Circuits and Coral

[Gir Quee]

Lucerne Labs Cybernetic Center
Tidefall Island, Tanaan IV

“Name?”

“Bron Augs, ID number 2834841.”

The nurse let a smile engender itself across her face, “You didn't even let me ask you that...”

Gir stood behind the one-way window as the patient and the nurse began to go through the sundry tasks of updating medical records and evaluating the prothesis. He turned his eyes to Dr. Bonmi, the cerean doctor who had persuaded him to change one of the droid laboratories into a cybernetics center. The cerean looked back at him expectantly. I guess I'm supposed to be impressed with this? Gir turned his attention back to the examination room and watched the proceedings only half-heartedly. He could see all of the items and concepts in the plan of care proposed by Dr. Bonmi, but it seemed a mundane affair to the man from Hast. Quality of care is not nearly as exciting as weapons development...or should I say, weapons testing? He shook the thoughts from his head as the nurse visit came to an end.

“Well, what do you think?”

“I'd say that we're living up to that moral obligation.”

“You don't sound terribly enthused by this idea.”

“It's important and needed work,” said Gir, “and the market researchers are agreeing with you that it is at least sustainable if not profitable. But it doesn't exactly look exciting.”

The cone-head physician nodded, “I suppose not. But everything is a stepping stone. The instituational practices and care that we establish today will act as the foundation for more...exciting things.”

“Like your hand,” said Gir, gesturing at the doctor's robotic hand.

 

[Gir Quee]

“Like my hand,” admitted the doctor, “though I can't understand why you think it'd be any more interesting than that man's leg over there.”

“I can at least understand that it enhances your skill as a surgeon. In some ways better than your original hand.”

The cerean ruefully shook his hand and tugged away at what appeared to be skin to reveal a contorted mess of circuitry, “And in some ways worse. I didn't have to carry around power packs for my hand before.”

“I suppose so.”

“That man's leg is more interesting than you know,” explained the cerean, “it contains miniaturized gravity density projectors in it, allowing it to change its effective mass in different parts of the leg as needed.”

Gir considered that revelation, “That would make it more natural feeling I suppose.”

“Exactly,” said the cerean, “and it even has potential military applications in the future. Imagine a soldier or droid who physically alter its mass in-flight or while maneuvering through terrain.”

“I never thought about cybernetics going back to the droids,” admitted Gir, “you have piqued my curiousity.”

A thin smile creased Dr. Bonmi's face, “That's good for me I suppose. But I would ask that you bring that point up to the Circle when you next see them. The technologies between droids and cybernetics has a lot of interchangeability. What advances we make can benefit them, and vice versa. We do, of course, have areas where there won't be any real need to exchange information. Not everything biological can be replaced by machine.”

“Or machine replaced by biological.”

“I suppose,” said the doctor, folding his hands, “but come on, I do have something to show you that you may find more interesting.”

 

[Gir Quee]

The doctor lead him out of the observation suite and into the halls of the clinic. Patients, healthcare staff, and droids all wheeled about in and out of rooms. It seemed strange to Gir to see so many around him in different uniforms, and for him not to match them in any way despite wearing a uniform of his own. He glanced at the name label on one tech's scrubs. I suppose there are always at least some similarities. A short turbolift ride later found him on the 'penthouse' of the facility reserved for the Labs' local upper management. A reinforced dome of ceraglass made up the entire ceiling, allowing Gir unfettered observation of the skies of Tanaan IV as well as look down at the rest facility. Most of the time he could only see turbulent cloudy skies and torrential downfalls. Yet today, the sky was relatively clear, and he could actually make out the system's golden sun in the distance. Bright light emanated out from the star to bath the whole island in a warm glow that almost made it seem to be a paradise. But the doctor seemed uninterested in the atmosphere and instead ushered Gir into a conference room whose floorspace was mostly dominated by a large holo-projector. A half dozen other people were present, mostly blue-skinned aruzans, who Gir recognized as being the scientists he had recruited from the collective. None of them paid him any attention, instead staring intently at the holo.

Gir turned his attention to it as well, looking at what appeared to be a lump of black sand the size of a landspeeder that had washed up on the white side beaches several kilometers away from them. Gir watched it for nearly a minute without realizing what he was looking at. Suddenly he realized that he wasn't looking at a bunch of sand dropped onto a beach. Whatever it was was moving. Dr. Bonmi beamed.

