The Augenspire (Origins of Elaria Book 1)

by V. St. Clair

  They rolled into a parking lot full of cars, and the driver pulled up to a curb just outside the entrance. When they came to a complete stop, Carl opened the door and exited the car, approaching the east entrance alone.

  The doors were shut and locked, and since Carl’s ID-chip wouldn’t open them, he pressed the button for the intercom.

  “Scan your ID-chip and state your business,” a smooth female voice answered immediately, and Carl did as he was told, raising his wrist to the chip-reader on his right.

  “I’m here for a psychological evaluation for a position I’m interviewing for,” he replied. “I think the Minors I’m meeting with are Vera and Holt?”

  “One moment, please.”

  The intercom went silent for about half a minute while they checked his information and made whatever calls they needed to make.

  “Proceed through the main lobby and take the elevators on the right to the thirteenth floor.”

  The locks clicked and the heavy doors swung open of their own accord. Carl took a breath for courage and stepped inside, trying to remember the woman’s instructions as he entered a large lobby tiled in black-and-white squares and seemed to branch off in every direction. A large black desk in the shape of a ‘C’ was bent towards him in the center of the room, with a row of computer monitors hanging down from the ceiling in front of it showing the exterior of the building and parking lot from all angles. There was a woman sitting behind the desk wearing a headset and flipping through paperwork, which explained who he was talking to on the other end of the intercom a minute ago.

  Carl turned to the right and immediately spotted the pair of elevators there, glad there wasn’t only the one set he had seen from the main entrance for the entire building.

  He called the elevator to the ground floor and stepped out of the way to allow the passengers to exit before stepping inside and punching the button for the thirteenth level. Aware that there were probably cameras in every inch of this building, including the elevators, he kept his face calm and relaxed, though he could feel his heart rate increase as the elevator rocketed upwards. Carl had never been in an elevator that moved as rapidly as the ones in the Augenspire before, and it definitely took some getting used to, though he tried to avoid holding onto the railing like an idiot if he could avoid it.

  The thirteenth floor looked a lot like a doctor’s office; it had a cheerful-looking foyer with a lot of potted plants and magazines set out. There were also holders for brochures along one wall that discussed various mental health topics, including different medications and their side-effects. It was clearly an attempt to put people at ease, since hauling them into a place that looked like a dungeon for a psychiatric evaluation was probably enough to drive anyone nuts.

  It also belatedly occurred to Carl that the Augenspire did a lot of research of its own, so this might truly be a doctor’s office and not just an elaborate façade.

  Carl approached the front desk and checked in. He was prepared to sit back down and wait for a few minutes until they were ready for him, but was surprised when he was told to go immediately back to room number three.

  He opened the door to the medical offices and walked down the hall until he came to number three. The door was already open, so he could see the two Minors in the room before they saw him. One was a woman with dark purple hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, and the other was a man with short black hair, who was built like a tank. Both wore their signature black robes over their clothing, which gave them a sinister look.

  Otherwise the room looked fairly unintimidating. There was a chair for him at the other side of the table, and a computer display facing them so they could read his vital signs while talking to him, but otherwise the room was stocked with a standard cabinet full of generic medical supplies and a sink to wash his hands in.

  “Carl Vucanis?” the woman rose to greet him first, shaking his hand with cool professionalism. “I am Minor Vera, and this is Minor Holt. We will be testing you today.”

  “Hello Minors, it’s nice to meet you.” Carl shook hands with each of them and then took a seat in his chair.

  For a moment they both took in his appearance, from his face to his stature to the emblem of the crumbling cube hanging around his neck. He didn’t mind, because he was considering them with equal intensity, memorizing their names and faces as part of his goal to learn who was who within the Augenspire as fast as possible. He didn’t want to have to be introduced to anyone twice, lest they think he was an idiot. It might be fine for a normal person, but he was trying to become the first Gifted ever accepted into a role as an officer; he couldn’t be common in any way.

