Path of the Tiger

by J M Hemmings

  Mr Ma had been fixing each and every person at the table with a withering gaze while Mr Wang had been speaking, and now he grunted and performed some rapid-fire sign language gestures, which Mr Wang interpreted.

  ‘Mr Ma says he is extremely weary of this company’s underperformance. He adds that if this presentation does not suitably impress him, half of you will be without jobs by the end of today.’

  Mr Ma clasped his claw-like, liver-spotted hands together, surveying the tense room with a reptilian gaze. At the other end of a table, a young, painfully thin Chinese man in an ill-fitting suit stood up, almost tripping over the legs of his heavy chair as he did so. He picked up a remote control with trembling, sweat-damp fingers and pushed his thick-rimmed spectacles up his nose. With an awkward cough he pressed a button and dimmed the lights of the meeting room, while the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, which revealed an expansive view of the smog-shrouded megacity from up here on the sixty-sixth floor, became opaque.

  Over the centre of the table, a holographic projector conjured up a flickering three-dimensional hologram of a transparent human head, inside of which the brain was clearly visible. Before he began to speak, the young man set the remote control down on the table and dabbed with a handkerchief at his pimply face, which was glistening with perspiration despite the air-conditioned chill.

  ‘As Mr Ma may know,’ he began haltingly, ‘we, er, have for the last decade been, uh, involved in DNI studies, that is, erm, “Direct Neural Interaction” research and experimentation, and thanks to the, the, the, er, extremely generous funding provided by Huntsmen Inc, we have been able to, um, uh, make a number of, well yes, er, important breakthroughs. By piggybacking on current medical and military research and development on neurally-controlled mechanical devices, we were able to access many, er, technological advances in fields related to areas of the brain and their um, their specific role in establishing, mapping, regulating and forging neural pathways, as well as—’

  Mr Ma held up a hand to silence the man and then made a few curt sign language gestures.

  ‘Stop babbling, you imbecile,’ Mr Wang snarled. ‘Mr Ma is neither a scientist nor a physician, he is a businessman. We are not interested in how you went about your research – we are only interested in what results you achieved.’

  The man nodded and dabbed frenetically at his sweat-glistening face.

  ‘I a-, a-, apologise most s-, s-, sincerely for, um, er, babbling, sir,’ he stammered, clearly flustered as his nerves began to get the better of what little resolve he had initially possessed. ‘To be blunt, what my t-, team has been focusing on, unlike, um, er, the majority of the other R and D t-, teams, is, er, is something else entirely. We, um, we have been using existing DNI advances c-, combined with our own intensive research, to find out exactly er, um, how, well … how the brain dreams.’

  Mr Ma scowled and drummed his semi-translucent fingers on the heavily polished table. The young man, meanwhile, tried his hardest to ignore this.

  ‘You m-, may well be wondering just why it is that we have been, er, researching this. Well, to cut a l-, long story short, we want to revolutionise both the social networking and computer gaming industries, which, um, er, as you know are m-, market l-, l-, leaders in terms of profit margins and demand. You see, with regard to what the, uh, the rival, no, um the other R and D teams have been working on – our company’s flagship products, which are the, um, the Kestrel RS smartphone and the Peregrine TZ-787 tablet, well sir, to be blunt, um, er, those products are t-, t-, trying to compete in a market that is already saturated with, er, extremely comprehensive offerings from our competitors. We are like, um, vultures, competing with hundreds of other vultures to, er, to take a bite of an elephant carcass. Yes, it’s b-, big enough to get a massive chunk of meat, but it’s a problem when there are, er, bigger and more powerful vultures going for the same meat you are. My team thought, what if there’s an, er, as yet undiscovered elephant carcass that we could have all to ourselves?’

  The man paused here to imbibe another heavy swig of coffee, and this time he did not dab at his face with his damp handkerchief – it appeared, in fact, that the conviction he had in what he was about to present was finally beginning to overcome his anxiety and bolster his confidence.

