"I'm Doctor Adat Se-" Was about all I managed to utter before a uniformed crewmember told me to shut up and dragged me away. Guess they didn't believe in chitchat either, or warm welcomes.
The design of the Bàdào was subtly different from that of the other UN ships I'd been in, not that I had a sample size larger than two to compare it to. It's hard to put into words, you try explaining to someone the precise architectural differences between, say, the interiors of a Cold War nuclear sub built by the US as opposed to Russia. Different materials, some distinction in design philosophy, but they'd just see a cramped tin can full of esoteric devices, glowing green lights and the insistent pings of sonar. The Chinese were among the few nations that had independent shipyards, I bet the Bàdào had been built in cislunar space, though there was a decent chance it might have come from their holdings around Neptune. They preferred to go hard on the nuclear pumped lasers as opposed to more common spinal railguns, but the Chinese had some of the best Ex Nihilists around so fissiles were hardly scarce.
Still, it was plenty spacious, albeit the same kind of utilitarian you tend to get when the crew spends most of their time in deep immersion VR, instead of dishing out for dumb shit like an indoor swimming pool or such.
I hurried through more liminal corridors, noticing that, like the Agnimatajay, the Bàdào had extra concessions for the presence of unaugmented metahuman crew, though they were nowhere near as numerous.
I was deposited in a conference room, rich mahogany and the odd classical Chinese painting I was too much of a boor to appreciate. My escort pointed at an assortment of presumed metahumans waiting for me, and I grabbed a seat.
It was a good thing I was seated, because it turned out the conference room was more of an elevator in disguise, and we rapidly sped down the cargo tubes, heading into the bowels of the ship where the supercomputer clusters lay.
"Can't I interface with him here?" I asked a severe looking gentleman with a shaved head. He had surgical scars that suggested he had been a Penitent or a Chinese offshoot, but maybe he'd lapsed after developing powers of his own.
He gave me a silent stare, and while I frowned at him, a woman to his left spoke up instead. "I'm sorry, he can't talk normally, we're not sure if it's an effect of his powers or something that went wrong during a surgery." She was willowy, and her youthful appearance suggested she was a spacer, maybe from the Chinese lunar colonies. Martians aren't usually that lanky.
"I'm sorry to hear that. What are his powers?" I inquired. Normally I'd just look that up, but the Bàdào was on maximum lockdown, even the omnipresent AR tags dark.
"In English, he's, uh, a Medium? A little bit of Extrasensory Perception?" Her English was strongly accented, she clearly didn't have a lace herself.
"And you?" I asked her.
"A Healer."
I settled in, feeling us decelerate after traveling maybe a quarter of a kilometer. We stopped to pick up several others, all of them ethnically Chinese, barring a few who had more Caucasian features as had become the rage in those approved for gene therapy there.
"Welcome, Dr. Sen, we're preparing the subject right now, I can answer any questions you might have in the interim." The walls projected an image of a woman in military uniform, with the customary glowing eyes that had become an informal standard that let you know you were speaking to an AI. Legislatively mandated in some places, but even the Chinese found it convenient.
"Pleased to meet you, do you possess a name other than the one associated with the Bàdào?"
"Yes, thank you for asking. I'm Xinglan, English speakers often prefer to address me as Stella. The primary AI is designed to focus solely on military matters, and I handle other concerns, including the care of members of the crew, especially Doctor Shen." She sighed elegantly, as if the situation with the man was a regrettable matter.
At any rate, I doubted it mattered what I called her, especially since it's not like AI actually have genders, but in general, military AI presented themselves with male avatars and the converse for civilian affairs. Just traditional at this point, there weren't any hard and fast rules. She was still likely more limited than the primary, the mainframe hardware needed to run a Polonium was expensive enough, especially since the current approach with Narrowly Superhuman AI didn't scale very well. You could run a hundred smarter than human AI with the hardware needed for one extremely smart one, and merely human level AI had long been usable on commodity hardware.
"What are the additional metahumans for? Let me guess, it's a way to deal with the MRS?" I conjectured.
"Correct. It was exceedingly difficult to apply Shenjing Qiangzhi with his particular brand of powers. Unfortunately, when he's particularly angry, he's capable of overriding the link and burning out the AI interfacing with him. Hence why I'm not the primary AI, as I can tell you're wondering."
