Chapter Twenty: Calibration

Mind-Tech, Incorporated – Reno, NV

Dr. Stephan pulled his royal blue BMW into the parking lot, parked, and walked to the entrance of the building. He reached into the pocket of his brown tweed jacket and withdrew the security card that granted him access to every wing of the two-story complex.

He swiped the card into the reader and punched 9490 on the keypad.

"Stephan, Harold J.," read the computer display. In the background, he could hear the soft hum of the computer’s registry, printing out the date and time: January 25, 2005. 1:14 a.m.

"Good morning Dr. Stephan," said a female voice.

"Good morning, Chase."

The ten-digit keypad suspended in the bulletproof glass door of the building made a clicking sound as its face place turned from red to green.

"You may proceed, Dr. Stephan."

As Harold passed entry, a camera on the ceiling sensed his presence and pivoted toward him. Recording everything in its wake, the camera tracked him as he passed through the administrative wing toward the elevator. Another camera, sensing Harold’s body heat, pivoted toward him as he took the elevator down to the secret lab at sub-level zero.

Above the entrance to the lab, a sign read, "Project: Prodigy. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY." Below that, another sign: "No yellow articles, clothing, or otherwise permitted in or around this function."

- - - - -

Harold took extreme care not to make any sounds as he sneaked past Billy’s cage. He paused to see if he had awakened the young primate and found him fast asleep, curled into a ball.

Good.

Harold tiptoed past the central island and stroked a light panel on the south wall. The back of the laboratory flickered to life, illuminated by a cool florescent glow. He heard a scraping sound and paused in his tracks, washed in a sense of sudden horror:

Serenity was staring right at him.

In her cage.

Twinkle. Her right eye pulsed and dilated. Her lips quivered. Her ghostly-white hair and the way that it streaked across her body with those dark, jagged patches made the chimpanzee look sinful. As if Satan itself had stopped by for a little chat with Serenity and left an impression on her soulless mind.

God, she scared the hell out of him sometimes.

"Sweet Seren—"

The chimpanzee placed a forefinger against her lips and flicked her eyes toward Billy’s cage. She then looked back at the scientist with that frivolous right eye again, pulsing and dilating, her lips aflutter and eyes shining with the madness of a junkie in withdrawal.

"Sweet Serenity," Harold repeated, for good measure.

The chimpanzee normalized, just like magic. The token phrase, as "Silly Billy," was for Billy, had an immediate calming effect on the primate.

Serenity cocked her head and chattered when Harold approached her cage. Her eyes darted from the machine across the room, to the doctor, to the machine again.

"I want to use the machine," she whispered.

"Patience, baby…" Harold swiped his thumbprint security card to unlock the cage and punched 9491 on the keypad.

"Good morning, Dr. Stephan," said the female voice.

"Good morning, Chase."

The cage’s door latch released with a solid click.

Serenity pushed the door open and scrambled out, eyes locked onto the machine as she ambled toward it.

Dr. Stephan followed her to the machine.

The machine was a long, white table approximately three feet in height, supported by thick legs with grounded anchors embedded into the tile floor. On it’s left side was an IRIX computer workstation, a keypad, and a security measure that fascinated Serenity.

To Harold’s right, the chimpanzee hopped onto the table and settled anxiously in seat #1: a padded indentation with a molded back and armrests with hand grips for the intense moments of machine-to-mind calibration. Serenity rocked her legs forward and back, her toes flexing with anticipation.

Card swiping sound.

Serenity whipped her head toward Dr. Stephan and watched him activate the IRIX workstation. Her eyes focused on the number sequence he entered into the keypad:

9492

"Good morning, Dr. Stephan," the female voice said.

"Good morning, Chase," Serenity whispered.

"Good morning, Chase," Harold said, ignoring her. Letting Serenity know the pass code and phrase was of no concern, as the system performed a voice analysis and checked it against a signature that Harold had to update every other day.

In the chimp’s dark, brown eyes, the reflection of the IRIX workstation coming to life, bearing the white and blue Mind-Tech logo. Serenity was always amazed by the screen’s colors: the red swaths, the blue hues, the YELLOW—"

Her right eye dilated, pulsed, dilated.

Quiver.

Dr. Stephan spotted the yellow icon and covered it with his hand, cursing the network engineer, "Dammit Walter!" He could tell by the sound and shortness of Serenity’s breaths that the chimp had lapsed into a petit mal seizure at the sight of the offensive color. "Sweet Serenity," he soothed, and the chimpanzee normalized with an auditory induced dopamine rush.

