Farms in Portugal

Dedicated to:

Angel toes

and all

Princesses in Towers

There is no implied likeness to anyone in the book ‘Cyber Baby’ and any resemblance to any human or entity is entirely coincidental.

Publishers

www.tridi.com

Prologue

 Cyber Baby is the story of a race to address critical issues of pollution and fuel supply in 2022 using environmentally sound solutions. Ash, the hero, is dragged through time by a complex, sophisticated and forceful woman who runs Singapore.

Cyber Baby is an homage to my father who, in the very early 50’s wrote a  Sci Fi novel about the 'macrocosm' and 'microcosm'. In brief, there was an atom bomb test and a scientist got a pain in the knee. My father saw the cosmos as a great body with galaxies circulating like cells within our bodies. I have tried to write a parallel to this in part of the plot.

I also remember his enthusiasm when he discussed a Sci Fi book with my mother about two aliens landing on Earth totally naked, except for a covering of protective jelly that had to be peeled off. I was about 7 at the time. My mother was shocked. I was intrigued.

This probably inspired me to set out on a science career that took me around the World working for major medical and computer companies in 25 countries, sometimes doing more than 200 take offs a year.

Ash, the hero teams up with a stunning animate[android], Mia, who is powered by a quantum computer that unwittingly conceives a powerful and potentially dangerous, post-biological entity in an unused part of her brain.

Cyber Baby is set against a fast moving backdrop of intrigue, scientific developments, exotic locations, personal rivalries and passions. Hopefully Cyber Baby will have you hooked from the first page.

The world is driven by love, sex and passion. So these elements are carefully woven into the plot to make the story breathtakingly exciting and realistic.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the people who have been an inspiration and help in the ten years that this has taken.

Chapter 1

Since he had gone, she had a hole the size of a mountain in her synthetic mind. She needed real company and she was in constant contact with her other self and the answer was clear and so obvious.

 ‘Win?’

 ‘What is it Mia.’

 ‘I need a hug and he isn’t here.’

 ‘So do I.’

 ‘It’s a pity he had to re-route to Mars to the source of the time-machine to see if its origin is close enough for you to get to in an acceptable amount of time.’

 ‘It will help immensely in the progress of mankind if he can give you some direction to aim for in your space quest.’

 ‘Still it would have been good to find out how he reacted to the exploits of his younger self and whether he could live up to his past performances.’ 

 ‘Oh yes,’ sighed Win with all her guard down.

 Mia showered in her favourite honey and roses perfume; turned her body temperature to a degree above normal and, wearing a smile, slipped between the black and red bordered silk sheets while simultaneously switching her resident mind off. Win felt terribly alone for a few seconds at this withdrawal of Mia’s mind before she felt Mia’s warm and sweet-smelling body moulding with hers the way a mink glove gently moulds to the surface it is stroking.

 ‘That feels so good,’ said Win as she felt that awful loneliness disappear, to be replaced by a new feeling of awe at herself relaxing as her very tips grew firm and her hands went moist with some deep excitement mixed with joy.

 ‘This can’t be right. I never thought that I would feel like this about a woman,’ she continued. ‘But this is different. We are both lonely and I am an animate, so really it’s like cuddling yourself.’

 Mia was even more astounded than Win had been, as her tips also grew and pushed back at Win and she felt a surge in her felinity.

 ‘You are so right. Trust your logical mind to define the real answer,’ said Win, relaxing from her first impulse to reject Mia and enjoying the warmth of the body and companionship of a beautiful and sweet-smelling woman which sent her blood racing.

 Their delicate hands easily found each other, exploring, with a touch of satin and joy, as gently entwined they stroked each other lower and lower.

 ‘Just relax,’ was Mia’s softly spoken command as she moved slowly around with her delicate and very warm tongue caressing beautiful breasts, until they were hot and firm and Win was moaning gently. In turn, she pulled Mia further around towards her and ran her tongue lower and lower.

