The question proved harder to answer than anyone liked.
Taja could easily measure the increased use of sugar in the brain, but it was difficult to say where the temperature curve would level off. Only that it was heading quickly through a fever into something that would become lethal.
While Taja tried to contact some friends at the Vesta Institute of Biochemistry to get advice without completely revealing what was going on, the rest of us started a heated brainstorming session to find a way to resolve the problem.
Unfortunately the metahuman brain is a very delicate thing, even a Biomod can only minor damage there. We had to throw out most 'solutions' instantly, there is little good in cooling the center of a brain to the normal temperatures if you kill other parts of it at the same time.
After half an hour of waiting, we finally got an answer from Vesta.
----
"We have a few hours left, maybe a day or two if we are lucky" Taja said after reading her mail. "And they suggest not to go for some cooling liquid in the blood, it would not distribute well enough."
"My guess is 36 hours, maybe a few more or less" Cortana's avatar said and nodded. "Lets keep a realistic estimate and say 12 hours until we get into a dangerous zone, 24 until we could expect the first permanent damage."
"And how did you got this numbers Cortana?" Taja asked carefully. "Its not that anyone of us have experience with this."
"I did some quick simulations in the virtual labs while you were busy" Cortana said with a smirk. "Oh come on! We have been trying to build a simulated copy of a catgirl brain for years. It might not be good enough to run a mind, but the heating estimate should be good."
"Did Vesta had an advise for us Taja? I would expect them to know what to do."
"They say we should put the patients into a cryogenic tube at once and let the experts handle the problem later" Taja replied. "In fact it would be the perfect solution if we would ignore our other problems."
"Yes, freezing all of us will just kill us… short term memory is not conserved in cryogenic storage" one catgirl of the hive said calmly. "It would also finalize the damage the earlier experiments have done to the long term memory of us."
"How can you stay that calm" someone shouted, "don't you understand that you will just die in a few hours?"
"And freaking out, running around in circles or crying will help me with that?" the catgirl replied. "We have to stay calm and focused, 12 hours is a long time to find a solution."
"Some time ago you suggested pulling yourself out of one of your bodies so that we can make an image of it for later revival" Cathy asked, "how much of your mind will be still inside? Could you, in theory, completely pull out?"
The hivemind stayed quiet for a few minutes.
"Yes, we think we could withdraw out of one of our bodies completely. Before you ask, we could most likely withdraw from all of them" they finally answered together, "but this would just give you the group mind back you had before, with all their panic and confusion. Lets call this plan B or even plan C and work on a plan A, please."
"And you are sure your current mind wouldn't run well in cyberspace" Cortana asked, "this would solve us a lot of trouble."
"Wrong kind of hardware, wrong operation system and no emulation in sight" they answered, but suddenly looked thoughtful. "At least at the moment. As you said yourself, we all have been working hard on changing this for years."
"Its unlikely we will succeed before dinner."
"That is not my point, we could live there eventually!" the hive said. "A simulated brain or a group of simulated brains would not overheat, it should be simple enough to tweak the simulation that way. But your need your full research team for this."
"Even with all of the researchers this will be at least a decade of work, maybe even more. If you can help us to get them back, we might have a chance to get there." Cathy said quietly. "You said that you don't need their long term memory. Can you maybe sort it back in the right way?"
While the hive thought about the idea, Taja quickly interrupted Cathy.
"No way… they are already close to burning up their own brain without working hard on the memory" she said firmly, "doing so would just kill them quickly."
"That is right Taja" the hive answered, "but what if I wouldn't be present anymore during the sorting?"
----
In theory the solution was simple, almost elegant. Of course that is true for a lot of things we just cannot do.
Instead of running the distributed consciousness, restrict it to a small program that starts to sort out the memory swapping according to a preplanned script. Simple and efficient, nothing to worry about anymore.
It didn't helped a bit that our hivemind still had to work out how to write a piece of software like this, one that could keep on going without the rest of the mind.
We were quite sure it wouldn't happen instantly so we had to keep the bodies and their brains alive while the Hive worked on this. Taja quickly made us to build a water tank for each of them so we could slow down their temperature increase.
The second problem was even worse, you just cannot run the mind of a metahuman with limited functionality if you want the higher brain functions working.
The instant the mind would withdraw, the brain would start 'waking up' its original personality and start thinking on its own, messing around with memories and maybe even stopping the sorting.
