In The Name Of Science

a

transformation story

by

clancy688

"I still think that this is a bad idea." Nathan Harston told Dr. Leroy Mizu the perhaps hundredth time this evening. But the good doctor wasn't listening, instead he was busy assembling all the bits and pieces of his so-called 'mobile laboratory' - a multitude of cameras, computers and measuring instruments both of them had transported to the abandoned airstrip in a company van. 

Leroy plucked in a last cable, started a diagnosis program and then examined his youthful assistant. Well, perhaps not that youthful, Nathan was well past thirty after all. But he was still distinctly younger than the doctor who was already pushing sixty, although it would still take a few years until his age would sport a '6' at the first digit. 

"Why do you think so?" he asked rhetorically, continuing without really waiting for an answer, "This is an incredible opportunity. History can be made! I'll become famous for conducting this groundbreaking experiment with my own body! Like a modern-times Werner Forssmann!" 

Nathan sighed. "You do know that Forssmann's self-catheter experiment was frowned upon by his fellow scientists?" 

Leroy huffed. "Of course, they were short-sighted like most of my colleagues are today as well. But somebody has to take the next step, and if there's nobody besides me, then it's my scientific duty to do what the rest is to timid for." 

The doctor's eyes burned with zealous conscientiousness and Nathan knew that he wouldn't be able to budge him anymore. All of his tries to change the doctor's mind made were simple tries to appease his own conscience. "I just don't want you to become another Marie Curie." he said instead and his superior met his eyes with dogged determination. 

"Sometimes, there need to be sacrifices on the altar of science." he replied serenely. "And if I die, I have made a mistake. I DON'T make mistakes, therefore I won't die. And if I die, I deserve it, because I've made a mistake!" 

This made no sense at all but Nathan didn't try to point it out. 

"Well, yes. So you do admit that there's mortal danger involved. I'd just be more at ease with the whole self-experimentation thing if you would, I don't know, try to cure cancer? Why the hell do we need nanobots to change humans into cars?" 

The doctor seemed unimpressed. "It's going to solve all parking space problems!" he exclaimed jubilantly. "People want to drive to work, instead of going into the garage, they simply walk on the street and become a car. Then they drive to work and change back. No parking spaces needed anymore. Imagine all the space we'd suddenly have at our disposal!" 

Nathan shook his head. "You'll never get the car company's to accept such a technology. They want to sell cars. Not sell nanobots which make cars. It's going to end the same way like the one-gallon-Hummer you developed your General Motors. The thing had more power than the original, was able to drive 60 miles with one gallon of honest-to-god water and as soon as you presented the product to the management, they fired you and buried the thing in the deepest cellar they could find. Hell, I have heard stories that they even constructed an extra-cellar because all they had weren't deep enough! You don't make money with cars that run on water, and you don't make money at all if you're not selling any cars!"

Dr. Mizu scowled. "Shortsighted, money-grabbing asshole managers. It's the same with BMW. I developed a sports car which is silent and they threw me out - turns out people want their cars to be noisy!" Leroy rolled his eyes. "But they'll see. Thankfully, I found employment at this independent nanobot-research facility and I WILL use it to get my revenge from those clowns." 

"Speaking of which..." Nathan eyed his boss carefully, "The management does know what you're up to, doesn't?" 

Now Mizu looked almost offended. "Of course they don't." he sneered, "Why do you think it is just us two in the dark of the night at an abandoned airfield? They are thinking we're working on nanobot transmutation research. Using those tiny buggers to refine trace elements out of the environment to mine iron, copper, gold, etc.. Piece of cake, solved this during my first week in the company on my iPad while taking a shit. Anyway, why are we gossiping? Come on, history is about to be made!" 

Nathan sighed again. At least he had tried. "Okay, Doctor." he said weakly. "What type of car do you want the nanobots to change you into, anyway?" 

The good doctor grinned and produced a thick external hard drive. "I thought that I'd grant my former employer BMW the honor to supply the blueprints for the first human-to-car transformation ever." 

