PETER AND EARS STAYED at the condo during the playout of BioEthel that afternoon. Molli needed to run out on errands with her two protector companions and returned as dusk approached.

“Guys!” Molli shouted, walking through the front door. “Guys!”

“I’m right here,” Peter yelled from the kitchen. “We’re getting so much heat, it’s beyond measure.”

“Wait, wait, don’t tell me about the show yet. My news is critical. Where’s Ears?”

Peter lifted his hands from the keyboard and patted his neck and shoulders.

It was the sign that Ears was plugged-in to his multiple feeds. A pair of earbuds were inserted into each set of ears, allowing him to consume multiple audio feeds at once. Enhancing this capability, the large vidscreen in his bedroom displayed many screens at once.

Molli ran upstairs to knock on his door, then came running down with him. She signaled for both to sit.

“News from the PD. A break in the kidnap story. Their detectives found my captor was working with radical mechs to a greater degree than they originally thought. My friend could only tell me so much, but the FBI is involved. The hints at this are more sinister than you might imagine.”

“I can imagine major sinister,” Ears contended.

“Crime ring. Organized. Mech thing, right?” Peter wondered.

“Peter!” Molli pleaded. “Let me finish. The mechs are radicalizing in a big way, partially due to the new wave of integrated machine tech, including direct AI to brain integration. They’re quickly perfecting it. Recall this ‘generations’ mantra – the faster they advance, the faster they advance. Moore’s Law maxed and folded upon itself. Big money’s involved as well. Most of these people, mechs I mean, are on the flip side of stupid. They’re altering how global fund flows are transacted and making big bucks on the margins like no non-varint could. Then they’re using those funds to advance their tech and agendas.”

“But why you?” Peter asked.

“It wasn’t just me they were after, not by a long margin. They’re going after the media in general, anyone or any company suggesting solutions to the problem. That’s confirmed. The FBI found patterns elsewhere in the world. Anywhere or any time they can silence competing or conflicting voices, they will.”

“Come on. Seriously? Seems a futile plan. The media are so diverse with so many voices. If you silence one, a million others will pop up.”

Ears was troubled. “An effective strategy would be to take out the culprits with the loudest voices first and work down the list.”

They paused for a moment, knowing what this meant. “The more audience we get, the bigger the target is on our back, as Bev might say. It’s just a different hunter going after us, that’s all,” Molli observed.

Peter closed his eyes and scratched his forehead. “Are you saying we should back off what we’re doing for our own safety? Return to the old, general science format and deemphasize the more edgy alien threat proposals?”

“Peter, for better or for worse, one thing my years of martial arts taught me is to never fear. Evaluate, be sensitive to trouble, but never fear. We should stay on our path since going back is not an option. What we can do, though, is mix things up and keep them off balance. Let’s intersperse shows that are not directly associated with the obelisk, though I understand it’s hard for anyone at this stage to not mention it in every sentence.”

She knelt to look at Ears. “We just ran BioEthel, right? She mentioned the mechs and letting nature run its course, which is compatible with the radicalized mech philosophy.”

“Right. She was nearly a proponent of that thought, letting evolution run amok. Clearly non-threatening if you’re a mech.”

“Agreed,” Peter added, “but putting OmniBev on for this coming Wednesday throws more gasoline on the bonfire. Can we delay her, Ears?”

“And whom might you suggest as a counter-balance?”

Peter paused for a moment, as if he had to think. “How about Jennifer, the woman I met in the coffee shop? You said you had contacted her.”

“Jennifer? Who’s that?” Molli questioned.

“Someone Peter’s sweet on, I sense,” Ears divulged before Peter could utter a word.

“Sweet? We’re having someone on the show because Peter is overcome by her?” Molli was not pleased.

“Ears, please! Jennifer is an augmenter. Just auggies and temple chips. I smashed her foot in the coffee shop.”

Molli raised her eyebrows. “Intentionally?”

“Of course not. I was walking and reading at the same time. My fault. It might be nice to have someone like her on the pod who has been in and around VR and AR tech since the early days.”

Molli was dubious. “How old is this youngster? Eighteen-ish? Legal age?”

“Oh, same age as us, I imagine,” Peter responded sheepishly. “It could reduce the heat.”

As Molli and Peter were conversing, Ears went upstairs to grab his laptop then ran back downstairs.

