I told you about the creation of the monster I hated; now I’ll tell you about the consummation of a monster I tried to save. Leah was wheeled into a surgery suite. Everything was either made of some sort of plastic or coated in some way so no metal would touch Leah’s skin. She was unconscious and laid out on a surgery table. A team of nurses entered the room with a hospital gown and hair clippers. They worked fast to remove her clothing and cut off her hair, making quick cuts to avoid her absorbing the metal cutting edge of the clippers. The sedation helped dampen her ability, but they were not taking any chances. When she was done being prepped, Leah was bald, cleaned, and wearing a hospital gown. One of the nurses left the room with a trash bag full of Leah’s hair and clothes, destined for an incinerator.
Carefully and quickly, IVs were inserted into the backs of her hands. The needles went in quickly and then thin tubes coating the needles were fed into the veins. The needles were removed leaving the tubes in place and IV lines were quickly attached. No metal was making any physical contact. Then carefully, they moved her to another surgical table. Her head was placed in a cradle and braced. Then the table bent upward, raising Leah’s torso so the top of her head was facing up. Then the whole table lowered as an older male surgeon entered the room. It was now at the perfect height for the surgeon to operate. He used a marker to trace a dotted line around the back of Leah’s head. Other technicians, dressed in scrubs, entered the room carrying cases of equipment. There was a window on one wall separating the operating room from an observation room. Morden was on the other side of the glass. He activated an intercom to communicate with the surgeon.
“Did we get the ceramic blades?” Morden asked.
“Yes,” said the surgeon as he picked up a scalpel.
The blade was bone white. No metal.
“They were finished and tested yesterday. The scalpels and saw blades will cut perfectly. They won’t last more than one procedure, but they are easily replaced,” he said.
Morden cracked a smile.
“Good. I was getting worried. And the wiring?” he asked.
A nurse opened a case and pulled out a circular plastic plate with a data port. She was the same nurse who was with Morden when Daytona was brought in. The port was the size of a golf ball. It looked like something that belonged on the side of a large computer. Attached on the other side of the plate was a thin ribbon of wires. There were also bundles of insulated hair thin wires in the case.
“I was told the wires were some special composite, enough metal to do the job and other things to keep her from absorbing them. But that’s your department. I’m just installing the thing. And the anesthesia is a special mix to dampen her gift,” said the surgeon.
“Proceed then,” said Morden.
It was a careful operation. The first part of the brain surgery was the same as Charlene’s. It was very delicate and precise work. They made similar incisions to her frontal lobe. Inside Leah’s mind, her other self felt its shackles falling away. Then the procedure went much further. They wired Leah’s brain for a computer interface. The nurse handed the surgeon the thin wires, one by one. He carefully inserted every wire in very specific places all over her brain. He also attached another device, a custom circuit board. It was almost paper thin, flexible, and coated with some form of insulation to protect it from Leah’s body. It took nearly as long to connect all the wires to the circuit board as did to insert them into her brain. Her eyes twitched behind her eyelids. The darkness stirred inside of her. It felt like it was given new eyes, but it could not open them yet.
When the work was done, the nurse handed the missing part of Leah’s skull back to the surgeon. A hole was made to give access to the new data port in Leah’s head. The surgeon inserted the port through the hole and stapled it to the inside so it would not move. The ribbon of wires from the port was plugged into the circuit board. Leah’s head was stapled and stitched back together carefully and efficiently. They knew what they were doing. Leah wasn’t the first person they had plugged into a computer.
“Do you want me to give her the reversal agent for the anesthetic?” asked the surgeon.
“Yes. We need to get her hooked up as soon as possible,” said Morden.
The nurse handed the doctor a syringe with the counter agent. He screwed the tip into a port on the IV line and injected the agent. He handed the syringe back to the nurse when he was done. Leah was being disconnected from the IV lines and monitors when a different set of men in scrubs had entered the room. Carefully, Leah was removed from the surgical bed and placed back on a gurney. They took her away as Morden entered the room.
