by P. S. Power
"You're welcome, Ben. You should come again soon. I look forward to seeing you."
"I'll try to do that. Nice meeting you." It was a bit strange treating machines like they were people, but the fact was that too many of them were AI anymore. For a long time, it had seemed like that would be the end of the world, machines becoming intelligent, but once it took place, most people had just kind of ignored it.
If your toaster had an AI, that just meant that it would keep finding ways to make toast better. At least until it learned to toss itself into your bathtub. Then humanity was probably screwed. On that day, his careful plan to be polite to everything might well pay off. Micha seemed to be of the same basic mindset. At least she'd been kind and friendly with Wall.
It took a bit to get the composite material harnesses off. They were a bit stiff, and he was probably going to have bruises on his thighs from jumping off like he did.
"So, Micha... Afraid of heights? So you fight that by flinging yourself off of them at random intervals?"
As she walked away, back toward the cabins, she glanced over her shoulder.
"Pretty much. My sense of fear has been turned way down. Drugs. I used to be scared of everything really. Now, not so much. Anyway, you..." She stopped and shook her head, then rolled her eyes. "See, I was about to offer you that blowjob, but you have someone waiting for you. Glenda. I'm going to bet you get nothing from her. Nothing! Which might be just as well, since you probably can't handle me yet."
For about ten seconds Ben felt a bit down, since he'd never gotten to do anything with a woman before, and Micha was cute on a level that he probably didn't really rate on his own merits. Then it occurred to him that she'd probably known that Glenda was coming back that evening, and would want to see him. If so, then the girl was teasing him without mercy or fairness.
Hopefully it meant she liked him for some reason, and wasn't just her being awful. That wasn't going to go over well, if he had to tell her to take a hike. She lived next door after all. He had a sinking feeling that it might end up with that kind of thing taking place. It was a bit sad, but he could get around a lot of that by not caring about sex. For the time being. That would be hard to beat, forever, but he could try.
Micha scurried and didn't stop at his cabin, which did have the promised Glenda there, along with a plate of cantaloupe. It was about the amount that he'd had for dinner earlier.
"Ben. I see you're making friends? Good. I have some news. From your test results?"
"Oh? That's fast. Do they say that I'm psychic?"
Instead of beating around the bush, the woman nodded, her brown hair bobbing a bit at the back. It was down, but that didn't really help her looks much. She was fine really, but just a little bit off. Like a female bodybuilder that took drugs to make her leaner and larger.
Unlike Micha, she didn't read what he was thinking however.
"Both sets. You don't have everything turned on that we can manage for you, but you seem to be carrying the set needed for telekinesis, which is rare. Moving things at a distance? There might be some tweaks we can do for that, which will let you actually use it." Then, as if she were suspicious, the woman patted the step next to her, and handed the plate of food over.
"Did... Micha mention anything about our psychic program?"
Taking a bite, Ben stalled for time. After all, he could tell what was coming, most likely. That didn't even take a precognitive. Glenda had been sent to try and get him to say yes to being psychic, and probably downplay the risks.
"Yeah. She thinks that it's driving her insane, and she isn't certain that doing all of this won't do the same to me."
Glenda looked away, the hint of a grimace on her, even from the back of her head. Not that he knew how that worked. It was true however. He felt a soft wave of angst from the lady.
"So she warned you off?"
Ben just went with the truth then.
"No. She seems to think that we should keep throwing people at this until it works, since it might be the only way, in the end. She kind of hinted that being able to be in the dark like I was could make a difference? Not that I understood how that works."
When she turned, Glenda still didn't seem happy. She smiled anyway.
"No one does. All we know is that of the ten or so people we've tried this on in the past twenty years, the ones that could stay in the deprivation room the longest do the best, long term. You... never broke. We pulled you out, since you'd have started really starving in about a week. We can get you in shape, so that wasn't needed. That means... Well, it could be that you just don't go down due to things like that. Most people can't handle being in there for longer than fifteen minutes, Ben. I mean that too. Forty is considered good. It's the isolation from sound like that. We need the input, even if only on our skin. Even deaf people can't take not getting that kind of input for long."
She didn't keep going on about that part, but seemed to be thinking about something else for a while. On purpose. In order to keep him, or possibly someone else from getting what she had planned. When she spoke, her words were different than he expected.
More wheedling and manipulative.
"The thing with this is that the government is running a program. It collects data and determines patterns. Like the ones they use to prevent minor crimes? Except that this one... It tells them nearly everything. In advance. If we can't beat that, then we might as well give up and simply accept that we're never going to be free. We... Probably won't be anyway. I don't know if that's really worth you losing your mind. I actually like Micha. She's a good kid. I was hoping that it would be her."
Ben nodded. He kind of liked her too, even if they'd only met the day before. Certainly she was nice enough that he didn't want to see her go insane.
"She still might be. Even she doesn't know it. Not that I do. I..." He didn't feel dismal he realized. Sore, from his easy climb, and tired, from the hunger and all that, but not depressed or sad. Not scared either. Going insane, that wasn't a mouse, after all.
