4. When PA considered theoretical or tactical problems (such as the most efficient route through complex topography or the assessment of local cover), activity in the prefrontal cortex increased only marginally. However, when considering problems with a significant moral or ethical component (e.g., lethal containment of infected civilians), PA’s anterior cingulate gyrus lit up as it would in any normal human. (SECOND’s input channels also became more active at these times, although outgoing signals did not increase; this is consistent with the “passive monitoring” profile of heuristic biochips when in learning mode.)
5. PA’s speech patterns tended to vary with the type of experience he was describing at any given time. He spoke of interactions with his fellow marines and “conventional” battlefield events (whether against the Ceph or human paramilitary) using the familiar argot of the typical foot soldier, and while PA did evince an interest in science not often found in his demographic, he showed no great expertise beyond what one might acquire from a healthy dose of nature documentaries. However, when describing radically atypical experiences—his journeys through landscapes heavily modified by Ceph technology, for example, or the visions he attributed to the N2’s previous host—his vocabulary improved and his sentence construction formalized somewhat. In other words, PA proved to be most articulate under circumstances where someone of his educational background would normally be most lost for words; this coincided with increased activity levels throughout the SECOND-Neurosomatic Complex (see #6, below). This is reminiscent of the serial manifestation of “alters” reported in cases of multiple personality disorder, albeit far less extreme; it was merely PA’s linguistic skills that changed, not his fundamental personality.
6. Distribution of processing workload changed over time across the SECOND-Neurosomatic Complex (SNC). On some occasions activity would be centered in PA’s brain, on others in SECOND and its associated meshes, on still others distributed relatively evenly across the entire metasystem. There exists a weak but significant correlation between these distributions and the subject’s vocabulary and speech patterns. PA was most articulate when processing activity was evenly distributed throughout the SNC, or when concentrated in the architecture of the N2. He was least articulate (and most given to the casual use of slang and profanity) when his own brain was the primary locus of activity. While these properties fluctuated from moment to moment, PA’s overall mean eloquence and articulations scores increased by 7% and 9% (respectively) over the course of the interrogation. This suggests an ongoing off-load of cognitive processes from organic to artificial system elements.
7. At a more fine-grained scale, on several occasions as many as two (possibly three) loci of high cognitive activity were simultaneously present across the SECOND-mesh elements of the system (in addition to the locus more consistently discernible within PA’s brain itself). The signatures of these loci were similar to those of standard functional clusters, but were of far greater magnitude. The significance of these “islands of cognition” remains unclear: They could be artifacts of a background autoarchiving subroutine, or an emergent property of SECOND’s parallel-processing architecture. We are continuing to explore these possibilities.
Preliminary Conclusions:
A significant proportion of PA’s cognition is being “outsourced” to the SECOND biochip and the associated networks proliferating throughout the N2. While this level of integration is certainly unprecedented in magnitude, we all do something similar every time we let our iBalls plan our daily schedules, or use the Cloud to store our vital information. The difference is that we maintain volitional control over our activities, using our “virtual exocrania” as essentially glorified secretaries. In the case of Patient A it is difficult to establish where the centers of volition even are from one moment to the next, or even if they still reside exclusively within his biological brain. It is almost as though PA’s consciousness has become detached from its own substrate; during the course of this interrogation all three investigators had the experience of hunting down a cognitive locus, only to find nothing but baseline activity when the relevant clusters came into focus—as if the system had rerouted itself in response to our investigations, abandoning each set of coordinates a moment before we got there.
There is no known mechanism to explain how any mind could perform such a feat; it is more likely that Subject A’s mental processes have simply become less constrained by virtue of the greater computational volume available to them. (Put crudely, they simply have more room to move around.) What does seem certain, however, is that much of what we regard as the “person” that is Subject A now resides outside his own head. We are no longer justified in regarding the Nanosuit and its wearer as separate entities.
1To whom correspondence should be directed. [back]
2While the committee could classify the Nanosuit and its associated technologies as an asset vital to national security—opening the door to outright expropriation—we have been advised to proceed cautiously on this front. HRC will have certainly anticipated such a move and is likely to have put countermeasures in place. It would be unproductive to put these to the test under current circumstances.[back]
3See DHS Bio-23A-USMC/4497C-4014 for biographical and medical background on this individual.[back]
4For example, A reports an extended period of intermittent consciousness—we estimate no less than two hours—between the time he was injured and the time of his integration with the N2. NODAR analysis undertaken later the same day, however, shows conclusively that A’s heart had been effectively destroyed, presumably as a result of enemy fire on the battlefield. It is medically impossible for him to have survived for more than a few minutes, even on a tissue-metabolic level, in that condition.[back]
5The alternative use of a more experienced interrogator who would merely pose as a low-status, nonthreatening individual was rejected since A’s enhanced perceptions might have been able to detect the subtle behavioral and physiological cues that inevitably accompany any staged performance.[back]
Hive
Not really sure what’s real here, and what’s the spawn of my fevered, fetid, infested imagination. I see Ling Shan, although I’ve never been. I see constellations in an alien junkyard, spinning slowly on the surface of an invisible globe. A voice threads through it all, a voice that talks as though we’re old friends although I can’t quite make out the words. I’ve never heard it before.