Seven
Seated in the witness stand, I felt as if I'd just woken up. I gazed around at my rapt audience: Justice Myla Thyme, Chief Prosecutor Allanson, defendant's attorney trying to burn me away with his glare, and all the people in the balcony. My lightly bandaged shoulder caused me some discomfort, and my right hand kept straying there, trying to find something to scratch.
I cast a quick smile up to the spectator's area and cleared my throat. "So that's about it. As a witness I have rambled more than my share, but now everyone in this courtroom knows how I got to be down here, and how she got to be sitting in the gallery up there, looking down at me and smiling at last."
There was silence in the courtroom. The judge cleared her throat suggestively.
"Oh, how did I get back with her, right."
I rambled on. The light-headed euphoria of victory. That tiny branehook had finally given up the ghost, but Edgecomb, veteran of these crazy expeditions that he turned out to be, tracked us through the branesphere or whatever you'd call it. That backpack of his was worth carrying around after all. I'd linked repeatedly to Helena, trapping all the malware's attempts to hijack her again. It was exhausting. I'd almost given up hope when Edgecomb's hand gripped my shoulder. We were back at the Authority building after a couple of the tensest minutes of my life.
The Penal Authority's lab did a fine job detoxifying Miss Szychter's BAN. That was thanks to the encrypted, compressed files they found that Werth had stashed in my own head while I was his slave. I was a walking time-bomb and oblivious to it.
I looked around the courtroom with a scowl. Unwanted words fouled my mouth: "The Penal Authority has my... my grudging gratitude."
Across the courtroom a man sat very still inside a steel cage. He had eyes for no one but me, Ali Hamdani. He did not appear bitter or angry, but bored, except that a slight, ironic smile sat on the corner of his mouth. He was a well-built man of middle years, a smoothly shaven head complimenting his careful goatee. His modestly dark, slightly Asiatic face might have come from any continent, any race. He might have appeared handsome if his life story were not known.
The judge raised her eyebrow at me: Anything more before I shut you up? I gabbled onwards. "I know very well that the man over there might still reach me, however much you think you've de-fanged him, whichever secure brane you transport him into, whatever precautions I take, but that's just the price I pay for finally doing the right thing for once in my life. I may soon be confined to a small room because of my own past, but at least I'll have peace of mind."
Justice Myla Thyme nodded to someone, and I was escorted from the room.
They told me later that the accused was found guilty on all charges. Sentencing would take place the following day.
I was escorted from the court complex to an armour-plated van, to a secure facility goodness knows where, and to an electromagnetically shielded, doubly-locked, doubly-guarded cell with no windows. My first and only action was to request the installation of a viewing wall preloaded with wilderness landscapes. I was allowed no visitors, and no incoming calls were permitted.
I may have appeared calm and composed, but I insisted on wearing a pair of electrically insulated gloves at all times.
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About This Story
Future Shock: New technology can often appear to us in the guise of a new toy. So now we can shoot even more data about ourselves around the world to each other, ever faster, weaving more and more complex relationships between ourselves and our world. But what is this doing to our insides, our families, our communities?
Now imagine if you could connect your very mind to the internet. What then?
Ali Hamdani's Body Area Network may not be too far away from the shelves of your online stores. Even as we speak, brave scientists and development engineers are devising ways for people with physical disabilities to function in ways that they could not before. That is a great leap forwards. One way to do it is to implant microprocessors and circuits within the human body. And I wasn't the first to wonder whether a hacker might see this as a challenge, or even as an opportunity for mischief. Have a look at this paper from McAfee on the dangers of malware in networks that are integrated with the human body.
Then, in procession behind the incorrigible hacker, come the all-conquering hordes of marketing men, but also the politicians, probably some proselytisers of the religious and atheist varieties... basically, anyone with an agenda will want a piece of the neurological pie. Just look at the pop-ups you have to block on your browser.
If you want to see how mindware and bodyware is approaching reality, have a look at these Wikipedia articles just for starters:
Brain-Computer Interface
Neurohacking
Body Area Network
But I'm not anxious - yet - about Mindware Issues becoming science fact. The human brain is so complex, and the mind it contains is so elusive, that it may still be a long time before you'll need to subscribe to Norton Symantec in order to prevent some teenager in Moscow or Madrid from turning you into a zombie with a few keystrokes.
If you're also wondering where Brane Theory or Brane Cosmology come from, or whether it's just a spelling mistake, you can check it out on Wikipedia too. In this case, I've taken a huge and perhaps unjustifiable leap. I am 99% certain that we won't be seeing a practical application of String Theory for a good long time, if ever.
And maybe that's just as well.
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About The Author
Originally an engineering graduate from the UK keen to become an astronaut or at least a satellite designer, John Peace mysteriously ended up working in community development in the Middle East for some years. He recently settled with his Canadian wife and their two sons in Ontario, where they enjoy blueberries with Finnish pancakes, the great outdoors and saunas, preferably in that order. He confesses that he does not want to upload his mind onto a computer or freeze his brain or body upon death. He claims he has a better offer.
He drip-feeds a blog at https://johnmpeace.blogspot.com/ .
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Cover Art Credits
Cover picture arranged by John Peace (c) 2012. Contributing images by Renjith Krishnan, Piyaphon, Digitalart, Jannoon028, Chanpipat and Victor Habbick at www.freedigitalphotos.net.
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