  ‘That, sir, that would be the ultimate in profit and power,’ he said with an unexpected smile, ‘cornering the major stakes in an entirely new market, before any-, anyone else can get in. Let me hand the remote to, to Ms Fang. She can explain it, er, in more simple terms than myself. I, er, do not have a gift with words, as you may—’

  ‘Hand it over to her then and sit down,’ Mr Wang growled.

  The thin man thrust the remote control into the hands of his colleague. Chinese, like everyone else in the room, she was a rotund woman who looked to be in her late thirties or early forties. Atop a broad and rather plain face, her hair was tightly bound in a conservative bun. Her eyes, however, were aglow with confidence and excitement, and burned with an energy that gave her an air of subdued but undeniable strength. She stood up with curt swiftness and nodded politely in Mr Ma’s direction.

  ‘Mr Ma, I hope that our product will not only impress you, but will indeed far exceed any preconceptions you may have been harbouring about it.’ She spoke quickly but smoothly, and her words were backed by a slick confidence and a depth of conviction that seemed to radiate energetically from her small frame. ‘As my colleague has just informed you, we have been researching dreams, and most especially the phenomenon of lucid dreaming – that is, where the dreamer is aware that he or she is in fact dreaming, and can control his or her actions in the dream. In conjunction with this research we have, as also previously mentioned, been researching the myriad possibilities inherent in the DNI field. Also, another thing we’ve been working extremely hard on since the nineties is the field of nanotechnology. Now, almost two decades after we began, we’ve managed to finally combine our findings in all three of these areas and develop a product. A revolutionary product, in every sense of the word, sir. To put it plainly, we’ve made a breakthrough. An incredible, game-changing breakthrough.’

  ‘And what might this product be, Ms Fang?’ Mr Wang asked.

  Ms Fang smiled, exuding confidence and pride.

  ‘What we’re proposing is going to totally rewrite the way people connect with technology and each other. We’ve found a way to induce a semi-conscious, lucid dream state at will. We have—’

  Mr Wang raised a sceptical eyebrow and interrupted her.

  ‘Wait a second – you’ve basically made it easier for people to have lucid dreams? Forgive me if I fail to see the significance of this in relation to current sales patterns and demand trends in mobile technology markets.’

  ‘With all due respect sir, you didn’t allow me to finish. Let me show you.’ She picked up the little glass vial with its chrome capsules. ‘The working title for the product, which is contained in one of these capsules, and I’m going to use the English name for this, is “D-Immz”, a slang term which we hope will catch on in the global canon of the English language. The name is a direct reference to what we like to call our “dream immersion experience”. You can explain to Mr Ma, that if you translate that phrase into English, it sounds—’

  ‘Mr Ma does understand more than a few words of English,’ Mr Wang responded dryly.

  ‘My apologies,’ Ms Fang said, looking uncharacteristically flustered.

  ‘Don’t waste your time and mine with empty apologies, Ms Fang. Please, continue.’

  She nodded and continued, instantly regaining her cool and efficient slickness as if she had never stumbled at all.

  ‘If you’ll all have a look at the holographic projection, I can explain how the product works via this short presentation.’

  Everyone focused on the hologram. Ms Fang clicked a button on the remote control and the holographic projection began to move, as an animation showed the capsule being swallowed by the transparent human head. The camera then zoomed
out and revealed the entirety of the subject’s body, showing the passage of the capsule as it travelled toward the stomach.

  ‘The major current limitation with DNI technology, in terms of a mass commercial application, is that you need to physically get inside the skull and wire a computer chip to an area of the subject’s brain. This of course requires expensive and invasive brain surgery – which is simply not an option the casual consumer would even begin to consider. The costs would be astronomical, and of course the thought of having one’s skull cut open and then having surgery performed on your body’s most vital organ is enough to put most people off. This is why it has only seen development in what we would consider extreme and essential cases – massively damaged accident victims, people suffering from debilitating diseases or syndromes, and other such cases. We, however, have found a way to access and get a chip inside and attached to the human brain without invasive surgery.’

