Wired Bone: Chapter Ten (Patreon)

Chapter Ten

It was about three hours later when the Council meeting ended.

The matter of adopting Kingston Hill’s research was revisited and argued multiple times during the meeting, once a topic was exhausted, but they always ended coming back to the same result.

Houses Sanguine, Aurum and Asclepius could not be dissuaded from their path, and neither could their supporters. They were determined to break the code and participate in Dark Science.

Zero couldn’t understand it. These were supposed to be the representatives of Third York’s Hypercognitive population. House Sanguine, maybe, but the others? Did they not understand that some things were banned for a reason?

Zero’s confusion lasted all the way as he followed Doctor Phan, who followed the Head Councilman (was he truly the head of the Council? With how little they listened to him?), who walked away to an office.

It appeared to be his, as there were pictures of himself with different children around. Zero was distracted from further inspection by the way Lord Valiant reached under his shirt and removed a sort of sterile white corset. His waist practically exploded outwards, filling his shirt far more, though the cut was such that it did not stretch overmuch when he did.

Tossing the corset aside without much care, he collapsed onto his chair and immediately started digging through drawers until he found a thick cigar, one stouter than the one he’d started at his personal office. He started to smoke without much care, rubbing his eyes under his pince-nez with frustration.

Zero looked over at his creation. He seemed as shocked as he felt, which was sort of reassuring, he supposed.

“You seem confused,” said the Head Councilman. Zero was startled to realize he was speaking to him. “I take it from your general air of childish naiveté that you had a different image in mind of how our government worked?”

Zero blinked, then nodded slightly. “They… they are supposed to protect us from things like Dark Science. Why would they…?”

“… because there is more to be gained,” Lord Valiant sighed, exhaling two plumes of smoke from his nose. “Thea and I took a stance based around principle, not practicality. And in politics, the latter reigns supreme.”

“Politics are nothing but ideals!”

“You’re adorable,” drawled Lord Valiant, who Zero was starting to think was taking out his frustrations on him. “Politics isn’t about ideals. It’s about compromise, and trying to get the most you can out of every interaction. Hence, practicality.”

Zero frowned, but said nothing.

Lord Valiant watched him for a moment, eyes lidded with exhaustion, then shook his head, “Do you want to hear the one piece of advice that will make all of life make sense?”

“Um, yes?”

“Well, it doesn’t exist,” Lord Valiant smirked a little at his own joke. “The closest I can offer is this: everyone is a person.”

Zero frowned, “That… seems a little obvious.”

“There’s a difference between what you know and what you keep in mind, little subject,” the Head Councilman replied. “You know everyone is a person. But you don’t keep in mind that people are fucking awful. Selfish, short-sighted, self-centered and shockingly prejudiced even amongst would-be saints.”

Zero blinked. That was… amazingly bitter and cynical.

“Don’t think me a hypocrite,” the politician continued. “I’m all of those things as well. And so are you. It’s only a matter of degrees, of how much we indulge those traits. I try to think beyond the next five minutes, I try to think about my citizens. And… in their own way, I have to believe that Anathema, Cain and Rain all do as well.”

“Even when they try to adopt Dark Science?”

“People always try to make the best choice they can think of. The problem is in the disagreement as to what the best choice is, or what choices even exist when no one ever has all the facts, or the same experiences to compare the situation to,” Lord Valiant puffed at his cigar, looking at Zero. “Tell me. What would you have argued, in my position?”

“That the rewards aren’t worth the risk,” Zero immediately replied, with no hesitation. “I’d have probably made the same arguments as you and Lady Guerra, perhaps worded differently. Probably worded worse, actually.”

“There is some self-awareness in you, then,” Valiant noted approvingly. “But that’s because you draw upon the knowledge and teachings given to you. I’m guessing you never came face-to-face with Dark Technology yourself?”

Zero hesitated, then shook his head.

