by Paul Anlee
Within minutes, she and Nick were reviewing the data. The number and distribution of DNNDs were acceptable, and the micro-scans of selected areas of her brain revealed that the network of nanoscopic fibers was substantially completed.
Satisfied, Nick had her move into the induction helmet for the new programming. The device resembled an antique beauty salon hairdryer.
“All this brainpower in the lab and we couldn’t come up with something more elegant?” she joked.
“You’ll be grateful for this, one day,” he quipped back. In order to prevent direct reprogramming of her brain from outside sources, the DNNDs incorporated security software requiring a complex "handshake" to establish absolutely trusted levels. Once the system was satisfied, the helmet could generate near-field radio signals at a specific frequency that could be used to communicate with the DNNDs. That gave the user both read and write access to Sharon's mind. She was glad Nick was the only operator.
Nick moved to the keyboard control and pressed a few buttons. Sharon felt nothing. Less than a minute later, he gave the “all clear.”
“Anticlimactic as always, Nick. Let’s see if there’s any difference in the fMRI.”
Sharon removed the clunky helmet and changed into a robe. It was essential she wore nothing that could affect the 15 Tesla magnetic field of the fMRI. She stretched out on the bed of the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine and waited to be passed into the giant donut-shaped magnet. She could feel her headache threatening to return. I hope this migraine doesn’t interfere with the readings.
For the next two hours, Sharon underwent a series of perceptual and cognitive tests while the machine measured localized brain activity and tried to correlate it with DNND nano-electronic activity. The final thirty minutes were moderately easier than the first ninety; all she had to do was lie there and report her cognitive experiences while a series of DNND-stimulating signals were sent from the near-field transmitter in the device.
“I’m getting flashes of blue light. Oh! Now, red. Now I smell ginger beef. What’s that you said? It sounded like, ‘Turn the page.’ Wow, I just remembered the equation describing silicon deposition rates onto nucleated silicene molecules in a FIB. I didn't realize I still knew that!” Her right hand twitched upward a few inches.
The stimulation and correlation process continued until Nick was convinced the fMRI readings were not coincidental correlations, “Okay, I think we have enough. The DNND net is around 95% functional, and we have enough information to begin fine-tuning the calibration.” He retracted the bed from the magnet and powered everything down.
Together, they examined the neural recordings. The fMRI brought their dreams to life, highlighting in bright, shifting colors the correlation between her brain activity and the DNND signals.
“Oh, wow! Look at this. This is amazing. This is truly amazing, Sharon!”
She looked on appreciatively. “You do realize that compared to the dendy lattice itself, this fMRI resolution is crude. Once the dendies are fully functional, they’ll be able to map my every thought at ten-thousand times better resolution. Now that will be amazing.” She massaged the space between her eyes. “But for now, I gotta go. My head is killing me.”
Nick eyed her closely. “You worry me. That’s not a side-effect we’d expect. Maybe there's a problem with the interaction between the dendies and the new software.”
He reexamined the fMRI scans. “I can see some non-localized background vasodilation throughout the occipital and prefrontal cortices, but not at a level we normally associate with migraines,” he concluded.
“It’s probably just fatigue. Besides, it’s been brewing since before I got to the meeting,” Sharon said. “Between this, David’s latest deals, and the DARPA proposal, it’s been a trying day.”
Nick’s eyes bored into hers. “Possibly,” he ruminated. “Go home and take it easy tonight. No more proposal writing. Doctor’s orders.”
Sharon hopped off the fMRI bed. “Okay, I promise to take it easy. Paul’s coming to pick me up in about an hour. I’ll grab a coffee downstairs and wait for him.”
“Call me immediately if it gets any worse. I mean it.”
“I will. Let’s get together next Friday and do the fine-tuning. That should give the DNNDs enough time to build their interconnections, and I’ll be finished with the proposal by then.”
