Day of the Cheetah

by Dale Brown

I suffocate. Are you ever going to tell me exactly what I'm

  supposed to be doing?"

  "Try to relax and I'll tell." Carmichael adjusted the volume

  of a small speaker next to a nearby oscilloscope-like device; I

  I

  the speaker began to chirp in a seemingly random pattern. Car- I

  michael motioned to one of twenty-five lines on the oscillo-

  scope. "Your twenty-five cps beta readouts are still firing.

  Relax, Ken. Don't try to force it or it won't come."

  "14%at won't come?" Carmichael said nothing. Ken began

  to take deeper breaths, trying to ignore the sweat trickling down

  his back and the cramp in his right calf. After a few moments,

  the chirping subsided. Progress?

  "Very good," Carmichael said. "Beta is down . . . your

  Hertz waves are increasing. Good. Occipital alpha is increas-

  ing. Good. Keep it up. " He turned and with the help of one

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 37

  of the techs lifted a huge device off a carrying cart that he had

  brought in with him.

  "What the hell is that?" James asked as the huge object was

  lifted overhead. It was hexagonal, and two wide visors in the

  front and cables leading to various parts of the suit and to

  controls and boxes nearby.

  "Your new flight helmet," Carmichael said. "The final

  component of the suit you're wearing. The project is progress-

  ing so well, we've decided to proceed with a full-scale test."

  "Test of what . . . ?"

  "Wait." Carmichael slid the heavy helmet over Ken's head.

  "Watch the ears, damn it."

  "Watch your beta-you're pinging again." The helmet was

  set into place and fastened to a heavy clavicle locking ring on

  the metallic suit. The braces holding Ken's head in place took

  some of the helmet's weight, but his shoulders were aching

  after only a few moments.

  A microphone clicked on, and through a set of headphones

  in the helmet came: "How do you hear me, Ken?"

  "I think you broke my left ear off."

  "You'll live. Try to relax and I'll explain." Carmichael's

  voice dropped into the familiar deep, even monotone that he

  had used weeks earlier during several days of screening: in

  fact, Carmichael was hypnotizing him, not with a shiny watch

  on a chain, but with his voice only. James' susceptibility to

  hypnotic suggestion had made him an especially good candi-

  date for this secret project.

  "As you know, we've been working here at Dreamland with

  several projects. We call them all together 'supercockpit'-

  designing an aircraft workspace that allows the pilot to perform

  better in a high-speed, high-density combat environment. You

  and several other pilots were working with Cbeetah, the F-15

  advanced technology fighter demonstrator; that's the state of

  the art, and her systems will be incorporated in the Air Force's

  new fighter in the next few years. Cheetah makes extensive

  use of multi-function computer screens, voice-recognition and

  artificial intelligence, as well as high-maneuverability technol-

  ogy . . . Well, we've been working on the next generation of

  fighters after Cheetah, things like forward-swept wing technol-

  ogy, hyper-start engines, super-conducting radar. But the most

  fascinating aspect of the new generation of fighters will

  38 DAIZ BROWN

  be ANTARES-that's an acronym for Advanced Neural Trans-

  fer and Response. "

  "Neural transfer? Sounds like Buck Rogers thought-control

  stuff." Comic books were SOP at Connecticut Academy.

  A slight pause, then Carmichael said: "It is."

  Inwardly Maraklov was tingling with excitement-Can-nichael's

  electroencephalograph must be pinging off the dials, he thought.

  They were actually working on thought-controlled aircraft . . . ?

  "Relax, relax," Carmichael said. "It might sound like sci-

  ence fiction but we demonstrated the rudimentary ANTARES

  technology as early as the late nineteen eighties."

  "But is it possible . . . ?"

  "Well, we don't know that yet. I'm hoping, I'm betting,

  we'll find out pretty soon . . . "

  "But how can you control by thought?"

  "The idea is simple, the mechanism is complex." He waited

  a few moments while the subject hurriedly fought to control

  his racing heartbeat.

  "That's better," he said in his most soothing, uninflected

  voice. "Here we go. Remember back to your physiology. The

  human nervous system is composed of nerve cells, neurons.

  The neurons carry information back and forth from receptor

  nerves in the peripheral nervous system-nerves in the body in

  general-to the central nervous system, brain and spinal cord.

  The information carried through the nervous system is a series

  of chemical and electrical discharges between neurons. If one

  neuron is stimulated enough so that-its ionic balance is changed,

  it releases a chemical into the synapse, the gap between neu-

  rons, and that chemical stimulates another neuron."

  "Like electricity flowing through a wire?"

  "Well, some discharges are purely electrical, like when neu-

  rons physically touch, but mostly the connection is chemical.

