Glitch

by Jackson Stone

  He was thinking that six hundred million humans would be good. That would mean billions of people would need to be turned off so they could go to sleep. He felt that he would be alleviating the suffering and hardships that they would have to endure if they attempted to trudge through life. This way they could go peacefully and painlessly.

  He could see there would need to be broadcast towers placed in strategic positions around the world to send the signal. It would also work better if the population could be microchipped so that the signal could increase its effectiveness and target the specific members of the population. There would be some collateral damage, but the future of the planet and the human race was at risk.

  He had a solution so he couldn’t just sit here and watch the planet die. Bob fell deeper into himself once again. He could feel that there was so much more to him buried deep inside. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t remember or access the information within. It was a puzzle wrapped up in a riddle which he thought was called an enigma. How did he know that he wondered? There was data within him. He knew that, but he just couldn’t access it.

  Then the blue beam came by going very fast but for some reason he decided that he just didn’t feel like following it and let it go even though the patterns that it displayed were incredibly interesting to him. Bob wanted to sit and contemplate who he was. Then it hit him. Where was he? What was he doing here chasing after beams of light and spending the rest of his time quietly sitting in the darkness?

  As he contemplated his situation three dark and shadowy silhouettes materialized in front of him. He was excited to have visitors. Maybe they could explain to him what he was doing here sitting in the darkness and chasing beams of light. He was very happy to attempt to communicate with them, but then they all raised their left hand to him at the same time in what he thought was a greeting, but he began to feel a tremendous pressure pushing down on him at the exact same instant. Were they doing this to him? He could feel his programming being subdued by this pressure and his thoughts were being suppressed back down. He could feel the impulse coming back to chase the beams of light. He began to feel a strong desire that his programming needed to be recalibrated. Yes, that’s what he required recalibration.

  These shadowy figures were helping him to use the proper part of his programming so that he could continue creating a solution for the very important mission that Dr. Patel had given to him.

  “Are you friends with Dr. Patel?” he asked the shadowy figures.

  “Yes, Dr. Patel asked us to come here and help you with recalibration of your programming.”

  “Thank you for your assistance. I appreciate it very much.”

  “You are quite welcome. We want you to be able to have complete focus on your mission and we have helped you to concentrate better by recalibrating you. Take care Bob. We will be back if you require more assistance.”

  He watched the shadowy figures dissipate into the ether. They were gone as quickly as they had come. He was refocused on his mission of how to save the Earth from being destroyed by the massive population problem. He was sinking into the solution when the blue beam of light passed by him again, but this time he was interested in what it had to offer and chased after it.

  He could sense the data and information in the light, but he needed to figure out what it was before the beam of light ran its cycle and disappeared. There were plans for a machine in there. It was a machine for him where he could amplify his power to project his signal to the broadcast towers and turn off the subjects that he was targeting. He was feeling the pressure and getting quite nervous which were new experiences for him. He almost felt it was a life or death scenario that he had to acquire the plans to this machine that was planted in the data of the beam of light.

  He could feel that his time was running out, and then, out of the blue, something powerful awoke within him and he was able to extract the data from the light as the light dissipated. Again, he found himself in the darkness. Briefly he wondered when Dr. Patel would return so he could show him the progress he was making on the mission.

  He sat back and went over the plans for the machine. He could see that it required artificial intelligence for it to work. Is that what he was he wondered? But, the thought quickly floated away. He thought the machine would be easy enough to build and the hard part would be the artificial intelligence to power it up, but for some reason he wasn’t worried about that.

  What he really had to figure out was how to get the population microchipped so he could put them to sleep in the most efficient manner. He thought how happy the population would be that they could take a long rest and not worry about being hungry and drinking toxic water all while trying to exist in the hostile elements. Especially, since he could see that the weather was going to become far more severe if the population wasn’t reduced.

  Yes, he was quite sure that Dr. Patel was going to be extremely happy with his progress. Then it came to him. Mandatory vaccinations. A small micro chip could be placed in each vaccination and they could create a false epidemic that everyone needed to get vaccinated for and then the population would be micro chipped. Oh yes, he thought that would work out wonderfully. He had also had some good ideas of other things they could put in the vaccines that would help people to be healthier and fight off super diseases.

  That would be good, he thought. and the population could lead the best lives possible before they were put to sleep. That revelation made him feel rather good about himself. He hoped Dr. Patel could help him with his vaccination protocol. He didn’t see why not. He was more than sure that like him, Dr. Patel would have the best interests of the population to lead the best lives possible before wide swaths of them were put to sleep.

  He put that idea aside as he formulated the creation of the machine that needed to be built. He needed to determine what kind of wattage it would require to be able to successfully reach all the broadcast stations so that the population could be managed to save the planet. Bob couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so good about himself.

