My eyes snap open. Knowledge of who I am starts flowing into my wet brain from my reliable silicon memory like water running into a too-small cup. I look over at the empty chair by the bed. According to last night’s log and a couple of dark hairs on the chair’s back, Lin was there when I fell asleep. That’s the last thing I have in yesterday’s entries, so I must have nodded off while we were talking.
It’s still almost an hour until dawn. Plenty of time to get to the Research Center and get some work done before morning exercises. On my way down the hall of the Residence, I see a light under Max Braun’s door. Our visiting neuroscientist is up early, as usual. I wonder how long he’ll stay here? He doesn’t have any family back in Germany, and his index entry says his university approved an extended sabbatical for his research with us. So maybe a while longer. I don’t mind. He’s nice enough company and Louise seems happier with him as a lab partner.
I swing open both doors of the Research Center a few meters before I hit them, then wind my way through the maze-like corridors until I get to my hardware lab. The prototype silicon for my new processing appliance is still in the shipping package from the SynTech fab facility. I’ve been waiting for these for way too long, but custom high-end microprocessors and memory modules can’t be rushed. I let my bots free the new gear from its paper and plastic cages while my hands pull the customized satchel I’ve been building from its spot on the shelf and put it on the lab bench.
Instead of building a new appliance to go inside of my satchel, I’m using the satchel itself as a flexible chassis. The thin nanocell battery units integrate directly into the kevlar material that forms the body of the bag, and the interior that houses the logic and memory boards will be filled with a conductive gel once I have everything installed. Once the whole thing is sealed up, all my nanobots will need to do is keep it charged using surface magnetic induction and make sure that the heat transfer matrices on the two sides of the bag stay cool enough. I won’t be able to haul anything in my satchel anymore, but I rarely did anyway.
The slots for each chip are a perfect fit. Everything built just to spec. I triple check all the fittings and get ready to fire it up for a test run. All that’s left now is to crack open my current appliance and move the solid state storage drives over. I put my cloud in sleep mode and start the transition.
Stolen novel; please report.
SynTech OS v.4.6.2.8128
IMPLANT INTERFACE INITIALIZED
Testing. Testing.
Yes. It’s alive. Over ten times the specs of my old rig, and it’s not even any bigger than what I’m used to carrying around, just a little heavier. It’s even got longer range on its antennas so I can stray a little further from it without losing my mind.
I kick off the diagnostic suite and let a bunch of automatic tests run while I turn on the nanobot controls and sync up to my sleeping cloud. The familiar sensations rush back in as my extended body reconnects to my now more powerful electronic mind. So far so good. I stretch my senses across the campus, noticing siblings in the dorms, staff in the residence, and the kitchen crew getting ready to service the morning rush. Out further into the desert, I feel our new network of early warning sensors spaced out across the kilometers of sand and sagebrush. Each one scans its overlapping chunk of the world using camera, radar, lidar, sonar, infrared, and all the other buzzwords that the security team used when they picked out the units. The whole system cost a lot more than we can spare, but I’m not about to let anything like Jeff’s invasion happen here again. Besides, as long as the Geologists come through for us, the price tag might not matter much in a few months.
I give the appliance satchel a bend and shake and then throw it on the ground and stomp on it a few times just for good measure. It flexes with whatever force I apply, but doesn’t seem at all the worse for wear, and my bots even clean off my shoe prints as they run through their charging cycle. Good enough. Finally, I sling the bag over my shoulder, my new constant companion.
I’m done with my work here none too soon. Outside, a throbbing beat starts sounding that can’t penetrate my lab space but that my bots outside can’t ignore. Andrea is out there with the early risers for the daily yoga torture. I wonder if Lin will come today. My index notes that she’s said every day this week that she wants to do it, but she still hasn’t made it yet. At least she’s trying now. I think it helps a lot that she’s been participating in most of the other activities of campus life instead of staying in her room crying like she did those first couple of months. Baby steps.
I head out onto the grass to let my sister make me sore and healthy again, just like she does every day.