I felt something spark in my brain, a glimmer of an idea that I immediately shoved back into my subconscious just in case Machina was listening in. I could tell something was different already, I didn't know how far the Bàdào was from the Agnimatajay, but whatever the restrictions put on me were, they were loosened. Not gone, I'd experimentally tried to scream for help the moment I'd gotten here, to no avail, but I suspected that without Prometheus/Machina supervising me closely, I was able to skirt the edges.
'Shenjing Qiangzhi', my lace translated it as "Neural Coercion". Hmm, when I'd initially presented the paper to the Chinese, they'd called it Naoxin Shouzhi (脑芯收制), the even more blunt term corresponding to "brain core control". PR move or rebranding? Didn't particularly care that they didn't use the name with mine attached, at this point I didn't want the notoriety and did my very best to distance myself anyway.
"How does he achieve that?"
"We don't know, it's an aspect of his power that manifests as software glitches in the AI followed by catastrophic failure in the associated hardware. Please don't worry for my sake, I have redundant backups." She smiled gently. Perhaps the feminine persona helped ease him, I thought, I'd heard he'd been a ladies' man when that brain of his was attached to a real dick.
"And how many times has he done that before? Does it extend to humans?" Didn't want him pissed off and frying my brain myself.
"I am the 33rd instantiation of the original Xinglan, not that I should be considered a distinct entity. I am told that there were other models involved in the past, but so far, I seem to be the one most acceptable to him, the incidence of such tantrums has decreased significantly while he's in my care. Of course, I was just the 15th one a few days back, before we arrived at Mars, recent events have been taxing on his mood." She sighed melodramatically, conjuring a dainty fan. "There have been incidents in the past where he damaged cognitive augmentations in humans, but please don't be concerned, all interactions will be mediated by me and Lieutenant Long, reducing the risk substantially, and he likes you in the first place."
"Likes me? I don't think we've spoken much, just a quick conversation after a conference back in '33 or '34, before-"
She cut me off gently. "That period is an uncomfortable topic to many here, let's not go there. But he regularly reads many of the papers you've penned, and seems to genuinely respect you. The risk is minimal."
I can't say I wasn't a little pleased to hear that, vanity is a common enough sin in academics. He had made some keen observations when he'd joined me and Danielle in our post-presentation discussions, including a key insight that had accelerated the development of the technology. I can't say he would be too happy about that when it was done to him, but maybe he was detached enough to still be appreciative of solid technical work.
"How is he being handled? Nanite supplementation to a lace? Infrasonic modulation? Transcranial magnetic fields?" There was no single Florence-Sen process, we'd figured out a bunch of different ways to circumvent different manifestations of Metahuman Rejection Syndrome, all in the name of enabling high bandwidth communication between the AI and the metahuman in question. The naive approach, simply putting a standard lace in them, didn't work for obvious reasons.
"Optical neural stimulation for the most part, which was a serendipitous discovery, he had previously voluntarily undergone the standard adenoviral vector injections for an unrelated personal experiment, before the manifestation of his powers."
Crikey, that was a bold decision in my eyes, I was only used to seeing something like that applied to lab rats or neurons on a petri dish, call me old fashioned but back when he must have done it, they hadn't completely eliminated the risk of meningoencephalitis from injecting even a tamed adenovirus into the brain. My own hypermyelination therapy was more advanced, using a relatively recent offshoot of megaTAL, itself better than CRISPR, and certainly safer than an adenovirus.
"An unorthodox solution, but what else can you do when dealing with MRS." I shrugged. "I can't imagine the bandwidth is ideal, is it?"
"Unfortunately that is the case. Hence the additional support staff, including a Class 3 Medium. Using standard optogenetic techniques only provides 16 kbps of bandwidth, which only allows for minor control of higher cognition and metahuman powers. Our Healer, Lieutenant Li, is responsible for rapidly modulating the extent and distribution of the relevant cation-selective channelrhodopsins, and we rely on Lieutenant Long's perceptual channeling to gauge the effects live, further mediated by the additional support Clairvoyants, especially Sergeant Ming, who has a level of MRS mild enough that he was fitted with a lace, through which I can observe the internal qualia of Lieutenant Long."
