Near Future 1: Awakening

by Randal Sloan

  Solar was continuing to grow, but it was not possible for it to supply enough of the world's energy, especially in those areas where the sun was not available all the time. Space Tech's fusion reactor was an amazing development, but they couldn't seem to get it to work within the earth's gravitational field. There was talk of beaming power from space, but no one had figured out how to safely make it work.

  Due to their use in space technology, certain rare minerals were now in high demand. Because of that, the politics of the countries that produced the minerals were greatly affected, especially those that were third world countries which were areas of conflict. For most of the world, those conflict minerals were a major issue. Wars and coups were sometimes the result. Space Tech had a rule about not using minerals from conflicted areas if at all possible. Of course, now Space Tech was producing 90 percent of their own materials anyway. However, the information Miranda found indicated that even Space Tech had a major need for zechronium, which was produced almost entirely in the mines of the tiny third world country Kinza. While not currently considered a conflict area, Kinza had a long history of conflict and had been recently formed from the combination of several provinces in a war-torn region of North Africa. Because zechronium was used to produce an essential material for all current space technology, everyone tried to ignore the politics surrounding it.

  Miranda was especially interested in everything that appeared to be happening in technology. The internet was now based on worldwide broadband using inexpensive satellites that covered the entire earth. Cell phones were almost non-existent since everyone tapped into the earth net to communicate with a wearable device. Compu-pads were faster and more powerful, yet thinner and lighter than ever before. They had figured out a way to use strong carbon based materials to replace the metal and plastic used in electronics in the past.

  Virtual Reality (VR) technology was the default interface to most computers. Heads-up-displays (HUD's) had been the craze for a number of years and where still in use, but other VR technologies were becoming more and more advanced. The system Miranda was using in the hospital was one of those, displaying the information in front of her in a 3D image, using her eye movements and gestures to provide the interface. Artificial Intelligences (AI's) had become a standard tool, but were still limited in their use due to their size, expense and inflexibility. An AI was not able to make the kind of day-to-day decisions that their human counterparts could make easily. No one had found a way to build an AI that could do that.

  When Miranda researched the news stories regarding her car crash, she couldn't find very much. Her mother had been traveling from out of town, and it was just an unfortunate turn of events that a truck had lost its brakes, catching her and her mother's vehicle in its path. Among the papers in the car they had found a will, and per her request, her body had been shipped back to be buried in a local town in Nebraska. She couldn't even go visit her mother's grave. Tears welled in her eyes at that. The accident had happened about a month after the attack on Julie and her mother, so maybe that was why they were so familiar. The story had to have been in the news.

  Miranda tried to find out more about her father, but it looked like her mother had been trying to hide from him and there was no information on him. About that time, Doctor Ted came into her room and when he saw her line of research, he tried to convince her it was time to move on. "We spent months trying to find him," he told her with sympathy written all over his face. "Please, don't keep looking. It will only bring you more heartache. You have us and we will take care of you, I promise."

  Miranda could have sworn that there were tears in his eyes, so she nodded. "I had to try. But you're right, it is time to move on."

  For some reason, Miranda didn't want Doctor Ted to know about her next line of research. Partly because of his comments about her father, and partly because she had eventually figured out he was Ted Randolph, Sam Randolph's brother and Julie's uncle. She waited until she knew he had gone home for the day before she started a search using a private VR page that would not save any tracking information. She was looking for information on either Doctor Samuel Randolph or Julie Randolph. Even with the enhanced access she had been given, she could not discover anything other than what was public knowledge. She read a lot about Space Tech and their activities and was amazed at what they were doing. Doctor Randolph was very seldom seen in public, and he absolutely refused to talk about his daughter. The last picture she could find of Julie was right after the attack. She could see that it was the same girl that she had seen in earlier pictures, but in a hospital with all sorts of equipment and tubes hooked to her.

  Miranda did find a VR interview of Julie from before the attack. She was talking with a man who looked more like a professor than a VR media person. She was a little disappointed in the interview that she watched. To her Julie appeared to be a little stuffy and definitely spoiled. And with her light complexion, brilliantly blond hair, and blue eyes, she was absolutely beautiful, nothing like what Miranda saw when she looked in the mirror. To her, Julie was the "All American" girl, and she figured if she had run into Julie, the girl wouldn't have even spoken to her.

  However, just as she was about to move on from that line of research, she found a VR of Julie performing on her violin at that last concert. About that time another of her headaches hit her, and she was unable to continue her research. But the music seemed hauntingly familiar and listening to it seemed to soothe her, so she made a VR copy of the music on her pad before she shut it down. She would use that music many times after that whenever one of the migraines hit her. She never tried to find anything else about Julie, and she would wonder later, if she had tried harder, would that have made any difference?

