14

Outside Baltimore, Maryland
USA

WHEN THE ELEVATOR DOORS OPENED, Craig Bailer ushered them out into an underground facility that was large enough to be almost disorienting. The modest building they’d entered through housed little more than a security desk and a couple of abstract sculptures, but now Smith found himself in a room that was probably two hundred meters long and half as wide, with a ceiling hidden somewhere beyond the steel support grid fifteen meters above.

At the far end was a live jungle guarded by a full-sized tank and various sandbagged machine-gun placements. The extensive computer equipment and personnel that Smith would have expected at a demonstration of a bleeding-edge technology were conspicuously absent as he followed Bailer to a simple table containing two Merges and a couple of laptops.

General Pedersen picked up one of the units and turned it over in his hands. It was slightly larger than the commercial version, with a matte-black exterior displaying a visible carbon-fiber weave. Smith examined the other one, noting that the indicator light was missing, as was the on/off switch and power cable connector. In fact, there was nothing at all that would suggest it was anything but a solid piece of plastic.

“All right,” Bailer said, waking up the laptops. “Is it safe to assume that neither of you has used a Merge before?”

They both nodded their heads.

“In our stores, we do demos on how to set them up, but for the most part I’m just going to let you have at it yourself so you can see how simple it is. What I will point out, though, is that the military version of the unit has no connectors at all. That’s for two reasons: First, we found connector ports to be responsible for over ninety percent of failures. And second, it’s simpler.”

“If it’s so much better why do the commercial units have a power switch and USB port?” Smith asked. “Cost?”

Bailer gave a bemused shake of his head. “Excellent guess, Doctor, but the reality is much stranger. Our market research suggested that people are comfortable with wired connections and that not having them made the perceived value of the unit less—even though they’re completely outdated and serve no real function.”

“How do you charge it?” Pedersen asked.

“Dr. Smith? Care to guess?”

He winced perceptibly at the question and considered purposely answering wrong, but his ego wouldn’t allow it. “Induction.”

“Well done,” Bailer said. “There’s a small mat that plugs into the wall and you just lay the unit on it. Takes about an hour for a full charge, which in turn will last about twenty-five hours of normal usage. The increased battery size is almost entirely responsible for the additional weight you may have noticed.”

“And how does it connect to the computer?” Pedersen asked.

“Standard Bluetooth. But it’s only necessary for the initial setup. After that, it stands alone.”

He crouched and dug out two military helmets from boxes beneath the table. Both looked more or less government-issue with the exception of elaborate fore-and-aft cameras bolted to the top. “If I could have you put these on and take a place in front of a laptop, we’ll get you up and running.”

“So the system is built into helmets?” Pedersen said.

“Yes. But only for the purposes of this demonstration. In a combat situation, you’d have to use the head studs.”

As he tightened his chin strap and sat, Smith couldn’t help feeling a little excitement. Dresner’s demonstration, while impressive, had been nothing but a big screen and some interesting parlor tricks. To actually feel a machine-brain link, though, was something he never thought he’d experience in his lifetime.

“Uh, how do you turn it on?” Pedersen said.

“Dr. Smith? You’re doing so well. Care to take another shot?”

“I have no idea,” he said honestly. That seemed to cheer the general up a bit.

“It couldn’t be simpler. Just give it a good shake.”

Smith did and the computer screen in front of him immediately recognized the unit, bringing up its serial number and asking if he wanted to enter the setup routine.

“Do I just choose yes?”

Bailer retreated a bit. “No more help from me. I want you to get a feel for what it’s going to take to get your people up and running.”

Smith clicked through and five images of a tree came up on the screen. The caption asked him to select the sharpest image. He did and what felt a bit like an eye exam continued through a few more screens, asking him to judge color, rotation, and the relative speed of objects. Finally, the word “silver” appeared and he was asked to repeat the word over and over in his mind. A few seconds later, a notification came up that he was done and icons sprang to life in his peripheral vision.

“Whoa,” he said, leaning back in his chair and blinking hard.

“It’s a little disorienting at first,” Bailer explained. “But the effect goes away after a few seconds.”

Smith stood and began walking unsteadily forward. The unit, sensing his movement, caused the icons to fade until they were almost invisible. Bailer was right. In less than a minute, his mind had grown accustomed to them.

“General Pedersen? How are you doing?” Bailer asked.

“Done,” he said, standing a little too fast and having to steady himself on the table.

Bailer waited for him to regain his balance before starting his pitch. “With the studs, what you see would be quite a bit sharper and will have a more three-​dimensional quality. You can manipulate the icons through rudimentary mental commands like ‘weather’ or ‘current location’ but it takes a couple of hours to get the hang of it so I’m going to use our demonstration software to run the apps on your units if that’s okay.”

They both nodded.

“As I said before, this is really just a basic platform. We don’t have access to your weapons systems and Christian didn’t want to get involved directly in that anyway. But I think you can imagine what the Merge could do if it was, say, linked to a fighter jet’s onboard computer. You potentially wouldn’t need a canopy or even any physical controls. You could have a full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view using cameras and all flight and weapons systems controlled mentally. But right now we’re going to concentrate on less ambitious applications. Now, if you gentlemen could look down at the jungle and tell me how many combatants you see.”

“Two,” Pedersen said, squinting to pick out two camouflage-clad mannequins nestled into the trees.

“Dr. Smith?”

“Four. One directly behind the most obvious guy and one pressed up against a tree on the looker’s far right.”

Bailer’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m impressed. No one has ever picked out the fourth man from this distance.”

It wasn’t surprising. He’d always had a naturally good eye and had spent a fair amount of time putting a fine point on that innate ability. It, among a few other skills he’d picked up over the years, was responsible for him not currently residing in the Arlington Cemetery.

