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wandering elsewhere. She didn’t think that
language was the issue, either. Something else, something more
fundamental.
    Lieutenant Johnner
coughed slightly, and Chal realized she had been staring at the blank
wall.
    “You said
there were two other prototypes,” Chal said, gesturing toward
the screen.
    “The next one
was similar,” said Dr. Fielding. “We tried all we could,
but it didn’t work. After only a half a minute of questioning
and it ran into the same kind of malfunction. Now we have a limited
amount of time before we awaken the third prototype–”
    “Why?”
Chal interrupted.
    Johnner and Fielding
looked at each other, and Chal got the idea that Fielding was
embarrassed by the question. He frowned, coughed, and frowned again
before speaking.
    “For the past
few months, we’ve been pressed by the government for results,”
Fielding said.
    “You’ve
been promising results since before then,” Johnner interrupted.
Fielding shook his head, visibly annoyed, and went on.
    “The third
prototype has reached the stage where it is ready to be awakened,”
he said. “We know we can’t keep a nascent brain in
stasis forever, and every minute that passes sees the mental
structure grow further in directions we can’t predict. We need
to awaken the prototype as soon as possible in order to ease it into
the world while its brain is still malleable.”
    “As soon as
possible,” Chal repeated, disbelieving. “You’ve
already started another one? Is there any reason to think it won’t
just fail again?”
    “Well,”
Lieutenant Johnner said, “This time we have you.”
    There was a brief
pause while Chal took in all this information.
    “We only need
to awaken the prototype for a few minutes before re-sedating it,”
Fielding said. “The problem is that the prototypes so far
haven’t survived their first awakening.”
    “Wait,”
Chal said, confused. “Back up. I don’t understand.”
    “What don’t
you understand?” Fielding asked, his voice sliding into
condescension. His confidence – or lack thereof – in
Chal’s abilities was clear on his face.
    “This –
” and here she pointed to the screen, “ – this was
the first time you awakened the prototype?” She had to make
sure. It was impossible that they had done something so wrong.
    “Yes,”
Fielding said. “As was mentioned in the recording.”
    “I thought
that was the first time the prototype had been questioned .”
Chal’s eyebrows knitted together in the middle of her forehead.
“You’re telling me that was the FIRST time he was woken
up? Ever? ”
    Johnner and Fielding
looked at each other again, and this time Chal could see that both of
them were more confused than she was . Could they really have made
such a huge mistake?
    “Yes,”
Dr. Fielding said, a bit less confidently.
    Chal’s mouth
was open, and she didn’t even try to hide the contempt that
oozed into her voice when she asked him her next question.
    “Did you read any of my papers?”
    ***

CHAPTER SIX
    One of Chal’s
earliest experiments in biological-substrate intelligence had been
her work with the same rats that she eventually was forced to abandon
as failures. Initially, she had needed to create a system to ease
them into the most basic forms of consciousness.
    She, too, had had
problems with her organisms “malfunctioning.”
    At first, when the
lab had applied anti-anesthetics, they had run into a series of
issues. Many of the rats, upon being awakened, would freeze as though
paralyzed, their eyes darting around wildly. When touched, they would
go into spasms, squeaking horribly.
    The EEG sensors on
the rat brains were made to be as precise as possible, and for that
reason were grafted directly onto the brains of the rats. But the
readings made no sense at first. The sensors picked up nothing until
the anti-anesthetics were applied. Then the sensors went wild. Every
part of the rats’ brains lit up like a Christmas tree, the
erratic spikes of