NLI-10

by Lee Isserow

  He looked over to two silver gurneys, pulling back the sheets on the bodies. Sarah knew where she was, knew this memory all too well. She rose to her feet and tried to avert her eyes from the corpses.

  'Your mother had such lovely tits.' he said. 'Shame that crash did such horrible things to the rest of her. Then again, I guess that means there's a lot more holes for me to play with now, aren't there!”

  He placed his hands on Sarah's mother, fingers tracing every laceration, probing deep into the wounds.

  'Oh, this is going to be fun!' he said, before a fist knocked him across the room, the sheet curling back up over Sarah's parents by itself.

  'My head, my rules.' she said, anger coursing through her veins.

  'That's not how it works, darling.' he said, picking himself up, with a gleeful smile. 'The tactile connection is a bond of minds, and the stronger mind is in the driving seat.'

  Sarah had her arms grabbed from either side, the naked dessicated corpses of her parents holding her back as she struggled, fought their grasp, but to no avail.

  'I was rather hoping this would be more of a challenge...' he said, strutting over to a sideboard, casually picking up a scalpel. 'But when it comes down to it, you're just a lost little girl...''

  Sarah glared at him, continued to fight for freedom as he took slow steps towards her, blade glimmering under the strip lighting. With each step he seemed taller, larger, and Sarah realised it was her that was shrinking, the scant few wrinkles on her hands disappearing as she shrank, became younger, her hair growing, curling past her shoulders, turning blonde as the years withdrew.

  'Just another Lucy...' he said, taking the scalpel to her clothes and slicing them open. 'Mummy and Daddy just letting the bad things happen. You'll cry and cry, but the bad things keep happening... until you can't cry any longer.' He put his face close to hers, his free hand lingering at her projections' young hip, Sarah could feel cold, dry fingers scraping across her smooth skin as he moved his hand across her pelvis.

  'Do you think you're a big scary monster?' she said, through gritted teeth, trying to hide the revulsion as his hand snaked up her belly. 'Some kind of boogeyman? Just because you kidnapped and tortured a bunch of helpless girls?'

  His eyes narrowed at her back-talk, and he raised the scalpel, in a quick movement slicing off one of her nipples. She held in the agony, tried to redirect it and shut it off, knowing it wasn't real. Her eyes welled with tears, but she wouldn't let them fall, wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

  'You know the difference between you and me?' she asked, through the pain. 'Other than you being completely insane...' she laughed, biding her time, taking deep breaths to keep the screams in. 'The difference between you and me, is that you're just one crazy fucking psychopath... but me… I've got friends!' A smile peeled up her face as she fired off a macro.

  Sarah seemed to be in pain, but even when the others tried to make a tactile connection to her, it wasn't working. The chatter flew back and forth, queries about how the connection worked, whether they could pull her away from Liam and reclaim her, or if it would hurt her in the process, maybe even kill her. They didn't have time to test the theory. Sarah's hand fired out to the left and grabbed Alex's wrist.

  Alex was pulled through the firewall Liam had set up, a fence of bones and dried blood, organs wound together with hair, exploding into dust as she burst through. She turned back to look at the hole made by her entry, and watched it reform, trapping them in Liam's head. All the information Sarah had gathered since being in his mind was downloading into her own, and Alex found herself projected at her friend's side, the two women staring down the killer.

  'That's not possible!' he grunted.

  Sarah rose to her full height, her full age, her nipple regrown and clothes putting themselves back together.

  'You're not as strong as you think you are.' Sarah said, as she and Alex walked towards him. 'Not as smart, certainly not the best. You're just a survivor.'

  She pulled up projections of his induction, his group of seven, his trials, as each of the other six started going insane, unable to handle the drugs, the tones or false memories.

  'You're the only survivor of your group because you gamed the system, pretended you weren't insane, and agreed to have yourself locked up under their care, spying on future experiments.'

  She projected him in his room at the facility, typing in the dark at mechanical keys, superimposing it with the dark room his mother put him in with a typewriter.