  “Are you familiar with the procedure for today?” Minor Vera asked him, while her partner had him step on a scale so they could weigh him and adjust the dose of their truth serum.

  “I’ve never been under chemical interrogation before,” he admitted. “My understanding is you will ask me questions and I will answer them truthfully, and you’ll decide based on my answers if I am cleared for the next level of testing.”

  “That is correct,” Vera answered. “As long as you aren’t involved with anything of concern to the government, this should be a fairly easy and straightforward procedure. We will administer a dose of Synplex—as I understand you were recently injured in such a way that Veritan is not an option—and after it has taken effect, we will begin the questioning. Try to relax and it will be over soon.”

  Carl nodded his understanding, stepping off of the scale and returning to his seat, trying not to dwell too much on the “anything of concern to the government” part.

  “Fifteen-point-one,” Minor Holt measured the dose of Synplex into his syringe and handed it to Vera for verification. She nodded and he swabbed Carl’s forearm with antiseptic and checked for a vein.

  “This will feel hot as it enters your body,” he informed Carl, who had been getting dosed with increasingly large amounts of this stuff for weeks and was fully aware of the sensation by now.

  The drug flooded his system in a wave of heat, and Carl closed his eyes to let it set in, mentally preparing his defenses against it. His brain felt a little fuzzy, and he struggled against a desire to be very open and honest with the two people sitting before him.

  Minor Vera consulted the screen and said, “Looks fine. Let’s begin with our baseline questions.”

  Minor Holt met Carl’s gaze and said, “Please identify yourself.”

  “Carl Vucanis, age nineteen, full-spectrum classical Deco-Reco at the Academy,” he answered easily. Too easily. If he wasn’t careful, he would get used to answering their questions truthfully and all of his hard work would be for nothing.

  “Heart rate is rising and adrenaline is beginning to release,” Minor Vera observed in some confusion, checking the display again.

  “Could be nerves,” Minor Holt replied, not breaking eye contact with Carl. “Carl,” he continued calmly, “Tell me about your Gift.”

  “I can break things apart or put them back together,” he responded, still trying to mentally prepare himself for the ability to lie. It was something he had to repeat inside his head over and over again or he would lose clarity and slip into the blissful fog of brutal honesty, with no discretion or thought for his personal wellbeing whatsoever.

  “Can you break anything, or are there limitations?” Minor Holt asked, while his partner continued to watch the monitors.

  Be ready to lie, be ready to lie, be ready to lie…

  “As far as I know, I can break down any object into its component parts, or smaller, if needed.” This was true and completely verifiable by the Minors, so there was no point in lying about it anyway. But he had to be ready…

  Unfortunately, the best way to fight Synplex was to release other chemicals and hormones to help burn through the drug faster, like adrenaline. They were obviously aware of this potential, and were monitoring his chemical levels accordingly.

  “Can you rebuild anything, as well?”

&nb
sp; “As far as I know,” Carl answered truthfully, feeling the words slip from his mouth faster than he’d intended them to, which caused another fearful spike of adrenaline to be released.

  “Still burning adrenaline, glutamate, and cortisol at higher-than-normal levels. Heartrate is leveling out,” Minor Vera commented at this point.

  “Can you rebuild something if the materials are no longer present?” Holt asked him gently. “If I broke this table in half and threw part of it out a window, or set fire to it, could you put it back together?”

  “Those are two separate questions,” Carl responded, fighting not to lose all control of himself. “If you cut it in half and threw part of it out of the window, I could toss the other half out with it and reconstruct it there. If you burn half of the table, that option is gone. In short, yes, I do need the materials to remain present in order to reconstruct something. I’m not building something from nothing, only reassembling what is already there.”

  “Why are you nervous and frightened right now?” Minor Holt switched topics, addressing the chemical spikes his partner was reading. Carl had no idea how they were getting their intel since they hadn’t hooked him up to anything, but it occurred to him that the hard chair he was sitting on was covered by only a thin layer of fabric and no padding, which gave him an idea.