  In the holographic animation, the pill was in the process of being digested inside the subject’s stomach. Inside the pill were three tiny, insect-like robots.

  ‘This is where the nanotechnology aspect comes in. The field of nanotechnology has also had a large focus on medical applications – nanobots designed to kill cancer cells, to clean arteries from the inside, to fight viruses, and to combat cellular degeneration, among other things. What we have done is to combine nanotechnology with DNI; inside this pill are three nanobots. Each is programmed to make its way to a specific area of the brain. They travel via the blood vessels, through which they swim with the flow of blood. Once there, each nanobot will attach the computer chip necessary for DNI to the required area of the brain; specifically, those areas that our research has shown are behind the phenomenon of lucid dreaming.’

  Mr Ma held up his hand to temporarily halt Ms Fang’s presentation, and he spoke a few words in sign language, which Mr Wang translated.

  ‘Mr Ma is impressed with all this, but he cannot yet understand how this could become a commercial hit on the global stage.’

  Ms Fang pressed a button, and the hologram zoomed in on the nanobots, which had now attached themselves to the prescribed sectors of the subject’s brain.

  ‘Allow me to finish please, sir. Inside the nanobots are microscopic wifi, RAM and processor chips. Using the human body itself as both a battery and an aerial simultaneously, the areas of the brain which control lucid dreaming can now also be connected to a computer network. Any kind of computer network … including a social network.’

  Ms Fang paused for a few moments to allow this information to sink in. Mr Wang stared intently at her and spoke in a slow and deliberate tone as he did.

  ‘Are you saying that you can get Facebook, Twitter, Instagram … all of these social networks directly inside your mind?!’

  Ms Fang allowed herself a smile, arching and parting her thin lips to expose artificially whitened teeth juxtaposed with badly receding gums.

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying, sir. But this is just the tip of the iceberg with regard to the possibilities that this technology can open up. Remember, we are talking about the areas of the brain that control lucid dreaming. Think about the process of a dream, as you experience it: your brain creates a world and populates it with characters, and then it drops you into a scenario that feels utterly real, no matter how fantastical the world of the dream may actually be. Of course, when you wake up you realise that you were dreaming, but when you are in the dream it becomes indistinguishable from reality until it ends. The dreamer, though, has very little control over what happens in the dream. This is why dreams sometimes turn into nightmares.

  Now, the advantage of a lucid dream is that the dreamer knows that he or she is dreaming, and in addition to this has complete control over the dream. As it stands, very few people are able to experience lucid dreaming, simply because most people cannot consciously access the parts of the brain that control dreams. After decades of research though, we have finally discovered how to do this, and on top of that we succeeded in linking it to a network. With this technology, instead of simply watching a movie, people can be in the movie with their friends, and it will feel indistinguishable from reality. Instead of playing a computer game by staring at a screen and clicking on keys and a mouse or a controller pad, the user will be absolutely immersed inside the world of the game, feeling as if he or she is actually firing a rocket launcher or really driving a race car or flying a spacecraft. Reality will cease to matter – only the experience of what feels like reality will count. And we – you sir, your company, I mean – you will own that patent. You will own sole rights to this technology.’

  The corners of Mr Ma’s mouth twisted upward into a smile, and then his crimson lips parted, and finally a husky rasping, verging on what sounded like choking, started to crumble from his mouth. The sound rattled the opulent marble and stainless-steel fittings of the room, and when it faded out Mr Ma gave Ms Fang a thumbs-up, and said a few words in sign language. Mr Wang then let out an abrupt burst of booming laughter, which was as loud as it was short. After he had cut off his laughter, he spoke with a radiant smile.

  ‘Mr Ma says that this is one of the best ideas he has ever heard. He is quite certain that the company will make billions from this, and that once this technology is released to the public, MANMO-M Technologies will become one of the most powerful technology companies on the face of the planet.’

