A story exploring time travel and societal issues in the wake of 9/11. This is chapter 25. See previous posts for chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24.
NIS headquarters had moved and expanded since Thomas had last seen it. There were a couple dozen occupied coding alcoves, a few corporate offices, and two rooms devoted to training and testing the brain computer interface now in development. One thing Thomas noticed right away was that T2's giant, twenty canvas painting was no longer displayed. When he got to Reed's office, this was the first thing he asked about. "Nice place," he said, as Reed got off the phone. "But where is T2's big painting?"
"In a crate in the storage room," said Reed. "Why?"
"It's supposed to be displayed," said Thomas. "If you're not going to keep it up, ship it to someone who will. Ana in Boulder or me in Minneapolis. Ana might make more sense, since she already has most of his other artwork."
"The truth is that I always hated that painting," said Reed. "It made it seem like the future was all mapped out, instead of being what we make of it. The work is crated and ready to ship. I offered it to Trish, but her tree house can't accommodate a large art installation. You're more than welcome to it."
"Fine," said Thomas. "Make any other big changes the minute T2 died?"
"Just moving forward with the Neural Sensor Effector Array, like we talked about," said Reed. "Are you ready to see the NSEA in action?"
They proceeded to the device training room, where two college undergrads sat on lounge chairs, before large screens, wearing what appeared to be a motorcycle helmets made of wires and blinking lights. On the screens, bits of text would appear, each one a response to the last visible message.
"Are they ... chatting using only their minds?" asked Thomas.
"Yes," said Reed. "Pretty amazing, right?"
"How is the accuracy?" asked Thomas.
"We've got it down to thirty minutes of training to achieve eighty percent accuracy," said Reed. "But ninety percent accuracy requires another ten hours of training. And no matter how much we train, we can't seem to do better than ninety-six."
"What's the typing speed of a trained unit?" asked Thomas.
"That varies by individual," said Reed. "Twenty to thirty words a minute is normal."
"Can connected individuals communicate directly with each other, unmediated by screen displays?" asked Thomas.
"Only with simple messages universally," said Reed. "Individual differences in idea processing make more complex direct communication challenging. Some people think in words, some think in pictures, some think in feelings. The tech can be trained for all types, or most of them, but unmediated direct communication requires both subjects to be well matched."
"So the NSEA can't read someone's thoughts without training?" asked Thomas.
"Not with any accuracy," said Reed. "But once the software has an individual's neural signature, well, reading minds is what it does."
"Tell me about the software," said Thomas. "T2 left me detailed software and testing documentation, but I haven't had time to go through it all."
"Well, the neural signature is essentially a combination of weight values in a modified convolutional neural net," explained Reed. "It's simple in principle, but requires serious computing power."
"And you think the product could be ready for market as early as next year?" asked Thomas.
"Only if we go direct to consumer," said Reed. "If we seek regulator approval to market it as a medical device, it would take a minimum of five more years, unless our lobbyist can somehow work some magic."
"I see," said Thomas. "And safety testing? How far into that are we?"
"For consumer use, we had an accredited lab test the NSEA system and they found that the electromagnetic fields produced by the system at maximum power were well below the recognized threshold for tissue heating," said Reed. "There are other standards we'd have to meet to market the product for medical use."
"Interesting," said Thomas. "And do I understand correctly that you want another thirty million this year for further development and testing?"
"Only if we go the consumer route," said Reed. "Going the medical route would cost considerably more."
"How many of the developers I passed on the way in are working on this project?" asked Thomas.
"Just two," said Reed. "The rest are on web service and blockchain projects."
"You mind if I talk to a few of them?" asked Thomas.
"Be my guest," said Reed.
Thomas took one last look at the NSEA systems at work, shrugged, and left the testing area to find a developer to talk to. He was going to pick one at random, but then he noticed that one young man had a book on his desk that Thomas recognized. The book was by 9/11 Commission co- chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton. Its gist, Thomas knew, was that the government's official story was full of lies.
"Excuse me," said Thomas. "I noticed your book. Do you have a moment to chat?"
"Sorry," said the young man. "I know who you are. I'm Dave. Should I not be reading this here?"
"Read what you want," said Thomas. "Did you know that CIA agents started getting special insurance to protect themselves against liability for their post-9/11 activities."
"I hadn't heard that," said Dave. "I do know they started using broad administrative subpoenas for bank records to spy on millions of people without traditional due process."
"Yup," said Thomas. "But down to business. What is it you're working on here today?"
"Blockchain identity," said Dave. "The basic idea is to use neural signatures as private keys. So I'm trying to figure out the most efficient hashing algos, etc.."
"How far along are you?" asked Thomas.
"Not as far along as the boss would prefer," said Dave. "But I should have something up and running in the next few weeks."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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