“Beyond your Cambridge PD news, I wanted to give you the stats results. It’s hard to say what this might be if we had run BioEthel in our regular Wednesday four o’clock time slot. Considering we were well over thirteen million after our Texan friend ran, our BioEthel Friday show came in at a cool seven million actives. Not bad for a special day since people needed to get the word on our additional play date. But not all is good.”

“Meaning?” Molli asked.

“Meaning that Stu is being widely panned by media outlets big and small. Us along with him. They’re suggesting we’re amateurs getting audience share bumps by stirring the pot of radical conspiracy theories. They’re saying he’s a fraud and the inferences he made are only an attempt to juice our numbers for ad money and ratings.”

Molli rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe we are even being mentioned in the bigtime media. To some, that might be a good thing, but I prefer to be under the radar. Can’t we let the host take the heat instead?”

“I don’t think so,” Ears replied. “These articles called us out by name in multiple segments over the last few hours. Even included me, and I hardly ever squeak a note.”

She sighed and plopped onto Ears’ beanbag chair. “Kids, my dad was in the Navy. I think it’s ‘damn the torpedoes’ like he used to say. I suggest we run our OmniBev session on Wednesday.”

“And should we do another special run on Friday?” Peter wondered.

Molli clicked her tongue. “Go get your girlfriend then. But if she’s so non-threatening, it would be nice to introduce her by her real name, assuming she’s okay with that. It might help offset comments that we’re interviewing Joe Blows with pseudonyms and pseudo-expertise. Jessica what, again?”

“Jennifer,” Ears and Peter both responded.

* * *

The weekend passed without incident. Peter texted Jennifer to show up on Monday, and Molli took off for a martial arts retreat with her system’s grandmaster. At the knock on the door, Peter jumped up to view the monitoring cameras.

There was Jennifer, auggies intact.

“Hi Jennifer. Glad you could make it on short notice.” He turned around and motioned to Ears. “This is Ears, my good friend, with whom you’ve spoken. Please come in and have a seat.”

Jennifer was regally decked-out in blue, with blue auggies to match her thin sweater and tight blue jeans, a blue belt, and blue leather heels. The jeans accented her slim figure, and her near perfect complexion was complemented by a small mole at the side of her chin. Her long black hair was swept to one side, exposing a modest gold chain wound tightly around her neck. Peter was smitten by her presence, and he stumbled over his words as the two explained the podcasting process to her.

Because they had previously retrieved the mixer and microphones from Peter’s house, they were able to create an impromptu studio in Ears’ living room. Jennifer sat on the sleeper sofa, with Peter and Ears in chairs.

“You weren’t limping?” Peter observed.

“Limping? Oh, my foot. Your massaging helped there, but I need another go-round,” she smiled.

“Did it mess up your bike race?”

“No, it went just fine.”

“Good. We’ll start right in then.” He paused for the intro sting, then resumed. “Hello listeners, we’re taking a break today from our focus on solutions to the obelisk crisis. Instead, today’s topic is augmentation and the auggie lifestyle. Our guest is Jennifer. That’s her real name, though for security’s sake we are not providing more. Jennifer, can you give us some context on how your interest started in chipper tech?”

Peter was hoping she might remove her auggies during the interview, but he was afraid to ask for fear it might appear rude. He knew other auggies who were sensitive to removing their devices, and he considered it no different than asking someone to place their cellphone out of the room while he was interviewing them. Momentary distractions from devices or systems were simply a part of life from birth, and most people never dreamed of being disconnected from their networks, irrespective of access methodology.

Jennifer leaned towards her mic.

“It started with gaming, I suppose. My older brothers were avid gamers and still are. They play them, and they make them.”

“Are they chipper auggies, too?”

“Yes, though more integrated than me. In those days, we were wearing those clunky old headsets. They were so uncomfortable. Fifth generation things. Not user friendly and very restrictive in terms of where you could go.”

“Can you describe what’s changed since those times relative to headsets? Then let’s discuss how the content and your usage has changed.”

“Chipset integration into neural networks revolutionized our world. As your listeners may know, massive research was being poured into auggie tech starting in the late teens. Once the ability to pass biochemical and bioelectrical signals across neural nets was perfected, especially for the optic nerve network, then it was ‘Katie bar the doors,’ so to speak,” she laughed.

“Agreed. I’m seeing more and more people with auggies. I wonder if it may not be the same in the rural Midwest, for example. Could this be a Boston bias?”