  ‘We are quite confident of that ourselves, sir,’ Ms Fang replied, her face easing into an expression that was strangely calm and collected in the face of this almost rapturous praise. Mr Wang studied her for a moment, and then he spoke.

  ‘First question: Have you secured all of the necessary international and domestic patents for this technology?’

  ‘Every step of the process has been kept secret, and all advances immediately patented, sir.’

  ‘Are you absolutely and utterly certain that not a single byte of information about this project has been leaked?’

  ‘One hundred percent certain. Not even our closest family members or lovers know what has been going on behind the R and D doors of our department at MANMO-M Technologies Head Office for the last two decades. I swear this to you, sir, on my life.’

  ‘Have any team members been fired or quit since the start of the project? Any at all?’

  ‘None,’ she answered without hesitation. ‘We have taken on younger members though; bright and promising graduates from the necessary fields every year, as specified in our annual reports.’

  Mr Wang nodded, frowning with deep concentration and stroking his jutting, impeccably shaved chin with his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Don’t hire anyone else,’ he said with a soft yet unmistakable tone of authority. ‘We cannot afford to have a spy getting in on this. Absolutely not. This is going to be the defining technology of the early twenty-first century, and we must retain complete control and ownership.’

  Mr Ma interjected with some enthusiastic sign language.

  ‘I have good news for you,’ Mr Wang translated. ‘This team is going to receive an immediate boost in funding. Name your requirement and you will have it. Whatever you need will be at your disposal.’

  Ms Fang bowed to Mr Ma.

  ‘We are most grateful for your generosity, sir.’

  ‘One last question,’ Mr Wang said. ‘I can only assume that all of the research thus far has been conducted on animals. Experimenting with the brain and altering the areas of it which control dreaming sounds like a tremendously risky exercise to perform on human subjects. Am I correct?’

  ‘Of course, sir. All the initial tests were conducted on primates. Many died in the early stages, unfortunately. However, it is quite easy to procure new specimens, most specifically orang-utans from Indonesia. We have a very cost-effective deal with an Indonesian palm oil company, you see; they don’t want orang-utans in their plantations, and—’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Mr Wang interjected. ‘Mr Ma doesn’t care about details like that. The quest
ion I wanted to ask, before we pop the cork on the champagne bottle here, is this: have you or have you not conducted human trials?’

  Ms Fang beamed one of her infrequent smiles at Mr Wang and Mr Ma.

  ‘We have, sir. With certain connections within the government, we have been given access to death row prisoners. We perfected the device and delivery method in the orang-utans after much trial and error, but we hadn’t factored in certain key differences in human and orang-utan physiology. The first few human subjects suffered from … well, let’s just say that to call it insanity would have been putting it mildly. Those who survived the process, anyway.’

  Mr Wang frowned and stroked his chin softly before speaking.

  ‘Insanity, death … suddenly this idea is not sounding so fantastic.’

  ‘No, no, those were just the first trial subjects, sir. We were able to achieve perfect success after adjusting certain parameters. Since doing that, we’ve sat on a consistent one hundred percent success rate. We currently have seventeen subjects in our facility who have the implants. The technology is working perfectly within every one of their brains.’

  Mr Wang seemed reassured after this temporary period of doubt.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that. Have there been any further adverse effects at all?’

  ‘The initial procedure of getting the nanobots and their wifi chip from the stomach to the brain causes disorientation, nausea and a splitting migraine which can last from half an hour to four hours. We’ve been able to rectify this by adding a dose of an opiate to the capsule, which masks the unpleasant symptoms almost completely. Once the nanobots have successfully installed the wifi and computer chips, the symptoms vanish permanently.’

  Mr Wang nodded.

  ‘I see. Now, regarding the functioning of the device, is it always on, and unable to be turned off? Surely this must be a major concern.’

  ‘Well sir, let me ask you: do you dream when you’re awake?’