  #

  Doctor Ted's personal assistant, Andrea McDonald, had accidentally discovered something she didn't think she was supposed to know. Andrea had gotten the job with Ted Randolph two years before, after the attack on the Randolph family by the terrorists. She had been the assistant to Annette Randolph and had been in total shock after her death. She knew the job with Ted had been somewhat charity, but she had made sure she worked hard to earn the respect the position granted her.

  Andrea was working on an update to his office VR system at the Space Tech corporate office, and had somehow pulled up his messages instead of his calendar. She already knew that he had been working at the local hospital, and that he was going to be treating a patient with nanites using the technologies developed at Space Tech. She couldn't help but read the message thread that came up and that, coupled with the pictures at the end, she immediately knew who the girl was in the message. In the details of the messages, they talked about their patient and some of their plans for her. She didn't agree with some of their decisions, but she realized why they would do what they had done. She vowed that she would keep the secret of her identity.

  She wasn't sure if she should get involved, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that there were some things she could do to help, things that the men would never think of, but would be important in the weeks to come. They were men after all, as much as she liked them, and there was no way that they would know what to do for a girl. So she sent a VR message to Doctor Ted that she needed to meet him in his office.

  When the doctor arrived, she went into his office with him and tapped the Privacy icon on his VR interface, something she knew would block all incoming calls and would also activate the security features of his office. "First I must apologize to you. I accidentally opened your recent messages and read something you considered private. So, the thing is, I now know about your special patient and some of your plans regarding her. You don't need to worry that I would ever tell anyone, but there are some things that she needs that the two of you cannot do. I'm going to do them unless you want to fire me."

  She easily followed the doctor's expressions as she spoke. He had first displayed shock at her announcement, then tried to hide all expression, and finally a smile appeared
.

  "Ok," he said. "No way would I ever fire you. I would never get anything done again. And I know it is impossible to lie to you about this, so tell me what you want to do."

  "I don't know your exact plan," Andrea explained. "But there are things that a girl needs and I want to help her with that. I think I can best go in as a patient representative from the hospital, and work with her that way. And she really has total memory loss?" When he nodded, she went on sadly, "That's got to be terrible. I will also try to be her friend, something I think she will need over the next few weeks."

  Doctor Ted explained what he could of their plans. "We will keep doing tests, but so far, other than the memory loss and her weak physical condition, she is exceeding our expectations. Our plan is to send her to Physical Therapy next week. At some point, I will set her up to take the college entrance exams. We then plan to get her enrolled in the 'Space Academy' where we can keep a close eye on her. Based on her abilities so far that won't be a problem."

  "I guess I will need a disguise while I work with her. She might otherwise recognize me from pictures." Andrea laughed at the thought of being in disguise. She hadn't done that since her special forces days. She set up an appointment with her hairstylist with the intention to change her hairstyle and color, and then ordered special makeup while the doctor set her up with the hospital as a part-time rep. She had decided to keep it simple, using her first name without change, but going with a different last name, her mother's maiden name, James.

  "I will figure out a time over the next few days to meet with her. The first thing I am going to do is get her new clothes and makeup. I know you men never even thought of that." She saw a brief flash of fear in his eyes when she mentioned the clothes and makeup. "That's what I thought. Got you in one."

  The doctor could only nod. "Ok, you are in charge of all the girlie stuff. Charge it to my account at the hospital, and get anything she needs."

  "Thank you for letting me do this." She left before he could realize he would have to explain it to Doctor Sam Randolph. She knew that he might not be as easy to talk to about the change in his plans.

  #

  Doctor Ted had set up a VR conference meeting with a number of other doctors to talk about this case. As he prepared for the conference, he thought about what he had just discussed. Having Andrea on the team will likely be very helpful. She's right when she said we guys haven't a clue about what a girl needs. The clothes thing in and of itself would have been beyond us. And maybe they will talk about things that we wouldn't be able to talk about with her. But, I should have made her tell Sam, because he won't be happy about it.

  When all the attendees were ready, he began addressing them, "The patient is doing well except for memory loss, but she is mentally active and we are seeing very good results with all the tests we have completed. She has been experiencing some major head pain, but it has been improving over time. And the brain scans from before and after are amazingly different." He displayed the aforementioned VR scans and then went on to discuss other details of her case. Many of the doctors were excited about the possibilities for future treatments, but he stressed that everything was still very experimental and that this particular treatment had been used as a last resort.

  At the end of the meeting, all the doctors dropped off the VR conference except one. The remaining doctor was Sam Randolph, the doctor to whom he had sent the VR messages before. He had connected in from his office at the Space Tech Research labs.

  After verifying that all the others had indeed dropped, Doctor Ted began, "I wish you could be here. She's something special already, and I suspect that we are only seeing the beginning. And you saw the brain scans. The brain activity is already ten percent more than we see in a normal human, and the headaches indicate that the nanites are still working to correct damaged areas."

  "You know how much I want to be there, but the risk is just too great. We haven't had any luck finding the mole here. I will come see her when I can without drawing attention to her. I have a great idea for a disguise and I'm planning to hire a professional makeup artist to teach me how to do it correctly. I appreciated the pics with the VR message, by the way."