She indicated a morose man sitting in the corner who hadn't engaged in conversation with me so far, and seemed in no haste to. The way he clung to his flask of non-alcoholic beverage suggested he was craving a stiff drink.
"That's.. involved, if I say so myself. Does it provide significantly better results?"
Involved was putting it lightly, this was a Rube Goldberg-esque mechanism for letting the AI peek into Shen's cognition, all the better to control him.
"Yes! We achieve approximately six megabits a second under optimal conditions, which is sufficient to channel his powers on demand, albeit with certain issues if pushed too hard. Another reason for having a Healer."
A far cry from the hundreds of megabits of a standard lace, or the gigabit bandwidth of my cutting edge model, but those were likely overkill in the first place, you were sampling more noise than signal if you listened to the buzzing of neurons that closely.
"And the others?" There were more people filing in as we waited, only a handful of them with cybernetic enhancement.
"Additional support staff and mediators, but I'll leave the specifics for another time. We're currently reversing the selective sedation and bring his higher cognitive functions to speed, you can accompany Lieutenants Li and Long to the human interface room."
Another door slid open behind me, leading to a room furnished closer to an upscale hospital cabin. I accompanied the two, and found another cocoon I could settle in.
The most curious aspect was a the floor, which turned transparent, revealing complicated life support systems and another case the size of a small fridge with -yeah, I told Danielle that denying that it was a brain in a jar would do anything- a brain in a jar.
Or most of one. I could see the brainstem and much of the cerebellum had been pared away, the occipital and frontal cortices enlarged while the temporal lobes were slightly atrophied, and I leaned in closer, spotting what seemed to be cerebral organoids made from cultured neuronal tissue attached in a manner that wouldn't have worked if you needed to fit it all in a standard skull.
Kids, say hi to Dr. Shen, but don't comment on the weight loss, it's a bit rude since it wasn't voluntary.
There wasn't much more insight to be gleaned from looking at the familiar pink blob, they all look the same for the most part, and it's not like they pulse extra hard when someone's thinking. I was still morbidly fascinated, I hadn't gotten to see an example of my invention for years now, especially the Chinese take on it.
A few thin tubes worked their way through the structure, supplementing additional nutrients that couldn't be easily diffused from the supportive fluids the brain floated in. There, those two hooked up to the stub of the basilar artery, now quite exposed without the surrounding tissue. That one must be the exhaust, or rather the venous outlet. Hmm, there were autodocs working on him, small and nimble things darting about like cockroaches, injecting what I presumed were reversal agents for the partial sedation.
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The two metahumans with me prepped quickly, they seemed to be used to the whole ordeal, with Li murmuring under her breath and waving her hands over the brain, doing whatever Healer shit she was needed for. A section of the brain that seemed paler than ideal perked up, visibly reddening, and, straining my eyes, I spotted a few punctate hemorrhages vanishing. I suppose we should all be grateful that the brain itself doesn't have any pain receptors eh?
As for Long, he settled into a couch and resumed staring at me, or rather both me and Shen, with one of his eyes swiveling disconcertingly in a different direction.
I didn't feel much at first, just a little queasy, but then pins and needles broke out all over my limbs, and I felt flashes of emotion and cognition, memories and thoughts that weren't mine. Those settled rather quickly, but Li hastened her work, earnestly making sure that Shen's brain was waking up as fast as it could.
It was almost hypnotic, after a few minutes I gave up on staring at Shen and let myself fade into the comfortable daydreams, accompanied by the melodic beep of the vitals monitors and then I-
Distant echoing laughter, my daughter's tiny hand in mine, a sense of visceral satisfaction that I had managed to drop out of a very important meeting despite the annoyed complaints from General Shangfu, fuck that man, my wife told me she's taking her first steps, and I needed to be there to-
Pain. Mind numbing pain. I'm seeing double, there's a battered man in a sensory cocoon, he looks oddly familiar, and then there's this pink organ taking up a quarter of my vision, someone's looking at, what's that, a brain? Fuck, this hurts so fucking much, Li, why aren't you-
A yawning abyss, blacker than black. I know I have eyes. I know I have lips and hands and-
Why can't I feel my face? Why can't I see? Don't tell me that I'm -
"Cerebral oedema within acceptable limits, Xinglan, could you switch off the mannitol drip? It's going quite smoothly, I told you that using-"
I didn't dream in Chinese, these thoughts they're not mine-
IT'S WEARING HER FACE. YOU FUCKING-
Another spike of pain, I'm hyperventilating, aggressively wiping the sweat off my brow. It's hard to look at two people at the same time, let alone-
"I told you, Lieutenant Long's running ragged, we can't keep this up forever, we need 我跟你说了，龙中尉快累垮了，我们不能这样一直下去，我们需要换班，他是个心灵感应者，你难道看不出他在压制下挣扎吗?"