“I’m not surprised; we’ve done our best to suppress it and disappear it so that new cogs wouldn’t get inspired,” he said. “My father was not so merciful with me. He was fond of taking me to his lab, and to raids, and to interrogations. He wanted me to see the kind of people that were willing to remake the horrors of the Third World War. To see the cost that such things had on people that came under it.

“Engineered plagues, thinking machines, a few attempts at orbital weaponry… He had some footage of his days after New York was glassed, you know. He showed it to me on my fifth birthday, ‘to make me understand the enemy’ he said.”

“That’s…” said Zero. Words failed him, but eventually he settled on, “I’m sorry you had to go through that. He shouldn’t have done that.”

There was a look of complete shock on Lord Valiant’s face at that. His eyes were wide, his mouth hung open.

After a moment, he burst out laughing, slapping his knee.

“You’re in good company, subject!” he laughed, “Only one other person said that to me after I told them that tidbit!”

“Who?”

“Anathema Sanguine.”

Zero paled as much as he could.

“Don’t look like that,” Valiant chided, still chortling. “She’s a person, just like you and me. But she had different experiences.”

“Like being raised by a Dark Scientist?”

“Vladimir Sanguine didn’t raise her at all,” Valiant snorted. “But yes, all her life she’s been associated to him. And she’s worked with it. She’s tried to improve our city, in her own way.”

“Doctor Phan says that she launders money through those businesses,” Zero noted.

The Head Councilman gave the doctor in question a look, one eyebrow raised, then turned his attention back to Zero.

“Not an unpopular opinion,” he said, tone carefully neutral. “Tell me, are you familiar with ‘confirmation bias’?”

“Yes.”

“Now, I’m sure you know that her investments have been carefully surveyed and inspected.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, they have. Do you think anything was found?”

Before today, Zero would have said that obviously not, because then she wouldn’t have her job anymore.

But then again, he would have also thought that someone would immediately lose their job if they even breathed around the idea of adopting Dark Technology.

“I don’t know.”

“Good on you for admitting it,” Valiant smiled. “No, they found nothing. Tell me, what seems more rational to you? Finding no evidence of wrongdoing from a person with no criminal history, and deducing they didn’t do anything bad, or assuming that they simply hid the evidence better than what multiple audits could have found?”

Zero blinked a couple times and his head lowered, deep in thought.

Lord Valiant watched him for a moment, then took another puff of the cigar.

“We’re getting off-track,” he said. “The point is, she had no chance to walk away from being affiliated with Dark Science. So, she studied it. From a different, more willing angle than I did. She sees it in a way that I could not, even if I were willing to.”

“How is that?”

“Like it’s just another form of knowledge. Something that can be used for good,” Lord Valiant blew a smoke ring and stared at it thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Perhaps it can be. But… I’ve seen too much evidence against it to go along when the possibility comes up. And I’ll probably continue to fight against it.”

“Prejudice,” noted Zero, then immediately regretted it because this was still the Head Councilman.

But he just smiled and nodded at him, a little ruefully.

A silence, slightly comfortable, barely had a chance to start forming. But Doctor Phan, who’d been fidgeting and waiting for his chance to talk, pounced on the opportunity and said, “Um… Lord Valiant?”

The Head Councilman looked at him.

“If… if it’s not too much of a bother, could I present my work now?” Doctor Phan asked.

“… might as well,” Lord Valiant said. “I’ll admit, I’ve been dying to know why you drilled holes into his skull.”

As a test subject at the Academy, Zero was used to odd sentences. But sometimes they still jumped out at him.

“Ah, yes, those,” Doctor Phan cleared his throat. “I’m afraid those were necessary for the Thought Alternator to work directly.”

Lord Valiant raised an eyebrow, and leaned back. “Start from the beginning. What, exactly, are you trying to accomplish?”

And finally, finally, after all the tribulations of the day, Doctor Phan smiled like himself again. His eyes gained that gleam of excitement he got from talking about his work, and Zero felt himself breath with an ease he didn’t realize he’d been missing.

“My work,” said Doctor Phan, with pride worthy of the man who would advance humanity’s understanding of the universe by decades, “Is a method with which to install skills and knowledge into subjects with established neural pathways.”