4
Sharon leaned against the back of the elevator and let her breath out slowly. It was a relief to get out of the company facilities. Her headache started receding as soon as she stepped out of the elevator onto the ground floor. The enticing smell of coffee wafting her way promised further relief.
The café was bustling with end-of-day customers but she managed to scoop a coveted seat looking into the street. She placed her order and stared vacantly at the stream of varied patrons and passersby. The wide array of ages, backgrounds, and income levels had become a hallmark of successful university-industry collaborations around the world.
White-haired, smartly-dressed, well-manicured executives of both sexes walked by, deep in conversation with gawky academics, and skateboard-toting youths. The snippets of conversation she caught were mostly about whatever new technological marvel was going to “change the world in the next five years.” That they held wildly different visions of which particular marvel that might be, only added to the energy.
Her cappuccino arrived. She took a few sips, and started to feel well enough to catch up on some article reading. Because her group worked in several different areas, her standard reading list was massive, including dozens of scientific and technical journals. Aside from writing proposals, keeping up with the latest research literature took up the next biggest chunk of her days.
It’s amazing I ever find time to do any research or teaching, and those are the jobs I was supposedly hired to do. Like all science professors, she was painfully aware of the university’s desire to maintain that public fiction. What a ruse.
Sharon removed her tablet from her backpack and selected full reading mode. Given her busy schedule, she used data filters to scan the many journals for the most relevant articles in her fields. She started scrolling through the list of the highest-ranked hundred articles she hoped to review this week.
She read halfway through the first article before deciding it had nothing important to report, took a sip of coffee, and flipped to the next article. A few minutes later she finished with that one and rewarded herself with another sip. Wow, these are going easier than usual. Sometimes a ten-page report in “Cell” could take an entire day to fathom in all its complexities.
The next article flew by. She not only understood it completely but could call to mind every one of the images in it, and in the preceding two. Soon, she was skimming a page every few seconds without any reduction in comprehension or retention.
Man, I'm killing these articles! I’m so glad that headache cleared up. With the grant deadline looming, taking a day off to pamper a headache—migraine or otherwise—was not an option.
Her wristband chimed, startling her out of her rapt gorging of words, pictures, and ideas. She set down her reading and noticed she hadn’t drunk any coffee in the past…what had it been…fifty minutes?
She tapped the bandlet display in disbelief. Fifty minutes! It felt like only five had passed since she’d opened the first article and yet, according to the list, she’d ingested sixty-three articles.
Her bandlet chimed a second time. She looked at it but it didn’t really register. Her head was whirling with confusion. How…? The headache returned with sudden and brutal vengeance, stabbing between the eyes.
On the third chime, she finally took note that it was Paul calling and answered.
“Hi, honey,” she managed as the bandlet display came to life.
“Hola, mi amor,” he crooned, carrying on the tradition they'd picked up during their Mexican vacation last winter. “I got caught in some bad traffic on the bridge but I should be outside Neuro Nano in about
two minutes. Hey…,” Paul eyed Sharon’s wan image on his in-dash phone, “are you okay?”
“Yah, I just have a crashing headache,” Sharon answered. “Probably working too hard. Plus, we had that Board meeting.” She mustered the most reassuring smile she could, but even she didn’t believe it. “I’m sure it’ll pass soon.”
Could it be the dendies causing this migraine?—she wondered. Is this the right time to tell Paul?
She waved her free hand toward the screen, dismissing his concern. Aside from making him worry, what would knowing do for him?
“Listen, I’m at Diverté right now,” she said. Before Paul could give her "that look" and chastise her for not taking better care of herself, she added, “But I’ll meet you in front of the entrance, okay?”
“Okay,” he replied. Clearly, her immediate state of health was not up for discussion. “I’ll see you soon, then.” The image on her bandlet cut off.
Sharon tucked her tablet inside her backpack, downed what was left of the now-cold cappuccino, and headed outside.