Unless he lost it and started hallucinating them climbing all over his body as he tried to sleep. There might be another way, but it was possible that this was the one that would work. Psychic woo-woo. Because the crazy train had already left the station.
"Let's do it? Even if I can only last a few years, I might be able to do something inside that time frame. Then you'd have to kill me, but..." That part just made sense to him, though Glenda went wide eyed.
"What? Why would we do that? We take care of our people. That's the Cymed way."
He nodded then, and ate more of his sweet orange colored melon. That he thought of it as tasting sweet was strange, but it really did.
"You can't really afford to have people running around telling everyone's secrets here, can you? You have spies already. If one of them hears the wrong thing..."
Instead of telling him to shut up, which Ben came to on his own, the woman shook her head a little.
"It's a balancing act. We aren't giving up our humanity in this though, Ben. We can't. If we do, then nothing we're fighting for, or will be, will have any meaning. It's bad enough that we..." She stopped dead, and didn't go on. Whatever they were dealing with it didn't seem the new kids got to know all about it. Which just made sense.
"I hear you, I think. Anyway, what's the plan now? Turn up to medical in the morning and start on whatever training?"
She paused and let her head move back and forth a bit.
"One of those. We can get you going on the change battery, if you're in. You can change your mind. It might not make us all happy, but we do understand. It's a risk. For all we know, this kind of thing always fails. Maybe you can do it. Maybe no one can, ever."
Maybe three years of him being able to do that kind of thing, know the future and read minds, might be enough to get things going, or at least hurt the people that had hurt his father. The machine that did. That...
"We need to destroy that AI that they're using to tell the future. I... Is it a
n AI?" Ben didn't really want to kill anyone. AI were alive, as much as anyone was.
That got her to sit up a bit straighter, and smile.
"Oddly enough, no. It's a complex program, but the government isn't willing to risk giving that much power to anyone. That's really their big weakness. Not sharing their power. It's why they went for mech armor, instead of genetic changes to their people."
That was a thing that he didn't get, so let his face tell her to keep going.
"Think about it, with armor they train a person for six weeks, and they're suddenly the equal to twenty or so unarmored fighters. Well armed ones. If they made genetic alterations, it would take a lot longer, and the training level would be higher. Then when a person retired or quit, they'd be a risk, taking their abilities with them. Doing it with machines means that the government maintains control, all the time. Not letting an AI know the future works the same way. Their program won't get clever and try to take over. Really, that's what we're doing here, in the end. Trying to build up people, instead of weapons. Not that we don't need those. We have some, but they aren't even close to being good enough yet. I'm on that part. Eventually I'd like you to get training in that as well. Even getting those past the regulations has been hard. We have to do everything as legally as possible, until the time comes to act. Otherwise we'll just be shut down."
Which he got. It was all a risk though, and while he was willing to take his share of it, the idea that these other people weren't going to just throw everything away due to nerves or laziness was important to him.
"I probably shouldn't be making any decisions until my brain is back to a hundred percent. Then again, this could work. So, I'm in. All the way and full out." That was a line from an older movie that his dad had shown him, nearly fifteen years before. Back when he'd been alive, before he'd spoken out about the federal government like he had.
It was about a bank heist. Not that Ben remembered the name at the moment. Interestingly, Glenda grinned then.
"I haven't heard that in nearly forty years. All the way, and full out. That was popular, back when I was about fifty." She glanced at him, her muscular shoulders shifting just a little as she leaned in. "Yes, I'm ninety. I know, I don't look it. Thanks to drugs and good genetic changes. As it stands I probably won't age much, until I eventually starve to death. That's one of the down sides of being this muscular. I'm hungry pretty much all the time. So, are you shocked and amazed at my great age?" She searched his eyes for something, but he just nodded.
"Neat. If nothing else, we can set things up so that someone at least can take more than one swing at things. I'll... Go after the morning stuff? To get the shots or whatever?"
She nodded, not working to talk him out of it now. Instead she stood up. "Then I need to set that up. I should be around for a while now. This thing today... Well, old things can come back on you, when you aren't watching them. A prior trainee of mine got in a jam, so I went to help them. I won't tell you about it, so that you don't know too much. For safety."
Then she left, walking away at better speed than he could have managed.
Her parting words told him a lot however. Not about what others might do to him, but what he, as an individual, might be one day expected to do. If this all worked the way that it was claimed, then Ben would be privy to a lot of information that he otherwise would never have known. That was the point, but it also meant that it would have to be prevented from falling into enemy hands.
If that was going to happen, then he'd need a way to prevent it. On the good side, if he was able to see the future, it might just help him avoid being in a fight. The whole thing where, when the bad guys came for him, he didn't have to be there. Unless he couldn't get away. Then there might have to be other options.
Like a gun in the mouth.
It sounded pretty hard core to him, but the truth was, he doubted that he'd pull the trigger if that happened. Doing that kind of thing would lead to an unfortunate case of being dead, which was an option that he'd love to avoid for as long as possible. If nothing else he at least wanted to try out having a relationship, or maybe even two of them.