So we had to find a way to keep the program, this fragment of thoughts, running until it had done its job.
----
"An earworm?" Cortana asked, "that doesn't sound healthy."
"No, the other kind of earworm… we need to take the sorter and attach it to a memory of a catchy tune or song. You know, something you cannot get out of your head, which follows you a whole day" Cathy tried to explained. "Damned, no you do not know, but you can look it up. We keep triggering it by distracting them and playing the song with very low volume."
"Thats risky, you know that an earworm doesn't keep going on forever" Vivio complained. "It might just end after a minute or two, no matter what we do."
Cathy sighed.
"Do you have a better idea? Our time is running out."
"It sounds like a good option, we should try it" the Hive agreed calmly. "All other suggestions were a lot more risky and I like the idea of surviving the procedure. Just don't forget to take a mirror of each catgirl if it works."
"Is your sorting program ready?" Vivio asked carefully.
"As ready as it will be today. It is a prototype and metahuman memories are fuzzy, there is no guarantee that it will work completely" the Hive answered. "But we are out of time anyways, we end this experiment one way or the other."
"Good, lets get started" Cathy agreed, "is there anything we can do in this phase?"
"No, I don't think so" the Hive said while its bodies climbed out of their cooling tanks and onto a group of couches. "Oh, you could wish me luck… hope to see you on the other side."
"Good luck, we WILL see each other again" Cathy said with a smile, beginning to towel one of the Minds catgirls. "Cortana, start the music!"
Cathy watched as the catgirl on the couch before here seemed to sleep in, but the catgirl woke up just moments later.
"Uahhh… did I sleep in?" the catgirl asked and yawned again, looking up at Cathy. "Oh, hi Cathy… can you tell me why I am wet? Did they pushed me into the pool again?"
"Oh yes, something like this" Cathy said and chuckled. "Don't worry about it, just a few more minutes and we have you as good as new."
The catgirl leaned back and closed her eyes, but Cathy could see tail twitching back and forth with the beat of a quiet song.
"I am feeling a little bit fuzzy in the head, I have trouble remembering what happened… hmm, I wonder where I heard that song, was it in the Canteen?"
"Yes, maybe in the Canteen" Cathy replied, keeping her eyes on a small sensor display where time was running. The sorting program was still working. "You hit your head a bit when you fell into the pool, just relax for a few minutes and it will be okay Lisa."
"I hit my head?" the catgirl asked slowly, opening her eyes and looking at Cathy again. "The last thing I remember was working in the lab. Wait a moment, I am still in the lab, what is going on?"
The time displayed flickered a few times and then stopped, the sorting program had crashed.
"Don't worry Lisa, everything is okay" Cathy said and pressed a Federation hypospray at the catgirls neck which made it sleep in within moments.
----
It worked.
Nearly.
It will take a couple of weeks or even months to map out how much the memory of our friends have been changed.
A few things turned up nearly instantly after we woke everyone up again, one catgirl claimed to remember things that contradicted each other.
It could have been much worse.
But I am already worried about to report to the Convention, we cannot keep this thing secret.
----
"... and this concludes the events during the Mindtech incident a week ago. We are still in the process of mapping the amount of damage, but we think we got away with a couple of month of switched or changed memory on average."
Cathy sighed and looked at other people in the small conference room.
"The incident has told us that Quattro was only able to build a very rough prototype of this mind manipulation technology. Even the much smaller Third Eye units can up- and download mind content, which is something nobody expected. Of course we can forget about selling Third Eyes in the near future."
"What do you plan to prevent an accident like this happening again?"
"Lockdown on the Third Eye firmware… we were always a lot more careful with the full Mindtech helmets. And we have to understand what happened, otherwise it will be too dangerous to move forward."
"We want a report about the revised security procedures. You got lucky this time."
----
From: cathy@jenga.ci.fen
To: OCP-Group
Subject: Hivemind accident
X-Policy: Internal-only
X-Policy: Delete-after-reading
X-Policy: Crypto-level-3
While we officially have to stop pushing Mindtech forward until we got more security, I want to propose a new research effort to this group. Our efforts to get a Mindtech copy running in a computer simulation are still years away anyways.
But the Hivemind accident revealed that it is possible to do the opposite, running software within the metahuman mind. Software based on memory fragments, interpreted by metahuman brain.
Years ago an infomorph said to me "biological brains are powerful, but their security sucks".
We have to look into this, maybe this is the way to upgrade our security.
