Near Future 1: Awakening (29 page)

Emily suddenly sat back. "That means Doctor Ted really is your Uncle. And your father is Doctor Sam Randolph. Do you know what really happened with him?"

"We don't know for sure. Based on what Uncle Ted has told me, I think he is on the missing space ship that disappeared a few weeks ago."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. That's got to be terrible to know who he is, and then find out he is missing."

"Yeah after thinking as Miranda my father couldn't be found, he was here the whole time before that but I didn't get to see him. Now, I know that I do have a father, but he's lost out there somewhere, hopefully still alive. I really think he is, but I will have to work that out later. The thing is, my Dad is the only one that knows how to make the nanites. And with him gone, mine are the only ones they know exist. My uncle is concerned about whether it's safe to copy them to use for Zeke. He thinks we can, but there is probably a limit to how many times. A very small limit to the number of times they can be copied. it might affect my future decisions."

Emily responded, "Oh, sis, I love my brother and I want to ask you to help him, but I won't ask you to do that. Not if we don't know what it might cost you in the future, and we don't know for sure it will even work."

Miranda closed her eyes a moment. "Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. Zeke did that when he saved me, didn't he." She sighed. "But there's more." She looked at her friend once more.

"When the explosion occurred, something happened to my nanites. This you must not tell my uncle or he will absolutely forbid that we do anything. They have somehow been activated to another level. Control of my nanites has moved to my whole body. I'm still trying to figure out what is going on, but my senses are much more powerful than ever before. My movements are barely in control." Miranda demonstrated by moving her hand in front of her. It flashed by in a blur. "That's what a normal movement looks like to me now. I have to concentrate on each movement to slow it down." She repeated the movement in what to her seemed like absolute slow motion. Her hand moved in a motion that looked more or less normal.

"I'm getting better at it, but the truth is I need time to figure it out. The one thing I may not have. I have been pretending that I have not completely recovered from the explosion. But I know that I will not be able to fool my uncle for long, especially with all the monitoring equipment he has. He already suspects something is going on."

Emily carefully gave Miranda another hug. She finally sat back. "My parents are on the way here, and I have to leave to meet them. I will come back to talk to you soon. We'll figure something out, and maybe Zeke will be ok anyway."

#

While Emily was away, Miranda worked on controlling her nanites enough to make slow deliberate movements. She also thought about the status of her nanites, and suddenly she saw a little icon glowing green in her mind's eye.
I've never had that before, but I think that is a pretty good sign. Maybe everything is going to be ok.

A theory had begun to form in her mind. When the explosion occurred, she and hence all her nanites, had been caught in a subspace event. Plus she now suspected that device he used on her had frozen her nanites in an input mode. Somehow her nanites were now using that subspace signal to communicate across her brain and the rest of her body. And she thought, somehow some of the control code Zeke had written had also been copied to the nanites, giving her enhanced control of them. She had no idea how she was going to prove all that if it was true. She gave a little laugh at the thought of carrying a near AI around in her brain. What would Zeke think of that? Then her thoughts once again became sad, as she thought about Zeke down the hall in his induced coma.

When Emily returned with her parents, they immediately went to Zeke's room. There they talked to the nurse who quickly told them, "I paged the doctor as soon as I knew you were here and he is on his way."
 

Emily slipped out, went to Miranda's room, and asked, "Do you want to come with me to listen to the doctor in Zeke's room?"

Miranda's response was immediate. "Yes! Yes! Help me into the wheelchair. I'm still a little dizzy, and I have to work hard to move at all."

When they got to Zeke's room, the doctor had just arrived and he was trying to explain Zeke's condition. It was even worse than Miranda had thought, and she didn't see how he would ever recover without her help. Even if he did, it looked like he might be paralyzed from the neck down. Miranda wished she had help with her decision.
Oh Dad, why did you have to disappear now when I just found out about you, and we need you so much? I know you could fix this.
She knew that she didn't have long to decide, but so much had happened she couldn't seem to think straight. Finally Emily carried Miranda back to her room, then returned to her family while they worked out their plans to stay close by.