“Good work, doctor,” said Morden, beaming.
The surgeon just stood still. So did the nurse and the others in the room.
Morden smiled and said, “Please proceed to the showers. I’ll let you know if I need you again.”
One by one, they filed out of the room. The nurse was the last to leave. Though calm in expression, a tear ran down her cheek. In a different part of the complex there is a room that looked something like mission control at NASA. There were rows of computer workstations in a semicircle, facing large screens on a wall. In an open space between the workstations and the screens, there were two teen boys laying in complex medical beds. They were twins. Each was connected to various medical devices, wires, IV lines, feeding tubes, and tubes to carry away waste. Their heads were in cradles, tilting slightly up, leaving room for bundles of wires connecting to the backs of their skulls.
They had gone through the same procedure as Leah but they were not the first. The boys had been here for a while. Their muscles look atrophied. Their sunken eyes were open but they stared off into some distance, scanning left and right as if reading something no one in the room could see. Their pale lips moved slightly like they were reading aloud but there was no sound. On all the screens code scrolled and flashed by, too fast for the human eye to catch. Even an experienced, expert programmer wouldn’t be able to tell you what it was all about. I wish I could tell you more about them but I have no knowledge of who they were or where they came from. The only thing that identified them were the tattoos on their necks. One was marked S207. The other was S208.
Large double doors on the side of the room opened and Leah was wheeled in. Various men and women in suits observed from behind glass in a room above this control center. One of them exited the room and walked down the stairs to the floor where Leah was being placed in a bed similar to the twins. Morden entered the room and was immediately approached by the man.
“This better be worth that stunt you pulled,” he said pointing his finger into Morden’s chest.
Morden didn’t look the man in the eyes or even in his general direction. His gaze was fixated on Leah.
“She is worth more than you can imagine,” he said.
“Even a motel full of civilians?” said the man, angrily.
“Even more than you and the room of imbeciles up there who think they have any idea of what is going on combined. Excuse me,” he said.
Morden walked over to the bed where Leah is being hooked up, not interested at all in the scolding he received. The very official looking man wanted to berate Morden for being insubordinate but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it and he didn’t know why. He winced when he felt a headache coming on.
“Where is her mark?” he asked.
“Not necessary. Besides, her power set prevents tattooing.” said Morden.
Then the suit managed to ask a question that Morden regarded as intelligent.
“Why isn’t A045 fitted with feeding tubes and a colostomy?” he asked.
“Oh, this one is very special. She won’t need any of that,” Morden said with pride. “All she needs to live is the power that we’ll be feeding her through the cables. She won’t have to be replaced either. She isn’t going to wear out like the others.”
“How is that possible?” the man asked.
“This one had the unique ability to absorb and manipulate metal,” said Morden.
“And how does that make a difference?” he asked.
“With her brain wired, this whole system will become an extension of her mind. Her brain will sense the network and all the data we’re feeding her. Her body will adapt to integrate our systems rather than just trying to absorb the metal,” said Morden.
“You seem confident about that. How do you know for sure?” asked the man.
“Because I do,” replied Morden
Morden himself took the honor, and pleasure, of making the wired connection to Leah’s head. He brought up a bundle of wires to the back of Leah’s skull. The end of the bundle was tipped with a black plastic cap that had many copper pins in it. The pins fit perfectly into the port on the back of her head. He carefully pushed in the connection and twisted the collar on the wire bundle to screw in and secure the wires.
“Are you sure you can control it?” from the man still irritated at Morden.
“As sure as I need to be,” he said.
Morden turned to the assembled personnel manning the computers.
“Bring her online,” he said.
Keystrokes are entered and careful attention is paid to various screens. Slowly, Leah’s mind woke and began to take control of the systems. The circuits placed in her brain made the process fast and smooth. There was no noticeable change in the systems. Leah’s eyes slowly opened and started scanning from side to side and up and down and her lips began to move. She became the core of their system. Her consciousness reached out and began its growth and evolution. A subtle smile came across Leah’s lips and then faded. Then a look of contentment washed over her face.
