The antiquated air conditioner made an unpleasant ticking sound as it belched cold air into the cramped white room. The inconsistent gusts made the intricate batik cloths hanging on the wall ripple slightly, the effect hypnotic. Neither the doctor rifling through boxes on the floor nor the patient standing inside the doorway took any notice of either the cold or the shifting designs.
"I tell you, I have them here somewhere, had them ordered from Taipei because I hoped a special customer would come sometime who knew what he wanted." Junk and packing material littered the space around the doctor's feet as he rummaged. A blister pack containing an "EZ-Mekka-Pancreas" bounced onto the floor, followed by bubble wrap and a box of artificial fingernail implants.
The man in the doorway shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "Just hurry up, over and done with. The Sundanese won't like it if they learn I was here."
"Aha! Bingo." The doctor held up a matte black box the size of two fists held together. Shiny black characters covered its faces, catching the light and making odd reflections. "I told you I had them, last year's flagship model before Taiwan Biokinetic hired that tightfisted idiot CEO." He motioned to a dentist's chair in the center of the room, its upholstery leaking out at the exploding seams. "Sit down, be comfortable, equipment takes some time to get ready."
The other man shuffled furtively to the chair, glancing over his shoulder as if the Sundanese were right behind him.
"I tell you to relax, Atang," the doctor repeated. He walked over to a touchscreen on the wall and started tapping icons, causing various electromechanical noises to start in various of the room. "The Sundanese don't own me, I won't tell them you were here if you don't want me to. They can't do nothing to me, because they know I'm the best micro-surgeon in all of Jakarta. Oh, they growl and show a little muscle, and I pay my percentage like everyone, but they know who it is who's going to perform their upgrades when Toshiba comes out with the new spinal actuators." He paused for a minute. "How much trouble are you in with them, anyway?"
Atang coughed. "They got a big crate of immunobots stolen by this tough new gang from Sumatra. Word is someone tipped them off that it was going to be moved, and people started pointing fingers, and…well."
"And of course you did not do this thing, sasa?" The doctor's words were clipped and precise, his eyes still focused on the screen. "I have known you since you were five years old, and I know my old friend Atang would not do something so stupid and then come to me and ask for help."
"Of course not, Dr. Guret! Ibrahim doesn't like me, and he just started some rumors. Those Sumatrans scare me. I don't want anything to do with them."
"Hmm." The doctor's expression softened slightly. "If you say you did not do this thing I'll believe you and won't push the matter." Dr. Guret swiped his hand over the control panel, and a grid of interconnected lines lit up superimposed on Atang's body like an external nervous system. "Hokay, I don't see anything that's going to cause any problems. Do you have any implants I should know about that might do anything strange?"
Atang shook his head. "I don't have anything fancy. Liver plugs and stomach lining plus skin weave. This is my first big mod."
"I can see." Guret smiled encouragingly. "I am honored you chose me for the big plunge. Are you really sure you want to go through with it, though? I'm okay backing out now if you think you might have second thoughts later. A lot of people, they can't cope with looking in the mirror and seeing new eyes looking back."
"Yeah, I'm sure." Atang shrugged. "My brother in law got new eyes two year back after someone glassed him in the face, and I think I can take it too. Just…are the Taiwanese really that good? I want to do the best there are."
Guret tapped the black box on the counter proudly. "Best I've ever found. Not just a camera and a computer, they have replacement optic nerve connection and patch directly into the visual cortex. Of course they do some processing too, but the brain does some, and it works better together like that. The controls are subvocal, so no need to keep another app on your phone to change settings. There's a sliding frequency spectrum from millimeter radar up to UV, crisp definition over all 210 by 150 degrees field of view, perfect motion detection, and extensible head up display. It is very fine piece of technology. I am a little curious, though," said Gurent, his expression become serious, "why you are willing to spend so much scrip on top of the line Taiwan Biokinetic ocular upgrades without knowing all about them already. These are not an impulse buy, sasa, like a tattoo you can change your mind about in the morning."
Atang shivered in the chair, and it was clear from his voice that it wasn't due to the cold. "You know the Sumatrans I talked about earlier, who got the Sundanese all angry? Well, I seen them fighting. One of them came into a bar I was in, just walked in off the street all normal, and killed a guy that was sitting having a drink. Motherfucker was so fast, couldn't nobody see him move, and in two seconds Solomon was bleeding out on the floor with a crushed ribcage. He had army training, too, and custom spinal work, and he didn't have any time to react. All the guys there were really shook up, but it just stayed with me for some reason. I can't shake the feeling that those Sumatrans are behind me, just where I can't see, moving fast right when I turn my head. And now the Sundanese are looking for a rat, and…and I just feel like I want to see what's happening before it happens. Maybe I'll get killed anyway, but just maybe I can see it coming just in time and run."
