Chapter 9 - The Check-up
Discarded metal
Chapter 9 - The Check-up
"One apple a day, keeps the doctor away."
It was time for Mark's checkup at the Meditech research center.
He arrived early after an uneventful ride through the corporate districts.
The already familiar elevator going down to the labs reminded him of the months spent there, the countless tests and surgeries he underwent after the explosion that changed his life forever.
As the elevator doors open, Mark steps out into the clean, sterile environment of the research facility.
The walls are adorned with futuristic technology, and the sound of whirring machines fills the air.
A pang of nervousness tingles through his body, but he pushes it aside, reminding himself that he is back to active duty at CTIG and this is just a regular check-up.
Anton is greeting him from the central room used for recreation, he waves and invites him to come closer.
"Mark, it's nice to see you again." He says.
"It's nice to see you too, Anton." Mark replies.
He somehow feels comfortable near the engineer and starts to relax a bit.
"So, tell me everything in detail." Anton says to Mark as he invites him to sit with him.
Mark sits and starts to explain what happened.
"It was a field mission, I was tasked with opening a warehouse front door controlled from a local network. Upon entering the network I found that there was a second control node to open the door. I sent regular programs but I was kind of anxious that they wouldn't work out. At this point, I felt some energy building up in my head and it released in the network, it fried the netrunner who was controlling that node."
Anton listens to him attentively while scratching his chin.
"Interesting…" He says as he seems to process all the information given by Mark.
"How did you feel afterwards?" He asks Mark.
"Actually good, it was like a rush of adrenaline and I slept like a baby that night." Mark answers.
"We need to run some tests." Anton says as he stands up and invites Mark to follow him.
They walk to an empty examination room with a long chair in the middle and several advanced machines scattered everywhere.
Anton gestures to Mark to sit on the chair.
"We are going to check out what's going on with the prototype, just sit and relax" He says.
Mark obeys and sits on the chair, trying to find a comfortable position.
As he gets comfortable in the chair, Anton starts some of the machines and draws a long cable that he slots in Mark's neural interface.
He starts a big holoscreen that displays several pieces of information about Mark's synthetic brain.
"OK, everything looks perfectly normal, I will start a scan." Anton says.
Scanning in progress… Appears on the holoscreen with a progression bar.
After a few minutes the scan report appears.
"Nothing wrong with the scan. I want to conduct a small experiment, are you willing to try?" Anton asks Mark.
"Why not? What kind of experiment?" Mark says.
"I will monitor the connections between your organic brain and the synthetic one and you will try to get yourself in different states. Maybe think about stuff that can make you angry or sad." Anton explains.
"OK, that's easy enough. Let me know when to start." Mark replies.
Mark nods and prepares the monitoring through the holoscreen. Several parameters and a 3d representation of both brains appear on screen.
"We are good to go, whenever you are ready." Anton tells Mark.
Mark nods and closes his eyes, trying to recall the feelings he had while penetrating the network during the mission.
He gets in a state of nervousness as he remembers launching the regular programs, the parameters on the screen are triggered and several areas of the 3d representation lights up.
Anton let out a small sigh followed by : "Interesting."
It makes Mark open his eyes to check what's going on on the screen.
"What? What is it?" He asks Anton.
"Your organic brain and the prototype are communicating beyond what was expected." Anton says.
"What do you mean? Is it a good thing?" Mark asks with a worried tone in his voice.
"We were expecting that your organic brain would give commands to the prototype, facilitating connections and control of anything technological. But what is happening is beyond that." Anton pauses for a bit, letting Mark absorb the information.
"The prototype is trying to translate any information coming from your organic brain, including emotional information. That power surge was your emotions translated by the prototype and released into that network." He continues.
Mark looks a bit surprised at first but it starts to make sense to him.
"Wait a second… Do you mean that when I'm getting angry, the prototype just goes wild?" Mark asks.
"No, not at all, it tries to match the intensity and creates an equal response signal. In other words, with control over your emotions, you can create any signals you want." Anton explains.
Mark seems to ponder the possibilities and his mind runs wild for a moment, sparking more activity on the screen.
" Yeah… But controlling emotions isn't an easy feat… " He says out loud.
"Precisely, that tech was developed to only take basic signals from the brain, but it seems that it is capable of more. It's new territory for us in terms of research." Anton says.
"It's new territory for me too… I need to keep my emotions in check in case I start frying stuff randomly." Mark says with a hint of worries in his voice.
"I can give you pills that will help you calm down, don't worry, we got your back, Mark." Anton says.
He then turns off the screen and unplugs Mark from the machine.
He grabs a small bottle of pills from a cabinet against the wall and hands it to Mark.
Mark grabs it and tosses it inside the pocket of his jacket.
"Is that all?" Mark asks, wondering if the check-up should last longer.
"Yeah, that's all, you are free to go, I'm going to push away your next appointment. If anything else happens, just contact me straight." Anton says as he invites Mark to stand up from the long chair.
Mark stands up and they both walk out of the room. Anton walks with Mark to the elevators that lead out of the center.
