Author's Introduction
I felt this story would work well with the characters I introduced in the Sally series. This may or may not be the characters' future in any specific fictional universe but can be considered one of their futures in any of the many alternate fictional universes.
In other words: I don't guarantee the
Sally Summer of Sex
series will not contradict the future depicted here.
Home for the Holidays
Sally Czarwitz relaxed as the limo drove her from the airport. She cradled the small box in her lap that represented many years of work. It had sprung from her graduate work on the workings of the brain and how it might be replicated using the neural net hardware developed by another graduate student.
Neural nets had been around for some time but they were impossible to program reliably. They had to be "trained" just like a human child and the results were unpredictable. The same training would produce different results with every device. Not only that, but training for complicated tasks took a long time. Attempts to build neural networks that could be trained and then have the results of the training copied into other neural nets had also been unsuccessful except for the simplest of neural nets.
Sally had realized that the potential for neural nets was not in making an artificial substitute for human brains but in making a supplement for the human brain. After getting their doctorates, she and Herman Chang, who had designed the quick learning, high capacity, micro neural network she had used in her research, started a company. They enlisted a researcher from another university, Sahira Patil with whom they had been in contact. She had been working on the ability of carbon nanotubes to grow into networks under the influence of electronic stimuli.
Sally had discovered that Herman's neural net along with Sahira's nanotubes could be implanted into brains. The neural net would pick up impulses from the brain through the nanotubes and learn about the brain in which it was embedded. Over time, it could grow the nanotubes using carbon from blood sugars and interact with the brain. It could somehow supply capabilities that the brain lacked.
Experiments with animals had showed that the effects were almost uniformly positive, though completely unpredictable. Sometimes an animal would show an ability to do simple arithmetic. other times it would become adept at recognizing certain kinds of patterns. They could influence the ability somewhat by the kind of test they subjected the animals to: if the animals were constantly tested with mazes, they usually became much better at running mazes.
It had been difficult getting approval to do human tests and then getting people to be involved. Even though the neural net device itself could be removed, the nanotubes invaded much of the brain tissue and could not be removed. There was evidence that the animal brains came to rely on the device and removing it reduced the animals brain function below that before the neural net was inserted.
The device powered itself using electric voltage differentials in the brain so there was no battery problem. Neural nets also tended to be holographic and self repairing. A failure in one place didn't tend to cause device malfunction. Even so, there was a concern about what might happen if the device failed.
Human testing came with severe restrictions and no medical testing company would touch it. They did manage to get a company to at least analyze the medical tests once they absolved them of any liability.
The company founders volunteered to be test subjects and the onerous disclaimers and liability release legalities meant that most of the initial subjects were friends and family. The fact that the subjects had a vested interest in success meant the test results were compromised but they were successful in getting a better sample of subjects for subsequent tests. Success meant that they had plenty of venture capital and they fully expected to have neural networks available for general use by the end of next year.
There had been two cases where test subjects had experienced sudden brain related difficulties that were believed to be due to problems with the device. In both cases the devices were replaced and within a year the subjects were back to their original level of capability. The theory was that the new device quickly learned how to use the nanotube pathways grown by the previous device.
The limo pulled in front of the Petersen residence. Sally always stayed here with Kyle rather than her parents. She visited Kyle frequently.
She had met Kyle and his kids just after high school. His wife, Jill, had died a year before. He was 13 years older than she but they had really hit it off, sexually and personally. In addition his three children had taken a liking to Sally. They had remained good friends and lovers. Kyle had so far proposed to her three times: when she graduated with her bachelor's degree, when she completed her doctorate, and when the successful results of the initial neural net testing had been announced. She had turned him down but left the door open for the future. The first time she had expected, even encouraged, him to move on and find someone else but he hadn't.
Kyle had been one of the initial volunteers for the neural net and showed one of the most successful results. Something about the net seemed to really increase his business acumen. He was the owner of three small, struggling sporting goods stores. After a year of having the net implanted the sporting good business took off and he quickly expanded from the three local stores to a successful nationwide chain. His story was instrumental in getting people to pay attention to the technology and popular demand had caused congress to put pressure on the FDA to relax the testing requirements.