The assistant gaped. "Is this...?" he asked and Leroy nodded complacently. 

"Yip. All the digital blueprints, CAD-packages, and so on for the current BMW M6. I, um, 'acquired' them on my last day of work. Thought those could be useful at one point in the future. Thought right, apparently. I already programmed the nanobots-" he pointed at a tiny syringe containing a translucent liquid - and billions of self-replicating nano-machines - "-with the blueprints. All that's left is injecting me with the little buggers and then wait." 

"Riiight..." Nathan eyed the syringe sceptically. "And how safe is it?" 

The doctor looked nonplussed. "In what sense?" 

"Um... for me? For the world? Those ARE self-replicating nanobots, after all. I'd hate to have changed the planet into an earth-sized BMW M6 at the end of this experiment. And how safe is it for you? After all, they're going to change you into an object. A BMW doesn't have a brain... yet." 

"Oh, that." Leroy shook his head, "No danger there. I've built in some fail-safes. The nanobots are wired to my nervous system once they are injected. Their core-programming tells them to self-destruct once they are more than six yards away from me. And as for the danger to me - well, I'll lose my 'biological brain', at least for a short while, but the nanobots will double as an inanimate nervous system. They'll basically copy my brain's nexuses and recreate them in the car's shape. From the inside, thinking won't feel different... probably." 

"If you say so..." Nathan didn't seem convinced. "And how do I change you back?" 

"Simple." the doctor said and pointed towards the mobile labor. "You don't. I'll initiate the transformation back into my human body with a simply thought command, this will also trigger a self-destruct for all still active nanobots. Simple and efficient, I've tested it, it works."

He took the syringe and walked several yards away onto the grass next to the tarmac and put himself down on. Then he looked towards the cameras of his mobile laboratory and cleared his throat. 

"April 4th, human-to-car nanobot transformation experiment one, start. The test subject is me, Dr. Leroy Mizu." and before Nathan could protest, the doctor injected himself with the syringe. 

At once, the transformation commenced and proceeded at a rapid pace. Nathan held his breath as dark spots seemed to appear on the doctor's skin, only to evaporate into steadily growing clouds of swirling dark matter. He felt a rush of air as the now released nanobots used the atmosphere for source materials to replicate themselves. At the same time, the grass and earth around the doctor seemed to wither - until it disappeared, being sucked up by the hungry nanobots. 

The cloud became larger and denser until it encased the doctor and his whole body started to grow, taking on a metallic look. He was rapidly losing his humanity, looking more and more 'stiff' with every second. Four black lumps appeared on the sides of his body, forming his wheels. His head disappeared into a grill and his back became transparent as the driver cabin formed. 

The whole transformation didn't take longer than two minutes, and then suddenly the swarming nanobots seemed to be sucked back into... not Dr. Mizu. There wasn't a Dr. Mizu anymore. Instead, there was a black, gleaming BMW M6 standing in the wide crater the nanobots had created while scavenging the ground for materials. Nathan noticed a multitude of insects and worms wriggling and scuttling all over the razed bottom of the pit, so apparently the safety systems had worked and spared living beings from being harvested. 

Breathlessly, Nathan waited. For one minute. For two. But nothing happened. The sleek sports car with the arrogant, evil looking snout which was now Dr. Mizu's body simply sat there silently. He had expected it to... come alive. To drive on its own, but nothing. Panic started to trickle into Nathan's mind. Did something go wrong? Did the transformation blot away Mizu's mind? 

Gingerly, the assistant went forwards, looking at the car. It looked exactly like a normal car, down to the tiniest detail. He touched the hood, feeling varnished metal, then the cool, smooth glass. He probed the driver door's opener and smoothly it opened, revealing the gleaming cockpit with leather sport seats. 

If he remembered correctly, the doctor had said that he had slipped in a small extension into the car's radio, to provide an interface over which his nanobot nervous system could communicate. 

