Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

Chapter 8

Wednesday, 09 March 2022 – 12:00 p.m. MST

In her years at Q-Morrow, Valerie had grown from a timid young girl into the second most powerful person in the company. She had made the transformation out of sheer will and necessity and she had been rewarded for the effort. Her growth in all aspects of her job and in her personality was recognized by everyone who knew her.

Today she was presenting Q-Morrow’s most recent advancement in bionics and bio-technical implants to a special group of leadership from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Valerie stood behind a small podium. There was a young Marine beside her standing at attention and waiting for her part in the demonstration.

“As you know,” Valerie continued, “the deployment of Q-Morrow visual and auditory implants throughout the military has given our soldiers the technological edge required to outperform all other world military. Today we stand at the edge of another leap in the bio-technical revolution.”

Valerie turned slightly and motioned to a large display behind and to the side of her. A full video demonstration played on the viewscreen illustrating the current state-of-the-art in their military products.

“The visual implants have been used to provide real-time information, GIS mapping and specialty views of targets and terrain such as infrared and satellite overlays,” she continued. She discussed how the visual implants had been developed to provide text, image and full-motion video information directly into the visual field. She showed simulated examples of how a person with the implants might see a map overlaid onto a view of a standard city street or how infrared information may be overlaid onto a nighttime view of a target.

“And you all know how these technologies have improved the security of information as there is no external viewing or listening device required. There is a significantly reduced chance of espionage,” Valerie continued. “However, until now, the system has been fairly static and one-way. The information displayed or played through the implants has been managed solely by external controls or by control groups.”

Valerie pointed to the Marine. “Today, however, we have integrated an entirely new set of features into the implants. We have added a control implant. Captain Disharoom, would you please turn off the lights?”

The young Marine made no motion, but the lights immediately dimmed. There was a small commotion in the group.

“Thank you, Captain,” Valerie continued. “Please turn the lights on again.”

Again there was no visible motion from the Marine, but the room brightened as the overhead lights were illuminated.

Valerie smiled as she saw the excitement within the group. Though they were generally unemotional, Valerie had learned how to read them. She could see that they were impressed.

“We have succeeded in creating a complex new type of bio-technical implant,” she continued, drawing attention back to the viewscreen. “The implant is a microprocessor fused to living human nerve cells that are grafted directly into the central nervous system. Captain Disharoom essentially has a new set of fully-functional nerve cells that he can both feel and control in the same way that we all feel and control a hand or a foot.

“We have developed a training program for teaching the target of the implant how to use it. This training takes as little as a few hours and as longs as two to three days. Once the full training cycle is complete, the recipient has a complete set of control tools enabling full-text message creation and mode control manipulation.”

Valerie turned toward Captain Disharoom. “Do you have anything to say to the group, Captain?”

Behind them the display screen cleared then the text “Semper Fidelis” appeared. There were a few astonished chuckles in the room and one resounding whoop from an obvious former Marine.

“With the complete integration of the visual and auditory implants to the control implant, a complete system is achieved. Each implant recipient has complete two-way access to information and communications eliminating or reducing the necessity of complex control centers to monitor and provide field-specific information to each agent. Rather, the agent is empowered to retrieve any available information at any time as required by the situation.”

Valerie continued to discuss the merits of the implant system that she had helped define in the past two years. She had recognized the importance of defense and security contracts at Q-Morrow and had worked hard to expand her involvement. This development was hers and she was proud of it.