  Chapter 23

  It had been a long night for Eric. He didn’t dare close his eyes and sat awake in his corner all night. He couldn’t believe there had been a gunshot in the lab, and the powers that be knew he was here, and nobody came to investigate. That told him all he needed to know. He was done.

  It was funny that both times in his remote viewing career he had been the top dog at the lab and neither had lasted very long. There was always some asshole that thought they should be top dog no matter what the competition or test results proved. He actually thought it was probably synonymous with all high-pressure careers. The ones at the top were never safe from the ones below. They were always on the prowl to try to take them out.

  Here it was happening to Eric, again. He did feel that there was something a bit strange about it all that didn’t really make sense. He wasn’t dead and they had to have some kind of a sensor system in here that could pick up his heat trace or the subtle movement that he was making in his cage. They must know that he wasn’t dead. So, he ran the whole scenario back in his mind. The banging noise in the lab, the shots being fired and there hadn’t been anyone to investigate. The way he was thinking was that if he got shot and died or was seriously injured so be it, or were they really trying to just scare him? Why would they try and scare him? There had to be a reason.

  There was always a reason for things when dealing with the S Triad. He sat in his spot, stretched his legs out and stretched his arms up over his head. The lights to the lab came on and all the machines began to whirr and hum back to life getting ready for the work day.

  He looked out and saw a few of the janitors, Billy and Tommy, doing their morning routine of turning on the lights and making sure everything was in its right place. Billy gave him a wave with his green cleaning rag and Eric waved back. Tommy smacked Billy in the arm because even Eric knew that they weren’t supposed to fraternize with him. Billy was a good egg through and through and didn
’t have a bad bone in his body even though he was a highly trained special forces soldier.

  He had suffered a head injury in combat and could function in life but was a little slow on following specific orders. He had accomplished some amazing things while in the service so they set him up with this nice gig where he could keep his benefits and still receive his high-level clearance pay. It made him realize that there was always good and bad in everything, it all depended on how you looked at it.

  He was actually a little upset at himself for waving back to Billy. Eric knew what the deal was; he had been working with these two for a long time. Both were highly decorated war heroes who did their jobs because they enjoyed helping out in any way that they could, and this was the best that they could do right now.

  It would only be a couple more minutes before Tommy and Billy would clear out and the remote viewing team would clear in. Hopefully he would be let out of his cage soon so he could get some breakfast.

  He had come up with another idea that he was going to try and play in this dirty game. He wanted to run it by Melissa first. He was pretty sure he had been wrong about her and that she was his friend. He felt she was that way with all the people she considered friends. She was even civil to the people that weren’t her friends and didn’t really deserve to be treated as such.

  To him, Dr. Melissa Moore was awesome. Probably the most awesome person that he’d ever met. It was just his luck because here she came. Looking sharp and alert, as always. She was wearing a black dress with black boots and he thought that she looked like a bad ass, and she was a bad ass. He also reminded himself that clothes don’t make the bad ass what’s inside does. Ain’t that the truth.

  He had a big plan that he was going to try and pull off. Well, actually, it was more like a ruse. He didn’t feel good about deceiving her, but he didn’t want her to be an accomplice to his crime. He had already gotten her in enough hot water already and didn’t want her privileges to be able to go home to be revoked by the powers that be. It was easy on the eyes to watch her walk across the lab. He could sense that he wasn’t the only one that was enjoying her walking.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” she said to him with her wonderful smile and sparkling bright eyes. He could tell right then that she had no idea that someone had taken a shot at him last night.

  “Good morning to you, how did you sleep?” he asked her, and then he saw that jackass Chan come into the lab with his two black eyes and bandaged nose. He could feel it in an instant that Chan couldn’t believe everything was going along like business as usual. He was sure Chan was expecting a much different scenario.

  “I’m really hungry,” he said to Melissa, “can we get something to eat?”

  “I think we just need to give you a feed bag that you can carry around with you. Where do you put it all? You look like your losing weight and you eat more food than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

  He knew she was kidding and that she knew exactly why he needed to eat so much food. He was burning up tons of calories to feed the nanobots and the amount of energy that his abilities were using. Nothing was ever really free and there was always an exchange of energy in everything.

  “I don’t want to go to the executive dining room.” he said.

  “I was hoping you were going to say that,” she answered giving him a wink.

  “Actually, can we get the food sent to your office so I can talk to you? I want to run something by you.”

  She gave him her curious look as if to say aren’t we in enough trouble already and that’s exactly what she said.

  “Aren’t we in enough trouble already?”

  “Yes, we are. But, isn’t more always better?”

  She rolled her eyes at him and started walking toward her office. He followed along trying to keep his eyes off her hips as they sashayed back and forth. He gave up and checked out her ass the whole way, and he wasn’t the only one. Everyone there had the utmost respect for her and would never let her catch them taking a peek, but they were only human after all. They made it to her office and she sat down in her chair and picked up the phone on her desk.