"I'm sure it was just some punk running overvolted nerve inducers with custom firmware-"
"No," insisted Atang. "It was more than that. I mean, who even just murders someone like that? And he just walked out after when everyone was still in shock."
"I understand," said Guret after a pause. "You are not buying eyes from me."
"What?" said Atang. He started to get up out of the chair, his face turning angry. "I told you I didn't tell anyone about the immun-"
"No," interrupted Guret. "You are buying peace of mind. I don't know if that is something I can give you, but I can try very hard."
The smell of sweet soy sauce and fried chicken permeated Guret's office, and he smiled warmly at the old woman who had brought the smell and the covered dish generating it into the room. "Mrs. Hatta, I am always delighted to see some of your cooking in front of me, but it is now six months after your operation. Your debt is long paid."
The old woman shook her head. "You gave me back my joy in food. I should have had you regrow my teeth years ago. Not a day goes by I don't marvel at being able to eat something besides rice and soup."
"Well," said Guret, motioning to a chair beside him, "please join me then. I was just going over some new catalogs, and company would be welcome."
Mrs. Hatta moved to sit down, but a crash from the operating room made them both jump. Guret opened his office door and peered in, trying to see if any of his equipment had fallen. Instead, he saw a huge figure standing in the wreckage of the door into the operating room. As soon as he peeked out, the figure crossed the floor quickly and had a hand around Guret's throat.
"Are you the doctor?" His assaulter's voice flat and expressionless.
Guret nodded feebly. The grip on his throat was making it hard to breathe.
"You will assist my brother. His implants have been compromised." Just behind his captor, Guret could see two more figures bringing a stretcher into the room carrying a bound, thrashing body. Guret was released, and he stumbled into the operating room, gasping for breath. He managed to turn on the lights, got a good look at the body on the stretcher, and nearly vomited. Sweat, pus, blood, and open sores mixed together on the man's skin, some of which was burned and some some of which was burned away entirely. Foam and vomit coated his front, and a rag stuck in his mouth and tied around the back of his head was all that kept the muffled noises he was making from turning into raw, howling screams.
Guret goggled. "What happened to him?"
"Irrelevant. Treat him," said the voice behind him.
Guret looked around sharply. "I need some details so I can treat him properly, sasa? Was there an accident? Are his implants recent? Any chance a badly integrated system was pushed over the edge by a recent addition or a bad firmware upgrade?" He had already started rummaging through his drawers and taken out a syringe. "Any vat grown organs? Any allergies or drug patches on his liver?"
"Treat the damage. We will answer questions as you work." Guret shrugged and injected the syringe into the patient on the floor. Almost immediately the spasms stopped. "Cut the bonds and lift him onto the table. I'll clean up and let Mrs. Hatta know she can go home, and then I'll get to work."
He stood up and started walking towards his office before he noticed Mrs. Hatta's corpse lying on the floor, the top of her head smashed in. He spun around to face the hulking figures in the operating room, his face hot.
"What did you kill her for?" he shouted. "She's not a part of this, she's…she was just a harmless old woman!"
One of the stretcher carriers spoke this time. "This territory is controlled by Sundanese. She would have relayed information to others. They should not know these things."
Guret started. Even though only one of the stretcher carriers was talking, both of their mouths were moving, in close unison. And the way they moved, as if they know exactly where the other one would be…
Guret tried to push these thoughts to the back of his mind. Atang had been right. If these were the Sumatrans he had been talking about, they were a lot scarier than rooftop biochip modders.
