Chapter 4

“What was that?”

“You are asking me? Shouldn’t you know already?” I replied, somewhat angrily. “It was way worse than all the tests before it. You were supposed to improve it, not make it worse.”

“You are exaggerating there. Besides, it worked, didn’t it?” Park persisted. “Otherwise, you would be out cold and not having this argument.”

“Out cold? Don’t you mean you guys would be cleaning up the gooey remains of my brain off the floor? Don’t forget the muscles too.” I said as I started out of the testing room. “I’m going to the recovery room.”

“It is because you failed to concentrate enough. Maybe we should have been using other testers too.” Park said, hot on my heels.

“Other testers? They would be melted puddles of human flesh on the floor right now. Instead, I think I should look for new scientists. Then, things could get done around here. Or maybe you want to be one of those testers. Is that it? Andrew, get a chip and the backup set of nanobots. We will have him have a go at it. See where this ‘concentration’ gets him.”

“I can’t be a tester. I’m one of five scientists who has any inkling of how all this works. What if I die?”

“Oh! So you agree that its fragile and highly dangerous. And that what you guys did this time made things worse?” I asked as I turned on him.

“You don’t understand how revolutionary this is.” He was not deterred at all.

“I do. Very much. After all, all these was my idea remember? You are just here to bring that idea into being. I respect your intellect, I do. But right now you are not acting the part. It failed, admit that. I want you to make something that actually works.”

“Theoretically, it works. Why can’t you get it to work properly?”

“Theoretically!? We are working with millions—”

“Hundreds of thousands,” Dominic corrected, which I artfully ignored.

“— of nanobots communicating with each other to achieve a common goal. Any change in their workings, no matter how small it is, could have adverse consequences on the whole. Did you think of how the new module could have affected the workings of the nanobots? What it would affect? And how those effects would present themselves?”

He murmured something as he turned to walk back to the observation room. I tried to stop him, but Jacy’s arrival with the juice distracted me long enough for him to get away.

“Oh! Hell no! I’m not taking that today. Especially not from you!” I exclaimed as I tried to maneuver away from her.

“You need it,” she argued in her usual pleasant tone.

“And the poison too?” I countered, not having forgotten what had happened the last time she had offered me the juice.

“It is not poison.”

“To me it is.” She still hadn’t let me past her. It seemed that she was determined to not let me through without taking the juice.

“You needed it the last time. Just because you hadn’t collapsed didn’t mean your body had the necessary energy to keep you conscious for long. The sooner you went under; the sooner you would be back.”

“No, don’t do that.” I hated her for knowing the right words to use against me. “Besides, you could have told me before I drank it.”

“Would you have drunk it if I had?” That question didn’t deserve an answer. “Thought so. I didn’t put anything here this time.”

“As if I would believe that.”

She looked at me as if I was being childish, then took a sip from the cup. “See, no sedative this time.”

“You could have taken an antidote before coming here.” It was a very reasonable assumption. She could have anticipated this whole argument.

“Would you just take it? You know you need it.”

“I don’t actually. Despite of how the test turned out today, I didn’t run myself dry this time.”

“You forget that we can see your vitals on the computers in the observation room.” Damn, having them keep track of all my vitals is coming to bite me back now. “I know how much energy you have left. Besides, that test wrecked you from the inside too much.”

She was still standing and didn’t look like the sip she had taken was affecting her at all. It could be that the sip didn’t have enough of the sedative to take effect. But my body was complaining already. And I couldn’t afford to spend the next hour or so of recovery without ingesting anything to replenish my energy reserves. So, I tentatively took the cup and took a few sips of the juice. I kept an eye at her the whole time. Trying to see if she would give away any sign that she indeed had added a sedative to the drink. After a minute with no noticeable effects being felt, I downed the rest of the juice. She smiled as she stepped out of my way to the recovery room. I stared at her a while longer without moving, wondering if I had been duped again.

But in the end it didn’t matter. I had already taken the juice, and I would be sleeping soon enough anyway. I just hoped it would be from exhaustion and not sedation. I moved into the recovery room, took off my clothes and slid into the bath tub. Whatever else, I really needed the rest. And to get the defective nanobots out of my body. It wouldn’t do to have them act up on their own. If the test had proved anything, it was that no matter how many safety protocols we had worked into them, they still had the potential to kill me. I just hoped that the scientists would figure out what went wrong this time, fast. I could already feel the sweet promise of sleep pulling me along.

