Subjective Humanity, Chapter 3

The sight before Sakura that morning when she walked into Hinata's hospital room didn't faze her.  She didn't like it, but it didn't faze her.  It had been three days and Shikamaru and Shino were still in the position she'd left them the day Hinata first arrived in the room.  They had managed to get her breathing on her own within an hour of setting up the first day, but it seemed progress had all but stopped at this point.  Sakura briefly wondered if they even bothered to shower since Hinata's arrival.

The young men had settled themselves on the floor at the foot of the comatose young woman's bed, her earbuds connected to long cords leading to two laptops sitting back-to-back on a makeshift low table consisting of an empty rations crate and a plank of wood on top with longer and wider dimensions to increase the table's surface area.  Shikamaru and Shino both sat cross-legged on cushions, staring intently at their screens, the long silences punctuated by the occasional key-tapping when it seemed some interesting bit of code flashed across the screen.  Each man had an empty paper coffee cup surrounded by energy bar wrappers next to their left hands.  The medic eyed the evidence of poor health habits, and approached with fresh coffee.

“Alright....Americano with an extra shot for the Captain,” she replaced the empty cup and trash with the new piping hot beverage, “and a non-fat soy caramel latte with whipped cream, extra caramel for Shino,” she finished, repeating her actions with Shino's drink.  Shikamaru grunted his thanks without taking his eyes off his monitor, while Shino merely nodded.  Sakura couldn't help but say what was on her mind for the past few days.

“You know, Shino, I never took you for a man of girly drinks.  I feel I hardly know you.”

Shino didn't bother looking up from his monitor, but he had the courtesy to reply, “I assure you, I don't order such ridiculous concoctions normally.  Caffeine alone has only a small effect on me, and I anticipated a long few days.  I had to up the ante, so to speak, by combining caffeine with exorbitant amounts of sugar.”

“Okay, but that doesn't explain--” Sakura was cut off.

“And I requested soy instead of the standard milk because dairy has more fats, which acts as a buffer towards the sugar.  I want to absorb as much sugar as quickly as possible.”

Shikamaru unhelpfully chimed in, “Basically, he wants it hard, and he wants it fast.”  Shino gave an indignant sniff.

Quiet reigned once more as the men continued to study garbled code on their screens.  Sakura took the opportunity to check on Hinata's well-being.  Assured that she was stable, the pink-haired medic stepped back outside the room to retrieve the other item she'd brought along with her.

The two haggard-looking officers nearly jumped out of their skin when a gargantuan cooler was dropped right next to their table.

“Shit, Sakura, we're already hyped up on caffeine!  Was that really necessary?!”  Shikamaru managed to croak out.

“Yes, it was.  I've let you neglect your health for far too long.  You cannot function to your maximum capabilities on energy bars and coffee.”

“Tch, we weren't doing too badly.  It's not like we've never done this before,” the Captain grumbled.

“Well, not on my watch!  I'm going to be nice and only take away the energy bars.  However, if this cooler isn't empty in 24 hours, I'm taking the coffee away, too.”  And Sakura walked out, ensuring she had the final word.

Shino let out a little whimper, and Shikamaru blinked a few times before turning toward the cooler and opening it.  It seemed Sakura went all out, because it was filled to the brim with healthful goodies: an assortment of whole fruits and conveniently cut-up vegetables, two individual serving-size containers of cereal, several bottles of water, milk, and juice, two large sandwiches stuffed till they were practically considered open-faced with meats, cheese, and veggies, and two even larger containers labeled with sticky notes detailing instructions to heat the food up in the microwave in the staff kitchen two doors down.  That overbearing medic was even thoughtful enough to include disposable plates and utensils as well as a stack of napkins.  All in all, it added up to three square meals with plenty of snacks.

“Well, looks like we start with breakfast,” Shikamaru said, passing a container of cereal, bottle of milk, and spoon to Shino.  The engineer glared at his caramel-ridden coffee.

“If I had known I'd be having milk anyway, I wouldn't have ordered this swill.”

“But you have to admit, you were getting sick of the energy bars.”

“I suppose.”  Shino continued to scan through jumbled code while eating, contentedly, if Shikamaru read his expression right.

Probably pretty tasty compared to what we've had the last three days.

The Captain reverted his attention back to his monitor and started on his own breakfast.

