TO THE BEAT OF A DIFFERENT DRUM
The large grey sofa that sat in the middle Station 515’s main studio seemed to be out of place, surrounded as it was by dozens of cameras, lighting rigs, teleprompters, studio-men and assorted hangers on, but it was quite possibly the best known thing about the station. The sofa and the woman who normally say there, Melinda Chavez. Five days a week she would interview guests, her style an interesting mix of flirty chat and hard-nosed questioning and, for the moment at least, she was the media darling. Ever since her off the cuff interview with Cawdor, the Operative flavour of the moment, the viewing public couldn’t get enough of Melinda and her studio bosses were determined to take full advantage of this.
Tonight’s show was going to be another landmark moment in her career because Doctor Rasmus Lundvail of Karma’s R&D Division had agreed to be interviewed on his latest development, something called the Striatum Adjunct. Even though Doctor Lundvail was going to be on vid in less than an hour Melinda, and her team, knew absolutely nothing about what this Striatum Adjunct was and, if she was going to be honest with herself, the young reporter was beginning to panic.
“How the hell am I meant to interview this man if they won’t give us the slightest clue as to what this Adjunct thing is?” she demanded of her make-up artist as she was sitting in her dressing room, preparing for the show. Lissa, who was diligently trying to cover the minute flaws that the vid would pick up without mercy, was wise enough to know that no answer was expected of her.
“I mean,” continued Melinda, “it’s not as though I have anything to talk to this man about. I know nothing about him. Oh, sure. I know where he went to school, who his parents were, what else he’s been working on, that sort of thing. But really, who cares about that? Doctor R Lundvail, age 39, employee of Karma, today had a roast beef sandwich for his lunch!”
Melinda threw her arms in the air in a gesture that had nothing to do with real irritation and all to do with show. As soon as she woke up in the morning she liked to think of herself as “in-character” and it was an art form that required constant practise. She paused and took a deep calming breath, very aware of how good that looked on camera.
“I have no human angle on this one at all,” she moaned to Lissa. “I have no idea what this Striatum Adjunct is, but unless it’s earth-shattering then this show is going to be a flop!”
*****
In a smaller and much less elaborate dressing room at the far side of the studio, Doctor Rasmus Lundvail stared into the mirror, looking at himself and then at the reflection of the young man in the very expensive suit who was standing behind him.
“Jeremy,” muttered the uncomfortable doctor. “Tell me again exactly why I’m wasting my time with this nonsense? There are a thousand and one things that need doing and this is certainly not one of them.”
“Come on Ras,” Jeremy replied with an easy smile. “We’ve been over and over this. Down at the lab we all know the ground-breaking work you’re doing, we all know how the Adjunct is going to change the world, but unless we can sell that fact to the great unwashed, then it’s never going to make it into the real world. Doc, seriously, you need to focus on this. People watch Melinda, they listen to what she has to say and they take their lead from her. You want next year’s budget to have an extra 0 added to the end of it? Then you sell the Adjunct to Melinda, wow her, make her jaw drop and I guarantee, I personally guarandamntee, that every Op out there will be beating a path to your door.”
The disgruntled doctor opened his mouth to speak again but before he could say anything Jeremy raised his hand.
“Rasmus, Ras, R.. It’s a done deal. People higher up the pay scale than either you or me have agreed that this has to be done so we’re going to do it. Might as well put the best face on it. There are going to be billions of people out there listening to you speak, live. And I know that they’re going to love you. You’re a natural, the vid loves, you, I love you, the world is going to love you. But more importantly the world is going to love the Adjunct.
“Besides,” Jeremy added in a slightly calmer voice. “I’ll be in the control room where the real decisions are made and you know that I’ve got all the pre-recorded goods ready to go if anything gets out of hand. Not that it will of course, you’re going to be great.”
Doctor Lundvail stared silently into the mirror for a moment, hating his PR assistant more than just a little bit.
“Remind me when this is all over, that I either need to fire you or promote you. I’m serious Jeremy, it’s going to be one of the other. And either way, you have to learn to stop talking in clichés”
********
…and we’re back from commercial, go Melinda ….
“Doctor Lundvail, we’re back on air and our viewers are now familiar with who you are and what you’ve done. A very impressive resume I must say. But what they, what I really want to know about is this mysterious Striatum Adjunct that you mentioned. That’s what you’re here to talk about so, please, in terms that we can all understand, tell us what it is.”