The headache was severe again but she kept pain relievers in the car for times like this. Headaches, both in the literal and figurative sense, had been an all too common price to pay for leading a university lab these past few years. She stepped closer to the curb as she spotted Paul signaling to pull the car out of traffic.
Had he arrived a few seconds earlier, or later, or had the immature DNND net in Sharon’s brain not been overly stimulated by the past few hours’ activities, things might have turned out differently. But none of these were the case.
The car eased toward the curb, and Sharon stepped forward, ready to open the passenger door. It was precisely that moment the newly-mature DNND network decided to shut down the brain that hosted it—only for a minute—to devote all available processing power to information integration between its semiconductor substrate and the host's neural cells.
Sharon stopped mid-stride and went rigid, arms at her side. Her eyes rolled back and she fell forward, directly in front of the oncoming vehicle. Twisting as she fell, her head met the bumper with a dull thud. The car was braking hard by that point, barely moving. But, because of the timing, the tap to the base of the skull did more damage than readily apparent.
Catatonic, Sharon rebounded off the front of the vehicle and struck her head a second time on the pavement. Paul leaped out of the car and rushed to her side.
“Honey! Sharon!” Blood trickled onto the asphalt under her body. “Someone help me, please!”
Shocked pedestrians looked from the bleeding woman to the anguished man.
“Don’t move her!” somebody instructed. “I’ve called 911.”
One of the well-groomed executives Sharon had seen pass in front of her window and enter the café slipped off his jacket and put it over her to keep her warm. He tried to comfort Paul. A skateboarder ran to fetch a doctor from a nearby medical clinic. An elderly woman offered her cloth scarf to slow the bleeding, while a growing knot of curious onlookers huddled around.
Paul heard someone ask what happened. He looked back blankly and shook his head. He couldn’t make sense of the question, and was unable to answer.
What nobody there could have guessed was that the accident was catastrophic to the DNND lattice developing inside Sharon’s head. The combination of blows rattled the brain against the skull, causing cerebral arteries to rupture. Jarred nanoparticles of the nascent lattice and interconnecting silicene threads broke free from their anchoring synaptic molecules. Viral RNA leaked from ruptured glial cells.
Liberated from their host neurons, millions of DNNDs swarmed into the circulatory system in search of a functional neural net. Sharon’s cranium swelled under the pressure of the contusions. Caught up in the blood, the nanoscopic DNNDs spread outside the brain and throughout her body.
Most of the dislocated DNNDs encountered only muscles or organs and reverted to inert nanobits of silicon. Thousands, however, found their way to the placenta and crossed over to the developing fetus.
At a little under five months, Sharon’s baby was approaching the age when he would become capable of life independent from his mother’s body. But, of vital importance to the wandering DNNDs, he had already begun to develop a functioning brain. As rudimentary and uncoordinated as it was, the child's burgeoning neural activity offered an oasis to the traumatized DNNDs. They attached wherever they could find active synapses and carried out their program to build a new, intact lattice.
The DNNDs had found themselves a new home.
5
Paul Leigh sat alone in a corner of the Emergency ward waiting area, sobbing quietly, his head in his hands. Sounds of competent activity drifted down the corridor past the Nurse’s Station. Occasionally, someone got up from their seat to check on the status of a loved one. The main entrance doors slid open and closed for the umpteenth time that evening, and two men approached him. Paul didn’t notice.
“We came as soon as we heard,” said Nick.
“How’s she doing?” David asked.
Paul looked up at the sound of their voices, harsh in the hushed seating area. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, barely audible. His face was ashen gray, save for a pair of swollen, red-rimmed eyes.
“Have the doctors been out to speak with you yet?”
“An intern came out a while ago. She’s still in surgery.”
They sat down on either side of Paul. “What exactly happened?”
“I have no idea. She just fell.”
“What do you mean?” David probed. “She fainted?”