"Doctor? Doctor Mizu?" he asked therefore the cockpit. Still no response. Nathan pondered what he should do now. To get a better look at the radio, he lowered himself into the car's seat. Marveling, he let his hands roam the M6 cockpit's armatures. Everything felt like it belonged to a normal, upper class car. That this had been merely dirt - and a human being - less than ten minutes before was unbelievable. Still, it wasn't worth losing a brilliant mind in the trade and therefore he studied the radio. 

It was... off. No power. And a powerless radio would be a shitty interface. With trembling hands, Nathan moved his finger on the power-button. He swallowed and pressed it. The radio's touchscreen came to life, glowing in the dark cockpit, and Nathan nearly jumped out of his seat as a featureless, male voice boomed out of the speaker's. 

"About time." it grumbled, "It was getting boring in here!" 

Nathan yelped. "Doctor?" he asked amazed, "Is that really you?" 

"Of course it's me, Nathan." the voice said, "Who else should it be?" 

"You don't sound like yourself..." Nathan said carefully, "You rather sound like an... artificial voice. A good one, but still artificial." 

"Hm..." it was eerie hearing a computerized voice using such human expressions, "That's interesting. But not surprising, actually. I programmed my speech-interface to be behind the radio's vocoder, I'm not handing over speech but rather information, the system's making the sounds and vice versa. So just to let you know, you don't 'sound' like yourself either." the voice chuckled, "Actually, I'm not getting any sound. The vocoder is analyzing your speech and breaking it down to information which is then sent over to me. The translation is not perfect, but I can mainly interpret correctly what became scrambled during the transmission." 

"So you're not hearing?" Nathan asked, "You're simply getting information? Isn't that... strange?" 

"I don't know..." the voice sounded thoughtful, "It is, in a way. On the other side, it feels fairly normal to my current state of being." 

"Speaking of which... you're a car!" Nathan blurted out now. "How does it feel?" 

Dr. Mizu laughed. "Well, it's interesting. I can't see or hear, but my nervous system is interwoven with the car's materials. I could feel you touching my hood before. And I can feel you sitting in my driver seat now. It's comfortable, isn't it?" Mizu sounded proud, "It's the finest leather the nanobots could produce. Which's probably better than any real leather." 

"You can feel? That's unbelievable. Have you tried driving yourself?" 

Now Leroy sounded a little bit miffed. "Yes. Why do you think I was sitting there without doing anything?" 

Startled, Nathan looked at the radio. "Um, I thought maybe you had no fuel and no batteries?" 

"And how is my radio working then? No, my tank is full and the batteries are ready. The nanobots transmuted matter into fuel. The problem is somewhere else. My engine's not started. And I can't start it myself. It's hardwired to be activated only by the start button. So... would please be so nice...?" 

"Okay..." precariously, Nathan put his finger on the car's start button and pressed it. With a deep rumble, the BMW's engine came to life. Nathan braced himself for Leroy rapidly accelerating his car-shaped body, trying it out - but nothing happened. 

"Doctor?" he asked irritated, "Don't you want to, I don't know, drive?" 

For a moment, there was silence. Then a sigh came out of the radio. "It seems-" the car-turned doctor mused, "-that there's been a tiny oversight on my part."

Nathan blinked. "What do you mean?" 

"I can't drive myself. After all, my nervous system connects to the car's control devices. The software inside those things is exactly what BMW has intended it to be. The code is part of me, but I can't change it. It's like my mind has been extended with thousands of new functions, but all those functions are fixed." 

"You mean...?" Nathan asked startled and the doctor sighed again. 

"Yes. I'm partly the car's software now. And I'm programmed to not drive myself under no circumstances. Only the driver can prompt me to move, nothing else. Oh, perhaps we could fiddle in a small loop-back between the radio and the bus-systems connecting the pedals to my driving computer, but unfortunately, the steering is still done manually and not steer-by-wire. The servo which assists steering isn't connected to any of my control devices, it's independent. My driving sub-routines can't do steering." 

"You're saying that you're a living car which can't drive itself?" the assistant inquired incredulously. 

