After his frightening encounter with Laura, Nick had stayed away from the network for two weeks. But eventually his curiosity and loneliness had gotten the better of him. He found himself sitting once again in his room, internet cable poised to be plugged in.
He shook his head. I can't believe I'm stupid enough to do this again.
This time, he had taken precautions. He had a large glass bottle of imported Italian spring water, the bubbly kind that he preferred. And a box of fine Swiss chocolates, to provide him with a jolt of energy in case his blood sugar fell from overusing the MindWave.
More importantly, he'd programmed the internet connection to die after five minutes. If he were trapped and disoriented like last time, he would be released automatically.
He took a deep breath. And another. Then he clenched his jaw and pushed the cable into the socket.
He was immersed in a familiar dimensionless blackness. He felt fear rising up into his consciousness but beat it down. He knew it was possible to conquer this world, to make it his own.
Right now he was a point of nothingness amidst the nothingness. He remembered that when Laura had created her world last time, she had begun by forming her own body, and then by emanating space and dimensions outwards from herself.
The first thing he needed was his own body. He was seeing, so he must have eyes, and yet he didn't have eyes. He reached up with his hand to feel where his eyes should be.
Wait!
He had hands! That was a start. He held out his hand. It was a shimmering, shifting, ghostlike appendage. It shimmered, sometimes showing his wrist wearing a watch, sometimes not, as if his mind couldn't quite decide exactly how his hand should look.
If he had a hand, he must have the rest of his body. He followed his wrist, up his arm. The arm seemed to form as his eyes looked at it. Now he saw his shoulder, his chest, and below that his legs.
Below – there was an up and a down. Things were coming into place.
He had a full body. He looked at his foot. He was wearing his favorite pair of gray sneakers.
No, wait!
He was wearing blue flip flops. Somehow, both seemed to be true at the same time. Several different slightly different versions of himself seemed to be co-existing and intertwined.
Never mind the details. I have a body! He reached up and pinched his cheek. It hurt dully, like a slightly less defined version of what a real pinch would feel like. "Ow" he said, happily.
It was time to create a world. Better to start off with somewhere he knew personally. His room. He imagined the thick carpet beneath his feet. And it was there. He looked around to his bed, and his desk. They were all there.
He walked to the bed. The sheets were nondescript. He couldn't quite make out what color they were. He looked towards his shelf, where he kept his game collection. The titles of the data crystal holders were unreadable. He could not read the words so instead he focused and tried to read one letter at a time. It was impossible. Every time he began reading a letter, it shifted into another form. He might follow a horizontal stroke to see where it went. It would intersect a diagonal, so he'd think he'd found a "Z". But as he followed the diagonal, it would curve back up into a strong vertical, which never met the original horizontal.
He looked out the window and saw blackness. There was no world outside his room.
"Are you the demiurge of this world?" Came a sudden, scornful female voice.
He whirled around, to see Laura sprawled suggestively on his bed. Unlike the rest of this half-formed world, she appeared in exquisite, unchanging detail. Her smooth legs were crossed and her bent elbows supported her weight. She was wearing a short, form-fitting white dress that set off her braided red hair. Golden jewelry and diamonds sparkled around her neck and wrists. She looked around with a wrinkled nose.
"Am I the wha—" Before he had even finished the question, Nick knew the answer.
Demiurge. The creator of a world.
"I would have thought your skills would have advanced a bit further than this by now," she continued.
"I haven't really had time to practice," he said defensively.
"I hope I didn't scare you away last time."
"I've had a lot of stuff to do," he responded lamely.
"Do you want me to take over and improve this world for you?"
"Can't you just improve it for me without taking over?"
"No, if you're the demiurge of a world, you're the only one who controls it. Until and unless someone else comes along and takes over. You can't have two people running a world. You might set two different times of day, or even two different locations..." She waved her hand as if not wanting to explain all the details. "It's too damn confusing."
