Uplift (4 page)

Very good Richard…this is the easy part. Now you’ll have to transition the poor, decrepit Richard Patterson, and come back as the wealthy Richard Patterson. Now you have to become plausibly uber wealthy. You are going to have to become as wealthy as the barons, but you’ll need some seed money. Check your personal credit balance.

I checked my balance, and whistled. Holy crap. Where did all that come from? Everyone knows I’m a hacker. The law will come down on me, taxes alone…what can I say to explain where I got all this money?

Sigma Max stock options you accumulated from an executive you helped twenty years ago, but he died last year. You just exercised your options with a short-term loan, paid back the loan, and now you have a substantial little nest egg. Taxes owed have already been set aside, in another account.

I don’t know anything about stock options, and taxes – oh. I do now. How does that work? Won’t it be suspicious if someone checks on how I learned about finance, and stuff? How did I learn about everything? My head is full of economics info – feel like a tick that hit an artery.

That is a pleasant image. (pause) I am able to imprint knowledge in you whenever you ask. You locally retain any information you use, but you mostly store indexes to the information through me. I am an enormous repository of information stored in the other dimensions of my…form. When people check on how you got this knowledge they will find records that you studied many, many, many diverse topics under assumed names. With your hacking ability they will assume you hacked into some of the courses that would have cost money.

Why assumed names? Why would I hack into courses that cost money?

You have to give people a mystery that they can solve…dirt on your record…otherwise it is suspicious. You would have told people if you did it legitimately. You didn’t have any money at the time so this gives credibility to using fake names, and not claiming credit for what you know. You even have medical records showing you’ve been getting anti-aging treatments …again using assumed names. Everything should look like a plan you’ve put together over the last thirty years, or more…some slightly illegal.

You will have to give me a lot more information about what you are planning to do. Also – let me know what I can do myself. If the Earth is going to be attacked by a swarm of aliens – I want to kick their ass.

Very well. What do you know the most about that might help?

I know a lot about weapons, and computers. There are not many people on the planet that know more about weapons than I do. I’ve used every type of firearm, and explosive known to man, and I’ve learned to use lots of clandestine tools. Communication, and surveillance devices, simulations for sure…I’ve given lots of people ideas on how to improve different devices, and gear.

I want you to try to remember every idea you ever suggested to anyone, who you gave it to plus what you were doing at the time. Remember the circumstances at the time.

There’s no way I could remember even – whoa – I see everything I ever suggested. How come I remember all these incidents?

Your brain is being fine tuned by me to work more efficiently. This is a good exercise in recall improvement. I suggest you sit down in front of your display, and just close your eyes, and try to relax.

The images, and conversations appeared in my mind’s eye, and included thoughts from basic training to my last mission I did a debrief. Every conversation, and image was crystal clear. I could remember word-for-word what I said, and what was said to me. I could remember the setting, and circumstances. Every simulation I came up with – every simulation I tweaked for the company was right there.

Good job. You are a really creative being, and those ideas saved your company a lot of money, and lives. You made a lot of people rich.

Huh.

Elegant statement Richard…other people often took your ideas, patented them, or claimed them for their own.

So we’re going to sue them for patent infringement, or something, I thought at Corey.

No, but having an encrypted list that you’ve been keeping for twenty-five years will make people look at you differently. It will look like you got tired of other people getting credit, and money from your ideas…especially when they break your encryption.

You think they’ll try that?

What do you think? You’ve dealt with these folks for decades.

What do I think about my past superiors? I think they couldn’t do a better job. I think they are doing the best they know how. They’ve moved the bar. I didn’t say which way. They continually change any organization they touch. No amount of money is worth the job they do. They are second to none. They are competent as they are honest…they are depraved scum.

I think I detect a note of sarcasm (chuckle). Okay there. Let’s think weapons…every type you’ve ever even dreamed about.

…And just like that I felt weapon designs, and manuals pouring into my head. It went on for a long time – at least, it felt like a long time. I started, and loosely classified them: edged weapons, incendiary, weapons, kinetic weapons, melee weapons, energy weapons, auditory, thermal, light, olfactory, irritant, biological weapons, explosive, electronic, magnetic, vibratory, chemical weapons, nano-weapons, nuclear, area denial, siege weapons, thrown, hand carried, shoulder carried, surgically implanted, crew served, vehicle mounted, land/sea/air/space based – then I started thinking of how much damage was to be inflicted at what ranges. Then I started seeing weapon defenses, and how all were manufactured, and typical training courses to prepare soldiers in their use.

Now that you’ve had a very basic download – think about the ones you’ve used, and the ones that would be most easily manufactured. Which ones would you want if you could have your pick?

I saw a few weapons I’d like to have had, but it’s the defense I saw I’d like first.

I can perceive what you liked, and think those are the best choices. We’ll need to form our own corporation first, and here’s how to do that…

Business information started pouring into my head, and then lists of local lawyers that had handled similar situations, and likely fees.

The next day I awoke to find a file on my computer containing a typed account of all my new ideas I had made in the past twenty-five years. The file contained the word-for-word conversations, the circumstances, and the fine details. It contained research showing where the persons (the ones I had told my ideas), had patented the ideas, made money from them, or just claimed credit. Corey said he did it last night. He also had done a search for likely property sites to house my new corporation, and we were going to scope out prospects later today. Lawyers had been contacted, hired, given assignments, and were to have the first draft of paperwork completed in a couple of days for my incorporation. They had been sent suggested documents with obvious flaws.

