Kinetics (22 page)

“Oh well, I guess that it was worth a
shot.” I shrugged and turned again to leave.

“There is a less scientific way but it
could be very dangerous.” She said turning to her office and opened up a
program on her computer.

“And what would that be?” I asked, going
to the doorway and trying to watch what she was doing on the computer screens. 
The different windows were moving far too fast for my eyes to be able to
follow.

“We can put you into a coma.”

“And what? Hope for the best?”

“No, no.  I can tune the kinetic brain
wave inducer to stimulate the parts of your brain that are responsible for
memories.” She explained.

“How well will it work?” I asked worried
about some of the memories that I had already relived on my own.

“About a fifty-fifty shot.”  She began
to blaze through equations at lightening speeds.

“Well, I guess that we can give it a
shot.”  I left her in her office.

I walked back down the hall the way I
came.  I went back to the room that I had awakened in that morning.  I went
into the bathroom and cleaned up before going to bed.

The bed was huge and extremely
comfortable, but it still took me a few minutes to get to sleep.  My mind
didn’t want to slow down.

I fought to stay asleep for at least
eight hours.  I hadn’t had steady sleep in as far back as I could remember.  I
was getting plenty of it, but most of the time it was an exhaustion fueled mini
coma.  I got up a few times in the night to wash my face with cold water and
turn the air in the room down.  Each room had self contained environmental
controls. 

I turned on the TV and flipped through
the channels.  There was nothing on that I wanted to watch.  I passed a
documentary on the Aurora Corporation and the good that they were doing all
over the world.  The entire media universe spent millions or more on building
Aurora up to some kind of Godsend.

When the sun was pushing its way into
the room, I decided that I would shower and then visit Alice hoping that she
was ready to get on with this experiment.

I met Alrick in the hallway when I left
my room.

“How is it that you are always right
there when I get out and about?” I walked past him down the hall. 

“I monitor your sleep patterns and the
whole house is set up with motion tracking.”

“Sorry I asked.” I laughed.

“Do you require anything?”

“No thank you.  I’m going to see Alice.”

He nodded and walked the other way.

I knocked on Alice’s office door this
time instead of just busting into the room. 

“Come on in.” she said muffled.

I couldn’t see Alice when I entered the
room but I immediately noticed a new machine in the center of the room.  It
stretched from the floor to the ceiling with a chair suspended in the center of
a large metal ring.  I looked in the office and checked the supply closets at
the back, but Alice was nowhere to be found.

“Down here.” She called from under the
new machine.  I looked to see an access panel in the floor below where bundles
of wires as thick as my arm were running up into the bottom of the chair. 
Alice’s face was covered in grease.

“What’s up?” I knelt next to the access
panel in the floor.

“I’m almost ready.” She pulled herself
back up into the room.  “I had to get some equipment out of storage but this
configuration should allow me to successfully stimulate the memory portion of
your brain.” She explained.  She walked over to her desk and picked up a tablet
computer.  She showed me a design of three different machines that were wired
together.  It was a massive extrapolation on the word Jerry-rig.

“Is it safe?” I looked down in the
hole.  A metal cylinder about the size of my torso pulsated with blue lights
like a slow heart beat.

“I could run some simulations.” She said
looking down at her tablet.

“No, no let’s just get this over with.”
I was torn between not wanting to wait and not wanting to know the truth of the
danger.

“Ok then, let’s get started.”  She
cleared her tools off of the chair and motioned for me to sit. 

I sat down and tried to think about
anything but the fact that this device might fry my brain.  Alice reached up
and flipped a switch above my head.  A small ring lowered over my head and
began to rotate.   

Bolts of energy began arching from the
ring to my head but there wasn’t any pain.  “The ring will support your head
once you have lost consciousness.” Alice walked around the machine and checking
things off on a digital check list.

“Noted.” I took a deep breath.

She retrieved a syringe and a small vial
from a nearby table.  She filled the needle and slid up my sleeve.  “This will
take just a few minutes to kick in.  You need to keep your mind on finding what
you are looking for; it may be difficult to determine if you have fallen asleep
or not.”  She found a vein, stuck the needle in, and emptied the concoction
into my blood stream.   

I gave her a thumbs up when she pulled
out the needle and stepped back, “I hope this works.”

“There is a very good chance it will
work.”  She pressed a button on her tablet.  The large metal ring around the
chair began to spin around me slowly at first, but faster, and then faster.

I watched the ring as long as I could
but I started to feel sick to my stomach so I closed my eyes. 

Moments passed and I wondered when
things would start to happen or when I could just open my eyes without having
to see the spinning. 

I decided that it wasn’t going to work
and the drug that Alice had given had not been strong enough.

~//~

When I opened my eyes I was in another
world.  Everything around me was completely destroyed.  Fires burned around me
in all directions.  The large ring was still spinning but a section was
missing.  It had begun to slow and then finally it stopped.

I pulled the small ring from my head and
climbed out of the chair.  I took a look around the ruins and walked slowly
through the halls.  I obviously wasn’t remembering something because last I had
checked I had not experienced the apocalypse. 

