Reborn in Tokyo: From Heiress to Global Tycoon

Late September, Odaiba, Saionji Pagoda.

This black tower, repeatedly promoted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government as a "new landmark in the waterfront sub-center," has stood on the Tokyo Bay waterfront for quite some time.

The gradually taking-off high-rise building can be seen from the unfinished construction area of ​​the Rainbow Bridge, the Shinagawa area, and even across Tokyo Bay on a clear day.

However, it will take some time before it is truly "put into use".

Although the main building is basically completed and most of the glass curtain wall has been installed, the internal office areas, public spaces and surrounding facilities are still under final construction.

Every day, a large number of construction vehicles still enter and exit through the dedicated passage, and occasionally the sounds of metal cutting and equipment installation can be heard from the floors that are not yet closed.

The places that have actually been put into use are actually hidden underground.

A dedicated elevator, separate from the ground-level office area, leads to the underground facilities.

After Satsuki and her party entered, the elevator went straight down without stopping at any point.

The elevator car only slowed down slowly on the fourth underground floor.

With a soft click, the elevator came to a stop.

But the door didn't open.

From this floor onwards, the area below is collectively referred to as "Zero Zone" within Saionji Temple.

The Jade Box Calculation Matrix Center, the Comprehensive Experimental Area, and several technical facilities with higher security levels are all located within it.

Reaching the fourth basement level does not grant the right to continue downwards. Anyone entering Zone Zero must undergo a separate identity verification process here.

The metal panel on the right side of the elevator, which was originally perfectly sealed, shrank inward by a small section and then slid open silently.

A hidden biometric device is revealed from behind the wall panel.

At the top is a small black observation hole, no bigger than a thumb, and below it is a slightly concave glass panel.

Satsuki has clearly used it many times.

She stepped forward and aimed her right eye at the observation hole.

A faint, dark red light quickly appeared.

The retinal scan lasted less than two seconds.

At the same time, Satsuki placed her right hand on the glass panel below. The sensors hidden beneath the glass then began reading her palm shape, fingerprint, and several physiological data points for liveness detection.

A few seconds later, the red light went out.

A calm, electronic female voice sounded inside the elevator.

"Identity confirmed."

"Saionji Satsuki."

"Permission level: zero".

The floor display screens, which had previously been unresponsive, suddenly lit up.

Several sets of floor numbers that did not previously exist on ordinary elevator panels appeared in sequence.

The elevator then restarted.

A slight feeling of weightlessness returned from beneath my feet.

Satsuki returned to her original position and watched the numbers on the display screen continue to decrease.

Negative five... Negative six... Negative seven.

The elevator finally came to a slow stop on the eighth basement level.

As soon as the door opened, a completely different kind of air rushed in.

The temperature was much lower than the ground, and even the sounds seemed to be filtered through the thick walls, leaving only the continuous low hum of the ventilation equipment in the distance.

Chizuru went out first.

Satsuki followed behind, glancing up at the ceiling of the corridor.

Silver-gray metal cable trays run along the ceiling, with several pipes marked in different colors connecting to different areas.

The left passage leads to the "Jade Box" calculation matrix center, which is already in use, while the right passage is a comprehensive experimental area that has just completed the first phase of construction.

This place is quite different from other research institutes in the Saionji Group.

There was no specific subsidiary company assigned to it, nor were there any production tasks.

No one can even say for sure when it will be profitable.

There are only two criteria for projects to be eligible to enter this program.

First, Satsuki felt it was worth doing.

The second is a project that the newly established Saionji Technical Committee believes "its commercial value is currently unclear, but it could have a huge impact if successful."

The risks are high, the number of projects is small, but the budget and equipment requirements far exceed what a typical corporate research institute can obtain.

Many of the things researched in these projects still seem absurd now.

High-density energy storage materials, automated mechanical control, special display equipment, and several laboratories whose specific research is unknown even to many senior executives of the group.

Brain-computer interfaces are one such example.

……

As soon as Satsuki turned the corner in the corridor, she could see a number of people standing inside through the thick observation glass in front of her.

In the center of the laboratory were several instruments whose names she did not know.

One wall is lined with rows of electronic devices, with cables running from the back of the cabinets all the way to the central lab bench. On the other side, separated by a transparent partition, is a small, secluded area for animal experiments.

Amy stood near the animal testing area, holding a whiteboard, talking to a young man wearing the same white lab coat.

Did the monkey eat anything this morning?

"He ate normally. He was given fruit and formula at 7:40, and he finished it all by 8:20."

The other party flipped through the records in their hand.

"Body temperature 36.8, activity level normal, no abnormalities in the implantation area."

"What about impedance?"

