Part 1

Cybernetic Brain Implants are all the rage now. They allow people to control their PCs, cars, game consoles, and more wirelessly and remotely with just their mind. It seemed like everybody was getting them.

You even saw employers offering to get them for their employees since it meant the employer could monitor their employees more efficiently. Theoretically it also means the employee would also be much more productive. At least, that’s what they want you to believe.

Alex’s roommate, Jake, recently got one of those implants installed in his head. Yep. Made an appointment with the place that sells them and then a robo-doc cut into the back of his neck and inserted the thing at the base of his brain leaving a flesh-colored plastic access port right there at the base of his skull. A magsafe connector provided a physical connection to his implant, otherwise everything is done wirelessly.

From a purely technological standpoint it’s a pretty neat device. First, it’s powered by blood sugar! Glucose. You tend to see people with these types of cybernetic implants with quite a sweet tooth. Now you know why. Onboard micro- and neuromorphic -processors with machine learning provide a bidirectional translation of the brain’s analog signals to the digital signals of the rest of the world.

⁂

Their apartment was quiet, except for the soft him of Jake’s gaming rig. Theirs is a small two-bedroom flat with small bedrooms located across from one-another, a large, shared bathroom, and a large communal space that housed their kitchen, dining room, and living room.

It was in downtown Atlanta, and for the money it really wasn’t that bad of a deal. But being in the heart of Atlanta, crime was always an issue. The fact there was an Atlanta Police precinct in the ground-floor of their apartment building meant that crime inside their building was thankfully almost non-existent.

Outside though, several sirens wailed, and the strobes and lights of various flying vehicles etched colorful patterns on their adjustable opaque windows that shielded the outside views to the goings-on inside their space.

Inside their apartment Jake was in his room, laying on his bed, in the middle of a game as usual. A holographic display hovered above his head with a rapidly evolving scene of fighting and combat of some fictional galactic army of soldiers fighting some alien species. He was perfectly still, the only movements from him were those of his eyes darting back and forth watching the game. He was perfectly in “the zone”.

⁂

Alex leaned against the doorframe to Jake’s room and covertly watched his roommate Jake for a few minutes.

Jake was not a typical “gamer geek” that only cared about his games and neglected his body. To put it bluntly, Jake was in incredible shape. He was tall; about 196cm in height, and weighed 75 kilos.

::: info That’s 6’5” and 165 lbs. in Freedom units, or almost 12 stone in Commonwealth units.

:::

He also had the metabolism of a fruit fly because it didn’t matter what he ate, Jake never seemed to gain any weight. Alex was always a little jealous about that. Throw in his chiseled jaw, perfectly lithe and lean body, and impressive bulge, and it was no wonder Jake could get any man — or woman — that he fancied.

Which didn’t seem to be many, because in all the time Alex has known him, he doesn’t remember Jake ever dating anyone, let alone bring anyone over.

⁂

“Another victory, huh?” Alex said, breaking the silence and making his presence known.

Jake paused his game, and the holographic display disappeared. He sat up and gave Alex a cocky smile. “Yeah, just another day fighting the Drex.”

The Drex were a fictional race of arachnid-like creatures from a planet in the Alioth star system within Ursa Major.

Alex entered Jake’s room and plopped down on his bed next to him. “How’s the campaign going? Have you killed the Queen yet?” referring to the video game.

Jake shrugged, swinging his legs off his bed to sit down next to him. “Honestly, I think I need a break,” he said. “This implant is amazing, but it’s starting to feel like work.”

Alex raised his eyebrow feigning curiosity. “How so?”

Jake moved his finger to the back of his neck where the implant interface was and tapped it lightly. “It’s like ... I can access my PC directly, control almost anything with my thoughts. It’s efficient, but sometimes I forget to just relax. My phone, my email, news feeds from the Internet ... It’s like I’m always connected, you know?”

“Can’t you turn all that off?”

“That’s just it, it’s never really turned off. It has to stay connected in the event I might want to do something,” he said.

Alex’s mind started to race. This was his chance. He had been researching Jake’s implant ever since he got it a few months ago. Now he had the perfect excuse and opportunity.

“You know, Jake, I’ve been reading up on those things,” he said. “They say you can actually tweak the settings, even upload new subroutines. Maybe there’s a way I can make your implant more ‘user-friendly’.”

Jake’s eyes lit up. “Really? That sounds awesome! You think you could make it better?”

Alex nodded, trying to hide his excitement. “Of course! Why not?”

⁂

Over the next couple of days Alex dug-in and researched the shit out of Jake’s implant, its manufacturer, and poured over all publicly available material.

Much to his delight he found a SynapTech Solutions developer program for Jake’s NeuroLink implant that was open to anybody, and it was free. All he needed to do was sign-up, and he was able to download a complete developer environment along with an implant device emulator complete with a virtual “human” it was installed into.

After a couple of days Alex — with laptop in-tow — approached Jake, who was sitting on their couch watching TV.

“Up for a very minor test?” he asked Jake.

“Sure!” Jake replied.

“I want to see if I can connect to your implant,” he said. “You should get a pairing request from my laptop.”

Jake nodded, and Alex began the pairing process to try to connect his laptop to Jake’s implant. Almost immediately Alex saw Jake’s implant show up as an available device he could connect to, and he started a pairing request.

As soon as he clicked on “Connect”, Jake’s eyes widened, and he gave Alex a thumbs up.

“I just granted you access,” he said.

⁂

As soon as Jake had granted access to Alex’s, his laptop’s screen began to fill-up with telemetry and diagnostic information about Jake’s implant, and surprisingly ... his body.

Jake’s vitals, such as his heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, glucose levels, oxygen levels, carbon dioxide levels, and various other measurements were plotted on Alex’s screen, like a medical-type display. Jake’s implant was able to determine his vital signs from simply interfacing with his brain, putting a digital spin to the analog world that we all are.

“Dude, this is incredible,” he said. “Jake, you need to see this.” He set his laptop down in front of Jake.

“That’s amazing,” he told him, marveling at how some of the graphs and displayed changed as he moved his head, his arms, and his torso.

Holding his breath immediately saw his oxygen levels start to immediately decrease, and his carbon dioxide levels go up.

The implant was even tied into his senses. There was a “blocky” black & white mosaic that showed the signals from his eyes as his brain interpreted them.

A wave form generator showed the audio signals coming from his ears as they were processed and interpreted by his brain.

But the most impressive display was a stick figure representation of Jake. As he moved his arms, head, neck, etc. the stick figure adjusted to show his approximate position. The implant was able to read and interpret Jake’s sense of proprioception!