“No, she…she just…” Paul struggled for words. “I was pulling up to the curb to pick her up after work. She just…toppled over. She went straight as a board, and then toppled over. Right in front of the car. I couldn’t stop in time,” he sobbed.
As Nick put his hand on Paul’s shoulder, he exchanged a guilty glance with David, which didn't go unnoticed by a surgeon coming through the double doors from the operating rooms. Spotting Paul, the surgeon removed her cap and approached.
“Mr. Leigh? I’m Dr. Holden.” The three men stood up. The doctor eyed David and Nick, and focused her gaze on Paul.
“Uh, these are associates of my wife…friends, really,” Paul explained. “Close friends.” He introduced the men with a feeble hand motion, “David Arnell, and Nick Franti.”
“I see. Gentlemen,” the doctor acknowledged the two. “Mr. Leigh, your wife has experienced a severe head trauma. We’ve relieved some of the pressure on her brain but she’s still in critical condition with extensive intracerebral bleeding. The baby appears to be stable for the moment; its heart rate is still elevated but out of the danger zone. Your wife requires further surgery but, to be frank, we’re reluctant to continue at this point.”
“What do you mean? I don't understand. Why would you be reluctant to operate?”
The surgeon held up an x-ray film. “The entire image is covered with unusual bright specks and hazy lines that we can’t explain. Do you know what these are?”
She moved to one side of the room where an x-ray illuminator was fastened to the wall. She slid the film into the clamp and turned on the lamp. “We’ve never seen anything like this. We checked the machine for malfunction before we came to speak with you, but it checks out fine. Until we have a better idea of what we’re dealing with, we don’t feel comfortable proceeding. We’re running more tests but it’s going to take some time.”
Paul squinted at the x-ray for a few seconds. He leaned in to get a better look, tipped his head one way, and then the other. Without uttering a word, he jerked bolt upright, whirled around, and glared at David and Nick. The two exchanged anxious, guilty glances.
A primal growl rumbled in Paul’s throat. His fists flexed and contracted, until his rage escaped in a deep, long bellow, “Aaaoowrrrrggh!” He lunged for David’s throat, pushing him back, and pinned him to the wall.
“What the hell have you done to my wife?”
Shocked by Paul’s change
in character, Nick and Dr. Holden jumped forward to restrain him.
David struggled to escape the incensed man’s suffocating grip. “It wasn’t us! It wasn’t us!” he rasped.
“Liar! This is your handiwork. I can see it,” Paul seethed.
“Paul, he’s telling the truth!” Nick tugged at the man trying to strangle the life out of his colleague. “Sharon did this to herself!”
Paul gaped at the scientist, relaxing but not giving up his grip. Sharon had often said she would trust Nick with her life. But he didn’t believe for a second that she felt the same about David. David would do almost anything if it served his own interests.
“Paul, she begged us not to tell you, especially once she found out she was pregnant! Nick pleaded, “But David’s right. She injected the dendies into herself. It was entirely her decision.”
Paul’s arms dropped to his side and he slumped down into the nearest chair.
Dr. Holden held up a hand to halt the approaching hospital guard. “Are you going to be okay? Both of you, I mean. Do we need Security?”
“No, we’re okay,” David answered for both of them. “I apologize for the scene, doctor. We’ll be alright.”
Paul, however, did not look as convincing. At the doctor’s signal, the officer gave them some space but maintained a close watch. He’d seen a smoldering glare like that before, and experience told him that the man could erupt again at any second.
Paul lowered his voice to a fierce hiss, “You’d better come clean. Right here, right now. All of it, or I swear….” Paul let the two men fill in the rest of the sentence for themselves.
Dr. Holden sat down. “Okay, so what exactly is going on here, gentlemen?”
Nick gulped. He didn’t want it to come out like this. Not here. Not like this. Where to start?
“Paul, you know how Sharon was growing more and more frustrated with the FDA, with all their hoops and delays. You know that she’s always been passionate about her work, and impetuous. A risk taker, and impatient with obstacles.”