Drive Time

by Matt Wilkinson

  PRE-Innovations' future selves had packaged a bundle of compatible software along with the schematical data for the quantum computer. Victor was hoping that some game software would be included in the collection, but he had no such luck.

  "The realism of gaming on this thing is going to blow everyone's mind," Victor said. "I hope they send us an advanced virtual reality headset soon. There's no point in super realism if it's stuck on a screen. Maybe some nice eye implants."

  "You can be the guinea pig for those; no one is inserting anything in my eyes, thanks," Spencer said. "I'm not sure that something this size would be viable for use as a family gaming console either. Maybe you're expecting too much."

  "I don't know; it could be kept in a utility room and control the gadgets for the rest of the house from there. It's wireless." Victor replied.

  “Or there could be a scaled down, less powerful version that would still be perfect for games,” Simon said.

  "Yeah. Well, that too. It's kind of disappointing that we have all this power sitting in the room and we have nothing we can do with it right now."

  "It's groundwork, Victor. The cool stuff is right here, this technology is incredible, it won't be long until it has new applications and peripherals we can use. I don't think they'd bother sending us a large car-sized door stop."

  "Mmmm... peripherals," Victor said, imitating Homer Simpson.

  "I don't want to jinx it, but I'd say we're looking pretty good for teleportation, guys," Spencer said.

  "In that case, the next plans to pop out of the drive should be for pods of some kind, for the disintegration and reintegration."

  "Or a transporter pad," Spencer said.

  "One or the other," Simon said. "Has to be.

  It's the storage that's the telling part, what else could fill that?"

  "Maybe we're way off base, and they just want to use us as a back up for all their data, to keep it safe in the past," Spencer said. "Or it could be for storing video files that are super ultra, ultra HD and holographic, we know how much larger video files get each time they create a new format, maybe this is just the physical media for a new transfer of Blade Runner that you can virtually live in. Besides, it might be the speed that makes the storage essential, and the capacity is just an added benefit."

  "That's true. Ridiculous as your examples sound, we're making wild guesses, it might be something we would never expect that's up next."

  “It could be plans and DNA strings for a dinosaur park?” Victor suggested.

  "That would work out really well, I'm sure, but maybe you're on the right track. What if there's been some kind of extinction level event in their future, or they know they're about to have one — like Krypton — and the data is a reverse time capsule, like a lifeboat for everything they've achieved since our present? A Noah's ark for data." Spencer asked.

  They all stopped for a moment in contemplation, their faces dropping. The atmosphere of excitement was sucked from the room and replaced with one of uncertainty and mild dread.

  "Uh, well if that's the case, hopefully, there'll be something we can do about it before we catch up with them," Victor said, his voice almost a whisper.

  "Can we ask them?" Spencer asked despite knowing that they'd already decided to keep the communication limited to the sending of technical schematics. Not one of them wanted to learn personal details about their future; existence might become a lot less compelling if they knew everything that was going to happen beforehand. Near future tidbits like too much sugar in your coffee or how to ‘groundhog the shit out of' a day aside, of course.

  "We've never had to use two-way communication; there's never been a reason. What could we tell our future selves that they don't already know? It's possible, but we still haven't put a procedure in place. I'm sure they'll inform us of whatever they think is important for us to know." Simon said.

  “Ordinarily I’d say that our conversation right now is enough to let them know that we should get a little more information this time, but these messages arrived as a group,” Spencer said.

  “We should probably go back to hoping for teleportation,” Victor said.

  "I'd be able to visit my family in America more often," Spencer said. "Just build a booth at their house. If that's how it works."

  "Anywhere in the world instantly," Victor exclaimed.

  They all made strained noises of excitement before returning to space staring, lost in ark thoughts.

  Chapter 19

  Once the next message became available for access, the team did so swiftly, this time with a need for assurance mixed in with their enthusiasm.

  "Let's do this," Victor said as he opened the latest message and its package of attachments.

  The three scientists studied the plans for a moment. The schematical diagrams were rendered in a dome shape, the inner surface of which contained an intricate mesh of wiring and electronic components. The plans indicated that the device was referred to as a Cerebral I/O Scanner.

  “Is that a helmet?” Victor asked.

  “Looks like it,” Spencer said.

  The shape and designation of the device left no uncertainty in their minds that what they were looking at was an interface for reading and writing to the human brain.

  “Maybe not teleportation after all then,” Victor said.

  "It doesn't help ease our fears of Spencer's ark theory either," Simon said. "If this device is as sophisticated as the plans suggest, it could be used to store a person's memories and personality. The yottabyte drive could save the consciousness until it can be restored to a new body. There would be room for a lot of scans on the drive."

  "With the intention of placing them where?" Spencer asked, "Overwritten on another person's brain…"

  "… or are we about to step into cloning territory?" Simon finished her thought.

  They had made jokes about Simon's secret clone lab in the basement, but now the subject might warrant serious discussion. Cloning had been a disturbing thought to them previously, but this potential application could be a necessity.

