Lock In (Lock In, #1)(60)

“Hey now,” Tony said.

Vann smiled. “It’s fine. Just don’t repeat anything.”

“Tony’s technically a patient of mine,” Tayla said. “I’ll file it under physician’s confidentiality.”

Vann turned back to Tony. “What shit are we not going to believe?”

“Chris, you asked me to look for code in the software that knocks the Integrator unconscious,” Tony said.

“Yeah,” I said. “And you found it?”

“No,” Tony said. “I told you that you needed the Integrator to be conscious to assist their client, and that still stands. What the software actually does—or can do—is much weirder. It robs the Integrator of their free will. And then it wipes their memory.”

“Explain this,” Vann said. She was suddenly very attentive.

“Integrators stay conscious for two reasons,” Tony said. “One, it’s their body and they have to have veto control over any dumbass thing a client wants to do, like pick a fight or jump out of a plane without a parachute. Two, because integration isn’t totally clean, right? The neural network transmits the client’s desires to the Integrator’s brain. The brain picks it up and moves the body and makes it do what the client wants. But sometimes the signal isn’t strong enough and the Integrator needs to step in and make it happen.”

“The Integrator has to read intent and assist,” Vann said. I suddenly realized that Tony didn’t know Vann had history as an Integrator.

“Exactly,” Tony said. “So knocking out an Integrator isn’t just morally wrong, it also defeats the purpose of integrating in the first place, which is giving the client the illusion of a functioning human body. A body with a knocked-out Integrator is going to have a hard time walking, or doing anything with anything approaching standard dexterity.”

“But someone found a way around this,” Vann said.

“I think so.”

“How.”

“The code I’m looking at plays with the Integrator’s proprioceptive sense,” Tony said. “It gives the Integrator the sense they can’t perceive their own body.”

“It paralyzes them,” Tayla said. She had clearly not turned off her hearing.

“No,” Tony said. “See, that’s the sneaky part. You don’t want to paralyze the Integrator, because then the client can’t use the body. What you want to do is rob the Integrator of any sense of their body while at the same time leaving the body receptive to input. The Integrator has lost control of the body, but the body is ready to be used.”

“The Integrator experiences lock in,” I said.

“Exactly,” Tony said. “They go Haden. But unlike us”—Tony motioned to the three of us, excluding Vann—“the body is good to go.”

“But if the Integrator is locked in, then the body isn’t good to go,” I said. “You said it yourself. They need to be there to assist.”

“That’s the other sneaky part,” Tony said. “In addition to locking in the Integrator, the code fools the brain into thinking the signal from the client is also the signal from the Integrator. So when the client says ‘Raise the arm,’ what the body hears is both the client and the Integrator saying it. And it raises the arm. Or moves the leg. Or chews the food.”

“Or jumps out of the airplane without a parachute,” Vann said.

“Or that,” Tony agreed.

“You said it also wipes out the memory,” Vann said.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Although maybe it’s not accurate to say it wipes it out. What it does is inhibit the Integrator brain from forming long-term memories of what the client is doing. Everything exists in short-term memory only. As soon as the client disengages, everything the client was doing with the Integrator body is flushed from the brain.”

“It feels like lost time,” I said.

“But not for the client,” Vann said.

“Probably not,” Tony said. “Assuming the client’s brain is working normally, memories will be recorded normally as well.”

“So the client can do whatever they want and the Integrator won’t remember it,” Tayla said.

“Right,” Tony said. “But here’s the really f*cked-up thing. The Integrator won’t remember any of it—but while it’s happening? The Integrator feels it. The code isn’t suppressing the Integrator consciousness. It doesn’t have to because it’s cut off proprioception and is dumping the consciousness into the short-term memory buffer. Writing code to suppress Integrator consciousness would just be a waste of time. So for every second the client has the Integrator locked in—”

“The Integrator feels like she’s drowning,” Vann said.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Or that feeling you get when you’re dreaming and you can’t move. Or, well, being a Haden.”

“How does this relate to the hardware?” Vann asked.

“It relates very well,” Tony said. “The hardware is optimized to the software, not the other way around. The network has a dense concentration of filaments accessing the dorsal spinocerebellar tract, for example. That’s the part of the brain that handles conscious proprioception. Once you know the software, the hardware design makes perfect sense. This is a purpose-built network.”