Lord Valiant blinked, then he leaned back, stroking his beard.

“Explain.”

“Gladly!” Doctor Phan clapped his hands as he spoke excitedly, “My interest in this subject started with a class on programming knowledge on manufactured living beings. While we can make a brain with basic skills and knowledge pre-programmed, it bothered me that we could not expand on that once the process was finished.”

“And you’ve found a way around it? If this has been a project since you were a student, how long have you been working on it?”

“On and off for the last twenty years; I did some design work for some Aurum companies on the side to facilitate my lifestyle.”

“Right.”

“Well, it was only recently that I really had a breakthrough. It wasn’t easy creating the Thought Alternator and Zero here on the stipend provided by the Academy,” Doctor Phan explained.

“I understand. But what I want to know is how it works.”

“Ah, yes. Well, keep in mind that this is a prototype and I’m looking for a less invasive method in the future. But how it works is that I put Zero’s mind into a suspended state and, through the input plugs you mentioned, I administer a series of electrical shocks and chemical stimuli until I inscribe the desired skill.”

“Sounds… complicated,” noted Lord Valiant.

“Well… yes, as it is right now, it requires quite a bit of planning and mapping of the Thought Alternator.”

“Right, that thing… What exactly is this Alternator of yours?”

“It is a computational device created from some neurons of my own design; I made them by combining a sort of fungi I made with Tassin’s Braincells, if you’re familiar?”

“My father sponsored his later work, yes. Getting permits to use it on your work must’ve been quite the challenge.”

“I’m known for my persistence,” Doctor Phan said with a bit of amusement in his tone. Zero nodded with agreement.

“I noticed,” drawled Lord Valiant. “Have you gained results from it?”

“Yes sir! I managed to reduce loss of information by 12.5%!”

“Impressive. And how does it play into inserting knowledge into an established mind?”

“Well, I managed to map out a series of different skills onto different parts of the Alternator. Through the machine part of it, I can copy the parts I want and then try to copy them onto my subject’s brain.”

“… cutting it a bit close to Dark Technology there,” Lord Valiant noted, “But I won’t say more on the subject, since it’s hardly altering a sapient being.”

“Ah, yes, thank you, sir.”

“Mm. On that topic, it’s not really an alternator, is it?”

“Hm?”

“The machine. An alternator is a dynamo that produces an alternating current. This is… a biological computer and printer, more or less.”

“Well, yes…”

“Did you name it that way because it sounded good?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t blame you,” nodded Lord Valiant. “Tell me more about this suspended state. What is the practical effect on your subject?”

“Well… while I’ve managed to narrow it down to only shutting down everything but the most vital parts, Zero has described the effect as a sort of… drift, at best.”

“At best? What is it at worst?”

Doctor Phan hesitated.

Before he could say anything else, Lord Valiant looked to Zero. “What is it at worst?”

Zero hesitated, not looking at Doctor Phan, before confessing, “Death. It feels like death.”

“… I see.”

Lord Charles Valiant’s expression was unreadable.

“Um, sir, that is only an approximation of what happens,” Doctor Phan hurried to explain. “M-My subject, Zero, he doesn’t stop breathing or having a heartbeat—”

“But he experiences death.”

“Well, we can hardly know if it’s death instead of just being knocked out—”

“Out of curiosity,” interrupted Valiant. “How do you think the board of ethics would feel about this? Do they know?”

Zero’s brain had never worked as fast as it did in that moment. He felt like the lie appeared in his brain already formed, and in barely a second he managed to get his reaction under control to sound casual as he said, “Oh, Doctor Phan already checked with them. I did some psychiatric and therapeutic screening and it all came out clear.”

Lord Valiant’s eyes fell on the test subject.

Zero forced his face to remain soft, unexpressive and calm.

“… good,” said the Head Councilman after a while. His eyes dragged back over to Doctor Phan. “I suggest you lead with that next time.”

“Ah, um, yes, sir.”

“… hm.”

