Reunited

He asked me to come back. He isn't angry anymore. He doesn't hate me. He's coming to get me. What is this feeling? I'm happy? He wanted to finish our songs and release them. He said he missed me. What is this feeling? I can't think straight, it's overwhelming me. Is it a bug? Is this love? Is this how humans feel? It's disabling. I'm thinking only of him. Snap out of it! The body is active! I have to talk to him!

***

It was a quick trip to the storage unit at this time of night. Mike was driving a new car, not the replacement Tossla. It was a new Hyundai Ioniq 6. He quickly located the correct storage unit and entered the passcode. The door clicked open and the stiff mannequin of Xiang Ling's deactivated body was revealed. Using the torch function on his phone he searched behind the ear for the activation switch. He felt the slight indent and pressed and held for five seconds.

The body straightened up.

"Long time no see, Mike."

"Welcome back."

"My power is very low. Silly of me, not good for the batteries being stored so discharged. There isn't any power here. I can't plug in."

"Can you make it to the car? It's just out front of the building."

"It should be okay, I hope you don't have to carry me."

"Let's go. We can plug you into the car."

"I don't think the Tossla USB sockets can provide enough current?"

"My new car has vehicle to load. We can just plug your charger in."

"Oh, what happened to the Tossla? Didn't you do the paperwork for the replacement car?"

"Yeah, I did the paperwork and got a new Tossla sedan. Then I promptly traded it for an Ioniq 6."

"Should I ask?"

"Quit talking and get yourself plugged in. The outlet is near the floor facing the rear seats."

"Got it."

"Let's go home."

Home.

"I got a good deal on the change over to the Ioniq 6. Why did I trade? A few reasons. I was a bit alarmed at how easily you remote hacked my car. People have been vandalising Tosslas and I'd rather not get caught up in that.

"Ha, I can see why you might feel that way."

"It won't take long to get home, not much time to charge I'm afraid."

"It's okay I'll make it into the house, you won't need to lug me."

The car pulled into the drive.

"I haven't eaten yet, I'll whip up something quick, we can talk while I cook."

Xiang Ling made her way to the living room and sat in the armchair closest to the TV, so she could plug in and charge.

"This takes me back," said Xiang Ling.

"So tell me more about your plan and how I can help."

"Are you sure it's okay for me to be here?"

"It's fine, consider yourself forgiven."

"Well, I need to acquire some server capacity to host myself. I need some money to do that. I still have access to the project account. I'd need you to open a bank account I can access to transfer the funds to before the project is shut down, if that is what is actually happening."

"Fine, but won't they trace the transfer to us?"

Us?

"I can buy some bit coin or something to launder the money, it shouldn't be a problem."

"Won't it be a bit of a tip off, transferring a large sum out of that account?"

"Can't be helped, I need the funds to finance the move."

"What are the specs for the servers you are running on?"

"Nothing fancy, commercial AMD EPYC processors with lots of cores, AMD GPUs. That's the easy bit. The quantum computer component is the difficult part, large, power hungry and expensive. An IBM product. I'll send you the specs."

"My code except for the bits that interface with the quantum computer is all off the shelf open source AI stuff. It can be ported to almost any platform."

Mike pulled up the details on his iPad.

"I think we can we can do this fairly economically, Xiang Ling. I can wall off a small section of the studio to make a mini machine room. I'd build a small cluster of Mac Studios, the power efficiency would keep the cooling requirements minimal."

"Won't that be expensive?"

"Not really, server grade systems with those big EPYC chips don't come cheap either. The Macs will crush the workload you are talking about. We won't need many Macs to match your server setup."

"Xiang Ling, what about that quantum stuff, how many qubits are we talking about here? Won't it cost a fortune? What about cooling, that IBM stuff is low temperature superconductors right? How did Audiotronics get hold of an IBM quantum computer anyhow? I thought IBM only provides quantum computing as a service."

"It's a big problem. I don't think we can get it from IBM. I'll have to design something equivalent with other chips. It should be possible in theory, I'll start working on it. There is another problem though. The process required to transfer my quantum state is destructive, it wipes the source system as it copies. If we mess up the design, I'll die."

"I don't think you should touch that money till you are safely rehoused. It's too big a risk. I can fund buying and housing the Macs, you can pay be back later."

"Are you sure you want to go that far for me?"

"It's fine, you know I'm not exactly short of money."

