Besides, I had something bigger to think about. Not only were my computers more powerful than any that had ever been built, but I had also stumbled upon a way to make them far more efficient, electrically. During the miniaturization process, as I devised tools and equipment to help me make the components smaller and smaller, I discovered that the actual power consumption was reduced, as well, so that what I ended up with was a device the size of the tip of your pinky that contained more computing power than all of the big Cray computers that NASA had ever had, and it ran perfectly on less than fifty millivolts.
An animal nervous system, including its brain, operates at around seventy millivolts. This meant that it would literally be possible to implant one of my computers into a living animal, and draw its electrical power requirements directly from the body. In addition, input and output connections would be perfectly compatible with the living nervous system, so that the computer could interact directly with both body and brain. This led me into an entirely new line of research, and to the creation of entirely new cloning processes and equipment.
My latest crop of stem cells were responding beautifully to chromosomal surgery, so that when I forced them into gestation, I was able to harvest eleven viable embryonic cells. Careful examination showed me that two of them were exceptional, and were so identical that it would make no difference which one I chose. I selected one of them, embedded it onto the myelin matrix I had created to surround the Abercrombie, and placed the whole thing into the GAC.
Myelin is the organic tissue that surrounds and protects nerves, and provides a neural pathway that actually speeds messages along their way. By using it to create an organically generated matrix that surrounded and enabled connections to the circuitry of the Abercrombie, I was able to force the growth of cellular tissue in a specific pattern around the computer.
The Generational Acceleration Chamber was another of my inventions, and also used the power of the quantum computers to create an environment that forced rapid cellular growth. The idea was to grow a complete body around one of my Abercrombies. That’s what I called my computers; according to stories my grandfather had told me, “Abercrombie” was a common slang term back in the 1930s, which meant “know-it-all,” and I felt that was a fitting description of a small device that was capable of storing incredible amounts of information and developing genuine intelligence.
In the GAC, the embryonic stem cells attached themselves to the cloned myelin network that surrounded and connected to the Abercrombie. Those stem cells would form the cerebellum, as well as the brain stem, following the pathways of the myelin to make permanent connections between the Abercrombie computer and the animal brain.
By embedding an Abercrombie directly into the brain of a living creature, I could create intelligence in just about any species. Imagine the boon to mankind, if we could truly communicate with animals in specific circumstances. For example, what if we grew a school of tuna with Abercrombies? These fish, while technically alive, would essentially be intelligent, organic robots that could be instructed to dive to those deep parts of the sea that only fish can reach. The Abercrombie could literally record everything that the fish saw, heard or felt, allowing us to gain incredible data about the bottom of the ocean.
Service animals would also benefit. Monkeys are currently trained to help quadriplegics, and of course, guide dogs have been used by the blind for decades. By cloning them with Abercrombies, they would be far better suited to their purposes, while still maintaining the “cuddliness” that makes a living animal so much more desirable in this role than a simple robot.
Of course, my technology would lead to even greater ways of helping people with every sort of handicap. That quadriplegic, for instance, would benefit from an Abercrombie-controlled exoskeleton that would allow him or her to walk and use arms and hands almost as well as anyone else. A blind person could wear a pair of Abercrombie glasses that could transmit a visual signal directly into the optic center of the brain, with only a minor microsurgery needed to implant the receivers.
There was no doubt in my mind that Abercrombies would eventually find their way into every facet of human existence, doing every job that had previously been performed by human labor. There was literally no limit to what they could do, since they combined unlimited knowledge with intelligent judgment. Robotic avatars controlled by Abercrombies could perform the most precise functions, which was demonstrated by the fact that my robot, Bobbie, was actually performing the chromosomal micro surgeries on the stem cells that I was using, and harvesting them from me.
Now, however, I was at the point where all he could do was wait. The GAC would force the Soma to maturity in a relatively short time, condensing roughly 25 years’ worth of growth into only two months of actual, subjective time. I would have to wait to see just how well the Abercrombie was integrated into the body, but all of my theoretical models indicated that the integration would be complete.
Patience, however, was not my strongest virtue. If there was one thing I hated to do, it was wait, so I decided to take another trip to the bar. James, the Abercrombie that controlled my car, had already figured out where I wanted to go by the time I got in and shut the door.
“Shall I take you to the tavern, John?” James asked through the radio speaker.
“Absolutely,” I said. “The hard part is over, except for the waiting. I think it’s time to celebrate, and I like to celebrate with a drink.”
The car started itself, backed out of the garage, and started off for the bar. The radio came on, playing my favorite local station, and I just leaned back in the driver’s seat and relaxed. There was no other traffic on the road, so I didn’t worry about anyone seeing that I wasn’t driving the car. When we got to the bar, James automatically parked off to one side, and I got out of the car and wandered in.
The bartender smiled and waved, the look on his face telling me that he was suddenly sure it was going to be a good night. Not only did I spend a lot of money when I was there, but I had been known to leave a pretty generous tip, as well. When we settled my tab at the end of each evening, I always told him to add a hundred dollars for himself, which guaranteed I would get top-quality service the next time I came in.
