The Nanotech Network Part 3

The Colonel suddenly saw the water in the Levshov's hands start to turn opaque and opalescent. In a couple of seconds it definitely started to look like milk, in a couple of seconds more it reached the consistency of sour cream.

AL:> ENOUGH.

NT:> OK.

Levshov turned to the Colonel once again: "What I am holding in my hands now is just an amorphous ma.s.s of cyborg- bacteria, that have no mechanical links with each other. To impart a structure and rigidity to such ma.s.s, we need to establish mechanical links between the bacteria. For this purpose I'm going to use the manipulator arms located on the outer surfaces of each of the bacteria. Figuratively speaking, I'll ask them to join their "hands". Watch!"

AL:> LINKS BETWEEN ELEMENTS: PLASTIC; PLIABILITY:4.

NT:> OK.

"What I have done now was to activate the so-called "plastic links". This means that the bacteria don't hold each other's "hands" very firmly - if a certain external force limit is exceeded, these links will break up, only to be immediately re-established. Simply speaking, the mechanical properties of this ma.s.s are similar to those of modeling clay. You can probe it with your finger. Go ahead, Colonel, don't be afraid!"

The Colonel poked his finger at the ma.s.s resting in Levshov's hand, and the finger left a deep imprint.

- "Now" - said Levshov - "I'm going to model a plug out of this "clay". I'll do this modeling manually, although I could have used for this purpose the resources of NanoTech, such as the capability of the bacteria to move themselves around, and the NanoTech built-in CAD/CAM - Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing System with graphic interface fed into the user's optic nerve, with the IRV - Ideal Result Visualization controlled by the user, and the automatic fitting of the real object to the ideal one. But in this particular case, doing it by hand would be much simpler, although it may not be so spectacular. But this is not NanoTech Demo yet, these are still preparations - I just need a plug for the sink. Now we've got something which looks like a plug. I am putting this plug on the bottom of the sink, and now I see that the plug turned out to be a little bigger than needed and its shape is rather irregular.

That is why I issue to NanoTech a command to shrink the object."

AL:> SHRINKAGE; RATE:3; DO UNTIL "ENOUGH".

NT:> OK.

To his amazement, the Colonel saw that the plug began to shrink rapidly and finally droped into the sink hole.

AL:> ENOUGH.

NT:> OK.

- "You see, Colonel, the plug is now in the sink hole, but it won't stop the water yet, because its irregular shape doesn't fully conform to the circular shape of the hole, and there are gaps between them. That's why I'm going to do two things now: I'll switch from the plastic link mode to elastic link mode, that is, I'll change its mechanical properties from "clay" to "rubber", and then I'll issue a command to expand."

AL:> LINKS BETWEEN ELEMENTS: ELASTIC; ELASTICITY: 5.

NT:> OK.

AL:> EXPANSION; RATE:3; DO UNTIL "ENOUGH".

NT:> OK.

The plug began to grow, gradually filling the gaps, until they were completely closed.

AL:> ENOUGH.

NT:> OK.

- "Well, Colonel, now we have a plug. Of course one could have worked on it a little bit more to give it a more presentable appearance, but for our purposes it'll do as it is. So, let's proceed with the Demo proper." - Levshov turned on the tap and the sink began filling with water - "While we wait for the water to fill the sink, I would like to briefly explain what you are going to see. Back in 1993, when we began our first experiments in manufacturing things using NanoTech, VCRs were still considered a luxury in Russia, and that was one of the reasons we decided to take VCR as an example. One of our comrades has n.o.bly sacrificed for science his own video recorder.

By that time, we had already developed a program for copying any object atom by atom. Physically, the copying process went as follows: the object to be copied was submerged into a tank with water containing cyborg-bacteria, and these bacteria gradually disa.s.sembled, one might even say dissolved, the object atom by atom. That was a fairly slow process which took, in the case of the VCR, about three months. But since, as a result of this process, the cyborg- bacteria recorded into their database the information about where each atom had been located, this process was reversible, that is, a command could be issued for the cyborg-bacteria to start placing proper atoms at their appropriate places, and if the water in the tank had the atoms of the necessary elements dissolved in it in the required quant.i.ties, that meant that after some time (longer than three months, because now the bacteria also had to fish for the required atoms and to transport them to the required positions) the object once again would come into existence out of the seeming nothingness. Moreover, this process, besides being reversible, was also reproducible - by using the information from their database, the cyborg-bacteria could reproduce any number of identical copies of the initial object as long as they had a sufficient supply of the necessary atoms dissolved in the water. By the way, from that one initial VCR we finally obtained three absolutely identical (down to every scratch) VCRs, and all three were working normally. One must note though, that the whole process took more than a year. In other words, we have created what science-fiction writers call a "replicator", but there was no practical use for it, because it worked excruciatingly slow.