Serenity’s problem with the color yellow cropped up five months ago when Mind-Tech started to explore the primate’s long term memory. It was a very puzzling issue for Harold, because there was no way to tell why the color had the effect that it did. And Serenity had no way of telling him, having only learned a scant amount of human vocabulary.

On the computer, Harold picked his way through the IRIX interface, each option tumbling toward him with more screens and more choices. Each button represented one of the more than five billion subroutines that drove the machine.

Serenity watched, eyeing the options before Dr. Stephan chose them with his finger. She eyed the button labeled Neural Lab, and Harold touched the screen a split second later. Her eyes flicked to the Plasma Array button and then, after Harold brought up it’s sub-interface, she stared intently at the Lower Equipment button. Harold went to activate it, but caught himself into a sneeze and backed away from the computer to release it.

Impatience got the best of Serenity. The chimp scampered across the table and stood before the computer monitor with purpose. She cocked her head and touched the Lower Equipment button, then hurried back to her seat, chattering at the ceiling with hungry anticipation.

Harold stared at her in disbelief. "Serenity…"

Above them, a three-foot-square panel in the ceiling opened with a hiss, followed by a rush of frigid air. A second later, a bulk of shiny, black metal came floating downward, surrounded in a pool of rapidly depleting fog. Its support was a thin, but tensile shaft of translucent metal with fiber optic cables running throughout it. The contraption hummed as it came within inches of the stark white table and clicked dutifully to a stop.

The device was oval in shape, bearing no definable edges. It had been painted and polished several times by its maker, as if it were a precious jewel. It was a slick, black orb of wicked technology with the word "Conscious" stamped onto its cold, hard surface in white letters that practically glowed.

"Okay sweetie," Harold said, approaching the chimp from the backside. "You need to relax." He massaged her shoulders until they slackened, then reached over and removed a hard, plastic helmet from the right compartment of the three-foot-wide Conscious. The helmet was connected to the machine by a long and flexible metal shielded cable, snaking its way along the floor.

Dr. Stephan placed the helmet onto the chimpanzee’s head and clamped it down by twisting a knob on the back until the green LEDs flicked on. Next, he squeezed a dab of conductive gel onto the top of her spine and worked a circle into her skin about the size of a silver dollar. From the top of the helmet, he unbuttoned a thick, flexible strap of plastic and affixed it’s pearly, chrome under part onto the conductive gel, securing it in place with a wide strip of surgical tape. Next, he inserted a flexible tongue-guard into the chimpanzee’s mouth. It had a hollow, white handle that poked out of Serenity’s face like a knob.

Serenity was patient throughout this process, having gone through it hundreds of times with dire anticipation of the treatment that followed.

Now Harold was ready to calibrate the Conscious so that it could align itself with key neural pathways and communicate directly with Serenity’s nervous system. Calibration was a necessary step before each use, as the millions of changes that occur in the brain since last use must be matched against the signature stored in the database.

The mating of mind to machine is an extremely complex process, requiring massive amounts of storage space and processing power. While the Conscious orb itself seemed small, the fiber optic cables running up its spine and into the ceiling fed into a cluster of supercomputers that took up most of the underground level and required liquid nitrogen for cooling.

Once, Harold soaked a sponge with vinegar and baking soda and scanned it with a precursor of the Conscious. The results showed the chemical reaction as it took place in the four dimensions of space-time. A mere five minutes of analysis was more than enough to fill a standard four- gigabyte optical diskette.

Serenity’s brain, however, was far more complex. Her initial calibration took over three hours and consumed more than one hundred terabytes of information. Each time she used the Conscious, the calibration times varied depending upon a number of factors: time away from the machine, sleep and dream patterns, enzyme levels, and emotional state. Her average re-calibration took between eight and twelve minutes and consisted of enough data to fill hundreds of public libraries. Her current database consumption was nearing one hundred and fifty three terabytes of storage: enough to fill a thousand libraries.

Storage aside, the amount of processing power to accurately measure the quantum state of nearly 10^11 neurons in a volume no larger than a grapefruit required equipment that the United States would seize under the Terrorist Act.

Because of that, Mind-Tech operated it’s own in-house cold fusion reactor. To the rest of the world, the company was a payroll processing facility operating under the name, "FastPay Internet Services." Harold often joked that he was a former neuroscientist now working for a payroll company.

No one ever laughed.

"Okay," Harold said, taking Serenity’s hands and placing them onto the hand grips. "Look here—" He snapped his fingers before a flat screen television hanging from the ceiling behind him and said, "Good girl."

Harold walked over to the IRIX workstation and issued several commands on the monitor. On the display, he could see a computer-generated replica of the Conscious’ helmet as it ran through a series of self-diagnostic tests. At the same time, the computer analyzed and recorded Serenity’s vital signs through the strap affixed to the top of her spine and posted the results in a graph labeled Biometer.