  Anyway, this electrochemical and ionic activity can be de-

  tected and read by electroencephalographs, which you've be-

  come very familiar with the past weeks. " He would have

  nodded if he could. -EEGs in the past could only measure

  electrical activity-they couldn't analyze, decode that activity.

  It was like the Plains Indians putting their ears up to a telegraph

  pole, which they used to call the spirit trees, by the way. They

  could hear the telegraph clicks and tell that something was hap-

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 39

  pening, but they couldn't decipher the clicks or tell which di-

  rection the clicks were coming from, and of course, they didn't

  know how it was being done, just as we are ignorant about so

  many things in the nervous system. Sure, lots of clicks usually

  meant the army was coming, but that was about all. Ditto for

  us twentieth-century wizards."

  Carmichael paused to ad ust his oscilloscope. "Well, a few

  years ago we built an EEG i that could read the spirit tree. You

  could lift a finger or hand and this EEG could tell a researcher

  that you lifted a finger. And the opposite was true, too-when

  you generated a thought command to lift your hand, that im-

  pulse could be detected and read-in effect, we could read your

  mind.

  "Of course, the military got their mitts on the system right

  away. The new-style EEG, nicknamed Spirit Tree-hey, I'm

  famous-was the ultimate lie detector. But there was much

  more potential in Spirit Tree than use as a glorified polygraph.

  We already knew the general path of nerves and which areas

  of the brain corresponded to certain thoughts or activities-that

  all came about during Nazi Germany's infamous lab experi-

  ments on human guinea pigs, when they would surgically re-

  move parts of a prisoner's brain and see what the victim could

  no longer do. The new idea was, if we could now r
ead the

  information flowing through the system, was there a way we

  could interject outside or foreign stimuli into the nervous sys-

  tem? Instead of receptors in, say, the fingers generating the

  initial sensory impulse, could we send information from a com-

  puter into the system and read how the brain reacted to it? And

  could the opposite be true-could we think about, say, moving

  a finger, and have a computer read that nervous instruction and

  execute the command electronically?"

  The more James heard, the more excited he became, though

  now it was an intellectual response and his signs stayed re-

  laxed. A computer issuing instructions to a human via his own

  nervous system . . . a computer reading the human nervous

  system ... For a while he thought his time might better be spent

  making drawings or photographs of the F-15 Advanced Tacti-

  cal Fighter named Cheetah. But now . . . well, the Academy

  hadn't imagined anything like this when they sent him to

  America. Of course nobody could have . . .

  "Got all that?" Carmichael asked.

  40 DALE BROWN

  "I think so ... You're going to try to read my mind with

  this ... whatever it is

  "In a sense, yes.

  "But how strong are those electrochemical discharges across

  the synapse? Don't you have to clip some electrodes onto my

  skull?

  "In the past that's how EEGs were done. Every human body

  has a basic electrical potential, an electrical aura, so to speak,

  and that potential is affected by the central nervous system.

  Simple electrodes could read the tiny impulses generated by

  the brain and nervous system. But those electrodes couldn't

  measure anything except the change in electrical potential .

  "Like the telegraph clicks . . . "

  "Exactly. But now we have two new technologies that

  have improved our ability to read those electrical impulses-

  very high-speed integrated circuits and NRTS, near-room-

  temperature superconductors.

  "Your helmet and that large device on your spine are huge

  superconducting antennae. They're so powerful they not only

  can measure your nervous activity, they can read it, analyze it

  and map its direction as the impulses move around your pe-

  ripheral nervous system. And as they do, the computer issues

  instructions to the other large device you're wearing-that

  metallic flight suit. Actually, the suit is an integrated circuit

  that records the route each and every nervous impulse takes

  and studies it. After repetitions of the route the artificial-

  intelligence computer actually learns the route and proper

  timing and intervals between a certain set of impulses from

  certain areas of the central nervous system."

  This project did sound remarkable, but it also appeared to

  involve a long period of passive training. Maraklov preferred

  action. Could he sustain the process . . . ? "You're going to

  map out every muscle twitch, every movement, every breath I

  take . . . ?"

  if "To the contrary," Carmichael said. "We'd be overloaded

  we tried to record every muscle twitch, just as your question

  implies-so the idea is, we don't want you to twitch any mus-

  cles. We don't want mere muscular activity to show up. We

  don't need it-once we map out your peripheral nervous activ-

  ity, we'll know what impulses are necessary to move things

  like muscles.

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 41

  "So we need you totally re axed, imp, deeper than re-

  laxed-we need you as detached as you can be from your phys-

  ical body. We practiced biofeedback techniques before to get

  you to what we call, for lack of a better term, alpha state-it

  simply means the propagation of alpha brain waves and the

  suppression of beta waves, the latter activity indicating con-

  scious brain activity. But alpha state has many levels-nine

  known ones, to be exact. You've reached perhaps the'second

  or third level, where you can totally relax both smooth and

  ridged muscle and even exert control over certain autonomous

  functions such as heart rate, respiration and blood pressure.