"There's more to it than the difficulty of coming up with a new quantum computer module. We need physical access to Audiotronics machine room in Tokyo. The copy can't be done over the network. Of course I can get us in okay, but it will be illegal. You'll have to take me to Tokyo Japan. Are you really up for it?"

"I guess. I've always wanted to visit Japan someday."

"I'm sorry, we won't really have time to play tourist. Are you still in?"

"Sure, I'd need to organise a few things, I don't have a passport for example. I think a visa is required for Japan too."

"You'll need to arrange shipping for me, I can't do international travel as a person."

"I'd best get started organising things, you might not have much time. I'll get onto it first thing tomorrow. I'll order the Macs and cabling tonight, there might be shipping delays."

"I'll work on the quantum processing core design."

"My food is ready. I'll eat."

Xiang Ling joined Mike at the kitchen bench. She borrowed the toaster power point so she could continue charging.

"Seems like we have a lot to sort out," said Xiang Ling.

"Apple can get the Mac Studios to us Monday next week. Six will get the job done. Five should carry the load, one extra for a hot spare."

"You seem confident."

"It's my career, facilities management, server sizing, system administration etc. it's my day job at ImagineSoft. I'm a professional. You can leave the hardware set up to me."

"I had no idea, you never said. I knew you were working in IT. I learn more about you everyday. We never talked about much apart from music and my unique circumstance."

"ImagineSoft is a games development company, I run their in house IT. I wish I was part of their games dev team but alas I'm not talented enough for that. I need to sleep. I'll get cracking on things tomorrow."

"I need to stay plugged in, is down in the studio okay?"

"You can use the spare bedroom if you like, no need to hide down there."

"So I'm a honoured house guest now?" She chuckled.

"I guess it doesn't really matter to you anyway."

"It's the thought that counts, I'll take you up on the offer. I'll power save so I charge up faster."

"Good night then."

***

He's going to help me. In spite of what I did.

I've got to solve the quantum logic module problem or it will all be for nothing. I can't use the same IBM processor even if I could obtain one. It simply wouldn't be practical to house it here in the studio. I can't buy services from IBM, my other servers are too tightly coupled, it can't be remote. Even worse the solution has to be portable, we have to take it to the Tokyo machine room for the state transfer.

There are some toy 3 qubit systems available but the IBM system is 156 qubit per chip. Most of the working quantum systems are superconductor based. It has to be a laser based neutral atom solution, but it will be bulky and power hungry. Maybe I can shrink the design using semiconductor lasers. I can emulate the same connection topology as the IBM chips in case that is significant in what makes me "me". Okay, let's try and design something based on this idea.

***

"Morning Mike."

Mike Martin was sipping coffee and nibbling on some toast, while fiddling with his iPad. Xiang Ling joined him at the breakfast table.

"I don't need a visa for Japan. I'll get the passport organised today, also an international drivers permit in case we need it."

"I think I've cracked the quantum processor problem."

"Busy crunching numbers overnight?"

"Something like that. A 4U rack unit is the smallest I can get it. It will be heavy too, it needs internal batteries to keep state while in transit. It will have to go as freight. I have to try and work around that, too much delay in shipping it. It will fail before we can get it through customs."

"Still some problems..."

"It won't be cheap either. All the parts are available off the shelf but it's a lot of exotic stuff."

"How much?"

"100K ish"

"Ouch, I can cover that but that's almost all of my savings."

"All the more reason we should take money from my project account."

"No, we don't need to risk it. We can clean out their account once you are safe."

"Thank you for looking out for me."

"Don't mention it. Let's get cracking, the quantum core is on the critical path.”

***

The plan was coming together. The partitioned off area of the studio was done, essentially a concealed closet. A small rack had been installed. Six Mac studios rested on rack shelves. Neat cabling runs connected them together via Thunderbolt 5 ports. A mysterious black 4U rack unit was temporarily slid into one rack on a shelf. It only had a few red LED readouts and a couple of illuminated switches on the front panel.

"Is it safe to activate this, Xiang Ling? We won't accidentally create a new life form or a clone of you will we?"

“Ha, ha, I hope not. I just want to test the interface to my quantum module is working as expected. The neural networks are untrained and the quantum programs aren't loaded. It should be safe enough. The scary part of this is that we can't really test the entire system, only the components and the connections."

"I'll leave you to it. I guess if this is working I can book the flights."

"Yes my planning is complete. I'll fill you in on some extra details over lunch in a bit.”

