Chapter 8

"Both of the twins and a few other people from Loyd's last match are going to require a psychiatrist you know," one of the viewing rooms technicians said standing next to the general.

"Yeah, and we'll need to call that guy again to see what happened in there. The protocol he used just before turning into that monster doesn't exist on the simulator."

xX Back in the sim room. Xx

The last of the matches finished as a group of medical officers rushed into the room splitting up and checking both the twins.

"Hey, what's going on here?" someone called from across the room as everyone who had witnessed what Loyd did, climbed out of their simulators. All but a few had lost the color in their faces and most couldn't even look at his pod.

Loyd sat there waiting for the simulated world to dissolve before he got out trying to figure out what he had just done. He looked down at his real hands to see they were trembling and for a second he thought he heard someone call his name. He looked up at the hatch to make sure it was sealed, it was. The voice called again this time clearer.

"Loyd!"

It was a sweet voice, the voice of a girl maybe? He swallowed, knowing the pods were soundproof, and called back.

"Hello? Who's there?"

The voice didn't reply. Loyd sat there, the simulation had ended and his simulator had already disconnected from him, when someone opened the hatch.

"Come on now boy, we're going to take you to the intensive care ward till your neural pathways stop freaking out." A doctor in a hazmat suit was standing on the other side holding out their hand.

"I'm fine, just going over what happened in my head." Loyd was angry, he didn't know why, but he was.

"The last signal your pod sent us was one similar to the first test pilots. We have to get you somewhere calming, before you end up frying yourself." The doctor sounded worried.

Loyd smiled.

"This is the most calming place I can be." He reached forwards and triggered his simulator's neural link.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to practice some more. My performance today was way too jerky and unrefined."

The doctor pulled back and watched. "We will continue to monitor you for as long as you are in the simulator. If we decide that your neural state has degraded to a point where brain damage is expected to occur, we will pull you out forcefully."

"Fine then, now let me be." Loyd shut the hatch and sat there. He checked his sync rate and was rather pleased with himself. Even a one-point increase was difficult to achieve, he had gained three. He joined a planet side AI battle and took his time trying that fighting style he had used against the twins. One of the AI's managed to hit him on his first and second try but by the third try, he did it flawlessly.

"Loyd? Are you there?" The voice resounded in his head again, even more clear than the time before.

He simply stood there, the mission already completed, and checked for where the voice was coming from.

"Hello?"

It wasn't coming from the speakers.

"Can you not hear me?"

It wasn't coming from his neural com either.

"Please, answer me."

The voice sounded, scared? Loyd couldn't make it out.

"I'm here, where are you?" He didn't speak out loud, but rather in his head, to test if it was coming from the simulation.

"Here! I'm right here!" The voice had heard him!

"Where? Where is here?"

"I am not inside the simulation. I am wherever you want." The voice was starting to sound even clearer and happier.

"Great, I'm going loony." Loyd paused thinking. "Can I really talk to you when I disconnect?"

Loyd was starting to feel hungry again and wondered if they had some leftover steak in the cafeteria.

"Yes, as long as you maintain that feeling you have."

"What do you mean?"

"That sensation of hunger is just a side effect of talking to me. I am sorry about that but I haven't eaten in a while."

"So, how can we still talk if I disconnect from my simulator?" Loyd started the disconnect procedure to test what the girl said.

"Isn't it obvious? We are both parts of the Swarm."

"What do you mean? I'm human. I've seen the DNA tests that prove it."

"And why would they not forge those tests? You can trust me. You can trust your sister."

Loyd finished disconnecting from the simulator halfway through her last sentence.

"Then, what am I, if I'm not what I've been told I am my entire life?"

He sat there, praying that he was going insane, as a face started to materialize in front of him, smiling.

"You're my brother, of course," the girl giggled as she materialized even more.

"How can I see you?!" Loyd was starting to panic. The hatch opened and the doctor was there again.

"Something wrong? That still looked pretty sloppy out there." The doctor's voice betrayed his fears, and it didn't help that the doctor was trembling.