"No. I'm not alive in the biological definition, I'm a thinking car, not a living car, there's a difference. But I can still be driven. Now that I think about this..." the doctor seemed to ponder for a couple of seconds, "You could drive me." he offered. "Why don't you try it out?" 

"Me driving you?" Nathan seemed perplexed. Leroy chuckled. 

"Of course. I'm a car. Car's are there to be driven. So, come on. Try me out. After all, I'm a BMW M6. A lot of people would give their daughter to get such a car." 

"O...kay." Nathan said and reached for the accelerator with his foot, pushing it down. Which had been a mistake. For his whole life, he'd never driven anything with more than 70 kW of power. Now he was sitting in a car with more than five times that power and his naive push of the accelerator propelled the car forward in a tremendous leap. It, or rather Leroy, shot out of the crater, becoming airborne for a fraction of a second and barely missed the doctor's mobile laboratory. Then the car was thundering down the runway and the startled Nathan took his foot from the pedal as fast as possible. 

"Hey, be more cautious, will you?" the doctor's voice nagged, "According to my accelerometers we stressed some of my parts to the limit when you bottomed me out while driving out there!" 

"Sorry, I'm not that versed in driving fast, talking sports cars!" Nathan shot back while he drove the car down the runway at a leisurely 30 mph. Then he noticed a pinging sound. "What the hell is this sound?" he asked, "It's annoying, could you please turn it off?"

"Sound? Oh, that must be my seatbelt subroutine. Sorry, can't turn it off, it's part of my programming, after all." the doctor sounded almost apologetic now. 

"Okay, how do I turn it off?" 

"By putting on the seatbelt, I guess." 

Awkwardly, Nathan activated the speedometer and then fumbled awkwardly for the belt. As he fastened himself in the seat, the annoying chime disappeared. 

"Ahh..." the doctor said. "Thanks. You have no idea how annoying it can be to do the same thing again and again in your mind." 

"And...?" Nathan asked after a short silence, "How does it feel, being driven?" 

"Hm..." Leroy's voice sounded contemplative, "It's interesting, all right. I'm practically a slave, doing whatever you prompt me to do. But there's a beauty with that as well. I'm partly a program now, or rather hundreds or programs, and I get to process thousands of commands every second. This is not going on 'in the background', no, it's actually my mind doing the processing. I don't have any choice whether I want to do it or not, which is a little bit scary, but nonetheless I'm actively calculating tens of thousands of different things every second. And I'm doing it always the same." he sounded almost awed now, "Not similar, but the same, and flawless nonetheless... that's... just wow." 

He was silent for a couple of seconds, then continued. "That's the software side of it. The hardware site is interesting as well. It's feeling really strange having four wheels which are turning or having a motor which is over a thousand degrees hot inside. I mean, as a human, I would get terribly burns. But now, as a car, the heat inside me feels... just right. The only thing which requires getting used to is that I have no idea what's in front of my while driving." 

Startled, Nathan looked at the radio. "You don't? But this is an upper class car! Doesn't it have radar distance alert and road sign detection? It's probably not as good as human eyes, but even a camera image should suffice, shouldn't it?" 

"Ha." doctor Mizu snorted, "I'd have thought so as well. Unfortunately, here applies the same as with the radio and my driving computer - the radar's and the camera's images are routed into a picture processing unit first. My nervous system only taps into the information which comes out on the other side - stop sign ahead 50 meters, attention, traffic jam detected 100 meters ahead, and so on." he snorted again. "It's quite a bit maddening. The subroutine in the subsystem which receives the raw data is part of my mind as well, of course. And so I do receive the raw camera image. Unfortunately, the part of my mind which gets the image is quite 'dumb' and filters it for patterns it knows. And then throws the raw data away." 

"You're saying..." Nathan began and Mizu chuckled. 

"Yeah. I do have several eyes, to speak so. Unfortunately, those who get raw data can only recognize known patterns, and the one eye which could make use of raw data only gets filtered information." 

