Her Body of Muscle: Winter vs the Nanobots

Chapter 25

Leaving Winter's car at the library, they found themselves back in Jackson's old Honda Civic.  Windows repaired it seemed to be humming along like nothing had changed.  The dream of seeing Jack for the first time was starting to bleed into reality.  Had she shown her cards too aggressively?  Were they really just going to pick up where they had emotionally ended after not seeing each other for years?  Before she could properly process it, Jackson spoke up.

"So, we've established I'm crazy about you... still."  He said, glancing at her quickly as he exited the parking lot.  "But just so you know, I have no expectations, just friends again?"  He again glanced at Winter, eyebrows raised.
She took a deep breath.  Yes.  Exactly.  She had startled even herself by her emotional abandonment of constraint upon seeing Jackson again.  Friends sounded, well, perfect.

"Deal."  She said smiling.  "So, why did you call me anyway?"  She asked curiously.

Jackson sucked in his cheeks and shifted gears turning onto the main road.  "Well," he began, "I've sort of been looking around for an excuse to call you again for two years.  I assumed, I mean with everything that had happened and then your not returning calls, that you just wanted to, I don't know, leave the entire mess behind.  Including me?  Especially me?  I mean, I was pretty beat-up about it.  So, I figured it had to be a good excuse, probably a one in a million excuse.  And then, this happened."  Jackson reached into his front pocket and pulled out a folded clipping from a magazine.

Winter took the clipping and looked back at Jackson.  He glanced at her quickly while driving with furrowed brows of concern.  Winter looked down at her lap and hesitantly unfolded the article.

NanoBot AI: Late Entrepreneur's Vision Becoming a Reality

The late Phillip Barting, who died ignobly two years ago, failed to see the completion of his nanobot vision.  Rumors of working prototypes were never confirmed by parent company Vantic.  Not confirmed, that is, until earlier this month.  Scheduled for a release in quarter four of this year, Vantic's revolutionary technology carries with it a vision of entirely disrupting not just what humanity knows about the human body, but what our physical embodiments might possibly achieve.

Winter furiously scanned the rest of the article.  It continued to discuss the unlikely, but theoretically possible implications of NanoBot AI technologies.  From passive instantaneous reporting on internal molecular body conditions, to literally recoding and resequencing DNA.  The author was careful to note that at Vantic's own admission, the loss of Mr. Barting and his unique knowledge and investment in the project had made a meaningful dent in the firm's timeline.  While a safe, non-harmful prototype was still allusive, the firm felt confident that by the end-of-the-year, human trials might be approved.
Looking up at Jackson, she could feel his tight anxiety as he continued driving towards their old neighborhood stomping grounds.

"What are the chances that we swallowed the only existent working prototype two years ago?"  Winter asked.  Remembering Philip, his dogmatic focus and unusual brilliance, it felt like a rhetorical question.

Jackson sighed, "I've been wondering the same thing.  You knew Barting as well as anyone probably.  What do you think?  Do we have an ocean of tiny reproducing AI robots coursing through our blood stream right now?" He asked, nervously glancing at Winter.

Winter paused, thought for a split moment about fading her hunch.  In the end she just came out with it.

"100 percent."  She said.  As convinced as she was terrified.

It felt like Winter was sucked back into the vortex of confusion from years prior, desperately trying to wrap her mind around the ramifications.  This time, she was going to hold onto Jackson furiously.  Not long ago, the idea of intimacy, even with Jackson, terrified her.  It was partially the surprising affection she felt for him, afraid she would fall into the deep end if she let herself.  But more so she had been dealing with a cloudy blanket of pessimism and despair around the idea of closeness with someone.  The idea of letting someone in and trusting it would stay.  That she wouldn't be cast aside.  It was the tormenting fear of betrayal enhanced and magnified by her increased longing for intimacy.  But now, all she felt was peace sitting in the passenger seat of Jack's beat-up Honda.  Perhaps it was the physical, psychological, relentless slog of day after day sacrifice to achieve the body she carried so effortlessly now.  The daily grind that pushed into hardship, instead of running from it.  Regardless, Winter realized she was ready to run headfirst into it, into him.