"No, it was better than when I fought the twins, and I'm starting to get hungry. I thought I'd get some food before training some more." Loyd climbed out, taking note that the girl was incorporeal.

"Well, we need to do a scan of your head afterward, and this time I've got a form from the General himself, so you can't say no." The doctor sounded pretty smug now and his trembling had stopped.

"He's hiding how scared he is. You can smell it can't you? The fear on his breath is escaping through his mask's filter." Loyd's sister started walking towards him.

"Fine, I'll go with you but let me get something from the cafeteria first." Loyd could smell the doctor's fear, it was exciting.

"That's fine, your brain seems to have calmed down, judging from your simulator's scans." The doctor handed Loyd the tablet that the scan was on.

"Wow, so that's my brain? My brain is firing at five times the normal speed?! How did I manage that?" Loyd was starting to get scared now.

"You joined the swarm silly. You unlocked the deepest reaches of your mind." His sister seemed rather happy. "And now I can finally talk with someone."

"Well, we have recorded that the first generation of pilots had a similar thing happen when they turned off the synapse dampeners, but I really don't know." The doctor sounded pretty clueless at this point but the smell of fear was dissipating so Loyd guessed he had thought of something.

"Alright, then I'll cya after I get something to eat." Loyd walked to the doors, looking back over his shoulder to see the doctor collecting his stuff, and Loyd saw a syringe in the mix of medical supplies.

"Yeah, he was going to tranquilize you if anything happened in the simulator." His sister had started floating around now and was lazily drifting alongside him.

"So, when would I learn how to fly?" Loyd said, jokingly of course. He fully expected that he was just having a mental break down at this point.

"Oh, you just have to reverse the link." his sister was checking her nails now.

"And how would I do that?" he asked.

"It's easy but you'll have to do it when we get to the cafeteria." She smiled at him. "Or it'll look like you just shutdown. I can make you keep eating remotely but that's about it."

"How will I eat? Will I turn back into that monster that ate two kids?!" Loyd was wondering if she was responsible for that.

"No, you'd eat like you normally do."

"Good, then let's get going." Loyd started to jog to the cafeteria.

xX In the General's office Xx

"What do you mean something happened to the boy? The implant should've blocked everything!" The man who claimed to be Loyd's father was yelling in the General's face.

"Well, during the simulated battle today, he ripped open the cockpit of two of our best's and ate them." The General was calm and collected but still very scared as to what was happening with the boy.

"Not possible, unless he had no other option. Why would he do that?"

"Well, according to our scans, he did it because he was hungry."

The man looked up at the general and fell back into his chair. He placed his face in his hands while he tried to think of something that might've failed.

"Do you not know what might be going on then?" the general was rather curious now.

"No, I don't, but I have an idea." the man looked up at the general. "Tell me now, did it say anything about him talking to someone?" The man had an idea and if it turned out to be true his project was both a complete success and a total failure.

After looking through the data again the general nodded. "When he went back in, yes. Why do you ask?" the general was getting more and more confused now.

"His new type is the same design as his bio-type but using the crystals. He was talking to his sister, his bio-type. Which should be impossible." The man stood and started pacing. "We have her over a hundred feet below the surface of our facility and in a lead box which has been proven to block the swarm's hive mind."

"So, what you're telling me, is he can communicate with his CTAS remotely?" The general now stood. "And that the lead we put in his chest isn't keeping the swarm out of his head?!"

"The swarm can't communicate through lead, but Loyd and thirteen aren't fully Swarm. It may have something to do with the human DNA they have." The man looked up at the general again. "Where is Loyd now?"

The general looked back at his tablet. "He's entering the cafeteria now, why?"

"You need to get an enforcer team to him now. If he connects to his sister remotely, she'll be able to move and get out of the facility." The man started heading for the door, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he went.

"And why is that so bad?" The general was still staring at his tablet.

"Because, it means we've just made a new hive mind, here on mars, and we haven't been all that nice to his sister, have we general?" The man left the room, his call connecting as he shut the door.

"Then, we can fight fire with fire, swarm with swarm," grumbled the General.