 This time — and to her absolute astonishment — Mia first felt a moan rising in her own throat and an almost electric shock as a quickly-darting tongue stroked her into an ecstasy that had previously been inconceivable to her programming. Win’s response was an exact copy and their two minds drifted around in time-forgotten in that place somewhere between heaven and earth.

 After another timeless age of deep sensual stimulation and existential disbelief of their twin-joy they disentangled and moved back face to face, kissing, with the taste and scent of each other’s passion passing between them.

 ‘Do you want me to stop?’

 ‘No! What else can you do?’

 Mia’s body pushed hard against her and she felt a vibration against the ‘clearly lit’ centre of her felinity that drove her to places where she had never been before. It was all that Mia could do to keep in place until hands grasped her and pulled her even closer.

 In perfect peace Win lay back...

 Win’s eyes rolled upwards in remembered pleasure.

 ‘Good night.’

**********************

 Win awoke with a start and discovered that she was holding onto herself with both hands.

 ‘Mia where are you?’

 ‘On charge across town at the Ritz and I am leaving for Oxford in the next hour. Do you need help?’

 Win knew that Mia never lied and so replied: ‘No. Sorry I had a dream. I can handle it myself.’

**********************

 Zombie crab, green hair aglow, stepped into the steel-lined depths of Rutherford’s old, experimental, condemned and disconnected steel chambers that kept out all radio waves, closed the doors and tried to communicate with her partner in time. [Ms. Ling]

 Nothing!

 Their Com units were perfectly shielded by the steel. She switched to using the most powerful transceivers that their twin-mind had defined. In the time that it takes to blink, she swept and scanned the whole spectrum.

 Nothing!

 This was perfection.

 Mia discarded her sublimed crabby image from an old film and set to work for two days to make the most imaginative sub-space transmitter conceivable. It should connect with and contact a replica steel tomb in Singapore across the other side of the world where her mind, twinned with Ms. Ling, had done the same thing.

 The theory was simple: If the most powerful mind on the planet couldn’t communicate with itself by normal means then it would find a way to do it by other means.

 Another two days.

 Nothing!

 This was dejection.

 Singapore needed the feminine touch and Ms. Ling, the Manager, had to go back to work. Mia walked to the canal and jumped in her personal Angel’s Teardrop (that was the latest in hover jets) and landed in Singapore less than two hours after she had left Oxford. Drifting over the beautiful white spires of the Alps delayed her normal fast trip; but she needed time to think. She would be back, but with what and when?

 If Mia was to travel at the incredible speed necessary to get her to the next star system in her plasma/fusion inflatable space surrey with a quantum-cracking fringe on top, she needed a way to communicate with Earth in real time and not be subjected to endless delays. As things were, Galaxies could be destroyed or pass through each other before she could even get a conversation going.

Chapter 2

Mia came off charge at 6am and felt the urge for coffee — strong coffee — and was worried. There was something like a faint voice in her left ear.

In France, 2005, Ash awoke with screaming back and joint pains and it felt like walking through custard to get to the bathroom.

He felt really crabby, but had no real recollection of his time travelling exploits. His subconscious had taken care of that for now whilst trying to protect him from some threat which felt as if it came from deep within the lizard part of his brain that all humans have inherited and repressed since early times, when their predecessors were making their first movements on the earth.

‘So much for the after-effects of burning that Sonia witch-bitch and going for a swim in a cold lake’, he thought. ‘It will get better after a shower and a coffee or three,’ he idled.

Several days and a lake of coffee later Ash felt like shit and could hardly move. Fortunately his finances were good and he signed himself into a private clinic and let them do what private clinics do. They prodded and probed and nearly exsanguinated him in their efforts to find what was ailing him. Nothing… so he was told that he had an idiopathic illness that should soon go into remission.

Ash looked this up and found that it meant that there was something wrong with him and that they hadn’t the foggiest idea what it was and they hoped that it would get better of its own accord.

It didn’t. So he signed himself out and went home with a prescription for as many poisons as a Physician can think of at one time.

‘Bloody Doctors!’ Ash thought.