…

“You think the reason for the stabbing sensation I went through was because the nanobots were using my nerves as conduits whenever there was no available nearby nanobot to conduct the energy.”

“Yes.” Jacy said, frowning a little. “Normally, they use your nerve cells as a guide not a conduit. The nerve cells cannot withstand the amount of energy being transmitted. We are lucky they didn’t damage them too much.”

“Are you saying that I could have been crippled?” I asked, a little surprised. And very scared.

“No. not crippled. You would have lost the use of your hands and quite possibly your legs too.” Jacy replied.

“That’s what being crippled means.”

“It would have been temporarily. A few weeks. A month at most.”

“You know we cannot afford that right now. We are leaving in less than two months.” I reminded her. She didn’t seem too bothered with turning me into a cripple.

“You have nothing to worry about. Who is going to stop you from boarding your own ship?” Dominic asked.

“I don’t want to give my opponents something to use against me. Besides, I don’t want to traverse the Solar System a cripple. Who would want that?”

“Anyway, give us a week and we will have figured out how to solve the problem. Hopefully even solved it.” Jacy said as she returned to her seat. “We should be able to do another test in two weeks-time.”

“Two weeks…? Right, we will be in the ship next week.” I had somehow forgot about that.

“The protests against us leaving on that ship are mounting up as the departure nears. Do you think the League of Nations could bar us from leaving due to public pressure?” Dominic asked.

“I highly doubt it. But you never know.” Park answered. It was true, the protests were all over the news. They claimed that starting the Gravity Device could mess up with earth’s own gravity. Creating the possibility of earth coming undone. They seemed to forget that for the device to be installed in the ship, it had to have been tested before. If that was a possibility, earth would have come undone a long time ago.

“You don’t have to worry about anything, Dominic. If anyone tries to stop us, the League of Nations or the general public at large, they need to be prepared to die. Come departure day, the only reason I will not depart on that ship is if I’m dead and the ship destroyed beyond repair.” I said. If anyone even tried to do anything to that ship, there would be hell to pay. The public might not have been aware of it, but the era of majority rule was long gone.

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“When you say things like that, you sound like a villain.”

“I’m not like a villain, Mbithe. I am a villain.”

…[ JACY ]…

It had been over an hour since Mativo left the lab facilities. It was quite possible he was still within the research center, but Jacy doubted that. He never stayed long after one of the tests. The group had slowly devolved into companionable silence, each studying the data from the just concluded test. It had been a massive set back if she was being honest. The safety protocol module had run true, but the amount of pain it left in its wake had been unimaginable. If she didn’t know better, Jacy would have thought Mativo a masochist. She understood what they were trying to achieve, but. There will always be a but involved in the project.

“He didn’t really mean it, did he?” Mbithe drew their attention.

“What?” Andrew asked. Jacy already knew what Mbithe was asking about. She had known Mativo the longest amongst the five them. Though, Dominic was a close second. They all understood they weren’t working for the good guy. Mativo had made that prefectly clear on the first day the group had been assembled. But this was the first time Mativo had called himself a villain before the others. Might be it was too much for some of them. Jacy doubted it.

“Him being a villain.” Mbithe elaborated on her question.

“Does it bother you?” Dominic asked. Good or bad, Dominic would have no problem following Mativo. That much, Jacy knew.

“I don’t know. Maybe?” she replied. “Villains do unnecessary things most of the time, irregardless of the consequences. There is always too much killing and stealing, things that soon enough come to derail them back.” She paused, looking thoughtful for a moment. “Mativo always seemed like someone who cared about the consequences. Not to do good things but to make decisions that don’t affect him negatively in the future. Besides, he hasn’t done anything villainy.”

“That’s true, and you are right. Mativo cares about the consequences a lot. He weighs the pros and cons of everything he does, and whether it gets him what he wants or not. And how much he gives up for it.” Dominic told her. “If something isn’t worth it to Mativo, he won’t do it.”

