Featured image by DarkmoonArt_de from Pixabay

Gina’s parents had devoted their lives to helping people get a good night’s sleep. They came into the field as sleeping pills were falling out of fashion and sleep apnea machines were an ugly mask with a large hose attached. Some surgeons had discovered various small surgeries which could be performed to lesson snoring but that was only a tiny part of the problem. People, especially people out here, led lives with too much stress and drank too much coffee. For a while they would try to balance the caffeine with alcohol at night but that soon led to acid reflux and getting up multiple times per night to pee.

The approach her parents came up with was a large machine with thin wires which a person attached to their skull via stick on pads like hospitals used for a variety of devices. It would monitor the brain waves and when it saw stress or nightmares begin sending counter balancing waves across the brain calming the mind. Admittedly people were a bit freaked by the concept. Then they were shown charts about all of the radio and blue tooth waves their idiot devices and ear pieces were sending through their skull all day long and some decided the benefit outweighed the risk.

While she was still in high school Gina had helped her parents writing some of the software. A version she worked on would record data about the frequencies, duration and strength of the waves. It was only good for playing back through some other software which would represent it as wavy lines of various colors on the screen along with the times the even happened. Psychologists and other doctors started using these charts to talk with their patients and discuss what progress they were making.

Eventually they found one could use the same rechargeable batteries used in bluetooth ear pieces so a slightly thicker pad could be attached to the patient without wires. This greatly improved acceptance and use of the device. The big ugly box could be anywhere in the bedroom and the user would still get a good night’s sleep.

An odd thing happened as Gina hid from school doing the work her parents let her do. She figured out how to record the dream itself. Oh, it wasn’t anything you could display on a monitor, but it could be played back in the same or another brain. The stronger the dream the better the recording. Nightmares, erotica, even abject fear of every day things would record the most vividly. After a bit more work she found out how to filter the recording for quality. Putting it in television terms it was the difference between VHS tape and DVD quality. No snow or hiss, only minor skips.

“If only I could run this entire thing from my laptop” Gina had uttered aloud as Bobby had walked into her room for some reason.

“I can do that” Bobby responded, startling her out of her own little world.

“Seriously? This is a great big box because of all the proprietary communication required to satisfy HIPAA privacy requirements” countered Gina.

“It’s a great big box because nobody would pay 30 grand for some software and a couple of things they stick on their skull at night” retorted Bobby. “Most of the hardware in here is filler left over from when everyone used wires. Originally it was there to stop the possibility of electrocution. Now it is there just to add weight. Most of it is not even hooked up. Havent’ you ever opened one up and looked?”

“No Bobby. Hardware’s not really my thing. I hook up this debug board so I can program it and watch it but that is as close as I get to going under the hood” responded Gina.

“Well the transmit and receiver chips are off the shelf parts. There are smaller versions now using the same instruction sets. They aren’t much different than a wireless network USB stick. It will take a couple of days to get the parts but it won’t be hard to build. All you have to do is change the driver software to be a USB driver. I can help you with that once I’ve built the stick. You have to buy the parts though and get me a really cool birthday present.”

Bobby. Twelve going on thirteen. Birthday in just over a month. When he was home he only emerged from that trash heap in the basement he called his lab to go to his room and watch porn on the Internet. You couldn’t keep a box of Kleenex in this house. If you wanted to keep a box of tissue in your room you had to buy that generic stuff which took the first layer of hide off your nose.

“Deal!” Gina responded without asking what it cost. If he really built it and she could make it work he would be getting the best birthday present a boy his age could ask for. One he had been dreaming about every night since he discovered porn on the Internet and Gina would have her revenge.

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