Kyle answered the door and after a big kiss in greeting went to bring in her luggage. His 18 year old daughter, Charli, was also there to greet Sally. "What's that?" she asked indicating the box Sally had carefully guarded since leaving her office.
"A special surprise for your father."
"Anything to do with the Neurotron?" Charli used the popular name for the neural net product. Ever since the tests began and Kyle had been implanted she had wanted one too but there was no approval for anyone under 24 to join the test. Now there was a lot of pressure to open up testing to children from infancy on. All parents wanted smarter kids.
"Yes, but only for your dad."
"You too, I bet."
"Yes, me too."
The Neurolink
When Kyle came in with the luggage, Charli informed him, "Sally brought a surprise, a neurotron surprise, right, Sally?"
"Yes, I have a surprise."
"What is it? Now that Dad's here you can tell us."
"Well, I had expected to only tell your dad but it's not something we can hide."
She went to the couch and sat down. Charli sat next to her and Kyle sat in the easy chair across from the couch.
The box contained two small, plain gray caps.
"Beanies?" Charli said.
"More accurately, skull caps."
Sally held one up and explained. "For the initial trial we thought that external skull caps would be better than implants. What they are is neural net transmitter-receiver communication devices."
"You guys may be smart but pretty dumb at coming up with names, " 'Neural net nano carbon neurological enhancement mechanism', geez! '
Neurotron
!' -- much better. What does this neuro transmit whatever thingy do?""
Well, it's made of carbon nanotubes intertwined in the fabric. Here," she pointed out a slightly different textured spot in the middle, "is another neuro net device powered by an embedded battery."
"What does it
DO
?" Charli asked again.
The cap acts as an antenna. Through the antenna the chip can both pick up signals from a neural net, nano ..." she paused. "From a 'Neurotron' embedded in the scalp it's sitting on. Then, using the same antenna it sends out a signal that can be received by the other cap and then transmitted to the," another pause. "To the neurotron in the scalp of the person wearing the other cap."
"It allows the Neurotrons to communicate with each other?" Kyle asked.
"Yes, exactly."
"Mind reading!" Charli said.
"Well, no. Well, we don't know exactly. In our animal tests we found it allowed animals with a Neurotron enhanced skill set to relay that skill to the other animals. For example a rat that was neurotron enhanced to run mazes could interact with a rat with a completely different skill set so it also was good at running mazes."
"Mind Reading," Charli decided.
"I don't think so," Sally responded. "We need to try some human subjects to determine whether there is something like mind reading or if it's entirely subconscious."
"So I guess we're the guinea pigs." Kyle concluded.
"Yes. These are the first two devices made for humans. We found that for the best effect the test animals needed to have had the Neurotron for some time and it was best if they had some kind of attachment like being mates or at least sharing a cage for a long time. Since these are external devices and we've observed no ill effects from using them and then removing them we decided we can start some human trials without going through any rigorous approval or testing procedure. Depending on how these go, we'll do more formal testing."
She handed one cap to Kyle, "It seems to take a day or two of constant wearing within communication distance of each other for the embedded neural net devices to learn how to communicate." She put the other cap on her head.
"Communication distance?"
"Low power, optimized for transmission bandwidth. Power falls off by half every 5 meters. Communication beyond 20 meters is probably ineffective."
Kyle put on his cap and screwed up his face. Then he turned to Charli, "Nope can't make out a single one of Sally's thoughts. Oh wait, she wants to have sex."
"Yeah like that's mind reading," was Charli's response.
"The evidence is that it will take a day or two in close proximity for the devices to learn to communicate."
"I'll go along with the close proximity," Kyle responded moving over to the couch next to Sally. He kissed her while caressing her back."
"Geez! You guys are hopeless, get a room!" Charli kidded.
"Already have a perfectly good one upstairs," her father told her, looking hopefully at Sally.
"Want to play a game?" Sally proposedcin response to his obvious come-on.
"Yeah you guys with your Neurotron mind meld gadget will collude to beat me."
