Chapter 13

It took not much longer than 30 minutes before Wallace was driving me back to the fortress.

Dressing had eaten most of that, and was a literal and figurative pain, followed by the release rituals of the clinic. At least I was thankful for the wheelchair, as walking was something of a bitch.

While I was being wheeled to the exit, one of Walkers men gave me an OPB stick and told me it contained the contact data I needed. At least something going right.

During the drive I was mentally going over my To-Do-List, unable to prioritize. I needed to begin the setup of the NADA, I needed to reinstall my board and I needed to set up my bio reactor. Somewhere, I had to squeeze in the training of this Mia, and if my guess was right I was in for a rather lengthy discussion with the others. Oh, and of course I could not forget to use the contacts to get equipment. I originally planned to build my own toys.

Not just because I could disregard such pesky things as copyrights and patents, something commercial makers were strangely unwilling to do in my experience, but because with the NADA and my backdoors I could make instruments of a peerless quality and functionally. Sadly this option was not available at this moment. Knowing me, I would build them anyway but for the time being I had to lower my expectations to commercial grade.

Hm, maybe I could build the auto-surgeon myself. I would not need it for six weeks at the earliest. If I could get a good supply of raw materials ... but I would have to get the alias equipment before that. I hated that. Industrial fabbers were expensive. Not that money was really a concern for me, but I simply hated to waste it for something that would effectively stand in the corner and gather dust. The chip fabber, the carbon extruder and the winding machine I could get away with buying more or less hobby grade equipment, so it should not be too expensive.

I had to force myself back onto the topics at hand. Priority.

I decided to shorten the discussion with the others considerably by playing the injury card. It should not be too hard. The bruises on my throat and the cast would be mostly self-explanatory and my voice was still pretty raspy.

Then I start with the NADA setup. Fortunately most of that could be done by bots, and the few things I had to do myself I could use a remote controlled Android. I wistfully wished that Androids had the manual dexterity for implant work but they still lacked the processor capability for such fine control, and subsequently the builders left out the, expensive as hell, muscle control systems for it, making remote control at this level also impossible. At the same time I could reinstall my board, considering that I would be mostly sitting around and watch the bots work. I had just to make it clear to Wallace that I needed to be alone in that room, as I did not want notice of the NADA spread.

During the phases when neither the setup of the NADA nor the installation of my board demanded my interaction I could make a dent in the contact list. When the board was installed I would then dive into cyberspace and look around the clinics net a bit closer and in much more detail.

Oh hell, somewhere in there I would have to talk to Mia. And of course I would have to eat.

So much to do, so little time, but somehow I would muddle through. It was surprising to see the garage doors open for us, and after Wallace stopped the car I looked at him imploringly.

He gave a lopsided grin, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Walker has arranged for Justin and me to be lodged here, and the Mute brought us a remote code for the garage.”

I was of two minds about that. On one hand it was nice that they took care of the problem. On the other hand they were quite trusting with the security of my property. I would have to talk to them, but no harm done. I could easily bind the code to the car, as that was only a small adaption of the security program.

I learned that getting out of the passenger seat of a car with a busted right hip and a broken right arm was much more interesting than getting in, not to mention quite a bit more painful, but in the end I managed it. Wallace was fast at hand to offer help, but I got this stubborn idea that I wanted to do it on my own. In hindsight it was a ... suboptimal decision. I equally scorned the wheelchair that somehow had materialized, including an android to push it, although only for a couple of dozen steps. Then I my leg gave out and I had to be kept upright by Wallace. The pain when I sat down made me hiss, and right there I decided that the wheelchair was not such a bad idea as I had thought.

A short time later we met the assembled group in the mess room. I managed to keep the discussion brief, claiming onerous time pressure, and promising to go into the details when I had more time available. I answered the salient points, that, yes I was sorry that I did not make it back to the talk on Monday, and I was equally sorry that I worried them by being attacked out of the blue, and no, I had no idea how to deal with Yokata Sayomi as I had scarcely the time to think about her. I explained that I bought the additional bots to clear all the junk out of the unused rooms combined with some major renovations. All that while eating another mostly tasteless sandwich accompanied by a soda.

I was half finished with my meal when the doorbell rang, and Natalie jumped up and ran towards the entrance, only to come back a few minutes later accompanying a young woman of Mediterranean ancestry that I guessed at early to mid twenties. Apparently Mia had made good time to come here, and if I read her expression right she was anything but happy about it.

She let herself fall into one of the chairs with a huff and glowered at all of us for a moment, before beginning to talk.