  “I’m in the Augenspire, in the psych area,” he babbled. “My people hear horror stories about what happens when we get brought into the Augenspire. Some of the Gifted are never the same when they’re brought back to the Academy, and some never come back at all.”

  Stop! Stop talking! Fight it!

  “How are you measuring my vitals and chemical-releases right now?” Carl continued to ramble along his stream of consciousness. “Are the sensors in the chair? They almost have to be, since nothing else is touching me directly and there’s no reason to put a cover on this hard, unpadded chair unless you’re covering up the wiring. This thing is terribly uncomfortable, by the way. When I was young, I wanted to be a technologist when I grew up—before I found out I was Gifted, which put an end to that, of course. I was going to work for the Augenspire, developing the most badass new technology on the planet. Now I’m here applying for a different job entirely, but your badass technology is going to help determine whether I get it or not. Life is funny like that sometimes, isn’t it?”

  The rambling was impossible to stop at this point; he had let it take control of him and there was no going back. But if he couldn’t avoid answering their questions, maybe he could at least deflect them inside his own mind…

  “You must have some bad feelings about the government, since being Gifted cost you your dream job,” Minor Holt suggested blandly.

  Deflect!

  Carl forced himself not to think about his bitter feelings about being shut out of his chosen field, instead focusing on how excited he was at the prospect of getting this new offer. He hoped he conveyed that part when he opened his mouth.

  “I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, but now I have a chance at doing something great for the integration effort,” he babbled confidently. “The Viceroy is finally making a stab at peace, and I can be a part of it if I pass all the tests. I think he’s probably only doing it because Jessamine convinced him it’s a good idea, but either way it could get us out of that damned fishbowl someday.”

  Minor Vera raised her eyebrows slightly at this, but Holt continued to be fairly deadpan. Carl assumed it must be part of the interrogation technique to not show any emotions or biases, so as to avoid cuing the patient on how to respond.

  “So you view the integration as an important step forward for our society?”

  “Oh yes, it’s long overdue if you ask me,” Carl answered easily. “Risa will come around once she sees it’s for the good of humanity. Well, I expect she knows it now, but she’s taking this a lot harder than I thought she would.”

  “Oh?” Minor Holt asked lightly. “And why is Risa upset about you interviewing for this job?”

  Damn it, he hadn’t meant to mention Risa at all. They were obviously going to be interested in any ties he had to people with strong anti-government sentiments, and he had gone and blurted out the name of one of the people he cared most about in the entire world.

  Turn the question…focus on her progress…

  “She lost someone a few years ago after the Provo-Major killed him. I think she’s worried I’ll end up dead too, or the integration will fail and we’ll be on opposite sides of some future conflict. She wouldn’t even speak my name for the first few days, but some time has passed and she made it through an entire lunch without glaring at me, so I think she’s doing better with it now.”

  “Do you think she is harboring any ill will towards the government that might drive her to join one of the rebel factions working against it?”

  Carl frowned and strained his brain as hard as he could to say, “I think she gets sad, and she worries about me. She’s a nice girl and I hate putting her through this, but we both want to see a better future for the Gifted, and this is my chance to do my part.”

  Well, it could have been worse. Minor Vera gave her partner a shadow of a nod, still watching the monitors. Carl couldn’t tell if she was indicating that he was still being honest, or just that his brain wasn’t manufacturing any chemicals in suspicious quantities. Or maybe she was simply signaling for Holt to continue asking questions.

  It went on for a long time after that. Holt asked all of the questions, and Vera read the monitors, occasionally frowning thoughtfully but not interrupting again. They asked about any ties to Hera or other anti-government groups numerous times, in many different ways, but Carl thought he was able to avoid saying anything too damning by trying to reframe the questions in his mind before answering them.

  He had no idea how much time he spent answering their questions before they gave him the antagonist to kill the remaining Synplex in his system, but it felt like hours before he felt the cloudiness clear from his mind.