Winter took a deep breath.  "Look, Jackson, there's something I have to tell you."

"Uh oh.  Ok?"  He queried.

"No, well, I should have told you two years ago."  Winter paused.

"You don't have to tell me, I think I already know."  He said.

He already knows?  She thought, he could not know everything.  He's trying to let me off the hook. Winter realized.

"Well, ok, I don't know everything..." Jackson continued.  "I guess I mean I know enough. And I trust you have reasons for the rest.  I know all that stuff in your apartment that night was your x-husbands.  And what I mean is I just assumed then, and I definitely do now, that you have your reasons."

Winter stared at this man driving her through the crowded San Francisco streets.  His close-cropped hair, gentle demeanor, contrasting so aggressively with his taught muscular frame.  Who was this man?  And why the hell had she pushed him away so aggressively.  So much time lost, she thought.

She had been about to betray her ridiculous juvenile love.  But Jackson bringing up the slew of treasure on the floor woke her back from her romantic dreaminess.  "That obvious, I guess?"  Winter asked.

Jackson shrugged.  "That night was such a whirlwind."  He said.  "Don't take this the wrong way, but I've been thinking about that day pretty much constantly the last two years.  I mean, in retrospect, it was pretty damn exciting?!  Right?"  He looked over at Winter.

Winter looked down at her lap.  She had been holding herself accountable for their near death that evening for the last couple of years.  It hadn't been a point of fascination but an adventure she had preferred to leave completely in the rear-view mirror.  Without question, part of her relentless motivation the last two years had been to find something, anything, to let her feel less guilty for putting Jackson's life on the line.  But here he was seeming to let herself off the hook.  She smiled, blushing ever so slightly.

"I mean we're still alive, right?"  She posited, letting herself enjoy the release of fear and anxiety that had plagued her for years.

"Yes, we most certainly are."  Jackson said firmly and looked over at her, seeming to understand the ambivalence demoralizing his friend.  "But, I couldn't help it Winter, I was also thinking about that glimpse of all of Barting's things I saw on your floor.  That quick vision of all that crazy stuff has been running around in my mind the last couple years as well.  I know, I know, I probably sound like I'm obsessed, I... " He paused glancing in her direction again.

"Well, a little..."  Winter admitted.  "But considering everything, I guess the least I can do is give you a pass.  Ok, well, pray continue my obsessed friend."  Winter coaxed childishly.

"Ahem."  Jack coughed clearly for effect.  "Right, so I obsessed about it, and only that, for two sleepless years... no, ok seriously, so I was thinking," Jackson said, "in theory nano-bot Ais are mostly passive reporting agents.  But that would mean, somewhere, somehow, they have to report to something.  There aren't supposed to be working proto-types of these things, but, apparently there were.  Well, at least there were two of them.  Is there any chance, any way at all, that he (I mean Barting), also had the software built out to receive the signals?"  Jackson paused, catching his breath after his furious explanation.

There was more than a chance.  Winter also was picturing the spattering of aluminum tech cases and flash drives that she had packed away in the apartment.  Carefully hidden away in the back of her closet.  Epiphanies, like rolling waves, started instinctually connecting dots as she poured over forgotten moments from years ago.  Jackson was probably right.  That had to be what that equipment was about.  Had it not been for her desire to bury the past, she would have come to the same conclusion.  They might have technology years, or at least months, ahead of any other scientist.  Stuff lightyears advanced beyond the present, collecting dust in her apartment.  Memories of college programming classes at Berkley, lonely nights as she looked over Phil's shoulder when he was not paying attention; if there was anyone who could put the pieces together it was going to be them.

"Take a right here."  She blurted out.  "It'll get us back to my apartment quicker."