Some versions of Sandys included connections all through the patient's arms and legs in order to even further reduce the latency during activations. Both systems included hardware to be installed in the patient's brain that regulated the subjective experience of time; however, the Sandevistan also included linkages to the amygdala and limbic systems, which would be activated at the same time to give an incredible adrenaline response for a short period.
Altogether, a Sandevistan of the same quality could increase a person's reflexes and sense of time almost double that of a similar Kereznikov, which was one reason they had become so popular. People, most of the time, rightly assumed that they would have enough time to trigger their boostware, and if so, the Sandy would always be superior.
Also, getting used to operating at effectively super speed all of the time, twenty-four-seven, was an incredible mental stressor for a lot of people. I wondered if I would have the same problem. I definitely preferred the always-on nature of the Kereznikov system. My fears were always being ambushed, and if so, I didn't know that I would have time to actively trigger an implant, although it was kind of moot since I didn't have an example of a Sandy to potentially install in my body in any case.
I had been making adjustments to the Kereznikov for the past day. I tried to keep my changes small because I didn't want to have to maintain a piece of cybernetics that was installed in my spine on the regular. However, I had a number of ideas to integrate the system more closely with my internal biomonitor and to make it less hard on my brain and connected neurons.
The main physical sequelae to either system of boostware were inflammation of both the nervous system, especially at the interface points and the brain, as well as connective tissue damage from having reflexes and speed that the mechanical parts of your body just couldn't keep up with. Tendon damage and repetitive stress injuries similar to tennis elbow were prevalent.
I wouldn't have so much of the latter problem, as the muscle and bone lace treatment had made all of my connective tissue and bones incredibly strong. I could bench press almost five hundred pounds... err, two hundred and twenty-five kilograms. I had to get used to the metric system, too. And I could do that doing reps, even if not very fast, which was pretty good for a lanky girl who barely weighed over sixty kilos.
I wasn't sure if that was enough to consider me the lowest of low-tiered Brutes, but probably, especially when you considered my skin was bullet resistant, depending on the type of bullet and gun. A 9mm to my chest would give me a bruise, but a 2mm hypervelocity flechette with a tungsten penetrator would likely go through me and out the other side. Both were things that could be fired from handgun-sized firearms, so I couldn't even really say I was proof against pistols.
The nervous system was a problem, though. I could think of a number of ways to treat inflammation of the nervous system and the brain, but the best option was not to get it at all, so I was connecting the Kereznikov with my internal biomonitor. As soon as my biomonitor detected signs of inflammation, then my operating system would ratchet down my boost level.
This seemed like an obvious solution, and it was, but the issue was getting boostware to provide anything, but the full performance wasn't a simple problem. If all you wanted to degrade performance, it would be pretty simple but doing so in a way that didn't screw up the reactions and proprioception of the user was an extremely complicated issue and one that hadn't been successfully accomplished yet.
I suspected it hadn't actually been researched too hard, either. This was military equipment, and that was all about the bleeding edge of performance. Actively degrading performance, even if only slightly, for the long-term health of the user might not be considered optimal. Alt-Dad said something like that, even. Ruefully, he once said, "Soldiers are cheap, Little Owl, but defeat costs more than coin."
Before I knew it, I was reassembling the Kereznikov. To unlock the variable boost mode, I would have to practise with it on a number of speed modes. From full boost at first, then degrading the performance by about five per cent each go. After it got a baseline of my performance in each of the twenty-speed speed settings, then it would use that data to help jumpstart my brain's processing as soon as it switched between one of the settings. A sudden increase or decrease in my boost level wouldn't shock me; it should be as smooth as silk in transition.
The psychological issues, though, would still be mine to solve. I could definitely program a switch for it to function in a similar manner to a Sandevistan now, keeping me at a degraded performance mode until I activated it. However, there was a reason if I had the choice between the two, I would have picked the Kereznikov.
