Brave New World_A Sam Prichard Mystery Page 5

  “But that’s not all,” Kim said. “He says—he says you’re going to meet the most evil creature you’ve ever encountered.”

  Sam stared at her for a moment. “Okay, now I really wish he would give us more information. Any kind of clue on what this creature looks like?”

  Kim looked sheepish. “Sorry, Sam,” she said.

  Sam and Indie took their children home and put them to bed, then sat down in their living room to relax for a few minutes. The TV played one of their favorite comedies, but they weren’t really paying attention.

  “Well,” Sam said, “I guess there could be worse jobs. And the pay is more than I’d have ever dreamed I could make.”

  “True. Of course, you turned down the last steady job offer,” Indie said, “remember?”

  Sam scowled. “I thought about taking it,” he said, “but investigating cops for evidence of crime and corruption is not the smartest way to go if you want to live to a hundred, and I’d like to live at least long enough to see our grandchildren grow up.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t. I remember how many times different cops have tried to kill you. You’ve been lucky, Sam, very lucky. I hope this job will be at least a little safer.”

  “I think it should be, most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, corporate crime is often some of the worst, and there’s usually lots of money involved. Money is a great motive when it comes to crime of any kind, though, so I’ll still be watching my back.”

  Indie snuggled close to him. “You’d better,” she said. A moment later she reached up for a kiss, and then the talking stopped. They got up and went to their bedroom, completely forgetting the TV.

  Indie woke first the following morning and got up, gathered up the baby and went to the kitchen to make breakfast for Sam. There was something exciting to her about the idea of him going off to work at an actual job, even if it was still in the investigations field. At least he wouldn’t be alone on his cases anymore. That should be worth something, she figured.

  When Sam got up thirty minutes later, they took the baby, their breakfast and coffee, and went to the dining room, where Indie opened her computer. “Okay,” she said, “you’re about to enter the world of industrial espionage, so let’s see what we can find out about all this. Herman, wake up.”

  “We ought to check out this company, first,” Sam said. “CerebroLink Polymedical. What can you find on it?”

  “I’m adding it in, give me a minute. I’m gonna turn Herman loose on a few things at once, like CerebroLink, Dr. Aaron Williamson, Steven McGill, BCI, anything related to any of those—how about we check out other companies involved in BCI, as well?”

  Sam nodded. “Sounds about right. Let’s see what he can come up with.”

  Indie hit the enter key, and Herman started sounding off chimes almost immediately. A page opened up with several tables, in which links began to appear.

  The first one was for CerebroLink’s website. When Indie clicked on it, it showed a well-designed site with a lot of information related to medical advances that involved the use of various kinds of biotechnology. The most prominent article was about artificial nerves, tiny electrodes that could carry sensory input from an extremity to the somatocortex of the brain. The somatocortex, the article explained, contains a “map” of the body, which allows it to know what part of a body is feeling contact with another object, the timing of the contact and the amount of pressure applied during the contact. This information, the page explained, is precisely how the brain is able to control the limbs and other parts of the body. By receiving these signals, the brain knows when to apply pressure to grasp an object, where the hand is in relation to the brain, and how much pressure is necessary to avoid dropping or crushing the object. With artificial nerves, the brain can interpret this data even from an artificial hand, making brain-controlled prostheses far more practical and viable. Testing was already underway with subjects who were demonstrating remarkable dexterity with prosthetic hands, and there was a video of someone playing a piano using one.

  Other pages gave limited descriptions of other developments, such as BCI, but the implication was that any practical applications were still beyond the current level of technology.

  “Well, the artificial nerves are pretty awesome in their own right,” Sam said, “but the way they’re downplaying the BCI angle tells me they’re probably working on defense applications first. They’ll stand to make fortunes from the medical and non-military applications, anyway.”

  “True,” Indie said. She clicked on the “About Us” link on the website, then scanned the information she found. “According to this, the company was originally founded three years ago by several people who had previously worked for Google and Tesla. Both of those are notoriously involved in artificial intelligence, self driving cars and the like. I’d imagine there are probably various levels of connection between those technologies and BCI, so I guess that makes sense.”

  She closed the website and went back to Herman, where she clicked on links to several other companies involved in BCI research. One was called Rook International Biomedical, and it had a number of patents on potential designs, but was primarily involved from a theoretical perspective. A lot of their research was published, so that other potential developers could build on it. A look at their “about” page explained that they were funded primarily by grants, and were a not-for-profit organization.

  Then there was Enid Biotech. This company was more into development, but was lagging far behind in the field. They had patents for certain types of chips that were specialized, such as those that would be embedded in an arm in order to send signals to a prosthetic hand. They were not any kind of threat to CerebroLink, unless something miraculous—or criminal—were to take place.

