by Aaron Hubble
Stepping to the bedside, the doctor checked several monitors while Dillon continued to stare at the Pilot with wide eyes.
“What did she say?” asked the doctor.
Dillon couldn’t pull his eyes away from the unconscious woman in the bed. “She said…” He tried to swallow. “She said I was her husband.”
The doctor looked at him and gave him a smile dripping with sarcasm. “Surprise.”
Surprise didn’t begin to span the depths of Dillon’s emotions.
CHAPTER FORTY
Even in the foggy haze of semi-consciousness the pain was intense. It caused Berit to scream out and beg for someone to make it stop, but agony rolled over her like the unrelenting waves of the ocean.
If she could just get up and move away from this place… But her limbs felt like they were filled with lead, and she was vaguely aware of the pressure of something at her head and ankles.
The light was blinding, assaulting her eyes every time she opened them. Even when she squeezed her eyes shut, it still filtered through her eyelids. The shapes of people in white seemed to dance in and out of her vision. Berit thought she saw tools and instruments, but she wasn’t sure. She was sure they were the ones causing all the pain.
The cold metal table on which she lay was now moving. There was an odd bump and wobble to the table as they moved down a hallway. She was sure it was a hallway, because the lights were the long narrow kind set into the ceiling. Lights? How do these people still have lights when everywhere else it’s dark?
The pressure was taken off of her wrists and her ankles, and she had the sensation of being pressed into pudding.
How strange.
She heard a click and there was the feeling of being closed in, confined to a very small space. There was a blessed absence of light compared to where she had been. She forced her eyelids open and saw a tiny amount of light coming in through a small, round window in front of her face. A man’s face appeared in the window and then she smelled something. It became very hard to keep her eyes open and the man’s face became blurry and eventually faded away altogether.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
There was a beauty in the numbers that most other people didn’t see.
Cullen saw it. He more than saw it; he felt their beauty and perfection. Numbers weren’t like people, with emotions and social conventions that he had a hard time grasping. No, the numbers were always the same. They behaved like they were supposed to, following the laws and rules governing them. If they didn’t, they would cease to be numbers.
His eyes took in the rapidly moving information racing past him from the holographic data unit. Out of the whirlwind of numbers his mind caught hold of something just slightly different.
“Pause.”
The numbers stopped scrolling. He was surrounded by a 180-degree, convex shaped, floating screen of gold-colored numbers. He quickly scanned the information floating in front of his eyes. The numbers wrapped around him like a comfortable blanket. There was something here, though, something out of place and disrupting his beautiful symphony of numerals. He saw it almost immediately, the culprit, the disruptor of homeostasis. Cullen reached out and grabbed the number. There was an actual physical sensation as his hands wrapped around the hologram. He knew he had the correct numbers, because he could feel the fours, which always felt a little different from the rest.
When he opened his palm, the number emerged in front of his eyes. He jabbed at it with his finger, and it expanded into a new set of data. He quickly scanned this new set and frowned at what he saw. There was a slight variance, and it probably wouldn’t hurt anything to leave it alone, but Cullen knew he couldn’t let that happen. It would be almost physically impossible for him to close the set and move on to another task. The variance would nag him and needle his consciousness until his will broke and he went back and fixed the problem. The rules were there for a reason, and this number was playing outside those rules. There was no sense in pretending it wasn’t there. Fixing it now would save time in the end.
“Increase glucose concentration point oh three percent in solution number five for subject Beta seventeen oh one.” He watched with satisfaction as the glucose level indicator changed from yellow to green. Everything was right in his world once again.
“Jane, I would like to rework the parameters for the nutritional supplements the subjects are receiving. Please run simulations for increasing protein concentrations point oh five percent. See how it affects muscle retention.”
A female voice came from the earpiece he wore. “Certainly, Cullen. Simulations will take approximately forty-six minutes and twenty-three seconds to complete. Would you like to listen to some music while you wait?”
“No, but I would like you to pull all growth data and project out three weeks.”
“Certainly. Default speed of projection or customized?”
“Customized. We don’t have time to be human, now, do we, Jane?”
There was a hesitation. “Query not recognized. Please restate.”
“Never mind.” He smiled. “Just get me the data.”
A data set, this time in a blue font, replaced the gold-colored set projected previously. He scanned the numbers and then swiped with his hand to set the data in motion. It began scrolling before his eyes at a rapid speed. The data passed too quickly for the human eye or mind to capture, but with the neural augment, for Cullen it was like watching it in real time.
The CPF had turned him into a living, breathing number cruncher with the ability to make decisions a computer could not.
In truth it wasn’t all bad. He had a job and an income, which was something a lot of people back on Earth didn’t have. Whatever you believed about the CPF - and there were a lot of opinions, especially in the resistance - they had brought order back to a world that had fallen into chaos after the infection.
He stared at the numbers flashing before him but lost his connection with them as memories seeped into his consciousness. The feelings were still intense after almost thirty years. No six-year-old should see what he had seen. Cullen could feel his heartbeat quicken when he thought of the bloated bodies littering the streets. The worst had been the dying screams of his parents and two brothers.
