The Quantum Brain: Maximum Speed (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 4)

by John Freitas

  He clicked on it. Thankfully she was in the new messages folder so he did not see any of her other e-mails. He was not ready to know the secret workings of a teen girl’s life.

  The e-mail opened. He saw no details about the sender or the incoming address. That seemed odd to Thomas. The message was just from Adam. Maybe she had her settings to only show that. The text was merely: NICE TO SPEAK WITH YOU AGAIN.

  Thomas narrowed his eyes and clicked to try to access and trace back the IP address. He knew a thing or two about meta data and could decipher the routing of the message. Once he got to work, he’d have the resources to shutdown whoever this was phishing his niece’s e-mail. It wasn’t exactly legal, but that hadn’t stopped him or CDR before. With everyone picking up the pieces of the world, someone needed to see to the bad guys, even the cyber ones.

  The message vanished. Thomas searched through the folders, but could not find it. That was strange. He did not like to think someone out there could allude him that well. That was disheartening.

  “Are you snooping now, Uncle Tommy?”

  “No.” He closed out her e-mail. “It was spam. It’s gone now.”

  “Figures,” she said.

  He clicked through the settings on the grocery site. “Okay, it’s set. You can alter the list … within reason. Don’t bankrupt me. I’m setting upper limits.”

  “If I have access, I can reset the limits. I’m good. But I’ll behave,” she said.

  He closed out and stepped back to his omelet. “I trust you … Do you have the new code to the elevator?”

  She nodded. “I do. I put it on the fridge for you. I knew you were out of town.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “I mean … not that everything that happened … but, I’m just … I’m glad you are around.”

  She smiled and gave a thumbs up. “I’m glad too. Finish your food.”

  6

  Dr. Kell leaned up to the microphone. He pressed the call button and said, “We are increasing the resistance, Pixie. Squeeze the handles like before: both hands, steady pressure until they are closed, and release just as slowly.”

  Thomas Kell took his finger off the talk button with a pop.

  Pixie reached out from where she sat in the chair across from the handles. She was in the lab on the other side of the one-way glass where the scientists sat in the darkened control room. As Pixie casually took hold of handles, she pulled them slowly closed using her thumbs and fingers. The computers in front of the doctors and engineers lit up with data showing extra human strength. Of course, she was not even showing an ounce of strain in her body or expression. Her eyes lit with only scant illumination. Not much brain power involved in squeezing super powered workout handles.

  Dr. Jeffery Danver spoke next to Dr. Kell, “You know we can program instructions directly into her brain without using the intercom system?”

  “I know,” Thomas said as he watched the data peek. Pixie paused with the handles clinched closed and then she slowly opened them again, showing great strength and control. Thomas added, “She will be given verbal instructions like all previous generations of companions. We should test all instructions through auditory like real world conditions.”

  “If we are considering any sort of failsafe instruction,” Jeffrey Danver said, “we’ll need to be sure those signals get through remote communication.”

  “We’ll test it all,” Thomas said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pixie allowed the handles to open fully and the data dropped off.

  “We still haven’t reached her upper range of strength,” Thomas said. “We are well beyond what the design parameters of this body were supposed to be. We are approaching construction bot levels of strength … maybe higher.”

  “Do you think the Japanese suppliers built the body too well?” Jeffrey asked. “Or they don’t know their own design strength?”

  “Or the Quantum Brain is having a broader effect than we anticipated,” Thomas said.

  Jeffrey looked at Thomas, “You think her mind is so strong that it increased her strength? How is that even possible?”

  “We need to explore all the variables to know what we are dealing with here, Jeff.”

  Jeffrey shrugged. He stared through the glass at Pixie. She was still holding the handles with both hands. “Why is she still sitting there holding the handles like that? Is there something wrong with her?”

  Thomas said, “We did not instruct her to put her hands down.”

  Jeffrey rolled his eyes. He pushed the button and spoke into the microphone. “Let go of the handles, Pixie.”

  He let go of the button with a pop again and Pixie opened her hands. With her dainty fingers splayed open, she still held her hands in the air beside the handles.

  Thomas pushed the button. “Put your hands back in your lap and await further instructions, Pixie.”

  Pixie lowered her hands and stared forward at the blank wall.

  Jeffrey rubbed his face with both hands. “Strong, but not very smart. I don’t think the Quantum Brain is super powering her body.”

  “Maybe not,” Thomas said, “but we need to determine that upper limit in a way that doesn’t destroy her or destroy the lab.”

  Jeffrey shrugged and leaned into the microphone. “Pixie, be a dear and go over and lift that lab table over your head. The one not attached to the floor.”

  Thomas pushed Jeffrey away from the microphone as Pixie stood and turned her back on the glass. She crossed the room slowly and casually. “What are you doing? She could tear the lab apart.”

  Jeffrey pulled the microphone back from Thomas’s hand. “Pixie, please, mind the lights and don’t break anything. Lack of destruction is part of this test.”

