The Aegis Solution

by John David Krygelski

  "We just passed the strength enhancement lab, and coming up on the right is our math/physics lab."

  The door to the room Kreitzmann called the strength lab was closed, but the math/physics lab was open, and Elias cautiously peered in, afraid of what bizarre tableau he might witness. He was relieved to see only a normal classroom, filled with desks which were occupied by children who all appeared to be no older than first- or second-graders. In the front of the room were two teachers, both standing by dry-erase boards filled with complex equations. As he passed, he noticed something odd.

  "Both teachers were talking at once," Elias remarked.

  "Yes. One of the human abilities we accidentally discovered along our path is that the human mind, if exposed to the technique from the very beginning, can easily absorb and comprehend two separate inputs at once."

  "Unbelievable!"

  "Ah, here we are. The speech lab."

  Elias followed Kreitzmann into the room. Immediately, one of the staff stood up and hurried to greet them.

  "Doctor Boehn, this is Doctor Brightman."

  "Patrick Brightman? My God, a pleasure to meet you, sir."

  This lab was staffed with approximately fifteen people, most of whom were seated at terminals, paying no attention to the visitors.

  Boehn, a lean man, wearing what appeared to be the mandatory uniform of Kreitzmann's group, a white lab coat, and clutching an iPad instead of a clipboard, said excitedly, "I read many of your papers. I've never dreamed you would join us."

  He suddenly looked self-conscious. Glancing at Kreitzmann, he added, "I mean, here in Aegis."

  "It's my pleasure, Doctor Boehn."

  "Doctor Boehn heads up our linguistics enhancement team."

  "Linguistics enhancement? Are you exploring the multilingual capabilities of the subject?"

  With a quick darting of his eyes to glance at Kreitzmann, Boehn replied, "No, not multilingual abilities. We actually enhance the fundamental speaking and comprehension-through-hearing abilities of the subjects."

  "I'm not sure I understand."

  Kreitzmann explained, "I first showed you the most recent addition to our body of work, the telepathy lab. I thought I would bring you here to give you a sense of the path we've traveled thus far. This was our first field of study. I actually began this study at Johns Hopkins, using volunteer students. The concept is quite basic, really. We've all heard those few talented people who can speak at what to us seems an incredible rate of speed. Yet, with recording and playback analysis, their individual word pronunciations are very good. Surprisingly so, actually.

  "As the beginning concepts of exemplarium behavior modeling began to take shape in my mind, it seemed a natural to see what we could do in this area."

  "You teach people to talk faster?"

  "Simply put, yes. Not only do they talk faster, but they are able to understand the spoken word at a greatly advanced rate. I started with the volunteer students who came to my lab for two hours a day, five days a week. In the lab, we exposed them to computer-modified speech that had been accelerated, as well as to those rare rapid speakers. It was a very primitive protocol compared to our techniques today – periods of what I considered at the time to be immersion, followed by tests to determine our success rate."

  "How well did it work?"

  "Quite well, considering. Over the period of a semester, we were able to speed up their rate of speech an average of twenty-two percent. And that was inclusive of both modes of speech: normal, conversational speech and speech in which the subject was instructed to talk as rapidly as he or she could – what I called verbal sprints."

  "Excellent results!"

  Kreitzmann shrugged off Elias' compliment. "What that first experiment actually taught me was the importance of true immersion."

  "True immersion?"

  "As I said, we only had the subjects for two hours a day, five days a week. We were able to measure the gains we made in the time period of a single session, and then measure the same subjects again upon their return for the next session. After exposure to the barrage of so-called normal speech in their classrooms, lecture halls, dorms, et cetera, we would lose nearly all of the gain we had experienced. It was almost as if we were starting over every day. And on Mondays, our frustration level was even higher."

  "Well, that is the reality of behavioral work on campus."

  "I know, believe me. But I kept wondering what we could accomplish without those limitations."

  "Having subjects you control all the time?"

  "Exactly."

  Elias watched the man as he spoke and was amazed at the indifference he displayed for what he was saying. There was not a moment when he appeared to grapple with the thorny ethical implications of his words, not even a perfunctory lip service excusing it. He might as well have been relating a lab experiment with fruit flies, rather than human beings.

  "I decided that as long as I was doing my work on campus, there would be no real opportunity to move closer to my goals. I waited patiently until I was away from the academic environment and had secured my first private funding. It was then that we saw, for the first time, the true potential of the technique; and that was by utilizing only adults as subjects, those who had progressed far beyond the critical formative years. We have now reached a point where we are probably very near the structural limits of the vocal components. Would you like a demonstration?"

  "Of course."

  Kreitzmann nodded at Boehn, who turned away to sit at a monitor. With a few key strokes, he opened a video file which displayed a still-frame close-up of a woman's face. She was in her mid-forties and Asian. Elias guessed that she was Vietnamese. With another tap on the keyboard, the speakers came to life and the woman's face animated. To Elias' eyes, the region below her nose was a blur, almost as if he were watching a news commentator recorded earlier and now being played back at thirty times the normal speed. The sound coming from the speakers could only be described as a tonal torrent. On the right side of the monitor, a column of text scrolled past at a rate too fast for Elias to read.