#

Late that evening, Miranda had Doctor Ted paged and asked him to do the procedure to extract the nanites into storage. He placed a small cylinder in her monitoring equipment, pressed a couple of buttons, and in a few moments, the cylinder glowed a pleasant blue. She pointed to the wheelchair and said, "Please, take me to Zeke's room; I need to see him."

Miranda knew Zeke's family had reluctantly left for the night, since the hospital wouldn't let them stay with him. At Miranda's request, Doctor Ted had gotten approval from Zeke's parents for the "experimental procedure" that would involve nanites, if they determined that it was feasible to use them. He did not tell them the details about Miranda being the source or the potential cost to her because she specifically requested he keep it quiet.

Doctor Ted pushed her out of her room and down the hall until he came to another room, with a very still Zeke lying on the bed, and a lot of tubes and equipment hooked up to him.

"If I decide to do this," she asked him in a small, quiet voice, "where do I put the cylinder?"

He motioned to a small port in the monitoring equipment attached to Zeke. "There and press the button on the console beside it to activate it. The equipment will transmit the nanites to Zeke in a safe manner and activate their very basic programming."

"Be aware," he continued, "if you decide to go through with the procedure, it will take weeks for the nanites to complete their work, and I will have to monitor it carefully."

Miranda nodded and said quietly, "Thank you. I need to be alone with him for a few minutes."

Doctor Ted gave her an understanding smile. He turned to leave, once more slipping out the door and gently closing it behind him.

#

Sitting beside the bed in her wheelchair and reaching up to gently touch Zeke's arm, Miranda looked at him sadly and said quietly, "I was looking forward to getting to know you, and I think that maybe we were meant to be together, but I don't know that for sure..."

"And I don't even know if you would want me to do this. But you saved my life and I miss you already. I know I have to do what I have to do, because you're not going to make it without it."

"And... I'm not sure what's happening with the nanites, but there's no time to figure it out. Uncle Ted will stop me if I don't do it now. But I'm sure you would know what to do if you were able to answer. And I think it's your code that is running the nanites, and I bet you could tell me for sure."

Finally she said, "I really have no choice. This is what I must do. Guess I will see you in a few weeks, and we can finish this conversation then, I hope."

Miranda slipped the cylinder into the slot, pressed the activate button, and sat quietly looking at Zeke until Doctor Ted arrived.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Small Steps

Space Tech has just announced a new treatment, involving nanites, has been successfully used on the daughter of their reclusive CEO, Doctor Samuel Randolph. The girl, Julie Randolph, had been in a coma for two years after her injury in a terrorist attack in New York City that also killed the wife of Doctor Randolph. The spokesman at the hospital where she had been treated cautioned that although the prognosis was very good, the procedure was still extremely experimental, and would not be available to the general public for some time. Her mental competence has been verified by the hospital and by an independent review from an external panel of doctors. Julie Randolph is currently expected to be appearing at the upcoming stockholders meeting next month as the representative of the family who owns in excess of 50% of the controlling stock of the world's largest and most profitable company. Speculation continues as to why no word has been released on the whereabouts of Doctor Samuel Randolph, who has not been seen in public for nearly a month now. Many believe that he is being treated for a rare form of cancer, or some other illness.

#

Julie Randolph, who still often thought of herself as Miranda Summerlin, was sitting in her room at the hospital. Earlier in the day, she had posed for pictures for the media. She had used her nanites to change her appearance, the color of her hair turning from black to the original blonde and her other features changing to match Julie's. Although she now knew her real name, almost all her memories were from when she thought her name was Miranda. Even though she intellectually knew who she was now, she didn't feel it and was quite confused by it all.

After giving the cylinder of nanites to Zeke, she had decided that it would be best to come clean with her uncle who was also her doctor. She returned to her room, but told him to come see her as soon as Zeke was stable.

