The Crystal Bridge (The Lost Shards Book 1) (5 page)

No. You are nothing. You feel nothing. I will snuff you out like the weak, insignificant spark you are.

An emotion came roaring to the surface like a torrent of cold water, fear. He clung to his fear with all his might and, for the first time since entering this empty place, he screamed. Cold fire penetrated him from all sides as the tentacles swelled, burning with hunger in response to his fear. The fear increased, but with fear came hope, came some form of identity. He fought back, slashing at the tentacles, pulling them from his flesh.
I do feel. I am not nothing. I am afraid!
He shouted with joy to the darkness.
I am afraid! I am!

Mike’s face grinned down at him. “Afraid? Are you now?”

James coughed, sending a bit of spittle flying up to land on Mike’s nose. “Oh, Mike, I’m so sorry.”

Mike rubbed the spittle away. “It’s okay. Just glad to have ya back with us. I was beginning to worry about you.”

James shuddered half from the thick memory of fear that clung to him and half from the cold room. He lay on a bed in a white room. The bright light brought a sharp pain in his head to his attention. “Ouch. That was freaky weird. Double ouch.” Talking hurt even more. “What did you do to my head, Mike? Beat on me with a hammer while I was sleeping?” He closed his eyes as fireworks blossomed in his skull.

“You had a bad reaction to the sedative and the anesthetics. The docs think you’re allergic. You shouldn’t have ever gone unconscious and then you were out a lot longer than anyone liked, but everything looks like it went well, despite your screaming deliriously for hours. Dr. Reed said she could hear you in Section Six, which is like a mile from here through all those corridors.”

James reached up and put both hands on the side of his head, trying to hold the pain inside. “Ow…quit talking so loud.”

Mike chuckled. “The headache will last a day or two, so you know. It took me a whole day before I liked light again. Probably gonna be even longer for you.” Genuine worry worked its way into Mike’s face. “How are you feeling?”

James smiled weakly. “I’m fine. I just realized that drugs are bad though. Freaky dreams and all. Tentacles, pain, and pure fear. Did Dr. Reed really hear me screaming?”

“Like a little girl about a spider.”

“Well…crap.”

Vander Carlson sat behind his desk reading the reports from Section Six. The new recruit had almost died. He’d been assured everything was ready to move forward with the latest progressive neural interface devices. They’d lost a few test subjects with the earliest prototypes, but it had been years since anyone had come this close.

James Iverson was special, so he’d been the first to receive the updated version. Vander didn’t like the idea of going back several steps to animal testing before anyone else received them.
Too much lost time I don’t have.

On top of that, Section Seven was having trouble controlling Project 317, Section Eight still had no progress at all, and Section Nine couldn’t even get weeds to grow in their new greenhouse. Vander started closing down the holoscreens that hovered over his desk with a sigh.

His hands shook as he performed the required gestures to save the files he was closing. He growled and calmed himself, running his mind through meditation techniques until his hands stopped shaking.

Vander closed the files with steady hands, the glowing holograms flickering out. He hid his age well. Documentation existed from the earliest projects and anyone could do the math if they wanted, but no one knew how old he’d been when it all started.

Nearly fifty years of progress had been made under the name of Omegaphil Pharmaceuticals. He’d been fifty-seven when the doors first opened. His thick, dark hair had gone salt and pepper, but he looked to be in his sixties and he had no intention of letting anyone know his true age. He liked them guessing, thinking he’d been a fresh-faced nineteen-year-old who had worked his way to the top through hard work, diligence, and a smidgeon of cutthroat ambition.

“Visualize Project 402,” he called out to the empty office. A light hum filled the room and a white tree sprouted from the lush rug under his desk. Vander smiled as the tree grew taller and silvery leaves sprouted from the slender limbs. This project always helped him regain focus, reminded him why he was here. This one project promised progress, hope of success. He felt power course through the tree and into his veins.
Ah,
this may be the closest thing to peace the most powerful man in the world can find.

A persistent beeping brought his mind back to his desk. A light flashed on the black glass panel inlaid into the wood, accompanied by a high pitched tone that made his eyes twitch.

“Visual off!” The tree disappeared, leaving the office sparse and sterile once more. Vander waved a hand over the noisy, insistent light. A pretty face appeared inches above his desk. Vander’s personal assistant smiled at him and then looked away. She’d started two days earlier. The attractive, red-haired young woman reminded Vander of his youth, made him yearn for it, giving him purpose and resolve.

