Gestalt Prime

by Ignacio Salome

  Deciding to take a second look at the brain in the glass container, he approached the rack. One cable lead to Alexia’s head. The other went into the patch panel connecting it to the room in the botanical research lab she had found earlier. But that was it. It still made no sense to put this cylinder there, close to the reactor when it was not interacting with it in any way. He stood there observing the brain with disturbed fascination. It was incredible how the mess of tangled flesh had been kept alive there for who knows how long.

  What if someone is actually there, cut off from the outside world with no sensory feedback or perception to tell them what happened, he thought to himself then shuddered when he tried to imagine such a scenario to find oneself in. Following the second cable connected to the cylinder, he faced Alexia. She was still peacefully sleeping on the floor. The bulky pressurized suit she was wearing kept her body vaguely concealed. Her black hair was messily tucked in down the pressure suit, since she had had to undo her ponytail to allow the helmet to lock in place. The first time he saw her dark blue glasses, they had been a reminder of the superior health benefits surfacers enjoyed.

  Joel stood there observing her when he heard the airlock mechanism working behind him. He turned around to see Solis and Diaz entering the antechamber. They were both brandishing assault rifles for whatever reason. He walked there to greet them but Solis stepped in and shoved him aside rudely.

  “What’s going on?” he asked with his usual no-nonsense tone.

  “I think she’s actually just fine,” Joel replied.

  The Captain walked closer to Alexia then looked back at Joel. With a quick motion, he brought up his rifle and slid a button near the trigger which Joel could only guess was the safety.

  “What did you do to her?” Solis asked, this time pointing the long gun at Joel’s face.

  “Woah, slow down there Captain,” Joel replied, raising his hands in the air. “Fast-convergence, remember? This is how it looks like.”

  Solis kept the gun pointed at Joel but looked down at Alexia, seemingly following the cable that ran from the brain container to the back of her head. He then relaxed, flipped the safety back in place and lowered the weapon.

  “You two should have waited for us,” Solis said then faced the female Citpol and ordered “Diaz, field exam.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied then approached them with a handheld device. She pulled a round sensor connected to a cable out of it then pressed it against Alexia’s neck. After a few seconds, she reported “deep sleep but borderline coma.”

  “Believe me, I tried,” Joel explained himself. “But she was in a hurry to get it over with, I couldn’t stop her.”

  The Captain didn’t seem to care much for the explanation and instead crouched down to check on Alexia.

  “It’s been about 7 minutes by the way. 3 or 4 more and she’ll be in trouble,” Joel added aloud to no one in particular. There was not much else for him to do there and the Citpol had taken over checking on Alexia so he walked back to the antechamber to continue documenting the equipment.

  “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Joel heard Diaz say then turned around to see Alexia had woken up and was being lifted to sit upright by the Citpol. Sighing with relief, he walked back to them.

  Alexia was sitting there with her legs on the side and leaning against Diaz. She took deep, labored breaths and her eyes seemed to stare into nothing, blinking very slowly every few seconds. Every now and then she would tilt her head to study her surroundings as if struggling to figure out where she was.

  “Controller Sommers, can you hear me?” Diaz asked. She had pulled a small flashlight from her medkit and was flashing it at the Controller’s eyes. Alexia reacted by laboriously looking away from the light and nodding. She slightly opened her mouth but did not manage to speak up then appeared to be reassured she recognized her surroundings and closed her eyes to rest her head against Diaz’s chest. The Citpol took off her glasses and put them aside.

  Joel crouched next to them and asked “have you completed fast-convergence? Can we disconnect the cable?”

  Alexia nodded slowly without opening her eyes. Joel reached for the back of her head and Diaz stared at him as if instinctively protecting her from a predator.

  “It’s okay, I plugged it in the first place. I know what I’m doing,” he defended himself. Diaz nodded in approval then he pulled the cable from the socket. Alexia shook slightly then continued resting. Officer Diaz looked down at her then patted her head as if trying to comfort her. Amazingly enough for Joel, the female Citpol had gone from looking like a hard, seasoned soldier into full maternal instinct mode. After putting back the titanium plate in place with its screw, he figured there was not much else he could do and stood up.

  “What now, how long is she going to be like that?” Solis asked him.

  “I don’t know. She mentioned it took around six hours to recover from a normal convergence but this is different. For all we know, that lethargic state could be permanent.”

  Solis nodded then faced Diaz. “We have about two hours while recon is finished. Wait 90 minutes then call on the radio if she’s still out. We’ll need to prepare for medevac if that’s the case.”

  “Yes, sir,” Diaz replied.

  “And you,” the Captain faced Joel again. “Do we have confirmation of successful convergence?”

  Joel realized he hadn’t checked. The thought had completely escaped his mind after seeing Alexia pass out. “I’ll do that right now,” he replied then walked back to the antechamber and sat in front of the computer terminal. Solis followed and stood behind him. It was uncomfortable that the officer had to check his every move but then again, he was the one holding the big gun. “Alright, let’s see…” he added then pressed a key combination that brought up the Citadel network login screen. Joel tried his mainframe login credentials and right away the main power routing status screen showed up. He observed it looked much like the one he was accustomed to back home.