Lets talk about it during the next meeting.
Taja could easily measure the increased use of sugar in the brain, but it was difficult to say where the temperature curve would level off. Only that it was heading quickly through a fever into something that would become lethal.
While Taja tried to contact some friends at the Vesta Institute of Biochemistry to get advice without completely revealing what was going on, the rest of us started a heated brainstorming session to find a way to resolve the problem.
Unfortunately the metahuman brain is a very delicate thing, even a Biomod can only minor damage there. We had to throw out most 'solutions' instantly, there is little good in cooling the center of a brain to the normal temperatures if you kill other parts of it at the same time.
After half an hour of waiting, we finally got an answer from Vesta.
----
"We have a few hours left, maybe a day or two if we are lucky" Taja said after reading her mail. "And they suggest not to go for some cooling liquid in the blood, it would not distribute well enough."
"My guess is 36 hours, maybe a few more or less" Cortana's avatar said and nodded. "Lets keep a realistic estimate and say 12 hours until we get into a dangerous zone, 24 until we could expect the first permanent damage."
"And how did you got this numbers Cortana?" Taja asked carefully. "Its not that anyone of us have experience with this."
"I did some quick simulations in the virtual labs while you were busy" Cortana said with a smirk. "Oh come on! We have been trying to build a simulated copy of a catgirl brain for years. It might not be good enough to run a mind, but the heating estimate should be good."
"Did Vesta had an advise for us Taja? I would expect them to know what to do."
"They say we should put the patients into a cryogenic tube at once and let the experts handle the problem later" Taja replied. "In fact it would be the perfect solution if we would ignore our other problems."
"Yes, freezing all of us will just kill us… short term memory is not conserved in cryogenic storage" one catgirl of the hive said calmly. "It would also finalize the damage the earlier experiments have done to the long term memory of us."
"How can you stay that calm" someone shouted, "don't you understand that you will just die in a few hours?"
"And freaking out, running around in circles or crying will help me with that?" the catgirl replied. "We have to stay calm and focused, 12 hours is a long time to find a solution."
"Some time ago you suggested pulling yourself out of one of your bodies so that we can make an image of it for later revival" Cathy asked, "how much of your mind will be still inside? Could you, in theory, completely pull out?"
The hivemind stayed quiet for a few minutes.
"Yes, we think we could withdraw out of one of our bodies completely. Before you ask, we could most likely withdraw from all of them" they finally answered together, "but this would just give you the group mind back you had before, with all their panic and confusion. Lets call this plan B or even plan C and work on a plan A, please."
"And you are sure your current mind wouldn't run well in cyberspace" Cortana asked, "this would solve us a lot of trouble."
"Wrong kind of hardware, wrong operation system and no emulation in sight" they answered, but suddenly looked thoughtful. "At least at the moment. As you said yourself, we all have been working hard on changing this for years."
"Its unlikely we will succeed before dinner."
"That is not my point, we could live there eventually!" the hive said. "A simulated brain or a group of simulated brains would not overheat, it should be simple enough to tweak the simulation that way. But your need your full research team for this."
"Even with all of the researchers this will be at least a decade of work, maybe even more. If you can help us to get them back, we might have a chance to get there." Cathy said quietly. "You said that you don't need their long term memory. Can you maybe sort it back in the right way?"
While the hive thought about the idea, Taja quickly interrupted Cathy.
"No way… they are already close to burning up their own brain without working hard on the memory" she said firmly, "doing so would just kill them quickly."
"That is right Taja" the hive answered, "but what if I wouldn't be present anymore during the sorting?"
----
In theory the solution was simple, almost elegant. Of course that is true for a lot of things we just cannot do.
Instead of running the distributed consciousness, restrict it to a small program that starts to sort out the memory swapping according to a preplanned script. Simple and efficient, nothing to worry about anymore.
It didn't helped a bit that our hivemind still had to work out how to write a piece of software like this, one that could keep on going without the rest of the mind.
We were quite sure it wouldn't happen instantly so we had to keep the bodies and their brains alive while the Hive worked on this. Taja quickly made us to build a water tank for each of them so we could slow down their temperature increase.
The second problem was even worse, you just cannot run the mind of a metahuman with limited functionality if you want the higher brain functions working.
The instant the mind would withdraw, the brain would start 'waking up' its original personality and start thinking on its own, messing around with memories and maybe even stopping the sorting.
So we had to find a way to keep the program, this fragment of thoughts, running until it had done its job.