The floating face looked up and then away again, a tiny smile on her lips. “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but Dr. Stephens is here to see you.”

“It’s perfectly fine. Send him in, I’ve been expecting him.” Vander kept the annoyance over the interruption out of his voice for his assistant’s sake.
Poor woman doesn’t know what a dangerous job she has. Might as well keep her ignorant a little while longer.

Dr. Stephens stepped past the dark mahogany door like an animal catching an unfamiliar scent, slow and cautious.

Vander forced a smile. “Please sit down, Stephens. We have much to discuss.”

Stephens looked frail for his age. He was in his mid-forties, but appeared as old as Vander himself, though less dignified. He hunched over from years spent over a microscope, a computer, and a desk, and his light gray hair clung to his sweaty balding head in strips. Stephens’s ghostly skin appeared almost translucent, which wasn’t surprising since the man hadn’t seen the real sun in six or seven years.

He’s too valuable to let out very often and he’s been very, very busy.
It had taken a fair amount of time and energy to integrate the latest stolen technologies into all the other work. The quantum computer’s decryption capabilities seemed endless and its retrieval protocols continued to find more information, ideas, prototypes, software, and discoveries daily.
We’re just barely keeping up with all the fun new goodies it finds for us.

“Dr. Stephens. I’ve heard some distressing news concerning project 413 and our latest guest, Dr. James Iverson. Is everything alright in Section Six?”

“A few hiccups, sir, but he’s doing fine now.” The man blotted his sweaty face with a handkerchief.

“I don’t like hiccups, as you call them. They annoy me. You’ll also understand if I don’t trust your assurances. I’ve heard them before. I hear scaring someone can cure the hiccups. Do I need to send you downstairs for some special treatment?”

Dr. Stephens visibly shivered. “Please, sir. There were a few problems with the anesthesia and the new interface triggered a few unusual side effects, but this is all good news. We’re already seeing progress, sir.”

“Unusual side effects? Good news? The man almost died, Stephens. Mind you, I care little if one man dies, especially
incompetent
men,” Vander paused to let that sink in, “but this man and this project both have promise, and I don’t want to start over with either one. Do you know how much time and money we spent getting him here? Buying off those experts? Ridiculing his book and his findings? Blacklisting him so no one else would dare hire him?”

“No, sir…I mean yes, sir.”

Vander Carlson leaned forward, frowning while inwardly relishing the joy of seeing the younger man cower and squirm before him. “Explain yourself, Stephens, or I will
replace
you.”

“So sorry, sir, but I couldn’t have foreseen this. No one could have. His brain fought the latest nano-interface immediately. We designed them to trigger a defense mechanism, make the brain active where it had not been, but not right away, not like this. No other test subject had anything close to this reaction. The devices didn’t know how to compensate and just kept following their programming. They’re doing exactly what we wanted them to do, sir, just too well and too early.”

“Ah, that is encouraging. Will this affect future implementations?”

“No, sir, we’ve already begun rewriting their programming to allow for an early response and to compensate appropriately. It shouldn’t be a problem in the future. I truly think this was a special case.”

“It better be. You’ve managed to salvage your position today, but I want you to keep a close eye on our Dr. Iverson. No more mistakes with this one, Stephens. Now…about this progress you mentioned?”

“His brainwaves are substantially altered and more active and he seems to be healing faster than anticipated, though it’s difficult to tell based on the small puncture wounds from the surgery.” Dr. Stephens sat a little taller as he related the progress.

Vander Carlson wrinkled his nose in disgust at the man.
Spineless.
“Come back when you have more than beliefs and difficulties. I’d arrange for some injury that will be easier to analyze. You are dismissed, Doctor.”

Relief flooded the thin man’s face. “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir! I won’t let you down, sir.” He backed toward the door, once again a cautious animal, afraid, but at least smart enough not to turn his back on the predator.

“Oh, Stephens, make sure the man can still work with his injury. He has much to do, so much to do.”

Ten thousand glassy black eyes snapped open in the void, the endless space between countless universes and the dark god’s prison. Rho had slept for over seven hundred years. It wasn’t true sleep. Rho never truly slept. Its inhuman mind calculated escape while continually tormenting the sentient souls in the worlds of matter, beings Rho hated.