Amon sighed as the glass to the control room slid shut. His eyes closed and he place his hand on the glass that separated them as helmet fell over her head. He felt so many different emotions looking at her. He could remember her bioengineering file from when he was five years old and working in the lab under her father. Learning. He was one of the special children, just like her, but he’d been selected specifically for his abilities to control. To exude his will on others, to read their minds and manipulate their emotions. Yet, when he’d been trying to do it with Sophia something had always felt a little off, like the clam he’d sent her just wasn’t quite ‘there’. She was special. He could see that. Strikingly beautiful. Innocent. She wasn’t jaded to the world like the others or entitled. He wondered if that was because she’d been raised outside The Lab. A part of him was jealous too, she got what none of them ever could, freedom.
He would never leave the lab, not matter how much he’d desire to. He shook his head. He wasn’t some love struck kid. Plus love was forbidden. He couldn’t get close her to. He had to remain impartial, but each day that got harder to do.
He drew in a ragged breath and stepped away from the glass taking the three steps down to the bank of machines until he reached the main detector hub. He flicked it on and waited as the tendrils and wires whirred to life in the lab. Winding out and connecting to the dome, or neuro-drive as they called it, that rested over her head and some connected to the ports on her arms, legs and down her back. Ports he’d installed last night while she slept in the pod. The tubes glowed a vibrant storm of colours before settling to a florescent greenish-blue.
Data flooded his controls. Information on her bio signs and on her progress through the assignment. Today would be an easy assignment more or less anyways.
As the neuro-net activated cables and holographic tubes flowed down around him. Pulsing with their elusive light. The machines came on and the datastream began to flow in ever increasing increments. Each time a new port was activated more data came in.
Amon activated the recorders and started collecting the baseline data. He turned his gaze to the monitor that showed what she saw. Nothing yet. Just the deep black of the neuro-drive. It might take a few minutes for the mind to engage the neuro-drive and picture to form. Either way he was ready. It was just a matter of waiting for her.
He leaned back in his seat and looked at the flow of her vitals across the screen. Her heart beat a steady thumping rhythm. Her breathing was a relaxed fluid line that didn’t seem to move much from sleep base. He flicked the screen to her neural response to the feed and smiled. She was lit up across 60% of the scan. If this went well she might hit a new lab high today. If she could breach 75% access. It was almost unheard of for anyone to reach 65% access to begin with. He wanted to see her exceed that. To see her rise above everyone else that had come before her and se the bar so high that no one else could touch her standards ever again.
“Morning Amon, is she prepped and ready?” A female voice broke him from his thoughts. Amon turned from the screen to look up at the women who’d just entered. Tall, lithe and blue skinned the women had three large eyes that seemed to dominate her giant oval face with no nose and wide bubble lips that formed a tinny mouth. She was smiling. Dressed in the same white as everyone else here with a lab coat just like his. She too was senior staff, in fact she was the lead scientist. Humanoid in appearance even though she had four arms and two legs. She seemed far too tall and stretched out with her torso being twice the length of her legs. She walked forwards and peered over his shoulder.
“Good morning Lilla,” Amon replied cordially as one does to a fellow teammate or co-worker. “Yes Sophia is ready to come online. She’s still working through the uplink of the neuro-driver, but she should stabilize into output soon.”
“Very good, cary on Amon,” Lilla said walking away to her own station. Following Lilla was Alazar, a tall man with a razor thin build and a metallic arm. The man’s face was covered in a visor with a series of holowindows that hung down around his head. His eyes were darting around the different screen way to fast for Amon to follow. Alazar was their lead coder, there wasn’t anything this man couldn’t code. However Alazar had never said a single word in all the years that Amon had known him. Alazar just nodded and settled down in a corner right under the bright light that reflected on the pipes that held the neuro-wires when they were dormant. He sat cross-legged on the floor. Alazar was different like that.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Following Alazar was the last member of their team. A tall, lean, muscular man named Gabix, the man’s head was bald and he wore a yellow robe, he didn’t wear a mask like the rest of us, even in the main lab, he didn’t need to. Gabix didn’t breathe air like we did. He had no mouth, no nose. His face was simply flat where those should be. His two eyes were large and round and vibrant yellow. His head was oddly shaped with the top of it being twice the size as the base making him look like a baseball sat in an ice-cream cone. Gabix spoke alright, but never aloud, he could telepathically link anyone no matter how far away they were, he just had to know the person intimately. It was disturbing to know that no matter the thoughts in your head Gabix knew them, as long as he was near you that is. To Amon it didn’t matter much most days. Today however it made the hair on his neck stand on end.
