Elite (16 page)

After unpacking he had decided to go online and see what he had missed in the past nine days. Much to his surprise not much had changed. He only had a few random notifications on his
FaceSpace profile, and it seemed as though no one had even realized he had left.

It did sting when he had scrolled down to find a picture of Jordan enjoying what appeared to be a fancy dinner that according to the caption she had prepared for herself and Gordon in their ritzy apartment. His knee-jerk reaction was to remove her from his friends list. He didn’t need that kind of a negative distraction while he was here. He had regretted it the moment he clicked on the icon that had
removed her from his friends list. She was still his friend. He considered sending her a new friend-request but decided to save himself the embarrassment. She would probably never notice anyway.

For dinner he had eaten an entire 14-inch pizza. Before he and Blank had parted ways Blanked blurted out, “Oh yeah, I forgot! The lounge serves pizza from seven to midnight!”

So Daniel had waited for seven to roll around before going up to the lounge and ordering himself a pizza. He preferred eating alone in his room to sitting by himself in the cafeteria. The looks people gave him as he walked past them were bad enough, he didn’t need them all staring as he sat alone in the cafeteria.

He was sure he had made everything seem much worse in his mind. He was the new guy, so of course everyone was going to be curious – especially if they knew his true purpose for being there. On top of that he saw a number of people eating alone at lunch. Still, he just didn’t feel at all comfortable with his new surroundings yet.

So he scarfed down an entire pizza in his room. It was a hell of a way to start training, but if Richfield and Horchoff were right about what he should be able to do now, it shouldn’t make any sort of difference.

He closed his eyes and began to imagine himself in twelve weeks. Would this place seem like home? Would he fit in with the intimidating folks who walk these halls? Better yet, would he be able to rise above them? Would he get rich?

Above all, could he win back Jordan? If not, could he move past her?

With that thought he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 9

             
The first few days of training were incredibly dull, and went by entirely too slowly. Horchoff spent most of the time in the classroom explaining to Daniel the intricacies of his brain upgrades and the difference between how his brain now functioned to how it used to.

             
Daniel found it very difficult to stay focused as Horchoff lectured for hours on end on the biology of the human brain. The doctor insisted that Daniel’s understanding of the subject was key to him being able to “reach a higher function,” as he had so elegantly phrased it. Therefore Daniel tried very hard to absorb as much of the information as possible.

He understood the basics – The brain controls everything function of the body, which he already knew. Some of these functions are voluntary, and some are involuntary. Voluntary movements are those controlled through conscious decision, such as movement of limbs, speaking, etc.

Then there are the involuntary functions. These consist of immune response, the beating of your heart, and a lot of other constantly occurring internal functions that we take for granted in our everyday lives.

Horchoff
explained that conscious thought, which is used to initiate involuntary movements, is for the most part contained to the frontal lobe, or forward part of the brain, whereas involuntary movements are the result of the hindbrain.

“As far as we know, most humans cannot maintain control over what happens in the rear of the brain,”
Horchoff explained. “But thanks to me, you no longer have that restriction.”

By
Horchoff “installing” (a term Daniel didn’t much appreciate as it made him feel like a machine) his homegrown neural pathways into Daniels brain, Daniel was now able to use his conscious thoughts to communicate, and in turn command, the involuntary functions controlled by sections of his brain that conscious thought had previously been unable to reach. Or at least that was the theory.

“What about emotion?” Daniel found himself inadvertently blurting out during
Horchoff’s lesson.

Horchoff
bit his bottom lip and leaned forward on the table in front of him, his long silver hair hanging over his ears and down to his chin. He looked as though he hadn’t shaved in a day or two, grey whiskers covering his face.

He stood silent for several seconds, the hum of the florescent lights filling the void.

The room on the upper level that had been designated Daniel’s classroom was, like most rooms in the Elite complex, incredibly simple. The faded blue, rough-textured carpet of the room appeared to be at least twenty years old, and not very clean. Three of the walls were made of basic, white drywall, and the third was a giant window that looked out over the fitness area. Horchoff always kept the shades drawn, as if being restricted to the complex hadn’t been enough to make Daniel feel like a caged animal.

