***Major Bridges will not be pleased at the outcome of this run, Doctor Falkland. He had great hopes that your configs and memory field would be strong enough to maintain structure, and bring Simon back***
Falkland shut down the system and the containment cell went dark. He sat down heavily in a nearby chair, sipped half-heartedly at a warm cola drink. “That’s not the worst of it, Doc. I’ve got a demo scheduled at UNIFORCE Paris in less than two weeks. What am I going to show them…a bunch of slides and graphics? General Winger wants results…all I’ve got is theories.”
The Doc III swarm roiled and drifted over toward the containment cell. ***This technique is not ready for more complex structures, Doctor Falkland. It will months before it can be tried on human volunteers, or anything that complex***
“Thanks, Doc…I figured that out for myself. And I don’t have any more pets to donate to Science either. But we’ll have to think of something. I’ve got ten days to put something together for Paris.”
He watched as the Doc swarm swirled around the containment cell, almost as if the swarm were ‘tasting’ or ‘feeling’ the device.
Maybe the Assimilationists are right and that’s what Simon and Jiggs are telling us, he thought. Maybe it’s not structure that’s important. It’s the pattern, the configuration. Maybe that’s what makes us truly unique.
The great conundrum that philosophers called the Ship of Theseus kept coming back to bite them again and again.
Johnny Winger and the Great Rift Zone Page 12