The plate had been left with him this time, so he carried it inside and set it on his bedside table, near the clock. It said that it was only eight-thirty, but he was tired anyway. Hopefully he could sleep better that night. The wooden posts of his bed, while functional and strong, made tiny noises when he moved around. The lights from the compound were a bit too bright still, and that kept him awake for longer than he liked.
Sleep did come however, and this time, unlike the night before, he managed a good six hours without stirring at all, and a fitful doze for another two. That meant he was ready in the morning, and by six-thirty, when the meditations were beginning, he was clean, and there, ready to do his Cymed best. It was a very similar set up as the day before, which he presumed was what happened most days.
Whatever the contraction exercises were supposed to do, it was clear to him that he wasn't going to make it happen without training. Ben saw Glenda and Micha there, but neither spoke to him. Not until they were leaving, when Micha walked over and gave him a hug. It was friendly, but not a lot more than that. Glenda didn't even raise an eyebrow over it.
She did smile however.
"All right, trainee o'mine, we need to get you over to medical for your first treatment. I'll let Clyde explain the whole thing to you. You don't get to eat first. You haven't eaten yet, have you?"
"Nope. I came straight here. No one has shown me where the food is yet. I bet that's an oversight. I blame you, for taking off on my first real day here. Missing all that crucial grub getting data like that." Ben made a face, trying not to seem like a jerk, since he was playing. The women laughed. Well, Micha did, and Glenda snorted, but it meant about the same thing.
"That's closer to true than not. It works out for us this time. I'll take you over for dinner tonight. I think you'll be allowed food by then. If not, we can go in the morning before meditations."
He was led away, Micha bumping into him on purpose every now and again. Reassuring him that he wasn't doing the world’s stupidest thing.
Not that he wasn't. If nine out of ten had gone insane doing something, then the tenth one probably would as well. So would the eleventh. Until proven differently, that was the only thing he could expect. That as soon as the treatment started, he was going to be running on borrowed time.
So for two, or maybe three years, he could use whatever his abilities were, and try to find a way to win. If not that, then at least punish the people that had hurt him. The ones that had built that program, if it had been used to set David up. Revenge wasn't the best way to do anything, but it was a way.
As he walked he thought for a bit, and could feel the women with him withdraw. It wasn't a powerful thing, but it was a real one. Glenda knew that he was walking into something that he might never be allowed out of, even if it worked. Micha felt actual fear over it. Knowing, on some level, that she might be dooming this man to the same fate she had.
There was no way to prove all of that, so Ben went in, and climbed on the single medical table in the back room when the sour faced man told him too. There was a little stool to help him get up on it.
"The changes that we're making in you are fairly unique. A few are pretty normal, you'll be stronger, and have better muscle than average. Faster, but nothing that would get you noticed outside of a foot race. We're pulling out the stops on the psychic side though. Mental as well. Everything that can be done, is. Including some things that we aren't even certain will work at all. Are you ready?"
Before he could even nod, needles started to hit him. All over his body. Wielded by a government agent, who was probably there to betray them as soon as he could legally do so. Maybe even sooner than that.
Settling back, Ben waited. It would either work, or not.
Either way, he had things to do. Governments to topple, and just possibly melon to eat.
Chapter five
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nbsp; There was a strange thing that took place for nearly six days after the first treatment. Everyone kind of left him alone. It wasn't abandonment, not really. Just that Micha was called away to do something in the head offices, and Glenda, while she was his mentor, seemed to have a real job that didn't involve him. So other than seeing them in the morning while they meditated and did their exercises, he just moved around and tried to walk, and eventually jog, on his own.
That and learn where things were in the compound. The place was larger than he'd figured at first, and while he didn't go into every building, Ben tried to work out what was likely being done in them. As far as he could tell however, most of the places just ran various kinds of training for people. The buildings all looked fairly standard, and normal to him. Things made of wood and in places, metal or glass. In a lot of ways, the whole thing reminded him of pictures that his dad had shown him of a summer camp. One that Ben could have gone to on a break from school, but had chosen not to.
VR was more fun.
What he had found, all on his own, was the dining hall. The food there was all fairly plain seeming, though taking his meals there was instructive. These people ate. A lot. Not all of them, and not all of the time, but enough that it was clear they weren't regular couch crustaceans. Not everyone looked like Glenda, or Carlos, either. In fact, most of them weren't even close to being that large and muscular, but they seemed thin and fit, compared to normal people.
Looking down he realized that even he wasn't doing too poorly that way any longer. He was still probably thirty or forty pounds too heavy to really fit in at the Cymed compound, but the truth was that on any given street in the U.S. no one would have thought of him as fat. Average to lower than that, most likely.
Even a week later he was still on fruit for the main part of his diet. There was a selection of things, laid out for people to choose from, and he'd had instructions on the idea. Slowly, over time, he was supposed to eat more of one kind of thing per day, then after a week or so, start adding more variety. While that could mean loading up on tacos, which seemed to be the main meal about three times a week for some reason, Ben figured that the idea probably meant he could have two kinds of fruit in the same day, rather than that.