Harmonics: Rise of the Magician (Harmonics Series Season One)

by Chris Snelgrove

  Sam couldn't help but feel sorry for the officer. He didn't have the training for something like this. Maybe he had called the real security. If they could just get here in time.

  The man's answer surprised her. "We've both got our jobs to do and we both can't have any witnesses. So maybe I should remove them."

  In a blur, the man swung his arm around. Two shots shattered the silence and scattered the goons. Everything moved so fast that Sam wasn't aware, didn't really know what was happening. Confused, she reached down and felt her chest. Pain burned through her. She was growing weak…so weak. She couldn't stand up anymore. At first, she thought she had seen the officer's gun smoking slightly, or maybe it was the light. She saw fuzzy images of men being tossed around the room. She felt herself fading as pain and darkness took over.

  A guard…he came to help us…why do you look so familiar?

  She couldn't hear the other men yelling any longer. A blurry security guard stepped into her view, directly under one of the hazy lights in the ceiling, casting his shadow over her. She thought she saw him remove items from his jacket and…. Sam knew no more.

  MESA Labs

  Time: One week after the start of the college semester

  Scene: MESA Labs main entrance

  The beefy looking man behind the desk continued to scrutinize the identification summary on his screen. He looked up at the small gray-haired man in front on him and then back down to the screen. The small man looked around nervously, hoping to find a familiar face. He was just about to tell the guard to forget it, that he must have come to the wrong building, when Kingston strode out of the security doors behind the desk and up to the Professor.

  "Good morning, Professor. I'm glad to see you made it to our cozy home."

  "Oh, Mr. Kingston. I'm glad…well, I was beginning to wonder if I had the right place at all," replied the Professor.

  "Yes, you are definitely in the right place, Professor. As soon as we finish logging your credentials into our security matrix, I'll give you a tour of the facilities." Kingston glanced towards the beefy guard, who nodded and handed him an ID card.

  "Good, good. Here is your temporary badge, Professor. You'll need to use it until we can get you wired up." Kingston handed the Professor the badge as he escorted him to the security doors.

  "Wired up?" inquired the Professor.

  "Just a phrase we toss around here. You see, our security uses state-of-the-art biometric locks, including rapid DNA scanning and encrypted RFID proximity authentication. We took your DNA at the desk from the epithelials you left on the desktop and coded them into our system. Later we'll get you fitted with one of these."

  Kingston held up his right wrist and pointed to the faintest of scars. The Professor had to lean in close to see the very faded dot right above the area that Kingston was pointing to.

  "And what is that?" asked the Professor.

  "It's our RFID chip, designed and produced all in house here at MESA. The head of our interface lab has a lot of neat little gadgets that the company takes advantage of."

  The Professor's face grew a little apprehensive.

  "Oh don't worry, its painless and so small you'll never notice it. It samples the DNA surrounding it and then transmits the coded data to the receivers. The radio used is pretty limited, so it only transmits your credentials when in close proximity to a security station here on the grounds. For now you can just use your badge. It takes a few hours for your profile to load through the matrix, so we'll get you wired after the tour."

  The Professor's apprehension ebbed slightly as they continued down the hallway.

  The two came to a large sealed door with another guard station off to the side. The Professor was so busy staring down the various offshoots and hallways that when he saw the tall, slender strawberry-blonde goddess standing at the desk he let out an audible gasp. She was dressed in a version of the security uniform that the front desk guard had on, but noticeably different. It was almost as if this one had been tailor made to accentuate the woman's ample curves. She looked up from her screen at the noise, appraised the Professor, and then glanced at Kingston.

  "Ah, what a happy coincidence. Professor, I'd like to introduce our head of security, Ms. Green. Ms. Green works very hard to make sure all of us are safe here at MESA."

  "How do you do, Ms. Green? Is it normal for employees to be unsafe working here?" asked the Professor.

  The woman smiled a knowing and somewhat flirtatious smile. The Professor only grasped the knowing half of it.

  "I run a very tight ship here, Professor. The safety of our employees and the company's assets is paramount. Aside from the secured areas of the grounds, you will hardly know that we are even here." Again the smile crossed her lips.

  "Yes, well, Professor, you will be seeing more of Ms. Green later when you get wired, but for now let me show you your new home, so to speak." Kingston glanced at the clock on the wall, nodded to the woman, and then led the Professor off. He did not, however, notice her following him with her eyes as he passed through the security doors. Kingston led the Professor down another hallway with the same offshoots and conjoining corridors as the first.

  "My goodness, a person could get very lost in this place," remarked the Professor.

  "We've thought of that as well," replied Kingston as he moved over to a screen on the wall. As soon as he approached, the screen flashed a holo-message, "Welcome Kingston. You are in corridor 1 Alpha, section 8. How may I assist you today?"

