Sector Seven

by Kaden Sinclair

  They chit-chatted about random things, carefully avoiding public conversation about his work or the problems he’d recently had. By the end of the evening, Jason felt great. Monica looked exhausted.

  Eleven

  JASON TOOK THE NEXT few days off from work. He went on walks through parks, saw some local musicians, visited museums, and tried, with much success, to relax. Whatever Tarien had done, Faust had quit the nagging and pressuring. In an unusual period of calm, Jason wasn’t sent nasty threats or other forms of coercion.

  Monica stayed with him when she wasn’t working, except one night, where she’d met a young man and had some fun with him before kicking him out of her apartment. Jason had just arrived at her place as she ushered her boy-toy out the door. With a lingering kiss and an aggressive hand on the man’s ass, she certainly made no pretenses about what she’d been doing with him the night before.

  Worried about Jason’s lack of sex life, she tried to introduce him to a guy she’d met at work, which turned out to be embarrassingly awkward. The man clearly liked Jason and tried to engage him with flirting gestures, overt sexual references and, finally, by trying to kiss him. Jason showed the man no interested at all, since Monica’s friend was too hairy, too beefy, and simply not very intelligent. In reality, his only romantic thoughts, irrational as they might be, were of Tarien.

  Still, having someone pay him attention was refreshing. He returned to work, partially, near the end of the week. The block from Tarien was still in place. Jason could sense his own nannies, but not those of others. Without the torrential flood of incoming emotions, he could focus. He used this respite to focus on becoming able to manually shut down receptors himself, so that he would not need Tarien to do this for him. His staff noted the communication method he used to issue the shutdown orders and built that into their lab systems so they could intervene if he failed or turn them on for him. This turned out to be rather simple and, thankfully, complete. While he could turn the reception of emotions either on or off, there didn’t seem to be a dimmer switch.

  At the start of the next week, after a relaxing weekend and without warning, the bombardment of external sensory input resumed. He looked around for Tarien, expecting him to be nearby to have triggered his nannies, but Jason couldn’t detect the Tech anywhere close.

  At first, he clenched his teeth and tried to endure the input, but quickly found he needed to shut off incoming emotions. His staff kept close watch on him and regulated his communication in case he slipped. Each time they turned them back on, he made a concerted effort to filter or outright block everyone out. It took him several more days before he found the trick he’d been looking for.

  It seemed if he broadcast opposing emotions to each individual, like two waves coming from opposite directions, it negated incoming information from that person to him without changing it in the host. Doing so made him consciously aware of the nature of each incoming data stream. One by one, he filtered each emotion out with sustained negation. Next, he began to attempt creating subtle changes in each person, rather than completely and forcefully overriding their emotions.

  This level of granularity proved beyond his ability. He either completely dominated the person’s emotions and hormones, an effort that dissipated when Jason wasn’t nearby, or he had to shut them out and ignore the signals. While almost everyone had basic nannies that regulated their bodies for medical reasons, the new nannies were extremely complex in their abilities. He needed to master communication to these basic nannies in people before the advanced nannies could be made available to the general population.

  The rest of the team proved equally unsuccessful at their assignments.

  Dr. Garbine, who had been just as shaken by the previous accident, now evinced reluctance to perform any aggressive testing. She avoided him as much as possible, clearly shaken by the entire program and its failures. Even so, she had discovered that when a person had a close emotional tie to another person, that bond formed a sort of natural intermingling of one person’s core self with another person’s core self. She’d discovered this after reviewing old research with plants, using attached sensors for monitoring, showed they were affected when a plant in another room had a leaf cut off. This happened for humans, too, when a definitive bond was present between the individuals. Working with this premise, her experiments were leaning toward the strong possibility that one’s consciousness could be moved between hosts based on this bond. She feared, however, that an aggressive push to force the host to submit to a foreign consciousness would kill the host individual, leaving behind a shell that was then occupied by the foreign consciousness. Essentially, you could transfer “soul” to another body, but you’d kill the person to whom you transferred. There didn’t seem to be a way to share the host. The theory was esoteric, and her work seemed to be the most difficult of all, but she appeared to have lost energy behind the little progress she’d made and spent increasing amounts of time away from the lab.