----
"An earworm?" Cortana asked, "that doesn't sound healthy."
"No, the other kind of earworm… we need to take the sorter and attach it to a memory of a catchy tune or song. You know, something you cannot get out of your head, which follows you a whole day" Cathy tried to explained. "Damned, no you do not know, but you can look it up. We keep triggering it by distracting them and playing the song with very low volume."
"Thats risky, you know that an earworm doesn't keep going on forever" Vivio complained. "It might just end after a minute or two, no matter what we do."
Cathy sighed.
"Do you have a better idea? Our time is running out."
"It sounds like a good option, we should try it" the Hive agreed calmly. "All other suggestions were a lot more risky and I like the idea of surviving the procedure. Just don't forget to take a mirror of each catgirl if it works."
"Is your sorting program ready?" Vivio asked carefully.
"As ready as it will be today. It is a prototype and metahuman memories are fuzzy, there is no guarantee that it will work completely" the Hive answered. "But we are out of time anyways, we end this experiment one way or the other."
"Good, lets get started" Cathy agreed, "is there anything we can do in this phase?"
"No, I don't think so" the Hive said while its bodies climbed out of their cooling tanks and onto a group of couches. "Oh, you could wish me luck… hope to see you on the other side."
"Good luck, we WILL see each other again" Cathy said with a smile, beginning to towel one of the Minds catgirls. "Cortana, start the music!"
Cathy watched as the catgirl on the couch before here seemed to sleep in, but the catgirl woke up just moments later.
"Uahhh… did I sleep in?" the catgirl asked and yawned again, looking up at Cathy. "Oh, hi Cathy… can you tell me why I am wet? Did they pushed me into the pool again?"
"Oh yes, something like this" Cathy said and chuckled. "Don't worry about it, just a few more minutes and we have you as good as new."
The catgirl leaned back and closed her eyes, but Cathy could see tail twitching back and forth with the beat of a quiet song.
"I am feeling a little bit fuzzy in the head, I have trouble remembering what happened… hmm, I wonder where I heard that song, was it in the Canteen?"
"Yes, maybe in the Canteen" Cathy replied, keeping her eyes on a small sensor display where time was running. The sorting program was still working. "You hit your head a bit when you fell into the pool, just relax for a few minutes and it will be okay Lisa."
"I hit my head?" the catgirl asked slowly, opening her eyes and looking at Cathy again. "The last thing I remember was working in the lab. Wait a moment, I am still in the lab, what is going on?"
The time displayed flickered a few times and then stopped, the sorting program had crashed.
"Don't worry Lisa, everything is okay" Cathy said and pressed a Federation hypospray at the catgirls neck which made it sleep in within moments.
----
It worked.
Nearly.
It will take a couple of weeks or even months to map out how much the memory of our friends have been changed.
A few things turned up nearly instantly after we woke everyone up again, one catgirl claimed to remember things that contradicted each other.
It could have been much worse.
But I am already worried about to report to the Convention, we cannot keep this thing secret.
----
"... and this concludes the events during the Mindtech incident a week ago. We are still in the process of mapping the amount of damage, but we think we got away with a couple of month of switched or changed memory on average."
Cathy sighed and looked at other people in the small conference room.
"The incident has told us that Quattro was only able to build a very rough prototype of this mind manipulation technology. Even the much smaller Third Eye units can up- and download mind content, which is something nobody expected. Of course we can forget about selling Third Eyes in the near future."
"What do you plan to prevent an accident like this happening again?"
"Lockdown on the Third Eye firmware… we were always a lot more careful with the full Mindtech helmets. And we have to understand what happened, otherwise it will be too dangerous to move forward."
"We want a report about the revised security procedures. You got lucky this time."
----
From: cathy@jenga.ci.fen
To: OCP-Group
Subject: Hivemind accident
X-Policy: Internal-only
X-Policy: Delete-after-reading
X-Policy: Crypto-level-3
While we officially have to stop pushing Mindtech forward until we got more security, I want to propose a new research effort to this group. Our efforts to get a Mindtech copy running in a computer simulation are still years away anyways.
But the Hivemind accident revealed that it is possible to do the opposite, running software within the metahuman mind. Software based on memory fragments, interpreted by metahuman brain.
Years ago an infomorph said to me "biological brains are powerful, but their security sucks".
We have to look into this, maybe this is the way to upgrade our security.
Lets talk about it during the next meeting.