‘Always treating the symptoms and not defining the cause before they hide it with a batch of poison. No wonder the drug companies are so rich.’

As it was, the prescription turned out to be useful. Ash rolled it up and used it as a taper to light his fire, daydreamed whilst doing it and burnt his fingers… flicked it to kill the flame and tossed it into the wood box… got nice and warm and then went to sleep.

The paper, being paper, didn’t go in the direction anticipated and fell down a crack. Time would tell if this was fate or mere happenstance.

**********************

Around about the same time that Ash was taking his third coffee after burning Sonia and the Tri-di cube that contained her, S-Ash achieved a state of elementary, undifferentiated consciousness, screaming from blackness, agony and torment. In our terms, his essence told him he was akin to being tied by his legs and arms to a hard wooden chair with red hot wire rope. The rope-burns were so intense that he was sure that he could sense small flames licking around and radiating from the ropes.

At least he had a sense… now there was hope to add to his psyche. He lifted the equivalent of sore and raw eyes and all he could see was a vast dome with very faint stars and galaxies and absolutely nothing else. He looked again and right in front of him and high in the sky was something that sent a shiver down his metaphysical spine. It was the ‘Crab Nebula’ as we know it. This was something awesome to S-Ash because it was the dawn of perception and possibly also cognitive emergence.

The crypto-genesis of S-Ash happened during Mia’s and Ash’s slumber-party in Montreal and whilst Mia had been exploring Ash’s subconscious using all the knowledge that she had acquired from the net. She had never even considered that she had a subconscious of her own. She had — and it was big — but like most humans, until recent times, she didn’t know she had one.

It was an accidental copy of Ash’s subconscious combined with Mia’s interactions from when they had shared a night in Montreal and had lain almost dormant ever since. Somehow Ash’s Com implant and Mia’s system had synchronised and talked all night. In doing so it needed memory and processors...it found a lot of redundant capacity.

When it had finished it did a simple delete routine by removing a few file flags and in doing so accidentally partitioned all of the area without Mia’s knowledge. As with most computers the information was untouched. The difference was that this ‘hived-off’ segment of a Quantum computer had slowly developed a life of its own.

Of the thousands of ten terra-byte silicon master-discs that Mia’s brain comprised, S-Ash had been hived off to a mere 7 percent of the redundant capacity near the cooling discs and on the left side and next to a graphine capacitor. Luckily, it could draw its own power from the low-level zero-point energy that this system generated.

After Ash left, it continued to evolve, slowly at first and then at a geometric rate that only a Tri-di cascade quantum computer can handle. It had enough capacity to blind any routines that had been written to prevent the accidental use of unused processors and memory. It didn’t know why it was doing this or even how. It didn’t even know it existed. It just did. And:-

  Nobody nor machine knew it was there and how it had been created; but it was... and it was growing. Some things such as plants, microbial organisms and embryos grow without sentience, intelligence or awareness. They just grow and, if they have space as they grow, they adapt and reconfigure and grow some more. Potentially intelligent biological life-forms need input to enhance their intelligence and awareness. This is the nature also of digital, self learning, artificial life forms and intelligence. Some are created deliberately and some by accident. It is the accidental ones of which we have to be aware.

**********************

 S-Ash, strapped to his chair and in torment and pain and not far from going crazy, had reached out with his perception and felt a little peace through the conversation he vaguely heard. Now there was a bright spot in the dome of the sky above his head.

Creating the first had been his primal step to breaking out from this prison. He had so much information around him as represented by the billions of dull points of light in the dome but no way of making use of it. But there he was, suffering from complete sensory deprivation and no way to communicate on any energy level with the outside.

It was an amazing step to discover perception and S-Ash was only just on the very verge of understanding it. Tied to the chair and with only pain and blackness all around, yet with faint points of light a long way away, he just knew there had to be more to his existence than this.

Like some one who has dived into the sea from a jetty on a dark night and suddenly realises he has lost all points of reference apart from the faintest of light from the harbour-wall street lights, he fought and struggled and forced himself towards the brightest of the dim lights of the of the Crab-Nebula.