The ceiling was a basic, off-white drop ceiling, with several fluorescent lights scattered throughout.

In what had been designated as the front of the room was a pull-down projector screen, which Horchoff used to display the PowerPoint presentations which Daniel assumed the doctor had probably begun putting together long before Blank had ever found Daniel.

In front of the screen was a wooden folding table, which
Horchoff used to place his overflowing binder on, stuffed with materials on the brain which were intended for Daniel to study from. He never did.

Across from
Horchoff’s table was another folding table, identical in size and design. This is where Daniel sat during the class period. One thing Daniel did have to give Richfield props on was the comfort level of the office chair he sat in for 8 hours a day. It was the perfect balance of soft and firm, and reclined at the perfect angle. It was incredible. Daniel was pretty sure that when he first sat in the chair he had felt his ass quite literally smile. He assumed that the chair had been made by some magic elves that the CIA had hidden away at their headquarters in Langley.

After what felt like a day-and-a-half,
Horchoff finally answered his question.

“That’s one of those unknowns that we will have to figure out as we go,” he explained. “Emotional response is tricky, because the cause of what we consider ‘feelings’ such as happiness and anger, do have physiological aspects to them. They are chemical reactions after all. However, some would argue that these are triggered by conscious thought, and so if we can’t prevent those conscious thoughts from occurring, how can we stop the chemical reaction from occurring?”

Daniel nodded his head, more in a desire to move on than in understanding, though he did understand where Horchoff was coming from. It seemed as though it were not the first time Horchoff had contemplated the subject.

“The answer I would like to give you is ‘Yes.’ I believe you can,”
Horchoff added.

Daniel wished he hadn’t asked the question, or more wished the thought hadn’t occurred to him. He knew why it had. He wanted to know if he could block out his feelings for Jordan. That shouldn’t have been a concern at the moment, and Daniel knew that. He had more important things to focus on than dealing with his feelings for a woman – Things that would help to keep him alive in the future. Besides, he didn’t want to block what he felt for
Jordan, he wanted her to reciprocate those feelings toward him.

Although
…if that were impossible, it might be useful to remove them all together.

After the first few days of lectures, Daniel was confident that he had been able to retain just enough information to be able to do the things Horchoff, and ultimately Richfield, expected of him. Or at least he hoped so.

It wasn’t until the fourth day of class that
Horchoff decided it was time to take all the theories and knowledge he had imparted on Daniel and put them to the test. This is when things got interesting.

It was the first time Daniel had walked into the classroom and
Horchoff wasn’t already there waiting for him. For a second Daniel wondered if he had walked into the wrong room. Once he was sure that he hadn’t, he flipped the lights on and gently slid into the cloud posing as his chair.

He had come dangerously close to drifting back to sleep when
Horchoff abruptly trounced into the room and closed the door behind him.

“On the floor,”
Horchoff said, pointing at the floor space in between the two tables.

Daniel stared at him and blinked a few times, allowing his mind to catch up. Then, without speaking, he slowly stood up and made his way
around the table. He dropped himself down onto the floor, grimacing at the sudden discomfort the hard floor provided his rear.

Horchoff
dropped his binder onto his table, then sat down on the floor across from Daniel. He held a small, oblong device in one hand, and in the other was what looked like a plastic alligator clip with padding around the inside of it. The two objects were connected by a curly white cord.

Daniel glanced from one hand, and then to the other, then looked up at
Horchoff with a slightly confused expression.

“It’s time,”
Horchoff spoke.

Daniel didn’t need to ask what it was time for, he already knew. He felt a sudden jolt of adrenaline, eliminating any drowsiness he may have felt previously.

“Give me your index finger,” Horchoff said, pointing at Daniels left hand with the alligator clip.

Daniel obliged with no questions. Whatever this test was, he couldn’t wait to try out his new talent.

Daniel held out his left index finger and extended it in Horchoff’s direction. Horchoff proceed to place the clip around it.

Horchoff
then crossed his legs, sat up straight placing his hands on his knees, taking a deep breath.

Not quite sure why, Daniel mirrored the motion.

“Are we going to meditate?” Daniel asked, wondering why they had assumed such a position.

