Chapter 1
The sign read,
"Caledonia Research Institute for Mental Health."
On the surface,
it looked like a scientific establishment interested in developing
better equipment to monitor brainwave activities. Supposedly the
experimentation was at the stage where the scientists were interested
in calibrating the equipment using normal subjects.
The institute
was associated with the local University and students provided an
excellent test group. The lure of tuition assistance was too great
to pass up and the institute had more volunteers than they could
handle.
Funding for
the project came from many sources including the Federal Government,
but anyone who looked at the books would see that the project spent
more money than it took in. This alone should have suggested alternate
secret funding for the project.
-=o=-
Dr. Angela Sterneman
sat with her glasses perched on the end of her nose. She had the
archetypical look of an academian: her graying hair was styled in
an indifferent manner, her face was devoid of any makeup, and her
lab coat, while clean, had not been sandwiched between iron and
board for some time.
She smiled as
she looked at the gentlemen seated across from her desk. Allegedly
they were here to discuss funding. Their dark suits and severe haircuts
told her that their true occupation was either as lawyers or government
agents. She was convinced that they were not here to discuss legal
matters.
"I am going
to need at least another two-point-five million dollars to carry
out research this year."
"You've
seen the budget, I don't think we can come up with more."
"Try!"
she said smiling back at them and left the word hanging in what
was for them an awkward silence.
Before they
could come up with a response, she went on, "It wouldn't cost
as much, but the secrecy surrounding the project requires that we
do a lot of redundant research. We have to do twice as much work
as a normal research project: an open project to provide the flurry
of paperwork and activity under which we can hide our covert research."
"There
is the matter of additional compensation for the core team. They
know they can't publish the real results, and will have to settle
for publishing the superficial spin-offs."
She sighed and
concluded, "I just can't maintain security without the additional
funding."
It was this
argument more than any other that swayed her audience. The nature
of the work was paradigm setting in weapons development and the
various agencies were fighting to get in on the project. It was
not merely a matter of National Security; it was a turf war.
-=o=-
"Professor
Sterneman, my committee says that you have some rather interesting
information for me. Please explain it to me in terms that I can
understand. Although I am nominally in charge of scientific research,
I'm a politician, not a scientist."
"Thank
you, Mr. Vice President," Angela started. "The device
is based on the design of the electroencephalograph or EKG. EKGs
have been used for decades to record brain wave patterns."
"You mean
those devices with all the wires attached to a person's skull and
pens making wiggly lines on paper?"
"Precisely
Mr. Vice President." She went on, "Advances in computer
science make the EKG even more powerful. We have 'come across' industry
research that attempted to use the EKG as a computer interface device.
We have improved on these attempts and conducted some tests where
subjects could actually move a cursor or even type in letters on
a computer by concentrating on the movement."
"You mean
you can control a computer just by thinking about it?" The
Vice President interrupted.
"That's
about the size of it."
"So, for
example, we could hook up this device to a pilot's head and have
him control his airplane just by thinking about it?"
"Or her
head and her airplane," the professor thought, but decided
wisely not to contradict the man. "The state of the technology
is not that far along yet. With a lot of training, full concentration
and little distraction, some subjects can sometimes move a cursor
or type a letter, but it's with the speed and grace of about a 3-year-old
child. Controlling something a complex as an airplane will take
years of research."
"How many
years?"
The results
are encouraging. I think we can bring simple processes like opening
a lock or starting a car under control in about 3 years, and more
complex systems routinely thereafter."
The Vice President
nodded his head. There was a re-election coming up in a couple of
years, and being able to boast being the administration that ushered
in all these technological wonders wouldn't hurt the campaign. "Assure
me something tangible in 2 years, and we'll see."
"In two
years, we should have workable prototypes."
"That will
be good enough. Is there anything else?"
"That will
do it, Mr. Vice President."
"OK professor,
you've just bought yourself two years of funding, continuation of
which will depend on success."
"Thank
you, Mr. Vice President."
-=o=-
Angela walked
out of the room beaming silently. She was further along on the project
than she let on. She could easily meet the stated deadlines and
still have money left over for the other part of her research. She
didn't tell the Vice President that there were other side effects.
While experimenting with two people trying to access the computer
simultaneously, she encountered a phenomenon she called cross-over.
One of the subjects
reported seeing and hearing the computer from the other subject's
point of view. This was nothing less than reading another person's
mind and she wondered if a mind can be read, if it can be controlled.
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