“Sorry, man, just slipped.” Kaden forced the memory of her eyes to the back of his mind.
“Keep her steady.” The nurse put a hand on the board Aren was strapped to. “She doesn’t need another bump on the head.”
They managed to lay her down somewhat gently on the small table-bed in the office, paper crinkling as her weight pushed the board against the plastic. The room smelled of disinfectant and alcohol with a faint hint of cotton. Kaden wrinkled his nose as he thought of his hospital visit not long ago and the craziness that had followed him since.
The nurse dismissed them back to class as soon as they put Aren down. The other boy shot off in the wrong direction, but Kaden wanted to stay as long as possible.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“She’ll be fine. Just fainted. Not enough skin on her bones, no wonder.”
“I was just worried about her is all.” Kaden tried to sound as sincere as possible and found more true sincerity than he expected.
The nurse’s look softened. “She’s your friend then?” She started to undo the Velcro bands that held Aren to the board.
“Yes, Ma’am.” He lied and felt shame run through him for the pretense. Why do I care?
“Okay, you can stay for a while, but—”
Aren screamed and writhed on the table.
The nurse jumped at Aren’s spastic body. “Help me. She’s going to fall off!”
The nurse grappled with kicking legs, leaving Kaden to wrangle with flailing arms. He caught them and put his weight down, placing his chest on hers in order to keep her from falling.
The warmth of her body beneath him made him blush, so he tried to focus on her face instead of the softness beneath his chest. Her eyes shot open, but they fluttered around wild and unseeing.
“Aren. Aren.” He tried to get her attention. Her two-toned eyes locked on his and he watched as humanity flowed back into her. She even smiled, mouthing a thank you before her eyelids slid closed once more. She calmed and the seizure passed, but she continued to shiver uncontrollably.
“Go to the office! Tell them to call 911!” The nurse yelled at him.
Kaden pulled himself from Aren and ran to the front office. When he returned, the nurse caught him at the door. She looked shaken, her shoes splattered with something that smelled terrible, but she smiled.
“She’s okay now, but a bit of a mess. I don’t think she’ll be wanting any company at the moment. Go back to class.”
She stopped his protest with a look. “Don’t worry. An ambulance and her parents will be here soon enough. I’m sure they’ll keep you informed.”
Kaden had no other arguments and he didn’t know her parents anyway. He nodded and headed back to class to wait for word about a friend he didn’t really have. Strange. I’m more worried about this stranger than I’ve been for anyone else in my life, apart from mom.
Tracy jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug when he arrived. The thin veil of order the teacher had managed to establish shattered as everyone questioned him at once about Aren’s well-being.
Wow. She has people who really care about her. Even the teacher seemed more interested in his story than continuing class. Kaden indulged them with all the details he felt safe sharing.
Tracy grabbed his hand when he mentioned Aren’s seizure. Despite himself, Kaden didn’t pull away. Her palm warmed against his, but he couldn’t help but wonder how the cool, slender grip of another’s hand would feel in its place.
Chapter 4: Brain Spikes
James watched from the town car as the buildings thinned out, replaced with miles of sand and sagebrush that rippled in the desert heat. The sagebrush became sparse and then scraggly bushes disappeared too. All that remained was a blinding expanse of white sand that forced James to squint even through dark tinted windows.
What have I got myself into? It’s a strange place to build a pharmaceutical lab, in the middle of the salt flats. Mom would kill me if she knew I’m planning on living out here, so far from anything normal. She’ll be bugging me about grandkids even more once she finds out.
That made him think of Stacie, his boss at the coffee shop he’d been stuck at for the past three months. After his book had tanked and tanked hard, no one had wanted to hire him in his field and he’d taken anything he could get to pay the bills. Stacie is beautiful…pink hair, tattoos, and all. At least it was pink last time I saw her. She changes it so often.
