"You can email your boss now," said Marty, "then it doesn't matter if GSKM are able to trace it."
Kip had already been thinking about what he would say and so it took only a couple of minutes to compose the message. Marty sat next to Kip and looked at the screen as he "typed" the words. He nodded his approval. Once the message had been sent he spoke to the pilot, who was driving, and they did a U-turn and sped off in the opposite direction.
*****
Arizona, USA
After more than two years, Pixel had mastered all the functions of her BCDU and finally got used to her electric chair. She was still too scared to go out into the wider world but owning a ranch gave her plenty of scope to roam around unobserved by anyone except her animals and immediate family.
She had opted for the most expensive chair, based on Mars rover technology, which enabled her to confidently climb slopes of up to forty five degrees and negotiate small boulders. Her top of the range chair meant that there was very little limit to her independence. She simply used her mind to switch between the small and large screens as required.
Her BCDU functioned remotely, of course, so it was merely a matter of establishing connections with all the household devices as you normally would with your computer or remote control. This enabled her to operate all the electrical items in the house, open doors and windows, in fact do most things her family could do and much more that they could never do.
The farm animals appeared unable to distinguish her from any other piece of machinery, even when she spoke to them, but their menagerie of cats and dogs had become accustomed to her surprisingly quickly. Within days of using the chair, her favourite cat had taken to walking in and out of the wheels and nuzzling itself against them as it used to her legs, possibly because her husband had stuffed some of her clothes into the storage space under the chair so that the animals would still have her familiar smell. She had gone for the more advanced voice synth that used recorded samples of her own voice – it had been unconvincing at first but now it sounded more or less like her old self talking through a speaker.
She may have got used to all the practical aspects but it worried her that, even after two years, she had still failed to adapt to many of the psychological challenges, certainly in comparison to her friend Gizmo. Being so technically minded beforehand he had quickly and happily adjusted to life as a brain in a jar and appeared to not miss the physical world one bit. Pixel, on the other hand, missed it terribly. What was worse, she and her husband had never been able to talk about that aspect of their relationship, either in the run up to the operation or in the two years since. Not having the military background of Gizmo or her husband, Pixel lacked the discipline to smother her emotions and they continued to bother her daily. She still wasn't sure that she entirely believed the bit in the GSKM brochure about living for several hundred years but the possibility that it might be true was nonetheless severely troubling her. Gizmo didn't have a partner or any children so he was perfectly happy to forgo the physical life, but the prospect of seeing her daughter age and die was on her mind almost constantly. She was also not keen on all the cloak and dagger stuff that Giz, Marty and, to some extent, her husband seemed to thrive on. She wasn't used to facing the sort of danger that GSKM appeared to pose.
Her husband and teenage daughter had adjusted in different ways to her new situation. Knowing Gizmo they had deliberately opted for the procedure, as opposed to Kip and all the others who had been transformed against their will. Pixel's degenerative wasting disease had already robbed her of the ability to walk and soon she would have been unable to eat or breathe unaided. Faced with that future, becoming a brain in jar seemed well worth the money and the risk. She had never been very interested in technology but now, with little choice, she had immersed herself in it. But she also made a rule for herself that she would spend as long as possible every day away from the screens. She interacted with her family as much as she ever had. Well, with certain exceptions. She kept up a brave face as much as possible but in truth she was struggling.
She turned at the sound of the door opening and her daughter Swan entered the room closely followed by Gizmo.
"He's agreed to help us," said Gizmo, "Marty called, they've just taken off."
"That's great news," she said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
Swan sat cross legged on the floor next to her mother, as was her custom. "So who is this guy, Giz, some kind of scientist?"
"He's a biochemist. He has all the knowledge we need to complete the new, longer lasting nutrition tanks. And he's rich enough that he can leave his job if he needs to and join us in the cause."
"The cause?" laughed Swan. "You make it sound like an old time religious cult."
"In a few weeks GSKM intends to kill me, Swan. In three years they will be coming for your mother. We're going to stop them. I'd call that a cause."
"But they don't know where you and mum are."
"That won't stop them for long. Anyway, Marty and Kip will be here this evening."
Once he had left the room, Swan turned towards her mother. "What isn't he telling us?"
"I don't know," said Pixel. "He'll tell is when the time is right, probably when Kip gets here."
"We're not going to like it, are we, mum?"
"No, I'm sure we're not. I know things have been quiet lately but I'm afraid all that is going to change soon. I've known Giz a long time, he never exaggerates about anything. I can tell that he senses danger for us, and I'm sure he's right. It'll be tough, but with a scientist who can free us from being reliant on GSKM then I'm sure we'll be able to cope with whatever happens."
She didn't like lying to her daughter but she couldn't admit, even to herself, that she wasn't sure of anything any longer.
*****
GSKM Office, England
"This is very worrying."
