NaNoWriMo Day 16

Word Count: 30,084

Molly



I wake to the terrifying howl of some sort of alarm, for a few confused seconds I don’t know where I am, and I am scared to death. Recognition of the room comes before too long and the alarm stops shrieking soon after that. I am still locked in so I sit on the bed with my arms around my legs and try to calm my racing heart. A few minutes pass and the door unlatches with a clank and Freidrich opens it with a smile. He apologizes for the noise, it was apparently a false alarm. I ask what made it go off but he waved the question away as unimportant. He asks if I am hungry and escorts me once again to the mess hall. The place is fuller this time, a mix of soldiers, scientists, and maintenance workers. Some of them eye me up but quickly go back to their individual conversations.

I sit down with a plate of bland scrambled eggs and bacon and Brandt goes over my itinerary for the day. They want to run some physical tests first, for what reason he won’t tell me. I ask if I can take a shower first but he says that I will probably want to hold off on that until after the tests. Ok, I shrug, then what? After that, he tells me that Dr. Giles is going to consult with me about the operation to come. I ask if that means they are finally going to tell me just what they plan on doing and he chuckles. All in good time, he says. Corporate slave or no, I am starting to get fed up with this already.

When I finish breakfast, what little I ate of it, we head to a wing that is pretty much identical to all of the other wings except for a room containing various exercise equipment with all sorts of gauges and meters. Brandt introduces me to Dr. Wong, who will be conducting the testing today. He seems like a nice enough guy, a short Chinese man with huge glasses, and he leads me to a table with all sorts of gadgets and wires. He asks me to remove my shirt and I look back at Brandt, blushing. Brandt assures me that the man is a professional and that I should not be embarrassed. Hesitantly, I pull the t-shirt over my head and look at the floor. The horrible stump that used to be my left arm hangs there obscenely, I’m more ashamed of that than of my breasts being bared. Dr. Wong attaches a number of wires to my chest and clips a small black box to the waistband of my sweatpants. He says I can put my shirt back on and I do so with great relief. He explains in accented English that this is a heart monitor that they will be using to study my endurance levels to a number of challenges. He asks me to take deep breaths while he gets a baseline reading and I do. Brandt leaves and tells me he will be back when Dr. Wong is done testing.

The first test is a moderate walk on a treadmill, which I handle with no problem. Dr. Wong slowly dials up the speed after taking various notes and I handle everything without breaking too much of a sweat. Thankfully, I have been keeping up with my gym routine lately. Who knows if they would still want me for this big special project if I started huffing and puffing at a brisk walk. I smile to myself when I imagine Joseph going through the same tests. Obviously whatever special attributes he may have aren’t athletically based. Dr. Wong seems pleased, which makes me happy for some reason. Little Miss Molly, always eager to be the good girl. Traits like that are what got me into this mess in the first place.

We move on to some more difficult tests, involving balance and dexterity. These aren’t exactly my strong suits, but Dr. Wong seems encouraged enough. I feel like I am in gym class again, balance beams, tire courses, I keep expecting Dr. Wong to bring out a kickball. Thankfully, they can’t make me try to climb a rope with only one arm.

When we finish that series of tests, Dr. Wong tells me to take a few minutes and hands me some water. It has been a while since I worked out and I am a little worn out. The next tests will be mental he tells me, and I cringe. I.Q. tests were never my favorite. I know that I’m not stupid, but for some reason logic puzzles and brain teasers continue to bewilder me. Even Sodoku puzzles give me a headache. He leads me to a chair and starts to show me ink blot cards and asks me to describe what I see. I smile inside, these are much more fun than math problems. We do an awful lot of the cards, Dr. Wong never seems to react to my answers one way or the other. After a while the cards start to become increasingly bizarre, almost frightening images. I am worried that if I say “that looks like a demon’s head feasting on the innards of a screaming little girl in a sea of fire” they will think I’m completely insane, but I’ll be damned if that isn’t exactly what it looks like. After an obvious pause, I go ahead and spit it out, although I describe it somewhat less graphically. Dr. Wong simply nods at each of my answers, and then jots something down on his clipboard.

Mercifully, we finish up with the cards and Dr. Wong tells me that I can rest for a few minutes before the next tests. I ask if I can go to the bathroom and he points it out across the room with a nod. I am worn out, physically and mentally, and I hope there isn’t much left to this session. When I come back out, Dr. Wong has an interesting harness that he has wheeled up attached to a big metal rig. I approach it with wonder and he tells me that this will be the last test for the day. He explains that the rig is a virtual reality unit that will test me on various real-world simulations to see how I respond. This makes me nervous, I am already tired and I am a little afraid of technology in general. He helps me climb in and get situated and fastens the visor on carefully. The view screen goes from black to almost blinding blue when he powers the unit up and I close my eyes against the unexpected glaring brightness. Dr. Wong apologizes and lowers the bright levels. I ask how he knew my eyes were closed and he explains that there are cameras inside the visor that monitor my eye and pupil movement. The helmet also detects my brainwaves, so there is no actual need for physical movement. If I think I want to go somewhere or do something, my avatar will act accordingly based on my mental commands.