“Ok, I am here. So now can somebody please tell me why Doctor Schaeffer more or less ordered me to come here?”

If I didn’t know it better I would have guessed that the reaction was choreographed in the silent way everybody including Wallace turned their gaze to me.

I sighed and placed the remains of my sandwich on the plate.

“I don’t know what Doc Schaeffer told you, but essentially you are here to serve as substitute for my right arm for a couple of weeks.” I said as I held up my right arm to show the cast.

“I have a task that requires two hands, and obviously I have a slight problem for the time being. Seeing that the task is basically saving Mr. Walker, it is time critical and something an implant surgeon has an exigent need to know, Doc Schaeffer offered your services.”

Her expression moved from annoyance to bewildered and finally scorn while I talked.

Then a derisive sneer marred her face.

“Oh please. As if a kid like you could know anything about cyberware. Now how about you let us grownups talk?”

On one hand I had expected something like this, but on the other hand, what the fuck? That was Doc Schaeffer’s hand-picked implant surgeon? Somebody really dropped the ball here. I slowly looked at the others present and stopped at Wallace.

“I assume that this exemplifies the typical reaction I can expect here in New York, right?”

At his silent nod I pinched the bridge of my nose, and then turned my attention back to Mia.

“You are aware that you are quite discourteous in collusion with ignorant, right? I can understand that you are a bit peeved that you have been ordered here, but as none of the people in this room are responsible it is not appropriate behavior to vent your aggravation on us. Your mother should have taught you better than that. Also you make assumptions at face value, which of course hints of lazy thinking and more or less proves your ignorance. Do you wish to leave and tell Doc Schaeffer that you decline the work or do you want to start over?”

Again her face moved through emotions. Anger followed by indignation, then mortification, obstinacy and in the end a bit of fear.

“I ... I can’t go. Doctor Schaeffer has done so much for my family and me. I can’t disappoint him.”

I continued to silently look at her for a few moments longer, and she visibly gulped.

“All right, I don’t actually want to harm you, but please keep it polite. What you are here for is to disassemble a Dworak Pulse III cyber heart so that I can process the parts. I will give you the step-by-step for the disassembling, but it will need an exceedingly steady hand and a keen eye to do it without damaging the heart. In exchange I will give you the virtual lectures from the University of Washington: Seattle for implant surgery and I will help you with learning it.”

For a handful seconds she looked at me doubtfully, before she answered.

“All I have to do is take this Pulse III apart, and nothing else?”

“Nope, nothing else, but if that is all you do you will hardly learn anything. I would advise to at least watch the lectures and read the accompanying literature, even if it is hard to digest.”

So she could smile, I had my doubts about that.

“Yes, I think I can understand that requirement to learn something. So when do I begin?”

It was my turn to smile.

“As soon as we get the heart, or rather hearts as I want to make sure there is no problem later on.”

Meanwhile I had finished my meal, and I began asking some important questions.

“Now, that could be important, but are you jacked?”

Her expression answered my question before she even opened her mouth.

“What do you mean with ‘jacked’?”

“That is the common jargon for having one or more data ports implanted. And obviously you aren’t. You should invest some time to learn street lingo by the way, it will help you immensely when you are a cybutcher yourself.”

Again I was met by apparent lack of comprehension, and I raised an eyebrow before answering the unasked question.

“Cybutcher is said street lingo for a cyber surgeon. I assume it was a try at being funny, merging the words cyber and butcher, but while it is common parlance, I have a distinct dislike for this expression.”

Understanding bloomed in her face, and she stammered a nonsensical answer.

“Well, the jack is out, so do you have at least a diadem? If not, we should get you one pronto.”

She shook her head obviously bewildered.

“No ... I never needed a diadem, not to mention a cyber port. Why do you think I need it?”

I moved my attention to Marc.

“And you wonder why the Commonwealth is so much further ahead technically?”

I focused back at Mia.

“Every student in the commonwealth gets a diadem in third grade. The curriculum of pure schools is AFAIK much more comprehensive than what you get here, so we spend the equivalent of roughly 12 school years until the end of seventh grade. Then college, and as an average we compress eight to ten years of an advanced degree into two years. I was a little bit faster, and that is why I made my PhD in computer science at 15.”

Marc wanted to say something but Darren hit him in the shoulder. I would have to do something nice for Darren later. Mia on the other hand was very thoughtful.

“So, if a diadem can do that, why would I need a ... jack?” The last word was pretty tentative.