So we began to look for ways to speed up the process.

The first way was to refrain from the atom-by-atom a.s.sembly in those cases where it is not really needed. For example, the VCR body - do we really need to a.s.semble it atom by atom, when we could just issue a command for the cyborg- bacteria to link up, the same way I have just linked them up into this plug right before your very eyes, specifying the required mechanical properties of the link. The surface color and reflectivity can also be varied by arranging the bacteria into different configurations, so that light waves of one wavelength cancel each other, while the waves of another length reinforce each other, giving the object a certain color, making it light or dark. Another way was to stop using atoms of any chemical element other than carbon.

By changing the atomic lattice of carbon, one can simulate the physical properties of virtually any substance. By 1995 we have managed to write for the NanoTech system a program that converts the data bases obtained in a "replicator" into the databases for things to be a.s.sembled out of cyborg- bacteria and atoms of carbon. And that is what I want to demonstrate to you now - our VCR of 1995. And the sink is already full of water - just in time!."

Levshov turned off the tap. "Now, Colonel, watch very closely."

AL:> OBJECT: WHAT_I_AM_LOOKING_AT.

Levshov stared fixedly at the water for a couple of seconds - he had to allow some time for the cyborg-bacteria to measure the contraction of his eye muscles, to recalculate these contraction values into the coordinates of the point in s.p.a.ce at which his stare was fixed, and to contact the bacteria located at that point using an infrared link.

NT:> OBJECT FOUND AND LOCKED ONTO, OBJECT BOUNDARIES SET.

BY DEFAULT.

AL:> PROGRAM VCR_1995.

NT:> PROGRAM FOUND. PROCEED WITH EXECUTION?.

AL:> YES.

NT:> OK.

Initially, just as it had been the first time in the Levshov's hands, the water started to cloud. However, when in a few seconds time it approached the consistency of milk, the upper layer of the water suddenly began to clear, while at the bottom of the sink the density of the whitish substance started to grow even faster, and it gradually began to a.s.sume a definite shape. It was several more seconds before the Colonel realized that on the bottom of the sink, under a layer of slightly cloudy water there lay... The Colonel could have sworn that it was a printed circuit board, were it not absolutely white and colorless!

In the first second he thought that there were no components on that "circuit board", but soon he did notice a few small parts, although a second before he was absolutely sure that there were none. Then he finally saw white rectangles, that looked more like ghosts of integrated circuits rather then the real things, to materialize on the board out of coagulations of turbid water that were running over the circuit board like ribbons of mist over a morning land. For a brief moment the water in the sink became completely transparent, and the Colonel could clearly see on the bottom a perfectly real circuit board with lots of components, only unnaturally white, looking as if it were made of alabaster.

But the circuit board stayed in this ghostly state for only a fleeting moment. What happened next was as if somebody turned on a switch - the circuit board suddenly took on color - green substrate, golden conductors, black cases of integrated circuits. Now the circuit board was indistinguishable from a real one.

- "Well, we did it for purely aesthetic reasons." - Levshov commented on this sudden transfiguration - "It does not really affect the operation of the circuit."

The Colonel did not respond. He stood staring at the sink with his mouth agape with wonder, while the work in the sink proceeded at an astonis.h.i.+ng pace. Over the circuit board, the mechanical part of the VCR started to grow up. It grew up like flowers grow in the films shot by the one-frame-per- hour process, where weeks flash by in mere seconds. One second - and it sprouted levers and springs, couple of seconds more - and a video head cylinder burgeoned like a huge flower-bud. Couple of more seconds - and it all became enwrapped into a transparent filmy case, which grew more solid and opaque with every pa.s.sing second, until it completely obliterated the view of the components inside it.

