NLI-10 (6 page)

APEX PROJECT AP_NLI-10

Marion Whark Daily Report #13

Phase One is drawing to completion, and the subjects are progressing as expected.

Three of the seven have been through surgery, and as with the NLI-09 and NLI-08 trial, all are responding positively, with no adverse side effects observed thusfar.
Last night's A-Eye feeds reported an incursion into the testing section by three of our subjects, which was unexpected, but not unprepared for. Tonight we shall be installing RFID tags in them all, and guards shall be on 24-hour call, should our guests be tracked going outside of permitted zones in future.

As you will no doubt be familiar with from the previous trials, this is not uncommon as we enter Phase Two and our subjects become more unpredictable in their actions and reasoning. I am however delighted to observe that none of our NLI-10 subjects are displaying the behavioural quirks that previous rounds of testing, and logs from other facilities have noted.

Based on the progress of Phase One, I am confident that this trial will be our shining light amidst the dark days of those previous.

Sitting at her hand-carved mahogany desk in a room deep in the depths of the Cultybraggan facility, Marion Whark signed off and sent in her report to her superiors. She looked around her office, the furnishings from the Shadwell pop-up relocated and arranged with identical feng shui, as they had been at all the recruitment centres. The LED wall behind her was displaying London's skyline as the sun began to rise in the distance. She took a deep breath, trying to contain her rage, and reached to the intercom on her desk, pressing a button.

“Come the fuck in.” she said, sternly.

Her anger was not easily restrained when she didn't have to represent herself as the matriarch of the project.
The two orderlies entered, towering over her in stature, but their faces were carved with expressions of terror at the slight woman sat before them.

“What the
legitimate, actual
fuck
happened last night?”
The two gigantic men looked at one another, neither wanting to be the first to speak, yet both wishing to implicate the other.

“This is un-a-fucking-cceptable. Do you understand that? Do you know how it makes me look that my fucking Neanderthals can't look over their fucking shoulders to see a collective of little shits following them into the bowels of a top secret fucking experiment?”

“But...” the first started, and then trailed off, warned to silence by Whark's glare.

“No fucking 'buts', you moron. Dinner tonight their food is drugged, gas in the living quarters, knock them the fuck out and inject RFIDs in all of them. Do. You. Under. Stand?”
They nodded, looking at the floor with shame.

“Good. Now get the fuck out of my sight.” she revolved her chair around, looking out over the LED window at London's skyline, her seething anger washed away slowly by the serene tide of the Thames.

She waited to hear their plodding footsteps leave the room and the door lock behind them before turning back to her desk, taking another deep breath that was expelled with a growl. She pulled out a pile of files and leafed through the subjects until she found Sarah's. Opening it, she scanned the pages until she found the heading she was looking for.

Daughter of APEX employees Scott and Jennifer Kirkland, retired from service in 2015 after A-Eye 1.2 discovered intentions contrary to The Company's best interests. Termination of employment enacted under order of NLI Project director, Marion Whark.

She smiled to herself at a job well done. Having invested so much into the company to raise it to the global stature it had occupied for the last twenty years, she had been rewarded greatly for uncovering the Kirkland's plot to whistle-blow. She grinned as she flicked back to the beginning of the file, a photo of Sarah paper-clipped to the front page, and relished the notion of experimenting on the progeny of the couple who tried to take her company down. Having Sarah as a subject in the trial was a suitable denouement to the whole tale, she thought, given that it was her parent's research that had got the NLI project this far.

The next morning the seven subjects awoke feeling groggy, each of them complaining of pain at the base of their spines. Checking one-another, they discovered that they all had a small circular bruise three to four millimetres in diameter.

“It's between the fourth and fifth lumbar.” noted Farah as she looked at the bruise on Alex's spine.

“What does that mean?” asked Rob.

“It means they knocked us out again... it would have been fucking painful if they did a spinal tap when we were awake...” said Micah.

“What would they do to our spines?” asked Leah.

“Could be anything,” said Farah “Depends what they were testing for... Cerebrospinal fluid can show signs of infections, or a huge range of disorders. MS, Guillain-Barré, cancers --”

“You think they were testing for cancer?” Leah stammered, breath fast, a quiver on her lip. “Could the trial have given us cancer? Is that what they were doing surgery for?”

Rob put an arm round her and tried to calm her down.

“What if they weren't
taking
anything.” Sarah said. The others turned to her and a silence fell on to the room.

“So, rather than remove fluid... they put something else in? On top of the surgery?” asked Alex.

Sarah didn't have an answer, and the room was quiet once again but for the tones echoing through the walls, until interrupted by a chime resounding through the speakers. It was time for another round of tests.

