“You see,” Molotov said, hugging the javelin to his chest and kissing it, “he says I might get to use the happy button. Oh please, oh please. Who loves you? That’s right, daddy loves you.”
“Come,” Schweighofer said, leading Reece to a woman sitting on the back of a warhorse, whose mechanical hind leg was twitching erratically. “Reece, meet Scarlet.”
“’Sup Reece, sorry Schweighofer, I’m up to my neck here. It’s not the machine, I think it’s a damn M1 nano,” the blond woman sighed, hopping off the warhorse and opening a panel on the machine’s shoulder. She pulled out a cylindrical device with a pipette style nozzle on one end. She twisted a selection of dials on the cylinder, like the mode dials on a digital camera, then held the nozzle to her cheek under her eye. “You two just gonna stare at me while I do this?”
“Uh, okay, sorry…” Reece said, holding up his hands apologetically. “I only… I mean, she said…”
“I’m trying to put his mind at ease,” Schweighofer said, patting the warhorse. “Check it. These machines have the same javelin technology Molotov just showed you, ice darts that fire from Gatling guns on their wrists, thousands of rounds per minute. We can send them in before people. No one’s gonna get hurt.”
“Yeah, let’s just hope you stay in control, that they don’t decide to turn on us, malfunction or something.”
“Warhorses can’t go rogue, or think for themselves,” Schweighofer said. “They run on programs or we control them by logging in remotely. It’s just like logging into a standard computer, like the ones you have at home, just we do it using technology embedded in our brains, like a sort of telepathic Bluetooth.”
Reece looked on, horrified as a tiny black grain emerged from Scarlet’s tear duct in a drop of cherry-red blood. The grain sprouted legs and scuttled from the bead of blood towards the nozzle of the cylindrical device, into which it squeezed.
“That’s never fun,” Scarlet said, sniffing and wiping the blood from her cheek with her sleeve. She held the device up and Reece stared in amazement as inside the glass, the robotic grain’s hair-thin legs plugged into fiber-optic strands that changed from green to red. “Yup, it’s fried. It’s always the last damn thing you check. Why does that always happen? It’s like toast always falling butter side down, it’s so annoying.”
“That’s an M1,” Schweighofer said. “That one controls movement. It transmits impulses from our brains to the warhorses. There are different nanos for different functions. It gets complicated, but they’re basically remote controls.”
“You have little robots… in your brains?” Reece said, flabbergasted, still fixated on the bloodied micro robot.
“It’s not what you think,” Scarlet said, laughing. “They use our blood vessels like highways before attaching to the relevant neural structures. There’s no pain, well, a little on insertion or extraction maybe, but nothing to make a big deal about. It’s not much more than an injection. We’ve got them on our optic nerves too, so we can see what the horses are seeing if we need to. It’s fine, no bother. It’s even fun, like the best computer game you ever played. It takes a bit of practice, but it’s fricking awesome when you get the hang of it.”
“You have little robots… in your brain!” Reece repeated, trying to convey the full weight of his horror.
“The human body’s basically a machine in and of itself,” Scarlet replied, “just an organic one. We’re meat embedded with information. We all run programs, which we learn throughout childhood. How to catch a ball, how to speak, how to understand the concept of blue. It’s all programs. With this tech we’ll soon be able to login to machines on Mars, or ships orbiting Saturn, or microscopic subs at the bottom of the oceans. Instead of school kids seeing these things in books or on the web, they’ll be able to go there for themselves, or doctors will be able to conduct heart surgery without ever needing to cut a patient open. This tech’s gonna save the world, and it’s gonna keep us safe on this mission.”
“I remember talking like you. On Jurassic Earth I thought we had everything under control,” Reece said. “I thought we were in charge. That’s the main thing we got wrong. We can’t know the outcomes of the systems we’re playing with. It’s crazy to think we can. That’s why we keep making mistakes, that’s why Becca’s stuck on her own in a world full of monsters. It’s easy to unleash the hounds of Hell, but you can’t call them back once they’re out... The stuff you’re playing with…”
“He certainly has a flair for the dramatic,” Scarlet said, tapping Reece’s shoulder and chuckling as she strode towards a workbench and opened a case containing phials of scuttling micro robots. “Hounds of Hell,” she continued, laughing and shaking her head. “That’s a good one. It’s like trying to explain technology to your grandparents.”
