The Crystal Bridge (The Lost Shards Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter 4: Brain Spikes

J
ames watched from the town car as the buildings thinned out, replaced with miles of sand and sagebrush that rippled in the desert heat. The sagebrush became sparse and then scraggly bushes disappeared too. All that remained was a blinding expanse of white sand that forced James to squint even through dark tinted windows.

What have I got myself into? It’s a strange place to build a pharmaceutical lab, in the middle of the salt flats.
Mom would kill me if she knew I’m planning on living out here, so far from anything normal. She’ll be bugging me about grandkids even more once she finds out.

That made him think of Stacie, his boss at the coffee shop he’d been stuck at for the past three months. After his book had tanked and tanked hard, no one had wanted to hire him in his field and he’d taken anything he could get to pay the bills.
Stacie is beautiful…pink hair, tattoos, and all. At least it was pink last time I saw her. She changes it so often.

James had ignored the flirtations. She’d been his boss after all, but now he wondered if he should’ve just gone for it.
Now I’ll never know. That option’s gone.
Mike had showed up with a job offer James couldn’t pass up and he’d tossed his apron on a counter and walked out without much thought.
Didn’t even get a chance to see her after I quit.
The last week had been a whirlwind of interviews, paperwork, and packing.

The car stopped at a guard box. The driver flashed a security badge and the car moved on through the gate past two sets of razor-wire fences. The car rolled to a second stop in front of a squat, brown brick building with only four tiny windows. The building looked very little like the huge pharmaceutical conglomerate James expected, more like a small town clinic that had lost all its funding.

“This can’t be it.”

The driver glanced back at him. “It’s more impressive inside.” He turned off the engine and hopped out. “Coming, sir?”

James cracked the door and blinked at the morning sun reflecting off the white sand. He stepped out into the desert heat. A salty, metallic tang that he could almost see rose in waves from the scorched white sand, burning his nostrils as it climbed inside him and into his lungs.

The driver unloaded the luggage as James coughed violently. “You get used to that too.” He cracked a smile and pointed at the rusty steel doors. “Go on in, sir. You don’t need to worry about your personal effects. I’ll take them to your quarters.” The man waved away the tip James proffered. “That’s not necessary, sir. Omegaphil does not pay poorly, even just a lowly driver.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Okay, thanks.” James shoved the bill back into his pocket with a shrug.

“My pleasure, sir. Good luck.”

The badge allowed James through the locked and heavy security doors. He stepped into what looked like the waiting room for a dentist office except for the two large, armed guards. They just nodded toward an elevator.
Friendly place.

A thin, trembling male voice filled the elevator as soon as he entered. “Welcome, Dr. Iverson. We’ve been expecting you. We’ll see you shortly in Section Five.”

The elevator hummed as pulleys and hidden machines carried him downward. The doors opened with a ding on the impossible, a maze of bright-lit corridors that led off in all directions. Mike and a balding man in a white lab coat, who introduced himself as Dr. Stephens, waited for him in a circular lobby by the elevator.

Mike shook his hand and gave him the usual charming Mike smile. “So good to see you again, buddy. We’re gonna have so much fun here, you and I.”

“Yes, lovely. Shall we?” Dr. Stephens glanced at his watch. “We have much to do before you get started.”

Mike laughed. “Doc Stephens here is a bit of a wet blanket, but a good egg down deep, aren’t you Doc?”

The balding man slicked a wisp of hair back over his head where it did little to hide the shiny and hairless dome. “Not really.” But a hint of a smile betrayed him. “We must go.”

Stephens led them down a corridor to the “Neural Interface Room” according to the plaque on the door.

Dr. Stephens excused himself. “Mike will introduce you to the neural interface process. I have some pressing business with Vander Carlson.”

James thought back to his interview with Vander just a few days ago, thinking of a charcoal pinstriped suit and shark-like eyes. The man unnerved him. “Good luck,” he called after Stephens.

A chuckle answered him and James thought he heard Stephens mutter that he would need all the luck in the world.

Mike opened the door. “After you, old friend.”

James took three steps inside and froze. “What’s that?” He pointed at the machine in front of him. “It looks like some unholy combination of electric chair and an iron maiden.”

White, sterile walls ran the length of the room, making it appear too large to hold just the vile-looking chair and a computer console. James expected his voice to echo, but it didn’t.

“What’s going on, Mike?”

“You read the papers, signed the wavers. You need the neural interface installed before you can start work.” Mike walked over and sat down in the contraption.

James grimaced as Mike lowered himself onto the sleek metal chair. “And the evil brain spike machine
installs
the neural interface. What? Like I’m a car getting a new stereo?”

“Come on, James. It isn’t as bad as it looks. Quick, relatively painless, and then you’re off to work in Section Six, with me and the fun toys Omegaphil has to offer. You’re either all in or all out at this point.”

Seriously, what have I gotten myself into?

Mike ran a hand back and forth along a polished stainless steel armrest. He pushed a button and kicked up his legs as a leg rest slid up beneath them. Despite the hard metal and leather restraints, Mike looked comfortable, the chair bent in sleek curves to fit his body and gleaming in the white of the room like a lazy-boy throne.

“Would you get out of that thing?”

“I’m trying to make it easier on you.” But Mike stood, walked over to a large smoky mirror, and picked at something in his teeth.

