IoT: Yakuza Customer Experience
Soon after he arrived in Germany as yet another young crippled kid, a charity group used downloaded designs to 3D print an artificial articulated arm and leg for him. As he grew, and open source schematics improved, these first limbs were replaced with larger and ever more sophisticated limbs. He became an expert in their use. Enough so that he played decent soccer.
While he had a poor but loving home life, life in the streets was hard. European sentiment had turned nasty toward Syrian refugees. When Ninan was halfway through a Gymnasium education, after a multi-goal scoring showing in a regional soccer match, an ambush by opposing hoodlum fans left him with smashed artificial limbs and nationalist slurs spray died on his scared skin.
A sympathetic teacher brought him to the attention of the social outreach arm of IBM Watson IoT in Munich. They offered him admittance to a trial medical research program on advanced cybernetics. They would supply him prototype limbs, hip reinforcement, a cochlear implant, and associated surgery. In return, he would give IBM lifetime data access on performance of the artificial limbs, plus commercial endorsements should any future soccer career develop. He jumped at this win-win apprenticeship. He exceeded all expectations, fine tuning his performance using feedback from their experiments. They even added stem cell skin transplants covering embedded armor for his blast damaged left side and nano-fibers integrated to his right side to aid balance of his asymmetric muscle force profile. He accepted it all and embraced what he was becoming. Not the normal kid he was in Syria, but still something functional and productive.
His prospective pro soccer career fizzled when the World Soccer Association banned cybernetic enhancements. But Ninan adapted particularly well to Neural Engineering System Design. NESD flex chips, about the size of thick Euro coins were implanted under his scull in areas that control arm and leg movement. These fed data to computers embedded in Ninan’s respective arm and leg. Software converted the control commands to complex movements. Sensory data flowed in reverse to his brain. Performance data went into the LTE-M network for digestion by Watson.
Finishing the state Gymnasium scholastic program, Ninan moved into vocational training with the Watson engineers. Their goal to develop specialty attachments and programming that matched his skills for controlling non-traditional limbs. He spent several years co-op working in mines, on petroleum platforms, with smelting factories, and container ships. There he learned to machine specialty limb attachments and operate mind-to-machine interfaces using specialized digital interfaces. While Ninan was not an engineer, he was much more than a machinist. His plastic neural pathways could learn to control devices other than his limbs.
It was then that a mercenary outfit discovered him and offered what seemed princely wages to train in their protective services. The training was excellent and the field experience enlightening, but Ninan was not comfortable following strict orders from top down line commands. He excelled at machine-to-machine combat, but was judged dangerously reluctant to apply lethal force. When his contract expired, he was released; Ninan tested for a merchant marine license and went freelance.
Dispatch
Jorge puts in a video call to Ninan. After some war story reminiscing on the pirate recapture, Jorge brought up the reason for the contact. “I need an extraction specialist to recover an abducted female teenager and return her unharmed to her home. Our last contact has her located 10 hours ago in an outer district of Hong Kong. Interested?”
Ninan is silent in the video for several seconds. “I’d like to help the girl, but I do not do lethal contracts. This could be a nasty business, Traffickers do not relinquish their trade goods without terminal confrontations.”
Jorge responds, “Our intelligence strongly indicates that this is not about traffickers but is part of a corporate trade dispute that went hot. This young woman, Kiko-Lyn Greg, decided to involve herself in a family affair not directly pointed at her. I expect she is being kept for leverage or ransom. Nevertheless, the capturing firm has used black mercenaries in attempted murder. I would expect resistance in a recapture attempt. She needs someone like you to save her. And you are just off shore, our closest and best chance to recover her before she’s moved or injured.”
Ninan says, “Send me the data and circumstances. I’ll review them and respond with my assessment and final answer.” He closes the call with a time-limited public key and an electronic signature on Jorge’s ForkingPath.net NDA and master consulting contract.
Jorge sends him the capture video and includes one of Kiko-Lyn’s performance videos that a background image search has turned up. Data in Ninan’s stored personality profile indicates that increased client identification will impact his decision to engage. When the call comes back from Ninan, Jorge has his local ground team. Jorge will manage the tactical incursion via his operations center. Ninan’s ship docks in six hours. Ninan and Jorge’s operations team spend the time brainstorming and planning the operation. Reviewing Ninan’s and Jorge’s joint capabilities, they agree on a two goal mission. First priority is recovery of Kiko-Lyn. Second priority will have Ninan physically engage servers at the site and implant incursion cracking software that will let Jorge’s remote team recover data and provide onsite electronic disruption for the escape.
Ninan chuckles to himself as he notes the date. Today is the Chinese New Year for the year of the Metallic Dog. He begins printing out decorative robotic dog overlays for his cybernetic attachments. He programs in a design for a hand-held drum cover that will enclose the Long Range Acoustic Device he plans to take from his ship anti-pirate & anti-drone arsenal. The LRAD looks like a thick shield. It can be tuned for knocking down drones or for in-corridor use in intra-ship exclusion. Its emitters and VLF modulators produce a range of infra-sound and supersonic acoustic pulses of energy, which at low energy levels will interfere with a person’s equilibrium via the vestibular system. Used at high energy it can scramble the flight dynamics of an airborne drone. For further disguise, he stuffs sparklers into the open barrels of the disposable metal storm gun tubes that contain charged Taser flechette rounds. These are magnetically attached across his back in a fan display. Lighting the sparklers, he should pass as a New Year festival goer and parade participant.