This was the section that Rasmus had been dreading. He knew he wasn’t a good public speaker, that was one of the reasons he was so confused by why he had been chosen to appear on the show. He could speak in great depth about the mechanics of the Adjunct for hours, he could explain the new strains of biogenetic materials that had been grown just to make this possible. He could go into minute and excruciating depth about the theoretical problems and actual practicalities that had made this breakthrough possible, but he knew that wasn’t what people wanted to hear.
“Well, Melinda,” he said with a fixed smile. “The Striatum Adjunct is, quite simply a revolution in the way that we can absorb and understand new information and processes. Basically, it’s a new way of learning. Up to now, whenever we want to learn something new or to understand a new concept it’s done through constant repetition until our brain retains it. That’s a slow, laborious and very inefficient way of doing things. With the Striatum Adjunct we no longer have to go through the boring stages, we just go straight to knowing what we need to know.”
Melinda smiled brightly, showing no sign of her growing doubts about the security of her career, and nodded and gestured for the doctor to continue.
“As I’m sure you know,” said Doctor Lundvail. “”When we are creating Stormers, a large amount of the information that any other living being absorbs in its youth is implanted directly into learning centres of the Stormer’s brain. This aids with them coming to terms with their accelerated growth and ensures that we are not creating armies of morons. The Adjunct works along the same lines in that it can be used to insert blocks of new information into the subject’s brain.”
“I see,” said Melinda who really didn’t. “And does this process only work on Stormers?”
“Oh no, not at all. There is some very minor surgery involved in that we have to implant a small biogenetic “reader” for want of a better word, directly into the striatum of the user.”
“And the striatum is part of the brain, so we’re talking about brain surgery here.”
“Yes, yes,” snapped the doctor, beginning to forget that he was speaking to a chat show host and not holding a lecture. “But it is very minor surgery and the process is quite safe. And once the implant has been successfully bonded with the subject, it’s then a simple matter to input new information directly into the reader as and when required. In it’s most simple form, imagine the implant as a Nava-Map and the new information, which comes in the form of a very small injection, as a data slug.”
“Is that the kind of information we’re talking about?” asked Melinda. “Maps and things like that?”
“Of course, the Striatum Adjunct could be used for maps, making the subject instantly familiar with a new location, but that would be just scratching the surface of what the implant is capable of. In your case, for example, if you were going to interview someone that you knew nothing about, you could receive the injection and, within an hour, know everything that was on file regarding that person. Or the implant can be used to learn a new language within minutes instead of months. The subject could, if they wished, learn the intricacies of Wraith Raider crotchet . .”
. . . we have some vid footage here Melinda, rolling it now . . .
“And I believe,” interrupted Melinda smoothly,” that we have some footage relating to the Striatum Adjunct that we need to show now. “My apologies for cutting you off, Doctor Lundvail, but perhaps we could continue this after we’ve watched the vid.”
********
Thick, greasy fog rolls over a muddy field in some far flung war world. The background music is slow and subtle, but if listened to for any length of time you will realise that it grows steadily faster and louder. In the distance you can just make out the shapes of vast tanks firing and recoiling, soldiers running and fighting and dying. Overhead, jet planes scream past leaving coils of vapour in their wake.
“Captain?” the voice is young and obviously scared although trying not to show it. “Captain, what do we do now?”
The camera pulls back and you see a young soldier in pristine armour standings beside a older officer wearing battle-scarred Sarge armour. The helmet’s been removed and the grizzled veteran of the war worlds can be seen staring down at what looks to be an heavy box covered in wires. There is a numeric keypad on the front of the box and a timer that is slowly ticking down. There is less then ten minutes showing on the clock.
“Captain, do you know how to defuse that?” the scared recruit asks. “You do, don’t you? We’re never going to be able to evacuate the civilians in time. You do know how to defuse it, you must!”
Slowly and deliberately, the officer turns from the bomb and looks up at the soldier.
“No son, I don’t. At least, not yet.”
He flicks a clasp on the forearm of his armour and a pulse of steam along with a dribble of hydraulic fluid leaks out as a panel slides open. Beneath the armour you can see skin that is scarred and leathery and, lying along the length of the main vein, is a thin membrane of biogenetic material. As you watch, the material twitches slightly and a small mouth opens at one end.
“Fetch me the Adjunct from the APC,” the officer says with strength and determination. “Vial 217. And hurry son, we don’t have much time left.”
The scene fades as the fog of war grows thicker and the music grows louder. Moments later, the fog fades once more and we can see the officer leaning over the bomb. His fingers are flying across the keypad and the countdown timer is showing 5 seconds left.