“Do you know what you're seeing?”

Gir shook his head, “I don't.”

“A strain of Bandaras provided to us by Lucerne Biological Systems.”

“What's a bandara?”

“Sand-beetles...or rather...scavenger beetles that live on sandbars. They can dissolve almost anything that passes by them, to include metals.”

“Interesting,” said Gir, “that trait has several practical applications, anything from biological weapons to recycling.”

“Exactly,” said the cerean, “but the issue is controlling or training them.”

Gir nodded, “And that's where the cybernetics lab comes in, I'd imagine?”

 

[Gir Quee]

“Yes.”

Gir spun about on his heels to face one of the blue-skinned aruzans, a lithe female named Raya. Gir tried to recall what he could about the woman, recalling that at the collective, she had mostly be involved with adapting attani to different species. She eyed him intently, as if trying to read his mind.

“An offshoot of your work with the attani?” guessed Gir.

“Conceptually, I suppose it is,” said Raya, walking forwards towards the holo, “we can't simply have them swarm and destroy anything that nears them. We'd be responsible for unleashing a weapon of mass destruction to the worst of our detractors, or at the very least have introduced an invasive species.”

“That'd be an awful lot of attanis.”

“That's very true,” said Raya, “there's only about a dozen of our implants in that swarm. Only a few of thebandaras have them, and they are the largest and most dominant in that swarm.”

“You control the leaders then, and let the leaders naturally control their followers.”

She nodded, “We don't really control the leaders, but we can influence them through the connection between our attani of what is acceptable to eat, and what isn't.”

“Essentially, two rounds of indirect influence then between us and the worker bandaras.”

She nodded.

“Sounds risky.”

“That's why this is a test,” said the aruzan.

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir starred hard at the holo, trying to see just what part of it was a test. As he turned his direction away from the swarm, he could see a dark, humanoid figure coming into view at the periphery. The image resolved itself to turn into what looked like a simple ASP labor droid. Yet Gir could see that it had bee modified in some ways judging by the extra panels mounted on its body and several seemingly extraneous cords that were drapped across its torso. The droid slowly edged towards the swarm at a speed that was far below that of a normal labor droid. They must be testing the ability of the swarm to contain its predator instinct...if it has one. The ASP droid slowly tip-toed closer to the swarming insects with the grace of an AT-AT. Eventually, one of its feet rested mere centimeters away from the edges of the swarm. Dozens of the insects clambered over their swarm mates to scurry onto the droid, yet for the most part, the swarm held their position. What's that then? Maybe 5% of the population isn't under control?

He turned his head from side to side, noting that almost all of the scientists and cybernetics specialists were scrawling down notes and observations. He turned his attention back to the holo. Oblivious to the insects chewing away at its exterior plating, the droid slowly set a foot into the middle of the swarm. Hundreds of bandaras swarmed up that leg, turning the tan droid black.

“Well, that looks like a failure,” sighed Raya, turning her eyes back to Gir, “we were hoping that some improvements in our attani would be able to better inhibit their sense of aggression.”

“Looks defensive to me.”

“Not to the ones who weren't directly about to be stepped on,” said the woman, “but their swarm mentality of acting as a single one is proving to be an interesting challenge. With the use of several, we can control a whole swarm. But because that relationship flows the other way as well, those not directly under our influence inherently act on their own, and fight against the influence that we've implanted in them.”

 

[Gir Quee]

"Nature versus nuture, so to speak," said a new voice.

Gir turned his head to face Dr. Arenity. The aruzan seemed to have a warmer glow to his skin since leaving the asteroid colony in their native aruza system. Perhaps more curiously to Gir, he now wore thinner clothing probably better suited to Tanaan IV's humid climate, allowing Gir to better understand the modifications he had made to his own body. A tight-lipped smile engendered itself on the cyberneticist's face.

"It is good to see you again, Mister Quee."

"And you as well, doctor. Have things here been to your satisfaction?"

He nodded, "I have been pleasantly surprised. I understand that you've toured our practical ward and have now seen the latest of Raya's experiments. But I think that I have perhaps the most interesting thing left to show you. Or rather, what I think that you will be most interested in seeing, especially since it's near the end of its field trials."

He seems awfully confident about this. Gir racked his mind towards what that could be. There had been several experiments about trying to recreate the effects of Vong biotechnology. Gir gave it a sixty percent chance that it was one of those projects, though there was a distinct possibility it was a joint project with Lucerne Biological Systems.