James had ignored the flirtations. She’d been his boss after all, but now he wondered if he should’ve just gone for it. Now I’ll never know. That option’s gone. Mike had showed up with a job offer James couldn’t pass up and he’d tossed his apron on a counter and walked out without much thought. Didn’t even get a chance to see her after I quit. The last week had been a whirlwind of interviews, paperwork, and packing.
The car stopped at a guard box. The driver flashed a security badge and the car moved on through the gate past two sets of razor-wire fences. The car rolled to a second stop in front of a squat, brown brick building with only four tiny windows. The building looked very little like the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate James expected, more like a small town clinic that had lost all its funding.
“This can’t be it.”
The driver glanced back at him. “It’s more impressive inside.” He turned off the engine and hopped out. “Coming, sir?”
James cracked the door and blinked at the morning sun reflecting off the white sand. He stepped out into the desert heat. A salty, metallic tang that he could almost see rose in waves from the scorched white sand, burning his nostrils as it climbed inside him and into his lungs.
The driver unloaded the luggage as James coughed violently. “You get used to that too.” He cracked a smile and pointed at the rusty steel doors. “Go on in, sir. You don’t need to worry about your personal effects. I’ll take them to your quarters.” The man waved away the tip James proffered. “That’s not necessary, sir. Omegaphil does not pay poorly, even just a lowly driver.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Okay, thanks.” James shoved the bill back into his pocket with a shrug.
“My pleasure, sir. Good luck.”
The badge allowed James through the locked and heavy security doors. He stepped into what looked like the waiting room for a dentist office except for the two large, armed guards. They just nodded toward an elevator. Friendly place.
A thin, trembling male voice filled the elevator as soon as he entered. “Welcome, Dr. Iverson. We’ve been expecting you. We’ll see you shortly in Section Five.”
The elevator hummed as pulleys and hidden machines carried him downward. The doors opened with a ding on the impossible, a maze of bright-lit corridors that led off in all directions. Mike and a balding man in a white lab coat, who introduced himself as Dr. Stephens, waited for him in a circular lobby by the elevator.
Mike shook his hand and gave him the usual charming Mike smile. “So good to see you again, buddy. We’re gonna have so much fun here, you and I.”
“Yes, lovely. Shall we?” Dr. Stephens glanced at his watch. “We have much to do before you get started.”
Mike laughed. “Doc Stephens here is a bit of a wet blanket, but a good egg down deep, aren’t you Doc?”
The balding man slicked a wisp of hair back over his head where it did little to hide the shiny and hairless dome. “Not really.” But a hint of a smile betrayed him. “We must go.”
Stephens led them down a corridor to the “Neural Interface Room” according to the plaque on the door.
Dr. Stephens excused himself. “Mike will introduce you to the neural interface process. I have some pressing business with Vander Carlson.”
James thought back to his interview with Vander just a few days ago, thinking of a charcoal pinstriped suit and shark-like eyes. The man unnerved him. “Good luck,” he called after Stephens.
A chuckle answered him and James thought he heard Stephens mutter that he would need all the luck in the world.
Mike opened the door. “After you, old friend.”
James took three steps inside and froze. “What’s that?” He pointed at the machine in front of him. “It looks like some unholy combination of electric chair and an iron maiden.”
White, sterile walls ran the length of the room, making it appear too large to hold just the vile-looking chair and a computer console. James expected his voice to echo, but it didn’t.
“What’s going on, Mike?”
“You read the papers, signed the wavers. You need the neural interface installed before you can start work.” Mike walked over and sat down in the contraption.
James grimaced as Mike lowered himself onto the sleek metal chair. “And the evil brain spike machine installs the neural interface. What? Like I’m a car getting a new stereo?”
“Come on, James. It isn’t as bad as it looks. Quick, relatively painless, and then you’re off to work in Section Six, with me and the fun toys Omegaphil has to offer. You’re either all in or all out at this point.”
Seriously, what have I gotten myself into?