  'You're barely even a monster. You're just a tragic little boy who never learnt impulse control, and likes to rape and kill... '

  'That's not true!' he said, slicing at the women with the scalpel. 'I'll show you a fucking monster!' He stabbed Sarah in the gut over and over.

  'You can try and kill one of us,' said Alex. 'Maybe you'll get two of us. But you won't get us all.' She activated the macro Sarah gave her in the download, which she had been tinkering with whilst Sarah acted as a diversion.

  Pete and Farah were pulled in to Liam's head, endowed with the data packet as they breached the firewall of corpses. The hole they made was slower to rebuild, and Micah traversed the network connection after them.

  All five stood over Liam, Sarah's projected wounds healing.

  'What's happening?' he said, dropping the scalpel, falling to his knees, holding his projected head in agony. Thirteen little blonde girls appeared around him, twelve with bags over their heads, the one at the front, the original Lucy, taking his head in her hands.

  'You've been strutting and stabbing and showing off your shit.' said Sarah

  'And this whole time...' said Farah 'We've been digging around in your subconscious, taking the intel we need, setting up automations to delete everything.'

  'I am the experiment!' he screamed at her. 'I'm the best there is!'

  'Of your trial, maybe.' said Pete. 'But we're two generations on, two generations better, and not completely fucking insane, so that makes you kinda obsolete.'

  'You can't stop me. I'm a fucking machine! I control everything!' he spat back at them.

  'Can you pull up your mental or biological functions?' Alex asked, smiling as he found he was denied access to his own controls.

  'Superuser trumps arsehole.' said Micah, breaking down the remains of the grisly firewall constructed around Liam's mind.

  One by one, their projected bodies dissipated, leaving Sarah alone, standing behind the girls surrounding Liam.

  'Memory by memory, bodily function by bodily function, we're shutting this experiment down. Shutting you down. Say goodbye to Lucy... '

  He looked at the tiny blonde standing in front of him, her bloodshot eyes showing nothing but revulsion.

  'I love you Lucy...' he said, his hand touching her face, then slowly making its way down her body.

  Sarah didn't want to see where his hand was going, and wouldn't let that be the last thought he had before he was turned into a vegetable. She had Lucy push her brother away. He looked at her, dejected, and then puzzled, as a smile crawled across her thin, grey lips. One of the little blonde girls came from behind, pulling a polythene bag over his head whilst the others held him down. He struggled for breath, blood vessels popping in his eyes. Lucy stared at him as he gasped. He knew that expression. She wanted to see his the life leave his body.

  Sarah rejoined the others back in the living quarters, relinquishing her hand from Liam's skin, the connection severed, his brain and bodily functions shutting down one by one.

  'Do we have all we need?' asked Farah.

  'We don't have much choice...' said Sarah, projecting one of the last memories she stole from Liam.

  He had observed a group of NLI-09 subjects who attempted escape. The facility filled with gas, and soon after they were shot by twenty highly trained guards storming their exit point.

  'If APEX has its way, we're either leaving here in body bags, or like him...' she said, pointing to Liam.

  'I think he's shitting himself...' sai
d Pete. 'I vote we don't end up like him.'

  'So let's get Rob, get proof of the experiment, and get the fuck out.' said Alex.

  'Easier said than done...' said Micah, sharing live feeds from the NeuralNet. There were four guards posted outside the re-education room. Two were at the entrance to the testing area, another two positioned outside the living quarters, and pairs patrolling every hallway. Outside, a bus of additional guards had pulled up, and the men were being deployed around the base.

  'They want a fight?' said Sarah, with a smile. 'Let's give them a fucking fight.'

