Chapter 22: Gaussian Distribution
It had been three days, and Lily had remained mostly forted up in the basement of her building doing building, design and fabrication work. Surprisingly, building a cistern seemed to be her first objective after all, but it seemed like she would place it on the ground and pressurize it with an air compressor to provide the building with water pressure rather than the more simple, effective and traditional way of placing it on the roof and allowing gravity to provide water pressure.
It might take a month or more to get the pumping station powered after all, and Lily discovered that there was a business that operated a water truck that could deliver a thousand litres of radioactive water to your home or business for a relatively modest fee.
However, her small fabricator was simply unsuited to the task of building a large cistern, even if she did it in pieces. So, her first project was building a fabricator with a building area about as big as a large chest-style freezer. She could barely make a complete 1:1 model of her Apprentice, Alice, in the fabricator, but if Lily wanted to fabricate a statue of herself, she would have to do it in at least two pieces.
She could then fabricate a cistern out of carbon fibre and graphene, which wouldn't look too high-tech, but she would have to keep it on the ground. There was just no way to get the water from the truck on the ground onto her roof, so she would have to provide the water pressure herself and make do, but considering it was a temporary solution she did not particularly mind.
She had transferred all the nanites from the previous fabricator into the new one and installed four nanohives and the computing hardware. This new design was a marked improvement in some ways, as she was able to incorporate a design for articulating arms inside the fabrication chamber and micro-doping technology to dope the shapes as they were being built instead of transferring the partly constructed form back and forth between two sections. All in all, it was a great advance for the second generation of her fabrication technology.
Her first footlocker fabricator she was partly disassembling, she intended to make another run of nanohives using her can of stabilized medichines she had extracted from her blood back in Canterbury Commons. She had the preliminary design for a much more sophisticated nanohive design that would produce a nanomachine that was only twice as big as the hive inside her body produced, which would be both suitable for use as medichines in both the body and brain.
The only real downside was its size, which wasn't ideal for implantation into the body. Lily's medichine hive was about the size of a small olive, while this new one was about the size of a small plum. She would have to consider where to place it carefully before offering it to her Apprentice, 'The liver takes up so much space and is such a horrid design, so inefficient. I'm already working on upgraded liver bioware... Perhaps I could kill two birds with one stone for Apprentice? Mmm... I really wish we had some plums. Why do I always use delicious fruits as size comparisons?!'
She would also convert her first generation fabricator, the small one now she was calling it, to use this new generation of nanites. It would help a lot when she got to the point of fabricating fine microarchitectures, like carbon-based computers. It had taken her four failed prints to print the little pneumatic microinjectors before it had succeeded, and it did not even feature anything Lily would consider more than microcircuitries.
However, she had only been able to salvage about half of the medichines she used to fabricate the first batch of first-generation nano-hives, so she still had a week or so of bleeding into a vat to reach the level where she could build a new run of fabricators.
Lily would need to keep this second-generation of nanohives on a much more restricted basis, as they would be capable of producing the first-generation nanohive, which would, in effect, hand carbon allotrope-based manufacturing technology to anyone smart enough to realize it.
Finishing dripping blood into a vat, Lily sat at her makeshift desk to read a textbook on operating systems and programming language and compiler design. She had managed to boot up an eyebot core running the modified RTOS she downloaded from her own implant; however, there were innumerable bugs still.
After about an hour, Alice interrupted Lily's reading, "Dr St. Claire! Can I talk to you?"
Lily sat the text in her lap and glanced up at her Apprentice, "Certainly. What do you need help with?"
Alice suddenly seemed rather nervous, self-conscious or anxious, Lily thought She couldn't quite pin down the exact emotion, but eventually, the Apprentice finally said, "I was wondering if there was something wrong with my body."
Lily blinked. She had already taken scans of the Apprentice's body over a month ago when she first started working the front desk, and she was in more or less healthy shape.
Lily wasn't sure which set of memories clued her in. Still, she had the epiphany that a teenage girl thinking something was wrong with her body but self-conscious about it really meant she thought there was something wrong with her body's appearance, "You seem healthy enough, excepting that you were slightly malnourished before we met, but we've been eating well since then, I think. What is the problem?"
Alice fidgeted some more before finally saying, "I think my growth must be stunted. I was reading about how malnutrition, poor sanitary conditions and emotional stress can all trigger reduced growth rates in children and adolescents. And I definitely had experienced all of those before I started working for you."
Lily nodded, "That's true, but you're ahead of the sixtieth percentile of your age cohort in terms of height, and wei--" She saw Alice's gaze drop down to Lily's chest for a moment before rising to meet her eyes again and realized what Alice actually meant, and why she was so self-conscious. She trailed off, and paused, then sighed, "Apprentice, are you concerned about the size of your breasts?"
Alice nodded rapidly, several times.