Once again, they were placed in darkness in yet another room beyond another new door on the maze of corridors. Sat adjacent to one-another in deep leather chairs, they were instructed to keep their eyes open and concentrate on trying to recall the grid in their mind's eye. The room tones roared loudly from the shadows surrounding them, punctuated with asynchronous beeps, taps, sharp squeals of digital noise that sounded like a computer being stabbed in its electric heart. The cacophony and the darkness seemed to last for hours, but as it went on, each of them realised the grid was laid out before their eyes without having to think about it, as if the sonics were calling it out of the ether of memory, summoning it without their control.

More hours passed, and the grid was not only hanging in their vision wherever they turned in the black, but felt like it was steadily populating with some kind non-visual data. Accompanying it was a hormonal release, serotonin relaxing their bodies and minds, letting the information flow. None of it was decipherable, but there was now some kind of depth beneath the shapes they could see in their mind's eye, as if there were something being installed in the grid that they couldn't access.
The tones came to a crescendo, then stopped in an instant. The lights came on, grid fading from view as the room became illuminated. They could all still picture it, but not as evocatively as in darkness. The orderlies took them back to the mess hall for dinner, where they shared their vivid visions.

“It felt kinda like an acid trip, y'know?” said Alex “Like, you're aware what your seeing isn't real, but it feels like it's always there, beneath the surface, the patterns connecting the universe, connecting us all.”

“What do you think it was?” Sarah asked Micah.

“Do you want me to be honest, or say it was just another average day in the bunker?” he asked. She wanted the former. “You know that feeling we all had, that pressure of... data or information of some kind?” she nodded, as did the others. “I think they're installing something in our subconscious, through the tones and the drugs.”

“Like NLP?” asked Alex, who then had to reluctantly explain Neuro Linguistic Programming to Leah, who was visibly disturbed by a medical-sounding acronym. “It's nothing to be afraid of. Once you're aware of NLP it's less effective, because you're looking for it.”

“But this isn't normal NLP, is it?” said Farah. “NLP doesn't have a side salad of surgery, noise and drugs.”
A chime through the walls told them it was time to go to the living quarters for sleep, but none of them were tired. Adrenaline and fear of surgery as they slept was keeping their bodies ticking through to the early hours of the morning. In the darkness, they couldn't shake the image of the grid, as if haunting them in a waking dream. The lights came on to signal morning and none of them had slept a wink, yet didn't feel tired.

At breakfast they tried to make sense of getting through a whole day and night without exhaustion.

“Y'ever try Modafinil?” Alex asked Micah, who had. “Kinda feels like that, huh?”

She proceeded to tell the rest of the group about the drug that the US Army had given to the troops to keep them awake for two to three days straight without loss of mental clarity, none of the jittery feelings and swift tolerance from caffeine or the high and crash of speed or coke.

“So, you think that's what we're here to test? Something to keep people awake?” asked Leah.

“It's probably a side-effect.” said Rob. “The rest of these tests haven't exactly lined up with what that drug is for... can't imagine soldiers spending weeks surrounded by flashing lights just to stay awake a little longer.”
Their discussion was cut short by a call for them to move through to the testing area. Another day spent in darkness with the noises, another night sleepless with the grid hanging in their vision, clearer than ever.

The week went on, and they went through the same thing every day for six days until they were told it was the weekend.

“How many days have we been here now?” asked Leah during breakfast, her eyes puffy and exhausted.

“I don't even know any more. Don't really fucking care...” said Rob, shrugging her off.

He was irritable. They all were.

“What does it matter?” asked Pete. “They'll let us know when our three months are up.”

“But we should have kept track!” said Leah. “How will we know when it's our one month anniversary? We should have a party or something!”

Her words were met with blank stares, the others in disbelief and bemusement.

“Not so much, no.” said Alex.

“Why would we want a party?” asked Sarah.

“Everyone likes a party...” said Leah with a huff, slumping in her chair.
Their confounded looks at the young blonde were distracted by the
click-clack
of overpriced heels, as Whark entered.

“How are we all doing this morning?” she asked the group, who turned to her with bag-laden eyes and an inability to feign sincere smiles. “Oh you'll feel right as rain once you get a good night's sleep.”

“About that...” said Pete. “Have you been keeping us awake all week to prove some kind of point, or is it a side effect?”
The others stared at him, each thinking the same thing, but afraid to say so.

“I mean, I understand the need for secrecy with the surgery, the injections into our spines, the weird tones and flashing lights into our faces.”

Sarah considered telling him to shut up, but there was no stopping him, he was on a roll. Plus, he was only saying what they wouldn't

“But you're taking away our sleep! I don't care about the other crap, but sleep is, y'know,
sleep
!”

Whark was, as far as the group could tell, expressing bemusement at her subject's honesty. He turned to the others, his eyes full of shock and confusion.

“I honestly have no idea why I just said that!” he said.

“That would be your limbic cortex firing on all cylinders.” said Whark, to an eyebrow raise and dumb expression from Pete.