  By the time Jeffrey finished his instructions, Pixie was already lifting the table by one corner. If anything had been on it, it would have all dumped into the floor as she tilted the table up at a severe angle. The high end of the table swung up inches below the light, but she balanced it above her without knocking any of them down. The table was a carbon fiber polymer much like Pixie’s own internal structure which allowed her body to withstand the stresses of such feats of strength.

  Thomas watched the seemingly petite girl’s body holding up a table with the ease that spoke to the strength of ten humans or more. He thought about the glass between him and her being shatter resistant and reinforced. In reality, she had already demonstrated enough strength to smash her way through it. The protection it provided them from their creation was an illusion. They had her no better secured than they had the first Quantum Brain. She could get through the glass. She could break doors and locks. She could probably tear through the vault doors. Once her destruction of the first few barriers activated the emergency doors, those might hold her, but Thomas had his doubts. He had serious doubts.

  She turned her head toward the glass as she still held the table aloft waiting. No one had told her to do that. She was looking at the glass or looking at her own reflection in the glass. He imagined that she knew they were watching from the other side. He did not know that about her for certain, but she was looking and it meant something.

  Her eyes glowed with dull barely visible light. Using ten times the strength of a human required barely any brain power. Thomas was not sure that dumb and strong was the best combination, no matter what the law required.

  Thomas stood up and walked toward the door.

  “Dr. Kell?”

  Thomas said, “Stop playing around, please. Order her to put the table down without breaking anything and then set up for the cognition tests.”

  “No more strength and stress tests?” Jeffrey asked. “We could start her on the treadmill and call it a night.”

  Thomas input the code and opened the door to the control room. Light spilled in from the hall. Thomas said, “Do what I asked, please. I want to be ready to begin cognition and problem solving. Do not start before I get back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

/>   Thomas closed the door and made his way up the hallway. Coded keypads and scans slowed his progress as he worked his way to the lobby. He stopped short of the metal detectors and patted his pockets. He wasn’t much of a smoker, but he had started picking up the habit again. He kept his packs at work and away from Eve at home. He realized he had left his pack upstairs in his office. It would take him forever to get back through the security measures to retrieve them and then to get back outside again.

  “The world has been destroyed,” Thomas mumbled, “and I still can’t smoke inside.”

  He stepped forward to one of the uniformed security guards near the metal detectors. For all the androids CDR had put out into the world, they employed all humans in their building. That should have been the first sign to anyone looking for one. Thomas recognized the man as Calvin.

  “Calvin, can I bum a smoke off of you?”

  Red and blue lights flashed through the front glass. People lined outside were shouting. Calvin stepped away from patting down a man from the detectors. “Would that I could, Doctor Kell. Wife’s making me quit. As much as she seems to be tired of me, she insists that I quit and live longer. Sorry.”

  Dr. Kell shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. You are worth keeping around, Calvin. Good for her and good for you. Someone out there has to be a smoker, right?”

  “I wouldn’t advise it, sir.”

  “Smoking or asking one of them for a cigarette.”

  “That’s a protest,” Calvin said. “A big one this time too. We have religious, anti-tech, anti-capitalism, and conspiracy nuts. They even started fighting each other and we had to call in extra cops. If you walk out there before they clear it up, they might all rally around attacking you. Best skip today’s smoke break.”

  Thomas sighed as he watched the motion outside. There were signs, but he couldn’t read them from this angle. It didn’t matter. They all said the same things anyway.

  Thomas Kell said, “Between the protestors and your wife, everyone is cramping my lifestyle.”

  Calvin laughed. “They should have the protestors cleared in a couple hours. My wife will stick around though.”

  “The cops won’t let them protest?”

  “City and nation are still in a state of emergency. Congress re-upped the Emergency Powers Act, so free speech isn’t what it used to be, I guess. Makes things easier for us at least.”

  Thomas nodded as he stared at the lights flickering over the shine on the tiled lobby floor. “Where were you and your wife the day of the Pulse, Calvin?”

  Calvin cleared his throat. “Here in Chicago, sir. I was already working security upstairs. CDR warned us all and I got my family tied down at home. Everyone in our house rode it out safe. We were lucky.”

  “You were with them?”

  “No, sir, I was on duty here … during the break-in. Bashed my head pretty good during the scuffle. I’m lucky I didn’t float right out the hole in the window that knucklehead knocked in the side of the building breaking in.”

  “Sorry,” Thomas said.

  “Not your fault, sir,” Calvin said. “I’m lucky to still have a job. It wasn’t our best moment. CDR ended up paying my medical and kept me on. I got paid a big bonus even though they relocated me downstairs here. I can’t complain at all.”

  Thomas nodded. “Yeah, I’m glad you’re here keeping us safe, Calvin.”

  Calvin patted the doctor’s shoulder and stepped away. “I need to get back to it. Sorry about your smoke break.”

  Thomas turned away. “Not your fault.”

  He walked back toward the elevators and took out his phone. He called Eve, but it went to voicemail. “Eve, Uncle Tommy here. Things are a little crazy in the city. Don’t wander around. Get home and make it an inside night, please. Call me if you need anything. I can’t remember if you told me you were back in school yet or not. Sorry, I’ve been distracted with work and everything. I’ll probably be late tonight. We’ll talk when I get home, I guess. Okay, that’s it, I think. Bye.”