  "Relax guys, we're jumping to conclusions again," Spencer said. "Maybe it's used for implanting knowledge and skills."

  “I know Kung-fu,” Victor said with a surfer dude twang.

  "That would certainly help us push this project further, any new technology that requires training to use skillfully, we can save even more time."

  "If we keep worrying about how much time we're saving, we're going to become chronophobic. We'll be venturing into sleep deprivation next. I have a bad feeling about this." Spencer said.

  "I have a great feeling. I can finally learn to snowboard." Victor said. "I can master all the instruments too — all of them — I'll be a one-man-band."

  “There’s something else,” Simon said. “How would you like to visit the future?”

  “Of course!” Victor said. “We could backup our minds to the drive and leave them there to be opened after several years, then we could open them and write them onto the brain of our older selves.”

  “I doubt they’d want that, they’d have to give up their body to you, just so you can experience the wonders of the future,” Spencer said.

  "But we would already have agreed to it back here, and they would back up their more experienced mind, exchange it for ours, then put their own mind back when we're done," Victor said. "Or, they might have robots. Androids we can use as an avatar while we're there?"

  "You're making a lot of jumps again, Vic. What if they want to do the reverse? Come here and use your brain as a vessel for them? Say Future Vic asks to send you his consciousness so it can overwrite yours? You'll still be you but have his advanced knowledge and experience. Would you want that? This could make us immortal, going round and round in a loop of the same time frame. It's a bit of a worry."

  “Yeah, immortality sounds awful,” Victor said.

  "You'd allow your future self to hijack your body?"

  “Of course. He’s me, only smarter and wiser. W
hy wouldn’t I want that?”

  "You'd no longer be you. His more worldly personality would be very different from how you currently are. Who you are now would be erased, think how that would affect the people who know you, they wouldn't recognise you."

  "But I'd be him anyway, sometime in future."

  “I don’t think you would, his more experienced personality would make different choices than you would have originally, giving you a very different future than you had initially.”

  “That’s another positive right? We’ll keep the memories from alternate timelines. Remember the video we sent ourselves that we had no memory of recording? With this, we would remember. If we don't lose the memory of our unsuccessful timelines, we'll never repeat mistakes. We don't have to worry about losing who we are now either since it's also a part of who we'll be in the future. It's an even better system than we already have. We can always go back to a previous iteration of our consciousness if necessary, as long as we keep the original saved to the drive."

  "I can't actually argue with that, it just feels a little disconcerting. I suppose having two sets of memories from the same time period would be interesting if I started with small intervals, say a week."

  “Well, it’s conjecture right now,” Simon said, “we don’t have a clue about what they really want us to do with this.”

  Simon scanned through the plans. The software for the helmet had arrived with the schematics, so their only concern was the fabrication of the headwear that would serve as the scanner. The helmet should only take an afternoon to engineer, according to the plans. The complex elements of the reading and writing processes were handled by software running on the quantum computer, the interface was relatively simple by comparison. Products that could read brain waves were already available in the present, some used in toys and games, others in equipment for the disabled. The scanner they had would be much more potent but based on the same principals.

  “Hardware store trip again, Vic?” Simon said.

  "Sure. Doesn't look like there's much to pick up other than some wiring and a bit of foam for comfort. The helmet itself can be 3D printed. There's some circuitry in there, but the nanobots will be etching that." He plucked his car keys from his desk and headed to the door. "See you in a bit."

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  Victor returned to HQ with the bits and pieces that they needed and, along with Spencer, got to work on building the helmet while Simon learned the ropes with the software. Their future selves had been shrewd enough to include an extensive manual and quick start guide.

  "They didn't include instructions on what exactly they want us to do with the helmet?" Spencer asked. "No hints towards the possibility of a mind swap?"

  "Nope. I think they just assumed we'd know what the applications of the device were and we'd have a play around with it first." Victor said. "No body-snatching plans just yet."

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  By the time their work on the helmet was complete, Simon had grasped enough of the software's basics to put it to use.

  "I volunteer to be the guinea pig on this one," Simon said.

  "Are you sure it's ready? We could do some serious damage to you. Wipe your memories or put you in a coma." Spencer warned.

  "I've been reading up, and I don't see any danger. We'll start small and just create a backup of my mind."

  "Great. It's recommended that you create a backup of your computer data every once in a while. Probably a good idea for humans too, now that this technology exists, you know for accidental erasure, hardware failure or espionage related amnesia."

  "Thank for the confidence boost, Vic," Spencer derided.

  “According to the instructions we received, the scan can take up to two hours, just to write the data onto the drive, the reading could go faster if not for the limitations on the write speed,” Simon said.

  "I'd say that was a touch slow, but I imagine that the data inside your brain is quite extensive," Victor said.

  "Thanks," Simon said, seemingly by reflex, not hearing a compliment, just a statement of fact. "The helmet needs to stay on the entire time, and it can't be paused."

  “I’ll be sure to Instagram some pictures of you in your nerdy helmet,” Victor said.