Dr. Stephan picked deftly away at the monitor and when everything seemed to be just right, he placed his finger above the [EXECUTE] command.

He took a quick peek at Serenity, sitting there with that helmet on, waiting for her god.

[EXECUTE]

The television in front of the chimpanzee lit up, fierce white, and she arched backwards in her seat, grimacing. She hissed through the tongue guard’s pale, hollow handle, spewing saliva into the thin and chilly air. Her eyes had locked onto the television, which pulsed rapidly like a strobe light. Within the flickering whiteness, the color red could be seen, and then the color blue.

On the Biometer, Dr. Stephan watched Serenity’s heart and temporal rates approach dangerous levels; however the Conscious was programmed to know the limits of its subjects and would back down, if needed. If Serenity were in danger of going into cardiac arrest or having a seizure, the machine would perform a shutdown procedure that would take several minutes to an hour to release the chimp from the neuron storm.

On the EEG, the chimp’s brain waves fluttered across the graph, drawing out peaks and valleys that knifed up and down in rapid succession.

"Good," said the neuroscientist, pleased with himself.

Harold wheeled a reclining chair in front of the Conscious and sat down with his feet propped onto the examination table. Every now and then, he would glance at the Chimpanzee’s flickering form, then at the television above her.

Harold yawned and slowly closed his eyes.

Beside him, Serenity grimaced in the now slowly flashing strobe light. On the television, the images had evolved into complex manifestations of thought and emotion. Anger and sadness: the shapes on the screen intertwined and backed away like excited ghosts. One of the shapes was just a tiny wisp, stolen away by the darkness of a yellow thought.

The chimp’s right arm, which had a scar on it from an experience in the wild, rippled.

She was dreaming now.

The slowing strobe light: seconds would pass before the screen illuminated again, filling the sullen laboratory with a stab of brilliant white and a patient buzzing sound.

Darkness, for several seconds.

And then another pulse of white light, mirrored by an LED marked "SYNC-1" on the face of the Conscious, blinking like a slow heartbeat.

Harold twitched in his sleep.

On the IRIX workstation, a blinking message displayed:

Process: Calibration Complete
Calibration ended at 01:56 a.m. on 01-25-2005

The image on the television above Serenity faded and was replaced by the white and blue Mind-Tech logo.

Serenity slumped in her seat, drunk with exhaustion.

Another message appeared on the workstation, blinking:

Process: LISP 2412
10 seconds
[CANCEL]

When the counter reached 0, the computer automatically picked its way through the IRIX interface as if a ghost were controlling it. The script tweaked various options on a screen labeled, "Emotion Control."

Anger… sadness… fear… paranoia: the whole range of emotions grouped along a circular graph labeled "Emotional Spectrum." The option in the center of the multi-colored wheel was labeled, "Grand Tour: USE WITH EXTREME CAUTION." The computer made its selection for Serenity, then backed out to the root menu and displayed:

Process: Emotion Override
Started at 01:58 a.m. on 01-25-2005

Serenity curled into a tight, fetal ball, just as a burst of emotion blossomed across her temporal lobe. It was like an illicit drug, rich with euphoria. She lay there, half in and half out of the seat, blessed with orgasms of every kind and the most beautiful sensation to grace the mind of any creature… serenity.

Serenity… the chimpanzee quivered with pleasure as the Conscious continued to trigger dopamine hit after dopamine hit in just the right places, tickling her fancy in a session that Dr. Stephan programmed to last forty-minutes. Up from thirty just a day ago.

Serenity: the state of pure tranquility.

- - - - -

Harold awoke at 3:38 a.m. and found Serenity lying in a heap on the cold, tile floor. She had fallen out of the seat when the treatment reached its crescendo, a little gift at the end just before the detoxifying shutdown procedure. She lay there, curled into a tight ball with the helmet still attached, its shiny metal cable running along the floor and up to the Conscious.

"C’mon, sweetie, let’s get you cleaned up."

- - - - -

And now, Dr. Harold Stephan, after caging his most excellent prize, took his seat upon the machine.

It was, after all, the real reason he came here tonight.

Sitting in that padded chair, crouching forward with his hands on the grips, Harold looked as if he were about to take a very fast ride. Beside him, the Conscious clicked dutifully away at the twenty-second delay he imposed:

Six… five… four…

Gripping hard. Waiting for his god.

Three… two… one…

[EXECUTE]

Harold shot back in his seat. Face awash in angry, white light, grimacing with the tongue guard clamped between his teeth, spewing droplets of saliva into the thin and chilly air.

