Jacob was different. Sometimes I think that boy came out of the birth canal jabbering away. He was a vocal one from the get go. He also cried an awful lot during his first few months. He just needed more attention than Serena had wanted. As he grew he became more independent. At just under two years old he was running and talking and playing with Serena and Woody. We had to watch the kids carefully since they were stronger than Woody now and we were afraid that they might hurt him. Under no circumstance would we let the kids play with normal kids, not for a few more years. Oh, but they could play with Al and Annie's two girls, who were similarly genetically enhanced, since their parents had been before the girls were conceived. And Ariel and the Daniels twins had been enhanced recently, as well. So the superkids had some other superkids to play with. We kept an eye, ear, and mind, on them through the implants. Sometimes Mike or Mikhail or Michelle would babysit them for us also. The kids always got a kick out of that. We did also, because then we could turn off the kid's channel and let one of the SuperAgents monitor it. It takes a toll on you listening to the kids jabber both verbally and mentally.
The kids wanted more puppies and I was kind of excited about the idea as well. We bred Woody with a beautiful chocolate Labrador retriever and the puppies were amazing and brilliant. They were all fetching and sitting and heeling before they were four months old. Tatiana and I had discussed it and we decided that as we grew older and once the kids reached an age that they would really understand what we were doing, we were going to start slowly increasing Woody's intelligence via the nanomachines.
At the rate the kids were growing and maturing we suspected we could start with the project in a few more years. We thought it would be possible eventually to make Woody smart enough to carry on conversations with them after a few years. Perhaps we would use intelligence boosting along with cookies as a reward for good deeds, so that his intelligence would evolve slowly and allow him to grow into it. But in the meantime he was great the way he was, being father to a handful of new pups. The kids liked it too.
We did put temple implants on Woody because one day he got lost downtown and it took us two days to find him. We had driven the kids to the park with Woody and something must have spooked him—we never figured out what—and he ran away. When we found him, he was happy to see us and was very hungry. Tatiana materialized a bowl of dog food and a bowl of water on the spot for him and the kids cheered and petted him and gave him biscuits that I had materialized. Woody came home and licked his puppies and curled up on his favorite spot near the fireplace and went to sleep. I tugged his ears and had Mike install the implants on his temples.
It was very interesting to try to interpret Woody's thoughts. He really had only a few that were recognizable. Mike and I mapped the neurochemistry and electromagnetic signature of his brain when he would respond to certain stimuli and before long we began to find trends. Woody would exhibit a particular thought pattern when he was hungry, or when he needed to go to the bathroom, or when he wanted attention, or when he was afraid, and when he was happy. Mike was able to interpret these patterns but there was no basis for any type of language or communication. All of his responses were based on his basic instinctual emotions and the need for survival. Tatiana and I knew that this was the basic data we would start with when—and if—we decided to enhance his intellect. In the meantime, we set up signals to the kids so that they would know if Woody needed to go outside or needed food or needed just plain petting. His needs were always filled almost immediately and one could argue that he was the most spoiled dog in the history of humankind.
CHAPTER 30
We would often host the W-squared core group down at the beach house for weeks at a time. The kids would play with the dogs on the beach and the adults would sit around and drink too much and talk about our history and various philosophies and the possibilities of future alien threats.
We were sitting around the patio fireplace looking up at the stars one evening, discussing the status of the public SETI program and how wrong the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence scientists had been.
"I always thought it was silly for the SETI guys to look only at a small band of wavelengths for signals of such mammoth proportion that a magically advanced species would have to have designed it for us and pointed it directly at us," Anson said as he held an empty beer bottle in his hand. The beer bottle morphed into a model of a radio telescope and then into a little red devil and then it turned back into a bottle of beer—now it was full.
"You know, I've never really thought about it before, but since the Grays and the red devils have been in control of the galaxy for so long, there aren't any radio signals out there to detect," I said.
"That's right." Tabitha sat down between Anson's legs and leaned back on him in the lounge chair. "As far as we can tell they use only the Infrastructure communication systems. No radio or microwave or optical systems have been found at all except for the energy transmission to the nanomachines. They only do that for a few meters and at extremely low power signals."
"Yeah, you're right, Tab. And that's just the Gray's nanomachines. Since the Lumpeyins use the miniature warp bubbles in the Dr. Who's phone booth configuration, they could put little SuperAgents in there and control them through the Infrastructure," 'Becca said.
"Hey! 'Bec, that is probably exactly how those things work. The Infrastructure transceivers in the picophage warp bubbles are probably low-level SuperAgents," Tatiana said.
"We'll have to consider that. That might give us an edge on stopping that damned picophage ahead of schedule," Anson said. He was already on another beer.
"I hate to change the subject back to where we were a few minutes ago, but," Jim said, "what about the quarantined aliens? They would most likely use radio signals. I'll bet you with the Solar Focus telescope we could pick up their signals."
"Why would we want to do that, Jim? We can just take the Phoenix and fly over and see them anytime we desire. No speed-of-light worries," I replied.
"Just for the hell of it and to prove that we were right about the SETI folks. Then if we find the signals we could figure out a way to detect them from public radio observatories." Jim was getting excited.
"Hey, I see where you are going here. If we can point the idiots in the right direction and find a real E.T. signal then we will have shown the public that there are indeed aliens out there. A great start in the informing of the general public process," Tabitha added.
"Well, that too." Jim smirked. "But I was thinking more along the lines of showing those Utopians up. Why can't our team be the one that goes public with the observation? It would show those guys up, big time."
"Hayul fahr! I like it!" Anson said.
"Honey . . ." 'Becca smiled. "You're still pissed that you didn't get to go to M.I.T. aren't you?" Rebecca let out an intoxicated giggle.