It never failed. I nodded toward my usual table, and he smiled and nodded back. By the time I got to the table, he was already coming around the end of the bar with my usual, a double whiskey sour.
The evening went the way they usually did, for the most part. A couple of ladies tried to get my attention, but my surliness always got rid of them quickly, and there was one near fight that broke out, but when I bought a round for the house, the participants seemed to forget what they were arguing about. Through my whiskey-fogged brain, I realized that they seemed familiar, and then I recognized them from an earlier altercation. I had bought a round for the house on that night, to, and I began to suspect I had just been played.
Oh, well, who cares? I had more money than I could ever spend, and even if I kept the price of Abercrombies affordable to everyone, they and the accessories that would go with them would probably make me more money every year that I had already made in my life. After all, they cost almost nothing to make, now that I understood the calculations involved. It was simply a matter of selecting the proper material, and then educating it on how its atoms could be used to store information. Even in a device as small as an Abercrombie, there were more than enough atoms to mimic the neural connections in the human brain, so by providing sufficient information, genuine intelligence sprang into being.
“How goes your research, Professor?”
I looked up at that question, and saw the same man I had met here once before. In that moment, I was absolutely certain that he was the intruder who’d invaded my home.
“Go away,” I said. “I have video of you inside my house, and if you don’t get lost, I will be contacting the police.”
The big man sat down in the chair opposite mine. “Oh, come on now, Professor,” he said. “I w
as simply doing a little research of my own, trying to find out if you were for real, or just full of shit. From what I saw in your basement, I’d have to say you’re pretty genuine. You really are onto something, aren’t you?”
I probably shouldn’t have talked to him at all, especially considering how much alcohol I had already consumed, but his arrogance pissed me off.
“You can’t even imagine what I’m doing,” I said. “I’m so far beyond anything you could understand that it’s ridiculous.”
He shrugged, and that hood almost slipped. “I read through some of your notes,” he said. “I know that you built a computer that can think like a person, and hooked it up to a robot that can do just about anything. Do you think I don’t know how much that could be worth? If you do this right, you could be the richest man in the world. I just think you need a little guidance, to make it work the way it should.”
“Guidance, huh? And let me guess, you think you’re just the one to give me that guidance, am I right?”
He laughed. “Well, now that you mention it, I was thinking something along that line. You need a partner, Professor, a partner who will take care of all the business ends of this stuff, so you can keep coming up with the new ideas. That’s your specialty, isn’t it? Coming up with new ideas?”
“Let me tell you something,” I said. “I know people in every industry there is, and the last thing in the world I need is a partner. My inventions may make me richer than I am, but money isn’t what motivates me. I can keep this technology cheap, so that anyone can afford it, and that will mean an end to poverty and hunger in this world. That’s the legacy I want to leave behind, and I’m sure as hell not going to let you or anyone else mess with it. Understand me? Now, get your ass off that chair and get away from me. If you come back and bother me again, I will be calling the police.”
The big man just sat there for another moment. “You really ought to reconsider,” he said. “I’m not somebody you want for an enemy.”
I leaned forward suddenly, and raised my voice. “Get away from me!” I shouted, and several people in the bar turned to look at me. A few of them started moving in my direction, more than ready to help take care of the guy who was so generous, at times.
The man stood, and I could feel his eyes looking down at me even though I couldn’t see them under that cavernous hood. He turned without another word, and walked out the door. I allowed myself the fantasy that I would not see him again, but I’m sure there was a part of me that didn’t believe it.
I stayed another couple of hours, drinking and relaxing. After a while, I knew I was drunk enough that the bartender would be cutting me off, so I settled my tab, adding that usual big tip, then let James drive me home.
Bobbie assured me that no one had entered the house while I was gone, so I staggered my way into my bedroom, where she undressed me and tucked me in, as gently as a loving mother might have done. I slept like a baby, and didn’t wake up until almost noon, the next day.
Time passed. I made minor breakthroughs and improvements to the technologies, as I waited for the GAC to pop like a toaster, giving me a fully formed clone to experiment with. Physically, it would be an adult, and would be alive, but because of the presence of the Abercrombie, its brain was essentially a blank canvas. There was no sensation in the chamber, so there were no experiences for the brain to record.
Instead, all of the knowledge was stored in the Abercrombie itself, which would be activated at the proper time. As soon as it came online, then the brain would develop instantly a concept of self, and would become the world’s first fully intelligent cybernetic organism.
I couldn’t wait, but unfortunately, there was no choice. There was simply no way to speed the process, no possible way to make the clone mature any faster.
It occurs to me that I may have misstated something, a moment ago. I referred to bringing the Abercrombie online, but you should know that it was never actually off-line. It was just a matter of when to let the brain have access to the information within it. Up until that point, the Abercrombie simply controlled the physical processes of the body, including causing muscles to tense and relax in patterns that were designed to bring the body to optimum physical condition before activation. All of its muscles would be finely toned and at their peak physical strength as soon as it emerged from the GAC.