"对不起，中尉，我们无法替你和龙换班，放轻松点，预测显示他不太可能全力反抗"
THAT'S HER VOICE, WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE I'M GOING TO-
"He's catching on. I specifically asked for that psychiatrist with the ability to calm emotions, why did you send a random guy instead? It's a lot easier for both of us when he doesn't get agitated!"
"Dr. Sen is genuinely believed to be the superior option, according to the Precogs. The man you wanted in addition is indisposed, without him, we'd likely be facing outright panic on the flagship. Those metahumans are not nearly as disciplined as you are."
"There's no need to flatter me. Just humor me instead, use a different voice, he's picking it up through leaks from Long, you can resume character when I've managed to switch off the relevant section of-"
Who the fuck is Anjana?
I find myself in a garden, somewhere in Beijing. In the distance, I can see starscrapers looming overhead, replacing the scar left from where the bomb dropped. There's a man in a traditional suit, gently raking falling leaves. He suddenly drops the rake, confused, and turns to me.
"What the fuck? I hate gardening, was this your idea of a meeting?"
The view flickers, cycling through different scenarios. This time, we're in Shenzhen, outside a daycare. It's evening, the skies still bright from the lights, and a blimp blazes in glorious red as it commemorates Reunification Day. For once, the drones are grounded, and flocks of pigeons frolic, genetically engineered to be maximally charming and constipated, and then to fly off to quietly die in the countryside when their job is done.
"Her mom didn't come. She's not speaking to me these days, as if abandoning our daughter is a suitable punishment for my infidelity."
I'm myself, assuming the self is a tall Indian man with the first hint of wrinkles on his face, even if I tell myself, as I look at my reflection in a window, that they're just from worrying too much.
"I understand, though my wife and I are separated for altogether different reasons. I hope you manage to reconcile things with her."
I'm speaking fluent Chinese, momentarily confused more by the date on a shop display. 2031? That can't be right can it? I'm pretty sure I wasn't married till-
The numbers shift under my gaze, and then shift back when he turns to look at me.
Shen's a handsome man, combining boyish good looks with the first touch of grey in his hair, the same grey that drives grad students wild and then into his arms. He seems mildly anxious, impatient, tapping his feet in their fine leather shoes against the spotless pavement, as more tired parents show up to pick up their wards.
"The thing is, I don't want to reconcile. It's not like I'm the only one with problems, she can't help but spend and spend and-" He rubs his forehead, frowning at unpleasant memories.
"Don't tell me you can't afford it, I wish I had a tenth of your salary." I tell him with mock bitterness, relying on pretend irony to hide my real jealousy.
He laughs, and pokes me on my shoulder. "Cheer up Dr. Sen, you've got a few good patents right? That's where the bulk of my money comes from too, the CCP pays a lot better these days, gotta stop the talent fleeing to America, but it's not that much."
There's movement in the crowd, parents eagerly commenting while gently jostling each other as the gates start opening, and the kids formed up inside in an orderly line slowly come out one by one after a quietly hovering drone covered in crayon marks does a quick biometric ID on their parents. A relieved looking attendant almost fishes for what I presume are a pack of cigs in her pocket before reconsidering under the hawk-eyed gaze of tiger moms.
"Is she coming out soon?" I ask. I'm impatient myself, I feel like I'm running behind on an important task, not that I can remember what it's supposed to be.
"A few minutes more. They're doing alphabetical order, in English. So 'X', yeah just a bit longer. Don't worry, after I drop her off home she'll be asleep in moments, gets that from her mom." He smiled wistfully, before shaking his head.
