Chapter 1.14

“Do they have a hive mind?”

I had never considered such a thing, but John had a good question.

“They don’t as far as I can tell, but I’m not really sure what I’m looking for,” Roman told us. “There are certainly some that are sacrificed when they are working.”

“Maybe they consider that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” I quipped, quoting from another of my favorite ancient movies.

“Perhaps the individuals just feel that resistance is futile.” I should have known that John would get the joke and build on it. With very little else to do recently, we had been watching as many of the old films as we could get our hands on. He raised his eyebrow at me, and I started to laugh, the others looking at me like I was mad. It occured to me that I may very well be. Living in this crazy world created by Caesar was enough to drive anyone mad.

“I would think they have to have something like a hive mind,” Kari said. She glanced at Marc. “Look at the complexity of your body. Every time we make love, the nanites rebuild you into the opposite sex. How?”

“Genetically…” Marc began.

“Not enough. Let’s say they receive a signal that it’s time, what do they do? Change what needs to be changed wherever they are? How do they know where they are?”

“They hold a piece of your DNA inside them. It’s like a blueprint, I guess,” Roman offered.

“Is there a little arrow that says ‘you are here’ on that DNA blueprint? How does a nanite know where the hell it is inside you? DNA isn’t enough. Every cell has DNA in it.”

“You’ve made your point, Kari,” John told her. “There’s got to be something controlling them. The question is, what?”

“If these things are organic,” I asked, “why don’t antibodies or white blood cells take them out?”

“As far as I can tell, they seem to be tuned to your body,” Roman explained. “When a child is injected with the first set of nanites, there is a period of NNS, or ‘neo-nanite symptoms.’ This is the stage where the body tries to get rid of the ‘invading’ nanites.” We had all heard of, and seen a baby with NNS. It was something that all babies got, but we had no idea it had anything to do with nanites. “I said that the nanites were tuned to your body. Actually, your body is tuned to them. Something -- I don’t know what -- is done that makes your body refuse to reject them. They become part of your body’s local inhabitants. As far as your body is concerned, the nanites are native.”

“So they can do anything they want, and nothing will argue with them,” Marc sounded disgusted.

“Pretty much,” Roman said, nodding.

“So how do they communicate?” I asked. “Obviously, they have a way. They’ve got to know where they are, what needs done there. Probably the wanted outcome.”

“They don’t necessarily need to know the desired outcome,” Kari argued. “If they know what needs to be done at their location….”

I cut her off. “No. That doesn’t work.” Everyone was looking at me, obviously, wondering what I meant. “If I hear a piece of music, and want to write it out, I can know everything about music, what each instrument sound like, their range. Hell, I can know what a V64 is, or a Perfect 5th -- Even an N6. That’s not going to help me write the music if I don’t know what it is supposed to sound like.”

“There have been robots that simply make the same moves with pieces of metal for millennia,” John began.

“John,” I patiently explained, “Music is fluid. So is the human body. It is the imperfections in how a human played instrument sounds that makes it beautiful. So it is with the human body. It’s the imperfections that make us unique.”

I could see that he was thinking of protesting, so I persisted. “You’ve known me for almost two hundred years. Even after the changes that have happened in me, am I a different person?”

“Aside from the obvious?”

I gave him a dirty look. “Yes, Dear. Aside from the obvious.”

Marc nudged John. “Couch tonight,” he stage whispered.

I turned a glare on Marc, and he wisely shut up.

Perhaps to keep the creature comforts in the upcoming sleep period, John said, “Well aside from your vastly improved appearance… among other things… your personality is essentially unchanged.”

“Essentially?”

“From what I can tell, it’s not exceptionally different. There are some changes, yes, but I think those can be explained by a different cocktail of hormones in your body.”

I put away the evil glare I had been giving him, and grudgingly responded, “Okay. That makes sense.”

“I think I know what you’re saying, however. A human body can change over time. It grows, things wear out. For the nanites to do the job that they do, they have to know what the finished product is going to be.”

“But how can it know?” Kari seemed frustrated now.

“Read the DNA.” Marc said.

We all thought about that for some time. Finally, “So do we change?” I asked no one in particular.

“What do you mean?” Roman wondered.

“Obviously not the way I have, but I am wondering about that too. Marc suggested that the nanites may know what the finished product is by reading our DNA. Personally, I think that’s a fair assessment. Perhaps they don’t know what we look like in the physical sense, but they know how the inside is supposed to be built.”

“Go on,” John said, intrigued.

“If they read the blueprints and build from that…”

“You said they couldn’t build a human that way,” Kari was confused.

“I don’t think you could, normally. But what if we are an exactly what our DNA says we should be?”