She blinked for a second and suddenly he felt, in a way that he couldn't have articulated, a sense of freedom melt away and be replaced by a sense of confinement.
At the same time, the incomplete version of his room that he had conjured shifted into a completely realistic version of his father's den. He could see the detailed grain of the walnut desk; read the display from the newsreader on the desk, smell the leather in the cushions on the chair.
"How'd you know what my dad's den looks like?" he asked. He wasn't sure whether to be impressed or scared.
"I didn't know what this room looks like until I wanted to. To find out the information I need, I'm checking architectural diagrams, reading your memories, and relaying all the information into this world. At some point you should learn to prevent people like me from hacking into your brain." Instead of reclining on his bed, Laura now straddled his father's chair backwards, her dress pushed up to allow her thighs to rest on the two armrests.
"Right," he said, nonplussed.
She looked around. "Anyway, this is boring. Let's go make some money."
"Huh?"
"We'll go trade in the markets."
"What markets?"
"The global equity and debt markets."
"I don't know finance," he protested. "And anyway, I'm only 17. It's illegal for me to open a brokerage account."
Laura laughed. "Silly Aeon. You don't need to study finance if you're using a MindWave. And we can make you a fake identity easily enough. I'll even lend you some money to get you started. Come on."
The world changed. It didn't melt away. There was no sense of transition. It was just different, as if a scene had changed in a movie. Instead of standing facing Laura, Nick was now floating next to her.
He flinched, fearing she was dropping him again. Then he realized that he was levitating over a vast ocean, covered as far as he could see by all manner of ships. Some were lumbering battleships, others were deftly tacking sailboats. Still others were foundering in heavy weather, and a few were sinking.
"What is this?"
"This is the financial market, or actually it's a visual simulation of the market. Every ship below represents a company. The quality of the ship tells you whether it's a good investment."
"There are thousands and thousands of ships! I can't watch them all at once."
"Yes you can. Come into my avatar."
Suddenly Nick felt his presence shift. He was no longer in his own body. Instead he was inside Laura's. He saw what she saw, felt what she felt.
Laura's perception of the world was impossibly sophisticated. Where he had perceived a featureless, flat oceanscape receding away from him into the distance, she viewed all parts of the sea at once.
Or rather, Nick realized after he had had a few moments to digest what lay in front of him, she saw the important parts of the sea all at once. The fastest and slowest ships, and the burning ones, appeared before her equidistant, in a space that besides length, height and width also had two more dimensions he couldn't quite grasp.
He blinked hard and squinted. Gradually, he came to understand what he was perceiving. The flat landscape was twisted and folded in the two extra dimensions to bring the important ships into focus, and to obscure the less important ships. Once he understood how the seascape was folded in the two new dimensions, he intuitively knew exactly where each of the important ships lay in the flat seascape he had originally perceived.
"If it's steady sailing, buy. If it's foundering, sell. If it's sinking, sell more. The beauty of finance is that you can make money by selling something you don't even own."
"Won't other people see the same opportunities and buy or sell before we can?" he asked.
"Other people? You're not a person. You're an Aeon."
"Fine. But people have computers. Powerful computers that can do their trading for them. I've read about it."
"People can build computers a million times more powerful than the fastest supercomputer and they still won't be able to see what we can see. They have to choose between using an automatic program to trade for them based on rules, or to take the time to add human judgment. For us, the data processing and the judgment can occur at the same time. And because our neural circuitry transfers data a million times faster than neurons can, even our judgment is faster than theirs. In the world of finance, you just have to know something a millisecond ahead of your opponent. We've got whole seconds. Now go make some money."
Nick realized that while they had been talking, Laura had established a fake identity for him. He was Jose Vargas, a 35-year-old pediatrician in Sacramento. He had a million dollars to invest, from a brokerage account in First Bank of California.
"A million dollars?" he asked incredulously.
"I don't want you to get carried away. But I see you're out of time for today."