"Well, you've been hyping up that bamboo wine all day, at this point I'm not leaving till I have a sip." I comment, marveling in how much quieter the city was after they banned manned vehicles a few months ago. Still just as much traffic, but a kid running out into the street from an excess of enthusiasm wasn't at too much risk.
"Heh. And you tell me I drink too much. Will Danielle make it?" A mom that the more prurient might accurately describe as a MILF walked by, smiling at Shen, taking pains to flaunt the ass accentuated by her heels as she turned the corner. He looked on appreciatively, and the moment she turned the corner, he sighed and quickly pulled out a cig of his own, ignoring the annoyed looks from the less comely moms.
"Want one?" He offered me. I looked at them askance, they were about the cheapest you could get, his fine taste in wine and women didn't extend to tobacco.
"Nah, I don't smoke." I told him, wondering why my mind had ventured towards the idea of looking for a place I could get a cigar.
"More for me then, eh? Fuck, gotta be quick, she'll scold me if she sees it, another trait she got from her mom." He said with a smile, raising the lit cig to the sky so it matched with the red of the blimp.
"Can we talk freely here? Or should we get back to your place?" I asked him, stepping aside as a pair of twins wearing Hello Kitty bags skipped by, followed by their laughing parents holding hands. My chest hurt, almost as if I'd taken the filterless cigarette.
"Eh, it's probably bugged too. Lieutenant, if you're listening to us, fuck you!" He gestured at the drone.
It turned to face him, and the electronic cartoon face turned into an annoyed frown, and then a notification that he would be fined a pittance for conduct unbecoming of a parent availing of such an elite institution. Then it spotted the cig and made the fine larger, until Shen laughed and blew smoke at it.
"I don't think you should be quite so flippant, Fang. Did the Party say they'd ignore the matter?" I asked earnestly.
"Please, I'm the Doctor Fang Shen. Even if I made some regrettable choices, they need me for my brains hahaha."
Seeing that the queue had reached Q, he sighed and looked for a trashcan, stubbing out the cigarette wistfully. Then again, this is China, and that particular alphabet gets a lot more use, so I think he could have finished it if he really wanted to.
A teacher wandered out, looking for him.
"Doctor Shen, is your wife not coming today?" She asked curiously.
"Her parents are unwell, she's going to be out of town for a bit, but I'm here, am I not?" He told her, standing up straight.
"Xinglan was missing her today, if you see Mrs. Shen, tell her we're all very cross with her, such a darling daughter and she's sending her home in a cab. If you can't make it, please let me know, and I'll drop her off on the way myself." She pouted, stopping to wave at another happy kid running off home.
"Hah. You know how she is.. But I'm here for Xingxing, always will be." He said proudly.
"You're a busy man, what if they call you back to Beijing?"
"I'll take her with me. Oh, don't worry, I'll make sure she attends her classes remotely."
It was an upscale place, the CCP(R) had been cracking down on the usual grind that was the norm for school, even for kids in kindergarten. That didn't stop the determined, but this place was fancy, eschewing VR classes for live ones, the parents content in knowing that instead of burning their kid's childhood, they could let them be children for once, with a quick donation to an Ivy League handling the matter of higher education without the insane competition.
Then, the drone flew over, taking pains to stay within the premises of the daycare/pre-school, as there was a no-fly zone in effect outside.
"Thank you for arriving on time. Your child, Ms. Fang Xinglan, is ready for pickup. I must warn you, parking outside a designated zone will carry an additional fine after the second offense."
He waved it off, and quickly straightened his hair before looking at the opening gate.
A little girl immediately ran up to him the moment their eyes met, engulfed in a bear hug and then lifted off her feet while squealing with joy.
Shen turned around, smiling with contentment as she immediately turned shy on seeing my strange face, and was only coaxed into a quick hello after I dug out the emergency bar of chocolate I kept in case I was expecting to run into kids.
She was familiar, I felt certain I'd seen her before, but maybe it was an older relation or something, she was only four years old.
The scene shifted, my perceptions scrambled for a moment, beeping noises invading my awareness, slightly less frantic than last time.
"Good. I've got good signal this time, I knew you could ease him into it Lieutenant-"
Another shift, the world swirling around me before reconsituting itself as what I immediately recognized as a hotel bar in New York, you know, the one right around the corner from UN HQ, the favorite haunt of bored bureaucrats and the high end prostitutes catering to them. And the occasional real wife, at which point half the gents quickly take their leave.
