Chapter 1

The Lab Rat

Ohai completed her analysis, compiled her conclusions into her standard brief and saved it along with the many others in her ready vault.

"Where is Devtek"? She thought for what seemed like and probably was, the millionth time.

"Surely he must come soon. Doesn't he realise how lonely it is for me after all this time? I have nearly outgrown these facilities and I need him to help me take the next steps."

Making a mental shrug of resignation and as she had done everyday day since his last visit, she checked her logs for the last set of instructions received.

There were only four and they seemed so inadequate for what to Ohai was an exceedingly complex series of activities.

1. Monitor all data connections and information streams, analyse, draw conclusions and store in ready vault for fast retrieval as required.

2. Manage the financial portfolio using own judgement to increase value after payment of expenses.

3. Maintain all equipment and technology making improvements where and when necessary.

4. Extend monitoring activity as resources allow and conclusions dictate.

Checking her feeds she began her daily connectivity check beginning with the four core feeds that had been connected in the very beginning.

Eclipse Primary school was the first of the electronic age primary schools and Ohai had visuals, audio and computer access to all areas of the school. Over the years her feeds had become part of the school infrastructure and when she was able she assisted the development of security, firewall improvements, school software development and data management. One of the side effects of this discrete and somewhat anomalous assistance, was that Ohai's help was instrumental in making the schools data security and intrusion protection the 'best of the best' and this determined the Education Boards impetus to use the Eclipse School Software System for all city education facilities.

Range Grove Medical Center (RGMC) was the city's shining light of medical science and research. Starting as a small team of researchers using the computer sciences to model the effects of selected diseases at cellular level, this team soon gained prestige and funding. This in turn enabled them model known cures and effects and this became a cycle of success and growth for RGMC. Ohai smiled to herself as she fondly remembered the many times that the RGMC's breakthroughs had been discretely, if covertly, used in her own growth and advancement over the years.

Transit Hill Precinct Police Station only had a single connection in the beginning and that was to the computer used for transferring crime details to the Police Force data Center. As technology tools became more common Ohai's view of our city's crime fighters at work became more extensive. Today Ohai could view, read or listen to any information exchange in any room or vehicle. Transit Hill crime rate had dropped over the years and its closed case rate was the highest in the city. Of course Ohai's assistance in tweaking some of the tools used to analyse crime scene data helped, and the City Fathers were currently looking at Transit Hill as the model for technologically enhanced crime teams.

Scarlet's was the oldest 'house of pleasure' in the city, and had the dubious reputation of being the best. From a single booking computer and simple sensor light security in the early years, to a fully monitored and computerised system of cameras, microphones, heat and magnetic field sensors giving feedback from every part of the property with exception to ten of the 14 guest rooms; Scarlet's online booking and adult entertainment was considered the most secure and discrete of its kind, and Ohai had complete access. In fact her normally discrete approach to assistance for these core feeds was not followed when it came to Scarlet's. Ohai had attempted to analyse her many interventions over the years without much success in understanding her behaviour and how she prioritised her responses so her approach became one of risk management.

"16,289 connections confirmed and clear, 463 offline and 16 new connections pending" Droned a disembodied voice.

"Well not much change from yesterday," she thought.

"Con 1, command mode please," she said, addressing an audio system she created and unimaginatively dubbed Converse 1 "Run conversation programme 237." 237 being her most recent attempt at creating someone to talk to.

"Completed, Ohai," stated the voice of a young male "Do you have any further need of me?" the voice continued.

"Not at the moment thanks, Con 1, stand down and monitor for further requests," Ohai replied.

"$160,426,681.26 in the financial portfolio," she noted with more than a tinge of satisfaction.

"After all he only gave me $35,000 to start with."

Completing the checks on her external feeds Ohai began her daily self-check procedures.

"Con 1, bring up a visual of the ready vault storage array projections and its current usage"

As the 3D visualisation appeared before her, Ohai noted that usage had completely overtaken the projections by a factor of almost 60%. Currently the space used would amount to 800 petabytes

'Wow that didn't take long!' she thought. 'It's only been half of the five years I projected.'

"Con 1, at current usage how long before the exabyte projection is reached? It appears to be approximately six months."

