Chapter 37: Preparing the Team

Falconer assisted me in keeping this chapter on canon and suggested modifications that greatly enhanced this chapter.

While Hank and his combat team waited for the green light from President Proctor they used the time to recharge their emotional batteries and to get clear on some of the background information they would need to know.

The worst thing about military operations is the waiting. Experienced soldiers know how to wait productively--even when all they do is sleep. For soldiers, "sleep is when you can get it." Doctor Henry James Dalton, sometime militia colonel, was leading a commando team of 15 women to rescue 54 wrongfully enslaved Capitallian citizens who had been illegally removed from Capitallia to the United States Remnant, what was left of the old United States of America after the three-way break-up. The third nation was Aztlan. All three nations forming the former United States of America plus Mexico and Canada were inflicted by the Conspiracy of Dreams, but because Capitallia was the freest nation it had the worst infestation. Hank Dalton was going to break the conspiracy's back by removing these slaves from the USR.

The team had been briefed on the purpose of the mission.

"Hank, Master," Amanda changed the subject, "I thought I was up on medicine. Donna was telling me that she is a drone. Joan promised me that she'd explain drones to me. What is that radical rebuild that I keep hearing about?"

"Our medical booths are based on a device found in Florida," Hank explained. "The originals took a while to duplicate and have one problem. All of the people emerged female, bald and they were exactly 1.25 meters tall and 25 kilograms."

"I don't like the term drone," Amanda said.

"The term 'drone' was an in-house word used to describe sexless humans," Hank began.

"But drones are robots!" Amanda interrupted.

"Joan was thinking 'insects', even though drone bees are male," Hank countered. "We weren't ready to go commercial yet, so we didn't do market research. Nova Sapient is the new term Marketing came up with--'nova' for short."

"But what is the process that produces these Nova Sapients?" Amanda asked.

"The Nova Sapient Rebuild process," Hank replied, "also known as the NSR process, works at the DNA level, Amanda. Medical booth technology, on the other hand, repairs at the cellular level, and then only minor repairs. Oh, if an arm is regenerated the fingerprints on that hand would change, same for a missing eye's retinal pattern--no two snowflakes are identical. But the patient's DNA and other biometrics would remain the same and the identification verification database would be amended to reflect the changes."

"You told me a long time ago that Danny Albertson's defective heart was repaired with standard medical booth technology," Amanda stated.

"That's right Amanda. But with the Nova Sapient Rebuild we're working on the sub-cellular level," Hank continued. "I don't want to make it sound like magic. The machine will revise your DNA and iron out what the machine perceives as errors. We humans are female by default--the male is a genetic error. Females have XX chromosomes. Males are missing part of one X and come out with XY chromosomes. The Nova Sapient Rebuild machine, or NSR, will also correct genetic defects. One other side effect of the NSR is that it stops the aging process. I mentioned that the nova comes out of the machine as a female weighing 25 kilograms and 1.25 meters tall."

"That's 55 pounds and 4 feet tall in the old measurement system," Amanda interrupted again.

Hank thought for a moment.

"Yes, that's right," Hank said. "I had to convert from metric to the old system. Anyway, that is about the average weight and height of an 8 year old. The body is sexually immature as well, but that girl has her adult mind. I suspect that the brain is also immature because the nova is emotionally dependent for the first several years. Oh, the adult experiences and base personality are there, but the strange new body and the old mind need time to connect. It's a drawback in the process--the nova needs nurturing, needs an intimate relationship. She may appear to be a bald little girl, but the nova is an adult who has to recover from her mind being transplanted into a radically new body. There are two reasons the nova is enslaved for five years."

"Enslaved?" Amanda interrupted again. "I'm sorry, Master, but Capitallia doesn't enslave people except for criminal convictions, for excessive debt and if the person volunteers. That sounds too much like slavery from birth."

"Cloning has the same issues, Amanda," Hank said. "Senator Benton Harold was introducing legislation to protect the sentient talking animals I've been producing, and some robots qualify as sentient now. I don't see robots and talking horses becoming Capitallian citizens. Human clones might qualify as humans. The nova is human. The nova is reborn, if you will, but there are two reasons to enslave the nova. First there is that dependency--I never thought to use standard clinical procedures with the novas. I always took care of their emotional needs. Standard clinical procedures are more like a factory assembly line. The nova's mind isn't fully integrated with her new body and she needs physical intimacy--"

"Sex?" Amanda asked.

"Eventually," Hank said, "but physical intimacy is more than just sex. Like an infant, the nova does need skin-to-skin contact. I have had excellent results with using wet nurses--"

"You breast feed the novas?" Amanda's voice reflected her shock.

"Not me personally," Hank grinned. "I'm not equipped for that function. Yes, that is standard now and it is more for emotional intimacy than anything else. The original novas came out in three weeks time from the NSR booth as a bald female only 25 kilograms and 1.25 meters tall. I found ways to increase that to 1.5 meters tall and 50 kilograms--and give them eyebrows and scalp hair. The process I use takes six weeks. I don't trigger puberty for 30 months so that the nova will get used to her body." "But Hank - those PAM commandos, despite their size, don't look like they have been through puberty at all!" Amanda proclaimed.

