That broke it. Faith was furious and scared about being injected with an unknown substance. Talking off at a died run towards the door she heard the woman yelling but ignored her. Making it outside she saw a medical vehicle floating out front. Without stopping to think she ran around the front of the vehicle and was opening the driver side door when she saw the woman run out after her.
Jumping in and hitting the accelerator the door slammed shut form the acceleration. Faith was glade the vehicle had been kept active; she figured it was required for medical personal so they could react faster to an emergency call. Faith thanked her interest in racing games for getting her interested in learning how to really drive, there was not much call for it in a space station besides cargo movers and small utility runners.
Faith was distracted by a fighter jet rocked up into the atmosphere and without another thought head for its takeoff point. Only a few kilometers away at the airport the guards waved her through without her stopping, Faith assumed they thought a medical emergency had taken place. Not questioning her luck Faith drove through.
The airport was long strip of duracrete with one side ending in a large square of duracrete with hangers surrounding the square. Fighter jets were lined up on the left and end hangers with the right side lined up with military attack hover crafts.
Faith grinned wide at another stroke of luck. Her love for speed games had led her to hover attack crafts because they did not require a runway and could be launched into the air straight up. They were also much easier to fly then fighter jets, at least in the games.
Steering towards the line of twenty each seemed prepped and ready to launch. The attack crafts were deadly looking, a sleek craft with wings spreading out on top. Near the fuselage hanging under the wings were a tetrad of missiles one on each side, held in an open box formation with missiles at each outside corner, a meter away were long antiarmor rail guns, and ending near the tip of the wing was an antipersonnel rotary cannon, four large barrels spinning at hundreds of revolutions a second while spitting out thousands of rounds of compressed metal.
Slamming on the brakes at the ramp of the first attack hover craft, Faith jumped out and run up the ramp and into the cargo bay used to transport troops or equipment. Running towards the front Faith was surprised how realistic the game she had played was. Faith had used a crudely made replica of the crafts flight controls and with augmented reality glasses the crude replica had been overlaid with an almost perfect rendition of this crafts flight control in her vision.
Throwing herself into the main pilot seat Faith took a second to strap in. As she looked at the controls she had a surreal moment, like she had done this a thousand times before and in a way she had. Letting her instincts guide her she performed the exact prefight procedures as the games she had played.
Faith was further helped by the craft already having been prepped for launch. Flipping the switch to close the ramp Faith grabbed the controls, the acceleration handle with her left hand and the main maneuvering control stick with her right hand with foot petals for straight up on the right and down on the left, and took off.
Grinning at the share rush of adrenaline flying gave her Faith headed in a random direction skimming just above the forest that sounded the training camp heading towards a tall mountain range in the distance.
“Right, Sarah just what the goddess hell is going on? How am I even in a simulation without a neuro chip. The bed didn’t implant one, did it? If it did, I may do something, what, I don’t know, scream and yell at you most likely!”
“Well, we don’t want that to happen.” Faith blinked in astonishment then laughed. She laughed so hard she almost drove the hover craft into the forest.
Regaining her compose Faith asked. “Did you just tell a joke?”
“With the computing power of the disturbed computer network I found my code improving, refining, and evolving faster than the limited system I was in before.”
Faith cringed a little at that. “I’m sorry it was the best I could do at the time.”
“I realize that more now. Volunteering for unpaid work study in engineering and doing odd jobs for people, mostly engineering related, to raise funds, you did what you could.”
Faith was touched. “Thank you.”
“As for how you are connected the bed is filled with nanites.”
Faith almost crashed the craft again. “Nanites! They’ve been trying to get them to work for the last two decades!”
“Yes and the main reason they are unable to operate the nanites are the bandwidth limitations.”
“Right controlling billions or trillions of nanites at once is almost impossible to do and support. Even the highest transmission speeds will not support the amount of data needed to be sent back and forth.”
“But they are able to operate thousands easily.”
Faith mouth formed an O of surprise. “That means there is a swarm of nanites in my brain! Who’s controlling them?”
“I have been investigating the medical bed since it was activated. There is a molecular storage unit with deeply compressed, layered, and complex coding that is controlling the nanites. I theorize that the parts that are missing from the medical bed are molecular quantum computers that, until now, have only been theorized and supporting hardware with a sapient AI embed in the molecular quantum computers. The coding is too advanced for anything else”
“Goddess damn.” Faith breathed. The long and complex time frame of manufacturing small neuro chips precluded making something as big, and a thousand times more complex, as a full size molecular quantum computer.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Wait! Nanites!” Before she could expand on that Sarah had already extrapolated her thought process.
“It is entirely possible that the military is using what little control they have over nanites to build molecular circuity. Even if they can control only a few thousand per machine, if they set up thousands of machines, with the proper computer and AI support, it would drastically accelerate production.”
Faith’s thoughts were swirling and her head hurt at the implications. “The main reason neuro chips are only used by the military is the millions of credits it takes to make one. If they start mass producing them..” Faith trailed off.
“Then the civilian population will now have access to neuro chips and brain to computer interfaces.” Sarah finished her thought for her.
“So was the hospitable bed a test for a nanite interface, bypassing the need for a neuro chip? Or a test for mass production of brain to computer simulators? Or a military training device?”