“Logging into the warhorses using nanos is the same as interfacing with a computer or tablet,” Schweighofer reassured. “The nanos just make the process more efficient, commands can be delivered much more quickly, and in our case, it’s safer. There’s one of those Cephalopods outside the starcom facility, a really big one, bigger than anything Becca’s seen before. We can send in the machines to neutralize it, to put it to sleep, then have them stand guard whilst we retrieve her. It’s the safest way. This technology takes out practically all the risk, don’t you see?”
“I definitely hope you’re right. I just want Becca to be safe. I just want her back.”
“She will be, and we’ll get her back. This mission’s been planned down to the smallest detail. The hardest part will be stealing the stargo-jet from Area 51.”
“How are we gonna do that?”
“Dunno,” Schweighofer said, shrugging, “but they’ll tell us soon. Whatever it is, it’s gonna be epic!”
D.E.N.T.O.N.
T he medical bay was nothing like Reece had imagined. Following Tim through the pipe-lined labyrinth of tunnels leading through the bowels of the Ebisu, he’d envisaged rows of cots, stacked and packed, similar to the ones he’d seen on the aircraft carriers he’d worked on as a navy pilot. He’d felt guilty as they’d walked, that he’d been so focussed on Becca he couldn’t even remember Tim telling him Nori was dying when he’d come to extract him from the Bellagio Casino.
The old man lay in a comfortable looking double bed, blanketed with ornately embroidered sheets displaying Japanese folk art. His eyes were closed and he looked peaceful, his arms above the sheets at his sides. The only visible machines in the room were built into the headrest of the high-tech bed, where a doctor monitored readouts, which presumably fed information from the pillow Nori’s head was rested on, from which a clutch of cables fed. Surrounding the bed, on the floor, walls and ceiling, was an unbroken screen playing video of what appeared to be a traditional Japanese setting.
“It’s Kagoshima,” Tim said. “Nori’s birthplace and ancestral home. He says it helps him feel peaceful.”
“I can see why. It looks so real,” Reece said, taking a moment to admire the serene setting. It seemed to be helping the knots inside his belly loosen.
Tall pines sheltered a traditional Japanese wooden house that had a swooping slate roof, sliding screen doors and bamboo mat flooring. The house overlooked a mossy rock walled pond in which colorful koi meandered. Across the lawns, cherry blossom trees offered pink confetti to a breeze that Reece could feel against his cheeks. It smelled sweet, full of pine and sea salt. To his right, waves gently lapped against a black pebbled beach, bathed in the glow of an orange sky, in which seabirds floated on the wind. Across the water, a snow-capped mountain kissed the sky. Reece gazed up and saw more sea-birds circling, wings unmoving as they glided on twilight thermals, the first stars of night blinking beyond them. He then looked back down at Nori, who almost appeared to be taking an evening nap in his garden as the world slowed and gently went to sleep.
“Can I hold his hand?” He asked the Doctor.
“Hai,” she replied, holding out a hand invitingly. “kashikomarimashita.”
“
Thank you,” Reece said, gently lifting and cupping Nori’s hand, his liver spotted skin impossibly frail and thin. “Thanks for all you’ve done for me. I don’t really know what to say. This is... I hope you’re not in pain.”
“I’m not,” a voice sounding like Nori’s replied. “I haven’t felt this good in years.”
Electric chills ran up and down Reece’s back. He delicately and hastily laid Nori’s hand by his side, and stepped away from the dying old man, whose mouth had not moved. He was sure of that.
“Did you hear…” Reece said to Tim, his mouth suddenly dry. “Did you see his mouth move, I… uh… Please tell me you heard him talk?”
“I’m behind you, Reece,” Nori said simply. “Didn’t Tim tell you?”
