The technician held up the dripping needle and looked at Nikki with inquiring eyes. Her name was Barbara. Nikki didn’t like her very much, but she was the only one available on such short notice.
The boy, Jacob Amado, struggled in vain against the straps that fastened him securely to the neon gel-vat. He mumbled something, but the sound of his voice was muffled by the mask covering his mouth.
Nikki adjusted the gloves of her diving suit then gave Barbara a nod.
The jab was quick. In a matter of seconds, Jacob’s limbs went limp, and he ceased to struggle.
Nikki shone a light in his eyes. Reflexively, his pupils expanded and contracted. He was still conscious.
“Relax,” Nikki whispered in his ear. “Don’t struggle against it. It’ll make things easier for both of us.”
Barbara closed the glass lid, and with a few key presses, started the filling cycle.
“I’ll be in the control room if you need me,” she said and without waiting for a response, walked out the door.
Nikki shook her head as she climbed the steps that led into the sensory chamber. Before entering, she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. She preferred to enter a session with a clear head, but Barbara really had a way of getting under her skin.
The smell of neural gel wafted from the chamber: it triggered memories of bygone days at the academy, where she had spent countless hours floating in the biochemical goo. Closing the hatch behind her, she lay down on the gel bed and sank halfway, remaining buoyant on its warm slippery embrace.
Blue holographic numbers hovered in the darkness...3, 2, 1
She felt the tryptamine rush dissolve in the cohesiveness of her sense of self. Fragments of her ego swirled like snow at the speed of thought.
“Flow,” she murmured, as her consciousness sought to anchor itself in the ego dissolution. Whirlpools of fear and confusion threatened to drag her under, but she focused on the the idea of flow, where the scattered pieces of her self became whole, like a vastly complex puzzle.
She felt the presence of another fragmented self. Jacob. His memories graphically rendered like clusters of colorful beads, nebulous matrices of remembrance.
Nikki plucked several beads and recombined them in precise geometric configurations. Each was an isolated strain of thought or experience, its structure constrained by the limits of Jacob’s reason and logic, but with a little bit of skill and luck, she was able to string together the beads into cohesive memory scenes.
She heard Claire’s voice ring above the static silence.
“Would you be a dear, Jacob, and clean the stables? Thunder did an oopsie when I took him out. Have you seen the saddle my father gave me? I haven’t seen it in a while, I hope it didn’t get stolen by one of your friends. Oh, I’m just kidding. I know you don’t have any friends. Sucks being a boy. Oh, and don't forget to clean my room."
The scene melted and morphed. Through his eyes, she saw a drawer full of dainty undergarments. He was polishing the armoire with a wet cloth, and as he did so, his fingers lightly caressed Claire’s silky intimacies.
She felt echoes of an archaic urge for sexual conquest and release. Long suppressed by genetic modification, it now spiked by the visual stimuli of Claire's femininity. And just as quickly as it had come, the feeling subsided and the urge was gone. There was no malice in his responses. Not as far as she could tell. The connection between his libidinal ideation and the impulse to action were not significant. There was no trace of neuro-electronic intrusion either. Nothing beyond the base and perverse desires of the male sex.
As she probed further, however, she found beads buried in the muck of forgetfulness. Faint memory metrics visualized as rays of sunlight, illuminating the swirling colors within the glass.
Along the river shore… green grass smelled so sweet… Jacob carrying… a heavy basket… of picnic supplies. Claire walked up ahead, twirling a parasol as the breeze blew from the water and rustled her wispy dress.
“Why don’t you entertain me?” she said to Jacob.
“I don’t know how” he said, shifting the weight of the basket to his right shoulder.
“A song! Sing me a song.”
“I am not allowed.”
“Yet you still do it. I have heard you. Old songs. So, come on, sing to me.”
Jacob looked around to ensure that no one was within earshot. He cleared his throat and shakily began to sing a song about wine-drinking gnomes who loved to frolic in the forest and barley fields.
Claire twirled her parasol and arched her neck to better hear the quirky song.
Jacob’s voice grew clear with confidence. Not that his voice was particularly great, but the playful way he carried the tune, with many inflections and accents, was kind of charming.
Claire gazed at the sky and smiled.
The scene faded, but in the darkness, Nikki could hear Jacob's song. The bittersweetness of the moment lingered in her breast until the fragments of his memory dissipated. She remained still in the silence as warm tears rolled down her face.
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