Maybe I was being arrogant, but I felt that I should just get used to it. I think I could devise some neural plasticity treatments to help me, too, if it were too much for me. That might be a good idea, in any case, as it would definitely lessen the time it took to get up to speed, pun intended. Just ensuring I used the sleep inducer every night, which had a small element of a neural plasticity treatment, might be sufficient.
Dr Taylor, the kindly old man, sat in front of me in the empty conference room, "Miss Hebert, is there any way I can talk you out of this? I highly discourage the use of these types of reflex-enhancing augmentations. Kereznikovs, especially, have a very high incidence of causing mental instability."
He wasn't done and continued, "The biggest symptom of cyberpsychosis is disassociation and disconnection. Having much higher reflexes and living as though everyone else is in slow motion is almost definitionally mentally disconnecting yourself from humanity as a whole."
I nodded at what he was saying because I had already thought about all that, and he wasn't entirely wrong, "I'm aware of all that, and I'm certainly willing to take your advice as far as any harm mitigation strategies you might suggest, but I don't think you realise how much anxiety I live with about possibly being randomly shot in this city. If someone starts to point a gun at me, I want to be able to move out of the way of their aim point before they can pull the trigger. Plus, I intend to try and get a job as a Med-Tech with Trauma Team in the next eighteen months, and while their security specialists certainly protect their clinicians, I do not want to be a burden."
That caused him to raise his brows in surprise, "You're a paramedic?"
"Well, provided I pass my final exam and practical next month, yes. The local Trauma Team hiring manager was impressed by my grades and suggested I work for a local ground ambulance company for at least a year," I told him, carefully knocking on the absurdly expensive, seemingly real wood table in the conference room, which caused him to chuckle.
He leaned back for a moment, thinking, "Okay, here is what I'll do. If you agree to a few biosculpt adjustments as a mitigating factor for some of the physical hazards that a Kereznikov entails when you're still mostly organic, and if you agree to come to see us at least once a week for six weeks, I'll do the surgery. Over ninety per cent of cases where people have issues with reflex-enhancing boostware are discovered within the first month. We'll just call these follow-on physical therapy appointments so as not to raise any red flags with the city's psycho squad. At your level of augmentation, I do not have to forward anything to the city about what precisely you have installed, but I would if I called them post-implantation psychological evaluations. I am very committed to doing everything possible to protect my patient's privacy."
That was one of the downsides to utilising a law-abiding doctor. I doubted I could add much more cybernetics to myself without getting on the city's radar. I could maybe add one or two small things, but that would probably be it before I got on the radar of the NCPD. They liked to have files on people long before they got to the point where they might go wackadoo. It was kind of pointless, as from what I could tell over ninety per cent of cyberpsychos originated in back alley Ripperdocs, who didn't tell anyone shit.
I nodded at him, "That sounds fine, before I ask what kind of biosculpt you want me to get... has it ever occurred to you that the idea of 'cyberpsychosis' seems a little ridiculous? I have read tons of publically available papers on it, and we have hardly learned more about it than we knew forty years ago."
That caused him to suddenly laugh as if he wasn't expecting to find what I said humorously. He nodded, though, "I spent thirty years working at a company that specialises in custom-made full-body replacements, so yeah, I think both the popular public opinion and even the mainstream academic opinion on the subject leaves a lot to be desired." He paused and then looked at me critically, "But it is easy to be a critic; when I was a Professor at the University of Bern, I would have asked you what is your opinion of the cause, then. So?"
I blinked and considered the totality of what I had been thinking on the subject, "I think it is caused by a multitude of factors, all separate but with a common end result that has been misidentified by some as a monolithic single mental disease. Pre-existing anti-social spectrum disorders combined with either poorly built, installed, configured or maintained implants that, over time, cause a traumatic brain injury is my best guess as to the largest single cause. Similar to the way that long-time boxers or football players are susceptible to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which not only causes mental deficiencies but also changes in behaviour. I'd be very interested to see if anyone has conducted a post-mortem pathological brain evaluation on multiple cyberpsycho exemplars."
