Nanobots, Murder, and Other Family Problems

Saturday, May 7

I pass Mr. Smith and a pair of his legal goons in the hallway of the Research Center. The gorilla in a lawyer suit looks at me like I'm something foul he scraped off the bottom of his too-shiny wingtip shoes. I studiously ignore him and turn the corner to the hallway where Father has his office.

"Oh, good, Noah. You're here," Father says, looking up from his desk. His office is spacious but cluttered, with stacks of papers piled on several narrow tables against one wall between computers and other hardware. The opposite wall is one gigantic whiteboard covered with a tidy scrawl and arcane diagrams from corner to corner. The place looks more like an engineering work area than anything else.

"Morning, Father," I greet him, carefully hiding my hate with a friendly smile.

"Let's be about it then," he says, rising to his feet. He comes around the desk, wearing his usual outfit of a short-sleeved button-down shirt and khaki slacks. "Come along, my lab is this way."

I follow him down a few twists of hallway and through a door that could have guarded a bank vault. The lab is a cross between an operating room and an electronics workshop. Several large lights hang from the ceiling, pointed at what I can only assume is an operating table, an ominous-looking slab of dull steel in the center of the room with a dozen black straps dangling from each side. Racks of servers hum against one wall, neatly coiled wire probes hooking to ports in the front. Half a dozen monitors cluster around a standing desk with a keyboard and mouse on it not far from the operating table. Across from the server racks, a pair of large, deep sinks share the wall with open shelves holding medical supplies. Clear plastic packages containing syringes, scalpels, and gauze stack up next to an array of small machines that look like they belong in a hospital.

"Just a moment, let me get the rig," Father says. He opens a cabinet in one corner by the server racks and pulls out a helmet with a pair of cameras attached to the front. "Here, this one should be your size. Try it on, please."

He hands it to me and helps me with the straps. It fits snugly on my head, but the front comes down too far, covering my eyes and leaving me blind. It's lighter than I would have expected from looking at it.

"How's that?"

"Surprisingly comfortable."

"Good, good," he says. "That's important, as you'll be wearing it nearly all the time for the next month. Let's fire it up."

He guides my hand up to a button on the side of the rig and suddenly I see his face looking at me. "Are the cameras working?" I nod, not seeing any lag in the display as my head moves. It's almost like I don't have my eyes covered. "Take it for a little spin around the room."

I comply, walking past the desk and around the table. "Yeah, still good."

"Excellent. Let's put up the overlay then." He steps over to the desk and his fingers click across the keyboard.

Can you see this?

The text appears in large letters in the air in front of me. I turn my head and it follows me, staying centered in my field of vision. "Yeah, I see it." I reach out with a hand in front of my covered face. My fingers pass through the ghostly words.

"Good. I'm going to feed in some more text. Practice reading it while you move around."

The first message disappears, replaced by smaller words that look like an article from a medical journal. I steady myself with one hand on the operating table as I try to walk and read at the same time. My stomach churns at the incongruity between the fixed overlay and the moving world and I have to stop and close my eyes for a moment.

"It takes a bit of getting used to, I know," Father says. "Take as long as you need."

I snap my eyes open, keeping my head still this time. The text is still front and center, superimposed on my view of the world. At a second look, the letters are semi-transparent. I can see through them enough to make out the shelves behind them.