Nano Bytes

The doc shrugged. «Legions of nanobots swimming around inside our bodies… You had to imbibe a cocktail once upon a time, tailored to whatever enhancements you wanted. Nowadays the air is so saturated with them there’s no way to be rid of them, to be a luddite any more than to adopt the Amish solution and retreat into a more primitive place in time. Save for what you see here of course,” he said, gesturing to the glass wall. «Some people can’t handle the sense of their minds and bodies being invaded. No way to know if they are who they are because they’re being true to themselves, or because they were hacked. About five percent go mad. The hospitals are filled with rooms just like this.»

She shook her head. «And my brother, Peter?»

«He might be the result of a recessive gene he inherited from both his parents, one you were spared. It’s too early to tell if he’ll come out of it or not.»

«But the longer he spends inside…»

«You hear of people coming out of it after decades locked in rooms like these, but yes, as a rule, the longer they’re in, the less likelihood they’ll ever…»

«Thanks, Doc. I trust you’ll apply the latest breakthroughs as they come on line, whatever it takes.»

«That’s more a matter for the courts than for me. The tide ebbs and flows with that one. This is all paid for with taxpayer’s money. Every once in a while people get tired coddling the weak–minded. Its deal with the here and now or else.»

When Robin made a pained face, he added, «As long as they don’t slash our funding too soon, in all likelihood future generations of nano will be able to procure the same escapes for them far more cheaply in the comfort of your home.»

«How’s that for irony?»

«Their minds’ll have to be severed from their bodies, of course, to keep them from tearing your place up. But maidbots to attend them once they’re confined to a wheelchair are cheap enough.»

Robin smiled ruefully and walked away in the direction of the elevator.

Once she was outside the hospital she barely had time to duck a car careening into her. Its anti–gravity mechanism had failed. Cars weren’t allowed on the roads anymore; too much damn wear and tear on the infrastructure. Flying around overhead on a three–dimensional grid of invisible freeway lanes only the vehicles’ onboard navs could detect, there was nothing to damage or wear out. The electric cars didn’t pollute, didn’t make noise, and flowed like the lifeblood of the city through transparent arteries.

She made her way to the café across the street where she was meeting her boyfriend. The waiter pulled out her seat for her. «An apéritif?» he said, scooting in her chair.

«Screw that. You can bring the entire bottle of cabernet.»

He smiled. «Getting off night shift?»

«This might be your dawn, but it’s my twilight.»

He bowed and went to get her the bottle of wine.

Robin cued the nano inside her to stand down, to not neutralize the effects of the liquor. And she asked the little buggers to migrate away from the synapses in her brain for a moment so she could see things as they actually were. Her recent visit to the hospital seemed an ample enough spur to do just that. Several of the animated billboards were out of commission. And there were a lot more street people, of course, begging for twenty dollar bills, this generation’s idea of ‘got a dime to spare?’  And it was snowing, frigid, and blustery. The old snow, pressed up against the sidewalk was brown and compacted and rather ugly. Okay, she thought, restore my picture perfect day, if you please. Only keep the falling snow. Just lose the brown compacted ice. And I don’t want to feel cold. Trying to be seductive under a hundred pounds of clothing is more challenge than I’m up for this morning.

The nano doctored her perception of the outside world even as she turned her attention inward to focus more closely on the molecular design she was working on with the nano’s 3D HD modeling abilities to assist her. Neural processing accelerated ten–fold was what allowed her to visualize with this level of detail and to engineer new biotech wonders at superhuman speeds. Currently up at bat, a protein molecule she was turning over in her mind’s eye that might well help make the biological parts of their bodies every bit as indestructible as the nano–parts.

A musky scent startled her back to the here and now. The wine bottle the waiter had left for her had been opened and a glass poured; it smelled paradoxically like fresh blueberries. But it was the distinctive, familiar manly aroma which had caught her attention.