The second man rolled his eyes. "Of course it's fucking worrying, Hugo. It's an absolute fucking disaster."
"No need for that sort of language," said Hugo, maintaining his usual infuriating calm.
Robbie gritted his teeth. "Okay, the point is, what are we going to do about it? There's no way he found anything out in two weeks, that American bastard has obviously contacted him. Which means that he has found a way inside our system. That is unequivocally a grade A disaster and we need to act now!" He punched the table in frustration.
"This company has been around for a long time, Robbie, and we haven't maintained this level of success by getting angry, banging on tables and making instant, head strong decisions. I have already instructed the technical team to prioritise the tracing of all of Mr. Johnson's data since the second he was left alone after home delivery. If it is the case that he has gone to America then the matter is out of our hands. There was nothing wrong with our security procedures in this case, everything went according to plan, and no blame can be laid at our door. For the present there will be no more XSS procedures carried out anywhere in the world until the situation is resolved. In fact, New York feel that our client may have made things easier for all of us."
"You've spoken to New York today?" asked Robbie sulkily, desperately trying to keep his anger in check about being kept out of the loop yet again.
"Of course, it's standard procedure in any XSS complications to contact HQ immediately. They have been worried about this Gizmo character for years, and this recent development appears to confirm many of their suspicions. Feeling among some at HQ is that he should have been terminated after a brief initial trial period, perhaps even never allowed to return home in the first place. It is easy for somebody with his level of financial backing to disappear and we know he still has a multitude of contacts from his former military postings. There is an underlying opinion in New York that the whole XSS project may have to be liquidated."
Robbie stared open mouthed at his colleague for several seconds. "You can't be serious. All these years of work. We have contracts already signed, people are waiting for the product, peopl
e I personally would not want to get on the wrong side of."
"New York are aware of all that, Robbie," he replied, and Robbie winced at the patronising tone. Suddenly his anger turned to anxiety as he saw where this conversation was potentially going. If Project XSS was liquidated then there was every chance that he himself would also be a part of that liquidation. He wasn't high enough up in the pecking order to be offered immunity from blame, and there was zero chance in hell they would merely relieve him of his job; he would be relieved of his life as well. Full blown panic began coursing through his veins as he saw how bad the problem really was.
"We'll round them all up," he blurted out. "There are only three we can't locate, if we capture all the others then we can improve the product, some form of brain washing or computer feedback loop that makes them docile enough to follow commands without question. Eliminate all these problems of them going rogue on us."
Hugo subtly shook his head. "That is not an option, as you well know. Or at least, you should know if you are doing your job properly." Robbie turned pale at the last few words. Was it just an off hand comment, a figure of speech, or was his liquidation now an imminent reality, a decision that had already been taken at the highest level? He struggled to focus while the other man continued as if nothing especially serious was at stake. For him it isn't he thought bitterly.
"Our contractors are not interested in robots, they can get them anywhere. The entire point of this enterprise is that our product will have the best of both worlds, human ingenuity, imagination and adaptability combined with the capability of computers and digital devices. That is what our investors are paying for, not a bunch of electronic zombies."
"Okay," said Robbie slowly, "then we liquidate the three rebels. If they have contacted any of the others then it will be seen as a lesson to toe the line, if not then nothing has changed regarding the other remaining thirty five subjects."
"And how to you propose to find them exactly? They have access to military grade counter surveillance hardware and a huge collective budget, not to mention many friends in high places. If we go after them physically, how do you think that is going to end? Are you personally volunteering to hunt them down, Robbie? You would get your head blown off before you could blink."
"That's probably what's going to happen to me anyway," he thought sourly. "The only way out of this is to solve all the problems and keep the product intact. At least, until I can figure out a way to disappear and never be found."
"So then," he said aloud, "what happens next?"
"We carry on with our job at this end. You and I will go to Mr. Johnson's dwelling and clear out all the equipment, along with any evidence that he ever even heard of GSKM."
"Good," thought Robbie, "at least that's something I can't mess up. Maybe I can even spot something vital that nobody else does. Then I can go home and figure out how the fuck to get myself out of this mess."
*****
Robbie gratefully escaped upstairs as the technical team were examining the equipment that Kip had left behind. Any accomplice visiting him during the communication blackout could have spent a brief time up here. Robbie frantically began searching for anything he could find to prove his continuing usefulness to GSKM.
Spaces in the tiny layer of dust that had built up since Kip had last been upstairs betrayed the removal of two laptops, a large container of some kind and another object. If the conjecture they had just received from New York was correct then it made sense that he would have taken all his work and reference materials with him. Quaintly there was a shelf packed with old fashioned bound and printed books.
"Bloody scientists," Robbie muttered to himself. There were too many to go through now, he would take them back to his office and personally go through every single page, lest there be some kind of hidden message or pertinent clue. For now he concentrated on tearing the rest of the room to pieces as quickly as possible.