  Kingston motioned to the screen. "Again, the head of the interface lab's idea. Each section of the grounds has these terminals lining the hallways. From here you can access unsecured mail or make a non-private vid call, among many other things. You can also send a message to an employee and the terminal matrix will find that employee anywhere in the grounds and flash the screen nearest them to give them your message. Everything is read from your RFID so the system automatically knows who you are."

  The Professor eyed the screen. "So if I do get lost, I just need to remember someone's name to call and come find me," he said with a laugh.

  "Even better Professor," Kingston stood in front of the screen. "Directions to the Professor's lab please."

  The screen projected a hologram of the MESA logo that then morphed into an arrow flowing through a series of hallways and turns until it terminated at a point on the map. The map continuously changed from 2D to 3D and back again, showing the path.

  "Now watch as we walk down the hall. The screens that we pass will light up with our next direction as my RFID transmits my identification," explained Kingston as he and the Professor continued walking down the hall.

  To his surprise, the Professor saw each of the screens they approached flash with an arrow pointing the way they should go. Projected animation accompanied the screens where a turn was required, showing the two when to head left or right.

  The Professor was very excited to see the next screens and eventually got a little ahead of Kingston. As he was making a right hand turn Kingston called out to him.

  "Professor, one moment. I wanted to make a quick stop to show you something I think you will find interesting."

  The Professor popped back around the corner as Kingston walked up to a large secured doorway.

  "Each section of the grounds is coded to that employee's security level. I wanted you to be able to see this place with me, as your clearance isn't set yet."

  The door opened and a slight breeze from the negatively pressurized area behind it swept outwards with an accompanying "whoosh".

  The two men walked through the entryway into a brightly lit lab filled with a host of terminals and personnel working away. The Professor saw glass enclosures with people inside them performing the strangest of tasks and making a myriad of humorous looking faces in the process. There was a man hooked up to what looked like an EEG with wires streaming from his head. He looked as if he was attempting to win a staring contest with a robotic arm that was gripping the lid of a jar. Anot
her person had a very large backpack of metal, antennas, and wires and was paying attention to a small remote control car that was zooming about the room. Yet another had a headband on and was staring at a projected chessboard as unseen masters played out a game.

  The Professor continued to look around, completely forgetting about his tour guide. He moved from enclosure to enclosure, watching and wondering what these subjects were doing. It wasn't until he bumped into a lab tech that he remembered where he was and whom he was with.

  "Oh pardon me, I am so sorry dear," said the startled Professor. "I didn't see you there. I was so fascinated by what was happening to that man that I completely forgot to watch where I was going. In fact, I seemed to have wandered off a bit. Do you happen to see Mr. Kingston around?"

  "Over here, Professor," called Kingston from across the room. "I'd like you to meet someone."

  The Professor again apologized to the lab tech and walked toward Kingston and a taller man, who by his demeanor was very experienced and wise, but didn't look a day over forty.

  "Professor, I would like you to meet the head of our Interface Lab, Charles Jameson."

  "Please Professor, call me CJ. All my friends do." The taller man greeted the Professor with a firm handshake.

  "Well, CJ, I'm pleased to meet you. Do you often make friends of strangers so quickly?" asked the Professor congenially.

  "Forgive me, Professor," said the taller man smiling. "I am a closet fan of your work. Have been since you began it. I've read every paper you've published and I watch every lecture you have on the feeds. I guess I feel that I know you already."

  "Oh, well now I am the one at the disadvantage of not knowing you so well. But from what Mr. Kingston has shown me, just with your contributions to the security around here I do say that I am intrigued already by your work. Tell me, what are all these people doing that had me so engrossed?"

  The taller man smiled and motioned for the Professor to come with him to the glass enclosures. "Here at the interface lab we work on perfecting the synergy created by connecting the human brain to an external processor. These trials you see here are all iterations of types of computer/human interfaces or CHI's that we have developed."

  The three men started to cover the same route as the Professor's previous solo trek around the lab.

  "This subject here is interfacing with the robotic arm to give it commands to unscrew the jar. Here a modular interface is assisting this subject to send radio waves to control the car. It's been doing left hand circles for 20 minutes now, so we're trying to get the darn thing to change its direction. We just can't seem to find the right frequency."

  "What was that? Did you say frequency?" asked the Professor.

  "Yes, we tuned the pack to emit different frequencies that match with different simple commands. Forward, backward, right, left. However, it seems that the subject is having difficulty adjusting his focus as the car is doing dizzying circles."

  "And what about this man staring at the chessboard?" inquired the Professor.

  "Not staring Professor, playing. This is one of our most advanced iterations. And one of our most gifted subjects." The three men watched as virtual pieces were moved back and forth across the floating board.