"I will send a report to your captain stating that nothing is wrong and you can continue your field duties." Anton says as he holds the elevator's doors for Mark.
"Thanks, that means a lot to me." Mark says as he enters the elevator.
Anton nods and releases the doors. Mark presses the button to go to the surface, the ride takes a few seconds.
As Mark gets out of the research center, he starts wondering if he could control this new found ability of his synthetic brain.
He gets a taxi that starts driving through the corporate districts, the high towers belonging to all the major corpos stand proudly as a reminder of what extreme capitalism is.
As Mark's vision is lost in a daze, some images flash fast in front of his eyes, like a movie going too fast.
He starts wondering what's happening when it starts again but this time slower, allowing him to see the center he just left.
"What's happening…" He thinks to himself.
It feels like memories of what just happened but he can navigate these images, zooming on some areas he didn't even pay attention to when he was there.
He randomly zooms on things he didn't notice, like people sitting in the recreation area when he met Anton. He can zoom on their faces and see even more details.
Suddenly it stops and he finds himself back in the taxi, stopped at his destination and the driver staring at him.
"It will cost you extra if you want to sleep in my taxi." The driver says.
"What?" Mark asks with a confused look on his face.
"We have arrived…" The driver says.
Mark looks around and realizes that they stopped in front of CTIG HQ.
"Sorry, I think I just dozed…" He says as he transfers the ride fare through his Neural implant and exits the taxi.
He stands there for a bit, wondering about what just happened in the taxi.
"Is that another thing I am able to do?" He asks himself.
Before answering, he tries again to think about Meditech's research center and in an instant he is back there.
He realizes that he can replay the whole time that he was there as if his synthetic brain had actually recorded every information that went through it.
He can go back in time, fast forward, zoom anything that he has seen, and he starts wondering what else it can do.
He snaps out of it and starts walking toward the HQ's doors.
"Now that's something new…" He thinks to himself as he enters.
As he walks through the familiar corridors, he meets captain Haaris.
"Hey, son, I received the report from Meditech, they said nothing wrong, good to know." He says.
"Yeah, it seems everything is good, it's a relief." Mark says.
Captain Haaris nods and they keep walking together for a while until Mark turns to his room.
He sits on his bed and decides to access his synthetic brain's memory again.
Without effort this time he is back into Meditech research center, he starts to get the hang of visualizing his memories.
"How far can I go with that?" He wonders.
He skips backward through the entire check-up, sometimes pausing the images and playing around with zooming.
He zooms on things he didn't even notice, Anton's name tag, he can see his name very clearly.
He keeps going backward, replaying his entrance into the research center.
"Can I replay the mission?" He is wondering.
In an instant, he is back in the SUV, getting ready to get out as it parks near the warehouses.
Fast-forward… Captain Haaris is giving the order to find a way to open the warehouse's door.
Sparrow is getting ready to assault the two goons guarding the door. Pause.
Zooming on Sparrow, slow motion, zoom on his knife.
"The details… It's amazing…" He thinks.
In slow motion, Sparrow is plunging his knife in the first guard's neck and a gush of blood spurts out of the wound.
He sees the second guard reacting, instinct kicking in, aiming the gun and shooting.
The bullet can be seen slowly leaving his gun, zooming. It hits the second guard's head, blood splatters hit the wall of the warehouse.
Fast forward…
In the warehouse, taking down the two goons inside. Zooming on the runner connected to the warehouse's network.
He can feel the adrenaline rush of the moment pumping in his veins.
Fast forward…
Diving in the network, deploying firewalls. He can review the network's structure and even see a clear representation of it with all the connected nodes and functions.
As he focuses on the network, he starts getting information about the runner who was connected to the other node controlling the door.
Male… 26 years old… Gang affiliation… The Scorch… implants…
He is flooded with information and barely can keep up with it. He thinks about pausing and everything stops, like time itself stopped.
"This is crazy… How I wasn't aware of this…" He thinks.
Proceed…
Information keeps coming to him, he realizes that he can launch some functions such as storing, highlighting important points and even sending to his neural link.
"Did I turn into a bloody computer?" He starts wondering.
Fast forward…
The power surge…
He feels it again, the moment his brain releases that power. It runs through the network and hits the node.
Pause… Zoom on the node… slow motion…
It's like a pure electric burst that burns through the nod and invades the runner's implant, frying it slowly.
Exit…
His vision goes back to normal as he is still sitting on his bed.
Slowly he lays down on it and stares at the ceiling.
"What else can it do?" He says out loud.
His organic mind is racing, he feels excitement and starts to feel overwhelmed.
"Shit… I need to calm down… the pills…" He says as he reaches into his jacket's pocket and pulls out the small bottle.
He pops the bottle open and quickly swallows two pills, then puts the bottle on the bedside table.
He focuses on his breathing for a moment and the pills seem to kick in fast.
His heart rate is getting lower and he starts to relax a bit.
He closes his eyes and slowly drifts away into the darkness.
His breath steady and calm, the quietness of his room is driving him slowly into a peaceful sleep.
A sleep full of synthetic dreams…