Alexander Lyashenko shook his head in disbelief, reading the graphs the smart machine was sending. “This can’t be.” He checked the machine. “I think she is dead!” He looked up from his tablet to Masae Norfolk who stared at him wide eye. He turned to the new reading, and there was brain activity again. “It can’t be! It’s simply impossible!”
“Explain to me what’s happening! What are you talking about?”
Alexander double checked the information the FMRI offered. “It looks like a machine at the flick of a switch, she lost her life for a few seconds.” He explained, peering into Mila’s brain activity provided by the functional resonance, the most advanced version of the magnetic imaging machines. He stared at the screens displaying the ups and downs of her brain patterns like a multicolor mountain range and the sudden reset. The single red line that appeared for a couple of seconds. And as suddenly, Mila’s brain was back up and running again. Alexander entered the information on his research log and saved the file before pulling away the machine. He peered into her mind with his special power which not even Masae knew he had. The woman was sitting, legs crossed on the summit of a snowy mountain. He shook his head and looked at the tablet in his hand. He read the machines information to cover his vision.
Masae moved from the chair by his desk to Mila’s side and using her special gift, she listened to Alexander’s thoughts and found nothing but what he had said: the woman died for a few seconds. “Is it fascination or worry that I perceive in you?” asked Masae already recovered from the scare of losing an investment. She examined Alexander’s expressions as he connected the unconscious woman to the normal machines. Her eyes wandered from Mila to the young scientist’s eyes. “Should I be worried about you, Alexander? Are you developing a soft spot for her in your heart?”
“Why wouldn’t I be watchful? She is another piece in this project in which I’m spending precious, well-paid time. Not to mention, it’s my life’s research and what I will be known for in the scientific community. Even if it’s the underground world of science,” Alexander answered, standing resolute, his expensive tailored suit enhanced his height and athletic shape. He returned Masae’s stare with his intelligent, light chocolate eyes, towering over her delicate frame. But one more act of rebellion would be too much, he opened his mind and allowed her inside. “It was important to keep track of her brain activity patterns, precisely for this very moment. You see? I have an accurate time when she seems to have died for a few seconds. This is the first time I see it happening in our testing specimens. None of the others ever have a marked second in which they died, then got back to life again. Do you understand?” He turned to his work, checking Mila’s plugs and feeding catheter again. “This should be great news to you. You brought this woman to force her into your image. And your wish might have become a reality. If I’m right, when she wakes up you will have a brand new being to mold to your specifications.”
“I see.” Masae let go of him and peered at Mila, who seemed trapped in a deep sleep. “A new creature with zero struggle to deal with. A brand-new life to shape as I wish.” She sang softly, shuffling gracefully to the door, letting victory elevate her spirit. She had threatened Mila into compliance to go through the Neogenesis editing. It had been her life for the life of her friends. But if upon waking up, the girl didn’t remember how she got there or whom she had lost, she could very well become her daughter. “Come, Alexander, let’s celebrate my third chance to create a life!”
Alexander followed Masae, turning briefly for a furtive glance at the body lying on the bed. A spark of worry crossed his eyes as he closed the door. He hurried to join Masae who moved with determined steps to the elevator at the end of the hallway.
A flare of light ran through her visual pathways, a straight shot to her brain as she opened her eyes. She adjusted her sight to the lights hanging from a semi-vaulted ceiling. Although their glow they produced was soft, they burned her pupils. She blinked to fine-tuned her vision and examined the unfamiliar chamber. She shook her head gently to free her mind from the invisible its fog.
From the bed where she lay, she studied every detail of the room, painting the scene on the new canvas of her mind. The large, windowless room made of brick wasn’t empty as her mind seemed to be. She saw Alexander’s large desk with its monitors still on, the chair left facing her. Beside it, there was a glass cabinet filled with shelves laden with bottles and containers of various sizes. Oddly modern in a place that resemble an old cellar.
Multiple scents filled the air and overwhelmed her olfactory epithelium: disinfectants and antiseptics combined with a strangely pleasant and familiar male scent. All of this intertwined with the subtle aroma of tea and an exquisite feminine perfume.
The temperature was comfortable and the lights warm, making the situation less terrifying.
“What is this place?” she muttered softly to herself. She gazed at the machines surrounding her like silent witnesses. The basement of an old institution’s? A cellar turned laboratory? An ancient intensive care room? Where could I be? She thought in the language her brain provided. It was an ancient language. But she wasn’t aware she knew. She searched her mind for any recollection about the event that had led her to her present predicament, but found nothing.