  12

  Whark knew something was wrong. In ten years of tests, she had seen the warning signs in varying degrees. With this trial as her final chance to prove the project, she thought it better to err on the side of caution. Using the ruse of a newly devised live fire test to get approval for the extra guards, and had ordered them to incapacitate any subjects seen walking around unaccompanied. She stuck a wad of angrily-chewed nicotine gum over the webcam and reconnected her terminal, linking with the A-Eyes in the living quarters, observing her playthings. They were all asleep. She eyed the feed suspiciously, and reached for her phone, going through the numbers until she found the one she didn't usually like to call, marked 'Butcher'. She only called him when things were truly fucked, and a reluctant part of her worried that the trial might be headed that way.

  “Whark.” the voice said, a dry rasp that sounded pleased to receive her call. Her communications with him had the tendency to result in a slaughter, and he loved a good cull.

  “I need you in the system.” she said.

  “Is that all?” he said, sounding disappointed.

  “For now.” she said, pausing as she realised he might need an incentive. “But there is the possibility of shechita down the line.” she used his term, the Hebrew for ritualised animal slaughter, knowing he'd appreciate it.

  “Very well.” he said. She could almost hear the smile on his lips, before a soft gasp as he connected to the NeuralNet.

  The images on her screen flickered, the A-Eye feeds displaying what was actually happening in the room in place of Micah's loop. The five subjects were standing by the door in silence, whilst her infiltrator lay unconscious in his bunk.

  “Thank you.” she said. “I'll be in touch if we require your... more specialised services.”

  She hung up and tapped her watch, opening a comm channel to the guards.

  “All units, converge on the living quarters.”

  She would have the shit beaten out of the subjects, relish watching every impact and wound, then have them completely wiped and fully re-educated. There was no time for baby steps, not now they seemed intent on revolt.

  The group stood at the door, Micah's hand to the lock, sharing the camera feeds with the others. Pete tracked the troop movements on the map, whilst Alex, Sarah and Farah switched over to hypersight, pumped adrenaline, took their fear and anxiety offline, oxygenated their blood and redirected strength in preparation for the fight.

  'They're coming.' said Pete. 'Ten seconds.'

  A silent countdown was shared across the group's interfaces, and Micah unlocked the door.

  'Three, two, one.'

  The women launched themselves at the guards, hypersight in full effect, seeing every movement around them in slow motion, but able to react in real-time. Sarah dodged the first guard's nightstick, reaching a hand into the gap between the body armour and his helmet, her fingers coming in contact with his neck, sending the order to sleep. She kicked him into the next guard, dodged another's blow and ripped his helmet off, throwing it at a further guard whilst knocking out the now-unprotected guard. Alex grabbed a nightstick coming for Sarah's head, kicked the guard back into a wall and pulled his glove off, tactile connection made, he was out cold. Her targeting system fired up and she threw the nightstick at a guard storming towards her, cracking his helmet, following it with a roundhouse to the side of his head that knocked him into another two guards.

  Farah didn't like violence, and chose to duck and weave between the guards, surreptitiously sending the sleep command whenever she saw an opportunity to touch scant bare flesh that came within reach. Micah watched from the door, keeping the connection with the NeuralNet, giving them a live camera feed of the guard's placement around them to see what hypersight couldn't. Pete took a run up and joined the fray, grabbing a guard's arm and swiftly being cracked in the side of the head with the nightstick from another he hadn't seen. He shook it off, took his pain receptors offline, and remembered he hadn't turned hypersight on. Wrenching the baton from the guard who struck him, he turned it on him, then another, pummelling them alternately in the helmeted faces before redirecting strength to punch through the plastic, sending the sleep command to their bodies through knuckle-to-face contact.

  Within two minutes, the fight was over. Guards incapacitated, Pete pulled shards of plastic from the helmet's screen out of his fist.

  'That's gonna hurt in the morning...' he said.

  'Everyone know where they're going?' Sarah asked.

  They did. The group waited for the greenlight as Micah sent a series of diversions through the A-Eye system, then scattered through the hallways.