Three flat expressions followed Guret as he moved around the operating room gathering equipment. Scalpels, a small hand scanner, medigel. He tried to focus on the task at hand, not thinking about Mrs. Hatta or how crazy and fanatical a gang would have to be to mess with distributed intelligence and hive minds. He had heard stories, of course, everyone had heard half crazed stories whispered in bars just as people were getting really drunk. Supposedly, the military had poured billions of rupiah into the technology under the rug; and there was also all the rumors about North Korea, which had supposedly infected their entire water supply with nanobots in an effort to turn their population into the Communist ideal; then there was also the one about the American government, which people said had torn itself to pieces in a ruthless mole hunt, rooting out a hive mind in its upper echelons…
Guret stripped the clothes off the body on his operating table and sponged off the various fluids. Now that the skin was clean he could make a guess as to what had happened. It look like this man had been exposed to a high voltage source; there was a big electrical burn along his torso, and some of the open sores looked like implants that had gotten fried and started cooking the surrounding tissue. These would all have to come out. To make sure he didn't miss any mods implanted deeper in the viscera, Guret turned on the overlay projector. Immediately, a network of superimposed lines and nodes lit upon the patient's body. Some of the nodes corresponded with wounds Guret had guessed were implants, and these were all pulsing in various shades of red. Others lit up along the spine and in the brain. These were pulsing, too.
Taking a moment to breathe deeply, Guret turned around to face the three upright Sumatrans. "I need to know the models for the cerebro-spinal implants. The others I have close replacements for, or I can pack with gel until they can be replaced, but I don't think I can remove the ones in his brain without knowing more."
A pause, during which Guret felt every beat of his heart. An idea that he couldn't dare think about directly had occurred to him, and he absolutely could not let any hint of it show. Then the Sumatran in the doorway to his office responded. "There is a bidirectional radio system, artificial pituitary, and a Nishiki bioprocessor. The amygdala and hippocampus have been rerouted through the central biocore."
"That's all I need to know," said Guret, thinking very fast. "I do not have a Nishiki, have not ever worked with any, but I can use a Tychore microprocessor net to fill the same function. The other components will need to be patched to integrate with the central core, though."
"That is not acceptable," said one of the Sumatrans in that same dead tone, lacking affect. "The firmware cannot be altered. It must retain integrity."
Guret could feel the sweat trickling down the side of his face. This was his big chance. "The alterations will be minimal but are necessary. Anything that directly connects with the central core or engages in a protocol with it will need to be updated to use new timing and voltage parameters. No other logic will be touched."
A pause, and then…"That is acceptable."
Guret tried not to let his relief show. He might just be able to pull this off. With a nod, he turned back to his patient and got to work.
"How did you do it?" demanded Atang. He and Guret were enjoying a cool beer on the roof, watching the lights of the city spread out in front of them like a glowing carpet of night.
"What makes you think I did anything?" asked Guret.
"Because I know you," insisted Atang. "When I come back to say thank you for the new eyes and you asked about the Sumatrans, you were not surprised to hear that the whole gang had collapsed. Three weeks after I tell you about them in the first place, and now it like they were never here. So, how you do it?"
"Well, a few nights after I gave you new eyes, they came to me, and they make me patch up one of their grunts. And when they do this, I figure out that they are not just scary and fanatical, they also make themselves a hive mind."
Atang whistled slowly. "No kidding. I told you, those fuckers were crazy."
Guret nodded and took a swig of his beer. "So this means, as I had one of their own on my table, I had a small opportunity." He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "A hive mind is a distributed system, and a distributed system that's still up and available and interacting with the world has a weak spot."
"What?" Atang's brow furrowed. "How?"
"It's simple. You split it in half, and you have two pieces, and both think they're the real authority. The other one is now another system, and if it's trying to take over your turf, you must do something about that. So I tweaked the damaged Sumatran's radio to occasionally send out packets ordering even addressed listeners to change to a new channel. Once he got back to his brothers, he partitioned their network, and the two hive minds tore each other apart." Guret grinned evilly. "I wonder how many times they split before they finished killing each other. I made it a little random so they couldn't predict the next partition."
"Whew." Atang sat back. "I tell you this, the Sundanese don't know what happened, and they are both relieved and terrified."
"Good enough for me," said Guret. "Maybe this will make them think twice before leaning on a doctor."
Hello me, it's me again. This is a story that I did as a small competition with a friend of mine. We picked a theme, and each person wrote a short story on that theme. The theme for this particular piece was "owning a small business." It's something I've been wanting to write about for a while: in a lot of genre fiction, cyberpunk especially, there's this roiling grey economy that our heroes have to interact with in order to get equipment or surgery or services. For the most part this is just to give the story an urban feel and to flesh out some of the technology and world building, but I wanted to write a story from the other viewpoint. What happens to the micro-surgeon who gave Molly Millions her shades?
I've got some other story ideas in the queue, but other things suck up time, so it will probably be a while before I get to any of them. I like to do a lot of outlining before I put pen to paper, and none of these stories have gotten past the "idea with scaffolding" stage.