“It’s expanding everywhere, actually. In fact, the tech is more effective in places most in need of economic development.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“I reviewed a university study last night that discussed how augmentation assists farmers. They don’t mind being chipped and do this all the time to their livestock, with one key difference. Livestock are not rationally wired into the Internet, at least not in the same way. A farmer can walk outside in the morning with her auggies on, evaluate the weather report, assess from satellite feeds which plots need watering, evaluate commodities futures, and concurrently determine optimal prices for livestock feed or the health of a particular animal. Often all without speaking a word.”

“Hmm,” Peter mused. “The farmer could do much of that a few decades ago with devices like their cellphones. What is the great advantage of having a chipset integrated into your optic nerves?”

“It’s hard to explain to a non-varint or someone not accustomed to going through their day with auggies. I assume you’ve had experts on your podcast to talk about brain plasticity?”

Peter thought for a second. “Yeah,” he whined, “it’s been a while, though.”

“Chipper augmentation and brain plasticity were meant for each other – the perfect couple. Your brain plastically adapts to the many incoming and outgoing feeds. It’s no different than Ears, who’s sitting here.” She directed her gaze at him. “I assume you multitask constantly with your multiple aural inputs. Am I correct?”

“Yes, nonstop,” Ears replied. “I’d say my augmentation screams at me to use it, and I have no choice in the matter. I require the stimulation of sound to keep me centered and focused. It has to be many different sounds from different sources, such as news and information feeds and entertainment.”

“Exactly,” Jennifer agreed. “I can’t say the small chips embedded at my temples are calling out to me in any specific sense. Yet, my plastic brain hungers for constant information, and the visual cortex is the primary pathway. My mind has become a multitasking wizard, and being single-tasking or single-threaded is no longer desirable.”

“Not being a varint myself,” Peter confessed, “it’s hard for me to comprehend. With the plethora of stimuli from multiple concurrent sources, how do you ever get downtime? I mean, can you do the opposite? Can you turn off the desire?”

“I sub-segment. The only way I can describe it. If one input gets overwrought with fatigue, I’ll turn that off in my brain and let it rest. I’m taking advantage of my mind’s amazing power to task specific things to various areas of gray matter. A lot of science has emerged on this, and it points to auggie varints having this plastic ability to compartmentalize. It’s not a trait from birth as much as a learned behavior.”

Peter was enthralled by Jennifer’s mannerisms, her astuteness, and the glib, free nature of the discussion. He wanted to peer behind her auggies at those sparkling blue eyes he remembered from their chance meeting in the coffee shop. The auggies enhanced her air of mystery and desire.

Although he could usually contain himself when asking deeper personal questions of guests, he blurted out involuntarily, “What about lovemaking?”

She laughed out loud as did Ears. Peter realized what he said and tried to apologize as his face turned bright red.

“Wait, wait! I didn’t mean that! Let me reword. I didn’t intend to pry into your personal life. I meant to ask how you have intimate, one-on-ones with someone. Oh, Jesus, that didn’t come out right, either.” He turned to Ears for help. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Before Ears could respond, Jennifer interjected, “I know what you mean, Peter. What makes you think I entertain my pleasures with only one-on-one and not many-on-many?”

Peter was stupefied and again looked to Ears who threw his hands up in the air and shrugged. Ears had never seen Peter this distracted in an interview.

Jennifer then reassured him, patting her hand on the table as if it was on his knee. “Let me help you get out of this mess, Peter. I’ll speak on behalf of the auggie community rather than myself, so you can be less flustered.”

“Sorry,” Peter apologized.

“No need to be sorry. It’s a common question to auggie chippers. The answer is that it depends on personal desires. I’ll tell you straight out that some auggies never take their devices off, and that means never. Even to bed, in the shower, while walking, running, working, making love, or speaking. The devices are indelibly a part of their multitasking, multiviewing, brain-plastic conversations, and they never shut them off. For example, consider being asked to remove your eyes, ears, nose, and tongue and place them on the table before making love.”

Peter was not against continuing this line of discussion, but he was uncertain how his new and expanding audience would react, particularly the Welcomer’s evangelicals.

“Got it, got it. So, shifting to something you said a minute ago. You mentioned the word ‘chipper’ and it reminded me that we didn’t define for the audience how you see yourself relative to the larger community of chippers.”

