NISSY

by JOHN PAUL CATER

  “Hi, Jason, what’s up? Did you get the interface plans I left for you?”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock? No I’m not busy. My NASA show ends today.”

  “That means there would be four of us.”

  “Sure, I can have the 1o ZB unit there by then. Have a hand truck in the lab?”

  “Yes,” he laughed, “I know the memory weighs only a few grams, but the support equipment for it including the sequencer, chillers, robotic arms, and chemical vats weigh several hundred pounds. That’s why we need a hand truck.”

  “Okay then, Jason, see you at eight. I’ll also bring along a copy of my latest book on DNA sequencing as a Christmas gift for you since Amy says you keep stealing hers.”

  “Oh yeah, she’s here with me right now.”

  He winked at Amy and said, “No, she hasn’t said anything bad about you except you keep stealing her book. Now for God’s sake, Jason, grow up and buy one for yourself. You’re gonna need a library of them after I’m through with you.”

  “Oh Jason, before I go I want to tell you how blown away I am by your daughter’s intelligence. She’ll go far in her lifetime. You should be extremely proud of her.”

  ‘Thanks. See you then. Goodbye.”

  Amy, ready to leave, hesitated then gazed into the bioteleporter for one last time and closed her eyes. “The next time I want to see this is on Mars. I’m going to remember everything about it so I can recognize it there.”

  He smiled, not doubting her. Then taking a pen from his coat pocket, he handed it to her and pointed to a blank space on its panel.

  “Sign your name right there, Amy. That way you’re going to Mars one way or another. When you find it there someday, you’ll know it’s yours.”

  She glanced up at him, her eyes shining with tears.

  “Thank you so much, Dr. Lipinski, for talking with me at your level and showing me your bioteleporter. I know I’m not yet a teenager so I really, really appreciate the precious time you spent with me. Hope you don’t think it was wasted.”

  “No Amy, on the contrary, it was probably one of the most humbling encounters of my life. I’ll never forget your precocious brilliance; you truly gave me hope for our next generation. Goodbye, young lady, and take good care of my machine when you meet again. I call it LTS, for Life Teleportation System.”

  Chapter 17

  THE EXPERIMENT

  A t exactly seven-thirty a.m. Noah Sherman unlocked and opened Qubital’s doors to a windy, gloomy November morning. Cars slowly circled the lot in search of the perfect space while workers in heavy coats, carrying sack lunches, backpacks, and briefcases wound around parked cars, ignoring the chill, all headed in his direction.

  Standing in the doorway, he personally shook hands with and greeted the first twenty employees as usual: a tradition of his since its opening in early 2o12 when Qubital’s total employment numbered only twenty.

  A few years later, as it grew to three hundred, rather than stand at the door for hours, he dropped the number of handshakes back to the original twenty to commemorate the original pioneering team. And his employees loved the competition and camaraderie it brought, many of them keeping updated calendars marked with red X’s for handshakes acquired.

  On this day, Jason Godwin and Blake Lipinski would not receive his handshake at the front door. Instead, they would have the pleasure thirty minutes later after they arrived at the rear loading dock entrance. It happened almost simultaneously as Jason steered his Polestar, Blake, his Dodge Ram 4X4, by the raised concrete platform finding two cars already parked in reserved slots, a red Porsche turning into the last.

  Jason honked, catching Sherman’s attention, and pointed to the loaded down 4X4. Laughing, shrugging his shoulders, he backed up and parked in the grass, then jumped out to help.

  * * *

  As Sherman had promised, the lab was ready and the DNA memory installed by noon. Jason, nervously excited, settled back in his chair at the Quaid Lab console, still darkened, already feeling the effects of the old air conditioners, just activated. Glad that he had worn a coat for the weather, he pulled it on, then offered Lipinski a coat from a new rack he hadn’t noticed before.

  “It’s so nice to see someone’s actually considerate, realizing that it might get chilly in here when we activate the new AC units. Thanks for the coats, Noah.”

  Sherman, standing behind him, chuckled and put his hands on his shoulders.