  Dr. Preem had made the most progress. Her new communications, enhanced suits, and overall technological enhancements had come out almost daily. She watched the other teams like a hawk and made adjustments to provide each of them with more specific tools. Unlike both he and Dr. Garbine, she seemed more attuned to the problems since the disaster and showed laser-like focus on the problems at hand.

  Dr. Black had all but completed his work. The new nano and cellular enhancements made potential subjects nearly invulnerable. Given enough time and material, the body could repair just about anything. These reparations were becoming rapid with each new version. Fire and chemical destruction of the subject, or electro-magnetic disruption of the nannies so they could not repair were the exception, and freezing would delay the repair process. His work also meant that the biosuits would, eventually, be moot. They were designed to protect, enhance, provide signal boosts, and house chemicals for medical use in their fabric. Highly advanced nannies could manufacture just about anything from surrounding materials and do most of the work the suits now provided.

  Dr. Black began working more closely with the other chief scientist on his team, Markovich, and began looking at true cloning as a physical replacement for a destroyed body. They could replicate any person within months, using advanced cellular cloning and accelerated growth, but these lab-grown clones were just inanimate carcasses. Even with Dr. Garbine’s work, Jason could not detect these beings as living organisms and could not, therefore, identify enough with them to try and animate them. The attempts were like trying to animate a chair.

  The dire problem persisted with the ongoing experiments to enhance existing bodies, too. The issue of out-of-control hormones and the inability of the host to keep their body normalized persisted. This worried them all, considering how it caused insanity and self-destruction.

  Markovich pointed out that Jason held the key both to stabilizing and to transferal. Something about emotions came from more than just chemical processes. They found an underlying guiding force: consciousness.

  The new questions and issues seemed to inflame the Council, who only viewed the amazing discoveries and progress as falling short of their desired goals. Whatever vestiges of goodwill and friendly disposition they’d pretended toward Jason evaporated. Somehow, they had assumed the technology to be nearing completion . . . close to being feasible for them to use to save them from aging. They did not understand how science often revealed new problems as it progressed. These new revelations put the science just as far away from the final goal as when the doctors had started.

  Director Faust became increasingly hostile. He would, occasionally, review their work, making disdainful suggestions, though they were, admittedly, brilliant.

  A Tech constantly accompanied Faust during these visits, as if to emphasize Faust’s authority. Sector Seven would be at Faust’s side on occasion, but Sector Nine most often stood by Faust’s side. On rare occasions, another Tech, a woman from Sector Four, would substitute. The presence of any Tech frightened the rese
arch team more than anything Faust could do or say. Faust was a known. Prone to fits of rage and often belittling those around him, yes, and certainly intimidating, but still human. A Tech, however, was rare. Most people had never seen one, let alone had one observe them so closely. The population revered them and were terrified of them at the same time. Nobody knew just how much a Tech could see into your every thought, know your every action. Having one physically present made the fear that they knew every one of your secrets more real.

  Despite this, the expression Nine wore was not the unemotional and stoic face that people expected. When Sector Nine attended, he loomed over them with a slightly confused expression on his face, as if unsure why he had submitted to becoming a personal attendant to Faust. This slight human flaw in his otherwise inhuman presence tempered the concerns.

  During the visits where Seven accompanied Faust, he would stare at Jason. Unlike his normally distant expression, he had a fiery and piercing gaze that Jason couldn’t understand. Jason became increasingly concerned about Tarien’s appearance, especially since he had begun to frown on occasion and his eyes narrowed dangerously in contrast to Faust’s smile during one visit as they discussed the advancement of Jason’s experiments. The more progress Jason made, the more dour Tarien’s facial expressions. Such expressions were rare on the face of a Tech, but now both Nine and Tarien wore them.