One more instant - and the case suddenly turned from white to black with golden tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. Levshov took the VCR out of water and put it on the table. The VCR was steaming.

- "We'll have to wait a few more seconds to let it dry up, and then you can check its operation - I saw a TV set in your office." - said Levshov - "By the way, did you time it?

All of this should have taken three minutes and 20 seconds."

- "That fast?" - asked the Colonel. He stepped forward and touched the VCR. It was still warm to touch, although it had already stopped steaming.

- "That slow." - answered Levshov - "Too slow for our purposes."

- "What purposes?"

- "I'll explain it later. And now, let's go and see whether it works."

2.7 All the things in the world.

On returning to the office, Levshov hooked up the newly made VCR to the TV set.

- "Why doesn't it have a power cord?" - asked the Colonel.

- "We have introduced some changes into its design. It is now powered from a built-in power source. Have you ever heard about cold nuclear fusion?"

- "That's one of the questions I was supposed to ask you: how did you do it? Physicists throughout the world has been puzzling over the cold fusion problem for years."

- "We don't know it ourselves. I guess one might say we did it empirically. The first versions of cyborg-bacteria operated on organic power sources, the way ordinary bacteria do. One of our comrades was experimenting with what he called "nanotechnogonics" - in simple terms, it was artificial selection of cyborg-bacteria. He artificially increased the rate of mutations in some of the bacteria, and was placing them in various strange environments to see which way the evolution would take in those environments. In particular, he was trying to make one of the strains adapt to low levels of lighting, and he was putting them in darker and darker rooms. Most of those bacteria just died out, but there was one strain that turned out to be capable of living in complete darkness. Thanks to cold fusion, as we found later. Subsequently, we built this function into standard cyborg-bacteria, but we still don't know how and why it works - I think we should let physicists figure it all out."

- "But isn't the work with mutants hazardous?"

- "Very much so. We had one accident... Very gruesome...

I just don't want to recall it. But those bacteria which we have released now are perfectly safe. We have disabled their mutations, but if by any chance a mutant were to come into existence, it would be immediately destroyed but its normal fellow bacteria before it had time to do any real damage.

Modifications in the design of cyborg-bacteria of this kind can only occur on purpose, by commands received from the NanoTech Network... However, let's get back to the VCR.

Please insert a ca.s.sette and press "play" b.u.t.ton."

The VCR worked perfectly.

- "Had I not seen this with my very eyes" - said the Colonel - "I would have never believed that a VCR can be sent over a water supply line. "

- "Water supply has nothing to do with this. I only needed water as an environment which makes it easier for the cyborg-bacteria to move around. In principle, we could have used the cyborg-bacteria who live inside you or me, and take the hydrogen for nuclear fusion from water vapors that are always present in the atmosphere, but in that case the whole process would have taken much more time. And as for "sending", I hope you realize that this particular VRC was not sent from anywhere. It just exists in the NanoTech Network as a purely informational ent.i.ty, as a data set and a program, which can always be "executed", and it can be executed any number of times, and each time the result of executing this immaterial program will be a material VCR.

One could say that the NanoTech Network is the place of potential existence of an innumerable number of VCRs, as well as lots of other things."

- "What things?"

- "In principle, all kinds of things. You just place an already existing thing into a replicator, dissolve it there, obtaining an atom-by-atom database, convert this initial atom-by-atom database into a database for manufacturing that thing out of cyborg-bacteria and carbon atoms, and store this final database in the NanoTech Network memory, which is virtually infinite, since it grows along with the multiplication of cybor-bacteria. And please note that the whole process does not involve any resources beyond those of the NanoTech System itself, since the system already includes a program for creating a replicator, and the data processing and storage are performed by cyborg-bacteria.

After the information about any particular thing is entered into the system, any NanoTech System user can access the program for bringing a copy of that particular thing into material existence, execute the program and use the resulting thing."

- "What other people are NanoTech System users, besides you?"

- "There are not very many active users at the moment, but as soon as I issue the command to activate the system to its full potential, each human being living on Earth will be able to use NanoTech. I believe that by now the cyborg- bacteria have already infiltrated the bodies of all the people on our planet. These bacteria are so designed that as soon as they find themselves inside a living organism, they automatically determine whether this organism is an animal or a human being, and if human, they establish a data interface between this person's nervous system and the NanoTech Network, and automatically a.s.sign to this person a NanoTech Network User's ID number."