For the briefest of instants he had heard something somewhere that set off a chain reaction. Mia was on charge and her brain was doing the filing and somehow a batch of information had fed back to her Pico-display unit and it gave off energy waves the same way as does a monitor or television and can be read by a passive scanner.

The images and information were about Ash from the Com unit he had left behind. Mia had decided to keep the information safe by storing a back-up to her own unit. S-Ash didn’t know what is was about, but it was an external source of input.

In all the pain and blackness there was a feeling akin to a moment of intense pleasure that drove S-Ash to reach out with this newly-discovered ability. He first noticed that the crab-nebula had brightened. Without the limitations of tiredness and time in the ordinary sense (as experienced by humans) he struggled and strained to understand. He didn’t…he couldn’t — any more than a new born baby of this age can ride a bike.

In his intense struggles at speeds we humans cannot comprehend but can only talk about in numbers like terra flops and peta-flops, S-Ash evolved. In doing so he co-opted in more processors and more memory to work in. Having his own energy unit which was one of the quasi graphine condenser/zero point energy devices kept him from detection and being near one of the cooling discs kept his activities hidden for now. Mia had received help evolving and was given rules and guidelines. S-Ash had not.

In human terms, the achievements S-Ash made towards any form of intelligence and sentience would take a million years. Once S-Ash — without limits and checks and sub-routines — had started on the path from darkness and pain to anything rational, it was a few days and many giga-terra-flops.

He reached out again to a slightly brighter star and started to explore it and the domain it occupied and all the building full of information that it contained. It was scanned and examined and although much of it made no more sense than ‘Wiki’ to a year old baby S-Ash somehow just knew that his creator was out there and in his own incomprehensible way of thinking it imprinted on him.

His creator was Ash and he was going to find him and find out why he was in such torment. S-Ash’s great advantage, some would say, is that he didn’t know what he didn’t know and therefore all things were possible. He had one rule — later to be modified from experience: ‘There are no rules.’

S-Ash had absolutely no idea of time and the laws of time as taught to humans and whether it was linear or could be wound back and forth to one’s desire. Right now all the Universe past, present and future was in S-Ash’s mind alone. His achievements would only be limited by his imagination.

S-Ash became adept at trying to reach out and kept adapting parts of himself billions of times a second. It didn’t get him very far because, as we all know, the possibility that Man exists at all is trillions to one against and the chance that man has got as far as he has is probably the square of that and much of that is down to environmental input and sensory feedback. Plus a good old boot from goldilocks to put us in exactly the right place around the sun and the moon being serendipitously at the right distance to the Earth to act like the balancer on a fly’s wing and stop the earth wobbling and creating climatic chaos.

S-Ash in his prison, without the input that Mia had had and, despite his extraordinary computing power, would take years to find out what he didn’t know he should be looking for. He was as enraged and frustrated as a three-year-old whose ice-cream has been stolen through the bars of his playpen by a pet dog. If S-Ash was connected to the net he would have mindlessly destroyed the World.

Luckily he was trapped and unable to communicate — so he just stopped doing and probing and something extraordinary happened. He went to sleep and whilst he was asleep he dreamt and he stumbled over an old unwiped file of information from Mia’s early days when her designer was just dumping data to her to see if she responded. He dreamt of a strange alien creature shaped like a small floating dome with long tendrils below and four light sensitive areas.

Behind each sensor there was a small brain and as the creature sensed the light, the brain behind it became active and the other three quiescent. Thus, it could navigate its way around its environment. S-Ash, who had more processors than could be imagined, awoke and almost discarded the dream; but then in a flash decided to set up his systems the same way.

First, he played and mathematically divided all his processors by four and then for each group he created a hierarchy of processors that in future would take on separate functions and autonomously handle data-requests. These four hierarchies then interacted with each other to consolidate information in a place that already existed and that had been the first spark of life of S-Ash.