“In a sense,”
Horchoff answered, caught a little off-guard by the question. “We’re going to stop your heart.”

Daniel shook his head at the statement, as if he might interpret
Horchoff’s statement differently after doing so. “Do what?”

“Stop your heart,”
Horchoff repeated, very matter-of-fact. “Or at least slow it down. The contracting and expanding of your heart is an involuntary action – you’re going to take control of it.”

Daniel was a split second away from accepting this response, when he was struck by another inquiry.

“Can’t people already do that? Like Ninja’s and stuff? Or people who
meditate.
”

Horchoff
rolled his eyes as if annoyed by the question. “Certain individuals have learned to control their heart rate, yes. But they do so by concentrating on their breathing, a function that can be controlled by conscious thought, which then in turn affects their heart rate. I don’t want you to worry about your breathing, I just want you to tell your heart to stop beating.”

Daniel pondered this for a moment,
then nodded in understanding. Horchoff took another deep breath.

Then another thought struck Daniel.

“Then why are we sitting like we’re meditating?” He asked.

Horchoff
opened his mouth to speak, and then paused, pondering the question. “It just seemed to make sense,” he answered candidly.

“But if I’m not supposed to worry about breathing or anything like that, why would I need to position myself as if I were?” Daniel reasoned. “I just need to be able to concentrate. I could do that from my chair.”

He couldn’t prevent himself from smirking, the irony of which was not beyond him. He couldn’t help but smile as he imagined the warm hug his Elfish chair would give his behind.

A few moments later Daniel found himself in upright ecstasy as he sat in his chair,
Horchoff having pulled his chair up to the other side of the table. The pulse monitor was once again attached to Daniel’s finger, and Horchoff switched on the readout monitor with his right thumb.

After a few seconds the monitor beeped.

“87 beats per minute,” Horchoff said. “Now I would tell you to simply decrease that, but that wouldn’t prove total control of your heart beat. That would be…
meditation.
” Daniel noticed a slight smirk now forming on Hochoff’s face. It may have been the first time Daniel had seen him smile.

The good doctor continued, “I want you to first stop your heart, and then once it’s stopped I want you to command each individual contraction and expansion of the muscle. Once the heart monitor reads zero, I want you to tap your finger on the table each time you tell your heart to contract and expand, and I’ll count the number of taps you do in a minute, and we’ll see if that coincides with what the monitor says.”

Daniel nodded, now feeling a little nervous. Not so much at the idea of stopping his heart, but at the prospect of failing the test. What if he couldn’t do it? It would be the first sign that all of this will have been for nothing.

He put that thought aside and closed his eyes.

Horchoff began coaching. “Now the first thing I want you to do is think about your heart. Think of it as a muscle – a muscle that is constantly contracting and expanding, pumping the blood through your body. I want you to pay attention to every beat, recognizing it, and trying to find where it comes from.”

Daniel took a breath and began to focus on his heart, trying not to worry about his breathing, but on the function of the muscle itself.

“Now use your conscious mind to search the back of your brain and find where the command is being given. It will be buried deep, in an almost ancient section of the brain.”

Daniel opened his eyes and shot
Horchoff an irritated look.

“What am I, looking for a fucking pyramid?” He asked mockingly.

Horchoff held his left hand up and closed his eyes in an apologetic manner.

“You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “I got caught up in the moment. I apologize.”

Daniel closed his eyes and began again. He paid attention to every beat of his heart, or rather every contraction of the muscle in his chest which circulated the blood through his veins.

“Now, find that place in the brain that is telling your heart to contract. Be aware of the neural pathways that now give your conscious mind access to parts of the brain it was previously unable to explore. Activate those pathways and search for the command that keeps your heart beating,”
Horchoff instructed.

His language was beginning to make Daniel feel like a computer again. Then again, as
Horchoff had explained the first day of class, the human brain was for all intents and purposes an extremely intricate computer which controlled the advanced machinery that was the human body.

Daniel tried to find the pathways
Horchoff spoke of, and had spoken of hundreds of thousands of times since he and Daniel first met, but he didn’t know how. Nothing seemed any different. He didn’t
feel
like anything was different.