He stripped all the bedding and looked under the mattress, searched the edges of the carpet for any gaps where papers or hard drives could be secreted, all to no avail. He found various irrelevant items in the drawers of a large antique desk, then his eyes lit up and he breathed a sigh of relief. The small tablet powered up and, although it was password protected, he was able to break into it within two minutes by plugging the device into his own laptop. Searching through the browsing history he found all the email correspondence between Kip and GSKM. Good, at least this was one loose end he could personally tie up. He also found all the research Kip had done that had lead him to GSKM and the procedure; that may prove useful in some way. There was no sign of him communicating with any of the Americans or any indication that he had any idea about Project XSS or any of the deeper levels of GSKM. There was nothing to suggest that he knew that it had been GSKM that had sought him out rather than the other way around.
After another few minutes he had satisfied himself that nothing further was to be gleaned from the room so he moved on to the rest of the upper floor. He was just emerging from the dusty and entirely empty attic when Hugo came up the stairs.
"What have you found?"
"Two laptops and two boxes or containers of some sort have been taken. The only significant thing remaining is this." He handed Hugo the tablet and explained the contents. "I'd like to take all the old books away just in case. He may have made some notes about GSKM in the margin of something but there are hundreds of them, it'll take ages to go through them all."
"Okay, I'll arrange for transport and get some people to help you. Good work, Robbie."
He tried hard not to breath a sigh of relief or show that he had been concerned. Besides, he was far from out of the woods yet. Later, as he was riding back to the office with the boxes of books, he began to seriously plan his escape from both the country and the clutches of GSKM.
*****
Arizona ranch ten hours later
Kip had spent twenty minutes in the room with these people and yet he still hadn't got used to it. They all clearly sensed his discomfort and so the topic of conversation had not yet moved on to the main business at hand. He felt self conscious about his robotic voice but Marty was already at work in another room with dozens of hours of his public lectures, assimilating them into a new voice synthesiser that he assured him would be ready within a few hours. It was an odd sensation to see Gizmo and Pixel, who both looked exactly like him save for some different colouring on their chairs, speaking in what he assumed were, other than it coming through the medium of a speaker, their normal voices.
"My husband and Giz were in the military together," explained Pixel. "Our families became very close and they worked together in civilian life. Three years after Giz had the procedure I became very ill and, when nothing else worked, I came to accept that I had to either live in a jar or die."
"Hang on a minute," said Kip. "Something is confusing me. You knew that you were going to end up as a brain in a jar? I had no idea."
"For better or worse," said Gizmo, "I helped invent this procedure. It's a very long story and we don't have time to go into it all now. Suffice it to say that when I knew I was dying I quickly began looking for radical solutions. GSKM were offering a procedure that would replace all internal organs with mechanical substitutes, apart from the brain. However, the nature of my illness meant that, even with a brand new set of organs, I would still physically deteriorate to the point of total inertia. My central nervous system would cease to function and this would render my brain virtually useless. We worked out that the only way for me to survive at all was as a brain without a central nervous system. We did some research of our own and then took this to GSKM and paid them to carry out the procedure. It was time consuming and hugely risky but without it I would be brain dead within a few years so I had nothing to lose. Somehow it worked and here I am. I have since been in a constant battle with GSKM over who owns the rights to this procedure but they have carried on regardless and performed it almost two hundred times. We understand that in most cases p
eople were not told what would happen to them, and that the contracts are written up in such a confusing manner that it is almost impossible to work out what it all means. However, their legal department can point to certain sections and prove that they state, in obfuscating technical jargon, that the person would become a brain in a jar. If challenged in court they would say that the jargon was explained to the person beforehand and it's their word against yours. And, of course, they would also point out all the wonderful technology we were given and all the advantages of not having to sleep, eat, defecate, and living for several hundred years. We believe that a few of the deaths of people who had had the procedure were down to somebody from GSKM when they realised that they were about to face the negative publicity of a legal challenge. So far as we can tell, none of us have ever appeared in public and it seems that no more than a few dozen people in the whole world outside of GSKM know that we exist. Thus far, none of these people have gone public in any way. We don't know exactly how GSKM killed them but there is almost certainly more than one quick and simple method. Isolate us from our nutrition tanks and we would die of natural causes; remove our electronic interface and we would be helpless, we really would be nothing more than a brain in a jar, with no sight, hearing, speech... anything. Sorry, Kip, I'd hoped to ease you into this but, well - there you have it."
The room fell silent, and Kip noticed that Pixel's daughter was gripping the back of her mother's chair in a protective manner.
"This is all rather overwhelming," he said after a couple of minutes. "I hate to appear rude but I'd like to be alone for a while. I also understand that it is a matter of some urgency that we sort out the nutrition tank problem so, if you don't mind, I'd like to get on with that. I need to work on something I can control and let all this sink in before I hear any more." He felt that his cheeks were flushed, but of course they weren't.