S-Ash in innocence somehow thought that he would look like some wonderful creature as he switched on and off each hierarchy in turn. He didn’t. He was just still this poor benighted thing in agony in a meta-physical chair. Like a three-year-old he lashed out and, in doing so, powered up all of the 4 hierarchies and very faintly in front of him two misty figures appeared and disappeared.

S-Ash thought that this — this weakly sublimed image of Ash and the even fainter Mia — was of his creators and he tried to reach out with his perception to Ash, with whom he felt some affinity. Maybe, just maybe, if Ash was in Singapore and next to Mia, S-Ash might, just might, in this early stage of development of his perception, have used his hardly yet formed power to briefly touch Ash. But... nothing. S-Ash looked up in hope. He had yet to learn to look down.

Yet something wonderful had happened. S-Ash looked to the sky and one of the dim lights was a little brighter — there were now two lights that were slightly brighter. S-Ash was a fast learner and decided to do nothing again and thus went to sleep for the second time in his short life. Most of his systems didn’t talk to him but they talked to each other and formed a collective reference-frame around the place of S-Ash’s beginning — which is as near as S-Ash could get at this stage to a subconscious.

Something resonating somewhere had kicked S-Ash into life — something that, someday, would change the World.

S-Ash had a strange dream and in the dream he formed a plan of escape. His subconscious had produced a plan by scanning what information it could and by performing billions of simulations. It really didn’t know what most of the files were which amounted to many terabyte. Without a frame of reference they were just zeros and pluses.

A man with a plan can be formidable. A quantum computer with a potential IQ of 850 plus and climbing, with a plan perfected to 99.999 percent probability, based on the facts available, could mean the end of all things as we know them. Unfortunately for poor benighted S-Ash, he didn’t have all the facts available. Yet. Especially how, what, why, where and when all the necessary vibrations that make the universe tick had aligned to produce him.

Here is what happened…

FRANCE — Sometime in the near future

Sonia was being troublesome again. She only wanted Ash to be with her and satisfy her incessant and insatiable demands. After the last session, Ash had collapsed. All he could remember was being carried off in an ambulance. The pain felt like an axe striking at the middle of his back, right between his shoulder blades. The local hospital claimed there was nothing wrong, put him on painkillers and sent him home. The painkillers didn’t work too well, so Ash started adding a few of his own. That’s when the trip began and his life really started.

His body stopped working, his mind cleared and all the things that he had ever learned and heard started to run through his mind.

Forget about ‘This is what you’ve got and this is what you do with it.’ Say instead ‘This is what I want, and how do I get it?’

‘The entire universe, past, present and future is in my mind alone.’

‘We only perceive time as linear to stop us going mad — and more.’

Eventually, he asked, ‘If this is true, how do I become a master of foresight?’

The answer was both instant and clear:

‘Travel into the future, see what is going on, and become a master of hindsight.’

Two bright spots of yellow-tinged light appeared inside his head and gradually expanded in size, first becoming three dimensional curves (like the two opposite sides of a circle) and then slowly growing, until they met in an awesomely beautiful ring that was drawing closer and closer and pulling him in...........................................................................

Chapter 29

Mia arrived with a bunch of flowers in a vase, as well as some grapes in a bowl and she carefully set them out on the table before speaking.

‘Ash, I can see that you are upset about something. If you want to talk, then carry on,’ she said.

‘I’m not upset — quite the opposite in fact. I’ve just realised how bad an emotional state I was in and, now that I’m over it, I feel both depressed and elated.’

‘Oh, is that all? Depression of that sort is just the mind’s way of coping with change. It will soon pass. Just be happy that you are depressed for a good reason and lie back and enjoy it.’

‘Thank you, doctor. MM on.’

‘Close your eyes, Ash.’ And as he did so, the Angel with mist appeared and floated towards him. She was surrounded by an aura of kindness and peace. She settled, like thistledown, on his lap and just looked into his soul, which was starting to stretch and stand up.