This code is nonsense.  Everything up to the brain stem and cerebellum is completely fine, but it goes haywire and blocks off all access to the frontal, temporal, and occipital lobes, and most of the parietal lobe.  Holy hell, was cereal always this good?

And something struck him.

“Shino, do you know the parts of the brain and their functions?”

“The basics, yes.”

Shikamaru got up, rushed over to Hinata's side table, and started rummaging through the drawer.  When he had found what he was looking for, he went back and kneeled next to Shino, handing him a piece of paper and a pencil.

“Draw it for me.”

The engineer asked no questions and quickly sketched out a brain and scribbled down the parts and their functions for his Captain, then passed the picture to him when it was completed.

“Perfect, thank you.”  Shikamaru studied it for awhile, furrowing his brow more so than usual.  Shino knew what that meant—serious brainstorming.  It was like being excited teenagers and testing android theory all over again.

“Have you found a solution to the UI lock-out?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Maybe.  Let's try something a little different.”  Shikamaru turned the picture towards the engineer, and continued.

“We've confirmed we have access to almost nothing except small portions of the front of the parietal lobe, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Okay, from what you've drawn, we can deduce that we have access to the part of Hinata's brain that processes taste.  What do you think would happen if we started hacking while giving her something that forces that part of the brain to process?”

Shino caught on.  “Occupying the taste portion of her sensory cortex would make it significantly easier to unlock the parietal lobe and the upper temporal lobe, thereby opening more doors and opportunities to unlock the rest of her brain.”

They immediately dove for the cooler and studied its contents.  Obviously, they couldn't feed Hinata solid food, or else they risked suffocating her.  That left the liquids: water, milk, and a variety of fruit juices.

“What do you think?”  The Captain asked the engineer.

“If I were to hazard a guess, I would think the strongest tasting beverage would force her to process more information, giving us a larger window to work with.”

Shikamaru pulled out the cranberry juice.  Water and milk had little to no taste, and the apple and grape juices were relatively mild.  The sweet, tart cranberry juice was the best option.  He moved to Hinata's bedside and opened the bottle, preparing to pour the juice in her mouth, before turning back to Shino.

“Okay, I'll pour this in, you start the infiltration.  Ready?”

The engineer nodded, readying his hands over his keyboard.  Shikamaru opened Hinata's mouth and poured a little bit of the juice in.  Immediately, Shino started typing madly, lines of code realigning on the screen.  Without looking up, he said, “Give her more juice.”  The Captain did as instructed, and  heard the typing continue with renewed fervor.

It took a little over an hour, and a few bizarre instructions to tickle Hinata's feet or yell in her ear, but finally, Shino stopped requesting more juice and his typing slowed down.  “We now have complete neuro-electronic scans, and access to everything but the frontal lobe,” he announced.

Shikamaru's eyebrows shot up in surprise.  “That much?  How did you manage all that?”

“The occipital, temporal, and parietal lobes all run comparatively simple processes.  However, the frontal lobe is not only more complex, but also contains the user interface.  We still have no access to the UI, and she is obviously still unconscious,”  Shino responded while stretching his stiff arms over his head.

The Captain went back to his cushion on the floor and pulled out the brain diagram.  “So, personality, emotions, problem-solving, reasoning...they're all off-limits within the frontal lobe?”

“Correct.”

“But comprehension of language is accessible in the parietal lobe?”

“Again, correct.”

“And hearing is available?”

“In the upper temporal, yes.”

Shikamaru paused a moment, and a confident smirk slowly spread on his face.  “I think I know how get into the frontal lobe.”

Shino's face remained expressionless; he would never let on he was lost on anything.  The other man continued.

“When you read, you use language comprehension.  When you read puzzles, riddles, and mysteries, you start delving into the problem-solving and reasoning parts of the brain.”

At that, Shino caught on.  “So, you're suggesting we read to her until she wakes up?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“Then we'll need not only mystery books, but romances as well.”

“Why?”

“To stimulate the emotional section of the brain.  The more parts we stimulate in the frontal lobe, the better chance we have of waking her up and accessing the UI.”

“Okay, then, that's settled.”  Shikamaru mentally cataloged his collection of books, then asked, “What's your library like?”

The engineer knew it was coming, “I do not own any romantic novels.”

“Alright, go see if Sakura's got any.  I'm going to give Ino a call.”