Chapter 14

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'll keep this brief. I'm going to replicate that T-unit marked 'A' in that box marked 'B', filled with scrap metal and other detritus."

An older gentleman with a thick white mustache cleared his throat. "Why would we want to do that? Factories can spit out an entertainment unit at any hour any day of the week."

Jeremy gave the man a look that made it clear that he barely tolerated his ignorance. "None of the materials in the box, as you can see has been tempered, changed, recycled or reclaimed. These materials have been dragged from the ruins and thrown in the box. The only calculations performed were an approximation of how much of any given material was needed."

A fat woman in a too-tight pants suit pulled out a compact digital and began pecking away with a stylus. Curious, Jeremy gave her a moment to finish her task.

"A basic entertainment unit costs 400 credits to produce. By cutting out all the preparation of basic materials, you could save 60% of the cost," she said.

"I'm shooting for 80%," Jeremy said. "If you consider the virgin fusion core delivered to Karachi two months ago, maybe you would save 90% because you eliminate the manufacturing processes and the transport cost."

The woman put away her digital.

"Your numbers sound impressive, but this is new technology and rarely does new technology work as expected."

"This is not new technology," Jeremy said. "The Outfit used the same technology to resurrect my brain. My brain, being organic, is infinitely more complex at a molecular level than an entertainment unit. You only had to resurrect parts of my brain, fortunately. Inorganic chemistry is boring, but it is oh, so much easier and profitable."

The man with the mustache shifted in his chair. "The materials and transport side of the equation is understandable. What is the engine of replication in the box?"

"The same picobots that were used on me," Jeremy said. Looking around he saw no more initial questions. "Let us observe the scanning, and then we will have to wait an estimated ninety minutes for complete replication."

Jeremy signaled the technician and the scan began. The next hour and half was boredom divided by exclamations of surprise every so often. No one left the room though. Bit by bit, and not in any order that Jeremy could fathom, the T-unit began to appear in the box. At 97 minutes, a chime sounded.

Signaling his tech, another man walked into the room with an extension cable and plugged in the new set. It popped onto a 3-D children's program of an annoying orange clad clown dancing and singing in the forest with animals. The newscast was next, with 3-D mini-windows of temperatures, times, markets, and commodity prices. A sliver drive was inserted in the slot and an interactive tennis game popped up.

"Sonofabitch," a short, dumpy man said. Jeremy didn't know any of their names, even though they had introduced themselves. If they were going to get half of the profits, the least they could do was get out of his way and let a professional do his work.

"This is tiny," Jeremy said. "There is no limit on how big or how small. The only limitation is how much salvage is available."

"Will it work on organic objects, like cloning animals?" Mustache man asked.

"No, not this process," said Jeremy. "To get the replication speed, the recorder takes shortcuts, such as assuming that the electric conduction porcelain is the same throughout the immediate piece that it's recording. Organic chemistry doesn't work that way, where change is necessary from molecule to molecule."

"How soon are you ready to go online with production?"

"There are proprietary issues that we need to address. Patents are an absolute necessity, but we don't want this process out in the public domain. Nothing in this process is new, which means it is vulnerable to imitation. How we combine the different technologies is new, but the parts are altogether old."

"Not so old," said the woman in the tight suit. "You are the first successful resurrection that we know. Your process was three steps and took approximately two and a half years. You are only one of three people who had those chips buried in the top of your brainstem and you didn't even know it."

"Why is that?" Jeremy said, interrupting her.

"If the authorities had decided to inject you with a truth drug, you had nothing to tell them. The truth drugs today don't make the target dopey or woozy; quite the opposite, the person becomes excited and eager. We didn't expect them to interrogate you after the conviction, but there is precedent. The court ordered a drug induced interrogation before mindwiping that Australian serial killer five or so years ago," she said. "The interrogation was successful."

"Are you saying that you plugged me with these chips before I knew that Leandra was going to use my kids against me? You knew?" Jeremy was aghast.

Mustache man stepped between the two. "What Magdalena is trying to say is that we and you had already experienced several of her attempts to get at you and your money. We were worried because we had reason to believe that she would go to extreme lengths, which she ultimately did. You rejected the suggestion, so we planted the chips as added insurance."

"Today that insurance has paid off," said the male tub of lard.

Jeremy's mind was roiling from their revelation. Had he really been so caught up in the emotional turmoil of the last two years, at least his last two years, that he had jettisoned all offers of help? He had acted as less than the rational scientist and cool headed businessman and that new insight was painful. He despised himself for such personal failure, for such a deep weakness.

Showing off his new invention just moments ago, he believed himself to be superior to these other people in the room. Yet, with one small fact from his past, they demonstrated that they were just as capable as he was. Maybe they weren't scientists, but they were able to gauge and anticipate people's behaviors and make business decisions. He didn't have that skill set and he felt humiliated by his own recent behavior.

Maybe they didn't mean to so, but these three had just taken him down a few pegs.

Then his thoughts turned darker and the vision of Leandra arose in this thoughts. She knew his weaknesses, his blindness, and used that intimate knowledge against him. A plan gelled in his mind.

"There is one more test, a comprehensive one, I want to perform."

"What is the test?" Magdalena said. Jeremy finally remembered her name much to his annoyance.

"You have no idea what this process can do. In Geneva in two days, Leandra is to appear in a municipal court to contest my daughter's emancipation. I plan to replicate that courtroom, get her on the stand, and get a recorded confession out of her."

"You have concocted a nice fantasy, but such a thing is impossible. Besides the logistics of moving your equipment, allowing you to work in the middle of the European state, near the capital of Bern, is an unacceptable risk. The logistics of pulling off such a stunt is overwhelming. And worst of all, nothing Leandra says in that room is admissible in a real court of law and now matter what your daughter says, she is still underage."

Jeremy was unmoved. "Our agreement is that you get 50% of the profit. Nothing in our agreement says you get to call the shots or that I have to produce. It can all disappear in a few hours if you put me in an uncooperative mood."

"Give us a better scenario," the fat man said. Jeremy paced with scenarios flying furiously through his thoughts.

"Let's zap her with the truth serum, tape it, and run it through the entertainment distribution system. Let every person with an entertainment unit hear her words. There is no legal conviction, but she is convicted in the court of public opinion."

"That's another fantasy," the fat man said.

Jeremy was not to be deterred. He paced the room again trying to invent a plausible scenario. He snapped his fingers and looked up at his bemused spectators.

"Emma could do this by herself," he said, prefacing his idea. "Get me in that court building. If it's like the rest of Europe, the courthouse is probably old, dumpy and retrofitted. No municipality spends much money on such things. I need a room, no larger than a storage closet. I'll scan a hallway, a courtroom, or a waiting room, and replicate it in the closet. You get Leandra in the room, spritz her with Quick Gas and inject her with truth potion. Get her in my daughter's courtroom and let my daughter's attorney ask the questions that he needs to ask and I do mean all of the questions. Give him the damn questions."