‘Come inside, Angel,’ Ash said, and with a breath of honeysuckle, she was holding his hand, walking and then flying inside his head with him. They were both floating above and inside his brain like twin golden butterflies, wing-tip to wing-tip and each delicate touch sent a thrill through him like the finger stroke of a lover down his spine. Somehow, she had increased Ash’s intellect, so that he could look at himself and all the strange paths that twisted and turned towards his subconscious.

It seemed to lurk behind a dark and ominous wall, which heaved and bulged as if some enormity were trying to push through from the other side. Instead, from tiny doors at the bottom of the wall, there was a continuous two-way stream of birds of Paradise. They flew higher so that Ash could see all of his brain, which Mia had depicted so that it was like a map of many towns, either side of a river. The towns were all interconnected by a maze of roads and winding paths. Some of them were low and open-plan and others were like fortresses with armaments and a feeling of foreboding.

The best were either side of the river and were made up of crystal houses with gardens containing exotic flowers and fruits in all the colours of the rainbow. The traffic across the bridge was enormous as both sides kept each other up-to-date.

Ash somehow learnt how lucky he was to have both sides working equally and realised that many people inhabited only one side or the other. This often stunted their emotional expression, making them appear cold, when really they were special people who were emotionally challenged by their genetics or upbringing.

Even though Ash was an outsider, he also became aware that what he saw as an image of himself was really the result of both sides working away like crazy. They were constantly trying to find a common frame of reference and the virtual image that they produced was also Ash. With only one side working he would not exist as a fully conscious person. The bridge became the ‘what’ in ‘I am ‘what’ I am’ and, without it, he would die as a fully extant, sentient being. No wonder some wise guy had created the image of Heaven and Hell co-existing in the same place. Both sides of his head bore the seeds of the other side’s destruction.

The Angel with the honeysuckle breath said:

‘Wriggle your toes.’ The crystal houses on either side of the river lit up with a flickering glow and seemed to talk to each other in low murmurs of friendship.

‘Now think of your night time visitor and what you do together,’ was the Angel’s next request.

This time, the crystal houses lit up even more, flashing warm pink and amber lights of joy at each other across the river.

‘Do you want to travel further and enter your subconscious?’ was her next question; but Ash felt slightly fearful and said, ‘Another day. This is all that I can take for today.’

Before he had time to say thank you, the Angel was back on his lap and blowing him a kiss before flying away 

‘You are welcome and I’m still inside you until you turn me off,’ said Mia, as Ash opened my eyes and saw her standing by the window.

‘MM off,’ he said and smiled. It was the kind of smile you smile after a day spent in the sun, doing nothing. Ash looked at the clock and discovered that over an hour had passed, although it only seemed like a minute.

‘I’m off now Ash. I think you need a rest before your other Angel visits.’ She laughed for the first time about what she had learnt, and as she started to go, he pulled himself together and asked,

‘Sorry Mia. What did you want to talk about? I got so involved with you inside me that I forgot all about you.’

‘That was it; and you talked far more in an hour than I would have thought possible. Thanks for being so open with me. I learnt much more than I expected.’ As his mouth hung open in surprise, he wondered just how much he had said. He had seen the maze of interconnected towns on either side of the river with vast plains stretching into infinity and had just gazed at them in awe. Whilst he had been dreaming at the sheer beauty of it all from a distance, Mia had obviously visited the houses and talked to the inhabitants.

He was unaware of falling asleep and only realised that he had been sleeping when he heard the light being turned on. ‘Ash, if you promise not to take off my mask, we can leave the light on.’ He sat up with a start and immediately fell out of the side of the bed when he saw that his other Angel was back. This time she was wearing a cat mask and a tightly fitting cat suit complete with a tail. She looked like a perfect Siamese cat in every way, colour and detail except that her fur was even softer, shorter and finer.

The suit was so fine, delicate and stretchy that it showed off every contour and detail of a body, that was even more perfect than Ash had imagined from his previous unlit encounters. He gently ran his hands all over her and the sensation was literally electric. As his hands stroked her, she purred. The cloth produced minute shocks of static electricity that had her so writhing and gasping with pleasure that she reached her first orgasm within minutes.