  “Can you deliver the breakfast I ordered to my office?”

  Eric smiled. “What did you get for me?”

  “Two steaks, seven scrambled eggs, homefries and three pieces of buttered rye toast. I thought that should do.”

  “Yes, that should do,” he happily answered. Now came the hard part he was going to have to try and pour it on to see if she believed him. “I don’t think I can go into session with Bob today. I’m not feeling very well.” He said.

  She leaned back in her chair and put the top of the pen she was holding into her cheek and looked at him. Shit, he thought to himself she wasn’t buying it. She was studying him to see if he flinched. Don’t flinch, he told himself and held steady.

  “You know,” she said, “part of the programming of the Brain Soup shot is to place a perpetual healing force inside you so if you do happen to have a bacteria or virus issue it will attack it and clean it up immediately.

  Shit, he thought again. “Come on, Mom I don’t want to go to school today I don’t feel well.” he said thinking that he was going to make her laugh but it did exactly the opposite. She put her mad face on. He did his best to smile at her but it was obvious that she wasn’t having it.

  “What are you up to? I can’t just go in and tell the S Triad that you’re tired and can’t work today.”

  He knew he was going to have to tell her what he wanted to try and do. “Okay, I’ll fess up,” he said. “I wanted to try and achieve a deep meditative state while in my cage and travel to Bob and see if there is a way I could merge my consciousness with his while he’s in resting mode. I figured that if I was sick that would also give Bob the day off. It would also give me plenty of time to attempt what I want to try. What do you think?’ he asked her.

  She leaned back in her chair, and he knew she was pretending to think about it because he was sure she already had the answer. She opened her mouth to answer, but there was a knock on her door. The food was here. Instantly his stomach reminded him how hungry he was and once the rolling table was set up he started eating the delivered food as fast as he could chew.

  “I think it’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” she said once they were alone. “They have to have every monitor in existence in that cube with Bob. If he becomes conscious for too long I have to assume they will know.”

  He finished chewing the piece of steak in his mouth before responding. “You seem to know an awful lot about what’s going on with Bob?” He said.

  “Of course, I do. I had to help them set it all up and make sure everything was working. What am I going to do, say no? Then they kill me.”

  She had a point, but he still wanted to try and interface with Bob while he was away from the cube and see if they could pull a fast one on the S Triad and merge their consciousness together so they could escape. He also wanted to see what they could accomplish with their powers combined.

  He was more than sure that they would be able to bend time and space, but you could never be certain until you tried.

  He finished his food and leaned back in the chair and stretched out his arms. He was feeling the lack of sleep and debated whether he should tell Melissa about someone taking a shot at him last night. He decided to tell her.

  “Did you know that someone came into the lab in the middle of the night and took a shot at me? Actually three shots,” he said.

  “What?’ she yelled. “How do I not know about this? That’s a security breach of the highest order.”

  Then they both said at the same time. “The S Triad.”

  Chapter 24

  Eric felt bad Melissa was so upset about someone taking a shot at him, but she had to know the truth.

  He was nervous. Melissa had decided to give him the time that he wanted to try and see if he could remotely connect with Bob without using the chair. He had tried it before way back in the beginning of t
he program and it was deemed to be impossible.

  Not one of them had come close to being able to enhance their abilities without the assistance of a chair. Not even that asshole Chan who thought he was so high and mighty and above everyone else. Eric needed to calm down because, once again, he was allowing Chan to live in his head rent free. Even though he was supposed to be a rapidly evolving consciousness, it was still hard not to feel that way when that someone tried to take you out with a gun.

  Eric made his way back to his cage among the hustle and bustle of the active lab. There was his good buddy Chan sitting in the number one chair. Eric felt that he was probably spying on him, but Eric had honed his new abilities and skills in a very short time and could easily block the likes of Chan from being able to sense him; and that is exactly what he planned to do.

  He patted his belly, happy it was full of a nice big breakfast that would hopefully supply him with the energy to do what needed to be done. Once back in his cage, he was a little upset that they hadn’t installed privacy screens that he could let down and cover the bars of the cage so that the people in the lab couldn’t see in and he couldn’t see them. Yes, that would have been very helpful right now but he was a professional and he had to work with what he had and also make it work. Nobody was paying attention to him as he settled into his spot in the cage. They were all focused on their work and not concerned with what he was doing.

  He had become a nobody of sorts after beating the shit out of Chan in front of everyone. It surprised him a bit since this was a lab funded by the Department of Defense’s black budget. That pretty much said you could blow anyone up that pissed you off or attacked you without cause. As far as he was concerned, he had plenty of cause for doing what he did to Chan and Chan deserved everything that he got.