“The only reason he hasn’t done anything villainy enough for people to see, is because he is still raising in power. No one has challenged him directly to prompt a response from Mativo. But after this expedition, things are going to change. And people are going to die,” Andrew said, surprising Jacy a little. Dominic or Park saying that would have been understandable, but not Andrew. He was the last to join the group. Jacy knew he understood Mativo better than some of the others, she just hadn’t known it was that deep.

“You don’t need to worry too much. As long as people leave Mativo and his things alone, he won’t do something that could see the whole world coming down on us.” Park added.

Mbithe scoffed to that. “As if. Mativo is not physically imposing and doesn’t show any aggressive behaviors. Those who don’t know him well enough are going to think him a doormat. We all know where that will lead to.”

That seemed to be the end of that. But soon Mbithe spoke up again. “On paper, Mativo is not a villain.”

After a moment of silence, Jacy said, “No, he isn’t. I once asked him why he called himself so when he had yet to do anything villain in nature. He said, ‘Because that is who I am. Whether I have done anything or not’.”

“How did he know that?”

“He said that in the movies and series that he watched or the novels and stories he read, the ones doing the things he wanted to do in life were always the villains. Controlling the world under one entity, villains. Pushing the limits of science, villains. Enmassing wealth, villains. Exploring everything there is, villains. Becoming powerful enough to single handedly destroy the rest of humanity, villains. In those features, the heroes and the rest of humanity were only doing things to keep up with the villains. And it is so in the real world too. As much as that kind of motivation fosters advancements, it wasn’t the one Mativo wanted. He wants to do things because he wants to and not to keep up with others.”

“Don’t forget, he is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants,” Dominic said. And there were murmurs of agreement round the table.

“So, we are like his henchpeople.” Mbithe said.

“No!” Park was quick to refute that. “Those are muscles, which we are not. We are his intellectuals.”

“The term usually means loyal and trusted subordinate. Which we are.” Andrew explained.

“No.” Park didn’t want to be associated with the term at all. “I am no one’s henchman.”

“Are you saying that you are not loyal and shouldn’t be trusted?” Dominic asked him mischievously.

“I just don’t like the word. It sounds derogative to me. Subordinate would be better, though I prefer intellectual.”

The conversation died down after that. And soon they were back to analyzing the data they had gathered. It was late morning and the rest of the day still waited for them. The official closing hours were after five o’clock in the evening, but they usually stayed late into the night. Especially after test days.

…

The drive to her apartment was as boring as always. Ever since the Transport Safety Law had been passed, only AI driven vehicles were allowed in the major cities and highways. Traffic in those places had dropped drastically, as most didn’t want to give up on the joy of driving their own cars. Traffic in cities was controlled by super AIs contained in supercomputers. Things like traffic jams in the areas controlled by the AIs were a thing of history. Without getting stuck in jams, getting to and from work had become highly manageable. But the speed sucked. The mandated maximum speed of fifty kilometers per hour within city roads was crippling. As low as traffic had become, much faster speeds could be afforded but the AIs never allowed for that to happen. So Jacy had to content herself with a thirty-minute trip to her apartment, when she could have easily done it in less than twenty. Sometimes bicycles were faster, if one was fine with all the sweating.

Jacy was left to think, think on anything and everything. And nothing too. She found herself drifting off on a few occasions. She had heard Mativo comment on how he used his transport time to get a few minutes of sleep. She didn’t like it though. It’s not that she didn’t trust the AI driving her car, she had never been a fan of sleeping in cars. No matter how comfortable they felt. She liked to use the time to switch herself; from work-self to home-self. It was nice to differentiate these things; work was work, home was home, friends were friends, and lovers virtually non-existent. She just didn’t have the time for a more committed relationship. She had never understood how Andrew managed a family life, and still found the time and energy to work with them. She had tried a relationship once but it never worked out. Maybe she would ask Andrew how to do it.

The car took her to the underground parking lot of the apartment building she lived in, finding a spot just near the elevator. Jacy was grateful for that, it meant a short walk to the elevator, an elevator ride and another short walk to her apartment.

The door opened automatically, letting her in and locking with an audible click behind her. She had activated that after one too many incidences of the door not locking properly.

