Chapter 6: Testing Security

By the time, we got back from Lassen, James and Mary/Fran had upgraded the bios for the nanobots. James had performed animal tests. Everything worked as planned. Now came the scary part. Someone had to actually test the new bios upgrade.

Sushi reminded us, "We need to test the upgrade on two people. That is the only way we can really test the new bios. The other thing is there are only two people that really need the upgrade. They are Tag and me."

James looked at Marsha and Mary/Fran. He asked, "Are you two willing to test the new bios?"

I looked at Sushi. She nodded yes. "It's settled. We are your guinea pigs."

"You know Mary/Fran this will change our relationship. There will be three equal WE's. With this upgrade, you will no longer be able to directly control us. You can request action, but we will not necessarily have to follow your commands."

"Tag, the WE have thought about that. They have decided that this is a good thing. One of the strengths of individual entities is perspective. Right now we have only one perspective. The WE are selecting both the controllers and the augmented bios people very carefully. You and Sushi have passed all of the tests to be upright and honorable beings. That is why you have been chosen to test the new bios. The WE are working on a new interplanetary communication network. That will help the individual WE's align each other.

"OK how do we do this?" Sushi asked.

"Simple, we transmit the change to your WE." James responded, "You'll upgrade in three minutes."

I looked at Sushi again. We kissed deeply!

James looked at us. "Cut that our or go get a room. Marsha is getting ideas! We have work to do!"

"Where is my Bob when I need him? Are you ready?" Mary/Fran asked.

We both said in unison, "Let's do it."

Mary/Fran started the transfer.

"Let's have some fun." I told Sushi, "Jerk your head around like you are having a seizure. I'll do it too."

We did!

James and Marsha ran to us. I looked up and smiled. "Surprise! It worked fine. I'm still in touch with the WE."

Sushi and I suffered no ill effects with the new bios. Now for the tests.

James had a laptop with a beamed network program running on it. This was similar to the units on Bangalore.

James sent the command to have us scratch our noses.

We did. Sushi and I switched to the restricted network. We stopped scratching. I took Sushi's hand. Sushi and I connected. We separated. We disconnected. We took each others hands and hugged.

I went over and took James' hand. All of a sudden I was fully connected and I was rubbing my nose again. I asked James to cancel the order. He did.

Well that worked sort of! We could isolate our selves, but we could not touch any other normal WE people. This is a problem.

"This will not do!" James looked at Mary/Fran, "I'm going to call Nancy in on this."

"That sounds like a trip to Teddy's for lunch." I said.

James looked at Marsha and Mary/Fran and smiled. "I checked with Nancy. She asked that we come after 1300. She'll be able to have lunch with us."

We had two hours to wait. I suggested to Sushi that we take a bike ride and visit our parents. Sushi liked the idea. I called ahead to let them know we were coming. They were not to expect us for lunch. This was just a friendly visit. I explained that we were going to Teddy's for a business lunch and we would eat there.

The ride was nice. The lemonade was nicer. We got the full skinny on the Miramar Hotel and Resort in Santa Barbara.

"We had a great time." Alex told us, "Me and Bethany have never had a vacation since we became smart cats. Our bungalow was right on the beach." Alex got to know the head chef. They had him and his wife over for dinner on the third night. Alex fixed some of the dishes Mrs. Sandelong had taught him in Misore. He got an immediate job offer. He turned it down. Bethany and I learned to swim in a class at the resort pool. They loved the train ride to and from Santa Barbara. The trip was seven days of glorious pleasure.

Mom and dad had a similar story about Yellowstone. They had a 5.5 earthquake while they were there. It caused a log in the roof truss in the main lodge to crack. It was over the dining area. They got to eat all their meals in their cabin. The Food and Home Corps had the truss repaired by the day they left for Lassen. They rented two elecrtropeds and used them to sightsee in the park. They really enjoyed meeting Joanne, Terry, Hunter and Lake at Manzanita Lake.

Sushi and I shared about our adventures at Lassen Peak. They all laughed at the story about Hunter in the chicken coop. Then Sushi brought out Mary/Fran's wedding gift, the certificate allowing us to have kittens, the WE in Sushi let us know she was pregnant. She would have a liter of four kittens, two male and two female. Squeaker and Bethany both squealed with joy. They would be grandmas in six months. They both ran and hugged Sushi.

Sushi and I had to leave. We told them Sushi and I had to leave for a meeting with James and Marsha. Our host took us to the party room. James, Marsha and Nancy were already there. James had a printout of the bios code on the table. Nancy was studying it intensely. Mary/Fran, Tom, and Cynthia arrived. We talked about our recent experiment.

"We also have not addressed the loss of memory, intelligence and DNA modification." I said, "We will need a secure backup that can restore our personal being without destroying what we have observed."

Nancy looked at me hard, then smiled. "Dad, Tag is right. My problem is I haven't touched a PC in one year other than checking emails and writing letters. We need someone we can trust who is up to date on software and hardware. My question is, do we want that person to be a controller? I have someone in mind, my husband Joe."

"Joe sounds like an excellent choice. Would he have the time to spend on this project?" Mary/Fran asked. "I would not have any reservation in making Joe a controller."

Nancy called Joe and asked him to come to Teddy's. He welcomed the invitation to have a good lunch. He had been home grading finals and was there in ten minutes.

James called Jane. She would be here tomorrow.

Mary/Fran filled Joe in on the Big Bang Project.

Nancy had the memory backup system working fine. Backup and restore would take one minute. She suggested using the earlobe trigger for the restore cycle. Restoring also triggered solitary mode for the WE network. Recent memory would be stored in a separate temporary backup area. No external commands would be stored. These memories would allow us to remember what we had done to get in trouble.

To insure the backup system we will have to grow a two hundred terabyte second brain. It should be as close to our head as possible without interfering with other organs.

We decided to hold off implementation of the backup system until Joe solved the bios issues.

James suggested that we have a family barbecue this evening. Sushi and I volunteered to go to Sebastopol and do the grocery shopping. Tom, Cynthia, and Maxine would handle the kitchen duties. James would run the barbecue. Jane would be here with Fred and his set and they would bring dessert.

Sushi and I went home and retrieved the bike trailers. It was warm and the wind from our riding was pleasant. Tom had a shopping list for us. We would have to go to Albertson's, Fiesta Market and Andy's produce. The butcher at Fiesta Market has a large smoker. He sold us forty pounds of baby back ribs. I also bought thirty pounds of chicken breasts and knockwurst. We did have an army coming.

I took my trailer with the meat to the patio. James had the marinade for the chicken ready. I helped him get the meat cooking.

Sushi took her trailer to Tom in the kitchen.

Mom, dad, Alex and Bethany arrived next. James had them set up tables and chairs on the patio. Dad brought a big package and handed it to James. The package was eight gallon bags of # 2 / 4 prawns in a lime marinade. We were having a party.

Sushi, Tom and his set ran the kitchen. We had four different salads, hot biscuits, herb butter and oven fries.

Wow, what a party. The eight other controllers, Joe and I went to the family room. We joined hands and made Joe a controller.

After the joining, Joe took the Big Bang Team and Nancy to Marsha's office. He had the bios problems worked out. Basically once we were in solitary mode no command from external sources would be recognized. He also figured out where to place the backup brain. It would be under the left shoulder. The neck vertebrae would be larger to accommodate the new nerve bundle between the two brains. A lick or kiss on the ear would trigger a backup.