Professor Frederick Bonitz stared out the window of his office. The rain that fell seemed to be the most useful part of the storm, the power to give water, which meant it could sustain life and quench thirst. Yet it was really not looked at or considered compared to the lightning and wind and on top of that had none of the awe of thunder. He mused this as he reflected on his own life. Much like the rain, no matter now hard he applied his full force into doing his work he would always be the least thought about factor of the group. None of his work seemed to have much appreciation. Because it was not very attractive, controversial, or even making much progress. Bonitz had known this ever since he got into the field of Robotic limb interfacing with human nervous tissue, but it seemed like it would pay off in the end. He couldn't have been more wrong. Research of this nature is incredibly complex and takes years of sucking money in before anything can remotely be even announced as progress let alone a return on investment. Thus nobody was willing to pay money for it, even less so that the stem cell regenerative biology field is taking over. Really? Who would want a robotic arm when they could just grow their own arm back? Bonitz was an expert in his field, and this earned him a place here at Yale, but Yale really just kept him as a prize object, something to say "we have it" when they weren't interested in his research. Though even so, this couldn't continue forever, and he would soon be let go. All those years getting a PhD at the University of Greifswald, leaving Germany to come to the United States merely to make a bigger name for himself and get access to more resources, and all of it would be for nothing. He would have no legacy, nothing to claim as his own but a bunch of failed experiments with dead nervous tissue with wires sticking into it hooked up to a computer. A knock at his office door interrupted him.
"Yes?"
"Sir, you have a visitor."
Bonitz swore under his breath. He was in no mood for some random student to ask a dumb question.
"Tell them to check their notes. I'm sure I told them in class."
"Sir, he isn't a student."
"Well then tell him I'm busy."
"sir, he says he wants to fund your research. He's from ICT."
"Send him in"
Bonitz wasn't about to mess this up, ICT, or International computational technologies was the biggest computer hardware engineering company in the world. As the door opened, Bonitz smiled and extended his hand only to find his jaw drop. As the elderly suited man walked in he realized this was none other than Howard Turing, the CEO and founder of the company.
"Mr. Turing, how nice to meet you. To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"We hear you are working on using machine generated electrical pulses to create reactions in the nerves."
"yes, as a way to recreate touch in robotic limbs.. but I am losing finding for it.
"I may be able to help with that, in exchange for your expertise on a project"
"what kind of a project?"
"ever heard of the brain in a jar thought experiment?"
"Mr. Turing, that is frankly ridiculous. It would require massive amounts of processing power to recreate a world. You could maybe get an emotion stimulus in the brain, but that? You would need a Quantum computer."
Turing smiled.
"Did I mention you get paid in advance? Full funding for five years."
"Where do I sign?"
