Fatal Containment

Fatal Containment - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cheryl fell into her bunk with an exhaustion she hadn't felt since the academy. She had gotten the science team aboard, but they wanted immediate access to everything. She had to get them access to the lab facilities and help them get their materials aboard that they would need for their work. They wanted sensor buoys deployed and use of the ship's scanning and communications equipment. And everything had been expedited due to the plague outbreak and the captain's orders to hastily leave orbit.

She quickly found out that the science team lacked the kind of cohesion one found in the military discipline aboard a starship. Although Maxim van Helm oversaw the project, it seemed that the other members of the team all had their own ideas about which direction the project should go. Tyrell was the most outspoken and was constantly having heated discussions with van Helm. Cheryl was glad when they finally were given enough access that she could turn in for the night.

The first thing the captain had asked for was a demonstration of their technology to date. From what Cheryl could gather, Tyrell's specialized nanorobots were programmed to be injected into the host subject where they would attach themselves to the host's cerebrum. Only Maxim and Tyrell seemed to understand exactly how. But that ended the physical connection. Somehow Candice had developed the psychic linkage allowing the host to pass their thoughts to the little devices. From there, they supposedly transmitted these thoughts (in some kind of coherent manner) to a transmission system developed by Sandy. That part still confused Cheryl but had something to do with quantum entanglement. She needed to find out more before the demonstration, but her body simply could not move any longer without sleep.

* * *

Maxim van Helm found Tyrell Sanders in the computer processing lab, hunched over a console, and engrossed in writing more lines of code for the nanite instruction scenarios. The room was packed with computer terminals of various sizes and purposes, all time-slaved to the master ship's computer. Tyrell had complained about the lack of computational power the science team had access to, but a few clever subroutines should siphon off even more from the ship's systems that were dormant much of the time. Maxim watched him work for a moment, his gaze critical, before he finally broke the silence.

"Mr. Sanders," he said, his voice echoing in the quiet lab.

Tyrell looked up, his expression neutral. "Dr. van Helm," he greeted, his tone respectful but guarded.

Maxim crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze never leaving Tyrell. "I've been thinking about our disagreement concerning the use of man versus machine for this project."

Tyrell's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he quickly schooled his features into a mask of indifference. "Oh really?"

"Yes," Maxim said, his tone condescending. "I've been thinking about your adaptation to use nanotechnology to speed up the process of creating our connection to the host mind."

Tyrell straightened up. "And?"

"And I still think you're wrong, but not for the reasons you think," Maxim said bluntly. He hitched a hip onto the table opposite Tyrell Sanders and leaned in, ready to continue the argument over ground they had covered many times. "Tyrell, think about the untapped power of the human brain. We've only begun to understand its mysteries. If we could unlock the ability to think in other dimensions, and access that cross-dimensional data using Sandy's algebraic topology models, we could—"

Tyrell's expression hardened. "We've been over this, Dr. van Helm," Tyrell interrupted. "Nanotechnology will significantly speed up the process. It's efficient, it's reliable, and it's the future."

Maxim snorted. "The future? Is that what you call it? I call it a shortcut. A cheap, uncreative shortcut that will be washed away with the next iteration of your little fancy machines. And at what risk?"