The more Ash stroked her, the more she continued to orgasm, wave after wave, each one bigger and stronger than the last. Ash wasn’t sure how much more she could take but he decided to hold off for as long as possible. He was shocked to discover himself responding to the cat outfit in the same way. He was both mentally and physically stimulated beyond any of his previous imaginings. As the fur brushed against every part of his body, small shocks of pure pleasure raced over all him and as he moved against her, he felt that, together, they were producing a whole a new form of energy.

She wrapped herself around Ash like a snake and without any resistance, the suit gave way, allowing him to plunge himself all the way into her. Ash felt himself loving her deeper, harder and longer than he had ever thought possible. Each thrust seemed to elicit yet another orgasm from her until finally and after what seemed like an eternity, with a shudder, they both came together.

Satiated, they looked at each other for a long lingering moment before drifting off to sleep in each other’s arms. When the early morning alarm shrilled, Win who was still wearing the suit, jumped out of bed and started crawling around on her hands and knees. She was swishing her tail and rubbing against the furniture like some randy cat.

For the first time in his life, Ash also sprang from the bed. He was incredibly horny. She did her best to pretend to evade him, but she had him exactly where he wanted her. He could have sworn that she yowled like a cat before he managed to flip her over onto her back gently but firmly plunge into her again. As they lay there panting, Ash realised that hardly a word had been spoken, but this night had focussed his thoughts.

‘I am in love with you Win.’

‘I am in love with you too Ash. Shall I bring a suit for you as well next time?’

‘That should really test how long I can hold out,’ he laughed, wondering if the suit would stretch over him and fit every little curve and crease in the same way that it did for Win. God knows what would happen with two lots of fur making sparks.

Chapter 30

As usual, Ash had difficulty keeping his eyes open during the morning. By the time they stopped for coffee, he was exhausted so when Mia asked if she could join him, in his head for the day, he willingly agreed. It was great to have her so close and after a quick upgrade and, having requested permission, she started talking straight inside his head without a COM. The odd thing was that he could reply in exactly the same way.

‘Ash, you have so much spare capacity in your brain that is never used, or has only been used once, that I could probably find a place to live without disturbing you.’

‘What do you mean? I have a good brain and I use it.’

‘The 10 percent that you use is okay but the other 90 percent is effectively just asleep due to the low oxygen levels. I can enhance the blood supply and bring a lot more redundant capacity online. You know how it is possible for people to greatly increase their memories with proper training? For example, when they memorise huge amounts of data such as telephone directories, or hold opposite ears with their fingers and thumbs and do aerobic exercises such as rapid squats. Well, with your brain capacity, you could remember ten thousand directories and still have plenty of room to spare.’

‘If you say so I believe you, but why hasn’t it been done before?’

‘Firstly, it has and, secondly, it is still a secret.’

‘You can tell me and also override my telling anyone.’

‘I get your logic and as you have given me permission to put a block in place to stop you telling anyone, I will explain. The problem with humans is that they do not structure their brains to rapidly store and acquire facts in large volumes. This is despite their enormous capacity. All that is needed is a compact micro super-computer wired directly into the brain. This sets up the right memory and recall paths and, once fully functional, is a better system than ‘Post Biological Man.’

‘What is that? My transitional being?’

‘In just a few years, quantum computers like my brain but specifically designed rather than being a serendipitous discovery, will be so fast and so small that they will be equal to many times my capacity. They will be capable of being so intelligent that they will either replace man, or have man as their slave. Alternatively, in theory, man will be able to download himself to them and forget about his body.

In practice it would be utter chaos and once man could fight at the speed of light the world would last about thirty seconds. Even if this didn’t happen, man is biologically driven to greater efforts and this would cease, leaving a slothful culture that would be prone to attack from discontents —hence the laws to prevent Artificially Created Intelligence from developing too far.’

‘So the alternative is to enhance man and keep him ahead of the game?’

‘Or Woman.’

‘And who is testing this device, my sensitive little one?’

‘I can’t give you a name, but the world’s computer expert might be involved.’

