Plague Planet (The Wandering Engineer) (60 page)

“Is there going to be a problem?” Doctor Zane asked.

The admiral shrugged. “Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. I
don't want a problem, but I'm going to do my best to plan for one in case it
happens. Which is why we've got medical staff standing by and why we're doing
this in a surgery suite.”

“Ah,” Zane nodded. “Just checking.” He sounded relieved for some
reason.

“Each of you already swallowed the first implant pill. We've given
you supplements. Basically I gave you a military Ident implant. A basic one,
usually used by cadets and enlisted. You are each going to take a nap, and the
nanites will go to work. Once they're finished they'll signal Commander Sprite
who will have me link to you to initialize your identity and give you the first
key set. Once that is done we'll move to step two and surgery.”

“Great,” Zane said. “I'm so looking forward to that part.”

“My AI and my nanites will use your Ident implant as a partial
road map and expand on it.”

“Okay, that's different.”

“Normally we'd have you do this in a regen tank, or under the
knife with an experience surgical team. Since we don't have either, we're
trying something new. And with trying something new there are always risks
involved.”

“Tell me about it,” Doctor La Plaz said.

“I'd like to, but it's mostly classified doctor,” Irons replied
when Defender blinked onto his HUD in warning. “Even though the damn
classification should have ended a couple of hundred years ago,” he muttered
darkly.

“From your lips to Defender's ears. If he had them, which he
doesn't,” Sprite said dryly.

“Huh?” Doctor Zane asked.

“Never mind,” the admiral replied, returning to the outside world.
“Internal conversation.”

“Oh.” Doctor Zane looked at the others. La Plaz just shrugged.

“There's something I've tried to discuss with you but I'm not sure
you get it. One you will be under military discipline, though casual discipline
is looser when it comes to medical personnel. But you're on a tighter rein when
it comes to the keys I'm going to give you.”

“In what way?” Doctor La Plaz asked.

“Well, they only work while you're an officer. And if you ever try
to use them inappropriately a micro AI embedded in your implants will stop you.
If you try to get around it the damage could be permanent.”

“Ouch.”

“As is the court martial.”

“Oh, lovely,” La Plaz said, rolling his eyes.

“You're being given a very dangerous gift doctor, one that could
kill an entire planet if misused. So in addition to the AI watching your
behavior, should you ever be kidnapped and someone tried to force you to use
the keys the AI would also stop you. Most likely by dropping you into a coma or
killing you.”

“A suicide switch,” Doctor Zane said quietly, eyes wide. He gulped
nervously.

The admiral nodded, totally sober and serious. “Exactly folks.
Exactly so. It's a burden you all agreed to when I explained it to you before,
but I wanted to go over it one last time with you.”

“We understand,” Doctor La Plaz said softly.

“I hope you do doctor, I hope you do,” Irons said. “That being
said, nap time. We'll go in shifts. Doctor Chung and O'Reilly will be
overseeing the first batch, once doctor O'Reilly gets the hang of it Doctor
Chung will his chance to go under the knife. So, I suggest you all finish
surgery prep and get some rest. You'll need it. Once you're back on your feet
we're going to run you ragged to make up for the downtime.”

“Gee thanks,” Doctor Zane replied with a laugh. “I never knew you
cared.”

...*...*...*...*...

Two hours later Sprite reported the first wave of implants were
complete. Doctor Chung and the others awoke and looked both relieved and
nervous. Relieved because the identity implants had grown in so effectively,
nervous because they knew that was the easy part, the hard part was about to
begin. And also nervous because soon it would be their turn. It wasn't often
that the surgeon went under the knife of someone who technically wasn't a
doctor.

The admiral went to each patient, linking into them to initialize
their implants. Then he moved on to the next. There was no time to initialize
sleep teaching, he made a mental note to do so after. They not only needed to
know how to use their implants, but they also had to know a bit more about
military life.

He noted doctor La Plaz, Doctor Zane, and Nurse Joy were all
betas, each would be useful later. The remarkable intelligence of La Plaz was
now explained.

Once he had worked his way through the rest of the group he
stopped at Helen Richards. She was smiling slightly in her sleep. Gently he
brushed her hair away from her temple and put his right hand there. He felt his
nanites make the connection. She stirred as if in discomfort but he knew it wasn't
due to what he was doing. He initialized her implants and felt Sprite sign off
on them. Then he felt her reboot the doctor's implants. When they finished her
rank and status were there blinking on his HUD. He nodded and then turned. It
was time for the next step.

Each of the patients were wheeled one by one to the cleared
surgery suite. Doctor Chung and Doctor O'Reilly were on hand to oversee things.
They would monitor the patient's vitals for now, that was about all they could
understand or cope with for now.

Helen had insisted on being the first to go through the process.
Ted Zane had tried to get her to let him go first, but she hadn't allowed it.
Irons could see her logic, she wanted to not only lead her people but also
recover quicker. But he also knew the risks, if they lost her it would be bad.

Irons set up to do the humans first, since there were more of them
than the other species. In fact there were only two other species involved, a
single member of each, the Veraxin Endocrinologist Dr. Gijis, and the Naga
orthopedic surgeon doctor Ramius. Both were perfectly happy with going last.

He'd worked out the rank, Doctor Richards would serve as a first
lieutenant since she was chief medical officer of the planet. Doctor Zane would
serve as a second lieutenant, as would all the other doctors. The nursing staff
would be ensigns, the one orderly would have enlisted implants. He was
technically the easiest of the group, Irons was tempted to start on him first
but decided against his better judgment to go with Doctor Richards. They needed
doctors, not augmented orderlies who may someday be a doctor.

...*...*...*...*...

