To group "<Seekers>", Pilot Imperial, from Sec. Chief Nehman

[Anonymous]

<transcript /Macario>
<timestamp: 2100.32.06 3/20>

N: Nehman  M: Macario

N:  Dr. Macario, are these words familiar to you?  'This message is confidential. It is not for publication in the Sylph Report or any other public forum. It is for private dissemination amongst the members of your organization, or 'Gospels'. Do not forward my name. Contact me only via secure channel.

'I am a neurobiologist employed at TRIM. My name is Neelam Macario. You may look it up to verify my credentials. You may attempt to slander or otherwise harm me, but I assure you that doing so would prove far more detrimental to your interests than to mine, which are, in any case, quite nil.

'The following you may pass along to your organization: I have engineered a nanobot swarm that, upon injection, will incapacitate the psychic module of the brain within six seconds, somewhat more quickly than blood circulates completely through the body.' I repeat.  Are these words familiar.

M:  No, they are not. It is true that I engineer nanobots, but they are for the purpose of psychic development, an area in which I have met with some success.

N:  You claim you did not send the message.

M: I did not send the message.

N: We traced the message to TRIM.

M:  I did not send the message.

N: We crosschecked the stylistics and base grammar.

M:  I regret to tell you that I did not send the message.

N:  Very well.  'No one at TRIM is aware of this discovery. I am practiced at encoding my machines and they offer up their information only to a circuit completed by my brain. The discovery is entirely unknown by anyone but ourselves.'  (pause) A circuit completed by your brain, Dr. Macario?

M:  The concept is nonsensical to me. I have, it is true, reached the point of simple psychic interface with computers. But to 'complete a circuit with a brain' is childish science. It is nonsense, the fiction of someone who thinks you can hold wires up to your ears to start a ship.

N:  You will submit to be tested by an electronicist of our choice on this matter.

M:  That is acceptable. He or she would tell you the same thing.

N:  Stick to the essentials in your answers, Dr. Macario.  (pause)  'The nanobot swarm is not self-proliferating and has a decay time of approximately one month. Thus far I have no agent capable of permanently destroying the psychic module and leaving the patient alive. I am at work on both a self-proliferating (and thus permanent) variant of the swarm and an antidote to the 'psychic cure' itself.

'I reiterate: if injected with this nanobot swarm, or 'nanovirus' (though the term is not quite proper), the subject will immediately lose all access to the psychic module of the brain. Connection to the Network will be impossible. Communication with Dragons will be impossible. Psychic activity of any kind will be impossible. The effects last for one month. There is no cure at present.

'Tell me how useful this technology will be to you and your organization, and we may negotiate price. It will be, I assure you, quite affordable.' Were you intending to sell the cure? To purchase.  (pause)  Narcotics, for example?

M:  I manufacture some of my own narcotics and receive the rest via TRIM's common pool. My dosage is indeed too high. I have a dependency. However, it is not one for which I would require money. I apologize, but I think you have the wrong suspect.

N:  The effects last for one month. There is no cure. Is this nanobot swarm, Dr. Macario, something it would be possible to engineer? In your professional opinion.

M:  In my opinion.  In my--opinion. It would not be possible. The plasticity of the brain is greater than the layman believes. The so-called psychic module is not centralized. It would be very difficult--

N:  The question, Doctor Macario, was whether it is possible.

M:  It would not be possible for me.

N:  Would it be possible for anyone?

M:  As far as I know I am the most advanced in my field. It is a fairly hermetic field.

N:  You are the most advanced in your field, and it would be impossible for you.

M:  That is what I said.

N:  Very well. I pick up where I left off. (pause) 'You may ask what is in it for me, as I believe one says in common parlance? It should be no secret that I have been working to create psychic modules in otherwise nonpsychic brains. I have recently come to conclude this task is impossible. When there remain few pleasures, boredom and idleness conspire to create a kind of optimistic folly; and in that spirit, yours in peace, Neelam Macario.' (pause)  Do you habitually sign your letters in that fashion, Dr. Macario?

M:  If nothing else, Chief Nehman, the coda to this letter should utterly invalidate its flimsy believability. My research is quite--

N:  Answer the question, Dr. Macario.

M:  No--no. I do not habitually sign my letters in that fashion.

N:  The fashion in which you habitually sign your letters is...?

M:  (pause)  Is--I rarely make missives. Is. Usually--N.M., if interdepartmentally . Dr. Neelam Macario to those who do not yet know me. Neel--to family.

N:  Do you contact anyone outside of TRIM on a regular basis?

M:  Only my family. My mother and father. My brother, who--is--a Pilot Royal in the Aedolisian military. Contact with him infrequens--is infrequent.

N:  Has your research been successful, Dr. Macario?

M:  It has been very successful by the standards of the profession.

N:  By your standards, Dr. Macario, has your research been successful?

M:  As I have said, I am able to communicate psychically with a computer. I consider that a success above and beyond anything I had ever hoped. Within ten years I hope to gain the ability to create psychic ability in homo sapiens.

N:  But you cannot take away psychic ability.

M:  The concept is nonsensical. I have many colleagues who could easily engineer a chemical compound that could kill in less than six seconds. This conjectural 'nanobot swarm' would have no purpose.

N:  The question, Dr. Macario.

M:  Apologies. I am simply--I am uneasy being interrogated on such ludicrous charges. No, I could not take away psychic ability. It is a different kind of energy--the nanobots work as a swarm to create it, not to take away--it is not something that can to my knowledge be destroyed, only tamped, as in our containment system, which affects the resonance external to the brain and not any physical structure of the brain. That is impossible, as far as I know. And even if it were not, creating such a nanobot would be completely without purpose.