"Good observation! I found I could produce super novas by building up their bodies with traditional diet and exercise and by not triggering puberty! Super novas, such as the PAM commandos, have strength, endurance, flexibility and speed that would win them every Olympic Games event, except that they can't enter due to being artificially enhanced. They all volunteered. But they had to be slaves at first because they needed to be cared for, a nova fresh from the booth is unable to survive without a loving parent figure."

"But Hank, citizenship requires full functioning on an adult level. If the commandos have never become full sexual beings how can they ever qualify for citizenship?"

Right now Capitallia doesn't have a psychological screening for citizenship--too much potential for abuse. Instead the citizenship requirements are five years of independent living. Any Capitallian can be a non-citizen legal resident. I was using the criteria for 'emancipated child, ' that's where a child under the age of 18, under the age regarded as adult, can declare themselves independent of their parents or guardians."

"I know what an 'emancipated child' is, Master," Amanda said.

"Capitallia needs to protect the nova's rights as an individual," Hank said, "and that is best done by declaring the nova a 'dependent person' for a while. Right now the classifications of dependent persons are slave, indentured servant, child, and incompetent adult. The latter--"

"Are people addicted to drugs to the point where they are not responsible for their actions," Amanda recited, "or have been adjudicated to be mentally incapable of caring for themselves, or have suffered severe accident or disease that renders them unable to live a productive life. I know that. My father, Ned Saunders, taught me that. It is part of the citizenship test."

"Right now there isn't enough legal precedent for a separate NSR classification," Hank was smiling at his slave while he explained. "Despite appearances, the nova isn't a child. The nova isn't an incompetent adult, just for a while the nova is emotionally vulnerable to a potentially fatal degree. The standard tests for mental competence don't address such things as ability to tolerate frustration, to endure loneliness, to act only on reason and not impulse. If such a test existed there would be only a fraction of the citizens Capitallia now has. We adults still act on our whims and feelings--we don't act only on cool logic. We are not robots. Neither are the novas. They have to re-learn to deal with emotions--new bodies, remember?"

Amanda nodded.

"Joan tells me that women have stronger emotions than do men," Hank said. "I have to take her word on that. I've only been male. The men who became novas report that they never felt so alive, so aware, so at the mercy of their emotions as the day they were hatched. The women who became novas report that their new bodies have overwhelming emotions at first--but the former women seem to grow up again faster than the former men. Either way, the novas have to grow up again because their bodies are children's bodies with adult minds. Mind and body are connected and at first the mind is ruled by the body. With emotional nurture the nova's mind soon rules--without it, many novas in other clinics have died or become emotional cripples.

"Amanda, you were an emotional cripple," Hank pointed out. "I have been using the same procedures on you that a nova undergoes, only your program was accelerated. I'm a bigot, Amanda. My prejudice is that every human is an individual. Joan doesn't share my prejudice but she tailors treatment programs to fit the patient. Standard factory assembly line medicine shoves patients into little boxes no matter what. Come to think of it, that does describe the medical booth technology that Joan and I developed."

"So the reason you enslave people undergoing the Nova Sapient Rebuild process is to protect them while they are emotionally vulnerable?" Amanda asked. "It makes sense when you are their owner, but not everybody is you."

"Senator Benton Harold was crafting legislation to classify novas differently," Hank explained. "Some of the people were dying from SK Syndrome. Waiting for Congress and the courts to decide if they were still human would have killed them. Enslaving the novas gave them status as humans--only humans, ADULT humans, can be enslaved. Children can't be enslaved. One drawback of this approach is that a person who has been a slave cannot become a citizen until five years of living as a free legal resident after the slavery has ended - regardless of how many years they lived free before their rebuild.

"Yes Hank," Amanda responded, "but wasn't there some other way? I mean - couldn't the novas simply be declared mentally incompetent and be under protective guardianship until they reach full maturity?"

"Under existing law Amanda, once a person is declared mentally incompetent, it takes at least ten years of screening conducted by mental health professionals to be cleared for citizenship again. I considered indentured servant status, which would have the advantage that the novas could be eligible for citizenship sooner after their rebuild than a slave could. The problem with that is that indentured servants are under the control of their master for only 40 to 60 hours a week, and that would be insufficient supervision for the emotionally vulnerable novas. When I reviewed the options, slavery was the shortest path to citizenship that protected the volunteer."

"That almost makes sense, Master," Amanda commented, "but you said there were two reasons to enslave novas."