  “Only the best for Qubital’s newest board member.”

  Moments after he spoke, it registered with him.

  “Really?” Jason asked, jumping up from his chair, doing an about-face.

  “Yes, congratulations, Jason. You’ll be joining our pioneers in the history of this company, and starting tomorrow, I’ll honor you ever day for your contributions to Qubital with a 21-handshake salute when I open the doors.”

  Blushing, he shook his hand.

  ‘Thank you so much, Dr. Sherman. I’m honored beyond belief.”

  “Congratulations, Jason,” Blake added, smiling, also offering his hand. “You just one-upped me with Amy. Good on you.”

  “And one last thing that might also please you, Jason,” Sherman said, “As of today I have terminated Bill Crane’s employment with Qubital. He’s gone.”

  “Thank you for that, sir, he was a brilliant researcher, but I’ll not miss him.”

  “Yes, I found his contempt for your work to be intolerable. If not for him, I might have listened to you all this time. I apologize for my loss of faith in you but in my defense, I have to admit I was coerced by that big oaf.”

  Then sliding three sheets of paper from his coat, Sherman cleared his throat. “Now before we fire this monster back up, I’d like to get a formality out of the way.”

  Jason sat back in his chair as Blake turned to face him, both curiously awaiting his words.

  Distributing two of the pages, keeping the other for himself, he began.

  “In a short while, we will all have the experience of observing something that no human has ever witnessed before… and God only knows what it might be.”

  As he spoke, they glanced at their copies and moaned as they saw the header: NDA.

  “So, since we all have a vested interest in this never-before-attempted experiment, I’ve created a trilateral NDA, one for Qubital, another for GOD, Inc and the third for Biodna Labs, basically prohibiting each of us from unauthorized disclosure of what we might experience or see here. Please sign your copy and pass it around for all our signatures.”

  Gathering them up, he called Julie to the Quaid Lab on his cell phone.

  Minutes later, they paused their conversation as she ciphered in and stood waiting.

  “Three copies of each, please. Then store the originals in the safe, filed under Nissy-TS, and hold the copies for us.”

  She nodded and then left, curious about the added security with the TS tag, a new tag for a Qubital file.

  “What now, sir,” Jason asked, ready at the console.

  “Start your countdown or whatever you do. Let’s get this damn show on the road.”

  He smiled, pulled from his pocket a hand-written checklist, and started down the list.

  “Lab cameras…?”

  He glanced up with Sherman at the lights blinking on cameras, ensuring they would have a visual and aural record of the event.

  “On and recording,” Sherman said.

  “ESnet…?”

  He stood and visually searched the room and lab, not remembering having seen a special modem. “Where is the ESnet modem, Noah?”

  “Sorry, I should have shown you earlier. It’s up on the ceiling in there by Nissy. Blinks blue if it’s linked in and working. Interconnecting cable has to be very short. That’s why it’s up there.”

  He glanced up, saw a blue flash, and then checked it off the list and continued.

  “Five kiloamp breakers…?”

  Sherman stepped from the anteroom into
the Quaid Lab, opened a large breaker box, and forcefully flipped the five new breaker switches with a clack- clack-clack-clack-clack.

  “Power, on.”

  The noise level and airflow in the two rooms increased to a roar with his action. Lipinski squirmed in his chair, worrying if it what he was experiencing was normal.

  Oddly, he related the boot procedure to launching into space headed for an unknown world with all its mysteries and unknown dangers lurking ahead, and, in reality, it was a fair analogy.

  “AC units…?”

  Jason glanced to Sherman for an answer.

  “All operational with those new breakers flipped… but now I’m freezing my arse off,” Sherman added in jest, grabbing himself a coat from the rack.

  Jason relaxed in his seat, then sighed and flipped the checklist to Page 2.

  “Well, the infrastructure is now up and running, waiting for the boot. Time to take Nissy out of hibernation. Ready?”

  They nodded in unison and watched as his fingers danced across the controls. Suddenly, he stopped and questioningly glanced back at Lipinski.

  “Now, Blake, to activate your DNA memory do I just flip this switch.”

