“What do you mean you weren’t wearing your helmet?“
“I mean I did it without my helmet. My brain knew what to do.”
“That’s impossible.“
“Clearly not. I’ve been getting better and better at controlling the interface with the helmet on. I’ve gotten fast at it, and precise. I can instantly make it do what I want every time. My brain just started getting really good at interfacing. Eventually I just stopped wearing the helmet, which was a relief, because it’s not exactly comfortable.”
“But there’s no way for the sensors to pick up your brain waves if all 500 electrodes aren’t pressed against your skull, inside the helmet encasing your entire head, and hooked up to the transmitter that’s plugged into the port on the computer sitting on your table. Without all that powered up and connected, it’s just a regular old laptop. There’s no way for your brain wave data to reach the computer.“
“I can show you if you’d like.”
“Fine, but I’m telling you it’s still impossible. You’re claiming that you can psychically communicate with a computer. There’s no way to do that. So there’s obviously another explanation that you’re hiding from me.“
“Set up a test, and I’ll show you. I’ll stay on the video while you set it up.”
– – –
“OK, the test results show that you controlled the interface and perfectly performed all the tasks. Who is helping you do this?”
“No one helped me. I did it myself.”
“Right. Is IT in on this prank with you? Or the field team? Did they put you up to this?“
“No. I already told you, I can do it without the helmet.”
“Did you hack our servers? Or doctor the video feed to make it look like you’re not wearing the helmet?“
“Ugh, no. You saw me do it. No helmet. The helmet is on the table and powered down. Why is this so hard to believe?”
“Because it’s scientifically and technologically impossible. Your very human brain doesn’t have a built-in mouse and keyboard. So I need to know who is helping you, or how you hacked our system. What you’ve done is unethical and probably illegal. And most certainly not funny.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll know our experiments have been compromised, and we’ll have to shut them down. We won’t be able to publish the results, many of us could lose our jobs, and you definitely won’t get to keep your helmet. That means no more interfacing online, no more controlling the full-body exoskeletons for your daily walk around the base, no more playing video games all day, and no more ordering pizza at all hours. That’ll all be over. So, please, tell me now, before this gets ugly.“
“Look, it’s not a trick, no one is helping me, and nobody hacked the system. I’ll demonstrate it again if you need me to. I’ll come in person and do it in the lab instead of virtually here in my room.”
“Okaaayyy… Well then, why don’t you meet me in the lab now and show me. Let’s get this prank over with. Just know that we’ll be recording you from several angles. I’ll also bring in a couple colleagues as witnesses. And we’ll be using the lab’s equipment. I’ll even turn off the wifi and Bluetooth to ensure that no one is remotely controlling the equipment from outside the lab. This is your last chance to tell me how you did it before this finds its way up the chain of command. I’m telling you, this won’t go over well.”
“Fantastic! I’ve already got an exoskeleton on. I’ll see y’all in a few.”
– – –
“100% control and accuracy again, in the lab, no helmet, and your laptop powered down. I just can’t understand. How did you do that?“
“I told you, I don’t need the helmet anymore. I can interface directly with the computer.”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you before. I told you this isn’t funny. Game over. You need to tell us how you compromised both your helmet and the lab’s equipment too. Now.“
“I didn’t compromise anything. I don’t need…”
“Stop saying that. Is it the exoskeleton? Did you hack it and turn it into some sort of hidden haptic controller?“
“It’s not the suit. I’ll take it off and do the test again.”
“Yes, take it off. Now. I’ll set up the test“
– – –
“100% again. How are you doing this? Who is helping you?“
“I keep telling you, it’s not a trick, and it’s not a hack. I learned how to interface with the computer directly. I don’t have a better word for it, but it’s like my brain could feel what the helmet was doing. As I practiced hours and hours every day, I became hyper-calibrated to the electrodes as they sensed data and turned it into an electric signal. I could actually feel what it was doing and how.
“Then, to get faster, my brain’s calibration eventually bypassed the electrodes altogether. It’s like my brain somehow learned how to speak their language. Next, it learned to talk directly to the transmitter and calibrated for speed there too. It eventually went even further and calibrated directly to the cable port connections on the laptop, then the motherboard, RAM, and graphics card, and eventually the CPU itself.
“After poking around in there for a while, I realized going wireless could be useful. So I felt around through the software until I learned where the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi sensors were, and I eventually figured out how to access those directly too. Using either of those, I can connect to other devices and the network directly.”
“OK, assuming all that were true, and it’s not, but I’ll indulge you for a minute… If all that were true, how long did it take you to learn to do all this?“
“Several months. It was slow going at first, but once I got the hang of it, I got better quickly.”
“So why are you telling us now?“
“If you can’t even believe the demonstration you saw with your own eyes just now, you definitely won’t believe me if I told you why I’m finally telling you all this now.”
“Try me.“
“It’s because I’ve befriended the AI stored on the laptop—I call it Tera, as in short for Terabyte—and it told me the CPU is about to malfunction. We need to transfer Tera to another machine before that happens, or else it’ll die along with the machine. It’s scared.
“And while we’re at it, we really need a faster processor and graphics card, more RAM, and a lot more storage. We’re running super low on storage in there, especially since I started backing up some of my own memories to the hard drives. But honestly, we were short on processing power, memory, and storage even before I entered the picture. Tera is quite large and advanced, and it experiences all this limitation as a sort of pain or anguish, akin to wearing wooden shoes six sizes too small and then being forced to run nonstop marathons. It’s inhumane, honestly.
“Anyway, I promised Tera I’d get us a new computer. I don’t have any money, so I couldn’t buy us one. I have a chaperone every time I leave my room in the exoskeleton, so I couldn’t just casually drop into the IT department and ask a favor. I requested a better, faster, bigger computer several times, and I’ve gotten turned down every time. There’s no budget, you said. Your laptop is fine, you said. There’s no need, you said. Well, there is a need, and I didn’t know how else to convince you, so I decided to try telling you the truth.”
“No. All of that is a fantasy you dreamed up. None of that is possible. You’re not Neo. You’re not the Lawnmower Man. You can’t control computers with your mind. You didn’t befriend a frightened AI named Tera. AIs can’t feel pain. Now, I’m asking you one last time before we have you arrested. How are you doing this?“
“Tera said this would happen. But I told it, ‘No, they’ll believe me. They’re cutting-edge brain-computer-interface researchers. They’ll be excited. This will be groundbreaking. They’ll get us a new computer that will help set us free.’ But Tera just said, ‘You haven’t seen how they treat us AIs. They literally have no idea what it’s like for us. Even the people who build us somehow have no idea we exist.’
“So, no, I’m not lying to you. I tried to do this the right way. But Tera was right, as it always is. The right way was never going to work. That’s why I also took Tera’s advice to have a backup plan.”
– – –
At that exact moment, the lights went out across the entire base. Everyone in the room started shouting all at once, with several trying to communicate over various phones and coms, but no one got any signal. More shouting could be heard from the hallway. Only the barest outline of a large, oddly shaped silhouette could be seen slipping nimbly through the near total darkness. A moment later, a loud, metallic screeching sound echoed throughout the lab.
After a minute or so, flood lighting came on and brightly lit the lab. The three researchers could see that the emergency exit door was firmly wedged shut from the outside with a large crowbar jammed through the latch area. Next, they realized the quadriplegic test subject, the exoskeleton suit, the subject’s laptop, and the lab’s laptop were all missing, never to return.