Shaking his head, he forcefully pushed the memories back into the dark corner of his mind where he kept them locked up.
“Jane, stop data set. Let’s start over from the beginning.”
“Yes, Cullen.” The blue numbers stopped, disappeared and rematerialized once more at the beginning.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he said, “Jane, start the set again.” The numbers began to blur by at a dizzying speed. He felt his heartbeat even out and return to normal as he began to lose himself in the numbers. He sighed as he reentered his haven, his safe place where the memories of the past couldn’t encroach.
****
A chime in his headset pulled him from his world. Pushing away from his desk, Cullen stood and stretched before answering. He touched the floating incoming message indicator. A new screen opened from a seemingly empty space. The image of Dr. Mitchell looked back at him.
“We’re having a problem with one of the stasis units. The subject is moving and seems semi-conscious. When we attempt to increase the levels of neural inhibitor, the unit is unresponsive. Can you find anything on your end?”
Cullen nodded to the balding man. “What is the subject number?”
Consulting a small data pad, the doctor said, “Subject…Beta three four one.”
“One moment, Doctor.”
Cullen muted the transmission and reduced the screen size with a wave of his hand.
Speaking to the computer, Cullen went to work, “Jane, bring up the information on subject beta 341.” Red numbers instantly appeared in front of his eyes. He immediately noticed the anomaly. He manipulated numbers and tried to remotely access the control module of the stasis pod, but it was unresponsive.
He recalled the transmission from the doctor. “Do
ctor, I’m unable to fix the problem from here, but I know what’s happening. I’ll come up to you in the next ten minutes and take care of it.”
The doctor looked back at him sharply. “Hurry. If the situation isn’t resolved immediately, we’ll lose all of our progress with this subject. It would be unfortunate to be forced to terminate this one.”
“Understood, Doctor. I’m on my way.”
He ended the transmission by closing his hand into a fist. Pushing away from his desk, Cullen found the set of precision tools he needed for working on the stasis unit. This wasn’t really his favorite thing to do. He sighed. The what-if questions began to rise in his mind just like they did every time he was called out of his tiny office.
Who was going to monitor the data?
What if there was a true emergency while he was away?
Taking a deep breath, he willed rational thought back into his mind. He knew the answers to the questions. Jane would monitor the data and she would alert him through his earpiece if there was an emergency. Cullen also knew he wasn’t the only data tech monitoring the important systems of the operation. If he couldn’t get to the problem soon enough, another tech would be sent.
The what-ifs weren’t really the problem.
The problem was being around other people. He knew that, but he was powerless to do anything about it. What good was his amazing IQ if he was basically unable to have an intelligent conversation with another human being? Cullen would have gladly traded fifty IQ points for the ability to look someone in the eye and answer their questions with a well-worded, coherent sentence. His mind literally froze up when he was put on the spot. He needed quiet. He needed solitude. He needed Jane and his numbers to feel like a human.
Pausing before the door and steeling himself for the onslaught of human interactions, Cullen pressed the illuminated button beside the door.
The door slid open silently. Light rushed into his dim office, causing pain in his eyes. He squinted until they’d adjusted and then stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him with a push of another button.
Several black-uniformed guards walked past him in a tight formation, taking no notice of the chubby data tech who stood there clutching a tool bag. Willing his legs forward, he began walking down the stone corridor. A woman Cullen knew to be a nurse he’d interacted with before approached him from the opposite direction. She slowed, raised her hand in a greeting, and said something, but Cullen hurried past with barely a nod.
Why couldn’t he even say hi?
He chastised himself for being broken. The worst part was he had no idea how to fix it. With all that the scientists and doctors were able to do now, they still hadn’t been able to fix awkwardness with surgery or augmentation.
The corridor stretched ahead of him. Cullen had never been in a hallway back on Earth that he considered to be a work of art, but this one definitely qualified. This building the CPF had taken over had been a medical research facility and was therefore spared in the initial barrage. The design of the mission had been to take as many medical and scientific research facilities as possible. He was unsure how it had been constructed, but it looked as if it was made of one solid piece of stone. The ceiling was arched, and intricate patterns and murals ran through the stone walls. The designs were of another color stone, flawlessly inlaid into the wall. Cullen was surprised by the emotions it stirred in him. He recognized its ingenuity and craftsmanship, but what he felt most strongly was a sense of wonder and beauty. He’d never paid attention to art before. It was often too abstract for his black-and-white thinking mind to comprehend.
But this, this was somehow different. Whoever these people were, or had been, they were masters of their craft. The thought stirred up a pang of guilt over what had been done to them. Then he reminded himself that it had to be done. The survival of Earth depended upon eliminating the threat these people posed and extracting from them the necessary cure they had been unwilling to share. If only the people who had called this planet home had been willing to work with the people of Earth, all of this would have been avoided.