  "Extraordinary!" exclaimed the Professor. "Tell me, do you have any contracts for this work? I mean, who funds your research?"

  Jameson was about to answer when Kingston cut him off. "Mostly pharmaceutical companies. Although we do have large contracts with various defense departments from across the collective, a large part of our research is self-funded as well. MESA labs has quite the portfolio and we've done well over the years."

  "Most interesting. The university is just now getting interested investors to look at my research. It was most exciting."

  "Yes, well you are in for a rollercoaster ride here at MESA," Kingston replied. "You'll be a kid in a candy store with all the resources and personnel you'll need to bring to fruition your passion for Harmonicum research."

  "Yes, well I am looking forward to furthering Harmonicum. So many possibilities." The Professor turned again to look at the virtual chessboard. "I dare say, Dr. Jameson – I mean CJ – that Harmonicum would be of a great worth to your work here in your lab."

  Kingston sharply met Jameson's eye.

  "Yes, well I am sure that it would. Perhaps in the future we could harmonize the frequencies of our efforts," Jameson replied.

  The Professor turned around slowly to look at Jameson.

  "Well, Professor, we have a lot of ground to cover. We should get you to your new lab. Jameson." Kingston nodded curtly and whisked the Professor off.

  "It was nice to meet you. Thank you for the tour," called the Professor as he and Kingston exited the lab.

  A few hallways and corridors later, the terminal screens showed they were approaching the Professor's lab. Just before they arrived, they passed a woman entering the largest secured door that the Professor had seen thus far.

  "My goodness, that lab looks enormous," said the Professor, craning his neck to see past the closing door. "Looks like a whole array of human and animal trials. Could we tour this lab just for a moment? It looks fascinating."

  "Unfortunately no," Kingston quickly replied. "That lab has the highest security clearance of all the labs on this wing. Our contracts dictate that all personnel who work or even merely visit are vetted and cleared by the contract holders. Perhaps when you're settled in a few weeks or months, we can arrange a tour."

  The Professor watched as door slowly closed. "Yes, I would appreciate that very much, Mr. Kingston."

  The two made a few more turns and finally arrived at another secured door. Kingston showed the Professor how to operate his security badge and temporary DNA scan. The door swung open and they walked into the new lab. Lab techs were running around calibrating instruments, working with technicians who were setting up large racks of equipment, and generally looking busy.

  The Professor noticed that the area was divided into three main sections. He could see an office section complete with open area workspaces and a few closed offices, a main lab area that took up the majority of the space, and a third area consisting of sealed experiment bays.

  "Amazing. This is impressive indeed," marveled the Professor. His eyes swept the room, taking in the various areas, machines, equipment racks, terminals, monitoring interfaces, and all the people. "This is at least three times the size of my university research facility."

  "Actually, about four times. There is an additional set of experiment bays off to the right there," indicated Kingston.

  The Professor's eyes grew wide. "And the staff? Certainly all these people are just getting things in order. How many will stay once the lab is set up?"

  "All of them, Professor. Each one of these employees is at your disposal to further your work. We provided you with a team of lab techs, analysts, experiment coordinators, assistants, and technology managers. All of their previous assignments have been retired so there will be nothing that will divert their time from you."

  The Professor turned slowly towards Kingston, a look of astonishment and giddy anticipation on his face.

  A small wiry man approached Kingston and the Professor. "Ah, Kingston. So good to see you. This must be the great Dr. Thurman." The man extended his bony hand to the Professor.

  "Professor, this is your head research assistant, David Warrick," said Kingston.

  "Very nice to meet you David. Please, Professor is just fine. I've grown accustomed to it over the years of teaching," said the Professor, shaking the young man's hand.

  "Likewise. Everyone around here just calls me Warrick. Shall we introduce you to everyone else in the lab?" Warrick turned to address the room. "Excuse me, everyone." All of the employees in the lab immediately stopped what they were doing and all turned to look at Warrick. "I would like you to meet Dr. Eli Thurman, the head of MESA's new Harmonics Lab."

  Big Sister

  Time: Three weeks into the Professor's employ
ment at MESA Labs

  Scene: Harmonics lab

  "These results are most impressive, Warrick." The Professor reviewed numbers as they scrolled down a screen. "Far better than I had hoped for. And the work on the interval frequencies?"

  "Just as impressive, Professor. The interval team is making great strides in documenting the passive oscillators that show promise. We should have a list for your review by the end of the week." Warrick stood in the Professor's office, delivering his daily update. "And I'm happy to report that the modifications on the spectral array seem to be giving us a more accurate reading."

  "Very good, all very good, Warrick. I had no idea that this much could be accomplished in such a short amount of time," mused the Professor.

  "Well, it seems that we have a good partnership between your mind and MESA's resources. Is there anything else you need an update on, Professor?"