“The diadem has pretty low bandwidth, abysmal resolution and limited mod options. A jack on the other hand is much more ... versatile. With the much higher bandwidth, roughly three orders of magnitude higher, the right mods, and of course the right console or board you get a higher compression depending also on your intelligence. The official record is a bit below 50:1, or a bit over two days per hour. Don’t expect that though, as it was a tuned highly experimental board, a super genius with an IQ above 300 and a highly adapted software suit. 20:1 is much more realistic if you get a good implant and a reasonable board. The material I will give you will contain nearly 3000 hours of material. If you use a tablet or anything else externally you will have to spend all 3000 hours, if you use a diadem, you have to spend nearly 750 hours real time and with the jack and board I talked about, 150 hours real time. And there is way less fatigue in cyberspace so you can actually work through. I would be surprised if you could get eight hours a day in real time in, but let’s assume that. You can either spend one and a half years learning the material via smart goggle or tablet or whatever, four and a half months with a diadem, or three and a half weeks via a jack. Also with the diadem or the jack you will be able to work the eight hours real time.”

I had many shocked faces to look into, most of all probably Mia.

“That ... that is brilliant. Why the hell don’t they do that here?”

I could only shrug.

“How the hell should I know? Fuck, from what I know it could be that you still have this dreadful teachers union that has managed to destroy education for centuries now. If the students only have to have seven years of schooling instead of 12-13 then you obviously need less teachers. And considering that the computer does almost all of the work in the Commonwealth you need way less. Wouldn’t do for the union to allow their almighty importance wane, would it? Now the important question, do want me to order a diadem for you or not? Or do you want to run to the next cyber surgeon to get jacks?”

“Uhm, Jacks are pretty risky aren’t they? I mean I don’t want to have CRS.”

I nodded at that.

“Yeah, CRS with neural implants is ... let’s say bad and keep it at that. That was the primary reason for me to develop the biosheathing. If that is your only reason to not get one then we will implant one into you as soon as we can make you one.”

Oh wow, she was pretty fast to anger.

“Did you not listen, I said I don’t want to have fucking CRS!”

I was very thankful that I managed to reboot my audio implants; otherwise I would have been victim of severe pain in my ears right now. From the way the others grimaced and massaged their ears I was not the only one impressed with Mia’s volume right now. But I had to smile anyway, only to hold up my hand when she drew a new batch of air.

“Please, give me some credit. Why do you think the modification of a cybernetic heart for Mr. Walker is so time pressing that it can’t wait for my arm to be healed? I have developed a method to prevent CRS, and from all my tests and the, admittedly few customers, it is more or less absolute, as so far nobody had the implant attacked by CRS. Mr. Walker is dying of CRS right now, as it attacks his heart at this moment. We have, with only a little luck, the six weeks it takes me to convert the most simple cyber heart out there, the Pulse III so we can use it as replacement. If we had to wait for my arm to heal it would take a miracle. But as soon as we have done that we can begin making a data port implant for you. A single jack with only the necessary periphery to make it usable won’t cost more than a couple hundred bucks, even with the adaption. The jack will be very useful for you anyway, as you can control the autodocs with it in much more precise fine detail. Seriously, the best you can be as cyber surgeon without a jack is mediocre.”

That took the wind out of her sails, and she slumped back down into her chair.

“You ... you have beaten CRS?”

To make it short, for the fourth time in two days I explained about my biosheathing. For the fourth time I had a captive audience. I was contemplating a second sandwich, but decided against it, instead I let the android push me to my room, to change my clothes. I learned fast that undressing was even harder with an arm in cast than dressing, so I ended with having the android help me. Despite it being a machine it felt creepy to have a male figure help me, but I did not think that ordering a gynoid would be so much better. At least the work clothes were mostly pretty loose. Unfortunately ‘mostly’ excluded my chest in this instance, as the shirt that was very comfortable and at best created a hint of my former A+ sized breasts was now practically painted onto my newly improved C+ verging on D sized bust.

It took me a few minutes to suppress the urge to play with Frankel right this minute, but decided that as he liked big breasts that much I would give him his own set to play with as soon as I could find the time for it.

As soon as I was finally dressed and had myself wheeled towards the future residence of the NADA, always followed by Wallace of course, I was greeted by two of the androids and half a dozen bots that had moved the crated NADA there, as well as by my board. Of all my worldly possessions my board was the most, well the second most, all right the third most precious to me. The most precious by a wide margin was actually the NADA, but that was so new that I was not yet accustomed to including it, and it was a close choice between the board and the cluster. If I would go from the pure monetary value, or even the utility, the cluster would win 15 times out of 10, but the board enabled me to dive into cyberspace, and this ability alone made her priceless for me, even if my cranial board could manage the same, if to a lesser degree.

