The rest of the family chatted happily in the car, leaving James by himself, but he was not mad. Instead, he was glad that he was not being disturbed. He continued reading the book he borrowed with interest.
When they arrived home, James dropped down first and entered the house. He went to his room and drop his backpack, before changing his school uniform to clean sets of clothes. Later on, he walked downstairs to the sitting room and sat on the sofa.
As he was waiting for Maribel's laptop, his mind was busy. Although he has not used his computer for close to three days, he still knew where he stopped, so it would not be too difficult for him to resume and keep up with lost time. His AI project was going well, and it was becoming smarter and smarter by the day, which delighted him greatly.
The only thing bugging him was the hardware required to run this program properly without damaging his computer. According to his rough calculation, his AI would need to consume more than a hundred watts of computation energy, and that was just one thing.
More than eight cores of processors would be needed for smooth performance, and a whopping one hundred and twenty-eight gigabytes of RAM would be needed to avoid out of memory exceptions.
Right now, his current amount in his bank was more than enough to cover those expenses. The only thing bugging him was the processor chip. Right now, the current chip's technology was far short of the AI's requirement, so he would need to figure out how to make it work. So far, the only viable option is to modify any high-end chips to see if it would work.
James was still thinking when Maribel walked over to the sitting room. She approached James with no expression and placed an apple laptop on the glass table.
"Use this to complete your assignment. You have only one hour to do so", Maribel said without looking at James as she headed to the kitchen to cook dinner. "Aunt, my project would probably take more than three hours or more. I cannot complete this in under one hour", James protested.
On normal occasions, James would finish this in less than five minutes, but he needed the remaining time to log on to his freelance account and address all the piled up messages in his inbox, and then immediately complete the project Angel had personally requested for her. It was due for two days.
"One hour, no more, no less", Maribel echoed from the kitchen. James sighed and opened the laptop. Then he booted it on and logged on. Before James could open the browser and log on to his account, Josh slumped next to James and stared at him with sinister eyes.
"I'm here baby. Let's see what you're up to pervert", James sneered. James' heart winced when Josh suddenly sat next to him. Great, just great. James tried to think of a solution to solve this predicament, but no feasible solution came up without hurting Maribel's feelings. Maribel has not lost complete trust in him, so doing something suspicious might shatter it completely.
There were many things James was very uncomfortable with. One was which is not able to solve a problem that was pressing at the moment. Anytime that happens, he would go berserk. His mind would overclock to the extreme, causing him to be extreme fatigue, and ultimately souring his mood throughout the day.
While James was very uncomfortable with this feeling, something popped into his head. No, it was not an idea, it was more like a hologram. James was stunned for a moment, but he immediately dismissed it and continued researching on random articles.
Then, the hologram image kept popping frequently in his mind, distracting James significantly. James could not help but stopped what he was doing. Josh was playing a game on his console, but when he noticed that James was idle.
He immediately paused his game and gave a cold stare at James. "What happened James, why did you stop, or do you think I wouldn't notice?" James asked angrily.
James ignored him and pondered. The hologram image kept popping in his mind, and it was getting clearer and clearer the more it pulsed in his mind. Finally, the hologram image became clear to see.
It turned out it was not an image. It was arrays of sentences. There were four sentences written in a bulleted format.
1. Increase/Decrease Synapses Clock Speed
2. Enable(Enhance) Basic Sense Inputs.
3. Capture and Modify Mnemonic Waves[Self and Third Party].
4. Check Body's Stats.
James was genuinely shocked. What was with this list? Could it be the chip that sent this list? Now that James saw these options, he remembered that he had a chip inside his brain. Now, this was definite proof that the chip was still active and working.
James used his eyes to navigate the options, but he was hesitant in selecting one. He did not know what these options would do to him, and it might bring damage to him.
But James let curiosity take over him. He chose the lesser devil and waited for the response. After clicking on the number four option, the list disappeared and a new hologram text displayed in his mind.
[Client credentials: James Nicolas Smith]
[Client age: 11 years, 11 months, and 11 days, and 6 hours (more info)]
[Brain synapses speed: [191.7 billion refreshes per second]
[Hydration levels (%): 63]
[General Energy level (%): 56 {please ingest carbohydrate-based meal}]
[Metabolism ratio: 2:5 {slow}]
[General Excretory contents: (Urine 55% full) (Defecation 72% full (visit toilet)]
[For more info, use code word "more info".] [Exiting…]
End of system info.
This reminded James of the time he lost his memory two years ago in Boston. He realized that this info was similar to the ones the AI projected to him when he was trying to discover himself.
James could not help but snort when he saw his age info. Almost everything was on eleven, except his hours. After seeing the basic stats of his body, he used his thoughts to put it away, but the four options came back to his mind.
No matter what James did, the options did not go away, but James was not worried. At least it no longer distracted him anymore.
The number three options captured James interest. It was not the telepathy option that captivated him, but the 'Modify' option that was added to it. 'What does it mean?' James asked in his mind.
He assumed it could not only help him hear people's thoughts around him, but he could modify them. This meant that he could project messages to the recipient's brain, and cause them to change their thinking towards something.
James immediately selected the option. The list disappeared, and two lists popped up, a button and a slider switch appeared, which was labelled 'Switch (Turn On/Off). James promptly switched on the option.