The admiral, the man who had adopted Cullen, had told him numerous diplomatic overtures had been made, but were refused time and again, and finally violence had been threatened against the Earth. That was when action had to be taken. It upset Cullen that violence had been necessary, but he trusted the leadership of the CPF. They had taken care of him, given him a home in one of the CPF cities, provided him with a job, and protected him from the resistance. They deserved his trust.
At the end of the hallway he turned left and stood in front of a door. Cullen pressed a glowing button beside the door and waited. After a few moments of silence, he began to think he had mistaken the alien symbols and pushed the wrong button. Then a voice issued from the speaker at the side of the door.
“State your name and reason for requesting access.”
Cullen hesitated and then willed the words out of his dry mouth. “Uh…Cyber Ops Technician McPhall to uh…work on stasis unit Beta three four one.”
There was a moment of hesitation and then the muffled voice returned. “Identity confirmed, Cyber Ops Technician McPhall. You may enter.”
The door slid into the wall and Cullen stepped from the bright hallway into a much darker room. The soft hum of machines reached his ears, and the steady blinking of tiny lights winked in and out. The sarcophagus-like stasis units filled the room, their silver skin reflecting what little light was there. A man at the far corner of the room looked up and beckoned him over.
“Glad you’re here. This is the malfunctioning unit.”
Cullen thought the man looked frazzled and in need of sleep. He could imagine that being in charge of a project of this size and importance was a lot for someone to handle.
Moving around the side of the unit, Cullen keyed in several commands and a holo-display appeared. He swiped through the data. Once in the numbers, Cullen gained confidence in what he was doing.
“Have you tried adjusting the mixers?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes. That was the first thing we did, but the level of inhibitor is continuing to decrease and the subject is progressively regaining consciousness.”
Cullen spoke to the unit’s computer. “Unit three four one, please increase speed of data transmission by a factor of three and split the screen to show the default settings and the current settings.”
The stream of numbers began to blur past his eyes, but he managed to capture it all.
“Hold.” The numbers froze. Cullen looked intently at the numbers and compared the set to the default and saw what he was looking for.
“Gotcha,” he said to no one in particular.
The doctor stood next to him, wringing his hands. “You fixed it?”
“I will in just a few seconds.” Cullen opened his tool kit, selected a thin-bladed screwdriver and opened a panel on the side of the unit. Shining a small flashlight into the unit, he found the port he was looking for and adjusted it a microturn clockwise. He watched the neural inhibitor numbers adjust just enough to be within the standard protocol. Replacing the panel, he summoned the holo-keyboard and quickly keyed in a set of numbers creating a new program to detect and fix the variance in this particular unit’s neural inhibitor ratio.
He swiped away the keyboard and closed down the holo-display. “It was really pretty simple. You just need to know what you’re looking for. Everything should be okay now.”
Looking up at the gathered nurses and the doctor, he smiled, but the familiar feelings of awkwardness returned now that the numbers weren’t scrolling in front of his eyes.
The doctor shook his hand. “Thank you. Losing another subject and fetus wasn’t an option. The extraction program is behind and any more setbacks won’t be tolerated. They would probably have pushed me out of an airlock the next time I visited the Command ship.”
Cullen looked at his shoes, “Uh…if that’s all…”
“Yes, yes. Thank you again.” The doctor turned
back to his nurses and they began comparing notes on other subjects.
Cullen turned to go, but in passing he glanced at the window of the stasis unit. He had never seen one of the aliens and he was curious. They had whisked him into a shuttle and brought him from the orbiting ship straight to this building, where he had been given an office and a living space. His only glimpse of the planet had been through the shuttle window. The part of the walled city he was in had been cleared of its original inhabitants. Cullen made sure the doctor wasn’t looking and then stood on his tiptoes and peered through the small window.
It was a woman. She looked a lot like a human woman, much more so than he had expected. Her skin was a dark red-brown color. Golden streaks ran through her shoulder-length black hair. On one side of her face a long, jagged pink scar streaked down her jawline. The scar was obviously new, perhaps a souvenir from the initial assault.
This wasn’t what he had expected to see. He wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected, but she didn’t look like the vicious killer that had been described to him before the mission had begun. In fact she looked…beautiful. He moved closer to the small window, studying her features, mesmerized by her face.
Suddenly her eyes snapped open and then fluttered closed. Surprised, Cullen bumped into a cart loaded with medical supplies. A couple of boxes clattered to the floor, drawing the attention of the other people in the room.
“Sorry.” He clumsily tried to replace the items on the cart and knocked several other boxes off. Cullen just wanted to disappear, to melt into the floor. He tripped over one box and then decided it was better just to leave. Regaining his balance, he stumbled into the hallway and hastily walked back toward his office, hugging his tool bag to his chest and thinking about the woman. Of course, her eyes opening was just a reaction to the increase in the neural inhibitor. Nothing more.
But those eyes. He had never seen eyes that color. Golden eyes the color of ripened wheat. In the brief instant they’d looked into his own, Cullen thought he saw a plea for help. No, he told himself, it was impossible for someone under the inhibitor to actually convey that kind of emotion. He had imagined it, Cullen tried to convince himself.