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Jeremy slid open the heavy metal door on the room he and Zeke rented. To call the place a loft would be doing it a great favor. It was more like a small empty warehouse or storage building. They'd decorated in a retro computer motif that would have made many Greenwich Village galleries proud. Most of it was abandoned junk from around town. The lighting was about the only thing they spent money on. Zeke was in his predictable prone position, sound asleep on the couch. Across the room were the two workstations that had drained Zeke's energy over the past 18 hours. The noise of Jeremy banging the door didn't phase his roommate in the slightest. He went right on sleeping. But when Jeremy touched his arm, Zeke was immediately awake and alert.
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| Zeke: |
Whooa! Don't sneak up on me like that. When did you come in? What time is it?
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| Jeremy: |
Zeke, get a grip, man. You all right?
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| Zeke: |
Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. It's not even noon is it?
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| Jeremy: |
We've got work to do, partner. You ready?
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| Zeke: |
Yeah, let me show you what I've got. I think I found the problem with the program.
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| Jeremy: |
Okay, but before you tell me how you fixed it, tell me what was wrong. And let's take it from the beginning. This is important, Zeke.
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| Zeke: |
All right, the research notes you brought me from Dr. Donaldson's psych lab showed the neural encode/decode translator that he's been working on. That translation scheme is like the Rosetta Stone to the brain's internal sensory array. It shows how external input is represented electrically as it's being fed to the brain's recognition areas.
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| Jeremy: |
That's what makes it possible for us to direct sensory input to the brain.
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| Zeke: |
That's right. But most importantly, we can format it for direct recognition rather than letting the subject's conscious mind do the interpretation. That's why our method works better than those stupid subliminal suggestion gimmicks from the 1960's. We can send pre-encoded perception to the brain instead of confusing the subconscious with images that are supposed to be interpreted first by the conscious level.
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| Jeremy: |
I'm with you so far. We put the brain's syntax in our program. It displays the direct perception encoded inside our graphics on the user's screen. The brain reads the direct data along with the analog image and processes both. So, what went wrong when we tried it on Heidi?
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| Zeke: |
We coded it as input to the reticular formation instead of output. It was a stupid mistake on my part. The information just sat there waiting to be processed when it didn't need any processing, so it kind of locked up the input systems of her brain for awhile. I flipped the bit over to output. It should be ready to go.
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| Jeremy: |
Does that mean we're actually signaling the cerebellum that the information is ready and that it should activate?
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| Zeke: |
Yeah, that's exactly what it means.
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| Jeremy: |
How do you know how to do that?
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| Zeke: |
Dr. Donaldson's notes have some of the basic codes worked out for the next layer. He seems to be getting a whole mind control library together one structural layer at a time. When he's done it will be just like a programming API. Didn't you know that?
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| Jeremy: |
I thought all we had was a shortcut through the perception process. Do you know what this means? We can actually tell people what to do instead of just sneaking in images and impressions that they're not aware of.
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| Zeke: |
Okay, hold on Jeremy. There are just a few problems with that. First, Donaldson's scheme isn't complete yet. Second, each succeeding layer is going to be much more dangerous to play with. Third, we're just having some fun here, aren't we? I don't want to take control of people's minds!
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| Jeremy: |
Well I do. Don't you see what we can do with this? Even if we can only influence people's decisions slightly, we can shift buying habits from one product to another. Pepsi could outsell Coke. Ford could beat GM. Avis could finally be number one! This is huge! And, it's not really mind control. It's sort of like... advertising.
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| Zeke: |
Yeah, I see what you mean. But there's one more problem. Some of Dr. Donaldson's commands can only be implemented by electrode implants because they require two-way command exchanges. We use passive one-way influences sent to the brain from the computer screen. The brain has no way to communicate back to the screen and the screen has no way to pickup what the brain might want to send it. Dead-end my friend.
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| Jeremy: |
Before we write it off, let's see how much control we can get with the one-way command subset, Zeke. Like I said, we don't need much control to make major changes.
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| Zeke: |
All right, I'll check it out. Give me a few hours.
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Jeremy's mind was racing as he thought of the many potential ways he could use this technology to advance his own position. The power at his disposal would be fantastic. But he must be careful in deciding how to use that power. He must be certain that it would lead him to more than just monetary gains. Jeremy must also claim his fame!
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