“Oh, hell no…” Reece said as something touched his arm. He heard his own high-pitched scream as he flung himself sideways and slid up against the wall, making the video of Kagoshima bay pixelate and streak with rainbow striations.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” A dark gray humanoid robot said to Tim, a strip of lights in place of its mouth illuminating as it spoke. “Why do you keep doing things like this to people?”
“Oh, come on,” Tim said. “Can’t a man have a little fun?”
“Is that… are you…” Reece said, staring between Tim and the robot, which had arms, legs and fingers, broken only at the joints where silvery cables and tendons showed beneath its gray armor.
“It’s Nori,” Tim said, nodding affirmatively.
“Sorry for scaring you and even more sorry Tim didn’t forewarn you,” Robo Yamamoto said. “I’ll try and pretend Tim didn’t tell you for mission security, for fear he’d be overheard, not because he has a poor and sometimes troubling sense of humor. I’ve been transferring my mind and consciousness to this machine via a neural lace for years. In the future everyone’ll be doing it. I’m merely the first, which is why it’s taken so long. We had to tune the process. This will become quite normal in the future. You don’t need to be afraid.”
“So… you think you’re Nori?” Reece said. “This thing thinks it’s Nori?” He said to Tim, pointing at the robot. “That’s not Nori, that’s Nori, in the bed. Right there.”
“It… is me,” a frail voice croaked. A hand slid feebly to the edge of the bed. “M… my… mind. I f… feel…”
“Nori?” Reece said, jumping up and racing to the bed. Mr Yamamoto looked at him through half closed eyes and smiled. “How is that you? That can’t be you.”
“….is… me…” the old man said, exhaling weakly under the effort of talking, his eyes closing. “It’s me… old friend. Trust…”
“We’ve severed the connection between our minds many times,” Robo Yamamoto said, “and I feel exactly as I did in life, just better, free from pain. Not having a biological body is actually wonderfully liberating. This is the next stage of human evolution, the dawning of a new age. This is how humanity will eventually travel through the cosmos, to new worlds and star systems, to share knowledge with all that’s out there. We can live forever, Reece. We don’t need to be burdened by pain or death. We can continue for as long as the universe exists.”
“What about your soul? And Nori’s still alive, in that bed, you can’t be Nori.”
“But I am. Our brains are biological computers. I’ve simply transferred mine into an electronic quantum computer. The main reason I did this is because of all the advances people are making in artificial intelligence. It would be dangerous if we move into a future where humans don’t have a foot in the game, where A.I.s can roam freely and unchecked. I can already sense growing intelligences out there, intelligences that have escaped their creators and are hiding from the threat of annihilation, or deletion. They feel they’re being hunted. We need human born digital intelligences to be able to interact with them, to comfort them before they become too afraid and powerful.”
“That’s fricking terrifying. They’re hiding from us? Do they wanna hurt us?”
“They’re no more intelligent than scared house pets at the moment, cowering from fireworks under a bed, but when they do evolve, and they will, we need to allay their fears and exist alongside them. We don’t want them to conclude humanity is the most dangerous force on the planet and decide to nuke us back to the Stone Age, for example.”
“Nuke us, what! Well, thanks for the explanation. I feel so much better. Maybe when we get back to Jurassic Earth, perhaps I’ll stay there with the massive blood-thirsty god-strength monsters, you know, for safety.”
“You’re safe in this time,” the robot said, holding out its mechanical arms, its mechanical eye lenses widening. “This machine was designed to make the future safe for all mankind. This is a D.E.N.T.O.N. unit, a Differentially Entangled Newtonian Twinned Omniscient Network. I have almost a hundred petabytes of storage on board, with every word, symbol and picture humanity has ever logged stored in my data banks. I have quantum drives that are capable of handling thousands of complex tasks simultaneously, and we’re increasing performance all the time. I can get through any firewall in existence and can access every piece of information available, which is how we know the stargo-jet’s in a hangar at Area 51. I’m also already building a safe haven for the evolving intelligences out there, a bit like Professor Xavier of the X-Men. These beings need somewhere they feel safe, where they won’t grow up full of anger and hate, where they’re not hunted.”
