Interrogation [closed ufn]

[Anonymous]

I.  Preliminary Questioning and Scan.


Neelam sat carefully straight in a carefully straight metal chair, in front of a carefully straight desk.  Light beamed brilliantly back at him.  He saw the silhouette of his interrogator, Chief Mali Nehman, TRIM Head of Security, and caught the shifting glint of a badge.

The hum of a mental scan ran in the background.  Neel's scalp prickled.  Inside the metal plate that held in the right side of his brain.  Parietal lobe.  Cerebrum. Frontal lobe.  Temporal lobe.  Occipital lobe.  The work of the engineered swarm inside.  He had found that the psychic module could migrate.  Brain plasticity.  It could be found in either half of the brain.  Split-brain cases, when he tested them, were particularly interesting.  Focus.

"Dr. Macario, are these words familiar to you?"   She began to read.  "'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 It is not for publication in the Sylph Report or any other public forum.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," she said.  "Are these words familiar."

He blinked against the glare.

"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."

"You claim you did not send the message."

"I did not send the message."

"We traced the message to TRIM."

Neel put one hand carefully to his head.  "I did not send the message."

"We crosschecked the stylistics and base grammar."

"I regret to tell you," said Neel, "that I did not send the message."

"Very well."  The pitch of the low hum echoing and vibrating through the room changed, grew higher.  Nehman cleared her throat and continued.  "'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.'"  She stopped.  "A circuit completed by your brain, Dr. Macario?"

He thought.  "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."

Chief Nehman cleared her throat.  "You will submit to be tested by an electronicist of our choice on this matter."

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

"Stick to the essentials in your answers, Dr. Macario."  She cleared her throat again and continued.  "'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 model 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."  Paper shuffled.  "Narcotics, for example?"

"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."

She moved on, ignoring the statement.  The buzzing heightened in pitch.  Neel put his hand to his head again, against the titanium plate.  "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."

"In my opinion."  He grimaced, his head twinged.  "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--"

"The question, Doctor Macario, was whether it is possible."

"It would not be possible for me."

"Would it be possible for anyone?"

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

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

"That is what I said."

"Very well. I pick up where I left off."  But she waited.  The light glinted and scintillated and refracted.  Neel blinked.  "'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.'"  She cleared her throat.  "Do you habitually sign your letters in that fashion, Dr. Macario?"

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

"Answer the question, Dr. Macario."

"No--no.  I do not habitually sign my letters in that fashion."  He opened his hands on the table and watched as the light turned them yellow, then looked back up at Chief Nehman.  The buzzing, which had receded, returned.  He flinched.  

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

Neel thought.  "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."

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

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

"Has your research been successful, Dr. Macario?"

"It has been very successful by the standards of the profession."

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

"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."

"But you cannot take away psychic ability."

"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."

"The question, Dr. Macario."  

"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."  

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

"I can see no purpose."



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

Code: [Select]

Data

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

conclusion -- borderline

decision  -- hold for further interrogation
signed,
Chief of Security Mali Nehman

[Anonymous]

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]

II.  Secondary Questioning Under Chemical Inducement.


Mali Nehman paced her office, hands behind her back.

The Aedolians wanted her to deport Macario.  She was not naive.  The matter concerned her.  Dr. Macario was an Aedolian citizen by birth.  He was moribund.  Why shouldn't she turn him over?  He was not an integral part of their research program.  His guilt or innocence hardly mattered.  The final word on his usefulness from the Director?  He was a low priority.  Read, his work was not lucrative.  Creating psychic power through a painful process that cut life expectancy down by decades--not a moneymaker.  Even the creation of more psychics, as far as she could see, wasn't exactly a credit scheme.

Well, now Aedolis would be willing to pay for the records of this neurobiologist, not to mention the neurobiologist himself.  Willing to pay, and pay dearly.  Why not share them?  Why not share them, for a price?  TRIM's contacts on Edanith might not be pleased, but then, they didn't have to know.


The lights again.  Neel had been held in a cell.  He felt stripped bare. He realized, for the first time, that psychic damping had begun to affect him.  It was not drug withdrawal: they had provided him with paracoximide and methamphetamine, in excess of his usual dosage, which was already quite high.  They hoped to use it to break down his mental resistance.  Intensify trace readings of neural activity.  Fine.  He'd drunk water and been served some plain food he was too dejected to enjoy.  Their technique was not torture.  It was more efficacious.  Neel knew--he had used similar methods on intransigent psychics.  It would be interesting to see how he reacted.

He spent his time performing mental equations.  Their scans would have picked up the conditions he had already noted in himself.  The skips and jumps of an aphasic brain.  The drifting of a restructured prefrontal cortext.  He did not regret it.  Neel realized he regretted nothing.  He realized that he

that he

had begun not to care, or had begun to care

he thought of Weevil and Friends.  Klaus the platypus.  Small things were charming.  Colorful.  

that he had begun to care more because he had begun to care less.  About Something.  

They had led him out for questioning and the light was on again.  It winked at him.

He noted, symptom: temporal lobe disruption.  He had been staring for a long time.

"Are you aware of your medical condition, Dr. Macario," said the voice from the backlit darkness.

"I am," Neel said.

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

"I do not know."

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

"I do not see why this matter is--"

"Answer the question, Dr. Macario."

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

"And yet you underwent no public tests to determine that."

Neel put a hand to his head.  "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--"  Pause.  Pause.  He blinked and came back.

"Doctor Macario."

 "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."  

A sigh issued from the darkness, over the hiss and hum of the psychic scanner in the background.  A hand emerged, painted in shadow, and disappeared again.  He caught the whisper of fabric.  

"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?"

"I don't know.  Did the letter.... did.  It.  Make mention of that?"  Something she had wanted to catch.  Neel let the thought flicker out and die in his brain.  He didn't remember the letter.  He didn't remember it.

"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."

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

She let him speak, she had not stopped him, but he trailed off anyway.  Nehman cleared her throat.  "Your brother is an Aedolian Pilot Royal.  Would you consent to transport to Aedolis and questioning by Aedolian psychics, were we to allow that?"

He put a hand to his head.  "Yes.  I believe this to be a fraud but I--"

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

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--"

"To be more specific, on your terminal."

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

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

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

"Please, Dr. Macario."

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

"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."

"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."  He touched the metal plate, fingers scrabbling against its seam.  "I was pursuing electroconductivity .  Not.  This.  I have limited time.  Why would I waste it trying to destroy psychic power.  There is no point."

"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