  Finally, when Tarien seemed particularly upset, Jason had broadcast strong compassion and concern, smiling encouragingly. Instead of the intended effect, Tarien’s eyes widened and his face and eyes became sad, hurt even. Everything he saw happening with Tarien confused Jason. First, because the behavior didn’t resonate with anything he knew of how the Techs operated, which didn’t seem to involve normal human emotion, and second, because he’d thought that they’d connected on some level. Why would Tarien be sad when Jason was just trying to let him know he was concerned?

  Immediately after sending comfort to Tarien, Sector Nine and, surprisingly, Director Faust had turned their gazes at him as if they were twins. Nine’s gaze seemed indifferent, Faust’s cold and hostile. Their mirrored movements confused and shocked Jason. He could understand how Nine would have known what he was doing, but Faust? That implied Faust had some sort of method for detecting and reading what Jason was doing real-time. The thought chilled him, since he hoped to keep some of his work secret from Faust in the hope of thwarting him. This only happened when Nine was present. Faust, he reasoned, must have some sort of direct link of communication there.

  It was all he could do to stay at the lab on the days when the Techs appeared.

  Most nights when he came home, Monica was around. She was spending a lot of time with Mom and with Derek, which made no sense. She didn’t live close and neither of them had been particularly good friends of hers in the past. Whatever her reasons, she refused to talk about it with him and she, Mom, and Derek never spoke of anything of consequence when he was present.

  When Jason asked her, Monica simply responded, “I discovered that we share some ideas about social issues. That’s all. They have some great ideas on how we can all work together for change and for once I’m actually hopeful. Don’t worry about it. I DO have other friends, you know.” Jason decided he had plenty to concern him and needn’t question her new relationships.

  At long last, he made a breakthrough. With some success, he could permanently fix the emotions of some of the test subjects into a combination that meant obedience. The resulting emotions were basic and people lost any form of objectivity. They became nearly zombie-like, capable of carrying out only simple commands, but they remained utterly under Jason’s control.

  From this breakthrough, came another surprisingly useful ability. He could induce mild autism in some of his lab assistants, which made them capable of solving complex issues. The lab assistants became exhausted in this state, so the technique only worked for short bursts of research. Extended time in this state forced their brains to perform beyond their natural capacity, burning out sections. Jason carefully avoided getting to this point.

  It had been just over two years since they had started the experiments. Obtaining the kind of success the Council wanted would take several more years, at least. Possibly as much as a decade.

  Unexpectedly, on what was an otherwise calm day, Carlisle Faust burst into the lab. He swept his arm across a lab table, hurling glassware and metal instruments to the floor. Jason’s staff rushed to get away from the violence. Faust picked up a mass spectrometer they had been using to analyze new elemental properties in some of the materials used for the suits, clearly intent on throwing it at Jason. Two of the attending robots rushed at Faust, each grabbing an arm to prevent this. “This should have taken half the time, you moron!” he screamed at Jason. “I’ve solved far more complex problems in my sleep!” He tried to break free from the attendant robots, who would not allow further destruction to the lab. In a couple of minutes they released him, standing by to grab him again if needed. “One of the Council is dead, because you are too slow to get your part of the research under control.”

  Dr. Garbine gasped. “Who died?”

  “Elandra Hayes. Dead! In a time when death should be easily defeated.”

  Faust bunched his fists and strode towards Jason. “You’re the one who’s holding this up. We have a way to prevent death. I solved the physical problem two years ago. The only thing we need is a way to control the feedback problem and to prevent loss of control. I’ve solved death and I’ve solved how to regenerate, and you can’t figure out something as simple as emotional control!” With that said, he swung a fist at Jason.