  Ted went on. "She definitely has total memory loss like you predicted, but I'm not entirely sure we made the right choice. You would have to have been there to understand. She was totally confused, but she just listened. Like I told you in the VR message, one of the first things she asked about was if we had been able to cure Julie. I still think we should have told her everything."

  "No," Sam said, "We have to stay the course just like we planned. Nothing is more important than protecting her. When it's time, we will explain it all to her."

  "I agree with you that nothing is more important than protecting her." Ted paused a minute. "I do need to tell you that we have someone who now knows about our patient." When Sam started to react, Ted held up his hand, "It is someone you will know is ok. Andrea, who you knew before I did and trusted with your family, figured everything out. She accidentally read the VR message track between us regarding our patient while working on my VR system. She also saw the pics. We need to be more careful, but in this case she is the only one who would have figured it out. And, she will be good to have around with her skills just in case. She is also planning to help with girl stuff like clothes, makeup and other such things."

  At first, Sam had frowned at the news. By the time Ted finished, he had to agree it probably was for the best. Andrea didn't look it, but she was former special forces or whatever they had called her outfit. She was one of the best at hand-to-hand combat he had ever seen. In fact she had competed at the amateur level after becoming a civilian, and she had won every match she competed in until she decided to retire. Having her close would be a good choice. Plus, he would not have had a clue on the clothes thing.

  "Ok," he said, "You're right. It's probably for the best, even if we didn't plan it that way. And I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to tell her no." He shuddered at that. Visions of the one VR he had seen of Andrea competing popped into his head. She had torn into a much larger girl who looked very intimidating, but Andrea had made short work of her. "Having Andrea close will mean she can also be quick to respond if we need someone to provide additional protection."

  "You don't even want to tell her no by long distance. What do you think I felt? I was in the same room with her."

  Sam nodded. "You made the only sane choice."

  Taking a deep breath, Sam went on, "Back to our patient. How are the headaches progressing? That should be a symptom of her brain having to get used to the nanite presence, and should get better unless she overdoes something."

  "Saying that about this patient doesn't say much," Ted said dryly. "When has she not overdone it? The headaches are getting better, but she still is almost incapacitated at times. I have to tell you, in everything else she is exceeding expectations. Here, it's probably best to just show you."

  Ted had the hospital AI play a VR video across the call. They watched as Miranda scanned across multiple VR screens in mere seconds, rapidly moving from one topic to another. Some of the screens flashed by so quickly that they could barely see them. Then she opened an advanced astrophysics online course through which she rapidly progressed. Even though she moved rapidly through the course, she appeared to be understanding what she was studying. "Obviously, she has gained this ability from the nanites, and I would not be surprised if her IQ is now off the charts. We know that she was a very intelligent young lady with many talents before, but nothing like this."

  Both men heard a noise. They looked up to see Sam's lab assistant watching from a doorway and the doctor said, "It looks like I have an issue here. Hold on just a minute--" Ted heard him talking to the assistant who said, "I'm sorry. I was just curious about the video." It sounded like the doctor said something like "Better not let it happen again!" Ducking his head, the assistant quickly left.

  When Sam came back, he said, "I don't think he heard anyt
hing. I'll make sure from now on he's not able to overhear us. If the guy wasn't useful for running errands around here, I don't think I would keep him on."

  Ted nodded, "I have one more piece of unrelated news. That research you asked about last week? They have made some progress, and we will actually be ready to start testing in a few weeks. I will forward you the information I have, since I know you will want to be personally involved when they get to the testing stage."

  #

  The lab assistant, Jorge Abernathy, walked off mumbling to himself. No one knew that he was deep in gambling debt, but that was just a short term state for him. He knew that someday he would hit the big jackpot. After all he had figured out most of the system he would use, and he just needed a little more time and money to get it all worked out. To that end, he kept working on ways to get more money, and had begun to steal secrets from the lab. Unfortunately, he had only been able to steal minor things in the past. Luckily, in the process, he had found the trick to selling his information, because he had secretly made contact with the Organization that opposed Space Tech. He had sold them information before and knew that they were constantly watching specifically for tech from Doctor Randolph. He had once sold them information on the doctor's schedule, and he suspected that had led to the failed attack on him two years ago. It was a shame that Doctor Randolph's wife and daughter got caught in it, but that was just collateral damage. He didn't figure he was to blame since it was the fools in the Organization who were involved in the attack, and it wasn't his fault that they did it.

  It was that same incident when a man from the Organization had threatened him, coercing him to do something at considerable risk to himself without giving him any more money. The very big man they had sent to his house laughed at him when he asked about it, tapping his hands on his bully stick he was carrying. He hadn't forgotten about that, and he knew the next time he would have to be even more careful dealing with them. He had even bought a gun. He would be able to defend himself the next time.