“It could be,” John said thoughtfully. “Remember that movie we watched where the guy cut off his son’s hand with that weird glowing sword thing? His son had a mechanical hand after that. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“I’ve read medical texts,” Roman said, “Where people would have to get an artificial limb made. Legs and arms didn’t grow back. Nothing did except hair and nails.”

Marc looked skeptical. “Do you think that is because they didn’t have nanites?”

Roman was beginning to realize some things. “Think about it, Sir. In our example here,” he indicated me, “they have a set of blueprints. They change one thing. They change that Y chromosome to a second X. That changes everything. Now, they look at things and realize it all has to be remade. It’s not like the blueprints say it should be. She’s the same person, but structurally, she’s not. she has to be remade as a woman.”

“Granted, that makes sense, but what about anger and aggression?”

“Well thankfully, no one’s been aggressive, but we know where the brain needs stimulated to make anger. We also know what genes to change to make a person more susceptible to anger and rage.” Roman glanced at the rest of us. “I know there’s more we’re not explaining with all of this, but I think we’re beginning to see how some of these things work.”

“Please, Roman,” I implored. “We need to know the rest, and you’re the only one who can figure it out.”

A few weeks later, Roman called everyone together and told them what he’d learned.

“Apparently Caesar was very sure of himself. I have not appeared to have a problem with looking at anything. The nanites are leaving me alone. I think the only real problem is if you start to feel elated, it assumes that you’re getting close, or you think you are.”

“So it reads our minds?” Kari asked.

“I doubt it,” Roman said. I think it just knows when you’re feeling happy about something. Perhaps it can generally read emotions, but not exactly what you’re thinking.”

“If you’re not having any problems, why were our doctors spaced?” aked Marc.

“Honestly, I think he was playing with us even then. There doesn’t seem to be any other reason for it. I’ve passed my medical exams with flying colors now, and I’m still fine.”

John nodded. “That could well be, Roman, but we need to be certain that anything you do is safe.”

“Yes. We don’t want to lose you,” I agreed.

Marc and Kari still had six months before they entered stage five. It was late at night, and the four of us were off shift for awhile.

I went to see Kari, hoping that I could cheer her up. She had been really depressed for awhile, and I wasn’t sure what was causing it.

We had taken the time to beautify some of the bays of the station, and had even turned one into what seemed to be an outside park. Some of our artists had done a wonderful job working in holograms, making the ceiling look like a beautiful sky. Much of the flaura here was growing in a hydroponic culture, but it had been carefully arranged to not appear to be. The walls were hidden by both flora and holograms. Obviously, the holograms were just tricks of the light, but as long as you didn’t try to touch them, you didn’t notice.

Kari and I met and sat down on a bench. It was overlooking a fountain in the center of the park. We didn’t have the water to spare on a fountain, but the was real. There were speakers in the middle which provided the sound of water, so it was quite pleasant.

“So what’s going on, Kari?” I asked her.

“What do you mean?” she countered.

“Oh come on. You’ve seemed really down lately. Can’t you tell me?”

She sat, unmoving for awhile. “I wish that was real,” she finally said.

I looked at her closely. “I don’t think that’s what’s bothering you,” I told her.

She sighed, then without moving her eyes from the fountain, told me, “We only have six months.”

Very quietly, I said, “I know.”

“I’m scared,” she told me. “I love Marc, but to just sit, day after day, month after month, watching him, unable to do anything else. It just seems to be too much.”

I didn’t say anything this time. I nodded, but she didn’t move her eyes.

“We’re supposed to be aware of everything around us, but too much mental stimulation results in death. How much is too much?”

“Marc didn’t say there seemed to be a limit to ambient stimulation.”

“I know!”

I stared at her for a bit. “What are you not telling me, Kari?”

“I spoke to Glenda earlier.” Glenda was a man who had been turned into a woman from the outset. “She tried to kill herself. She couldn’t. She and Bil have become bondmates. They decided it wasn’t worth the pain. They decided to commit suicide at the same time. She says when she tried, she couldn’t move her hand to do anything. Neither could Bil!”

She started to cry now. I pulled her into an embrace. “Marc and I had decided if the six months were gone, before we ended up in stage five, we’d rather die, but we’re stuck. We can’t even end everything.”

“Are you sure they just couldn’t bring themselves to do it?” I asked.

“They really wanted to! She could move her other hand, but when she tried to bring a knife to her neck, it stopped.”

I felt like I had been deflated, and I knew I’d have to tell John tonight. We had thought the same thing.

Author’s note: It’s interesting. I received a comment on this, and I had already decided to address the possibility of suicide.