Influx (10 page)

He imagined himself doing so but said nothing.

“Very good, Jon. Now imagine that once you traverse that distance, you turn ninety degrees back north, and walk another ten thousand kilometers.”

“Okay.”

“How far are you from your original location?”

Grady squinted at the ceiling as if it were a moron. “I’m back where I started.”

“Most people would not say that.”

“It’s non-Euclidian geometry—the Earth is a sphere. You can have three right angles in that triangle.”

Suddenly a projection of precisely that appeared on the far wall.

“You used several interesting areas of your brain to arrive at that conclusion, Jon.”

“So do I get a treat or something?”

“I’m given to understand that you have both color and number-form synesthesia. I have records on several human subjects with this mutation. What colors do you perceive when you hear these tones . . . ?”

A Mozart piano concerto began to play in the room. Concerto no. 20 in D Minor, movement two. The beautiful music washed over him, and even he could feel his mind light up with the soundness of its structure. The beautiful waves of color. It was a very pleasant distraction from his current circumstances. After a few moments he could almost imagine the young Wolfgang’s thoughts as he formed his chords. Grady was unable to create such soulful music himself—but he could recognize the reason behind the notes. The structure of the sound.

“That’s very good.”

Grady opened his eyes—though he hadn’t realized he’d closed them—and looked back up at the ceiling, now rippling with waves of blue, gold, and indigo.

“Please concentrate on the music.”

“Go to hell.”

The music continued to play.

“Are you familiar with glia cells, Jon?”

He was not. “Go to hell.”

“For many decades it was believed that neurons were the chief motive power in the human brain. Glia cells, on the other hand, outnumber neurons ten to one, but unlike neurons they don’t react to electrical stimulation. So they were believed to be the structural glue that kept the brain together. The word
glia
is the Greek word for glue.”

“Leave me alone!” The music still played in all its beauty, and Grady kept trying to push his imagining of it down. To resist.

The voice of his AI warder continued,
“Yet when we examined cross sections of Albert Einstein’s preserved brain tissue, we found no more neurons than the average person. However, we did find that Einstein had an abnormally high concentration of glia cells.”

Grady listened to the music, try as he might to resist. It caressed him with its rich color. With the beauty of its form.

“That’s a trait that you and Einstein share, Jon.”

Grady opened his eyes. That was indeed news to him.

“Glia cells are, in fact, a second brain within the brain—one centered not on electrical signals but on chemical ones. An analog computer to accompany the digital neurons.”

Grady could not resist visualizing quantum mechanical cells within his brain as the music flowed onward. As much as he wanted to tune out the AI’s words, it was starting to intrigue him. He had never heard of this chemical network in the human brain. But then he pulled back. This was insanity—why was he listening to this? “I don’t believe you.”

“There are several classes of glia cells. Radial, microglia, Schwann glia, and oligodendrocytes—all supporting the function, growth, and maintenance of neurons. But after the embryonic human brain completes its growth, radial glia transform into a new type of cell: astrocytes, named because of their resemblance to starlight. Their tendrils spread to connect hundreds of thousands of neural synapses. And they link with one another, building chemical networks—networks that also monitor neuron activity; in response to neural stimulation, astrocytes produce waves of charged calcium atoms, which result in a chain reaction, moving from cell to cell, causing messages to chemically propagate in the human brain. They can further stimulate specific neurons by producing glutamate, or suppress neurons by producing adenosine. These cells represent ninety percent of human brainpower, acting like an analog network, encoding information in slowly rising and falling waves of calcium. There is evidence, in fact, that they are a manifestation of consciousness and responsible for expressing creativity and imagination.”

Grady, while listening to the music, was also listening, as if against his will, to the AI. “When was this discovered?”

“You’re very rare, Jon. No nonbiological computer has ever had the ability to make intuitive leaps on the scale of an Einstein, a Tesla, or other great minds. You provide us a rare chance to understand the true nature of creative perception in action.”

He emotionally pulled back. “So that you can copy it.”

“Our goal is to improve the human mind. At present the most powerful quantum supercomputers are capable of massively parallel computations; AIs based on this processing can improve existing data, find patterns, and extend the reach of mathematics. However, they cannot truly innovate. The intuitive leaps that the human mind makes have so far not been reproduced by machine intelligence. It’s believed, however, that truly innovative supercomputers can be biologically built, greatly expanding the power of human perception. I need you to help us if we hope to accomplish that.”

“You want to mass-produce minds.”

“Mass production of biological intellects is already possible. However, they are by definition self-governing and are therefore of limited use. Our research intends to separate free will from intellect to optimize system design.”

“I’m not going to help you do that.”

The music ended suddenly.

“The next generation of biological quantum supercomputers will be biological yet devoid of free will. Capable of intuitive leaps like those of Einstein, Tesla . . . or yourself.”

“To hell with that. I refuse to help you turn brains into farm animals.”

“It would be more accurate to say that innovation will be converted into an industrial process.”

Grady started pacing around the circular cell. “I will never let you subsume my mind into some slave fugue.”

“Our goal is not to alter your mind but to build new minds based on the research conducted here.”

It finally dawned on him. For a supposed genius he suddenly felt pretty stupid. “Hibernity is a research laboratory. It’s not a prison. And what happens to me during this research?”

“We will conduct an ongoing series of tests to map every function of your brain, and then we will make minor adjustments to see how those changes affect the whole.”