"Last night's final test showed that 47 out of 64 channels were still valid. Of these, 39 met the signal-to-noise ratio standard, two fewer than the day before yesterday."

Amy looked down and wrote a few lines on the notepad.

"Channels 23 and 41?"

"Yes, those two. They started to decline last week, and yesterday they officially fell below the threshold."

Amy nodded and didn't ask any further questions.

She looked up at the Ganges monkeys in the cubicle.

Through the observation window, you can see the brownish-gray monkey squatting on the platform of its enclosure, one hand gripping a metal bar fixed to the side wall, and the other hand slowly peeling a small piece of banana.

The hair in the implantation area on the top of the head had been shaved off, revealing a grayish-white area about the size of a coin. The surface was covered with a thin layer of bio-adhesive, and the base of the connector bulged slightly from the middle, looking like a small button attached to the scalp.

The monkey was completely oblivious to what was above its head.

It put the banana in its mouth, chewed it a couple of times, turned its head to look at the observation window, and then lowered its head to continue eating.

"You're in good shape."

Amy put the pen back into the clipboard and turned to walk towards the main control area.

The other researchers were already in their positions.

Some people were adjusting parameters in front of the signal processing terminal, others were checking the cables connected to the acquisition equipment, and a woman wearing anti-static gloves was carefully aligning a set of microelectrode probes with positioning slots using tweezers.

"Mr. Chuanren".

Amy walked over to the signal processing terminal and called out to the man sitting there.

Kawamoto Mitsuo raised his head.

The 37-year-old wore thin-rimmed glasses, and several sheets of paper filled with calculation formulas and neuronal firing data were spread out on the table in front of him.

He originally studied motion control and neural networks at Osaka University. After transferring to ATR a few years ago, he mainly focuses on research in human motion control, neural network learning, and computational models.

Last year, when Saionji began to expand his brain-computer interface project, Amy noticed his name while organizing related papers.

Saionji provided computing resources and research funding, while Kawato was responsible for helping the team build motion control and neural decoding models.

As the project continued to expand, he spent more and more time in Odaiba, and has now become one of the most important leaders in the entire decoding team.

"Did the decoding program run successfully?"

"I ran it three times."

The man from Sichuan turned the screen around and showed it to her.

"We tested both yesterday's model and the version after recalibration this morning, and the offline accuracy is stable at around 78%. The online accuracy is a bit lower, around 70 to 73%."

"What about the delay?"

"One hundred and forty milliseconds."

The man from Sichuan adjusted his glasses.

"It's 60 milliseconds faster than last month's version. This is mainly because Jade Box reassigned us a new set of computing nodes yesterday, so matrix operations no longer have to queue up with several other projects."

Amy nodded.

One hundred and forty milliseconds.

Three months ago, this number was over two hundred.

A year earlier, they didn't even have an online decoding program that could run stably for a long time.

Today, the real limitations of experimentation have gradually shifted from computing devices and software to electrodes, tissue reactions, and those more complex biological problems.

Amy glanced at the test results on the screen again, and was about to continue speaking when she saw that the safety door outside the glass had already opened.

The sound stopped abruptly.

The others in the lab followed her gaze.

Satsuki walked in from outside.

Amy's previously serious expression brightened noticeably.

But it was only for a moment.

With the entire project team around her, she quickly composed herself, steadied the record board in her hand, and headed towards the entrance.

"Young Miss".

Seeing Amy being so serious for the first time, Satsuki found it rather novel.

"Are you ready?"

"It's all better now."

Amy nodded seriously.

Compared to their usual private interactions, she appeared unusually well-behaved today.

At least no one pounced on her while shouting "Satsuki-chan!"

Even the tone of voice was deliberately kept in the manner of a laboratory director.

Satsuki looked at her, and the corner of her mouth couldn't help but twitch slightly.

It actually looks quite plausible.

However, with more than a dozen researchers standing around, she wasn't about to undermine Amy at this moment.

"Let's begin then."

"Yes."

Amy turned around.

"Over here."

She led Satsuki to the observation area.

……

After the blackout curtain in the cubicle was pulled open, Satsuki saw the Ganges monkey up close for the first time.

It has been transferred to a fixation device connected to the experimental equipment. The body is gently secured in the seat by flexible straps, with limited range of motion, but the head and arms remain free.

A thin signal cable was inserted into the connector base above, extending along the fixed arm to the acquisition equipment outside the compartment.

The monkey's eyes were fixed on a vertically mounted LCD screen in front of it.

The screen has a black background and nothing on it.

"This is the longest-term implanted experimental subject we have to date." Amy stood outside the cubicle, pointing her laser pointer at the connector on the monkey's head.