Before Nick could place his first investment, he had fallen out of the sky and landed on the ground. Disoriented, he opened his eyes and found himself sitting in his room. He was overcome by vertigo for a moment, scrabbling at the ground with his feet and grabbing at the chair.
When he had gotten his sense of balance back, he looked at the computer. Five minutes had elapsed, and his internet connection had automatically turned off.
He shook his head in disbelief and smiled. A million dollars. That was a lot of money when my dad was born, but not anymore. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out several hundred thousand dollar coins. A million bucks is barely enough to buy a bicycle. If a million dollars was enough of a base to build a fortune with his MindWave, he'd be back in the ether. He'd be back soon.
***
"Your implant has vital weaknesses compared to the ones your opponents are going to have," Willy explained to Sarah and Michael.
Sarah reclined in a cot wearing her hospital gown, head still lightly bandaged. Her silver cross necklace lay in a small plastic container on the stand next to her bed. Michael lay in a cot next to hers, his head similarly dressed. His presence helped calm Sarah's fraught nerves.
"You must accept these weaknesses because you're going to be in covert roles. You can't have the full MindWave. It's too damn obvious if you have computer ports and cooling vents sticking out of the back of your head."
"Yeah no full MindWave. Whatever. You already told us it was a small device," said Sarah, weakly sipping on a cup of cola through a straw. "When do I get my new boobs?"
Michael, undoubtedly still too tender from the surgery to turn his head, looked towards her quizzically with his eyes. Sarah suppressed a smile. She might be stuck in a secret military base with government agents who felt entitled to implant mysterious devices in her brain. But at least now she knew for sure that Michael was interested in her boobs.
Willy sighed and responded uncomfortably. "You already have. Dr. Lee did that as a freebie during the neural implantation process."
"Huh, what?" Sarah looked down and feebly raised her hands to her chest.
"You didn't notice?"
"No. I just woke up from a six week coma after you drugged me!" protested Sarah, her voice changing from weak to strident as she spoke. "How would I know what you freaks did to me while I was under?"
Willy looked wounded and she forced herself to calm down. She still remembered the last moments after Dr. Lee had drugged her. How distraught Willy had looked, how he had tried to cover her nakedness, how he had been weeping. She was angry at him for betraying her, yet she also realized he was the only officer at the ranch who saw her as more than a piece of meat.
Perhaps he was a good man, in a horrible position. Perhaps that was what he'd meant that day after the race, when he'd been bandaging her injured foot and had said he wasn't sure whether the ends justified the means.
Besides that, Michael was here with her. His calm presence simultaneously made her feel secure, and also deterred her from venting her anger and fear. She didn't want him to think she was a coward or a mindcase.
Seeking to break the tension, she ran her tongue over her teeth. "Hey, my teeth are straight too!" Afraid of opening her half-healed wounds, she carefully turned her head to smile theatrically in Michael's direction.
"Yes, we made a few changes in how you look, which will be helpful in your covert role. And we erased your fingerprints and changed the patterns in your irises and retinas."
"Uh, did I get any extra surgery," asked Michael, looking with concern down at his body.
"Nah, you're easier. We zapped your fingerprints and retinas, of course. Beyond that, we'll give you colored contact lenses and send you to the gym."
"Thanks." Michael frowned.
"Oh no, don't make him bulk up too much," interjected Sarah. "Asian guys look better nice and wiry." In the face of Willy's bewildered stare, she realized she'd said a bit too much, and decided to change the topic. "What kind of covert role is this, anyway?"
"We want you to fit in with a certain group of people. The people you'll be following. The people you'll be policing."
"I've got a computer in my brain and a boob job. Who am I supposed to spy on? Internet porn stars?"
Willy grinned and gave her one of his winks. "You must know, Sarah, that there are wealthy people who pay fortunes to genetically alter their children. To make them look... a certain way."
"Oh yeah, the dirty rich and their test tube babies. So you want me to look like a beautiful, rich heiress so I can go make friends with real, beautiful, rich heiresses? Still, why do I need a computer implanted in my brain?"