I sat down on a crumbling wall and
picked up a handful of ash. 

“This isn’t going to help me.” I said to
no one in particular.  My voice echoed around me in all directions. 

A girl peeked at me from behind a wall. 
I didn’t know the girl off the top of my head but she seemed somehow familiar.

“Hey, little girl!” I yelled jumping up
and running after her.

I chased her through the maze of the
building that didn’t resemble the house at all.  I tried to keep up with her,
but she was so fast that I started to lose her even as I called out for her.

I stumbled and tripped on the charred
bricks on the ground.  I fell throwing my arms out in front of me, but I didn’t
hit that ground.  I went through it and flipped over onto my back, making
contact with a wooden floor.

“Son of a bitch.” I said standing and
rubbing the back of my head.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.” A
man said behind me.

“I’m sorry…” I said turning but I
realized that the man wasn’t talking to me.  He was knelt down beside a young
girl.

The man was my father.

“But daddy I don’t want a sister!” the
girl said stomping her foot.

“Baby doll I know we all wanted a little
brother, but we should be happy that we are getting a little sister.” He said
tussling her hair.

The little girl was me.

My father stood.  We all walked into the
room.  My mother, who was very pregnant, was sitting next to a fireplace.  She
had been crying.

“Now go and apologize to your mother.”
My father said patting the little me on the shoulder.

I walked around and sat on the floor to
watch the scene.  The younger me hung her head and walked up to our mother. 
She stood next to our mother trying not to look her in the eyes.

“I’m sorry for what I said, mommy.  I
hope I have fun with my new sister.”

“Thank you dear.” Our mom said leaning
down and giving the younger me a hug, she sniffled, and wiped her eyes.

I couldn’t help but wonder why I was
remembering all of this and not something that could be useful.

The dream seemed to have frozen around
me.  My mother, father, and the young me remained completely still.  I stood
from the floor and walked out of the room. Down the hall I came to a staircase
that led into the main sitting room.  As I took the steps one at a time, the
walls aged and faded before my eyes. 

Outside of a nearby window I could see
snow falling in sheets and I could hear a fire roaring nearby.  I followed the
noise into the living room.  My mother and father sat on a couch across from a
young man that seemed somewhat familiar.

“Joseph, I think that you are making a
bad decision.  Your father and my father have been doing business for forty
years and their fathers forty years before that.  Why are you ending the
partnership between our companies?” The young man said with an angry smile on
his face that was obviously forced.

“The Scott family has gone downhill from
the time that your father took over Aurora.  Your projects are getting closer
and closer to the lines that I will not cross and you wonder why I want to end
our partnership James?” My father said standing.  He began to pace around the
room. 

“Despite your obvious slant on my family
name that can be forgiven, I have no idea what projects you are worried about.”
James leaned back in his chair.

My mother kept out of the conversation
but I could see she was disgusted just being in the same room with James.

“Don’t play games with me James.  I have
taps on your data network, the same as you have on mine, and I have been
monitoring all of your progress.  I am terrified to think what you plan to
accomplish with these things that you are creating.” My father said.

James stood, and sighed deeply, “I’m
sorry that you feel this way.  You know that this is bigger than both of us,
and those above us… They want things done a certain way.”

“I think you should leave.” My mother
said finally speaking up.

James took a few steps towards my
father, and stopped close to his face challenging him.  The two men were
exactly the same height. 

“Sooner rather than later I will control
your company.  I will do anything that it takes.” James almost growled.

“Over my dead body.” My father growled
back.

A noise near the stair caught everyone’s
attention.  We all turned the see the younger me at the bottom of the stairs
watching what was happening.

“Isabella get your sister and get into
bed.” My father said pointing up stairs.

The little me looked confused, much like
I did when my father said the wrong name, but she walked away.

“Such a beautiful daughter, it would be
a shame if she fell into the hands of the terrible Aurora Corporation.” James
said turning to the front door.  I heard the slam of the door.

I followed behind the younger me up the
stairs back to the second floor of the house.  I stumbled over a dead man’s
body in the hallway and prayed that I was in a new memory. 

I knelt down and looked at the man’s
body.  It was no one that I knew, some random Aurora soldier wearing armor that
I hadn’t seen yet a familiar patch on his shoulder gave him away.  Two men
turned the corner; my father and another man that looked strange.  His skin was
a light grey color and most of his features were smooth to the point that they
looked unnatural.

“I caught him trying to move through the
shadows silently.  There was a point zero, zero one noise variance. 
Unfortunately father, I was forced the kill him.” The weird looking man said.

I wondered why this man called my
father, father.

“Don’t worry Jack, you did the right
thing.  They are trying the take Grace and Isabella.” My father said.  My head
started to hurt from all of the new, weird, information.  I rubbed my neck trying
to get at the pain.

“What would you like me to do with him?”
Jack asked.

“Let’s get rid of the body.  A grave by
the lake should do.  I think it is time for me to take the plan into action to
get the girls out of here.  I hope that they can find a safer life.  I hope
that they can get sufficiently lost in the system.” My father said.