The chop-chop and savory smell in the apartment told her that Frea had already started on dinner. Frea was her best friend, and had been so since their high school days. Frea had been a new student when they got grouped together in one of chemistry’s lab works. They had hit it off immediately. With their shared interest in the STEM field, they had ended up pursuing degrees in the same university. Frea in aerospace engineering while she specialized in biomechatronics. They had even landed jobs under Mativo, though in different research centers.

It irked Frea a lot that she, who had specialized in space, was the one being left behind on the first ever expedition of the whole Solar System by the company. The whole of humanity even. Jacy had argued that the only reason their group was going was because of their special work under Mativo. Work that only the six of them knew about. Having chips and nanobots inside the body wasn’t a new thing. It was what they did that was.

“I take it today was a test day,” Frea said as a way of greeting. She didn’t break from her ministrations in the kitchen. Barely paying her a glance.

“I hate that I told you that. It might not be explicitly stated but I think Mativo wouldn’t like you knowing when test days are.”

“There is no way I wouldn’t have known. I would have pestered you until you cracked.”

Jacy didn’t respond to that. It was essentially true, especially after she had been selected as part of the crew for the expedition. Frea wouldn’t have let go then. Jacy flopped down the sofa and started sifting through the channels on television.

“Hey! I was listening to that.”

“Pay attention to the dishes you are preparing.” Jacy replied. “What are you preparing?”

“Steamed rice, meat stew and salad. I was in the mood today.”

After a few minutes of surfing, she settled back on the channel Frea had been listening to. A news channel debate on something. Jacy had not been able to figure out the topic before a phone call caught her attention.

“You know I’m tired, right?”

“That is no way to greet a friend,” Kacy complained from the other side of the phone. Her actual name was Casey, but she had started styling it Kacy ever since they met. So they could match, she had said. One time she even contemplated changing it legally. They managed to convince her against it, but Jacy doubted she gave up on the idea. It was quite possible she actually went ahead and did it anyway and never told them.

“A friend would know when I’m too tired to talk and not call.”

“What am I if not a friend, heh? Besides, if you had been too tired you wouldn’t have picked up the phone.”

“You know I would never do that.” She said a bit softly, and she hated herself for it.

“I didn’t.”

“Well, now you do.”

“Thanks.” There was a momentary lull, with nothing being said, before Kacy asked. “So, what has gotten you so tired today?”

“You know, same old same old.” Working on a super-secret research project made answering some questions a bit tricky. “Our research work is never ending. Every day it just gets more demanding. Today was particularly extra demanding.”

“I want to say sorry, but that would be ironic. The more demanding your research is, the more likely it is that you are making progress in the right direction.”

“Or the wrong one. You can never know.”

“Well, as they say, any progress is good progress.”

“I don’t think anyone says that.”

“Sure they do. Those smarty smarty people.”

“Aren’t you one of them?”

“Can we chat? Or are you too tired?”

“I thought we were chatting?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Fine.” She replied, readjusting herself on the sofa to be more comfortable. An audible yawn escaped her as she settled into her new position, forcing her to add, “But if I somehow stop responding know that I might have fallen asleep.”

“Maybe you should go to bed instead… is that Frea I hear?”

“Yes. I think she is done with the cooking.”

“Go to bed. After you eat.” She added the last part, as if an afterthought.

“I’ll try.”

“I’ll take that. Goodnight Jacy.”

“Goodnight.” She said to the phone. There was a few seconds delay before Kacy hang up on her end.

“Your girlfriend checking up on you?” Frea asked, smirking.

Jacy threw a pillow at her. She was done preparing dinner, and had joined Jacy at the sofa during the phone call. “She is not my girlfriend.”

“Does she know that?” Frea asked, still holding the pillow she had caught.

“Yes!” This was a conversation they had had on more than one occasion. Jacy liked her, a lot. And Kacy had not hidden the fact that she wanted to be more than just friends. But Jacy didn’t think she was in a position to pursue a romantic relationship. What with the research they were working on, and not to mention the upcoming expedition. And knowing Mativo, they were only getting started, and Jacy wanted to see where they were going.

“Let’s go have dinner before you fall asleep on the sofa.” Frea said, as she got off the sofa and started for the dinner table. But not before she pulled Jacy with her.

“Yes. Food.”