"I can imagine that this is scary, not knowing whereto you're driving." 

"Not that bad. I'm already adjusting. My software-me isn't concerned by such matters, that's quite a soothing influence. And I still have GPS tracking, so I don't see the road but I know where I am. By the way... my GPS tells me that we're only a couple of hundred yards away from the end of the runway. I suggest you break soon." 

Nathan had been so immersed in his conversation with the doctor that he hadn't payed attention to the road. Now he looked up and yelped as he saw the end of the runway coming closer and with a startled cry, he stepped down on the breaking pedal hard. The M6's fabulous brakes brought the car to a stop almost immediately and Nathan was thrown heavily into the seatbelt. 

"Was this really necessary?" Leroy grumbled from the radio, "My tires have just lost quite some profile." 

"Yeah, I'm sorry. What now?" 

"Hm... how about you bring me to max speed? I want to see how that feels." 

"If you say so..." gingerly, Nathan turned his car on the runway until he was facing the other direction. "Ready when you are..." he mumbled and stepped down the accelerator to the hilt. It felt as if a horse had kicked him between the rips. Dr. Mizu's shape lurched forwards, the traction control system going mad on the dashboard, trying to keep the car's shaking tail under control. 

Within seconds, the speedometer needle passed sixty miles, with the M6 still accelerating madly. After 20 seconds, it was way past 150 and still rising, finally leveling out at 190. 

White-knuckled and white-faced, Nathan clutched the steering wheel, trying to keep the roaring car on the tarmac. There was no way to communicate with the doctor, the noise was simply to great. He flashed by the mobile laboratory and a thought entered his mind. They had started their experiment fairly close to the end of the runway, so did that mean...? He risked a short glance onto the navigation system and his face became even whiter. He was speeding towards the end of the runway at nearly 200 miles per hour, by now he had only a few hundred yards of tarmac left!

He stepped onto the breaking pedal with all his might and the tortured car screeched in protest while shedding kinetic energy as fast as possible. Now the BMW's lights captured the end of the runway coming closer and in a futile gesture, Nathan gripped the steering wheel as hard as he could. He didn't pray, there was no time, but he had started breaking not a second too early. As he brought Dr. Mizu's car form to a stop, he had barely a dozen yards of runway left. 

"You did it again." the doctor accused him from the radio system, but this time, there was no scolding undertone. 

"Yes, I'm sorry." Nathan exclaimed, panting heavily, "Boy, was that a ride." 

"Yeah. It was... eerie..." the doctor added, "My human mind got the GPS data and saw the end of the runway coming closer, but my software mind... it didn't care. I didn't care. I simply took the commands you were giving me and turned them faithfully into my body's movement, and damn to hell the possible consequences. You could have driven me over the edge of the runway with 190 mph and I would have done it despite my knowledge that we certainly would crash." 

Nathan sagged. "I'm sorry." he muttered, "So it wasn't a good experience for you?" 

"Oh, no, quite the opposite!" Dr. Leroy assured him. "It was intriguing. Well, not from the software side. I was doing the same as at 30 mph, only with bigger numbers. But the hardware side... flying over the tarmac, my engine at full power. That was awesome. Simply awesome." 

"I'm happy for." Nathan said tired, "But how about we turn you back now? After all, the experiment was almost a success." 

"Oh, yes." the good Dr. chimed cheerfully, "Being a car is a great feeling, but now I'd like to work on the problem of not being able to drive myself! Lead the way then. Or rather - drive me back!" 

The transformation back into a human worked flawlessly. One minute there was a sleek BMW M6 standing there, the next minute Dr. Leroy Mizu crawled awkwardly out of the large pile of dust which had been part of his car-body only moments ago. 

"You feeling okay?" Nathan asked his boss who patted his body now. 

"Yeah..." Leroy said. "It's... strange not having subroutines anymore... or to be able to move my body on my own. Still..." he grinned victoriously, "We have done it! Thank you, Nathan! This was a great leap for mankind!"