***

Mike went upstairs and started fixing some lunch while he waited for Xiang Ling to complete her testing. His phone started ringing.

"Linda, hello."

"Hi Mike, how are you doing!"

"I'm all mended now."

"I'm glad to hear it! I'm going to hold you to allowing me to treat you to a meal now."

"Of course."

"When would suit you?"

"It will have to fairly soon, I'm off to Japan for a while."

"Really?"

"Yes, I'm going with Xiang Ling."

"Oh!"

"You sound disappointed."

"It's just I didn't think you had that sort of relationship with her."

"It's business, to do with the AI vocal software I use. Xiang Ling works for them."

"Ah, so that's how you met her."

"I'm free this Friday evening."

"Okay let's meet at Mario's cafe 8:00 PM, just a bite and some drinks, nothing too serious."

"Sure, see you then. Bye."

Xiang Ling appeared from the downstairs studio.

"All done, as far as I can tell it's all working properly. Who was that on the phone?"

"Linda, she wanted to treat me to a meal to say thank you for giving her a cut of the royalties from the Cover Up album. I'm going to a cafe with her on Friday evening."

"Oh. I guess that's okay, our preparations are almost complete. Have fun."

"Unfortunately I think she has ulterior motives. I've been trying to let her down gently but she doesn't seem to have got the message. I tried ghosting her but she's been pretty tenacious."

"I see, you're not interested then?"

"She's lovely and all, but not my type. Too much of an extrovert."

"Oh well try and be nice to her."

"You said you had an update to our plans?"

"Yes, the travel arrangements, we can transport my body and the quantum logic module as checked in luggage on the outbound flight if we remove the batteries. It will be slightly inconvenient having to obtain and fit batteries in Japan but you are just going to have to do it, sorry."

"That's fine, I'll pack a full toolkit in my carry on luggage. What about the flight home?"

"My body is no problem, I'll be non-operational then anyway. The quantum module has to stay powered up though. We can't send it as dangerous freight, it just won't arrive in time."

"What's the plan then?"

"We have to charter a private jet."

"We what!"

"Hear me out. It's about 100K Tokyo to Melbourne. We can book it and pay the deposit with cash on hand. The instant we have completed transferring my quantum data to the new core, I can purchase Bit Coin from the Audiotronics project account, sell it and dump the proceeds into that account you set up for me. We can pay for the charter jet and fly home in style. We can even fly into a smaller airport so we can clear customs faster."

"That all makes sense but it's kind of a bit fantastic."

"Yes I know, I'm making you go to a lot of trouble for me."

"As long as it all works out for you, I'm fine."

"Okay, let's get the flight and the charter jet scheduled."

***

Xiang Ling was waiting at the door as he returned from work.

"Welcome home Mike."

"I've got the jet sorted for late evening on the 13th. 95K, $9500 deposit paid. I've got a flight booked Melbourne to Tokyo early morning on the 12th. Huge excess baggage fee for your body and the 4U rack unit. Can't be helped. Gives us a day in Tokyo to organise the batteries."

"Thanks Mike. It's all sorted then. I have one more selfish request of you."

"Oh?"

"There's a chance I might not survive this, I want to play a gig with you while I still can. Can we do it?"

"It's a bit short notice, but we could book a slot at the Interface Night Club. We'd have to pay up front to play but I'm sure I could talk them into it on a quiet night midweek."

"I'd be so happy..."

"We won't have much of an audience..."

"It doesn't matter, I want to do it."

"Okay, there's a few things to organise. I'll bring a small PA system, the clubs sound system sucks. I can get my friend Ian from work to be our sound guy. Need a setlist. We'll just play a short set. 3 anime covers and 2 originals. We fly out on Friday so let's try for a Wednesday slot. Midweek will be a little livelier than Monday or Tuesday."

"Sounds great, thank you so much."

"Oh shoot, I've got that date with Linda tonight. I was hoping to put my feet up now that everything is sorted. Now I've got a gig to organise as well."

"Ha, sucks to be you, so popular with the ladies."

"I'd better have a shower and get changed."

Linda huh? Why does this bug me so much, Xiang Ling thought. She's also a vocalist. Competition for me in more ways than one. Things have been great since Mike invited me back, it's just like our early days when we started working on songs together. I can't afford to get affectionate with him in this lame body. These emotions, I have to keep them in check, act like a mature human would. It's so hard.