  Whark watched the group destroy her reinforcements with mixed feelings. They were working as a team, completely in sync, better than any selection of subjects in previous trials. Yet, they were using the skills she had imbued to revolt, just as past groups had attempted. But none had ever got this far. She considered activating sonics through the building, but decided it was a waste of time. The rebels would likely deactivate their hearing before the effects could take hold. Instead, she called the orderlies, ordering them to “Get the fuck to the re-education room” and implored them do whatever it took to put a stop to the escape attempt. She knew it wouldn't do much good, but would take a small semblance of pleasure in the two giant idiots having the shit kicked out of them, as she had wanted to do for so very long. Whark stood from her desk, taking her coat from the rack, and began packing what few personal possessions she had into a bag. She knew this would only end one way, and wasn't going to let them have a chance to take all her secrets.

  Alex and Micah arrived at the re-education room, taking out the guards with ease. Micah had the NeuralNet unlock the door, and deactivated the tones before they entered, finding Rob unconscious on the gurney.

  'Rob?' said Alex. 'Can you hear me?' There was no response, no connection, just her own thoughts bouncing back.

  “Rob!” she said, out loud, slapping him across the face. Still no reaction.

  'Get in there.' said Micah. 'Wake him up from the inside.'

  Alex took Rob's hand in hers, and activated the tactile connection.

  Rob's mind was silent. Dark. No dreams, no thoughts, just emptiness. Alex looked around, tried to pull up his user interface to get systems back online, but she couldn't find it.

  'I'm in... but it's like he's an empty shell.' she told the others.

  'They wiped his mind.' said Micah, going through the re-education room logs. 'Wiped everything.'

  'So we leave him? If he's not himself anymore, then what can we do?' asked Farah.

  'We're not going to leave him.' said Sarah, defiantly. 'We're going to give him everything he's given us. Every conversation, every shared memory, everything we know about him. They took him from us, so let's put him back together.'

  From their positions across the facility, the group shared their memories of Rob. Every laugh, every tear. Their first thoughts of him, the first conversation they heard him have with Leah, the feelings they could all tell were blossoming between the two. Using Alex as a conduit, they fed the experiences back, where Micah's very basic understanding of the programming process and Farah's medical knowledge tried to allocate the information to the correct sector of the brain.

  'If we give the brain enough information, it should be able to sort it out and put it in the right place.' she said, not entirely convinced, but hiding her uncertainty
from the group.

  It had to work. They weren't willing to lose another one of their number to the experiment.

  Micah started the download of the operating system and user interface, taking his time rather than dumping it all in one go. He knew he had to be cautious, and wasn't going to risk destroying Rob's fragile neural pathways in the process.

  Pete and Farah found their way above ground, sneaking from building to building, and commandeered the bus from three unwitting guards. Neither of them had driven before, but Micah shared his driving experience with the others, and Pete fired the engine up, careening through the base, hitting anyone that tried to come at them.

  They were to do three more passes of the base, make sure every potential threat was taken out, and arrive at the entrance to the facility just in time for the others' exit.

  Sarah had made it through the hallways with little interference, and unlocked the door that the A-Eyes had marked as 'records room'. The camera feed had shown wall-to-wall filing cabinets that she knew must be a treasure trove of proof that would implicate APEX in no uncertain terms. She entered and went through their labels, from 'NLI-07' back through to 'NLI-00', three cabinets for each, five drawers tall. She knew she should look at the most recent trials, but found herself going to the farthest one on automatic pilot. If each experiment was a year's worth of research, then NLI-00 would have been the experiment her parents were a part of. With an unsure hand, she pulled the top drawer open. It fought her tug with a rusty squeak. She redirected all her strength in to the arm and tried pulling it again, flinging the drawer across the room. It was empty, rusted shut from lack of use.

  She pulled the next one open, it was also empty. Sarah tried drawers of the cabinets marked NLI-01, but it was the same, as were 02 and 03. She pulled drawer after drawer, flinging them across the room with increasing rage as each of them was bare. They hadn't used paper backups for years. This was either a decoy, or they just destroyed the paper records and didn't bother removing the cabinets. She went to the door, feeling defeated and touched the lock to exit, but found herself being pulled into the NeuralNet.