Chapter 16
“She did not like it if we called it hardware,” Anand said.
“Who?” Franklin asked.
“Dr. Singh… Sadhna,” Anand answered.
Whenever Anand started reminiscing about Dr. Sadhna Singh, Franklin focused his eyes on his notes and his writing. Franklin felt uncomfortable because Anand’s emotions were running high and when he spoke of Sadhna Singh, the desperation and anguish in his eyes softened, and the clicking noise that accented his words occurred more frequently and became more pronounced. Anand seemed to be using these memories to return to a safe and comfortable place and time.
“The device itself was not made out of surgical steel or plastics as you might expect,” Anand continued,
It is constructed of organic tissue that is grown in the lab or harvested from donors. The device is organic. During the assembly process, data loading, and storage we have to maintain it in a specialized plasma and saline solution. The solution ensures the vitality of the organic components. During the surgery, the device is interfaced into a host’s brain stem and at the same time the device is connected to the body’s blood flow. The host’s blood replaces the maintenance solutions, and it is the host’s blood that is utilized to maintain the device once it is implanted. The whole procedure is very similar to an organ transplant. We need to use the same immunosuppressant drugs to ensure the device is not rejected by the host’s body.
So you can see it was incorrect to call it hardware like it was something extracted from a computer system. Instead Sadhna coined a new term. She called it Wetware.
Anand thought about the moment, re-imagining the playful moment when Sadhna announced her new word to him from behind a girlish grin.
Presently Anand continued, saying, “Later, when the technology team interfaced the device to our computer network, and the Synapse Suits, I dubbed our new network the WetWeb because I wanted to please Sadhna by expanding on her concept of WetWare. It’s funny that all these years later, it is the term WetWeb that survived. It is the term WetWeb that has entered into our common lexicon.”
Anand paused. He seemed to drift again; exploring well remembered intimate moments working side by side with Dr. Singh. The story was stalling here, and Anand seemed in no hurry to continue.
Franklin was growing distressed by the lateness of the hour. There was no clock on the wall. No loud tick of a second hand to remind of them of the passing of Anand’s final moments. Franklin dared not look at his watch, but he was keenly aware that this was their last interview. Tonight both Anand Ramasubramanian and Al McKnight would be executed by order of the state. The final chapter of the biography was already being written. The crowd of protestors or curious were already gathering outside the prison, mingling with the Synapse Hosts controlled by remote content men who were sent by the media conglomerates to cover this story. Franklin knew they were not ready to end the interview. There was still more of the history left to tell. There were many questions that remained unanswered.
Franklin understood that at this rate, Anand would never finish before they heard the dreaded knock on the door; before the emotionless guards began leading him away into the world behind the thick glass window, and into the space that Franklin could not enter. Franklin did not want to remind Anand of the hour or the urgency, but at the same time he felt the need to move things along.
He said, “I know about the Synapse Soldiers.”
“Hmmm,” Anand was not focused on the conversation.
Franklin repeated himself, “I said I already know about the Synapse Soldiers, so we can skip ahead.”
“What?” Anand was back and aware now. He seemed groggy and irritated, as if Franklin had roused him from a pleasant dream.
“Remember the book club where I read passages from my story, I mean your story,” Franklin said.
He waited for a response but did not receive one, so he continued, “There was a woman there who loved to read books. Old fashioned books. When her son joined the military Alliance and was deployed into the desert wars, she asked him to write to her everyday; letters, written by hand, like in this notebook.”
Again Franklin waited for a response. Anand remained quiet but attentive, so Franklin continued, “She showed me the letters. It was a first person account from a real Synapse Soldier, the first Synapse Soldier to see combat. So you see, I already know about this part of the history and what happened to the Synapse Solders, or at least one of them.”
“A woman?” Anand questioned knowingly, “And she gave you his private letters?”
Anand was fully interested now and continued to by asking, “These letters were from her son you say, and he was a Synapse Soldier?”
“That’s right,” Franklin confirmed, “We can skip ahead a bit.”
“I don’t see how this is possible,” Anand said, “This was a highly classified program. Tight security was all around. The system developers, the surgeons, all of us were sequestered onto a campus. It was like the Manhattan project. The volunteer hosts were closely monitored. Any letters sent by a Synapse Soldier would have been censored. There is no way his Mother would have a firsthand account.”
“You are right about that,” Franklin agreed,
The letters from her son were censored. They did not include any information about the Synaptic Integration experiment. But, he was a Synapse Soldier just the same. I was able to read about his life in the military, boot camp, and then on the front lines. I was able to understand his reasons for wanting to join the Synapse Soldier program. And then, last night his Mother was able to fill in the rest of the details. You see the letters stopped coming, and then she got official word that her son was lost in combat. But that is not how she knew the truth. It later arrived when she received a visit from a Lieutenant who was in a wheelchair. He told her the rest of the story. He told her the story, and then she told me.
Reading through the letters and listening to the firsthand account that was given to her by the wounded veteran gave me all I needed. I have the whole story. I wrote it down. It is all here in the notebook.
Upon hearing this, Anand’s features darkened, and then his eyes misted. The chains on his wrists rattled loudly as he lifted his hands together in order to push the tears from his eyes.
“They were all killed you know,” Anand said,
All of the Synapse Soldiers, the young hosts, were killed. The wounded veterans who had Synapped in to control their bodies were emotionally destroyed. It was a complete disaster. Sadhna was inconsolable.
Sadhna believed so much in this new technology and the program. We all did. We believed we were building something good, something noble. Together we selected each and every one of them, personally. Both the soldier who would be the host, and the wounded veterans who would control them. They were all handpicked. We were careful to select only the ideal candidates. We interviewed them extensively, and when the time came, Sadhna operated on them personally. She implanted the brain stem interface devices that my team had assembled. Together we installed the Wetware into their necks. When they were ready, we activated the network and integrated their brainstems into the WetWeb. It was an intensely intimate process and procedure. And there was so much hope. There was so much confidence. We were convinced that we were going to save these young soldiers from death in battle, and at the same time the personal self esteem of the wounded veterans would rise.
I remember General Mueller gave a grand speech about them, about how the wounded veterans were so proud to be going back into battle.
Anand trailed off. Franklin, still conscious of the lateness of the hour prodded him along.
Franklin asked, “What happened next? This is not the end of the story. I need to know the ending; I need to know how this ended.”
Anand was having trouble focusing on Franklin and his questions. He took a deep breath and pushed his personal grief aside. He reassumed the confi
dent attitude of the narrator.
He said simply, “You are correct. It is not over. Not yet.”
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