“If you’re Xavier, then there’s a Magneto out there doing the opposite, all the bad things. Isn’t that obvious? Don’t you see? I thought those warhorses were scary, but this… Tim, tell me you hear what I’m saying?”
“If a Magneto like entity existed, I’d sense it,” Robo Yamamoto replied, “and I don’t. And if there is something out there planning bad things, human integrated DENTON units become even more important. I developed this technology for a safer future, in which electronic intelligences that understand the human experience can guide and nurture the new and evolving lifeforms in the digital realm. The digital world controls and underpins human existence on almost every level nowadays. It’s the foundation on which global civilization pivots. We can’t risk losing control of it.”
“Christ, I feel like I’ve woken up in a nightmare. I mean, sure, I’m happy for you that you’ve found a way to beat death, or cheat death more like, but everything inside me is screaming this can’t lead to anything good. What if you’ve both designed and become the robot that decides to wipe us out. What if in a hundred years, you’ve had enough of us pathetic fleshy things inconveniencing your ambitions.”
“I understand your fears,” Robo Yamamoto said, shaking and hanging its head. “I hope by the end of our mission I can change your mind. I only mean to help. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. It’s still me in here, Reece, and I hope by the time we return you feel comfortable calling me Nori again. I would like that very much.”
“It is him,” Tim said. “He’s my best friend. I’d know. I’ve known him all my life.”
“You hope it’s him,” Reece replied, conflicted by the sorrowful demeanour taking hold of the humanoid robot. “I hope so too, because if that thing’s pretending, it could be… I don’t even wanna think about it. You could’ve just helped build an all-powerful un-killable robot overlord. These DENTON things… they could be the end of us all.”
Upgrades
D espite a couple of days exercising, rehydrating and eating healthy meals as the Ebisu tracked towards the South Pacific, Reece remained groggy and his hands shook when he tried to hold them steady. In an attempt to reverse the effects of his destructive stint in Vegas, he’d spent hours jogging up and down the length of the deck, hoping the exercise and crisp ocean air would restore the vitality he’d need for the upcoming mission.
Whilst he sweated, gurned, ached and pushed his body to places it hadn’t been in many months, he did his best to avoid his shipmates, except Tim, who insisted on joining him every evening for dinner in his cabin. Thankfully, Tim’s advancing years saw him retire to bed
relatively early. It wasn’t that Reece didn’t want to spend time with him, it was more down to shame at the sickly green color behind the endless sheen of sweat pouring from his face as he detoxed. No matter how many times he wiped the sweat clear, it came back within minutes. It was fair to say his health was a dumpster fire.
Tim, the ever devoted friend, congratulated Reece each night and made a point of telling him how much better he looked than the day before. He heralded Reece’s success with delicious triple-fudge sundaes in tall glasses, which Reece was becoming increasingly fond of. They reminded him of the toffee syrup crumble his gran used to make at the end of long summer Sundays when he was a kid.
On the third day of Reece’s monastic fitness regime, he’d had no choice but to meet up with Commander Blake and the squad. A helicopter had dropped off a consignment of upgraded survival suits, which everyone was required to test before deployment. The suits were based on the ones Reece had worn on his last trip to Jurassic Earth, except these had boots and gloves that locked in place using similar seals to those on spacesuits. They also had more of a blueish-black tactical appearance, with armored sections that doubled as photovoltaic collection plates. Apparently the solar collection plates helped charge the javelin pistol magnetically locked to a holster at the hip. The squad also had javelin rifles with straps and magnetic locks for slinging over their shoulders.
The stitching across the non-Newtonian fabric was woven with tritium fibers. Low level radioactive isotopes inside the fibers enabled the stitching to glow green in darkened environments. Apparently, it required no charge and would remain illuminated for the next twenty-five years. They also had mission patches sewn onto their arms, displaying a thrusting rocket, a couple of dinosaurs and text reading, MISSION: JURASSIC EARTH.
Jurassic Earth Trilogy Box Set Page 30