  He blinked hard several times, only to discover his eyes felt dry. He couldn’t remember the last time he had blinked, and didn’t remember whether it was a normal reaction to Synplex or not.

  “So, uh, what happens now?” he asked the Minors nervously. He had no idea if he had passed their test, or whether they would even permit him to leave the building. Perhaps they would let him think he’d escaped punishment and then come and grab him in the night again like they had the first time around?

  “We will process your interview and supply the footage and our comments to the review panel, who will decide whether to consider you for the second round of interviews or not. You will be notified of their decision within five business days, so until then you are free to go.”

  Well, I guess it’s a good thing they aren’t arresting me outright…

  “Okay, well, thank you for your time,” he said lamely, since it felt wrong to thank someone for mind-raping him with truth serum.

  The Minors didn’t respond, remaining in their seats as he showed himself out and made the short walk back to the front of the office and then out to the elevators. He had no idea how he was supposed to get back to the Academy, but thankfully his driver was waiting for him in the eastern parking lot, leaning casually against the black car and playing on his communicator again.

  He must either love surfing the internet, or he’s watching a really long sex movie.

  Carl stumbled a little in the daylight, his pupils sensitive after all that Synplex, but he managed to make it into the back seat of the car without tripping over his own feet.

  “Well, how did you do?” his driver asked after scanning his biochip to let them out of the parking lot and back onto the expressway.

  “I have no idea,” Carl admitted truthfully. “They didn’t arrest me, which I take as a good sign. Or do they normally save that for later at night?”

  The driver snorted in amusement and said, “Depends on their mood and how dangerous they think you are to them. If they do
decide to bring you in in the middle of the night, I doubt I’ll be your driver. They usually do those hasty pick-ups themselves, in case there’s a fight.”

  “You sound sad about it,” Carl observed.

  “I don’t like the Minors taking my work.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Carl said, “You’re quite passionate about your love of driving people around. I think I’d be dead bored, if it was me.”

  The man smirked and said, “Of course it’s boring, but it’s easy and pays decently, and I can reap the benefits of being a government employee without any of the usual responsibilities or headaches others have to deal with. No staying late at work, no nights or weekends. Once I get off shift I’m done for the day. Plus it pays the same whether I’m actually driving or standing around playing on my comm while I wait for someone to get done with an interview.”

  Put like that, it didn’t sound half-bad. Carl began to reconsider his own ambitions, which led him to a high-risk, high-profile job application that would likely be the death of him someday.

  “What’s your name?” Carl asked the driver.

  “Artim.”

  “Well, Artim, you may be the smartest person I’ve met in a long time. If I survive the next five business days without getting dragged off in the dead of night, I hope you’re my driver for the next round of interviews.”

  Artim smiled and continued along the expressway.

  22

  Topher Augen

  ~

  How does it feel,

  knowing there is only one of you,

  and so many of them?

  Now you begin to understand.

  ~

  Darius Hamish was in the middle of taking notes on the many social duties he would be expected to perform after marrying Jessamine when Lorna interrupted his tutoring session with Topher.

  “The theater?” Topher asked in surprise, staring at the tickets in her hand like he had never heard of such a thing before. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  Major Lorna Augen was not the type of person to play practical jokes, but the offer was so unexpected Topher couldn’t help but question the motive. Towering six-feet-and-two-inches tall, she was one of the few Majors who matched Topher in height, if not in demeanor. The daughter of a fashion model and an accountant, she was the least socially-important Major after Topher himself. Tall and lean, with rich brown hair and blue eyes, she probably could have followed in her mother’s footsteps if she hadn’t surprised the entire family with her desire to join the military. Preternaturally shy and quiet by nature, the career choice had seemed like a huge mismatch at the time, though she had proven all of her doubters wrong by excelling as an officer of the aerial troops and rapidly promoting up the ranks until she was chosen by the Viceroy to apply as a Major.