"Item number MK-07. Motor cortex implantation, 64-channel flexible polyimide microelectrode array, has been working continuously for 53 days."

Satsuki glanced at the channel status diagram on the display terminal next to her.

Sixty-four small squares are arranged in a matrix, most of which are lit up in green, a dozen or so in yellow, and a few in gray.

"There are currently forty-seven active channels." Amy also looked at the screen. "Thirty-nine of them meet the signal-to-noise ratio standard."

"Can this ratio be maintained after fifty-three days?" Satsuki asked.

"Yes, this is better than we expected." Amy nodded. "The other two in the same batch had already dropped below thirty by around the fortieth day. Individual differences in MK-07 may be more advantageous, but it is also related to the improved surface coating of this version of the probe."

Satsuki didn't press the matter further; her attention had already returned to the screen in front of the monkey.

Amy turned to the Sichuanese.

"Let's begin."

The Sichuanese person tapped a key on the keyboard.

A small white dot appeared in the center of the black screen. Immediately afterwards, a yellow square indicator lit up in the upper right corner of the screen.

The monkey's attention was immediately drawn to it. It stared at the yellow mark for less than a second before its gaze returned to the white dot in the center.

Then the white dot moved.

It was slow, and I hesitated a bit.

It first moved a little to the upper right, paused, and then veered slightly to the left, as if hesitating about its direction.

It was then corrected and began moving toward the yellow marker in a somewhat unstable but generally correct trajectory.

A few seconds later, the white dot touched the edge of the yellow square.

The screen flickered. The yellow square disappeared and reappeared in a new position in the bottom left corner.

The white dot started moving again.

Satsuki stood outside the cubicle, watching everything through the glass.

The monkey kept its hands on the armrests of the seat the whole time and didn't touch anything.

Its fingers would occasionally clench, as if it were some kind of residual grasping reflex.

But what actually drives the cursor on the screen is the neural discharge signal collected from its motor cortex—through sixty-four probes thinner than a human hair.

The signal is transmitted via cable to the acquisition front end outside the compartment, where it is processed by the amplifier and then sent to the decoding terminal.

The algorithm from Sichuan translates the activity patterns of dozens of neurons into coordinate instructions within 140 milliseconds, and then pushes the white dot on the screen.

No mechanical devices were involved in the entire process.

The cursor touched the yellow square in the bottom left corner. The screen refreshed again, and a new marker appeared at the top.

The monkey glanced at it, and the cursor followed it upwards.

This time the movement was a little smoother.

"During continuous testing, we can hit the target about seven out of ten times within the allotted time," Amy's voice came from the side. "We're less accurate with complex trajectories, especially on paths with sharp turns, where the misjudgment rate is relatively high."

Satsuki didn't turn around. She was staring at the crooked, erratic white dot on the screen.

"The robotic arm has been connected too?"

"It's at the control panel next door," Amy gestured to her right. "It's the same decoding output, split into two paths. One path controls the cursor, and the other simultaneously drives a simple three-degree-of-freedom robotic arm."

Satsuki walked over and took a look.

A small, silver-gray robotic arm is fixed to a clamp on the control panel.

Its front end is equipped with a simple gripper, which is currently responding to the nervous activity of the monkey in the compartment.

Extend your arm to the right—the cursor moves to the right.

Extend your arm forward—the cursor moves upward.

There is a visible synchronization between the motion and the cursor, but the movement of the robotic arm is more rigid than that of the cursor.

Each time the direction is changed, it pauses briefly, as if it needs to reconfirm the command before continuing.

"The forward extension and lateral movement are alright," the researcher in charge of the robotic arm interjected from the side.

She took off her anti-static gloves and turned to a page of data.

"The accuracy of the retraction action is relatively poor, only about 50%. The gripper can currently only open and close fully, and the force in between cannot be controlled."

Satsuki stood in front of the robotic arm and watched for a while.

The grippers opened again, paused in mid-air, and then slowly closed. The movement was not smooth; the joints made a faint gearing sound as they rotated.

This time, the smile on her face gradually faded.

It's not because I'm dissatisfied.

Quite the opposite.

Although she was far from being an expert in neuroscience, in her previous life when she worked in finance, she had read countless industry reports, laboratory reports, and paper abstracts in order to assess the value of technology companies.

She had certainly come into contact with brain-computer interfaces, which were later repeatedly hyped by the capital market.

She can't remember exactly which paper it was or which year it was from.

But I still remember some of the key moments.

Monkeys control external devices directly using signals from their motor cortex.

The multi-channel invasive interface forms a true real-time closed loop.

These things...

We absolutely shouldn't have reached this level in 1991.