  “So you’re in?” Solis asked impatiently.

  “Yes, as long as I can get to the management GUI, at least I can start troubleshooting.”

  “Continue,” the Captain said without moving from his spot.

  Joel nodded then navigated the tridimensional diagrammatic representation of the reactor, its support subsystems and the many power feeds protruding out of it. As his briefing had suggested, most systems were intact and been simply turned off. Testing for the effectiveness of the terminal controls, he attempted to power on main lighting but nothing happened. When he examined the error log, he found the operation had been blocked. Apparently, the Controller onsite had to authorize it.

  “See here?” Joel said, pointing at the error with his right index. “Pretty much all operations were locked by Controller Garland when she was alive, there’s not much I can do.”

  Solis nodded then pulled a small tablet from a pocket on the side of his pressurized suit. From its small size and plentiful anti-shock padding, Joel concluded it was a military grade model. The Captain tapped on it for a couple seconds then showed him the screen. “Try that,” he commanded.

  The tablet screen displayed a single line of code whose syntax Joel was not familiar with. He brought up the command line window and typed it in one character at a time. By looking at the verbs in it, its purpose appeared to be to enable a data construct identified as a daemon. Joel pressed Enter then the command line window went away. They both looked at the screen for a moment then a new window popped up to notify them the command had been unsuccessful. Solis sighed in frustration then went back to the reactor chamber and stood next to Diaz.

  “Call me as soon as she is able to communicate properly. I’m going back to supervise the shelter sweep,” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Diaz replied.

  “And keep an eye on him.”

  Diaz nodded and glanced at Joel who rolled his eyes and simply returned to focus on his sketches. Solis walked back past him then put on his helm
et and exited through the airlock. On his sketchbook, Joel noted the size and design differences between the reactor there and the one back home. The lack of any elaborate control terminals next to it was still a mystery. From his history classes, he recalled that Angeles Citadel had served as the template from which the others had been built in the five years that followed the sync incident. The reactor back home had been the first working prototype so this might very well be a later, more advanced version that did not need a large crew to operate. He was about to write down the fact this reactor lacked the indescribable need to reach for it than the one back home had but then decided against it. His notes were probably going to be reviewed once they were back and suggesting any sort of supernatural nonsense in them would be a sure way to get transferred out to another department. He then turned the page and wondered which detail to capture next. He had drawn the antechamber, the reactor, the cylinder with the brain in it and the two equipment racks. There was not much else to document without root access to the computer system. Without much thought, he ran a horizontal line on the lower half of the page, then a section of a circle on the right. To the left, he outlined two rectangles standing up and next to them, the vague silhouette of two persons sitting on the floor. It wouldn’t be considered factual documentation but for some reason, it still felt appropriate to draw the scene of Alexia’s recovery.

  Lost in pencil strokes, he noticed soft murmuring coming from the reactor chamber. He stood up to look out the antechamber and saw Alexia now sitting on her own. Diaz was still there next to her and they were talking to each other. Joel couldn’t help but smile in relief. He put down the pencil then joined the two women who looked up. Alexia smiled weakly at him.

  “Hey, Joel,” she almost whispered.

  “Controller,” he said, nodding.

  “Thanks for your help earlier.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he replied, returning the smile.

  “Do you want to try and stand up now?” Diaz asked her. Alexia nodded then the soldier stood up and ran her arm behind her back then stood up slowly. “Grab a chair,” the Citpol commanded Joel who went back to the antechamber and rolled one from the desk where the computer terminal was and positioned it behind Alexia for her to sit down. Diaz then rolled Alexia out of the chamber and into the slightly quieter antechamber. The soldier went back and talked on her radio.

  “Feeling better now?” Joel asked Alexia.

  “A little bit, thanks for asking,” she replied.

  “Alright,” he said then Diaz stepped back in the antechamber.

  “The Captain is busy,” she said. “Controller, can you help Joel figure out how to restart power routing?”

  “Of course,” Alexia said then looked at the computer screen. Joel wasn’t sure if she was still too weak to reach for the keyboard since she just sat there staring at it in silence.

  “Have you tried enabling the daemon?” she then finally asked.

  “Yes, but the operation failed with a generic error that didn’t help much,” he replied.

  “Okay,” she said then went back to stare at the screen. Diaz stood behind them with her arms crossed.

  What felt like several minutes passed by without Alexia reacting and Joel wondered what exactly was she doing just staring at the screen. “Are you sure you’re recovered? Maybe you still need more time?” he asked.

  “I’m okay, just give me a moment.”

  “Okay,” he said. A minute or two more passed and he was beginning to lose his patience. “You know, it could be a permissions issue, maybe I can check for that,” he added, hoping to contribute. Alexia didn’t react.

  “Uhm…” she mumbled. “Have you tried the… “

  “The what?”