The first simulation, he explains, may be a little frightening. He assures me that I can end the test at any time by pressing the panic button, which he guides my hand toward so that I know where it is located. His warning certainly doesn’t help my nervousness, but before I can protest the screen starts to change and we are ready to begin. The quality is so good that I am breathless for a moment, if I didn’t know any better I would think I was standing in a large field of tall grass on a cloudy dark night. I look down ay my feet and see that my virtual self is glad in all black, somewhat tight all black I must admit. I notice with a start that I have a left arm in the virtual model, though I can’t control it no matter what I do. I take a few minutes at Dr. Wong’s urging to get acclimated to moving around and not becoming disoriented before he runs the actual simulation. When I tell him that I am ready the video on the display pauses for a fraction of a second, then resumes.

I hear voices in the distance and I turn to see figures coming my way. They have flashlights and there are dogs barking along with the shouting. The group is moving toward me quickly and I am starting to get a little antsy just standing here. Their shouts are angry and vicious, I sincerely hope they aren’t coming after me. When they fire the first shot in my direction, my fight or flight response takes over and I run like hell in the opposite direction, completely forgetting for a moment that I am in no real danger. There is a barn not too far ahead of me and I head toward it as fast as I can run. I can hear bullets whizzing by my head, I keep ducking to avoid them instinctually. It is strange, even though I am exerting no physical strain in the real world, I am gasping for air as I run as hard as I can in the virtual space. I reach the barn amidst a hail of bullets and duck inside, my pursuers not far behind. I am completely frozen, I have no idea what to do. I ran to the barn without even thinking because it was the only structure I could see and it seemed safer than being out in the open. But hiding won’t get me very far considering the fact that they know I went in the barn. I huddle in the corner of the dark interior and wait helplessly for them to come get me. Much to my surprise, my left arm raises a gun that I didn’t notice and points it at the door I came in through. When the pursuers get closer my arm shoots three times right through the door without any guidance from me. There is an awful scream and the door becomes Swiss cheese from return fire. I scramble out of the line of fire and my arm takes a few more shots, eliciting another scream. There is a small gap in the far wall of the barn that I realize I can squeeze through without them knowing I slipped out. My arm shoots a few more times to hold them back and I crawl through the gap and start running hard in the cool night air once more.

After a good distance, I allow myself to risk a look back and I don’t see anyone behind me. I hear what sounds like a helicopter and before I know it, there is a big one descending through the low cloud line and landing roughly a hundred yards in front of me. I lay down on my belly, hoping that the tall grass conceals me. A ramp opens up on the rear of the copter and a figure walks out with a signal lantern. He keeps clicking it, I’m torn on if he’s trying to signal me or if he’s trying to signal the guys that were chasing me. I’ve done pretty well so far on instinct so I carefully stand up to see what he does. Thankfully, instead of shooting at me he waves me over with broad sweeps of his arm and I run through the fierce wind of the propellers to the ramp. To my surprise, the man with the lamp is Dr. Wong, and he congratulates me on a job well done. Just like that, the simulation is over and the screen clicks off. Dr. Wong lifts the visor from my head and I let out an impressed gasp. I am covered in sweat like I ran a marathon and the adrenaline is still pumping through my veins. I tell Dr. Wong that I’ve never seen anything that lifelike and he nods with a chuckle. That, he says, was only the first simulation. A way for them to get an idea of how I could think on my feet in a basic dangerous situation. I cock an upraised eyebrow at him. Basic? Attack dogs and guns? Are you kidding? He chuckles again and says that I will see soon enough. I ask why I had an arm in the simulation that I could not control but doesn’t reply as he is loading the next simulation into the drive slot on the rig. He asks if I want to rest first but I shake my head and tell him to let it rip. This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

After a few more simulations, I am completely spent but in a very, very good way. Dr. Wong seems very pleased with my performance. I jumped out of planes, hacked into security systems, killed heads of state with high-powered rifles from enormous distances, even drove a tank. The funny thing was, every time I faced a situation where I had no idea how to do or operate something, my virtual left arm automatically took over and did it for me. It was like my arm was a super-soldier and I was just a way for it to get around. I got to do all of the neat spy stuff that teenage boys dream about, all without leaving the room.

Brandt returns while I am drinking water as if I am dying of thirst. He tells me that he heard I did spectacularly today, and he is very proud of me. I blush and thank him. He says that I must be hungry after all that and indeed I am. I tell him that I would like to take a shower first, though, and he says of course. He walks me to my room after I say goodbye to Dr. Wong and asks if I remember the way to the mess hall. I think for a second, I believe so but everything looks the same here so I am not positive. He laughs and says that all I have to do is follow the signs, which I hadn’t noticed posted on the wall in every hallway. He tells me that he will be waiting for me in the mess hall when I am done with my shower and walks off. It doesn’t dawn on me until a few seconds later that this is the first time he has left me unaccompanied. I can’t imagine that they would be too worried about me somehow escaping. There are soldiers and guards everywhere, and I bet the place is lousy with cameras. Besides, I’m too tired to do anything crazy. I enter the room and turn the shower to the hottest I can get it. After peeling off my sweaty clothes, I step into the scalding stream with a happy sigh. A small part of me is giddy that I will be spending the afternoon with Dr. Giles. There was something about him that gives me butterflies, but in a good way. I am very much looking forward to our meeting.