N:  You can see no purpose in the creation of such a swarm?

M:  I can see no purpose.


signed,
Chief of Security Mali Nehman

--------------------------

<attached file: data>

Code: [Select]

Initial Data

point of interest -- .1 mm spike p/n

conclusion -- borderline

decision  -- hold for further interrogation

Code: [Select]

Final Data

-bp insignificantly elevated, difference of <.3% of norm
-hr significantly elevated, >4.1% deviation from norm
-cardiovascular system suboptimal
-brain activity of significance in r1.02, r12.06, r36.58, r37.90, l13.00, l67.83
-pattern consistent with transcortical aphasia
-blood flow <68.7% in r50-75, l20-60
-dlPFC* and PMd** subnormal, unreadable on iEEG
-psychoactivity null on iEEG

*dorsolateral prefrontal cortext
**dorsal premotor areas

Note by researcher: dlPFC function is specialized to goal-directed behaviors (e.g. attentional selection, inhibitory control, monitoring, updating, and planning).  Their unreadability is due to the subject's neuronal reconstruction, which has proven as yet nonfunctionally inhibitory.  At present rate of neuronal and cardiovascular decomposition life expectancy of subject is 3-7 yr.  


signed,
Dr. Bertrand N. Fea
Chief Mali Nehman

[Anonymous]

<transcript /Macario>
<timestamp: 1600.09.27 3/23>

N: Nehman M: Macario

N:  Are you aware of your medical condition, Dr. Macario?

M: I am.

N:  Was anyone else aware of your medical condition prior to this investigation?

M:  I do not know.

N:  A scan you undertook last year indicates you were in good health.  Did you engage in some fraud to receive that result?

M:  I do not see why this matter is--

N:  Answer the question, Dr. Macario.

M:  I did not.  My health has deteriorated significantly in the last year.

N:  And yet you underwent no public tests to determine that.

M:  (Pause)  I didn't want to know.  Is that fair to say?  I knew I was in ill health.  I did not assume--I did not want to know.  I am, it is fair to say, a monomaniac.  My only concern was my work.  My health--personal work in my laboratory--I am--"  (Long Pause)

N:  Doctor Macario.

M:  Yes.  My apologies.  I was saying--I was.  I use myself as a test subject.  Of course I ran private scans.  I was, however, half-blinded to the effects of what I did, or did not--I am in untrammeled territory.  There is no one else--I had no other authority to consult.  I was not sure of my medical condition but it became--it became--obvious.

N:  Then the coda of this letter is not so unbelievable, Dr. Macario, as you stated in our last conversation.  If no one else knew of your condition, who could have written it?

M:  I don't know.  Did the letter.... did.  It.  Make mention of that?

N:  You said earlier that you expect your work to be complete in ten years.  You are aware your life expectancy is, at best, seven years.  Your personality profile is not that of an optimist, Dr. Macario.

M: I... thought.  Still think.  My example can be studied.  That's all I ever expected.  That someday someone would--

N:  Your brother is an Aedolian Pilot Royal.  Would you consent to transport to Aedolis and questioning by Aedolian psychics, were we to allow that?

M:  Yes.  I believe this to be fraud but I--

N:  Enough.  Are you aware, Dr. Macario, of what we found in your laboratory?

M:  (Pause)  I have several concurrent experiments.  Neural network models.  Live brain tissue.  I submit my results daily for review.  I hope there was not some--

N:  To be more specific, on your terminal.

M:  Data from experimental subjects, myself included.  Data from artificially modeled networks.  Data on the nanotechnology I am designing.

N:  We sifted your activity and electrical input.  There is a marked imbalance.

M:  I... sometimes I leave the machine on while I sleep.  I am not--always lucid, sometimes... you have noted temporal lobe dis--

N:  Please, Dr. Macario.

M:  Surely you have noticed there is no record of any experimentation in the area of some 'psychic cure.'

N:  We have very carefully noted that there is no record.  It is unusual that you would have no record at all.  Surely the idea of the project might have suggested itself?  Your records include detailed personal notation.

M:  I am not sure what you are asking me.  I am not responsible for this so-called nanobot injection.  Injection has never been my methodology.  (Pause)  I was pursuing electroconductivity .  Not.  This.  I have limited time.  Why would I waste it trying to destroy psychic power.  There is no point.

N:  Thank you, Dr. Macario.

Code: [Select]

Initial Data

point of interest -- no correlation

conclusion -- nonreactive

decision  -- pending
signed,
Sec. Chief Mali Nehman

Code: [Select]

Final Data

-bp insignificantly elevated, difference of <.1% of norm
-hr significantly elevated, >6.7% deviation from norm (prob. due to 1.2 g methamphetamine, 125 mg paracoximide)
-brain activity of significance in r1.00-r4.06, r12.02, l12.09, l43.07-l68.0, sporadic, irregular
-pattern consistent with transcortical aphasia, pattern reduced
-blood flow <72.5% in r50-75, l20-60
-dlPFC and PMd subnormal, unreadable on iEEG
-psychoactivity sparse on iEEG, insufficient data

Conclusion: irregular reaction to paracoximide, suggest no repetition of the raised dosage.  Brain activity highly irregular.
signed,
Chief of Security Mali Nehman
Dr. Bertrand N. Fea

Code: [Select]

Data from Labnet0197

Discrepancies:  Unknown transfer of sequential-access memory information, set: 18 THz.  Timestamp missing.  Memorycheck clear.  

Conclusion:  Possible unauthorized data proliferation, further investigation impossible.
signed,
Chief of Security Mali Nehman
Dr. Helmholtz Wade