  “Shut up, I’m trying to keep up!” Alexia exclaimed all of a sudden.

  “I’m sorry,” Joel said, surprised by the uncalled for outburst.

  “No, not you,” she said almost apologizing then continued to stare at the screen. Joel then realized she was trying to focus on something, as if listening to a recording. Could be she was accessing voice logs or some other form of audio stored in her stemlink.

  “Okay, try the… uhm… permissions crypt?” she said. “Oh script, permissions script.”

  “Yeah let me check,” Joel replied then typed some commands as he wondered if the Controller was going to be any help. He pressed Enter and waited for the results. “It’s not that,” he added when a new error popped up.

  Alexia shook her head then looked down and continued to listen to something. Or someone.

  “I can’t do this,” she then whispered. “Well, find a way and leave me alone, I can barely focus as it is.”

  Diaz looked at Joel and motioned with her hand, asking what was going on. Joel was just as confused so he simply shrugged at her.

  “Joel,” Alexia then said, looking up.

  “Yes?”

  “Get the auglens from your backpack.”

  “What? How did you know I have one of those?”

  “I just do. Go get them, please.”

  Joel nodded and went to pick up his backpack he had left next to the equipment racks in the main chamber. When he stepped back, Diaz was rolling Alexia away from the screen towards the back of the antechamber then reclined the seat back so she would be more comfortable. He then sat again in front of the computer and pulled the small wooden box out of his backpack. The battery indicators built into the side of the auglens reported a full charge.

  “What now?” he asked, facing Alexia who was back asleep. Unsure of what to do next, he examined the delicate piece of hardware that looked more like a pair of sport glasses than the complex troubleshooting tool it was. He then saw the connection indicator light was blinking. A wireless connection was being initiated to link with them and he had to push a button to accept it. He looked around for any device that would be attempting the connection but the only one that could was the computer terminal and he didn’t see anything on the screen that suggested that was the case. Perplexed, he pushed the button then put them on. The heads-up display in the auglens powered on and the usual diagnostics block of text scrolled rapidly before his eyes. At the end, he was prompted to accept a firmware upgrade. Chuckling at the absurdity of the situation, he pushed a button on the side to comply. The auglens then showed a progress bar and the upgrade started. It only took a few seconds for the bar to fill up and the device to turn off then back on by itself.

  “So, what’s going on?” Diaz asked from behind.

  “If only I knew,” he replied, turning back at her. At first, the outline of the silhouette standing next to the Citpol officer looked like a display artifact in the auglens feed then it resolved into a human shadow rendered by its primitive graphics engine. Puzzled, Joel stood up and looked past Diaz to observe it carefully. Diaz turned to look at the same point in space then looked back at Joel in confusion.

  “Okay, whatever it is you’re doing, you have to stop now,” she warned Joel but he didn’t care. The shadow was now moving, or it was moving as best as the rudimentary graphics engine in the auglens would allow. It walked past Diaz then literally stood next to him.

  “Keep calm,” a voice in the auglens earbud instructed Joel. It was a female voice that appeared distant from the volume and distortion of the old device. “Or else Diaz will think you’re losing your mind.”

  “Who are you?” Joel asked then he pulled off the device from his face just to confirm it wasn’t his imagination. Then he put them back on and saw the shadow had resolved into a clearer rendering of a woman. Her facial features were kept vague by the green low resolution display matrix of the auglens which had been designed for displaying text not tridimensional objects. Strangely, he could make up she was wearing a lab uniform that looked very similar to the one Alexia had worn on the ride there.

  “Who are you talking to?” Diaz inquired. She appeared to be alarmed by his erratic behavior.

  “Oh, this thing,” he replied, chuckling. “I forgot a
bout it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s just a virtual personal assistant built into the glasses. Sometimes she pops out of nowhere into my field of vision and startles me.”

  “Good,” the voice in the auglens said.

  “Why did Alexia tell you put them on then?” Diaz further inquired.

  “I don’t know,” Joel replied, faking ignorance. “Maybe she realized I had one of these and my assistant would help me figure this out.”

  Diaz appeared to not be pleased by the explanation but didn’t inquire any further.

  “Look,” Joel said, looking at her. “I think I can figure this out but not if I have someone pressuring me.”

  The soldier shook her head in frustration then walked next to Alexia and sat down in the last available chair. “Alright, you got about an hour.”

  Joel nodded then pressed random keys to make it look like he was working on it.

  “I understand you can’t talk to me,” the voice continued. “Just follow my instructions. Open the command prompt again.”

  He nodded and brought up the screen. Without waiting for her he typed ‘who are you?’

  “Good idea,” she said. “The auglens is equipped with two frontal cameras. I can see what you see.”

  ‘I figured. Who are you?’ he replied, now using the command line as a chat window. On the left corner of his field of view, he saw movement. When he turned in that direction, the woman was standing there with her arms crossed. She had long hair and now after careful observation, he noticed she vaguely resembled Alexia. Only without the glasses.