Lily glanced down at her book, part of her wanted just to continue reading now that she knew Alice did not have an actually valid concern, but she stopped herself. She glanced at the page she stopped at, closed the book and sat it on the table.
She had seen Alice nude in the shower once when she was waiting her turn, but she did not really put much thought into it; certainly, nothing seemed to be... out of order, but Lily did not actually know the average breast size for females at any particular maturation stages. If she was still in a civilized space station, she could have found out instantly through the mesh, but she did not believe that Alice was significantly outside a normal statistical distribution.
However, she did know that her own body was clearly on the tail-end of the distribution, "I think using my body as a comparison is giving you some unrealistic expectations as to what the mean is. You're still learning quadratic equations and polynomials in your math focus, yes?"
Alice nodded. Lily was a little surprised at how quickly she was picking up mathematics, and she was already into what Lily would describe as basic or pre-algebra, "Alright, we're going to discuss an advanced topic in mathematics today briefly then. Statistics. You don't really have the base level of math to really get into it yet, but I want to discuss what is referred to as a Gaussian or normal distribution briefly, and then we will talk a little about the central limit theory, which is from a different branch of mathematics that deals with probability, but it intersects nicely into our discussion of statistics."
As Lily had already shown Alice all of her technology, including even her scanner that she was the most careful about, she used that scanner in tablet mode to draw on in lieu of a whiteboard. Lily mostly lectured this time, as Alice did not really have sufficient knowledge in either subject to go back and forth with her, only stopping to answer the girl's questions which were generally requests to explain a certain topic in a different way.
Lily used data that she did remember about people's average height to create a simple normal distribution in an attempt to explain the concept, then went on to discuss briefly the central limit theorem about how the more independent variables are added to a model, the more likely the model is to resemble a Gaussian distribution, so long as the variables were random.
After about an hour of discussion, Alice drew her own simplified bell curve but left it unlabeled, "So, what you're saying is... you are over here," she indicated the tail end of the distribution on the right, "... but how does that indicate where I am on the curve, except to the left?"
Lily rolled her eyes, "In this case, I am using the least scientific of evidence, anecdotal evidence and intuition. To get a real baseline, we would have to poll a significant sample size of fifteen-year-old girls on their cup size to find out where you actually fall in the distribution, but my intuition is telling me you are close to the mean." She sighed, "Look; if we were to graph the average intelligence or education of fifteen-year-old girls on this same plot, you would already be well into the tail-end of the distribution as well. If I had to pick on which plot I would rather be exceptional, I would certainly prefer yours. Especially since these things are more trouble than they're worth almost all of the time."
Alice said quietly, "But you are exceptional on all of them."
Lily roll-tapped on her desk and leaned back in her chair. She wasn't falsely humble, so she just said, "Yes. But my body has been genetically optimized; I have very few gene expressions that would tend to the negative in terms of looks or function. That's also why I sleep so little and am so quick," Lily quickly snapped a finger gun up at her Apprentice's face, so fast that Alice barely saw her hand moving.
The apprentice girl was momentarily startled but then grinned, "Does that mean you could optimize my genes as well? I have been reading ahead on genetic therapies. Why did you say I should skip those chapters in the 22nd Century Medicine textbook?"
Lily sighed, "Because they're mostly wrong. That is one of the subjects where I will have to write an introductory text myself and teach you one-on-one. It's also an advanced topic that you won't be seeing for a year, at minimum. You can continue reading it, though, just with the understanding that the authors of these texts had a very limited view into both the mechanics and possibilities of the human genome. I'd barely trust the best pre-war geneticists to make a better grain of rice, to say nothing of a person."
Alice listened intently before nodding rapidly, asking excitedly, "So, can you?"
"The problem, dear Apprentice, is that all of my genetic optimizations and custom expressions were applied in vitro. That's very easy to do. With you, we would be attempting to apply retroactive changes to your entire genome in vivo, much more difficult," Lily lectured good-naturedly. Then she paused and seemed to consider, "Tell me, how do you feel about me cloning a replacement body for you and then performing a brain transplant, placing your brain into the new body?"
Alice stared at her Mistress for a moment before saying simply but firmly, "I'm against it."
Lily nodded, not surprised, 'Eventually. Eventually.' She then continued, "Well, in that case, we will have to work slowly. I am definitely not against giving you as many genetic advantages as possible. I already have a working genetic therapy to give a person heightened reflexes, for example, but it requires further human testing to be sure it is viable and non-harmful. I am certainly not going to permit you to participate in any human testing of it until at least the second stage of trials. I've already got a list of potential volunteers, five so far, though. I want at least ten, though, so it will be more than a month before I feel comfortable allowing you that first genetic therapy."
Lily glanced down at the girl's chest, "As far as any... cosmetic genetic alterations. Most of that is a lot easier; however, if you, for example, took my optimizations straight across, it would eliminate your freckles, and I happen to know most men find them fetching, especially on redheads such as yourself. We run into a different problem there, though."