His eyes fluttered, rolled back, fluttered again.

"OH MY GOD."

Calibration is madness.

* * * * *

It was like getting kicked in the face.

EXCEPT there was no pain. The shock of the moment was there, however, and it took Harold J. Stephan for one hell of a ride:

Whiteness. Everything became numb. His hearing was gone, his taste was gone, the sense of smell and the feeling of the World Outside, gone, as his mind was forced to forgo all input of stimuli except that with which he could see with his eyes.
Red. Kind of like blood, only darker.

Blue.

And then yellow. So pretty, so bright:

(There was a brilliant, white flash, and a kick in the face)

- - - - -

The image rushed at him, the image of a woman.

She stood on the stage, trembling. Her hair was a flowing web of ebony trails that made Harold feel warm. The way that she moved, the way that she spoke, and the gentleness of her smooth, white face beckoned him with an itch so bad that he began to sweat.

And she looked at him, her face a monument of beauty that lived. Holding the plaque that said magnum-cum-laude saying, "…and I want to thank the most important person in my life, Harold Steph— excuse me— Doctor Harold Stephan!"

Harold stood up. Everyone whispered as he tore through the audience. "Excuse me… I’m sorry sir… excuse me!"

Climbing onto the stage.

Behind him, several administrators and a burly guard ambled toward him, intending to remove him from the moment. But then they stopped—

"Nadine," Harold said warmly, reaching into the pocket of his white jacket, "Nadine I love you."
From the pocket he removed a sparkling diamond ring.

Hushing sounds as he knelt down before her and glanced at the crowd, then at his best friend Pat Rigby, for assurance. Pat gave him two big thumbs up and said to the person next to him, "Man, he sure is a brave one!"

Looking back at Nadine, who had now cupped her mouth, tears in her eyes, saying, "Nadine, will you marr—"

(A brilliant, white flash, and a kick in the face.)

- - - - -

"Marry you! Marry you!" She couldn’t believe what was happening. "Of course I said ‘yes,’ Harold, do you think I’m crazy?! I love you to bits! Now, I’m going to screw your brains out!"

Sex with Nadine.

Her body was a pristine drug that slithered down his bare chest, and then he found himself desperate, wanting her. Nadine: a graceful shadow dancing upon his aching pelvis. He held her by the curves of her hips and pulled her closer toward him, feeling the madness of hot love overwhelming as he pushed back and then brought her toward him again, wanting it to never end.)

(There was a kick in the face)

- - - - -

"I do," she said. Her face was a flowing, white storm of beauty shedding tears of unending joy.

"You may kiss the bride!"

The music. The walk away. The reception.

"Congrats, buddy!" cried the best man, hugging Harold tight. Pat Rigby. The piece of paper he held scraped against the back of Harold’s neck like a dry, autumn leaf.

"What’s this," Harold said, taking the paper.

Pat Rigby looked conniving. "See that old couple over there?" He pointed at two strict business people mingling happily with the guests. Harold didn’t remember inviting them to the reception. Did Nadine invite them? He looked back at Pat, who said, "They want to talk to us about the machine. They say they are big fans of your research. They want to talk to us today!"

Harold nodded and gazed at Nadine. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of his pretty wife. Talking to her relatives about her new husband, so excited about her brand new life! She turned to Harold and blew him a loving kiss, her flowing, white dress bundled up in the back so that it wouldn’t get soiled. Harold caught the kiss in midair and mouthed, "I love you!"

"Harry!" Pat said, his eyes twinkling. "They have a lot of money! And they want to talk to us now!"

He looked at Pat, surprised, and said, "What do you mean, us?"

Pat laughed. "I’m your new partner!"

His partner.

Harold gazed at his pretty wife.

(Kick in the face)

- - - - -

"Push, Nadine! Push!"

She lay there wearing a stiff, white gown, her legs spread into an enormous ‘V’ in an agonizing effort to give birth to a miracle. Harold braced himself against her heaving chest, his face in hers, the look of morbid concern shining in his frightened eyes. "Push, baby, push!"

Beside her, the cardiograph pulsed erratically.

The doctor’s distant-voice: "—her an episiotomy."

Nadine screamed.

The squalid, purple head of a breathless life form, emerging into a cold, cruel world. Harold’s eyes welled with tears, not to mention Nadine’s, as the doctor held the child upside down and gave it a first-spanking.

It’s cry was so amazing!

And it was heavenly grace, lying against Nadine’s chest, holding their brand new baby boy! Harold looked at the newborn’s trembling face and said, "In all my life, in all the things I will ever do, nothing will amount to this!"