But for now my Precious was wounded, injured to her core, and I had to heal her before we could soar again.

A harrumph from Wallace ripped me out of my reverie and I realized that I was petting the travel case of my board. I felt myself blush, again, and ordered the bots to carefully uncrate the NADA.

At the same time I had one android place Precious on the table, before struggling to unlock the case with one hand. When Wallace attempted to help me I slapped his hand away out of reflex.

“Nobody touches Precious but me!”

Finally I managed to open the case. The fuel cells were still at 83% power but I plugged in the external power source regardless. Then I struggled again to connect the OPB cable to my data jack, deciding there and then that I would mirror the jacks on the left side of my head as soon as possible, before starting the boot sequence. I wished that I could just use the Q-link to reinstall directly from the cluster but sadly the basic structure of Precious was already a bit over 17 months old, and at that time I had just cracked the resonance problem, and had not yet had any idea how that would revolutionize my work, thus the Q-link was a plug-in component that was not accessible through the hardburned Basic OS. I had upgraded her in every aspect, but the basic structure was becoming increasingly obsolescent. Especially now with me having a working NADA. The same was true for my cranial board but that was decidedly newer and I included the Q-link from the ground up into the design. If I had even dreamed of building a NADA even three month before I would have waited designing and building my skull tech until I had made it work, but despite going through the black labs computer networks for more than a year, I mostly ignored the NADA as it was so far from completion that in essence what everyone else had was a very, very expensive fabber, and not an especially good fabber at that.

When I finally lowered myself to actually read the project summaries in a fit of boredom, I was quickly fascinated with the problem. I am still a bit embarrassed that it took me nearly two days to get to the solution, as it was so glaringly obvious once I found it that I should have found it within a few minutes, an hour at max. Of course I can’t fault the scientists trying to find a solution in vain, as they, unlike me, lacked the most important component. Without the Q-link, a NADA is not possible, and as far as I knew, I was the only one who had it. With the Q-link it was actually pretty easy. This was why I was the only person in the solar system who had a working NADA. That, of course, exemplified the problem should anybody learn about it. The fight for this technology would start wars, a fact I was sure of.

After the basic boot I transferred the custom OS I designed for her, and boy was I glad that I kept the copy I had stashed in the cluster up to date. That would save me four to five hours of adapting, but I still had to take at least three hours to install her. It took just under three EB to install the blank OS and the drivers for the Q-Link. After that she would download the other nine EB from the cluster and install all the tools I usually used. And at any time I would have to be ready to intervene, if one of the installers hiccuped, something nobody could prevent. Of course I knew that one could get the OS for a professional board including all the tools a starting hacker needed at less than two EB, but please, that is off the shelf. Nobody would get more than 25:1 out of that setup, while Precious got me the unofficial record at 57.663:1, and unlike the students who held the official record, I can use her for other things than virtual porn. This level of acceleration needed an ungodly amount of predictors, AI assistants and optimizers up and running. Also the utilities needed to be compiled in a manner that made execution as fast as possible. If I would compile all I had with optimized size it would go down to 5.5 EB. Still more than the starter pack, but three quarter of that would be my utilities, and these had never come even into the same zip code as the shelf. I had spent nearly 30 virtual years programming them and the updates to the OS, which took me eight virtual years to get the first version just right. In real time I had spent nearly four months on the OS and six on the tools and upgrades.

While the installer was churning through the processes I controlled the work of the bots so far. For something so high tech and valuable, the NADA was actually pretty simple in its structure. It basically consisted of four parts. If the specialized nano fab was the heart the brain was for sure the control system. The fab was actually only marginally different from what every other NADA in the world used, but the controller ... the controller was the secret why my NADA worked and none of the others did. The third component, the tank for the substrate gel was more or less standard, but my energy pylons were different. Instead of four distributed to the 2D corners everyone else used I had 14 placed at all eight corners and the six planes of the tank. After I solved the resolution and control issue via Q-links I designed the pylons to additionally serve as a nav system. That enabled me to get tolerances in the 100 picometer range. That meant I could literally build things from the atom up.

The bots had already installed the tank, as well as the lower pylons, and were installing the side plane pylons. My superficial inspection found no fault, so I tackled the next point on my list.

For the next two hours I was busy ordering all kinds of stuff, while I learned that the fixers on the East Coast were in no way easier to work with than the ones on the West Coast. Greedy assholes, all of them, but I got most of what I needed.