“Let me launch the application that takes feeds from the camera on your helmets.”

An icon floating to Smith’s right flashed once, but nothing else changed.

“Okay, now I’m going to start layering in different vision protocols. The first is an outline enhancement. For this, the computer uses an algorithm to search for lines that have a potential human or military component and bolds them. The human mind actually does something similar, which is what makes some optical illusions possible. With all due respect to evolution, though, our system is quite a bit more advanced.”

Suddenly the visual portions of the four men Smith had spotted were outlined in dull red. More interesting, though, were the things he hadn’t seen.

“How many now?”

“Six,” Pedersen said, sounding impressed. “And a hidden machine-gun placement.”

“All right,” Bailer said. “Now we’re going to just plain cheat. I’m putting the chlorophyll filter on. This will highlight anything that’s not a plant.”

“Jesus,” Smith heard himself say. Suddenly there weren’t six enemy combatants but ten. And at the very back, a tiny section of what looked like a piece of artillery was peeking through the foliage. “Will that work at night?”

“No, it’s measuring light absorption. For night we have other solutions.” The lights went out, leaving them in the dim glow of artificial stars in the ceiling.

“Here’s the light amplification overlay alone.”

Everything turned a familiar hazy green. At that level, Smith could only make out the two men Pedersen had originally spotted.

“What do you say we add a little smoke?” Bailer said. A quiet hum filled the room along with a billowing, chemical-smelling cloud that completely obscured the jungle. “Those mannequins are heated to ninety-eight point six degrees, so let’s switch to thermal.”

The dull green faded and the smoke disappeared. All ten mannequins were visible again, as were the weapons.

“Now everything together.”

“Jesus,” Smith muttered again. It was almost overkill. The image took on false color with the enemy in red and weapons in blue. Outlines were bolded and the computer was now filling in sections that were obscured. So in a dark, smoke-filled environment, an opposing force might as well hold neon signs that said “shoot me.”

Bailer seemed to read his mind and pulled two bizarre-looking assault rifles from beneath the table, handing one to Pedersen and one to him. They weren’t anything Smith had seen before—like M16s reimagined by Apple.

“How do you aim it? There’s no scope or sights.”

Smith suspected he knew the answer, but couldn’t bring himself to actually believe it.

“Please put your fingers on the triggers.”

He did but nothing happened.

“I think mine isn’t working,” Pedersen said, obviously having the same problem.

“Point the weapon in the general direction you’re looking.”

When Smith did, a set of crosshairs appeared at the center of his vision.

“The gun just needs to know its position in three-​dimensional space. Where it is relative to your eye doesn’t make any difference. Combined with the Merge, it will measure distance and compensate for bullet drop. The only thing you need to worry about is wind and keeping it steady.”

Smith held the weapon against his hip and swept it across the jungle, watching the crosshairs projected onto his mind move smoothly from mannequin to mannequin. It felt exactly like a video game.

“Could I fire it around a corner, then?”

“The programming wouldn’t be difficult, but it would take some training to counteract the vertigo of having your vision move independent of your physical position.”

“And all the systems you’re showing us are exclusive to the U.S. military?” Pedersen asked.

“No. We’re currently working with Mercedes to integrate the thermal imaging and night vision into their cars. The targeting system, that particular outline enhancement algorithm, and the chlorophyll overlay will be exclusive.”

“So it’s the helmet cam that makes this work,” Pedersen said. “Not my eyes.”

“For the most part, yes. We can process the pixels the human eye brings in, but we can’t create capability that isn’t there, like light amplification or thermal.”

“What about the rear-facing camera?” Smith said. “I noticed there’s one included in the helmet.”

“That’s actually just an artifact of earlier research. You might find it interesting, though.” He tapped a few commands into the laptop and suddenly Smith’s vision went to a full wraparound view. Bailer grabbed both him and Pedersen by the backs of their shirts, steadying them as both nearly fell.

“Some insects handle this view very well, but the human brain can’t seem to assimilate it.”

He returned to the laptops and Smith’s vision went back to forward only. A significant improvement as far as he was concerned.

“We experimented with a semi-transparent rear view similar to a car backup camera, but then abandoned it when we discovered we could generate sensations. Let’s assume that you have two of your own men behind you, one right and one left.”

A pleasant warmth suddenly spread across the back of Smith’s shoulders.

“Now let’s say someone unidentified appears behind you.”

He felt a sharp prick near his spine.

“There are a lot more possibilities,” Bailer said, bringing up the lights and reverting their vision to normal. “Itching, cold, tingling. Each could mean something different. But that’s up to you and your people.”

“What if someone gets ahold of one from a dead soldier?” Smith said as they removed their helmets and placed them on the table.

“Every brain is unique in the way it communicates with the system, which is why you had to do the initial setup. It would be incredibly disorienting to try to use someone else’s unit. Of course, you could set up another layer of security through your military network if it makes you more comfortable, but it would be redundant.”

Smith played with toggling through the various icons in his peripheral vision as he listened. He stumbled on one that made his vision zoom in on the tank in front of him and nearly pitched forward over the table.

“So, Dr. Smith? What do you think of our system?”

He didn’t answer immediately. The truth was that it was the most fascinating and promising technology he’d ever seen. On the other hand, when something looked too good to be true, it usually was.

“I’m honestly not sure. Ceding so much control to Dr. Dresner doesn’t excite me.”

“Understandable, but unavoidable.”

“And in some ways, it makes me think of da Vinci’s military designs.”

“Interesting. How so?”

“Great on paper, but not so practical when you’re standing knee-deep in the mud with people shooting at you.”