“The lizard brain.” said Micah, which brought a nod and a surprised smile from Whark. “Oldest part of the brain, evolutionarily speaking. Has a habit of taking away the filter between thought and speech when you're sleep deprived.

“It's also where the 'fight or flight' impulse comes from.” added Alex.

“Not to mention feeding, fear and fucking.” said Farah, who became visually embarrassed when she heard herself.

“Well, I assure you you'll be getting a good night's sleep after today's session.” said Whark.

“But seriously, are we going to address the surgery?” asked Leah.

“Dear girl, you agreed to it!” said Whark, producing a seven inch tablet from her pocket and flipping through a digital scan of their paperwork, presenting the blonde with her initials on a page.

I am aware that this trial will involve pharmaceutical, psychological, NLP, hypnogogic, and surgical elements, and hereby grant A-Pharma the rights to act as healthcare proxy for the duration of my time in the Cultybraggan Facility.

Leah handed the tablet back, feeling stupid. The table had no further questions for Whark, each finally feeling the exhaustion of the best part of a week without sleep.

“When you're done with your breakfast, do please be so kind as to join the orderlies at the door, we've got a busy morning ahead of us before you can lay your heads down to rest.” She forced a non-smile to them all and strutted out of the room, orderlies opening and closing the door for her without making eye contact.
The group was too tired to be paranoid. They slovenly rose to their feet and followed her out.

Sat once again in the deep leather seats in the dark room, Whark stood in front of them, her voice emanating out of the black.

“Are you all comfortable?” she asked, insincerely.

They grumbled in the affirmative.

“Very good. Now I want you to picture the grid.” she said, waiting for them to do so. “Are you all seeing it?”
They were.

“Now in the top right there is a small box, do you see it?”
They concentrated on the grid, trying to make out its lines and sections in the darkness, one by one seeing the box they were being directed to.

“It is currently...” a light glowed out in the darkness as she brought her wrist up to view her watch, illuminating the angles on her face like she was about to tell them a ghost story. “Ten thirteen a.m.” the light dissipated as she dropped her arm back into the darkness.
The group felt a tingling in the back of their heads, as if some background thought process was running and set off a physical sensation. Metaphysical gears wrestling themselves to life, wheels starting to turn.

“I want you to place that time in the box.” said Whark.

“What do you mean,
'place it in the box
'?” asked Leah, but she didn't have to wait for an answer. 

The gears continued to turn, the sensation in the back of their brains increasing. Tingling turning to light thumping, a heartbeat in their heads, the time blinking into the box in the top right of the grid.

“Did I do that?” they all asked, simultaneously. The thumping in their heads subsiding, gears returning to a slumber. The time continued to tick forward to ten fourteen of its own accord.

“That wasn't so difficult, was it?” said Whark, pleased with herself.

“What is this?” asked Farah.

“Some kind of memetic operating system, right?” said Micah.
Whark didn't say a word.

“The tones have been installing it in our subconscious, the flashes building the user interface, the sessions this week optimizing it for our brains, uncompressing the data, propagating the OS with peripheral apps, like the clock. We haven't seen the time or date for weeks and as soon as we have the time presented to us, in a lizard-brain state, it activated the app and...” the time ticked over to ten fifteen “... it's keeping track of the time.”

“Well said, Mr Gorely.” said Whark. In his soliloquy, she had stepped over to the light switch and started bringing up the lights slowly.
The group were expecting the grid to fade as the room became illuminated, but it stayed in their vision, the time continuing to tick away.

“Look around.” said Whark. “Look at your fellow subjects.”
They followed her instructions, and as Sarah looked at Alex to her right, dots appeared on Alex's face, tracking her features, a pop-up appearing in her vision giving her name, age, race, occupation, and personal notes she had subconsciously made. Alex was staring right back at her having the same experience. They all were.

“This is insane.” said Micah, turning from Farah to Rob.
Sarah looked back over to Leah, FacialRecog bringing up the same headings they had for Alex, but with information missing. Whark could tell from Sarah's expression that she was missing data

“Missing information can be filled in with supposition, or asking your fellow subjects to fill in the blanks.” she said.
Sarah looked at Leah, and decided to start off light, filling in the
occupation
heading.

“Do you have a job?” she asked.
Leah shook her head. Sarah felt the tingling in the back of her mind as the operating system updated the information, the
occupation
category filled itself in with 'unemployed'.

“Why are you here?” she asked Leah. “You've never talked about why... you know, how you're a devout Catholic and yet you're in a medical trial... isn't that against the rules?”
Leah didn't respond. Her body was becoming overwhelmed with emotion, and before Sarah could leave her seat to comfort her, tears were already flowing. The others stopped firing questions back and forth to join Leah in her chair, attempting to help stop her tears.