The main surgical suite was dark, cool, and quiet. Occasionally
machinery could be heard, but it was a distant thing, easily tuned out. Spot
lights were around the doctor, the suite had originally been set up as a
theater but the admiral had firmly refused more of an audience than he already
had on hand.

Each of the surgical staff were nervous, he could tell, their
heart rates were elevated. He ignored that as well, focusing instead on the
patient.

Helen was laying there as if on a massage table. Her left arm had
an IV set up, they were already giving her saline and anti-inflammatory
medication to go along with her sedative. Hopefully not too much.

On a table near each patient were the semi-processed materials for
each of their implants. They glittered like gold and silver jewelry and wiring.
“Are we ready?” Irons murmured. A blue holo of Helen Richards appeared in the
air over his head. He glanced up at it, then down to her. The same image was
there, overlaid on her body. He nodded.

“We will be using the first ident implant as a template admiral,”
Sprite informed him as he felt nanites bunching up on his right hand. “Please
have a seat, this will take a while. At least until we've figured out how to do
it properly. I am so glad you decided to go with the humans first. We're using
you as a template as well.”

“Some things just work out that way,” the admiral said, noting her
curious nervous tone. “And you've got opening night jitters don't you?” he
teased.

“Damn right I do!” she said. He snorted. He turned, feeling his
body move on its own. Proteus laid the implants out on the doctor's body, over
her patient gown. The doctor was face down, a breathing mask covered her face.
Usually they would do the operation in a zero G field, unfortunately due to the
time crunch they just couldn't afford to wait for the admiral to whip a few up.

“Let's do this,” the admiral said, feeling his own nerves draw
taught. He glanced at the medics in their blue scrubs and nodded. Raising his
right hand over Helen's back, he felt the AI redirect it to her right arm.
Slowly, almost agonizingly slowly his hand moved downward to touch the inside
of her wrist. He could see and feel his nanites flowing  into her.

Doctor Ramius gasped as he noted tiny firefly icons swarm out of
the admiral and into the patient. He turned to Doctor Chung. “The nanites,” the
human surgeon said. Ramius flicked his tail in annoyance.

“I knew that,” he grumbled, returning attention to the scene
unfolding in front of his eyes. For this to work he was taking a back seat,
just an observer.

Nanites flowed into the implant woven into the epidermis above the
thenar muscles in her right palm. There they replaced the basic wireless
implant with a more powerful one. Then they traced up the median and ulnar
nerves, replating the wiring as they went until they reached the right
trapezius muscle. There they branched off for the first time.

One group followed the wiring down, along the intercostal nerves
along the spine. There they encountered other groups and they made connections,
weaving them into the patient's nervous system as if they'd been grown. Which,
in a way, they were.

A second group branched out, making a run into the interior of the
body where they branched further and further. Some ran wiring to the pair of
batteries that had been grown into her abdomen above her liver, others formed
new devices, thermal taps to power the implants, an electric energy collector
along the spine, sensors in each of the major organs... the connections started
to look like the nervous system of the patient.

As the AI's worked the piles of materials disappeared. The
admiral's hand moved of it's on violation, slowly tracing its way up her arm to
the back of her neck. As he passed over the arm the nanites there just
finishing their tasks, they moved on to other tasks.

Queen nanites were constantly updated with new plans as they went
along. They directed worker nanites in the process. Some workers formed chains
to pass materials to the manipulator nanites at the point of contact. These
nanites formed and shaped the materials into the required tech, seamlessly
weaving them into the patient's body. Another set of workers were applying quick
heal and anti-inflammatory medications to the connections, soothing their
assault to acceptable levels.

Another strain of workers were fending off the patient's immune
system. That was a vicious fight, but rather one sided since the nanites could
mimic the body's cells, throwing the white blood cells into confusion. The
nanites took up blockades at certain parts of the intravenous system, filtering
out the white blood cells but allowing other cells to pass. When the work in
that part of the body was finished the nanites dissolved the filter and moved
on.

The first branch had been stalled, the branch going up along the
intercostal nerve there would encounter the brain, Proteus was leaving those
delicate connections for last.

The connections along the spine would serve as a bridge allowing
the patient to connect her nervous system to a machine and control it. She
would 'feel' sensations as if they were her own limbs, and also be able to move
her own body and remote control the limbs or machinery of other devices.

Pockets were formed in tissue, this was something tricky Doctor
Zane had been concerned about. The nanites grew devices within, in some cases
they were chemical reservoirs, others were for electronics. When the
supplementary devices were completed the nanites all seemed to collect
themselves along the spine, completing the delicate connections there.

“Vitals are stable. Phase two?”

“We're almost finished phase two. We're about to enter Phase
three,” Doctor Chung said, hands moving as if he was controlling the nanites.
“Sensory connections I believe.”

“Yes,” the admiral said softly. As he said that nanites seemed to
move out as if they exploded, following her nervous system into her inner and
outer brain.

The first connections to her body had been for touch and control,
now he felt Proteus move on to more tricky avenues. The AI was starting with
the simplest, sound. An auditory microphone was grown in a pocket in the
doctor's mandible near her right ear. Wiring ran to her spine. The microphone
was grown into her masteroid bone. It would pick up and would transmit sounds
and vibrations her vocal cords made.

When those connections were made jacks were formed in both of her
temples and at the base of her neck. Additional jacks formed in her right arm
under her skin, but they would remain dormant for now.

Nanites moved material and wove auditory brain-stem implants, one
for each ear. These would allow her to hear sounds through her implants.
Proteus experimented slightly with the implants, throwing in enhancements to
allow her to hear and filter out things easier. The admiral frowned but didn't
urge the AI onward. Most likely the AI was stalling as Sprite worked on the
next more critical steps.