  The next company, however, caught Sam’s attention. “Fa Ling Bioengineering. They’re based in China, but they’ve got a couple of research facilities in the U.S. and Canada. Their most recent press release claims that they will be making a major announcement about new developments in BCI within the next three months, and expect to begin human trials shortly thereafter. If you look back through the rest of their press releases, though, there’s almost nothing about any impending announcements or breakthroughs. In fact, they almost seem to be limiting their activities to developing artificial hands and lightweight prosthetic legs until just two weeks ago. Does that seem a little fishy to you?”

  Indie nodded. “I’d say it does,” she said. “It's possible they did make a breakthrough of their own, but it just seems that there should have been some kind of buildup, some kind of excitement showing through their announcements.”

  “I’ll put them on the list to check out. Was that the last?”

  “That was the last link to a competitor, but that doesn’t mean those are the only ones. They were just the only ones Herman thought were relevant. Let’s see what else he’s got.”

  There were a lot more links on Herman’s display, including several to articles accusing C-Link—apparently a shorthand that was commonly used for the company’s name—of being involved in a number of nefarious programs, including something called NESD, Neural Engineering System Design. According to the author, NESD was a program created under DARPA to create super soldiers by combining BCI technology with extremely powerful exoskeletons. Lately, however, according to the author, NESD had begun researching the possibility of remotely controlled robot soldiers which could be operated by human soldiers with BCI chips implanted inside their skulls. Using computer enhanced flocking programs, it was predicted that a single human operator could control an entire squad of robot combatants. The computer interface would allow commands to be sent to all of the robots at once, or selectively to individual robots.

  The robots wouldn’t necessarily—and in fact, probably wouldn’t—be humanoid in design. More likely, they might resemble small tanks, aerial drones, and even mobile gun turrets or directly controlled missiles. Since the interface could almost literally read the mind of
its human component, the soldier could control it entirely with thoughts, eliminating the need for mechanical or electronic control panels. This would increase the effectiveness of the remotes drastically, since the time necessary for a human hand to move to depress a trigger would be eliminated. Motions, no matter how quickly executed, take time; a thought takes much less time.

  “Well, now we know what the military interest is,” Indie said. “Of course, this would be just like the atomic bomb. Once we have the technology, other countries would develop it. How long would it be before a war is nothing but pitting a bunch of robots against each other to see who can destroy the most hardware? The only way to get past that would be to attack whatever facility the human operators were supposedly safe in.”

  “Every new development creates its own set of conundrums,” Sam agreed. “There were some links about Williamson, what did Herman find on him?”

  Indie went back to Herman and scanned through the links. “Most of these are related to his death,” she said, “but I've got a couple from while he was alive. This one,” she said as she clicked the link, “is from a month ago.”

  A webpage opened up and they saw a video embedded in it. A quick scan of the text on the page told them that the video was an interview with Doctor Aaron Williamson regarding C-Link’s recent application to the FDA for human testing of a BCI chip. Indie clicked the play button and the video began to run.

  Interviewer: We are here today with Doctor Aaron Williamson, who is the chief research surgeon with CerebroLink Polymedical, a recent start up in the biomedical field. Doctor Williamson, thank you for giving us some of your time today.

  Williamson: It's my pleasure, Jim.

  Interviewer: Doctor Williamson, your company has recently filed an application with the FDA for approval to implant a computer chip inside the brain of a human test subject, is that correct?

  Williamson: It certainly is, Jim. One thing I’d like to clear up, however, is that there seems to be a misconception that this is the first time such a chip has ever been implanted. That’s absolutely not true. In fact, the very first BCI device ever implanted was back in 2004, and allowed Matthew Nagle, the first test subject, to control a computer cursor just with the electrical activity in his own brain.

  Interviewer: Okay, and thank you for clearing that up. What I’m wondering about, though, is what type of effect you’re hoping to get with this new one that you want to begin human testing on. Can you tell us what you expect?

  Williamson: Well, I can give you some information, but some of it’s still kind of hush-hush. I mean, we have to be careful not to give our competition any ideas. (Chuckles) In this particular instance, what we’re hoping to achieve is more of a direct connection between the brain and the computer. One of the things we learned through research into this subject is that a BCI chip is capable of interpreting the electrochemical signals that are constantly shooting through the brain. Those signals, of course, are the detectable essence of the communication between the brain and the body, but they are also the manifestation of thought. Each time a neuron fires, as we say it, that’s a minute bit of information that’s being transmitted from one part of the brain to another. Our latest BCI chip is capable of interpreting those firings, because we have managed to map out the—well, for lack of a better term, the ‘brain code’ that regulates how the neurons fire. While we expect there to be some minor differences between the brains of individuals, the chip will be capable of learning very quickly how to interpret specific electrochemical signals and assemble those bits of information so that it can understand and transmit the coherent thought behind them. This means that this chip should make it literally possible for our test subject to send information to and receive information from the computer that he’ll be paired with.

  Interviewer: Doctor Williamson, this almost sounds like something from a science fiction movie. Are you saying that the test subject would literally be able to receive coherent information directly into his brain?