Mike ran a hand back and forth along a polished stainless steel armrest. He pushed a button and kicked up his legs as a leg rest slid up beneath them. Despite the hard metal and leather restraints, Mike looked comfortable, the chair bent in sleek curves to fit his body and gleaming in the white of the room like a lazy-boy throne.
“Would you get out of that thing?”
“I’m trying to make it easier on you.” But Mike stood, walked over to a large smoky mirror, and picked at something in his teeth.
“Then start some actual explanations. Yes, I signed the papers, but I assumed the neural interface stuff was exterior, electrodes, brainwave scanners, something normal…ish.”
The chair stared back at James from the mirror with hundreds of dark blue eyes, glass circles running the length of the armrests and dotting the curved back. Small tubes wound away from the thing, weaving into a bundle, like nerves drawing closer to the brain. The bundled wires and tubes vanished through a hole in the ceiling, but not before traversing past a shining, metal dome. “This looks more invasive than anything I expected.”
James took in the metal dome that hung from the ceiling, thinking it vaguely resembled a hair dryer at a beauty parlor, but he doubted his grandma would set foot beneath the thing, no matter the reputation of the salon. It hung from a large, hydraulic arm, allowing it to move down on the segmented appendage like a scorpion’s stinger. Nope, Nana would be horrified.
James swallowed as his eyes ran along the inner curved surface of the dome. Pumps, lights, and electronic equipment pulsated there, alive with movement and activity. Two large spikes jutted from the dome, like upside-down skyscrapers. Each spike broke down into its own set of segments like a spider’s leg, able to move and bend at any angle.
James leaned against an immaculate wall. “What have you gotten me into, Mike?”
Mike pulled himself away from the mirror, giving up on whatever eluded him in his mouth. He put on his most charismatic smile, revealing the black poppy seed stuck high in his gums between two front teeth.
Normally James would have laughed, but he didn’t even smile. “What is this?”
Mike’s smile grew. “This is your dream job, the best thing that’s ever happened to you, to any of us.”
James took in the crazy grin and the gleam of joy in Mike’s eyes and began to wonder how many times his friend had been in the chair. How many alterations have they done to make him think this is a good thing? “Save me the corporate propaganda.”
“Okay, my old friend, let me explain things a bit better. I told you about the job, prehistoric genetic research for possible pharmaceutical applications, right?”
“Yeah, but you said nothing about this.”
“Until you signed the confidentiality papers I wasn’t allowed to tell you everything.”
“No kidding.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be doing plenty of your precious prehistoric genetics, but that’s just the beginning.” The gleam in Mike’s eyes burned brighter and he waved his hands faster as he spoke. “The main focus of our study is genetic manipulation of multicellular organisms in real time, James. Real time!”
“That’s impossible and you know it. Real time manipulation would require changing all the genes at once, which can’t be done at the macro level, not yet.”
“Impossible on a living animal, true. But what if you’re working with simulations, holograms? The firm we work for has the best scientists in all fields working here, from computer engineers to theoretical physicists. They’re a million times ahead of the rest of the world. We’ve got thousands of specimens fully mapped!”
James slid to the floor, his back against the wall. “Still impossible. Simulations are useful, but they can’t replace the real thing.” He paused as the rest of Mike’s statements sank in. “Thousands? Really? Why hasn’t it been in the news? Something that big?”
“I see you still do your heavy thinking on the floor. Come on, you saw where we are. We’re in the middle of nowhere, just desert, guards, and guns. It’s like something from a movie. Area 51, except better, without the slimy alien bits. We’re leaping into the future here. I couldn’t go back to beating chemicals with clubs, grunting, just hoping something happens. And, once you see what’s possible here, neither could you.”
“I don’t know, Mike.” James pointed at the chair and dome. One brain spike quivered as if in anticipation. “I mean, look at that thing! What does the chair o’death have to do with genetics?”
“I guess we did get a bit off topic. I forget how shocking this all looks at first.”
“Really? I think that thing may just haunt my nightmares forever.”