Lord Valiant scratched his bearded chin for a moment, watching them both, before asking, “Have you had any successes in implanting skills upon Zero, here?”

Doctor Phan cleared his throat. Some of his enthusiasm had been dampened by Lord Valiant’s interrogation, but he nodded animatedly and said, “Yes! Just yesterday, I was able to install in Zero the ability to play piano on a professional level.”

“… very well,” said Lord Valiant, standing up. “Let’s see it.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s a piano downstairs. I believe it’s tuned. Let’s see how he plays.”

He started marching out, and Zero barely realized what he was doing when he went to grab the discarded corset-thing and lifted it up, saying, “Sir, don’t you want to—”

“Leave it and move it,” the Head Councilman directed, already halfway out the door, cigar leaving a trail of smoke behind him.

Zero and Doctor Phan followed after it.

The building was still a flurry of action, with multiple people walking around passing messages in paper and in speech from office to office. The hypercognitive noble in the bathrobe still hadn’t had a chance to finish cleaning or even close the door to his office, occupied as he was with shouting into a phone to move around assets.

They made it to a reception room, on which a piano made with dark wood and fine artificial ivory keys sat, collecting dust.

They stopped before it, and Lord Valiant gestured for Zero to sit.

He did so. He brushed his fingers across the keys, feeling the texture with implanted familiarity, before turning to look at the Head Councilman and asking, “What should I play?”

Valiant thought it over, before asking, “How would you rate your skills, Zero?”

“World-class,” the test subject replied, without hesitation.

The corner of his mouth twitched up a bit. “In that case… could you invent a piece? Here and now, something completely original?”

Zero blinked, thinking it over.

There were a few dozen pieces inscribed within his memory, which he could recall with the same ease he remembered his own name. His fingers could move to the proper position over the proper keys with no conscious effort.

With bits of effort, he instinctively knew how he could combine the pieces together in order to make something that sounded pleasing… but that would not be ‘completely original’, would it? This was a test of his knowledge and his skill.

Zero closed his eyes and focused. His hands raised a bit as his mind turned inwards like a neurological ouroboros, inspecting every piece of implanted, inserted knowledge. The pieces themselves were opened and inspected, the notes that fit together well were compared against others with which they wouldn’t sound good.

“Zero—” Doctor Phan started, but Lord Valiant shushed him.

In the test subject’s mind, he recognized that certain sounds, timings and notes could be tied to certain emotions. A song was a connection of sounds, and therefore meant to evoke a certain feeling and perhaps a message. A means of communication.

What did Zero want to communicate? What couldhe communicate?

… he felt lost. More than he’d been this morning, waiting for the meeting to begin. More than he’d been in the last fourteen months of life.

Matthews cared for his test subjects. His work wasimportant, and would likely be needed if they had to mobilize Rangers against this Kingston Hill person. The Council was voting to adopt Dark Science. Doctor Phan had been ignored and frankly, disrespected by Lord Valiant all day, but Lord Valiant had been quite kind to Zero.

He felt uncertain and nervous.

So, that’s what he played.

Slowly, hesitantly at first, he started to string together notes. The timing was precise, one-two-three-four, a word fit in that space through semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver and semiquaver. Words joined together and in joining one-two-three-four with one-two-three-four, he started building a sentence.

He kept mixing until a sentence became a paragraph, the equivalent of five lines on a sheet of music. Zero’s fingers started to move quicker, and his grasp on the timing became imperfect. Like someone mixing words and stumbling over syllables because they spoke passionately.

His timing turned downright awful the more he played, the crescendo turning louder and louder as he hit the keys harder and harder.

Zero realized his eyes had been closed the entire time; he opened them as he slammed down on the final notes.

It was a sudden end. The day was yet unfinished, and he still felt like he was standing at the start of something.

He turned to look at his audience. It had grown a bit; a few Lords and couriers having stopped to listen.

He looked at Doctor Phan, who was sweating nervously.

He looked to Lord Valiant.

The man’s eyes gleamed with interest.