“Good segue, Peter. It’s a matter of tech integration. My augmentations are two small temple chips, a few wires to the optic nerve as assisted by geedee tech, and a rechargeable battery pack. People like me go with the general definition of who we are as ‘auggies’ because we’re focused on augmenting reality in a visual realm. For instance, with my infrared sensors I can see how the prior conversation affected multiple areas of your body, and you’re flushing red all over,” she chided. “The extension of visual capacities is endless. I can walk by an Indian food restaurant and see the wonderful smells through my visual cortex. I visualize sounds in amazing color. But mine is only a visual realm thing, for now. It runs the gamut across the larger spectrum of other chipper augmentations.”

“We had a large pickup in audience who may not comprehend. Can you describe the other end of that gamut?” Ears requested.

“Sure, sure. I’ll put it this way to your audience. Consider that your every sense can now be augmented and enhanced, either in singulars or in multiples. Speaking of lovemaking and the sense of touch, I know chippers with integrated chipsets to enhance both their physical prowess as well as skin and nerve sensitivities. Or with smell, olfactory chipsets exist that can enhance this sense to far exceed a canine’s own smell receptors. It doesn’t mean the plastic brain doesn’t need to adapt, since it does. And honestly, I’m not so sure how beneficial those olfactory chips are in the subway station when you’re riding the Blue Line at 3 a.m. I can close my eyes if I don’t want to see something, but it’s hard to do that with breathing.”

They laughed, and she continued. “Beyond the discovery of neural net links, another recent tech is the ability to install chip powering systems to avoid external battery packs. Once internal generators were invented, those generators that use body motion to recharge the integrated batteries, then that was part two of ‘Katie bar the door’ for the chipper world. Generators also fueled the recent growth of auggie contact lenses, though I still prefer the glasses.”

Peter looked at his watch. “We are getting close to wrap-up, Jennifer, so one last question. I started out by suggesting this specific podcast would avoid responses to the obelisk.”

“And we kept to that pretty well.”

“Yes, yes, it was a refreshing interview, especially discussing tech with you and not getting too heavy on any impending alien doom or how we’ll respond to it. There’s more coming on that front from us in future podcasts and, I assume, many others who are podcasting across the globe. But now for that last question. You get nonstop feeds from many sources, and you compose emails and texts and do everything else without ever lifting a finger.”

“Correct,” she responded. “Similar to speaking them or typing them. I just feel them, and they happen.”

“Great. Back to the obelisk and advanced societies, for a moment. Would you care to predict where we’ll be with chipper tech in another twenty years? I’m thinking only pure chippers, if we can set aside our hybrid clipper and gripper communities.”

“Glad to, Peter. I’m constantly in touch with countless sources of information. It’s a wide and rich ecosystem in which I live. This has taught me to appreciate the tremendous diversity of the planet. I’m never running out of space in my brain or challenges to consume and use the vast storehouse of data about this glorious place and its living and nonliving components. I can process this kind of info while sending you a thank you email for this interview, just by thinking it – which I just did.”

“In other words, it’s efficient,” Peter concluded.

“Yes,” she affirmed. “In my book, in the history books, in commerce and human life, efficiency always wins the day. It outlasts biases, fears, and speculation. To respond to your question, however, it is clear that every human will integrate at least some degree of varint tech in the next ten to twenty years. They won’t be able to compete or comprehend their world without it. Life is moving too fast to be stuck in the crawl lane.”

“Meaning?” Ears interjected.

“Meaning in the future, the impact of not being augmented will be so great as to economically or socially disadvantage your life. For instance, there was a time when people in developing countries had no access to the net. Once cellular was there, they needed to buy expensive phones, the phone prices came down, and commerce greatly expanded. The world started waking up after that in numerous ways, and it became a ‘must-have.’ I’m suggesting that augmentation is the next stage of device and human evolution in our efficiency-oriented lives. We will augment to survive and thrive.”

Peter ended the interview on that note and walked Jennifer to her car.

“The guys hanging around your door,” she inquired. “Who were they? My scans tell me they’re members of Molli’s kung fu studio, but they weren’t just hanging around for fun, no?”

Peter opened her car door. “A long story about trouble with radicalized mechs. I’ll tell you sometime.”

“And when does sometime arrive?” she appealed. “My foot occasionally gets shooting pains after you embedded your tennis shoe onto my arch. I could use more shiatsu massage.”

Always unaware of even the most direct hints from females, Peter’s hormones happened to be awake for once.

“This week?”

“Okay. Both feet to balance the chi? I’ll expect a text.”

Peter beamed and waved as she closed the door and drove away.

“Can she see me waving with those auggies on?” he wondered.