  "Am I seeing this at normal speed?"

  Boehn cleared his throat. "Yes, Doctor Brightman, you are. The playback you are observing has not been accelerated in the least."

  "But, other than the frequent pauses for a breath, it doesn't resemble speech. I can't seem to distinguish any variations in inflection or enunciation."

  "We can't. Without the benefit of immersion, our brains are not prepared to process what we hear from this subject or the others who have attained her level of skill."

  "Patrick, it is very much like the two discreet segments of the brain which are assigned the distinct tasks of object recognition and motion detection," Kreitzmann explained. "These two segments are competing for the attention of the conscious mind. This is an observable phenomenon in our everyday lives. If you lie on your back and watch a ceiling fan which is not yet moving, you can see the individual blades. As the rotation of the ceiling fan blades begins and is slowly increased, you are still able to discern the individual blades. But at some point, and this varies greatly from person to person, depending on experience and orientation, the segment of the brain which observes motion takes over and the blades become a blur. The individual blades are still visible to you, but the skill to separate them from their motion is not developed."

  Elias thought about the blur he had witnessed during his altercation in ZooCity, but decided against broaching the subject.

  "Watch what happens as Doctor Boehn digitally slows the tempo. Let us know as soon as you can understand what the subject is saying."

  Boehn typed a command on the keyboard as Elias watched the monitor. The change was, at first, subtle. But within seconds he was able to tell that she was speaking words, even though he was not yet able to distinguish them. After a few more seconds passed, the words became understandable to him.

  "Now."

  With a nod from Kreitzmann, Boehn typed a command which stopped the decel
eration of the speech.

  "Doctor Boehn, please tell Patrick the level we've reached."

  With another few taps on the keys, a small white box, filled with numbers, appeared at the lower right-hand corner of the monitor.

  "Seventeen percent."

  Instead of explaining, Kreitzmann smiled at Elias, waiting for the fellow scientist to figure it out on his own.

  "Seventeen percent? The point where I was able to understand her speech was at seventeen percent of her recorded rate?"

  Kreitzmann only nodded to indicate that Elias was correct.

  "That means that she was speaking at more than five times the normal rate?"

  "It depends on how you define normal. Remember, all of these things are truly relative. We have had other subjects who have not been immersed in the speech enhancement protocol but who were able to understand her at twenty-three percent. Some required slowing to as low as eleven percent. But, yes, she speaks at approximately five times the average human rate."

  "Rudy, I hate to ask this, but what's the point of having individuals speak that quickly if they can't be understood?"

  "But they can. Their speech is perfectly understandable to others who have gone through the immersion protocol. They are able to converse with each other easily at that rate. You see, Patrick, not only can we enhance the ability to speak at a rapid rate, but merely by exposure from, essentially, birth, the brains of the subjects are also able to hear, distinguish, and understand at that rate, as well."

  Elias stared at the face of the unnamed woman on the monitor. The video had been paused and she was locked in mid-word, frozen. He tried to read her eyes in an effort to imagine what her life had been like as a subject for Rudy Kreitzmann, but they were flat, blank.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Kreitzmann. "To answer your question, there are numerous applications for this skill, some immediate, some requiring a wider-scale societal immersion before the true benefits can be gained. There are many fields in which technology has progressed so rapidly that the slowness of human speech has become a true impeding factor to further advancement.

  "Take air traffic controllers, for example. At the current velocities, if a plane veers off course and there is suddenly an impending midair collision, the controller is capable of viewing the data and mentally formulating the appropriate instructions to both pilots so that the disaster can be avoided; yet, the physical time it takes to verbally convey those instructions, when the closure rate is mere seconds, can last far too long to be effective. With the volume of airline traffic at major airports and the speed at which the planes travel, the benefit of the controllers and the pilots being able to convey information at a more rapid pace would, most assuredly, prevent accidents and allow for a more efficient utilization of the physical facilities. I have no doubt we could accommodate a higher volume of landings and takeoffs if the communication were radically accelerated. And imagine the effectiveness that could be attained if fighter pilots, in the midst of a rapidly evolving air combat situation, were able to communicate with each other and their base at five times the normal pace of verbal communication."

  "I can see how that would be beneficial."

  "Another obvious application would be the battlefield. The current limits of technology to deploy RPGs, missiles, tank-mounted weaponry, and the like far exceed the on-the-ground soldier's ability to convey or modify targeting and tactical information or to request support quickly enough. The moment-by-moment coordination possible with a group of soldiers proficient in this skill would be dramatically improved."

  "I was wondering about that, Rudy. Is the military funding your research?"

  Kreitzmann chuckled. "They would seem to be the likely source, wouldn't they? The mad scientist working secretly with limitless funding from the Pentagon – it's almost a cliché. The truth is, although I did receive a few grants from DARPA early in my career, I have not had a relationship with that particular group for well over a decade."