"I'll be curious to see it."

"First though, a practical demonstration," said the doctor, handing Gir a nearby walking stick, "hit me with that."

Gir grasped the rod tightly. Well, that's not what I was expecting...

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir's eyes darted towards the aruzan's body, looking for any sort of "trick" to the whole thing. But the cyborg do not appear to be in any sort of unusual defensive stance, nor did there appear to be any weapon or gadget readily available to block his blow. He hesitated before bringing the rod down in a relatively gentle and controlled arc aimed squarely at the arusan's torso. He felt a slight impact of what initially appeared to be the rod on the aruzan's body. Yet Dr. Arenity seemed nonplussed by his strike.

"I'll admit, I thought that a professional soldier would hit be harder..."

Raya cleared her throat and stretched out her hand towards Gir, "If I may?"

Gir handed her the rod. The other aruzan wasted little time in swinging it hard and fast at her teammate, making Gir wonder if there was a personal problem between the two. Despite a flurry of blows that would have given a Hutt enforcer a run for their cred chips, Arenity continued to remain calm, collected, and unhurt by the whole ordeal. Gir narrowed his eyes. It's clear that the staff isn't hurting him...and there aren't any physical signs that he's actually being damaged by these strikes either, no matter where she hits him. Finally, the woman stopped and set the staff aside.

"You have some sort of force field or shielding device," guessed Gir.

Arenity nodded, "That would be correct. Come, follow me."

They passed a short ways to the doctor's personal office, where Gir could see the last of the pre-fabricated buildings being deployed in the background. I suppose that's one way to supervise a project...More immediate to his view, Arenity waved his hand to a mannequin to which had been grafted several unusual mechanical bits across the model body. Gir eyed them intently.

"Those are local shield projectors," guessed Gir, looking at the display and pointing at several cred chip-shaped objects.

Arenity nodded, "They are. I suppose you're intimately familiar with such technology given your past. The particle shielding there by itself is really nothing to write home about..."

 

[Gir Quee]

"Mature technology is still useful," countered Gir.

Arenity nodded, "It is, but it is even more useful and sellable when it is innovative. No, the shielding is pretty typical for personal shield generators these days. But none are quite like the Defender series here."

"It's all internalized," said Gir, looking closer at the mannequin, "there must be wires running underneath the skin to a main shield generator and power source?"

"Correct again," said the aruzan, "this is typically difficult to do. The body frequently rejects the wires or moves them around. But by sheathing the components in some of that hybrid Yorik-Ivrooy coral that the Labs developed for armor material, we have found something that most bodies don't reject. They seem to think of it internally as bone."

Gir's countenance briefly darkened, "You're not worried about any secondary effects?"

"Of course I am," said the cyberneticist, "but I can hardly just go out there and ask for volunteers on a technology like this. It seems fitting that the man behind it should use it himself. I think that that alone will help with any sales pitch."

"I can't fault your logic on that," said Gir, "I suppose you have Dr. Bonmi keeping a close watch on you?"

The aruzan nodded, "Plenty of healthcare personnel and facility to keep tabs on me. I have every confidence in their ability to intervene if something goes awry...but enough about me. Tell me, what do you think about our progress here? Has it met your expectations?"

Gir considered the thought carefully. In truth, he had arrived with no expectations at all, in part because of general ignorance of the field. Yet everything that Bonmi, Raya, and Arenity had showed him possibilities for market growth in a variety of areas and applications, from mundane healthcare to environmental engineering to personal defense. While clearly the Cybernetics division of the company was new, it seemed established enough under Dr. Bonmi and Arenity's leadership that he could likely continue to leave it alone and under their care.

"I'd be lying if I said I had high expectations. But I'm pleasantly surprised by how quickly you and Dr. Bonmi have been able to set up operations here. I can see that its still in its infant stages, but the work I've seen has only encouraged my trust in Dr. Bonmi's judgement. What I've seen today from you as started that perception from me as well, and in time, I hope that I will be able to trust you as fully as I do Dr. Bonmi."

"That is encouraging. I take it then that you and the Circle will be leaving us to ourselves then?"

Gir nodded, "Unless something goes severely wrong, I imagine that we will leave you to our devices, if you so desire."

"We do."

"Then I think that my work here is done."