“Then start some actual explanations. Yes, I signed the papers, but I assumed the neural interface stuff was exterior, electrodes, brainwave scanners, something normal…ish.”

The chair stared back at James from the mirror with hundreds of dark blue eyes, glass circles running the length of the armrests and dotting the curved back. Small tubes wound away from the thing, weaving into a bundle, like nerves drawing closer to the brain. The bundled wires and tubes vanished through a hole in the ceiling, but not before traversing past a shining, metal dome. “This looks more invasive than anything I expected.”

James took in the metal dome that hung from the ceiling, thinking it vaguely resembled a hair dryer at a beauty parlor, but he doubted his grandma would set foot beneath the thing, no matter the reputation of the salon. It hung from a large, hydraulic arm, allowing it to move down on the segmented appendage like a scorpion’s stinger.
Nope, Nana would be horrified
.

James swallowed as his eyes ran along the inner curved surface of the dome. Pumps, lights, and electronic equipment pulsated there, alive with movement and activity. Two large spikes jutted from the dome, like upside-down skyscrapers. Each spike broke down into its own set of segments like a spider’s leg, able to move and bend at any angle.

James leaned against an immaculate wall. “What have you gotten me into, Mike?”

Mike pulled himself away from the mirror, giving up on whatever eluded him in his mouth. He put on his most charismatic smile, revealing the black poppy seed stuck high in his gums between two front teeth.

Normally James would have laughed, but he didn’t even smile. “What is this?”

Mike’s smile grew. “This is your dream job, the best thing that’s ever happened to you, to any of us.”

James took in the crazy grin and the gleam of joy in Mike’s eyes and began to wonder how many times his friend had been in the chair.
How many alterations have they done to make him think this is a good thing?
“Save me the corporate propaganda.”

“Okay, my old friend, let me explain things a bit better. I told you about the job, prehistoric genetic research for possible pharmaceutical applications, right?”

“Yeah, but you said nothing about this.”

“Until you signed the confidentiality papers I wasn’t allowed to tell you everything.”

“No kidding.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be doing plenty of your precious prehistoric genetics, but that’s just the beginning.” The gleam in Mike’s eyes burned brighter and he waved his hands faster as he spoke. “The main focus of our study is genetic manipulation of multicellular organisms in real time, James. Real time!”

“That’s impossible and you know it. Real time manipulation would require changing all the genes at once, which can’t be done at the macro level, not yet.”

“Impossible on a living animal, true. But what if you’re working with simulations, holograms? The firm we work for has the best scientists in all fields working here, from computer engineers to theoretical physicists. They’re a million times ahead of the rest of the world. We’ve got thousands of specimens fully mapped!”

James slid to the floor, his back against the wall. “Still impossible. Simulations are useful, but they can’t replace the real thing.” He paused as the rest of Mike’s statements sank in. “Thousands? Really? Why hasn’t it been in the news? Something that big?”

“I see you still do your heavy thinking on the floor. Come on, you saw where we are. We’re in the middle of nowhere, just desert, guards, and guns. It’s like something from a movie. Area 51, except better, without the slimy alien bits. We’re leaping into the future here. I couldn’t go back to beating chemicals with clubs, grunting, just hoping something happens. And, once you see what’s possible here, neither could you.”

“I don’t know, Mike.” James pointed at the chair and dome. One brain spike quivered as if in anticipation. “I mean, look at that thing! What does the chair o’death have to do with genetics?”

“I guess we did get a bit off topic. I forget how shocking this all looks at first.”

“Really? I think that thing may just haunt my nightmares forever.”

“Melodramatic much?” Mike laughed. “Okay, okay, it threw me for a loop too, but the benefits outweigh the risks. The machine implants a few organic microchips in your head, teeny tiny things. They allow you to use the box.”

He said “box” with more emphasis than one would expect from such a mundane word, but James ignored that for the moment.

“Chips…in my brain?”

“Don’t worry. They aren’t going to fry your brain or anything. They’re super small, like nothing you’ve seen before, made up of only a little metallic compounds, organic proteins, and carbon nanotubes. They’re then powered by your body heat and a chemoelectrical process that’s perfectly safe. Section Five’s all about nano-tech. I’ll have one of the guys show them to you. Not really my expertise, as you know. I prefer mammals over metal.”

James just shook his head, still sitting on the floor as Mike paced awkwardly in front of him.

Mike stopped and stuck out his hand. “Won’t you stand up? This is weird talking to you like this.”

James slapped Mike’s hand away. “You’re more than welcome to join me down here, if you’re that uncomfortable. How do these chips work?”

“Fine. I’ll stay standing.” He went back to pacing. “The chips link together over a wireless system and allow you to access the box.” Mike made his way over to the chair and thumbed an arm restraint. “It doesn’t hurt. They give you a mild sedative and local anesthetic. The computer scans you at all times. Those brain-spikes, as you called them, are laser guided. It’s safer than driving.”

“And what is this
box
thing you keep talking about?”

“It’s B. O. C. S. for Bio Organic Computer Simulation. BOCS for short. Cute, eh? It makes sense too once you see it. Okay, first things first. I’ll get permission to show you the BOCS and then you’ll be ready for your install.” Mike smirked. “Like a stereo upgrade.”