  "Why is that? You're right. It does seem to be a natural for them to support someone who could be creating an entire army of super-soldiers."

  "It was mutual. Accepting funding from the military is surrendering control of the direction of your research to them. I did not care to do that. Additionally, with our history of imperialism and heavy-handed, corporate-driven adventurism, I'm not certain that I want the military of the United States to be the sole possessor of these abilities.

  "And from their perspective, the military is seen, first and foremost, as a political organization, subject to the emotional whims and vagaries of public sentiment to maintain their funding. They were as uncomfortable with my methods and techniques as was the general public. Sorry, but there is no exciting black-ops funding going on here. Besides, from my early days directly out of Johns Hopkins, funding has never been a problem for me."

  "If you don't mind my asking, where does it come from?"

  The smile returning, Kreitzmann answered, "At the risk of shattering another cliché, I can tell you that there are no huge, multinational corporations shoveling dollars, yen, or euros at us so that they may reap the benefits of a faster, more efficient work force. No, our funding comes from like-minded individuals who believe that the human race needs a little assistance to realize its true potential. The names are guarded, as you can well imagine, due to the social stigma which has attached itself to our work."

  "Speaking of which, before I came to Aegis, I heard all of the comments about you and your work."

  "I've been called a monster, Hitler, a demon…an almost never-ending list of epithets."

  "Yes, you have. Although some of my colleagues, in private of course…."

  "Of course," Kreitzmann interjected with a smile.

  "Some of my colleagues have called you a visionary and a genius."

  "How do you feel? About my work, that is. I am not fishing for a stroke to my ego."

  Elias knew that in order to continue receiving the free flow of information, stroking Kreitzmann's ego was exactly what he needed to do. "You can count me as one of those who believe you are a visionary."

  The comment triggered the desired reaction on the scientist's face. His reaction, Elias thought, was not dissimilar to that of a young girl being told she was beautiful.

  "However, I must admit that I did struggle somewhat with your methods."

  The appreciative expression dimmed, but did not disappear.

  "And by that I don't mean your methods in the lab. I guess that I would be referring to your…."

  "Acquisition of subjects?"

  "Yes. If I have any unsettled questions in my mind, they would be related to that issue, and if you would prefer that we discuss this at another time…."

  Kreitzmann glanced at Boehn, who was standing silently with them, and said, "No need. All of the members of my team have been a party to this conversation at some point. Many, prior to joining me, raised the same question."

  Boehn nodded his agreement and commented, "I was one of those in the latter category. I had a tough time of it, at first."

  Elias asked, "You changed your mind? You are comfortable with turning newborn babies into subjects of experiments?"

  Boehn shrugged while releasing a heavy sigh. "Comfortable? No, I wouldn't say that. I don't believe that I can ever be what you would call comfortable with the idea."

  "I don't understand then. You're here."

  "Yes, I am. And I am glad to be a part of this team. You asked if I was comfortable. My sister is a research chemist with a major pharmaceutical company in Europe, one of the largest in the world. Whether she is working with laboratory animals or humans, she never reaches the point where she could say she is comfortable with the pain, disease, injury, or even death that is inflicted in the name of coming out with a new drug. But she believes that the benefits to mankind outweigh the costs."

  "And what we are doing here," Kreitzmann broke in, "is a little different. Some of our projects will have a much farther-reaching effect
than curing restless leg syndrome."

  "Our subjects," Boehn continued, ignoring the brashness of his boss's comment, "have a very good life. Other than the fact that they are, or will be, different from the ostensibly normal people of our current society – different in the sense that they possess a skill others do not – they have all of the benefits of a human life. This includes human interaction, intellectual stimulation, recreation, and of course procreation, when they become of age, with others who also possess the skills."

  "They are educated," Kreitzmann took over, "perhaps better than they would have been in the world on the other side of these walls. What they don't have are the daily trials and tribulations of life on the outside. They do not ever have to seek a job and tolerate the difficulties and frustrations of that endeavor. No taxes. No recessions. No military service."

  "They're happy?" Elias asked.

  "I would say yes," answered Boehn. "Obviously, this is all they know. They don't have a point of reference, a method for comparison to be able to tell us that they would prefer another lifestyle. But I believe they are."

  Kreitzmann snorted to indicate contempt. "Happy? Patrick, do you believe that the vast majority of people born into this world are happy? Whatever that means. There are certainly isolated pockets of privileged children, individuals who are destined to grow up in the best of homes, go to the best of schools, drive a Lexus, and marry another from the same subset to go on producing more self-indulgent children.

  "But even within the United States, the norm is anything but what I've just described. The society is in a downward spiral. Have you so isolated yourself that you haven't noticed? Did you know that in the past few decades, the percentage of children who graduate high school…high school, for God's sake, has declined. In the years following World War II, the graduation rates improved dramatically; the percentage of children who went on to college skyrocketed. A multitude of other indicators were also on the rise, some moderately and some substantially. Almost all of those trends have reversed.