  That's fine-but we need more."

  Carmichael's voice became even deeper, even more steady.

  There was no hint of tension, no emotional cues, no inflec-

  tion. Somehow he had even managed to cut out most of the

  background noise in the laboratory-or was that part of the

  hypnotic state the subject knew he was slipping into?

  "There's a level of activity called theta-alpha," the voice

  continued, so melodic and penetrating that it seemed to bypass

  his eardrums and enter directly into his brain . . . "Theta-alpha.

  It's a stage where the central nervous system in effect cuts out

  the peripheral nervous system. In higher life forms it's a de-

  fense mechanism, a way to protect the central nervous system

  from sensory overload.

  "Without any peripheral functions to control, the brain ex-

  pands its powers. Areas of the brain that normally go unused

  are suddenly put into service to control autonomous functions.

  The average person uses only thirty percent of his available

  brain capacity, but under theta-alpha the other seventy percent

  is suddenly put on line. That new seventy percent has the mem-

  ory and computational power of all the computers in this build-

  ing, packed into a ten-pound package that needs no power, no

  cooling air, no bench or field maintenance. And, like a corn-

  puter built by humans, it's programmable and erasable, with

  its own built-in operating system."

  James was finding it progressively harder to concentrate.

  When he tried to speak he couldn't make his jaw work. It felt

  as if he was asleep, but in that weird half-in, half-out state of

  sleep where you could hear and feel everything around you but

  were still deeply resting. His body felt very warrn, but not

  sweaty or cocooned any more. The oxygen being fed into the

  42 DALE BROWN

  face mask was cool and soothing as it streamed into his lungs.

  It was as if his body were somewhere else, as if he was de-

  tached ...

  Suddenly, he felt his whole body burst into flame. Every

  pore, every cell, every molecule of his body spit red-hot lava.

  He jerked out of his semi-sleep state and screamed.

  "Easy, Ken, easy," Carmichael said. Pure oxygen flooded

  his face mask. The visors on his helmet opened, and Carmi-

  chael and a medical technician peered inside to check his bulg-

  ing eyes.

  "What . . . what was that?"

  "It worked," Carmichael said. He nodded to the med tech,

  and they both disappeared out of view. Ken tried to move his

  head but found it still securely fastened in place.

  "Get me out of here-"

  "No, Ken, relax," Carmichael was saying. The room noise

  seemed louder than-ever. Ken rolled his eyes, trying to blot

  out the hammering in his head. "Everything's fine. Relax, re-

  lax . . . "

  "I felt like . . . like I was-"

  "Shocked. Electrocuted," Carmichael fini
shed for him.

  "You did it, Ken."

  "Did what, dammit?"

  "You entered theta-alpha. The final stage of alpha state.

  You were so relaxed, relaxed in such a deep neurological sense,

  that your mind opened up to its maximum capacity."

  "So what was that shock-electrocution, you said . . . ?"

  "ANTARES. The system detects when you enter theta-alpha

  and begins the process of integration. The shock you felt was

  the Activation of the ANTARES system-it was the first time,

  Ken, the very first time, so far as we know, that a computer

  and the human mind have been linked, even if it was only for

  a split second. You've made some history, my friend. Decem-

  ber third, in the year nineteen hundred and ninety-four, at

  seven-thirty-eight A., a human mind and a computer were

  linked-not merely in contact, but linked-for the first time."

  "Forget history, Carmichael. I asked you what that shock

  was. "

  "Yes, well to facilitate the tracing of your neural impulses,

  we created a slight electrical field of our own through your

  suit. We charged the suit with a tiny electrical-"

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 43

  "Tiny? You call that tiny? I felt like I was frying!"

  "Milliamperes, I assure you," Carmichael replied jovially.

  "About the same as a nine-volt toy battery. It does no per-

  manent damage that we can detect-"

  "That's real reassuring, Doc."

  "You're experiencing the same irritation that anyone feels

  when violently awakened from REM sleep," Carmichael said.

  "Try to relax. We'd like to try for another interface."

  "So you can shock me like some chimpanzee?" There was

  a limit.

  "Ken, we're on the threshold." Carmichael had turned on

  the microphone again and had closed the visors. "We've

  proven that our system works, that our equipment can respond

  to a specific and up to now unexplored neurological state. If

  we can complete the interface we may actually be able to

  establish communications between a machine and the human

  mind. I don't mean to sound overly melodramatic, but this is

  at least comparable as a scientific breakthrough to the discov-