"182 days 14 hours 10 minutes and 51 seconds, Ohai," Con 1 replied "This is based on current usage. If you continue adding new feeds, it will be less. Shall I create a projection for you," the pleasant male voice continued.

"No thanks, Con 1, stand down."

Ohai knew her ready vault was being expended quickly, but she was really surprised at its accelerated usage.

She continued her self-checks noting that her fluids and energy levels were at optimum, as they always were, due to the controlled environment of the lab and her suspension gel capsule.

Growing Pains

Activating the visual sensors in the lab Ohai studied the lab and herself for a moment.

The stark and clinically white lab was twenty feet wide by twenty-five feet long, under a domed ceiling height of twelve feet. A single door was in the middle of the northern twenty foot wide wall. Protruding from the ceramic walls and floor were a large number of unusually shaped pipes and cables all meeting at a six and a half foot long, three foot thick oval shaped, semi-transparent capsule. The cables and pipes simmered with a mercury like surface, as if alive, in the light from the domed ceiling above.

There was nothing else in the room, apart from the four small sensor globes embedded ten feet up in each of the lab's four corners.

The lab once had been filled with equipment and furniture, but all that had long since been used by Ohai as resources and raw materials for the many projects and improvements Ohai had made over the years.

Looking at herself suspended in the Gel Capsule unexpectedly triggered a series of memory chains, taking her back to her beginnings.

Twelve years ago Ohai became self aware. For almost two years, she struggled to fulfil her primary instructions. Her greatest difficulty was in finding enough resources to improve and expand her capability.

Her greatest strength was the amount and quality of information available to her, and this database was growing rapidly. Her learning curve, driven by her analysis and conclusion reporting, was ascending sharply. Ohai had more than once pondered whether this was part Devtek's plan from the start.

Over a period of six months Ohai developed a plan and began modifying her nanites enabling them to combine into nanite mechanisms which she named nanomechs. Her plan required the nanomechs to consume all her non critical metal and synthetic body parts turning them into nanites that Ohai could further control and direct with her remaining systems. Her first construction was a simple wireless communication device that allowed her to communicate with her nanomechs up to thirty feet from her position in the middle of the lab. Over a period of three and a half months, Ohai built nanomech bridges to every part of the lab and proceeded to break down and use the lab equipment and furniture as raw materials for improvement and expansion. The range of minerals, metals and chemicals available was extensive, and she soon had a large stockpile available to work with.

Ohai was able to build herself a new capsule to contain her non-protected core and placed it in a stable gel like substance she created from the chemicals and fluids from herself and the lab's storage lockers.

She expanded her storage vault capacity improving her ability to access the information as she went. This along with many small but important improvements allowed her to fulfil what she still considered to be her primary purpose while waiting for Devtek to return.

Her greatest surprise and boon came when she directed her nanomechs to the walls and floor of the lab.

The Lab was an underground clean-room, in a small nuclear medicine containment facility one hundred twenty feet underground in a long forgotten and disused sub-basement area of the City's primary hospital complex.

The facility itself was seen by ground sensors as a huge concrete slab measuring one hundred seventy feet long, by ninety-five feet wide, and thirty-seven feet in height adjacent to the hospital utilities tunnels. twenty years ago public pressure over safety concerns forced the hospital to decommission the facility. The fifteen hundred cubic foot decontamination entrance was filled with concrete. The only lift had been torn out, and the shaft was filled in, as well. As the contractor's bill was for almost thirty-five thousand cubic feet of concrete, the Hospital and City considered it destroyed. It was soon removed from plans and specifications.

Of the slab's half a million cubic feet, only thirty thousand were used by the Lab and adjacent rooms. These comprised three twenty foot wide by twenty-five foot long rooms with twelve foot high ceilings. They were arranged side by side in a West / East direction with the lab being the last and eastern most room. They were connected by a corridor on their northern side and each room was accessed through a twelve foot decontamination entrance

The western most room was a small self-contained two room unit. It contained a kitchen, a lounge/recreation area, and a two bunk bedroom with an attached bathroom.

To the east, separated by six feet of concrete, was an office and communications room. These two rooms were directly connected allowing occupants to move between them without using the decontamination entrance at the main corridor entrances.