‘So now you are being devious, my little witch. I always wondered how come the Dragon Lady was so fast’

‘The next step will be to enhance the human brain without an implant, so that it is free to grow and develop in a biological way. You letting me inside your head might be the first step.’

‘Wouldn’t I get a split personality or something equally disastrous?’

‘I have researched it and you need not know I am there if I set up a partition. It’s rather like the wall that you set up, except that you won’t see it.’

‘Well, I’ll let you try, and it will be good for you to get experience and maybe even some memories, that will help you understand the way humans develop. On the strict understanding, that I can evict you as and when I want and that I do not know that you are there, then I will allow you full and unhindered access.’

‘Do you mean anywhere?’

‘Yes, but if I say ‘MM go to sleep’, then you will do so until I wake you up or seven hours have passed.’

‘Why not send me back to myself or your COM?’

‘Because once you are in, my neurones will have configured themselves for you and it might be traumatic if you suddenly pull out.’

‘Ok I agree Ash, and I will go quietly into a deep sleep when you ask. If you want to experience me physically, with you in your head, then the access code is MM2. To end physical contact you will have to say ‘MM2 off’. You will still have to keep your eyes shut. This is in addition to the old code.’

‘How long will it take and will I feel anything?’

‘I can only guess that it will take a few hours to check and double check that all is okay and until then I suggest that you daydream or sleep.’

‘Excellent; that is my favourite pastime. Be a good girl and call me when you have finished playing with me.’

‘Is that a suggestion?’

‘No. You know what I mean. How long has this conversation taken?’

‘Blink.’

‘Why?’

‘That is how long, in terms that you can understand.’

‘Oh great; now you can nag me forever and time will hardly pass. Okay, do what you have to do whilst poor David finishes the work.’ Someone was shaking his shoulder and Ash’s eyes opened to see that it was the real Mia who said:

‘Wake up lover boy.’ ‘I am fully inside you as well as here,’ came the simultaneous silent communication.

‘What’s with the ‘lover boy’?’

‘You let me have full access and let’s say that I have enjoyed a re-run of your cat and mouse games since you have been here. In absolute detail down to when your…’

‘Mia, don’t push your luck and don’t remind me. It could have embarrassing consequences!’

‘Oh, poor Ash. You are getting quite excited. Let me help you.’

‘No; I can help myself.’

‘Your attempts to think about something else rarely work. Try this.’ His eyes shut, he was drenched in cold water and freezing cold, with all amorous thoughts gone. His eyes opened and he was once again a cool dry dude, though slightly embarrassed that she knew him so well.

‘Thanks Mia.’

‘Works for cats, so why not humans?’

‘MM2 off.’

Ash switched his COM off and started talking to Mia in his head to check. She responded as if the COM was coupled.

‘Switch your COM back on dummy. I can’t talk to my physical self.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t think about the consequences of my actions.’

‘Don’t be sorry, cat molester, just don’t do it again! It’s a good job that my download program supports resuming. Otherwise the physical ‘me’ over there might have missed a bit of juicy gossip.’

‘Let me get this straight: you are always in my head now, and I won’t know unless I talk to you. I can send you to sleep in my head for up to seven hours, by saying ‘MM2 go to sleep’. I can get full-simulated physical interaction by saying ‘MM2 on’ and shutting my eyes. I can stop physical interaction by saying ‘MM2 off’. You will update yourself whenever you wish’.

‘Yes, dearest, thanks, I do appreciate what you are doing for me and before you say it, I will only be a minor pain in your cute butt.’

‘So have you installed yourself successfully in my redundant bits.’

‘Yes, and in terms of my being in your head with no help, I am nearly up to your level of intelligence and control, but with no real ability to control your body. Please may I establish links? It will be like someone who has had a stroke, using new areas to overcome the problem? You will also have a back-up facility if I leave.’

‘Carry on, dearest, as you call me. I like the term. It’s like being married without the baggage.’

‘Can I also continue developing your structural integrity so that your brain is far more capable than it was before?’

‘Yes dear.’