  “I wouldn’t advise publicly posting company secrets, Vic,” Simon said.

  “I think he may have been joking,” Spencer assured him with a mock condescension.

  Victor passed the helmet over to Simon. “No time like the present,” he said.

  The helmet was wireless, containing a single photon entangled with its counterpart attached to the quantum computer, so Simon didn't have to worry about dragging wires to where he would be seated. He could have even left the premises and flown to Australia where the helmet would still be able to transfer data. He would have looked odd, but it would still have transferred data.

  Simon placed the helmet on his head. There were various locations to adjust the headgear, and a chin strap to keep it secured. Keeping the helmet stationary was essential for capturing the data from his brain. Any excessive movement would be similar to having a shaky hand while taking a photograph. The end result wouldn't be degraded in any way, but the compensation would extend the scan duration. Once the helmet was secure enough, he turned to the software on his screen. There was an option to test the quality of the helmet's sensory readings, a double check that the helmet was correctly secured to his head. He ran the test and got a green light to notify him that the scan could begin, the readings were as clear as was possible. He clicked Begin and continued with his usual tinkering with software and plans while the scan progressed. After thirty minutes the drive had collected almost a quarter of a zettabyte of data from his mind. Which meant that the whole scan might reach a full zettabyte, one thousandth of the total size of the storage unit they'd created. They would still have enough room for another nine hundred and ninety-nine minds. If the Ark theory were correct, they would need to create more drives if they were to take more than a thousand people.

  As the scan neared the two-hour mark, the transfer slowed down massively. The manual stated that the scan would continue indefinitely for as long as the user was wearing the helmet since the mind was persistently creating new thoughts and memories, which the drive would continue to write to the backup. Once Simon decided he was satisfied with the captured scan, he could terminate the read via the software or with a button on the side of the helmet. The quantum computer would then run its finalisation on the scan file, making it readable.

  Once the scan had finished, the software dinged, and the green progress bar showed 100%. The screen also said that it was safe for Simon to remove the helmet, which he did with relief. The sum of Simon’s brain did indeed almost reach a zettabyte, which was a little lower than they expected but still an enormous amount of data. They assumed that the way the mind was encoded was beyond compression so they couldn’t make it any smaller.

  "I could probably write a program to make use of my backup while it's still on the drive," Simon said.

  "What, like artificial intelligence?" Victor asked.

  “Yes, but technically it wouldn’t be artificial since my mind is natural.”

  "Semantics, it's data on a drive right now, so it's technically artificial until it's organic again."

  "I guess that's a fair assessment."

  "Are you thinking of writing the software right now? Your previous self from minutes ago might be a little surprised to wake up as a machine, you didn't give yourself any warning."

  "Maybe I should make another. The backups can make updates to the original file from the time of the last backup and add the new stuff."

  “How does it manage that?” asked Spencer.

  "The file keeps metadata on the physical location of the memories. They're quicker to read, so the software makes comparisons and picks out the sites of newly created memories, then it reads what's recent and creates an affix to the file. There's a more advanced feature that allows for r
estoration of old memories, so they become fresh again, like restoring an old photograph, it's the default for writes. It will give us all eidetic memories."

  "Nice," Victor said. "I was worried that the ground-hog day rewind feature would be inefficient, but if it's only the initial scan that takes hours, updating the backup should only take seconds. I'll make more helmets, one for each of us, we could keep them with us and update whenever we want, every night before bed and when we want a rewind."

  "Excellent, there are plenty of sockets for wireless connections in the quantum computer, and we could set them to fit each of us."

  Luckily, Victor had bought enough materials for several helmets, in case of repairs and upgrades. They set about making another pair and customised them to size and personal tastes. Victor's was black with white tribal tattoo decoration, whereas Spencer's had purple and black stripes. The group were excited by the prospect of their memories being immune to deletion after future amendments to the timeline. Once they made their own backups, they stored them alongside Simon's.

  As their drive was so roomy, they hadn't bothered to check the remaining space after writing their own minds. If they had, they might have noticed that the drive had lost another zettabyte and a half of space, which was the exact size of one mind. The chances of this information drawing their attention were very low, so they couldn't be held responsible for what happened next, regardless of their belief to the contrary.

  Chapter 20

  Creating a virtual brain within the quantum computer for simulating Simon's digital consciousness was easier than he had initially theorised. The enclosed software already contained a module for doing just that. His future counterpart was fulfilling his requests before he even had any intentions of making them, and becoming acclimated to that reality was easier said than done, chiefly because it left Simon with no puzzles to solve. He was willing to make that sacrifice if it meant that their objectives were accomplished sooner, however. There was now a computerised approximation of a human brain running on the quantum computer, housing Simon's sentience. The simulation would be identical to the original, but running through computer circuitry rather than synapses, the mind would be fully conscious and have access to the peripherals attached to the quantum computer, including the webcam, microphone and speakers. As a result, the virtual mind would have simulated senses and, a voice.