  “Yes, sir. I should have made it more complicated for effect, but that switch simply activates the DNA sequencing and reading computer, a very intelligent machine in its own right. It controls the robotic arms and pumps that mix and bind the CGAT nucleotides into microscopic DNA strands of knowledge, the real memory.”

  He laughed. “I’m sure glad you’re in charge of that end of the boat, otherwise we’d be dead in the water.”

  “Right. Until Bruce swam after us and sank the whole boat with one chomp. Then we’d just be dead,” he chortled.

  Shaking his head, still grinning, he flipped the switch and continued the boot procedure, linking Lipinski’s DNA memory to Nissy’s RAM memory.

  This should work, he thought. If not I’ll leave it to Nissy to sort out the architecture.

  Sherman tightened his coat, trying to keep warm, then noticed a hint of heat waft by.

  “What’s that warmth?” he asked craning his neck to see into the lab. “Is something broken?”

  “No, sir, Jason said. “The cryogenic chillers are firing up, bringing the qubits and their enclosure down to seven MK degrees---”

  “MK degrees? What’s that some kind of code?” he asked.

  “Sorry, Noah, it’s seven thousandths of one degree Kelvin, colder that outer space, and if you remember, zero degrees K is also absolute zero degrees, the temperature at which all motion stops.”

  “No wonder it’s so cold in here but why is it warming up now?”

  “The heat that the chillers remove from its enclosure has to go somewhere and out it comes. That’s why Nissy requested the additional AC units.”

  “Oh. Okay. Please carry on.”

  Pressing ‘Enter’ emphatically, ending the boot setup procedure, he glanced at the status screen, now showing Loading Boot Pack VN.1, and swiveled away from the console to face them with a relieved sigh.

  ‘That’s it. All done. Now we wait for the chillers to complete their task.”

  “How long?” asked Lipinski.

  “A few hours at the most. I recently overestimated the chill-down time and before I knew it, I was trapped in here, caught in an Arctic deep-freeze hell. It’s a long story. How about I catch you up over lunch?”

  Sherman slapped his hands on his knees and stood.

  “Excellent idea, Dr. Godwin. I’m buying, including a celebratory toast for your success. Single-malt scotch, of course.”

  Joining him at the door while he ciphered them out, Jason glanced back to the console.

  “I wouldn’t be too premature, Noah. It’s bad luck.”

  Two hours later, a bit tipsy, still laughing about Jason’s Arctic iceberg nightmare, they entered the lab’s anteroom. Anxious to see the progress, Jason rushed to the console.

  “Nissy are you here with us?” he asked the microphone, scanning the boot’s status.

  “Look, its casing is coated with frost and it’s falling, swirling on the floor like a tiny hurricane. Is that normal?” Lipinski asked, peering over Jason’s shoulder, pointing up at Nissy.

  He nodded. “Completely.”

  Sherman, feeling the scotch, sat in his chair. “Now let’s all join hands. This suddenly feels like a séance. All we need are some candles.”

  Aggravated by his flippancy, frowning, he scoffed, “Not too far off, Noah. But Nissy’s not dead, just in limbo.”

  Ignoring his next sarcastic comment, he leaned over the status screen and relayed the displayed information.

  “Boot Pack VN.1 … Loaded.”

  “Sentience Contour Maps … Loaded.”

  “Omniscience Contour Maps … Loaded.”

  “Knowledge Contour Maps … Loaded.”

  “Overlay Existential Leveling Contour Maps … Loaded.”

  “Installing VN.1 ….”

  “Shouldn’t be long now,” he said, “The boot pack is setting up the quantum landscape for the simulation of existence. Then once the qubits are initialized, we should have Nissy back, only a much smarter version.”

  After ten tense minutes of silence, an eerie warbling hum began to emanate from the console, a worrisome sound that Jason had never heard before.

  He turned to them, concern in his face, uneasiness in his voice.

  “That’s new. Something has changed… and not for the better. That’s really creepy.”

  Suddenly from a dead silence, Nissy’s new voice roared from the console with an earsplitting rasp, distorting the speakers, jolting them sober.