“Captain, what do we do? We’re out of time!”
4 Seconds.
“Not yet we’re not son, don’t panic, trust Karma!”
3 Seconds.
“Captain, we’ve got to run, it’s too late!”
2 Seconds.
“Be calm son, almost there, almost there.”
1 Second
1 Second
1 Second
1 Second.
“Captain! You did it! We’ve got time to save the civilians and get the Thresher scum who did this!”
The camera cuts back to the officer’s face and you see that he is tired, drained, but relieved and victorious.
“No soldier, I didn’t do it. We did it. You, me and Striatum Adjunct!”
********
“Well, Doctor Lundvail, that was most impressive. And tell me, is that a realistic representation of what we can expect Striatum Adjunct to be able to achieve?”
The doctor was staring across at the large vid screen that was on display behind the grey sofa and it took him a moment to realise that Melinda was talking to him.
“What? Oh, yes. That’s the first time that I’ve seen that actual film but yes, that’s exactly the sort of thing that Striatum Adjunct would be useful for. That and a large number of other applications of course.”
“Doctor Lundvail,” the reporter continued in a voice that was suddenly serious. “We’ve spoken so far of the benefits of this new invention, but we haven’t mentioned how it’s actually applied or what the possible drawbacks could be. I wonder if you could guide us through those?”
Rasmus Lundvail cleared his throat and readjusted his seat on the sofa. He hadn’t been expecting this sort of question but would be happy to respond.
“The application is quite simple,” he smiled. “As I said previously it does involve some minor surgery with the main component of the Adjunct being placed directly into the brain. It’s perfectly safe, we have absolutely mastered the technique and, with modern medicines you can be up and about again less than 10 hours after the surgery takes place. In addition to this we have to place an entry valve somewhere on the subject’s body. This is normally done on the forearm, as you saw in the vid, somewhere that is easily accessible, but we have found that the closer the entry system is to the main implant, the more quickly the new information will bond with the striatum area.”
“And it looked in the vid as though the brave Captain was going to inject something into himself, I’m assuming that’s how the raw information is given to the Adjunct.”
“Exactly correct Melinda,” replied the doctor patronisingly, as if he was pleased by a dense student showing the slightest glimmer of intelligence. “The information packs come in a thick biogenetic gel which, when injected into the body, heads immediately to the Adjunct and is then fed into the brain.”
“This information,” Melinda interrupted, showing no sign of her anger at the doctor’s tone. “Is it a permanent thing? Is there a limit to the amount of injections you can give yourself?”
“Ahh, no, unfortunately this is not a permanent thing,” admitted Doctor Lundvail. “The knowledge will last for anything between 15 and 25 hours depending on the individual and then it will simply fade away, as if you had forgotten it naturally. And at this point you are limited to being able to have one new information injection within you at any one time. We’ve found that trying for more than once causes a conflict between the two sources which renders both unusable.”
“I see,” mused Melinda, knowing that she was running out of time and she had to hurry things along. “And side effects? Are there any problems that we should be aware of before we all run out and have the surgery?”
“No, absolutely not. Striatum Adjunct is perfectly safe and we are looking forward to when it goes on the open market.”
“Doctor Lundvail, thank you so very much for joining us this evening. I know that I and I’m sure everyone else, will be looking forward to seeing who is the first of our celebrity operatives to make use of this wonderful new technology.”
With a dazzling smile, Melinda Chavez nodded to the bewildered doctor and turned her attention fully to the camera.
“That was Doctor Rasmus Lundvail with the new Karma product, Striatum Adjunct. We have a short commercial break coming up but we’ll be right back and we have an interview with Street Hockey Star Artemus Gideon. He’ll be speaking to us about his move to the Sauchiehall Strikers.”
. . . and we’re out. Four minutes Melinda, four minutes . . . .
********
Twenty minutes later, Rasmus was sitting in the same small dressing room talking to Jeremy.
“Doc, that went better than we could have hoped for,” the assistant said enthusiastically. “Absolutely perfect!”
“I’m not so sure Jeremy, not so sure at all. Why did that bloody woman start asking about side effects? There’s no way that she could know, is there?”
“Of course not, nothing to worry about at all. She was just asking the questions that she had to. No one knows and besides, it’s a very small problem and I know that you’ll be able to work it out very, very soon.”
Doctor Lundvail simply stared up at his assistant, not in the least bit convinced.
“Let’s get out of here,” he finally said. “I’ve work to do.”