Persistent thoughts ricocheted quickly inside her head, making her dizzy and mentally shaky. She held her head with both her hands, trying to slow down the speed with which questions banged against the walls of her brain. What is going on? Where am I? She desperately searched for answers in her head, her eyes tracing the timber supporting the center of the ceiling in a Gothic design. Is this an institution? I must be crazy… But the static and flickering humming coming from the machines distracted her. She looked at the intravenous tube on her hand. The cable led to a bag dripping fluid, suspended on a hook. So, this is to keep me fed and hydrated… all right, my brain seems to work just fine… But… There were other thin wires attached to coin-sized metal plates on her chest and others all over her scalp and covered by her hair, turning her into a wired Medusa.
She couldn’t remember a thing and felt like one of those soulless machines around her—the spark of life that made her human wasn’t there. A strange primal sensor, an ancient preservation instinct ingrained in the back of her brain, urged her to jump out of that bed and run. Run as fast as she could, but the equally primal need to know what was happening held her back.
She inhaled and felt the oxygen reaching her brain with such force that she feared her head would explode. None of the scents provided her with any clue.
The security cameras installed in the room alerted Masae and Alexander of Mila’s activity. Each froze. Their eyes on the screens in the control room where they’ve been with some of the guards. They watched the woman explore her environment and waited.
The young woman detached the tiny neurotransmitters and electrodes fastened to her head. She pulled the wires that united her to the machines and removed the probes and catheters. Blood began to drip from the vigorous veins in her arm and hand. She turned to the convenient table at her right hand. There were cotton balls, gauze, and tape. Probably from when her catheter was last changed. Fittingly perfect She thought, sealing the punctures and wrapping the gauze around her hand and arm.
She sat up straight at the edge of the bed and began inspecting her body under the silky, long nightgown she was wearing. She jumped off but had to steady herself, her legs weren’t ready to ready to stand up so fast. Yet they were strong. Her hands went up as if trying to touch the ceiling in what seemed a learned move, and then her palms went down touching the cold floor as she exhaled. Her muscles obeyed habitual patterns of movement. Her body felt powerful to her.
Aside from the amnesia, her entire body responded with great precision and strength like an athlete minutes before a race. She was so light as if she was levitating. She walked, tall and gracefully, to the most intriguing and unfitting piece of décor left in the room: a mahogany dressing mirror in which she could watch herself completely.
She approached the glass closet with cautious steps, tense at the thought of what she could encounter. She studied her reflection in the glass and scrutinized the woman returning her gaze as if meeting her for the first time. Every part was so familiar and so foreign to her. She stretched her hand to her image, touching the cold glass she wished her reflection could answer her questions. Those fiery eyes peering at her didn’t tell any story. They didn’t provide any memory or shine any light. They only expose a series of the already healing bruises, cuts, and burns around her body. She turned to study, without any recollection, the remains of the day Masae took her from a battlefield, from amongst her father and friends.
The woman shook her head and braced herself, moved by acute pain that she couldn’t reach and mend. She breathed deeply and gathered herself. She had to hold it together and find where she was without crumbling before finding the way out.
Devoid of fear and clothed in a furious need to know who she was, the young woman faced Masae, who had entered and stood behind from a safe distance. Like a lioness falling on her prey, she turned to Masae who couldn’t step back in time. The woman lifted Masae by the throat and shook her like a rag doll.
The woman felt her grip cutting Masae’s airflow but didn’t let go. It would be easy to break the woman’s trachea with a simple hand move.
How she know all this? How she knew how to cause harm? She concealed her shock behind wild anger.
Masae shook her arms, her face red from the struggle and her lungs straining for air. Her startled eyes pleaded with the young woman to let her go. Desperate tears filled her eyes. She tried to swallow the saliva lodged in her throat, but it was impossible. The young woman’s fingers held her prisoner, and her face gave no sign of slackening her grip anytime soon.
The guards, who had watched from their screens inside the security control office in the Norfolk castle, headed for the door.
“Wait! Give them a minute. It’s her mother after all. If you march in, she’ll get startle and could kill her!” Alexander ordered and the guards obeyed. The young woman was an experiment which the scientist was in charge of. They got back to the screens and followed the unfolding interaction with a hand at their weapons.
“Put… me… down, Mila…” Masae struggled to say, her voice hoarse in a dire whisper.
“Who are you?” roared the young woman in English, the language of the person trapped in her grip while her name echoed in her head Mila…Mila…what?