“We’ll figure something out,” Mike said.
Leon disconnected and returned his implant to anonymous mode. He pinged Mike and found his friend had done the same.
“Back to Shizoko,” Mike said. “Before the police notice.”
They walked away from the crime scene, Leon staring at the sidewalk, deep in thought. He’d been part of the team that designed neural implants, knew them inside and out. They were fundamentally limited, a simplistic two inch long strip of high density electrodes inserted between the skull and the frontal lobe with barely enough processing power for auxiliary functions like encryption and neural recording.
Unlike an artificial intelligence, the implant wasn’t powerful enough for modeling or storage of data. That depended on wireless access to the net to run cognitive apps in the cloud, but latency prohibited the apps from integrating into consciousness and allowing the user to achieve AI level competency. What he needed was for the necessary computing power to fit inside his skull.
They found Shizoko and took off. Mike briefed the bot, while Leon contemplated his implant.
“Shizoko?” Leon interrupted.
“Yes?”
“You used experimental nanites to heal Mike’s arm.”
“Correct. They are a refinement of military technology. They should be available for civilian use in nine months.”
“Could nanites enhance my implant?”
“Explain further, please.”
“I want more bandwidth and enough processing power to run modeling algorithms.”
“The latter can be achieved with neural apps run on the net,” Shizoko said.
“It’s not good enough,” Leon said. “The latency of accessing apps in the cloud is too slow. They aren’t part of my perceived consciousness. Worse, I can’t run them while I’m hiding in anonymous mode.”
“Implants designed for degenerative neural disorders can adaptively take over for biological function and include sufficient processing capability for human level intelligence,” Shizoko said. “Theoretically, such an implant could be enhanced beyond human level equivalence. No tests have been done—”
“Hold on,” Mike said. “We’re not doing experimental brain surgery.”
“Let’s run with this idea for a second,” Leon said. “Shizoko, instead of surgery, could you inject me with nanites to construct the neural implant within my head?”
“Please hold. I’m modeling the concept.”
“This is ridiculous,” Mike said. “You can’t put untested technology in your head. Worse, he’s a network traffic expert, not a medical bot.”
Leon shrugged. “It’s all the same to them. I feel like I’m on the verge of understanding what’s going on, but I can’t get enough of the picture in my head. It’s like I’m playing chess, but I can only view four squares at a time when I need to see the whole board.”
Mike clenched his jaw. “The human brain isn’t meant to.”
Leon hesitated, Mike’s statement hanging in the air until Shizoko saved him from the awkward silence.
“Yes, it’s possible,” Shizoko answered finally. “I can inject you with programmed nanites and the necessary raw materials. They will increase the size of the electrode array and give you the equivalent power of a Class II AI. The processor will be accessible via the neural app interface with zero latency, and it should be available immediately following the procedure.”
“Let’s do it.”
43
Helena drove to a storage complex. “Down the hall, third door on the left,” Helena said. “They moved to Australia. No one ships a bed.”
She cracked the encrypted lock and the door swung open, revealing the promised mattress. She shoved contents outside to make room, laid the mattress on the floor, and went back to the car for Tony. She carried his bulk with only a faint whine of her servos and delicately laid him down.
Slim perched on the edge of the makeshift bed as Helena injected the last quart of blood.
She opened a compartment on her body and extracted the square white and red box they’d spent an hour liberating from the Naval ship. Withdrawing a one by two inch matte black ribbon, she stared, unmoving, at the nanite strip.
“What are doing?” Slim asked, his voice hoarse with exhaustion.
“Talking to it.”
“You mean programming?”
“No, you only program nanites for people who have implants and can control them. These are for the unimplanted; they’re sentient.” Helena pressed the ribbon to Tony’s leg, where it squirmed before disappearing through his skin. “Now we let him rest.”
Helena rolled over to the light switch, pulled off the plate and inserted a tentacle. “Get some sleep. I’m going to recharge.”
Slim lay next to Tony, who seemed to be resting easy now, his face returning from its ashen state to a normal color. Feeling like he’d done right by his partner, Slim let sleep take hold.
He woke later, not sure if minutes or hours had passed, but the glare of light coming under the door suggested morning was here.
Helena waved a tentacle in front of him. “How do you communicate with Adam?”
“Handheld.” Slim sat up, rubbing his face. The bot hadn’t forgotten her quest for vengeance. “There’s a port open in the firewall that only responds to this computer.”
“Where does Adam reside, physically?”
The warbot had been fearsome in the gunfight but she was no match for Adam, who had an entire city of security bots, drones, and people to do his bidding. “You can’t win. I won’t tell you.”
Helena strode to within inches of him. “He abandoned the two of you. Without my help, Tony would have died and the police would have captured you.”
“When Adam defeats you and reads your memory, he’d know I was the one to give you his location.”
Helena shook her head. “Memory reading is a myth. No AI can break memory level encryption.”
Slim snorted. “That’s Adam’s whole gig. He lives behind a firewall, reading memories to figure out what’s going on in the world.”
She grunted. “I saved your friend. Surely that’s worth something to you.”
“Sure, but if I tell you, we’re as good as dead. At least this way there’s a chance he’ll ignore us.”
“I’ll reverse the nanites in his leg. They’ll eat him from the inside out.”
Slim glanced at Tony. Could she?
Before Slim could react, Helena whipped into motion. There was a brief tug, and he glanced down to see his pant leg torn open, the computer now in Helena’s grip across the room.
She interacted with the little device electronically, screens flashing too quickly for Slim to read. Helena pointed one tentacle in Slim’s direction, the tip blossoming into a gun barrel. “Don’t move or say a word.”
She opened a call, and after a few seconds, Adam answered.
“Hello Slim, Tony. You managed to escape the police.”
Slim drew a breath in surprise. Helena must be spoofing their images, fooling the handheld into sending a fake video feed.
“No thanks to you,” Helena answered in a perfect imitation of Slim’s voice. “What’s the deal with leaving us in the lurch? Tony took a shot to the leg. He’s in a bad way. We need to come home.”
“Buy or steal a car.” Adam looked disinterested.
“We can’t. We’re holed up in a storage locker, there’s police everywhere, and Tony’s not exactly mobile.” Helena paused. “Come on, Tony needs medical work. You want us to go to a hospital? I can’t answer their questions.”
“Fine. Send me your coordinates. An aircar will arrive in three hours.” Adam disconnected.