When he came to see her, she explained what she thought was going on, giving him her theories about what had happened. Some of it they had been able to since verify, some of it was yet to be determined, if they ever understood it. She could tell he was a little disappointed in her for holding out the information for as long as she did. "And what about the risk to Zeke?" he asked her.
 

Looking up at him, she pointed out, "I felt that I didn't have a choice if Zeke was to be able to survive. So I quickly made the decision that I simply could not worry about the limitations on copying them. I did have to struggle with the same thing you just said, but I have been getting them more and more under control. Plus, I told you about the green icon I can see in my head."

"Ok," he finally said. "What's done is done. Please, please tell me anything that happens with you from now on. It is the only way I can do my job to keep you safe." He left to take another look at Zeke's nanites based on the new information she had given him.

Julie had just gotten a VR from Uncle Ted, telling her he was on his way to see her. She was preparing for a much more in depth conversation with him. One of the things that was apparent to her, as Julie, she was more assertive than she had been as Miranda. But, she had to get some answers.

"How is Zeke?" she asked as he came into the room. She had to know that he was going to be alright, her worries that something could go wrong by far her biggest concern.

Her uncle had a pretty good idea about what she was really asking. "I've managed to lock his nanites down into their basic programming mode, but I think that will only last until he wakes up. Which we know is exactly six weeks, because the nanite programming is completely locked into that time period. When he does wake up, he is going to need a lot of help from you, I suspect." He tried to give her a glare, but he didn't pull it off very well. "And now that you know I am really your uncle, I expect a little more cooperation from you from now on."

"You know I had my reasons each time. And I would do it all the same again. But I promise I will try my best to do better, Uncle Ted." She smiled at him and said, "I mean it, too." Then seeing his reaction, her smile got even bigger. "Really, I do."

She paused a minute, changing the subject. "Ok Uncle Ted," Julie said, this time her voice a little harder. "It's your turn to come clean with me. You are going to tell me what they were testing on
The Annette
when it disappeared. Based on what you have been telling me about his activities, my Dad was on that ship. And I have a pretty good idea of what they were testing."

"Ok, you've got me," her uncle said, recognizing the change in her attitude. "You are the only one who has the clearance to hear what I am about to tell you. No one else can know unless you get them cleared for it.

"They were indeed testing a new propulsion system. But it wasn't a new rocket or any other mass reaction system. The idea was to use the latest versions of the new energy fields that we had originally designed for fusion containment. As you know, they failed in that aspect, but we discovered some unusual effects. We felt that the fields could be set up to manipulate the space around the ship. They would, in effect, compress the space in front of the ship to pull it forward and expand the space behind them to push them along.

"I will send you the exact specs on it. I suspect it makes use of some of the same principles as your subspace power module, which, based on what you have told me, actually worked, and would not have exploded without Zeke's override. I expect you will want to develop that into a working prototype, and you will have all the resources at Space Tech to help.

"However, you and Zeke should own the patents for it since it is all your work, and I will help you secure the patents. I figure you will owe the school ten percent of the royalties, but we can work that out with the company's patent attorneys and the school. It was really smart of you to get them to release their rights to it."

"They did that on their own, when the instructor couldn't open his eyes to see the possibilities, and they wouldn't let us continue with their support. Yes, we will pursue that," Julie agreed. "It will be a good present for Zeke when he wakes up." She smiled at that. "He's going to have a lot to deal with too..."

Julie considered a minute. "Back to
The Annette
. Based on what you just told me, I suspect two possibilities. One, the scale is logarithmic and not linear and you have to compensate for it. Two, if they didn't handle the feedback loop, it would have very rapidly ramped up when they went over five percent, so that it would have quickly gotten out of control. Since you haven't found any debris, at least we know they didn't explode. Still, all kind of bad things could have happened. I'll look into it." Her eyes had glazed over again by this time as she was deep in thought.