- "And how are you planning to collect payments for the use of this network? And, especially, who is going to benefit from these payments? I hope you have not forgotten that these bacteria were stolen, and they are actually Government's property?" - asked the Colonel.

- "There'll be no payments. I mean, no payments in money."

- "But you've been working on these bacteria for a long time, and probably expected to somehow benefit from your efforts?"

- "But I'll benefit. And you'll benefit. And the whole of the society shall benefit. Imagine that somebody invents something new - and somebody will always be inventing something, a thinking human being just cannot stop inventing - and thanks to NanoTech this person's invention will immediately become accessible to all people on Earth.

Including me. And this will recompense my efforts."

- "I think I'm missing something." - said the Colonel - "Well, suppose NanoTech will give you things for free. All kinds of things. Can it create clothes?"

- "Easily."

- "And an automobile?"

- "No sweat."

- "And a house?"

- "As easy as anything else."

- "OK, I can see that you won't have to pay electricity bills...' - the Colonel nodded towards the VCR running without a power cord.

- "Neither shall I have to pay for gasoline." - added Levshov - "The automobile will draw its power from cold fusion."

- "Let's a.s.sume that it is indeed so." - conceded the Colonel - "But you will still need something to eat! That means that you still need money! For food, if not for anything else!"

Levshov gave one more of his inscrutable smiles: "And how do you know that one really needs to eat? Have you recently tried not to eat?"

- "What do you mean by that?" - asked the Colonel suspiciously. The world he knew and understood started to develop a flaw in its structure. A feeling started to well up from the depth of his soul, a feeling as if he were being dragged to the brink of an abyss he dared not to look into.

- "The fact is that cyborg-bacteria are so designed that whenever they find themselves inside a human body, they automatically start to monitor the levels of nutrients in the blood, and as soon as these become dangerously low, bacteria automatically activate the genes that produce these nutrients, and immediately discharge the produced nutrients into the bloodstream."

For a few seconds the Colonel sat stunned and silent.

Finally, he said in very low voice: "So, you mean that ...

Do you want to say that no one needs to eat anything anymore?"

- "Actualy, I would not recommend this. We still don't know the long-term effects of such fasting on the digestive tract. But there might be some difficult situations where such direct replenishment of nutrients in the bloodstream could actually mean the difference between life and death.

Try to look up the latest statistics on the third-world countries. I'm sure that over the last month or so they have not reported a single death caused by starvation."

- "So, one still needs to buy food for oneself?" - asked the Colonel, his spirits revived.

- "As a matter of fact, one needs not. The nucleus of each cyborg-bacteria cell contains a library of genes each of which can be selectively activated by a command from the NanoTech Network. Instead of that ma.s.s of white material that you just saw during the demo, I could easily produce a piece of meat or yolk. The standard gene library includes the most popular staple foods, but if you would like to eat something special and are willing to wait a little, the cyborg-bacteria have the capability to a.s.semble new genes from individual nucleotides using "blueprints" - that is, the information obtained from the NanoTech Network databases. By the way, Colonel, it's high time to have a supper. How about some caviar? If you allow me to use your sink once again..."

- "That's it! The sink! The waterworks!" - the Colonel once again regained his spirits, which had begun to flag for a moment - "I should have remembered about it all along!

You'll still have to pay for water supply! That clinches it!

You'll never be able to do without money! Money is a material manifestation of the relations.h.i.+ps that cement society, and you cannot live in a society and be free from it!"

- "Oh, Colonel, what a muddle of ideas you have in your head! Capitalism jumbled together with communism... As for the waterworks, let me explain it to you once again. Ma.s.sive amounts of water are only used to facilitate the movement of cyborg-bacteria, but, in principle, they are not absolutely necessary for manufacturing things using the NanoTech Network. Water is needed for sustaining the life of the human being though, but there is always a sufficient amount of water vapor in the air. Even now, in the memory of the Nanotech Network are stored a number of simple devices that allow to condense a gla.s.s of water out of the air in a matter of a few minutes. And don't forget about clouds that are almost always present in the sky. They consist of minute water droplets, that also contain cyborg-bacteria. You only need to give them a command to merge, and the cloud will produce rain."

- "You want to say that you can even control weather?"