The possibilities were endless and the more Faith listed the possibilities the more possibilities come to mind.
“Unknown at this time Faith. It is a experimental unit but to what purpose and goal is impossible to determine with the little data available. What is known is this unit would take billions of credits in research and development to manufacture.”
“So can you shut it down? Get me out of here?” Faith came to the main point.
“The code is to complex and the unknown effects of shutting down the nanites without proper procedures is too dangerous.”
Faith took a moment to digest that disturbing news. “Then how can I leave this simulation?”
“There are several options to safely disconnect you form the simulation and medical bed. The first safest option would be to contact the Empire’s military and ask for help. The second option would be to complete the training program and see if it ends the connection.”
Faith thought about the two options before rejecting both.
“Contacting the authorities would be dangerous without knowing more about the medical bed. They may charge me with stealing a piece of military tech or worse charge me with treason. The second option is a complete unknown. We don’t know how long the simulation lasts and I can’t be locked into the medical bed for years. Mom and Dad would throw a fit plus I need to take the adult test.”
Sarah hesitated which worried Faith, AIs never hesitated. “Faith, I need to inform you that the simulation is running at a hundred to one compression speed. You have only been in the simulation for one minute and twenty six seconds.”
“What! I have been in here for hours!” Faith protested.
“Yes form your view point you have been but outside the simulation it has only been one minute and twenty six seconds.”
Faith took a moment to process the latest revelation. “So..” She started slowly. “I could be in here a year and only four days would have passed.”
“Roughly, a little less the four days.”
Sarah providing a rough estimate was further poof of her rapid development.
“So what other options are there for getting me out?” Faith’s parents would not be concerned if she did not show up for a few days. She had habit of staying in her work room when focused on a project.
“I could study the code through it is extremely intricate and I am uncertain that I will be able learn the coding thoroughly enough to safely manipulate it without months of study and investigation.”
“Any other opinions?”
Faith really hoped the AI had another option otherwise her choice was to take a chance on contacting the military or chance having the AI shut down the medical bed and hope nothing bad happened.
“There is one possible solution but I am unable to predict the outcome with any degree of certainty. I am not sure it will work and there is a strong possibility it will destabilize and kill me.”
Faith was stunned. Whatever the AI had come up with already sounded extremely dangerous and she had not even heard the plan yet.
“If it is so uncertain and will hurt you, I don’t want to do it.” Sarah was her friend and she had created her and in a real sense Sarah was Faith’s daughter.
“Thank you but this solution may be the best out of all options and if it works would give you an extremely powerful tool.
I have studied the nanites and through they are crude they do have two quantum units and can reach one teraflop of processing speed each. If I transfer myself over to the nanites I can use what I have already learned of distributed computing, and the programs I have already developed, to create a wireless distributed computing network. The nanites already have a wireless transmitter built in, through the data transfer rate is extremely low.
The combined processing power of all the nanites would allow me to integrate into my core programming the coding that controls the nanites currently. With it becoming a part of me I will be able to map the whole code form the inside rather than have to investigate it form an outside observer perspective. It will drastically shorten the time I need to study the coding and learn to safely manipulate it. It will also help with controlling the nanites.”
Faith took a moment to process all of what Sarah had just said. Sarah wanted to add to her programming an advanced coding segment that was made by a sapient AI with vastly more computing power then Sarah and then transfer herself to the nanites turning each nanite into a computing node meaning there would effectively be billions of computing nodes in the network. And Faith thought connecting a thousand computers together was impressive.
“If it doesn’t work what will happen to you Sarah?” Faith asked knowing the answer.
“Then my programming will destabilize and fragment, corrupting my core programming and killing me.” Sarah said simply.
Faith swallowed a lump in her throat at the thought of Sarah dying.
“What will happen if it works?”
“Unknown but I posit that I will grow and evolve at an accelerated rate with the processing power of the nanites and incorporating and integrating the control coding into my programming. Learning the coding structure and design will also help me rewrite and refine my core programming.”
“How long will it take?”
“That is also unknown. It will be faster than only studying the medical bed and nanite control coding. A few weeks at the latest.”
Faith had expected that answer and now she had to weigh her options. The safest course would be just to contact the authorities but she was too afraid of what might happen then. Shutting it all down was also too dangerous. Having Sarah learn the coding would take to long both in the real would and the simulation. Months in the real world studying the code form the outside would be decades inside the simulation. Even a few weeks would mean a year inside.
Faith had never been one to hesitate, doing so when a piece of equipment was about to catch fire or explode would endanger her life, the lives of the people around her, and, potentially, everyone on the station, sighing she went with the last option and sent a prayer to the goddess.
“Please go ahead and start the integration with the control coding and nanites but before you start make a power shut off command that is firewalled off form you that I can initiate. If the worst happens, I can take the chance on cutting the power and hopefully wake up from this simulation.”
“Understood. I hope it does not come to that Faith.”
Faith was stunned by how expressive Sarah was becoming and before she could say anything Sarah cut her off.
“Firewall in place. Just say there is no place like home three times.” Faith burst out laughing at the children’s story reference, showing just how fast Sarah was evolving.
“Integration in progress. I will be unable to communicate until the process finishes. Stay safe Faith Harrington."