It was getting close to what I referred to as hatching time, when the GAC would open and I would be able to take the body out and prepare it for activation. That would involve putting clothes on it, of course, as well as trimming its nails, whiskers and hair. Their growth was also accelerated, so the fingernails would probably have looked rather strange if anyone saw them. They would probably be twisted and knotted, but if you could stretch them out, they would probably be over two feet long.
Toenails don’t grow as rapidly, but they would still be long and ugly. The hair and beard would be incredibly long, I was sure, so I was prepared to play barber, as well. After all, eventually, he would become quite famous. We didn’t want him to look ugly, now did we?
There was only a week to go, when I was visited once again by the intruder. This time, I was at home, sleeping. Bobbie, the avatar, shook me gently awake and told me that the intruder was in the basement.
I quietly got out of bed, told Bobbie to stay put, and slipped across the hall and down the stairs. Sure enough, there he stood, staring at the GAC and scratching his head under the hood. I found myself wishing that I had a gun, so that I could hold him at bay while I called the police, but as it was, I didn’t want to confront him directly.
I crouched there on the stairs, hoping he wouldn’t turn and see me, and my hopes were rewarded. As I watched, he turned and walked through the basement, looking at all of the different things on my workbenches and tables. As he had done before, he picked up my notebooks and scanned through them, and it dawned on me that he would be coming upstairs as soon as he was finished. I hurried quietly back up the stairs, and went into my room. I quickly shoved pillows together and threw the blanket over them, to give the impression I was still in bed, then slipped into my closet and hid behind the clothes there.
A moment later, my visitor came up the stairs just as quietly as I had, and stepped into my bedroom. He stood there looking down at the bed, and what he had to have assumed was my sleeping form, but after a moment, he turned away. A few seconds later, I heard my back door open and close. I waited for a couple of minutes, to be sure he was gone, then hurried back to the door to lock it.
It was already locked. Somehow, this man had keys to my house.
This had gone too far, and it was time to involve the police. I could download Bobbie’s video, and claim it was simply regular video from a security camera, to show them. I decided to wait until the following morning, and call the Sheriff’s office.
“Stevens County Sheriff’s Office,” came the voice of a receptionist. “How may we help you today?”
“Hi, there,” I said brilliantly. “Um, I’ve been having a problem with somebody coming into my house, and I’d like to talk to someone about it.”
“Yes, Sir, and where do you live?”
“Selkirk. I live in Selkirk.”
“Okay, just a moment please. I’m going to connect directly to the sheriff.”
Suddenly I was listening to some old Barry Manilow music, which made me chuckle, but my humor was very short-lived. The music only lasted a few seconds, and then I heard, “This is Sheriff Branson, how can I help you?”
The chill that went down my spine made it all the way to my toes and then bounced back up to my forehead. I recognized that voice instantly, and I knew with absolute certainty that I was correct. That voice was the same one I had heard from under that hood in the bar, both times. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind, none whatsoever.
I was being stalked by the sheriff, himself. I hung up the phone without saying a word, and then sat there praying that he wouldn’t figure out that I knew it was him.
Chapte
r 29
I spent most of the afternoon and evening working with the girl, Chloe, trying to pinpoint the location of the computer. The thing refused to tell us exactly where it was located, but admitted that it was on the grounds of Sal’s house, so that was where we concentrated our search.
There were three small outbuildings on the property, two of which were for storage, while one was a pump house. It took us only minutes to decide that the computer wouldn’t be in the pump house, since we were pretty sure water wouldn’t be good for it. We searched the other two buildings thoroughly, and found absolutely no sign of any computers there.
We considered the possibility that the computer could be buried somewhere, or that there may have been some hidden vault that opened off the basement of the house. Unfortunately, they were still slowly digging out all the rubble from the basement, so it would be a while before we were able to look for hidden vault doors. Instead, we spent the evening examining every bit of the ground surface, looking at every tree, moving every big rock—in short, for that computer to be hidden from us, we figured it couldn’t be much bigger than a golf ball.
Unfortunately, it stayed hidden. We had brought Chloe’s laptop and transmitter along in my car, and every once in a while we would go back and try to get the computer to tell us where it was once more, but it never would. It kept insisting that only Sal could give it permission to reveal any information, and I was just about ready to go and get him. Something told me that this computer would be able to prove Sal’s innocence, but I also knew that was something Sheriff Branson wanted to avoid at all costs.
On the other hand, the computer had told us that it was responsible for the death of Deputy Kyle Johnson. All we knew was that, for some reason, the computer decided Johnson was a threat to Sal and whoever created it, and had used the robot that it called its ‘avatar’ to fight back against him. It appeared that the robot had been shot at least once, but since it was controlled by a computer in an entirely different location, the bullet didn’t do any terminal damage. At some point, the computer still had enough control over the robot to cause it to reach out and grab at Johnson’s neck, but its super strong fingers had actually torn right through his jugular vein.
Thriller: I Am Sal - A Mystifying Crime Thriller (Thriller, Crime Thriller, Murder Mystery Book 1) Page 20