Corey said if no flaws were included – the lawyers would become suspicious, and we wanted them to think it was their own, fine work. If they missed the flaws we would ask innocent questions that would propel them to revise the documents. We went looking for buildings, and found the perfect monolithic building in the outskirts – way away from everything in Cary, North Carolina. Super sturdy, and huge, ultra-modern design had left this white elephant on the market for eleven months. The real estate agent nearly started telling the truth it had been on the market so long. We saw it was off the beaten path, and had inadequate electrical service, and sewers. We mentioned that, and the agent just sputtered, and lowered the price a few times ‘til I felt embarrassed at how cheap they would lease it, and I said okay to his price. I signed a five-year lease with options. Transferring the money sealed the deal. It’s amazing what a few million in the bank will do to expedite agreements if you’re willing to spend a bit of it.

I decided to call the corporation, AcuMint, a play-on-words to AcumenIT – a company in South Carolina where I first learned about computers. I also planned on making a mint of money. I discussed equipment with Corey, and he had accessed most of the entire Net – not much was beyond his reach. We started ordering equipment we’d need to manufacture the first prototypes. Rapid prototype 3D printers were available for metals, ceramic, carbon nanotube, and polymers. We ordered those, and other fabrication machinery, and materials, and started looking for personnel.

I decided we’d start building prototypes of four devices.

The first was an ultrasonic machete. It didn’t have to be sharp, and it’d cut through stone. It was powered with conventionally available batteries that were easily rechargeable. It would cut through a steel column. You didn’t have to drag it through it cut so fast – wow. It wasn’t that much a stretch to current tech. It would be light, and cheaply manufactured, carried by hand, and would cut through about any damn thing on, or off the planet.

The second weapon was a handgun sized stun gun that would project two parallel ultraviolet laser beams. These beams would ionize the air (it would only work in atmosphere). You could place a tetanizing charge that would follow the path of the ionized air, and would apply a tetanizing charge to exposed skin – and invisible to the naked eye – Taser like…should work on any exposed skin surface.

Next was a rifle firing a pulsed laser – a ‘pulse’ rifle? The power for this, and the handgun was the kicker. It would use compressed gas to ignite, and pass an ionized gas through a small, but powerful magnetic field. This would produce a huge pulse of energy that would power the laser in the shoulder fired rifle, or the handgun. A continuous feed system would provide power for the entire facility, and was being installed to eliminate the need for the inadequate power services from the installed infrastructure.

Lastly – a heavier weapon using the same system of power generation to power a capacitor driven, shoulder carried rail gun. This would use the same general power system yet would take a few seconds between shots to project Mach 11 aluminum sabot rounds with a depleted uranium penetrator core.

It was building the defensive shield that would cause the most consternation because it used effects unrelated to any research currently proposed on Earth. I wanted to build a personal shield that would effectively stop, or deflect any kinetic, or energy weapons. We would need something to protect us from our own weapons. The problem with the current planned iteration would be that the system could only be powered for about twenty minutes per charge. It was a lot more energy intensive than the offensive weaponry.

****

Corey liked my ideas, but who wouldn’t after being held incommunicato in a cave for eighty millennia. Lowers the bar on ‘likes my ideas’ a bit. Corey can now electronically connect to the Net whenever there is any Wi-Fi signal – hell – he can connect to any electronic signal. I had him order the parts we didn’t have to fabricate prototypes from the ground up. Corey also ordered the equipment, and materials for a standalone power, and waste disposal system for our building. The building inspectors that came around a couple of weeks later, but were more interested in how the system worked than anything else, and were actually helpful.

Helpful inspectors were a nice change from the ATF agent who came by demanding our firearms manufacturing permits. He threatened to lock us up, and padlock the place. I recorded the whole conversation on video, and posted it on the Net…instant advertising for our new business. The video showed an out-of-control Fed, and me explaining that there were no explosives, or firearms involved. I asked him if manufacturing coat hangers, or toilet seats would also be regulated, and he stormed out saying he’d be back, and he’d be checking us out.

The ATF inspector video we posted did start the ball rolling as behind the scenes advertising, but when Sigma Max Corp got wind, that I, an ex-employee, was starting a business they were disturbed. Sigma Max thought I should have been quietly dying in a hovel of an apartment. I told Carole I had to move out, and she seemed really crushed – she said
she
had a great time on our date. She also said she needed a better living arrangement, and it was a pain to commute. I figured she wanted to move into a new place with me, but we weren’t at that stage of relationship. I was torn about leaving her, and I knew I’d be back for her, but she didn’t.

My new condo was nice, and I rented some modern furniture so I wouldn’t have to haul crap around in, and out of storage. I updated my handgun carry permits, and insurance I had been intending to let lapse. Figured some nut would see I was developing weapons, and object enough to try to attack me. I still carried my vintage model 27 Glock – too hard to get ammo for my 1911. I thought a forty caliber should be enough, but I would find out how wrong I was a bit later.

The first ‘vibrochette’ was fairly easy to put together, and was impressive. You could cut a table in half, cut off a 6” tree limb, shear a metal door, slice someone out of a car, or decapitate a person. We patented the design, and licensed manufacture to a Chinese firm. We got a lot of bad press when some Mexicans, and Nigerians got their hands on some, and went nuts hacking off heads, and hands – it did really increase sales though. I guess all press is good in a sense though I hated it. I meant for it to be used against bad aliens, but it wasn’t like I could tell anyone that.