  Williamson: Oh, yes, we’ve already managed to do that. In our research, we discovered that there is a way to let the chip insert information directly into the relevant portions of the brain. This new chip actually puts that to the test, which is why we’ve applied for the human trials.

  Interviewer: Doctor, can you tell us a bit about what particular benefit you believe this technology has for humankind? I mean, sure, it would be nice to be able to walk around with an encyclopedia in my head, but wouldn’t that just clutter up the mind? Why will this technology be of any benefit to anyone?

  Williamson: Jim, having access to information is only a small part of what the BCI chip can do. For example, it makes it possible for someone who is paralyzed to send signals to artificial nerves that can make useless legs begin to walk, or help regain the use of paralyzed arms. For those who have actually lost limbs, this chip makes it highly likely that we will soon have prosthetic arms, hands, and legs that will work and feel exactly like the ones we were born with, even when entire sections of the spinal cord are beyond repair. For those who are blind, this chip will be able to take video signals and encode them into information that the visual center of the brain will be able to interpret into perfect, or better than perfect, vision. The same applies to those who are deaf, because they’ll be able to have sound transmitted directly into the audio receptors of the brain with this technology.

  The interview went on for another minute or two, but there wasn't anything new. Indie stopped it and went back to Herman.

  The only other link relating to Williamson while he was alive was to an article by a conspiracy theorist, which named Williamson as a sort of Doctor Frankenstein. According to the article, Williamson was once charged with circumventing legal requirements for human testing on earlier versions of the chip, and went on to claim that the charges were dismissed only after the military became involved in his research. It was shortly after those charges were dismissed that Williamson was hired by CerebroLink.

  Sam shrugged. “Ron said there were a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding the company and its technology. I’m not surprised to find it splashing over onto Williamson. What else we got?”

  Indie went back to Herman and pointed at several links regarding Steven McGill. “Want to look at those?” she asked, and Sam nodded. She clicked on the first one, and a story popped up about McGill’s public salvage company.

  According to this article, McGill bought and sold equipment used in various industries, including construction, mining, and oil. There was nothing regarding any kind of corporate or industrial espionage, however, so she closed that page and clicked on the next link.

  There were a lot of them to go through, and they were interrupted from time to time. Bo required a good deal of attention, and they had to stop for a while to get Kenzie’s breakfast, and then Sam had to run her to school. By the time they were halfway through the links Herman had generated, it was after one in the afternoon.

  It wasn't until shortly after two that afternoon that they discovered anything really interesting. McGill had been sued by several Silicon Valley startups over allegations that he had bribed employees to reveal corporate secrets, which he then sold to longer-established companies who had been falling behind in their respective fields. Some of them involved technology, but others claimed that he had stolen specific processes, such as computer algorithms or programs. The suit was filed four years previously, but was still in litigation at the time of his death.

  Indie suddenly pointed at a link at the bottom of the page. “Look at this,” she said. “This is an update posted only an hour ago.” She clicked the link, and another page opened up.

  Widow of Murdered Man Missing, Police Express Concern, read the headline. Together, Sam and Indie leaned down to read the story that followed.

  San Francisco—Police are expressing concern about the safety and whereabouts of Rebecca McGill, widow of alleged industrial spy Steven McGill. According to a police spokesperson, Mrs. McGill visited an
attorney early this morning, claiming to have knowledge of some of her husband’s activities in recent weeks and demanding a large sum of money in return for providing the information. The attorney, whose name has not been released, explained that any information she might have was being sought by police involved in investigating her husband’s death, and that to withhold it could constitute a crime on her part. At that time, the attorney claims, Mrs. McGill physically attacked him with a Taser and stole a pistol that he carried for self-defense.

  “Mrs. McGill may be in danger,” said police spokeswoman Jerilyn Smith. “We believe that her husband was murdered in order to ensure that he could not reveal the details of one of his transactions, so by claiming to have information about it, we believe Mrs. McGill may become a target.”

  Rebecca McGill is described as being twenty-six years old, about five feet tall and weighing approximately one hundred pounds. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. Her car was found abandoned in the downtown San Francisco area, and it’s known that she withdrew a substantial amount of cash through an ATM. Anyone with information about her whereabouts is urged to call the San Francisco PD as soon as possible.

  “That’s interesting,” Sam said. “It definitely lends credibility to the theory that McGill was murdered to shut him up.”

  “And now the police are worried the killers might go after his wife? Sam, you have got to be careful on this case.”

  “I will, babe,” Sam said. “Don’t you worry about that.” He pointed his chin at the computer. “Can you find anything more on his widow?”

  “Let’s turn Herman loose on her.” Indie typed for a few seconds and then hit the enter key again. “Since Rebecca McGill might not be that uncommon a name, I told Herman to key it to any references to her husband, as well.”

  Once again, Herman chimed almost immediately. Three links appeared on the screen, and Indie clicked on the first. It was a Facebook page run by Mrs. McGill, and had several references to Steven. The last thing she posted was a short paragraph telling him goodbye two days earlier.