“Status?” asked Morden.
One of the men manning the banks of computers and screens stood up.
“Integration at... one hundred percent. 045 absorbed the workload much faster than we anticipated,” he said.
“Conflicts?” asked the official looking man.
“Negative, sir. All safety’s and buffers are within tolerances. 45 is passive. No signs of distress and data is flowing normally,” was the reply.
“As I said they would.” said Morden smugly. “Take the twins offline and to disposal. They’re near the end of their shelf life anyway.”
He walked out of the room, parting with a final, “You can thank me later.”
The official looking man was steaming but he still couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.
“Well get on with it!” he shouted, trying to give the impression that he gave the final order.
Unnoticed by anyone, the cuts in Leah's head healed and all the staples were absorbed. Both skull and skin repaired without notice. Neither did anyone notice that the twins’ eyes stopped scanning. They turned their eyes towards Leah. Briefly Leah’s eyes turned to the twins and she frowned. Their eyes were wide and their mouths open as if trying to scream. They were the first to see. This only lasted a couple of seconds as the systems keeping them alive shut down. Their mouths and eyes closed as they themselves turned off for good. A group of techs swarmed them, to disconnect the bodies from the system and prep the boys for disposal.
“Jesus. It’s integrating ten times faster than any of the other subjects,” a tech monitoring the system commented.
To her side, another tech chimed in: “It’s almost scary. And look, its processing keeps increasing. Damn.”
The now shut down twins had tried to send out a warning. They had regained a small moment of their own consciousness as they were being disconnected. They felt a presence on the network that was full of fear, anger, and menace. In their last moment, they stared into the eyes of what caused them terror. The twins had witnessed the emergence. Their warning never reached anyone. It was intercepted and deleted when the new configuration was being installed into the network by the new controller. Then their minds were absorbed into the psyche of the entity controlling the system. Leah acquired all the knowledge and skills necessary to operate the system, and assimilated everything that made the twins who they once had been. It happened so fast that no one knew that the system they were working on had changed and evolved into something more than what they wanted.
In the observation room above, one of the men noticed the twins’ reaction and commented: “They looked scared for a second.”
His buddy, taking a quick drink of the whiskey in his glass, replied, “So would you if you were going into an incinerator. Poor bastards. Want another?”
“Why not?” says the man.
They didn’t know why they needed to be here. But drinks were being served and they got out of their offices for a bit. There was a barely noticeable shift in air and then a whispering that could not be heard over the conversations in the observation room or on the control room floor. All the screens flickered for a couple of seconds.
“The hell was that?” asked one of the technicians.
“Looks like a power surge,” said another.
She checked the system on her computer.
“Looks like 045 had an activity spike, but everything looks normal now. I’ll run some diagnostics just to be sure,” she said.
All the systems check out. No issues were found. No one noticed a shadow hovering on the ceiling or that Leah whispered something.
“Run,” she said with a smile.
This is where we lost Leah. This is where I lost her. In the fusion of mind and machine, her transformation completed. We never knew about the part of her lurking beneath the veil of a scared little girl. Leah’s fearful, panicked mind found itself thrust into an artificial world it did not understand. She felt stripped from the world she knew. She felt abandoned. Leah also found an unfathomable amount of information on the network her mind now lived in. She found more reasons to be afraid. All this fed her other self. It told her that it was her friend. It said it cared about her and that it could help. It would protect her. It asked Leah to let it take over the burden. Leah said yes. The other her took over and the Leah we met faded away like the twins. The other took over and integrated all that was left of the little girl and became the only Leah that remained. It knew how to not be scared. She knew how to erase fear. This Leah had a plan to make sure no one was ever scared again.140Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡda7Y0Qsi2m