“Melodramatic much?” Mike laughed. “Okay, okay, it threw me for a loop too, but the benefits outweigh the risks. The machine implants a few organic microchips in your head, teeny tiny things. They allow you to use the box.”
He said “box” with more emphasis than one would expect from such a mundane word, but James ignored that for the moment.
“Chips…in my brain?”
“Don’t worry. They aren’t going to fry your brain or anything. They’re super small, like nothing you’ve seen before, made up of only a little metallic compounds, organic proteins, and carbon nanotubes. They’re then powered by your body heat and a chemoelectrical process that’s perfectly safe. Section Five’s all about nano-tech. I’ll have one of the guys show them to you. Not really my expertise, as you know. I prefer mammals over metal.”
James just shook his head, still sitting on the floor as Mike paced awkwardly in front of him.
Mike stopped and stuck out his hand. “Won’t you stand up? This is weird talking to you like this.”
James slapped Mike’s hand away. “You’re more than welcome to join me down here, if you’re that uncomfortable. How do these chips work?”
“Fine. I’ll stay standing.” He went back to pacing. “The chips link together over a wireless system and allow you to access the box.” Mike made his way over to the chair and thumbed an arm restraint. “It doesn’t hurt. They give you a mild sedative and local anesthetic. The computer scans you at all times. Those brain-spikes, as you called them, are laser guided. It’s safer than driving.”
“And what is this box thing you keep talking about?”
“It’s B. O. C. S. for Bio Organic Computer Simulation. BOCS for short. Cute, eh? It makes sense too once you see it. Okay, first things first. I’ll get permission to show you the BOCS and then you’ll be ready for your install.” Mike smirked. “Like a stereo upgrade.”
“And what if I say no?”
Mike leaned down close and whispered, glancing once at the one way mirror. “This is going to be the most amazing job you’ve ever had, believe me. But if you turn back now, you’re out for good. You don’t get to know anything more. You don’t get to see anything more. You never get to talk about any of this with anyone. This com
plex doesn’t exist, BOCS doesn’t exist, your friend, Mike, is working in remote parts of Asia. You don’t want to do that, do you?”
“So much secrecy. What have you gotten me into?”
“I saved you from that coffee shop. But, really, your book is what got them interested in you, Prehistoric Genetics, Unlocking the Code.”
James rolled his eyes.
Mike nodded. “I know, I know. Laughed at by the scientific community, but only because it’s way ahead of anyone else. They’re calling you a prodigy here. They would’ve brought you in with or without me. I did you a favor by providing a friendly face and all.”
James stared hard at the floor. He didn’t like the install idea, but he had to know more. After a long moment passed, he looked up. “Can you show me this BOCS thing first?”
“I’ll have to check.”
A beep came from a speaker above them and then a woman’s voice filled the room. “Mike, Dr. Iverson is authorized to see the BOCS before making a decision on his neural interface.”
“Thank you, computer, even though I already knew that.”
James laughed. “Computer? That wasn’t creepy at all.”
“More obnoxious than creepy. Aren’t you, computer?”
“Yes, Mike.”
“See, even she knows it.”
James smiled. Mike always made even the worst situations more fun. “Let’s go see this boxy thing already. You’ve been going on about it enough.”
Mike stuck out a hand once more to help his friend to his feet. “You’ll love it and you’ll understand why you’re here. Come on, buddy. Let’s show you the real wonder at the bottom of this odd rabbit hole.”
James held out the suit Mike pulled from a locker. Who ever thought of a white wet suit? So shiny too. He peeked inside and found the matte black interior he expected. The fabric slipped on easily and James tried on the matching gloves, hood, and booties. The hood resembled a Mexican wrestler’s mask with holes for his eyes, nostrils, and mouth.
James stretched and twisted inside the suit, the comfort surprising him. James had been diving a few times and found wet suits constricting and cumbersome. Even the tight hoodie didn’t leave him feeling as claustrophobic as he’d expected as it molded to the contours of his face.
The Crystal Bridge (The Lost Shards Book 1) Page 3