Postsingular | Page 4

to his brain and
coax the neurons into growing the missing connections.
Ond's oddball boss, Jeff Luty--annoyingly a bit younger than Ond--had
built his company, Nantel, into a major player in just five years. Luty
had done three years on scholarship at Stanford, two years as a
nanotech engineer at an old-school chip company, and had then
blossomed forth on his own, patenting a marvelously ingenious design
for growing biochip microprocessors in vats. The fabulously profitable
and effective biochips were Nantel's flagship product, but Luty
believed the future lay with nants: a line of bio-mimetic
self-reproducing nanomachines that he'd patented. For several months
now, Nantel had been spreading stories about nants having a big future
in medical apps.
"I don't like arguing tech with normals," said Ond, still carrying Chu in
his arms. "It's like mud-wrestling a cripple. The stories about medical

nant apps are hype and spin and PR, Nektar. Jeff Luty pitches that line
of bullshit so the feds don't outlaw our research. Also to attract
investors. Personally, I don't think we'll ever be able to program nants
in any purposeful, long-lasting, high-level way, even though Luty
doesn't want to admit it. All we can do is give the individual nants a
few starting rules. The nant swarms develop their own
Wolfram-irreducible emergent hive-mind behaviors. We'll never really
control the nants, and that's why I wouldn't want them to get at my
son."
"So why are you even making the stupid nants?" said Nektar, an edge
in her voice. "Why are you always in the lab unless I throw a fit?"
"Jeff has this idea that if he had enough nants, he could create a perfect
virtual world," said Ond. "And why does he want that? Because his
best friend died in his arms when he was a senior in high school. Jeff
confides in me; I'm an older-brother figure. The death was an accident;
Jeff and his friend were launching a model rocket. But deep down, Jeff
thinks it was his fault. And ever since then, he's been wanting to find a
way to bring reality under control. That's what the nants are really for.
Making a virtual world. Not for medicine."
"So there's no cure?" said Nektar. "I babysit Chu for the rest of my
life?" Though Chu could be sweet, he could also be difficult. Hardly an
hour went by without a fierce tantrum--and half the time Nektar didn't
even know why. "I want my career back, Ond."
Nektar had majored in media studies at UCLA, where she and Ond met.
Before marrying Ond, she'd been in a relationship with a woman, but
they fought about money a lot, and she'd mistakenly imagined life with
a man would be easier. When Ond moved them to San Francisco for his
Nantel job, Nektar had worked for the SF symphony, helping to
organize benefit banquets and cocktail parties. In the process she
became interested in the theatrics of food. She took some courses at
cooking school, and switched to a career as a chef--which she loved.
But then she'd had Chu. The baby trap.
"Don't give up," said Ond, reaching out to smooth the furrow between

Nektar's eyebrows. "He might get better on his own. Vitamins, special
education--and later I bet I can teach him to write code."
"I'm going to pray," said Nektar. "And not let him watch so much
video."
"Video is good," said Ond, who loved his games.
"Video is clinically autistic," said Nektar. "You stare at the screen and
you never talk. If it weren't for me, you two would be hopeless."
"Ma chine ma chine ma chine," said Chu.
"Pray to who?" said Ond.
"The goddess," said Nektar. "Gaia. Mother Earth. I think she's mad at
humanity. We're making way too many machines. Here's our car."
***
Chu did get a little better. By the time he was seven, he could ask for
things by name instead of pointing and mewling. Thanks to Ond's
Nantel stock options, they had a big house on a double-sized lot. There
was a boy next door, Willy, who liked to play with Chu, which was
nice to see. The two boys played video games together, mostly. Despite
Nektar's attempts, there was no cutting down on Chu's video sessions.
He watched movies and cartoons, cruised the Web, and logged endless
hours with online games. Chu acted as if ordinary life were just another
Web site, a rather dull one.
Indeed, whenever Nektar dragged Chu outside for some fresh air, he'd
stand beside the house next to the wall separating him from the video
room and scream until the neighbors complained. Now and then Nektar
found herself wishing Chu would disappear--and she hated herself for
it.
Ond wasn't around as much as before--he was putting in long hours at
the