"I love you Harold!"

They locked hands.

(Kick-face)

- - - - -


"NO!" Pat screamed, "I won’t let you sell the company! Dammit Harry, we didn’t do all this work for nothing!"

This enraged Harold. He grit his teeth and said, "Look at the books, Pat… we’re toast!" He palmed his sweaty forehead and pointed at the red head, who paced frantically about the room.

"We can’t afford any more lawsuits! Even if we could, how can you expect us to pay for FDA approval! Or FCC approval for crying out loud! PAT!"

Rigby was busy, rounding up the equipment.

"That’s not your’s. It’s mine! I invented it!"

Pat threw the machine onto the floor. It hit the tile and broke into several pieces. He turned to Harold, heaving, and told him that he was making a terrible mistake. "You give up too easy, Harry!"

"NOW LOOK WHAT YOU DID!" Harold knelt down to retrieve the broken pieces.
Pat lunged at him.

A fist fight ensued.

There was a gun.

"PAT, PLEASE DON—"

(Kick)

- - - - -

"CLEAR!"

Beep-beep. Distant-squealing sound.

"CLEAR!"

Beep-beep… beep-beep…beep-beep-beep-beep.

"I GOT PULSE! STOP! I GOT PULSE!"

- - - - -

In the hospital, reading Science Digest. Harold reached into the chest of the stiff, blue gown, and felt along his right side. Every now and then the wound would itch, followed by a burst of bright pain.

He thought about Pat for a moment and wondered if he was going to make it on his own. Harold had all the charts, all the data, and all the prototype equipment necessary to make the machine all over again. But he was a thorough scientist and had made duplicates.

Missing duplicates.

He turned the page. Headline: Scientist Heralded with Development of New Age Technology. It was a story about Pat Rigby. It included a picture of his ex-partner, smiling next to a model of the human brain. But there was no picture of Harold, nor any mention of his name in the article.
There was a picture of the machine.

"Bastard!"

The machine. Harold had to come up with a name for it. He had contacted his lawyers and initiated the paperwork for an injunction against Pat Rigby, but he needed to give the machine a name before he could patent it.

Nadine entered the room with a pitcher full of water and baby Thomas on her hip. She saw the article and said, "That man has no conscience…" Thomas cooed, trying to grab the pitcher of water. He was twelve months old and knew how to say, "Dadduh!"

Conscience.

"Nadine," Harold said, smiling. "You’re beautiful!"

(His face, kicked)

- - - - -

"Why is he crying now?!"

Nadine rolled over in her sleep and grabbed her forehead. She was so tired! Thomas had been having another one of his off days, crying all throughout the night. She begged Harold to do the checking.

"Yes, darling."

But then the crying stopped, all by itself.

Thank God! Harold fell quickly back to sleep.

Harold suddenly woke up. He looked at the clock: hours had passed. He strained to hear Thomas’ crying and heard nothing. "Good," he said, climbing out of bed. He needed to take a leak. He sneaked into the hallway, past the baby’s room, and quickly happened back:

The baby crib, in the sullen darkness. Through light spewing from the crack of the door, Harold could see his precious baby boy! Thomas was there, curled up into a tight little ball,

On the floor.

"OH GOD! Nadine! Nadine! Shit, JESUS, NO!"

He brushed his son’s cold, stiff body, and wailed, "NADINE! Call the ambulance! Thomas is hurt! OH MY GOD my baby is hurt!"

Nadine came to the doorway a half-second later and dropped to her knees, screaming as Harold tried to revive their son with CPR.

"OH MY GOD!"

Calibration is madness.

* * * * *

Process: Calibration Complete
Calibration ended at 04:17 a.m. on 01-25-2005

Before Harold, the images on the flat screen television faded, replaced by the white and blue Mind-Tech logo. Inside her cage, Serenity stirred from sleep, and opened her eyes. On the monitor of the IRIX workstation, another blinking message appeared:

Process: LISP 2412

1 second

The starburst emotion followed a second later, causing the neuroscientist to slump in his seat. Drool poured out of his mouth as the tongue guard fell to the floor and rattled to a stop.

Harold gazed drunkenly across the laboratory. Ahead of him, Serenity was standing in her cage, her body against the cage, her right arm stretching hungrily through the bars.

The scientist closed his eyes, smiling.

He slowly opened them. Serenity was reaching out to him with both arms now, pressing hard against the cage, trying desperately to get to him.

But that didn’t bother Harold, not in the least. He was fine, just fine. He slumped further into the chair and enjoyed intense euphoria, which soothed him like a baby sucking milk.

Five o’clock that morning.

* * * * *