  Thomas hung up and then thought he should have told his niece that he loved her. He thought about calling back, but didn’t.

  Thomas worked his way back through security to the labs. He punched in the code to the control room. The lock buzzed, but did not open. He felt sweat erupt on his neck under his collar. He thought about the elevators back at his building. The air filtration kicked on above and behind him with a hiss and hum. He pictured androids with glowing eyes stalking him from behind. They were pacing toward his back to punish him for not knowing the code. He knew in the upper level of his brain that it was all panic from within his mind and nothing real. Deeper down in his lizard brain he knew the soulless predators were approaching. He could feel them there in an irrational way. They were staring at him with the dull glow of far more strength than intelligence.

  The door opened without him getting the code in correctly. Jeffrey pushed the door open for him and Thomas jumped back. Jeffrey blinked and shook his head. “What are you doing? We’re ready to get started. Get in here.”

  7

  Thomas adjusted in his chair and leaned up to the microphone. “Pixie, sort the blocks by color and size.”

  Her eyes glowed, but dulled again. She stared at the blocks on the table in front of her, the same table she had lifted into the air earlier in the day, but did not move to comply.

  Thomas and Jeffrey exchanged a look.

  Thomas leaned forward and asked, “Pixie, is there a problem with the instructions you were given?”

  Her voice came through the speakers in the control room. “I do not understand the parameters.”

  “What don’t you understand, Pixie?” Thomas asked.

  Jeffrey whispered, “You want her to explain what she doesn’t understand?”

  “That’s exactly what I want,” Thomas said.

  As Pixie sat staring at the blocks with her eyes pulsing light, Thomas reached for the button to open the microphone and speak to her again.

  Before he did, her voice came through the speakers again, “I do not know by what criteria you wish for me to sort the blocks by both size and color.”

  Thomas pushed the button. “Group them by color and then in order of diminishing size. Use the spectrum of low to high light frequencies to order the color groups.”

  As Thomas released the button, Jeffrey shook his head. “If she doesn’t know how to create her own groups or when to put her hands down by herself, you think she’s going to be able to process all of that?”

  Thomas watched without speaking. Her eyes pulsed. There was a flare of light, but then her eyes dulled back to where the details of her fake irises could be seen again. Thomas narrowed his eyes. “What was that?”

  Jeffrey paused his screen. He scrolled back to the spike in power and said, “It was high, but still within parameters. She stayed under the legal limit.”

  “It was sudden,” Thomas said. “Maybe her upper processing limit is still untapped, just like with her strength. Maybe that was a clue that she is capable of more. The new impurity might not be limiting her as much as we need it to or think it is.”

  “She was within limits,” Jeffrey said. “Within limits is within limits.”

  He scrolled back and his screen returned to real-time readings of her processing power.

  Pixie lifted the blocks slowly and slid them around the table with a shrill scraping noise through the speakers. She pulled them into position without doing all of one color first. She knew where the smallest purple block would go. She put the third largest green block into place. Thomas watched, realizing that she already had the answer from her burst. She knew where every block went without having to think it through. The burst of thought, that anomalous peak in the processing data, was the whole answer all at once. She was going through the motions of putting together the answer slowly.

  “Everything shows normal,” Jeffrey said.

  Thomas shook his head. “Set up the next test.”

  After a dozen
tests, Jeffrey looked at his watch. “Are we ready to shut down for the day?”

  “I want to test a few more things,” Thomas said.

  “We’ll test a lot more things,” Jeffrey said. “Tomorrow and the day after that and the weeks after that. We don’t have to do it all tonight, Dr. Kell.”

  “CDR won’t give us weeks to complete this testing before we move into production,” Thomas said.

  Jeffrey sighed and looked up at the dark ceiling and wires of the control room. “Tomorrow then.”

  Thomas gave a long blink and thought about Eve at home. He hoped she was home. Leaving a teenager unattended was asking for acting out. He didn’t need to have a complex Quantum Brain to know that much.

  Pixie’s eyes flared out again to maximum brightness before dropping back to normal. Jeffrey had his back to the window, but turned around to face the lab. “What was that?”

  “Check the data,” Thomas said.

  Jeffrey scrolled back, but found a black stripe over the section. He ran through several controls changing the color of the bar, but not removing it. He shook his head. “The section is blank. The sensors recorded nothing.”

  Thomas chewed at the inside of his mouth. “Or the data was erased.”

  Jeffrey switched the screen back to real time and held up his hands. “Erased how? By who? Do you think we were hacked? It just happened. How could the data be hacked and erased instantly like that? This is a closed system. There are no signs of manipulation by anyone inside or outside this room. The data just didn’t record. The flare may have been a flaw in our equipment. We should shut down for the night and run a full diagnostic.”

  Thomas stared through the window at Pixie staring at her own screen still. He pushed the button. “Pixie, what is your answer to the problem?”