hospital for a while doing physical therapy to learn new legs. It had happened before and he'd always come right back.
But this was different, he knew. They would be watching more closely, this time. But still…
Fede finished rubbing gel into his stumps and lay back, pulling his goggles down over his eyes. Notes filled his vision, sketches of a virus that would take the DNA map Tonx was to find from some ectomorph and check it against a map of the human brain. They'd decided to go for broke; if it worked they would need some serious value to sell off the results, and knowing how to make a dog smart wasn't going to cut it. Not when you'd taken over China to find out how. Not when you'd virused the world.
Fede smiled, almost giggled. He pulled himself up on his elbows and flipped his goggles up, staring into the dark. In the dim light the stacks of books, the piles of notes on exams and dry half-dead languages, the trash from the last few years of his life crouched chaotically on his desk. He fell back onto the bed and laughed before yanking the goggles back on, the rubber straps catching the hairs on the back of his neck.
He was just starting to put together some basic processing modules when they chimed, lightly. It took a minute for Fede to realize what it was, the reaching fingers of the sound pawing at his cerebellum, pulling him back from the program. He fumbled to open the session, watched the chat client come up:
% What up, ltlman?
$<> Working. You get something?
% We got lucky.
% This channel secure?
$<> Should B. BRB, let me C yr con.
% Ok, I use,..<@ $.. $>>>>>>
Fed's hands flew over the chord as he rerouted their session through several secure servers, set up a one-time certificate to use, and re-initialized. Garbage characters flew across his retinas, randomness flooding his buffers to throw off any listeners. Their chat session connected again:
<$CONNECTION RE-ESTABLISHED>
$<> Looks good.
% OK. Listen. I have a contact in France. High-end corp doing undrgrnd work on big gambit. Just got ordered to dump three years of work because he wasn't meeting their bottom line. Was told to start working on dead boring plastic-eating bacteria. Wants to sell out and get out. Will give up whole genome map for Pacific Octopus in exchange for our getting him out.
$<> Octopus is good?
% Highly endomorphic. Vry vry smrt; not well understood, but definitely fits. French contact has mapped and used tissue >2 yrs will supply working notes also.
$<> LOL Fuckyah! Perfect.
% He may know how to stop cancer's detection using squid's endomorphic tissue w/stem cell sequence; he pioneered the approach. Has same prob. as us - can't compute match for final recombinant.
$<> Solve both prob at once. Neat.
% We'd be stealing him from a major corp; they've got armed forces. We will have to produce fast to publicize results before they find him.
Fede felt something catch in his throat. His eyes unfocused. Somewhere, millimeters from his cornea, tiny vibrating pieces of glass tried to force the image of a blinking cursor onto the backs of his eyeballs. This was not what they had talked about. This was dangerous, suddenly. But if they pulled this off, Fed realized, they would own patentable rights on a way to increase human intelligence. The owners of this technology would become more than human. The world would change.
Fede sucked in a breath, hard. His heart hammered in his ears. He blinked, saw Tonx had written more:
% Can you do it in 2 wks?
% I guess this means no school 4 U. 8-)
The cursor blinked in Fed's eye. Something inside him tightened, hardened, released. He could do this. He would do this.
$<> 2 wks no prob w/out sleep.
% Excellent. It'd be better if you were local - can you move in over here?
The Beowulf cluster hummed beneath him, the subtle vibration an indication it had started its nightly log cleanup routines. The musty smell from the old tech in the room sat heavy in Fed's nostrils. The apartment he had
But this was different, he knew. They would be watching more closely, this time. But still…
Fede finished rubbing gel into his stumps and lay back, pulling his goggles down over his eyes. Notes filled his vision, sketches of a virus that would take the DNA map Tonx was to find from some ectomorph and check it against a map of the human brain. They'd decided to go for broke; if it worked they would need some serious value to sell off the results, and knowing how to make a dog smart wasn't going to cut it. Not when you'd taken over China to find out how. Not when you'd virused the world.
Fede smiled, almost giggled. He pulled himself up on his elbows and flipped his goggles up, staring into the dark. In the dim light the stacks of books, the piles of notes on exams and dry half-dead languages, the trash from the last few years of his life crouched chaotically on his desk. He fell back onto the bed and laughed before yanking the goggles back on, the rubber straps catching the hairs on the back of his neck.
He was just starting to put together some basic processing modules when they chimed, lightly. It took a minute for Fede to realize what it was, the reaching fingers of the sound pawing at his cerebellum, pulling him back from the program. He fumbled to open the session, watched the chat client come up:
% What up, ltlman?
$<> Working. You get something?
% We got lucky.
% This channel secure?
$<> Should B. BRB, let me C yr con.
% Ok, I use,..<@ $.. $>>>>>>
Fed's hands flew over the chord as he rerouted their session through several secure servers, set up a one-time certificate to use, and re-initialized. Garbage characters flew across his retinas, randomness flooding his buffers to throw off any listeners. Their chat session connected again:
<$CONNECTION RE-ESTABLISHED>
$<> Looks good.
% OK. Listen. I have a contact in France. High-end corp doing undrgrnd work on big gambit. Just got ordered to dump three years of work because he wasn't meeting their bottom line. Was told to start working on dead boring plastic-eating bacteria. Wants to sell out and get out. Will give up whole genome map for Pacific Octopus in exchange for our getting him out.
$<> Octopus is good?
% Highly endomorphic. Vry vry smrt; not well understood, but definitely fits. French contact has mapped and used tissue >2 yrs will supply working notes also.
$<> LOL Fuckyah! Perfect.
% He may know how to stop cancer's detection using squid's endomorphic tissue w/stem cell sequence; he pioneered the approach. Has same prob. as us - can't compute match for final recombinant.
$<> Solve both prob at once. Neat.
% We'd be stealing him from a major corp; they've got armed forces. We will have to produce fast to publicize results before they find him.
Fede felt something catch in his throat. His eyes unfocused. Somewhere, millimeters from his cornea, tiny vibrating pieces of glass tried to force the image of a blinking cursor onto the backs of his eyeballs. This was not what they had talked about. This was dangerous, suddenly. But if they pulled this off, Fed realized, they would own patentable rights on a way to increase human intelligence. The owners of this technology would become more than human. The world would change.
Fede sucked in a breath, hard. His heart hammered in his ears. He blinked, saw Tonx had written more:
% Can you do it in 2 wks?
% I guess this means no school 4 U. 8-)
The cursor blinked in Fed's eye. Something inside him tightened, hardened, released. He could do this. He would do this.
$<> 2 wks no prob w/out sleep.
% Excellent. It'd be better if you were local - can you move in over here?
The Beowulf cluster hummed beneath him, the subtle vibration an indication it had started its nightly log cleanup routines. The musty smell from the old tech in the room sat heavy in Fed's nostrils. The apartment he had
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