"Wow, okay, I was trying to put you in your place, but I apologise. That was a well-reasoned and logical answer. As far as your analogy to CTE, I think that might be a brilliant comparison in many instances of cyberpsychosis, but it doesn't explain all of them. There has been no shortage of theories there, social contagion like the last century had with school shootings that died down over the years? But I tend to agree with you, though. And, as far I know, no such paper has been written, even in confidential journals that you wouldn't have access to. A problem with the premise of that research is that the brains of cyberpsychos put down by MaxTac or other similar units across the nation are almost never intact to permit a truly standardised pathological examination. It is standard procedure to destroy the head of a downed cyberpsycho, even if they appear to be dead. You never know what kind of redundant life support system they may have installed," said the old man, taking a sip from a glass of water that he had brought in.
He then shrugged, "As far as what bioware treatment I want you to receive, well, it doesn't have a name. I've made it up myself based on a number of papers I've read, but basically, it will increase the density and, therefore, the bandwidth capacity of the nerves in all of your extremities. I expect this will drastically reduce the amount of neural inflammation you should expect to see due to the Kereznikov pumping over twice the amount of signals your motor neurons are used to receiving on a continuous basis. I've used it before with multiple Sandevistan installs to the point where I will probably write a paper on it now that I can include a Kereznikov example. You'll be anonymised, of course."
"Of course," I murmured while thinking about his idea. It was a good one and one I should have thought of myself. It wouldn't make the changes I made to the implant redundant, but it would tend to allow me to move at higher speeds longer before inflammation and then automatic performance degradation kicked in. It would let me work out and train a lot longer at a higher speed, which would be very helpful.
I nodded, "Okay. I agree to all of those conditions. I was going to do a self-assessment weekly, anyway. I don't think I will experience problems that I won't be able to overcome, though." At least not with an implant installed in my body, anyway. I felt pretty confident about that. Everything else in my life that wasn't connected to my or another person's body was another question entirely, though.
"Alright. We can get everything done today if you don't have anything in your schedule. It'll be four hours in the tank and then maybe another two for the implantation," Doctor Taylor told me as he stood up, carefully smoothing down some wrinkles in his pants.
It was Saturday morning, and one of the few Saturdays where we didn't have to spend at the hospital, so I didn't have anything too pressing I needed to do. I had already blocked out this day to get used to the difference in speed before I went to school on Monday, so I nodded, "That sounds good."
Fuck, that was the third time I hit myself in the face when I went to scratch my nose. I could see how someone could go crazy with this. It would make a lot more sense, from a not hitting myself in the face sort of way, to start training the system at a five per cent boost, but not only would that ultimately take a lot longer, but it would also stretch out the time until I had effective super reflexes. I wanted that as soon as possible, so I would just have to cope.
The TV was tuned to the news, "Noooowwwww whaaat's neeeexxxxxt ohhhnnn Nettttwoooorrkk Fiiiiffftyyy Fooouurr Neeeewws. Aaaaree Biiiirds Killlleeerrrrs? Fiiinnnd oouuutt..."
For fucks sake! I turned the TV off, sighing. I could see how this might be a problem if I couldn't get used to it. I had already used sped-up video clips playing on my implants to determine that I experienced time almost exactly three times faster than my previous baseline.
Well, I clicked the news back on. There was no point in getting pissed off at it, even if it was kind of irritating. I would adapt. I heard that people could adapt to listening to books on tape at double or triple speed, and that was basically just what I needed to do, except in reverse, and for my entire life. It'd be fine.
It was not fine! It was not fine at all! I had given up my plans to start at the maximum level of boost and work my way down and instead switched over to starting at about half and working my way up. It only took an hour of watching television in slow motion before I realised it just wouldn't work.
I felt it wouldn't cost that much more time as I wouldn't, at first, need to work through the lower settings. Realistically I didn't need to get acclimated to the very low settings, possibly at all, but definitely not at first. I suspected that the biomonitor would only drop the Kereznikov up to fifteen per cent even if there were signs of neural inflammation. The idea was to keep it from happening at all, after all.