A flash of fear swept through him. “Adjustments? What kind of adjustments?”

“Minor adjustments. Eventually your mind might become too damaged to continue in the research program—at which point your genetic material will be archived for future reference. However, that is many years away.”

Grady lashed out as he tried to run up the wall as far as he could. His feet slipped immediately, and he fell to the ground. “Fuck you! Fuck you, whoever you are! Fuck you, evil pricks!”

“Let’s begin. For your own safety, I need you to lie down on the examination table.”

Instead, Grady collapsed on the smooth, clean floor, huddled against the wall—curled up in a fetal position. “No!”

“For your own safety, I need you to lie down on the examination table.”

“I said no!”

“For your own safety, I need you to lie down on the examination table.”

He didn’t respond.

The AI repeated its demand for several minutes. Finally it said,
“If you refuse to comply, then I will help you.”

Grady frowned. He felt dizziness spread through his head and felt compelled to sit up. “Oh my God . . .” He started breathing fitfully, panting. It felt as though someone were rummaging through his mind with boxing gloves. “Oh my God . . .”

He sat there, rocked by waves of emotion—random mood swings. He felt fleeting spikes of fear, joy, confidence—all wrapped in a background of horror. He was losing himself.

“For your own safety, I need you to lie down on the examination table.”

“Fuck you!” He started hugging himself and rocking back and forth. Resisting a compulsion to get up.

“You will want to get off of the floor. It will be dangerous to remain on the floor.”

Suddenly narrow slots opened at four compass points in the round wall, and what appeared to be spiders a foot in diameter scurried out. There were dozens of them, and they raised their forelegs and bared fangs at him in warning. He could see their black eyes glistening in the light. Hear their legs clicking on the floor.

“Oh my God.” He sprang to his feet as the spiders continued to pour into the room. They were each nearly half a foot tall, scurrying about. Adrenaline coursed through his bloodstream.

“For your own safety, I need you to lie down on the examination table.”

Grady circled in place, staring out at the horrors that still issued into the room. “No. No, this makes no sense.”

“For your own safety, I need you to lie down on the examination table.”

“This isn’t real.” He watched as a frighteningly real spider scurried toward him and wrapped itself around his bare ankle—sinking fangs into his calf. “Aaahhh!” He tried to knock it off with his hands, but its spiked forelegs drew blood as well. Other spiders started biting and clawing at him. He smashed several with his bare feet, but their carapaces cut his feet as their innards spurted out across the floor in yellow jets.

“For your own safety, I need you to lie down on the examination table.”

“Aaahhh!” He shouted at the ceiling as the piercing bites and stings of climbing spider legs writhed over him. “I don’t believe this. It makes no sense!”

He threw himself down onto the floor. Spiders were crawling all over him now. “Aaahhh!” His heart hammered in his chest. He was covered in sweat as the spiders bit and clawed at him.

“Am I to believe . . . you’re raising spiders in the walls? How do the logistics of that work?”

“For your own safety, I need you to lie down on the examination table.”

“No! You’re fucking with my mind! You’re creating these.” He closed his eyes. The spiders were all over him now. His terror had now begun to overwhelm him. “No! No!” But still he refused to get up.

Suddenly everything stopped. He opened his eyes, and all the spiders were gone. There was no trace that they’d ever been there. He felt all over his body for the punctures he’d seen moments before, but they weren’t there. There was only a shiny patina of sweat all over him. He was still panting, his heart pounding.

“For your own safety, get on the examination table.”

Grady started laughing, slowly at first, but then he started howling. “This isn’t magic. You’re a fucking machine. And you’re goddamned right the human brain is powerful, motherfucker.”

“Your brain’s ability to parse reality from low-level sensory input is impressive, Jon. I have much to learn from you.”

“And I’m not going to teach you a fucking thing!”

Suddenly tentacle-like appendages whipped out through an opening that appeared in the domed ceiling. They grabbed him savagely, feeling like leather whips as they wrapped around his torso, arms, and legs. They whirled him around and slammed him down onto the examination table. He heard a bone in his face crack and pain seared into his mind. The tentacles flipped him over and yanked his arms and legs into a taut spread-eagle position—tearing a muscle in his left arm in the process. The agony was intense. “Aaahhh!”

“For your own safety, you should mount the examination table when instructed to do so. Physical manipulation of research subjects is an unsafe operating condition.”

Blood flowed from his nose as he looked up and saw another leathery tentacle descend from the dark opening far above him at the apex of the domed ceiling. This tentacle had a hose-like nozzle at its tip. “Oh my God.”

It surged down to him and inserted its tip into the socket in his naval, locking in place. He screamed as he felt it invade his body, clearing him out and pumping fluids into him as he struggled hopelessly against his restraints.

“Evacuation, hydration, and feeding are required processes without which you will die. Under no circumstances will you be permitted to die.”

In seconds the process was finished, and the hose released with a sucking sound as it retracted toward the domed ceiling. All the other tentacles launched him onto the floor, where he landed hard. The pain of his injured arm and face made him pass out for an unknown time. He came to on his stomach, his arm in agony. The floor around him was sprayed with wet blood.

The AI spoke almost immediately.
“I want you to imagine something for me.”

Grady responded by emitting a low groan. It formed eventually into a gentle sobbing as all hope ebbed from him.