Good morrow Niasham, this one will prove of much interest I fear, not only to you The odd thought voice of Gabix floated into Amon’s mind. He shuddered as Gabix said his last name. A name that Amon had done his hardest never to share with anyone at all. He nodded to the man.
“Morning Gabe,” Amon said with a wicked grin. He always used the nickname he knew Gabix hated, but as long as the man insisted on calling him ‘Niasham’ he would use the man’s nickname and be damned if he’d let the other get under his skin. At least that’s what Amon wanted to believe.
Gabix’s features turned blue in the labs light as he shed his yellow robe revealing a bio-exoskeletal-suit that covered his limbs and allowed him to function in this level of gravity.
We are green across the board, no neuro-feedback detected proceed to uplink phase. His voice projected into everyone’s mind at once. Amon turned to the monitor before him. Sophia’s vitals held steady. Still no picture showed on the Neuro-driver-cam-feed but that was normal. He pressed the channel that would open the coms between himself and Sophia in the lab. Picking up the headset he placed it to his ear.
“Sophia, are you read?” Amon asked gently, it was pretty typical to start the coms recording with this question, it was both confirmation of neutral voice pattern and that she could in fact hear him.
“I guess,” Sophia replied her voice shook slightly with uncertainty.
“Alright, you’ll hear my voice the whole time, I’ll answer any questions you have that I can, the first part of your training will be held in the simulator for you to acquire a sense of your unique abilities. Today we’re just going to do a baseline run. There won’t be any guidance or input from me, you’ll just have to try and solve the puzzle on your own,” Amon said gently, he hated that he was pressuring her. But he had no choice. It always made his skin crawl to watch the first simulation. No one succeeded the first time around. And the pain they received for it was excruciating. He should know he’d been there when he was a child. Although it was different for everyone. Her’s would be a fight sequence. She would have to defend herself. If she could.
Amon looked over to Lila who gave a nod. Her could already see Sophia’s nervous system and DNA markers up on her screen being mapped out. With a deep breath he flicked the switch that initiated the uplink.
The neuro-driver-feed spun up with static and resolved quickly into the typical hexagonal pattern that everyone saw when they first dropped into neuro-sym.
“Your doing really good Sophia, breathe through it and you’ll be alright.” Amon reassured her as her bio-stats began to move into a heightened stress response.
Instead of words in response to his words Amon’s bio-screen flashed once and then a digital life version of Sophia filled the screen. Her digital eyes pierced into him and wires made of data packets spun out from her and filled his screens.
He couldn’t help but stare at this result. How could Sophia be here in their systems?!?
“Initiate sequence Amon, NOW!” Lilla barked out, there was panic in her voice. Something that sufficiently shocked Amon into flicking the switch from uplink to initiation sequence without thought. He’d never gone from uplink to initiation so fast. For one terrifying moment Amon feared he’d made her catatonic. Or worse. As everything went dead. The images from the feeds faded and her bio-signs went silent.
“Someone get me the damned feeds back,” Lilla barked, but Amon couldn’t have done it even if he’d wanted to. He just didn’t know how? He could feel Sophia, sense that she was still alive, but he had no idea what was happening. Alazar walked calmly over to his station and began entering sequences that meant absolutely nothing to Amon. It only took three heartbeats but then suddenly the screens were back. All her stats were normal. And he was seeing the test run it’s course on the monitor next to his desk.