"It's the latest accessory for the richest of the rich. A computerized brain implant called the MindWave. It gives the user extraordinary mental powers," explained Willy.
"Like... telekinesis? Can I read your mind? Or make you fall out of your chair?" Sarah squinted and grimaced as she stared intently at Willy.
Willy shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Access to information. Any information they need. And the ability to process, to visualize that information, and to communicate with each other in ways that no humans ever have."
Sarah gave Michael a skeptical glance.
Michael picked up Sarah's sarcasm. "Great, so you basically stuck Wi-Fi modems into our brains?" He tried to shake his head, wincing at the pain caused by the movement. "All these damn surgeries so I can talk to computers?"
"It's a bit more than that," Willy insisted. "Look, it's a bit hard to explain until you start using it, which will be in just a few days. You're going to be able to do some extraordinary things. You'll just have to trust me for the moment."
"Yeah, great, trust the man that kidnapped me from an orphanage, threatened to boot me out if I didn't win some contrived competition, and then performed mad science experiments on me." Sarah looked away and breathed deeply to calm down. "Anyway, didn't you just say our brainwaves are weaker than the regular ones?"
"MindWave," corrected Willy. "Actually, in your case we call it a TacWave, because of the enhanced tactical abilities we've added. In terms of processing speed, it's just as powerful as a regular MindWave, more powerful even. But it has two differences, two... weaknesses.
"First, a regular MindWave has a number of external connection jacks. These allow the user to easily connect to any computer or network, or even to directly connect MindWave to MindWave with another user. Now, in theory MindWave users could rely on antennae built into their skulls but the pencil-necks who designed the device think too much radiation inside the skull is dangerous. So until we solve that problem, wired connections are the only way to connect. Now, with your TacWaves, you can't have all those connection jacks. You just have one small port, hidden at the base of your skull, covered by your hair.
Willy's tone became more somber. "Second, you don't have endomorphic cooling vents. Computer chips generate a lot of heat and the inside of the human skull is not well ventilated. Using the MindWave at full power will fry the user's brain in a few minutes. The MindWave solves this problem with large cooling vents in the user's skull. But you don't have the cooling vents..." he let his voice trail off.
"So you mean if I use this thing my brain fries?" asked Michael incredulously.
"If you overuse it your brain will be damaged," Willy responded carefully. "Now, the TacWave has automatic temperature warnings that tell you if you're overheating it. But Dr. Lee and I thought that there was a risk, a small risk, you see," he held up his thumb and index finger as if to indicate how small the risk was "that you might overlook those warnings in periods of stress. We thought a much more reliable way to prevent overuse injuries is to rely on your body's natural pain response. The human brain normally doesn't have pain receptors. So we, ahh... we..."
"Willy, what did you do?" Sarah let her mouth hang slightly open in a reproachful expression.
Willy spoke delicately. "We put some pain receptors inside your brain tissue, so you'll know when you're overheating your brain."
"This just keeps getting better, Willy," Sarah responded bitterly, and turned her gaze away from him again. "I already get migraines!"
"Well, there is one mitigating factor. We can affix external cooling systems to your skulls. When you're here at the ranch, you can use those to cool your brains well enough that you might be able to use the TacWave for hours at a time.
"But those systems are too bulky to be mobile. When you're out in the field, all we can give you is a half-measure, a refrigerated helmet. It's definitely not as good as the normal endomorphic cooling systems but better than nothing. You'll probably get 30 minutes of use with the helmets."
Michael looked thoughtful. "What about power? If it's all sealed up inside my skull, how do I replace the batteries?"
"There are no batteries. The system uses energy from your body. Specifically, it takes the sugars carried by your blood, and turns that into electrical power through a chemical process that mimics human cellular biology."
Sarah forced a meek smile. "Well, at least I can eat all the ice cream and chocolate I want."
She grinned as Michael rolled his eyes.
Rad opened the door and beckoned towards
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