Alice perked up at the mention of Lily's claim that men found freckles attractive, "Do they? What's the problem?"
Lily tilted her head to one side and decided to be blunt. "Apprentice, while I consider you an adult in terms of your mental capabilities and the responsibility I expect from you, the truth is that you have yet to reach full maturation. It isn't healthy to make genetic and hormone-related adjustments to your growth factors during the maturation process. Beyond the fact that you are still growing and might well end up taller or bigger in the chest than you are now and find the alterations unnecessary, especially now that you are eating well, attempting to make adjustments prior to the age of 18 or 19 at the very earliest might tend to produce negative effects so I definitely won't authorize it until then."
The girl slumped her shoulders and sighed, "Alright, Dr St. Claire." Then she also tilted her head to the side, the exact same way Lily had a tendency to do. Lily blinked, 'Wait, was this girl adopting my mannerisms?' Alice asked, "What about changes that have nothing to do with growth factors then, like the reflexes, reduced sleep and I refuse to believe you don't have some sort of peak human optimized brain too?"
Lily waffled her hand, "Those are fine, but I haven't developed therapies on anything but the reflexes. I've been working on trying to isolate the expressions for lessened sleep requirements and am optimistic as well as a vastly more efficient and smaller liver organ, but they may be a couple of months away at the earliest. I am actually going to finish an unrelated modification that I don't even have before that, probably in the next two to three weeks."
Looking excited, the girl asked Lily what it was. Always happy to talk about a new innovation, Lily smiled, "It's the first step for a clean metabolism modification. It is a minor adjustment to the sudoriparous glands in the human body. Well, minor to the eccrine glands and a major alteration to the apocrine glands. The goal is to more or less eliminate offensive body odour, as well as the feeling of griminess that occurs when you sweat. With this modification, the more you sweat, the cleaner, smoother and more moisturized your skin will become, actually!"
Alice stared at Lily for a long moment before saying, firmly and with deep emotion, "I want that."
Lily nodded, "Me too. But this change induces radical changes to the apocrine glands, those are the ones in your armpits and perennial area, if you were curious."
The doctor tilted back in her chair perilously while shaking her head, "I can not find a way to make it completely reversible, not easily. Not with my tech base, not universally. Too many gene expressions are outright replaced, so I will need to make some artistic license in crafting a reversing strain. For example, I have identified the gene expressions common in the Han Chinese phenotype, which I believe offer the most desirable baseline traits in this area to use to restore a baseline, but this would still be a change from the average person even after the reversing strain reversed the original modification. It would just be less of a change than my therapy, so ethically, I will have to test this therapy longer than just the reflex adjustment. I don't generally like the idea of therapies that aren't completely reversible."
Alice patiently listened to Lily explain the pros and cons of the treatment before stating with the same intensity as before, "I don't care. I want it." She paused and then said, "Let me be among the second wave of human test subjects, like the reflex modification."
Something made Alice pause, and she asked carefully, "How are you getting human test subjects, anyway? You aren't doing anything bad, are you?"
Lily snorted, "Okay, expect treatment in four weeks, ideally. And doing bad things? That depends on your perspective. By my usual standards, I am being wildly and incredible unethical; they would upload me into prison and throw away the server they housed me on. However, by the standards of the Capital Wasteland, I am practically acting as a saint. I am just paying people and offering them food and water after explaining the risks. Did you know that there are over 15,000 people in Megaton at any time but only a little over 10,000 citizens? That's a 2:1 ratio for an underclass, which is wildly unstable if my mind engineering classes are to be believed. It's why crime is so high and why I won't let you or the kids out of the building yet."
Alice looked very relieved, "Oh, thank goodness. I was worried you'd start building a dungeon for captured raiders or something."
Lily perked up, considering it. There were a lot of ideas that she considered too unsafe to even test on volunteers. Surely a raider would prefer to be a temporary lab rat to being killed out of hand, right? She would let them go afterwards!
The Apprentice shook her head firmly, "Mistress, no."
Lily sighed, "Fine, whatever. For now." Then she brightened up, "By Friday, the extra security Mr Tombs has arranged will begin patrolling the exterior of the building; it should be enough that I will consider it safe to leave for a day or two at a time. Would you like to go on an adventure with me?"
Alice blinked, "An adventure? Like from your novels?"
Lily waved her head, "Less bodice-ripping than my novels, probably. But in the same sort of vein. There is a ruined hospital to the West that I'm told still has some useful technology in various stages of disrepair. Crazy, right?" Lily shook her head, "Surprised the Brotherhood hasn't stripped it bare. But then again, the Brotherhood of Steel never seem interested in pre-war tech that can save lives; they only seem interested in tech that ends them."
Lily trailed off, grinning, "That's our second stop, danger level minor. No super mutants expected, possibly some raiders, so you might actually end up having to shoot someone, but I will protect you. But our first stop? Vault 101. I desperately need them to tell me what time it is."
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