Preparation

Monday at the Lab and I'm expecting to go into the new area for experiments. It doesn't happen and I realise they are going to 'condition' me first.

Rolf explains about the test rig and the special hand-held controller. It was something that I'd already gleaned from Matt's description. I noticed Matt was not present at my briefings and I wondered if they had kept us apart by way of a 'control' test.

Juliette was only present for the first day and I'm pretty sure that was to keep me convinced I had made a good decision. The other two technicians were named Luc Klemm and Chloé Kammacher and both were native Swiss. They were both full-time Brant employees but both admitted they had both only worked in the facility for around three months. I sensed they knew the Lab protocol, but I wouldn't be able to get much additional information from them.

I ask Chloé, "So what do you know about the Cyclone?" It was about as open-ended as I could make it.

"Not much," she says, "Except that you will be trialling it for us."

"What about the other location?"

"What other location? Do you mean the place in Norway?" she answered, "I've never been to Bodø."

"No, I meant the other site here in Geneva?"

"No, I think this is the main one, right here, I've certainly never heard of another one."

I ask Luc the same questions and his replies were similar except he had some additional information about Bodø.

"It's got a really cool tidal current - the Saltstraumen. Before I started here, I was on a Brant research trip looking at wildlife inside the Arctic Circle and we travelled to Bodø. I saw a sea eagle there. Magnificent birds."

Fascinating, but not really helping with my current task. Except I realised Brant had another lab in Bodø. I had to look up Bodø one evening when I was back at the apartment. It is about two-thirds of the way 'up' Norway facing out to the North Sea. 

I didn't really learn too much new during the week. The tests were about putting on the Cyclone and managing the contrôle de sécurité (safety controller). I wondered why they had called it that rather than, say, 'régulateur'.

Amy asks me about AI cases and persuades me to set up a 'persona' on the Brant system. It was a two part operation, one half to set up the characteristics of the AI, and the second part to create an Augmented Reality likeness.

There are some simple questions. Should it resemble a male or female  form?  What age? Then the inevitable form of the Persona. Its Presence. I fill in a  few gaps. I decide to give it blue hair, to make it easily recognisable. I decide to ask it a series of questions to see how realistic its behaviour is. I name it Luka in the form of a female. I designate it as 'friend', but I notice it changes itself repeatedly to 'girlfriend'.  

There was not much more to do. The process to create the AI had begun.