  Jason stepped back, but not before Faust’s fist connected with his nose. Shocked, he didn’t feel the pain before he tasted the salty warmth of blood in the back of his throat. Jason lifted his face and stared at the man in disgust. Several of the other doctors sucked in their breath in astonishment and Dr. Garbine stammered, “Carlisle!”

  Too late, the robots rushed to restrain Faust again.

  Jason wiped the blood from under his nose, tempted to hit Faust while the robots held him. Instead, as his anger bubbled to the surface, he said, “Then do it your goddamn self. I quit.”

  Faust sneered. “Oh, do you? You think you can just walk out? You think I won’t destroy you because you are the only one we have who can work on this? I think you’ll find out just how persuasive I can be.” He finally jerked his arms free of the robots and stormed out of the room.

  Jason’s nannies repaired his face quickly, but his anger would not subside. The staff stood in shock as he left the lab without a word.

  Instead of the lifts and elevated public mag trains, he took a private gravity vehicle home. It was faster, for one, and he hadn’t taken time to look in a mirror and wipe the blood off that he knew must be on his face.

  The vehicle landed near the large gardens that flanked the entrance.

  Monica lingered outside his building, talking with Mom and with Derek, busily helping them plant a few new things. They all looked up in surprise, then concern. Mom reached him first, stepping out of the dirt and onto the walkway, touching his upper lip and letting out a small cry of concern. Monica came up behind her. Derek wandered up behind them both, looking at Jason curiously.

  Monica was both upset and concerned. “What the hell happened? Is that dried blood on your chin?”

  Jason tried to tamp down his anger. “Faust. He threw a tantrum about the death of Council member Hayes. He sees his own mortality staring him in the face and he hit me.”

  Her hands tightened into fists. “That son of a bitch! I don’t get it. Why doesn’t he just use the new technology to make himself immortal? I must be missing something. You said he developed it already, so what is he waiting for?”

  What the hell was she doing? Talking like this out where everyone could hear. “Monica! We aren’t alone.” Then, to Derek and Mom he said, “Look, this is just speculation and worry about some things at work. We need to go inside.”r />
  Monica looked stricken, then blushed and lowered her face. “Okay, crap. I sort of already told them, Jason. It’s one of the things we’ve been talking about. Before you get all mad and throw a fit, it’s important for people to take a stand. You even told me you broadcast emotions to the workers and guards when demonstrating to the Council, right? Because you wanted to get the message out. So, the more people that know and raise concerns, the better. Maybe if there are enough of us, we can band together, do something.”

  “Great. When this gets back to Faust, because you’re standing around gossiping, you’ll suddenly be hit by a flying vehicle that unexplainably lost gravity control. He doesn’t go easy on people who he suspects are a threat, Monica.”

  She moved closer, throwing a quick look over her shoulder. “I get that. But out here is probably safer than inside my apartment, where every gadget can hear every whisper. At least out here, there’s nothing but flowers and a few worms. And I doubt they’re spying on us. Nothing that can overhear is close. Mom suggested it. It’s the least suspicious way for us to have these conversations. If we were all seen running off to some hiding place all the time, that’d look weird. Out here, we are visible and yet probably completely unseen and unheard.”

  He had to admit, this was a solid idea. He glanced over at Mom, who cocked her head a bit, making her pinned-up grey hair bobble to the side. She gave him a wily look, a little smile on her saintly face. “Oh, sweetie. I’m not as silly and unaware as you might think. Here, let me.” She took out a small rag and spit on it and wiped the blood from his face. Jason was caught between laughing and flinching. It was so gross, but so like her. He wasn’t sure his face looked any better. At least the blood had been cleaned off.

  Monica pulled her gloves off, kicking her shoes against the walkway to dislodge dirt. “So? Why hasn’t he? Faust, I mean. He has the technology to make himself immortal. You said so yourself. I am terrified he will, that our chances will be gone to resist, but I can’t figure out what’s stopping him.”