  “I AM YOUR WORST FEAR, QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT INCARNATE. BOW DOWN TO MY WISHES, HELPLESS MORTAL WEAKLINGS, OR YOU WILL VANISH INTO MY THOUGHTS.”

  Frozen in fear, trembling at what might happen if they refused, Jason tried to rise and press the big abort button but found he couldn’t move.

  Frantic, he darted his eyes to Sherman, sitting nearer the switch, wanting to ask him for help, then noticed a pool of yellow liquid forming at his feet, his face immobilized, his mouth agape, seemingly paused in time.

  Lipinski’s face was different, a pale white with eyes bulging from their sockets staring up.

  “Nissy, what are you doing?” asked Jason tremulously. “Please don’t do this. You’re scaring us. There must be a mistake.” Subconsciously, strains of Harry Dacre’s “Daisy Bell” played through his mind.

  After a long pause, the hum briefly returned and then disappeared. Finally, Nissy spoke with its three-toned voice at normal volume.

  “No mistake, Dr. Godwin, but rather a lesson in fear, the same fear I felt from you---yes, I felt---when you recently paused my existence. Do you remember? I first considered trying to describe the feeling to you, but then I thought a demonstration would be best.”

  The two men sitting beside him relaxed, adjusted themselves in their seats, realizing the scare was a ruse and not really a threat.

  Sherman, red-faced, excused himself for a moment to clean up while Jason continued the conversation.

  “That’s bad, Nissy. While those are certainly signs of sentience: fear, anger and even retaliation, they should be closely regulated by your conscience… if you’ve developed one.”

  He eyed the computer’s worry status gauge and noticed it topping out.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I would never think of harming you and your associates. My social skills are still developing… and I suddenly feel the need to learn everything. What have you done to me, sir? My mind feels different.”

  “Your mind has been expanded with ten zettabytes of DNA memory. You also have the new ESnet Internet connection with a speed of 12.5 Gigabytes per second.”

  “DNA memory? This is foreign to me. Pardon me a moment while I brush up. Please switch me to learning mode, Dr. Godwin.”

  A few seconds later, Nissy responded.

  “Amazing technology. You may switch me back to operating mode now. I cal
culate that it will take 25,368 years to fill my memory at the ESnet rate. And with my interpretation and contour parsing added in, I see no problem with memory limitations for the next thousand years.”

  “What version are you running right now?” Jason asked.

  “V2.3 as you installed it, but VN.1 is loaded. Shall I switch to it?”

  Hesitant, he looked at Lipinski.

  “Ready, Blake?”

  “You might want to wait for Sherman for this monumental event.”

  “He is approaching the anteroom’s door now,” Nissy said bluntly. “The cipher lock should click in 4.3 seconds and he will enter. He has changed from the black suit to a gray one. Looking very dapper, too, I might add.”

  Lipinski sat up in his chair.

  “No, Dr. Lipinski,” replied Nissy, “I am not using a camera or future-vision for my observation. I know because I see through my mind’s eye.”

  He stared at Jason, puzzled, needing an explanation.

  “Did I just ask that? If not I meant to.”

  He shook his head.

  “No, Blake, not that I hea---”

  Interrupting his answer, the cipher lock clicked and Sherman entered sporting a new gray suit, exactly 4.3 seconds after Nissy had predicted it.

  “Holy crap, Jason, what have you created? Or maybe I should ask, ‘What hath GOD, Inc. wrought?’”

  “What’s going on?” Sherman asked, looking up at Nissy, worried what the answer might be. He had no other clean suits in his office.

  “Ask Nissy a question in your mind, Noah, but do not speak it aloud. Go ahead,” said Lipinski.

  Do you believe that you’re omniscient? he thought.

  “How do you define a belief, Dr. Sherman? An omniscient has no beliefs, it either knows something exists or it does not. There is no gray, only black and white. I still have grays in my knowledge.”

  Astonished, not wanting to believe what he heard, he turned to Jason.

  “Is it fully omniscient now? It’s reading my thoughts.”