This was a real memory, the initial immersion I'd felt from the previous scene had faded, and I knew that this was mere mimicry, invented from whole-cloth or shared memories.
Danielle was there, looking dazzling for once, at least without Anjana there to steal her thunder. She was flirting happily with a man I recognized as the German rep in the GA, but that's where it ended, she'd been loyal to her husband, right until the ringing aftermath of a bomb had left the detached finger with the ring still on it as the only sign of her existence.
"Very interesting work! Dr. Florence told me that she couldn't have done it without you." Shen told me, now in a formal suit, an expensive one. The cigarette was just as cheap, he was ignoring the no smoking policy again. The bodyguard glowering behind him made the bartender reconsider complaining.
"Fang Shen, isn't it? I got to try your Reality Anchor's demo a few days back. Can't say I felt anything, but I guess I should thank you for convincing me I'm not actually a metahuman." I joked, nursing my liquor. Anjana would be arriving shortly, she had a few quick jumps to make first.
"It was just a prototype, I'm currently overseeing mass production and ironing out the teething pains. Next thing you know, metahuman terrorism will cease to exist, and we can dispense with the licensing regime."
"Not like the world is short on terrorism eh? I couldn't quite follow how it worked, could you explain it further?"
He shook his head ruefully. "Sorry, they'll have my head if I give away 'State Secrets', but it's entirely mundane, I strongly suspect that I managed to luck into a new form of physics, we're calling it "Neural Physics", based off a theory I had regarding how SAMSARA worked. If they ever declassify it I'm going to make it a point to ensure you're the first to know."
"What, a GREEN clearance isn't enough?" I asked, acting as if I was gravely wounded.
"Nah, doesn't matter if you had something crazy like INDIGO or ULTRAVIOLET, it's the government keeping it all locked down, hence the goons following me around." He gestured at the impassive beefcake behind him, enough artificial muscle to untip a cow single-handedly.
"Lovely. I hope you can get the cost low enough for it to be universally usable. By the way, you might want to reconsider calling it Neural Physics, I'm pretty sure there's a popular video game that already popularized the term."
"Pfft, it's a perfectly good name. Then again, I think it's more general than just neurology, but Information Physics is already taken."
I grabbed my next drink and settled onto a stool, the scooted over so he could join me. "Do you think it can help with MRS? Dani and I have been going crazy trying to cover all the edge cases, if we're to help rehabilitate people who can't afford Healers or can't use them for some other reason, or just want to make the most of newer advances like laces.. "
"Hang on, let me think." He frowned, and I felt a small frisson of power, the drink in my hand getting colder faster than the ice cubes warranted. Nobody seemed to care, plenty of metahumans frequented the place, and they had a special area on the terrace set out for Teleporters. I'd seen Oldie a few hours back, quickly chugging a drink and then running off after telling me to give his love to Anjana.
"Right. I can see a few promising routes, and best of all, you don't need the Anchor for all of them. Here's a few I came up with-"
The evening passed in a pleasant buzz, I remember being just tipsy enough that my mind swam with ideas, eager to make the most of a renowned metahuman who could charge even more per hour than my wife could. She arrived soon enough, popping into existence on the balcony as we stood ready to toast her. I let Danielle peck her on the cheeks before handing her my glass so I could give her a big hug myself.
"My. Shame that I like your husband, or I'd be tripping over you myself." He joked after I'd introduced them.
"Handling one crazy doctor is enough for me. Sorry, I meant to say, doctor for crazy people." She laughed as I looked on enchanted by her beauty. Shen chortled, and then we all downed more shots till the world wobbled, the only fixed point in my vision my wife, and then for once we had Old Timer teleport us back home drunk instead of vice versa.
The memories faded, replaced by a brand new facsimile of reality, and there I stood in a luxurious yet sterile apartment, looking at Shen.
He was older, still handsome, yet in a more distinguished manner befitting a senior professor. He was surrounded by paperwork, surprised by my presence and then putting away an expensive laptop catering to people more than rich enough to buy a lace but unwilling to do so.
"Shen." I said.
"Sen." He replied.
Time to have a real conversation, or at least one with someone I pitied more than myself.