"Yes," Hank said. "The other has to do with the fact that the nova's DNA 'fingerprints' and other biometrics change. Except for record keeping there is no proof that the nova is a legal resident. Now as a slave, that proof is provided through the slave registration process. It takes five years for either an ex-slave or an immigrant to qualify for citizenship based on living as a free legal resident in Capitallia. Immigrants need to be sponsored--not a legal resident. Being a slave or indentured servant qualifies as being sponsored--and is less paperwork than sponsoring a free immigrant. I've done all three. Remember Amanda, even being born in Capitallia requires sponsorship--a newborn human has to either have four non-citizen legal residents or a citizen complete a Statement of Financial Responsibility for the child or the mother can be charged with irresponsible childbirth. You know what happens then."

"The non-citizen mother can be enslaved for child neglect," Amanda said, "and the child is placed in foster care. Citizen mothers automatically qualify--the citizen mother merely have to file so that the child is registered as a legal resident."

"Textbook answer," Hank said. "Taken directly from the citizenship tests. Until the law catches up with technological innovation slavery is the best answer. Slavery isn't a perfect answer, just the best at the moment. Cleaning up the Conspiracy of Dreams will slow down fixing the legal issues."

"Who owns the technology?" Amanda asked.

"It's complicated," Hank said. "The artifacts were the property of the United States government. When Capitallia was formed, all public properties except for those required for government operations were auctioned off. I was able to acquire those artifacts and to use them as a starting point for developing the medical booth and the Nova Sapient Rebuild process. I applied for and was issued patents on the medical booth and the NSR process, so technically I am the owner of both technologies. As an owner I am free to further develop the technology and to develop commercial applications for it or license it to others who will develop it commercially. But Capitallia, despite its free-market foundation philosophy, fears monopolies so much that part of getting a patent or copyright or trademark is agreeing to license intellectual properties to others for royalties deemed 'reasonable' so that no one person in Capitallia can control everything."

"Surely not ALL technologies can be privately owned? What about weapons of mass destruction, for example?" Amanda asked.

Some technologies were deemed dangerous and were branded 'restricted--' to be used only by licensed citizens. Capitallia restricts most weapons--ordinary guns and bombs--to citizens only. Other technologies are restricted to either licensed citizens or to citizens groups and local or state governments--the licensing is intended to prevent abuse. One example was the technology used for nuclear weapons. Other technologies are just as dangerous: the solar power satellite system can lay waste to wide swaths of Planet Earth. Bio digital slave control implants are restricted technologies. The medical booth technologies are very dangerous too. Imagine being able to rebuild people to resemble anybody else!"

"I applied for and was granted a special restricted license to develop the bio digital technologies. Without those resources we wouldn't have the bio digital implants, we wouldn't have the medical booths."

"You made bio digital implants?" Amanda asked.

"Partially," Hank said. "I based them on the control harnesses that existed before Capitallia. It's a long story, but I started making talking animals first."

"Yes master," Amanda said. "What's the hold-up on NSR processes going commercial?"

"The NSR process is still experimental but it works. Commercial use requires patents or copyrights. It takes time to get a patent, and then to market a product. The NSR process is restricted technology and only 13 people in Capitallia are licensed to use the technology. The Copyright, Patents and Trademarks Office is under-funded. By the way, the Conspiracy of Dreams exploited the slow Trademarks Office to get USR trademarks and sometimes official Capitallian trademarks before the real innovators did. Some of those innovators were enslaved for trademark infringement as a result."

"That's monstrous!" Amanda exclaimed. "Why didn't anybody do anything about it?"

"Benton Harold and the other murdered senators did do something about it," Hank replied almost quietly. "Operation Goldfish was the result. Investigations take time. Now the evidence is in the hands of the President--good, solid court-admissible evidence obtained under warrant. It will take six to thirty months, but you'll witness a lot of government agency vacancies. Might even keep the guilty working at their old job as slaves."

"Enough, please," Amanda shivered. "I suffered as a child because people abused the system. Now others suffer."

"That is the cost of liberty, Amanda," Hank said. "Some will abuse their power. Capitallia tried to stamp it out of government, but there was a power vacuum. When good men do nothing, evil men will fill that power vacuum. Things like trademarks, copyrights, patents and certifying that citizens and legal residents are legally eligible for hire in Capitallia has to be done by the government because private industry can be corrupted by that sort of police power. It's like my ownership of you--if the government didn't protect my ownership of you, I'd have to protect my own rights. A properly functioning government offers protection of rights--improperly functioning governments steal rights. All a government can offer is force. Governments seldom create things--but governments sure as Hell destroy things. Rights are one of those things--rights cannot be created by a government, only protected or stolen."

"Okay, Master," Amanda said. "Can you tell me more about novas?"

"The process takes 21 days. While I was in Colorado Springs, I figured out how to work an artifact. I was successful with a dog and with some lab mice. The creatures came out small, but very healthy. I managed to train others to work the artifact. John Jakefield, the psychologist in charge of my interrogation, was one of the people I trained. One night John Jakefield snuck into the lab and put himself in the artifact, triggered the process. By the time he was missed, John had been inside for hours. When she came out as Joan Jakefield, I adopted her as a daughter. By that time--it had been three weeks--I reverse engineered a medical booth and was able to stimulate cellular structures and cause growth."