see little black particles sleeting across my faceplate. It’s like being sandblasted with pepper. I try to get back up but my joints are seizing again, tactical’s sprouting error icons like hyperherpes and just dies. BUD disappears; the world follows a moment later. I’m blind, my motor systems are spazzing out, and the last thing I hear is False Prophet telling me there’s been a systems breach, that the N2 is infested—that’s the word he uses, infested—and that we’re initiating a total core-systems downboot to protect life support.
He’s still calculating the odds of pulling that off when I black out.
Context:
The manner and degree to which CryNet Systems Semi-autonomous Enhanced Combat Ops: Neurointegration and Delivery (SECOND™) biochip integrates with the wearer of the CN Combat Solutions Nanosuit 2.0(tm) is a matter of intense interest from scientific, military, and national-security perspectives. The Hargreave-Rasch Corporation, staunchly asserting the proprietary nature of this and related technology, has been reluctant to cooperate in our investigations to date.2 However, it has become increasingly apparent that while HRC could no doubt provide valuable insights into the design and manufacture of the Nanosuit, they might have much less to offer our investigation than was originally thought. Put simply, we believe that both the degree and the nature of the observed human/artifact integration was as unexpected to HRC as it was to us; and while we did not design this technology, we are currently in possession of it. Hargreave-Rasch knows only what the Nanosuit was designed to be; we are in possession of what it has become, and HRC is unlikely to launch any legal proceedings so long as they need our cooperation in managing the PR aftermath of the recent fiasco at their Prism facility. We would therefore advise against making any unnecessary concessions in exchange for technical data we can probably derive ourselves using the materials at hand, and which may prove to be largely irrelevant in any event.
Methodology and Results:
The Nanosuit 2 (hence, N2), following a long-term but ultimately unsuccessful symbiosis with Commander Laurence Barnes, is now integrated with Patient A3 of the USMC. PA alleges that he suffered terminal injuries during the Manhattan Incursion, dying on the battlefield, and was subsequently installed in the N2 on the initiative of Cmdr. Barnes (who then took his own life). This story remains unverified, and is inconsistent with independent observations;4 we are currently seeking corroboration from other sources, but advise that at least some of PA’s allegations cannot be considered reliable at this time.
PA was successfully extracted from Manhattan in the wake of the Incursion and taken to a secure location for protective debriefing. During this time we were able to establish an interface with the N2 via its optical interface, using an infrared laser link. PA detected the handshaking protocols but misinterpreted them as a failed shutdown command; we were therefore able to monitor the internal states of both he and the N2 during interrogation, without PA ever being aware of this fact. The N2’s biotelemetry capabilities proved far beyond what we had expected, providing fine-grained cortical synaptic maps at a resolution of 1–2 voxels (comparable to that of fixed-location scanners that occupy entire rooms; the integration of such technology into battlefield prostheses is at least 20 years ahead of our current state-of-the-art).
A relatively inexperienced and low-ranking individual was selected to interview PA, and was provided the minimum necessary information prior to debriefing. This was intended to increase PA’s confidence during interrogation, and to encourage him to talk at length about his experiences.5 By asking wide-ranging questions beyond the pale of a conventional debrief—and by encouraging digressions and lengthy responses—we were able to isolate the functional clusters involved in various cognitive processes, and compare them with baseline norms. We were also able to influence the direction of the exchange by periodically exposing PA to subliminal images projected onto the facing wall (duration <20msec to allow for the subject’s increased visual acuity), which were designed to provoke a range of emotional responses.
Some of our more significant findings are as follows:
1. PA did not “speak” in the conventional sense throughout the entire interview. On its face this might seem obvious—since his vocal cords had been extensively damaged, PA was forced to rely on the N2’s onboard speech synthesizer throughout—but it goes much farther than this. PA generally spoke without invoking the saccadal text interface that should have been necessary for such communication. Furthermore, his speech centers (notably Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas) were often relatively inactive during conversation. We did, however, note increased activity in the nanoneural mesh that connected PA’s nervous system to SECOND at these times.
2. PA’s ability to recollect the details of specific events borders on savantism. During our interviews he often recited overheard conversations verbatim, in their entirety. We have managed to acquire independent records of two of these conversations (from streamed security surveillance of Central Station); PA’s recollection of these exchanges proved accurate, and we have no reason to doubt his account of the others. There is, however, no record of eidetic memory in his USMC personnel file.
3. When discussing events that took place prior to his integration with the N2 (childhood memories, or reminiscence about previous tours of duty), PA’s hippocampus and prefrontal cortex lit up in a manner consistent with the activation of long-term memories. However, when discussing events that occurred during the Manhattan Incursion, activity in these areas declined, and throughput between SECOND and its associative coelomic meshes increased significantly.