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“Dr.
Davidson,” Fielding said, “it wasn’t my decision to
change the project’s lead.”

“No, I’m
sure you fought it tooth and nail,” Chal said. She was sick of
being led around by the nose by men who weren’t capable of
doing the job she did. Hadn’t she saved the project twice
already? This was hard repayment, indeed.

“Believe it or
not, doctor, but I was impressed by how you handled the situation
earlier.” Dr. Fielding looked up at Chal. “I could not
have done as well.”

“It’s
great that you’re back in charge, then.”

“I need your
help,” he said. He spread his hands in front of him in a
gesture of supplication. “I would like for you to continue the
questionings with the prototype.”

Chal paused for a
moment to consider his request.

“This is
ridiculous,” she said finally. “I’ve been dismissed
from the project–”

“By Lieutenant
Johnner,” Dr. Fielding said. “Not by me.”

“And will
Lieutenant Johnner be fine with me doing this, do you think?”
she asked.

“Lieutenant
Johnner,” Dr. Fielding said, “is gone. I am in charge of
the project. And it is my professional opinion that the prototype’s
successful development would be best served by having you continue on
in your capacity as questioner.”

“Wait, hold
on,” Chal said. “What do you mean, Johnner is gone?”

“He’s
meeting with a consulate group or committee or some such,” Dr.
Fielding said. “He told me he trusted me to run the experiment
while he was gone.”

“But the lab
is locked down,” Chal said. Her head was spinning. “He
said nobody was allowed to leave.”

Dr. Fielding darted
his tongue out to the corner of his lips. “Lieutenant Johnner
doesn’t always play by the rules. As I’m sure you’ve
found out.”

Chal waited, her
thoughts chasing each other back and forth. She didn’t know
what Fielding was up to, but he certainly seemed to have had a change
of heart about her participation in the project.

“You’ll
grant me full control over the prototype’s development?”
Chal asked.

“As much as
Johnner will allow once he comes back,” Fielding said. “I
can’t promise more than that.”

“What if he
throws me off the project as soon as he gets back down here?”
Chal asked.

Dr. Fielding
shrugged, a gesture that seemed oddly incongruous on his body.

“Then I
suppose you had better make this next session count.”

***

Chal was watching
the recording. Her lip trembled as she saw Alan wheeled in, hooked up
to the IV in the sensory deprivation tank. They had turned the lights
back down to low, the white noise level up. Dr. Fielding sat in the
shadows.

The IV began to drip
green liquid into the line, but it was barely visible in the dim
light. A minute passed without anything at all happening. Dr.
Fielding shifted in his seat.

Then Alan’s
eyes opened. He blinked, then stared straight ahead, as though
remembering something. Dr. Fielding was silent.
That’s
something, at least,
Chal said.
He just needs to stay quiet.

“Where is
Chal?” Alan asked.

“Chal isn’t
here,” Dr. Fielding said softly.

Alan rose halfway
out of the water. “That seems to be obvious enough. But where
is she? I’d like to talk to her.”

Chal put her chin in
her hand, watching with rapt attention. Alan’s brain seemed to
have branched out since the last session. His neural development in
language structure and content had progressed significantly. The
fusiform gyrus was active –he could differentiate people based
on facial cues. That was something that normally didn’t occur
until later in infancy. But Alan seemed already to be well past this
stage.

“What would
you like to say to her?” Dr. Fielding asked. “I can tell
her for you.”

Alan looked at Dr.
Fielding curiously, cocking his head.

“I would like
to tell her myself,” he said. “It’s personal.”
He leaned forward, grasping the edge of the tank in his strong hands.

Dr. Fielding shifted
in his seat, eyeing the small table next to him. Chal recognized the
syringe on the table. It was the interferon serum.

Alan noticed his
glance and shook his head. “There’s no need for that,
doctor,” he said.

Jesus
,
thought Chal
. He doesn’t miss anything.
She wondered if
he had been that attentive in the first few sessions. Already she was
thinking about the different parts of the brain that could have
changed inside of him. The parietal lobe must have expanded like
crazy, and with it his ability to process motion and other stimuli.

Perception usually
came first in nascent intelligences, then reasoning. However, he
seemed to be developing both at rapid speed. She wanted to see his
charts for brain tissue growth.

“May we talk
about something else?” Dr. Fielding asked. He scratched his
forehead with his index finger, and Chal noticed that the IV had
switched over to the sedative. It must have been a signal to the
observation team to switch the IV. Smart precaution. “Chal will
be back later.”

“You’re
lying,” Alan said. “And you’ve changed the IV.”
He looked back to where the line was now dripping red.

“It’s
part of the experiment,” Dr. Fielding said, but his neck was
flushing red and his tongue was darting to the corner of his mouth in
quick repetition.

“Put me to
sleep, then, doctor,” Alan said. He lay back in the tank,
letting his body float. “I don’t mind the rest. But the
next person I will talk to is Chal.”

His eyes closed and
Dr. Fielding immediately stood up, picking up the syringe and
clipboard in his hand. He turned and stumbled over the stool,
knocking it to the ground. He looked back guiltily, but Alan was
silent and unmoving.

Just like a body.
Just like one of those bodies.

She paused the
recording. Alan lay alone in the tank, bobbing slightly. Chal looked
around, but there was nobody in the lab except for her and the
animals. She looked to the ceiling, up to where the world continued
living. An inexplicable chill ran through her body, and the thought
of so much earth above her made her queasy.

Quickly switching
off the recording, she stood up and noticed the cabinet that
contained the interferon serum was unlocked, the door slightly ajar.
Chal walked over to it, looking back over her shoulder to make sure
she was alone.

She reached inside
and pulled out one of the clear vials. She held it up to the light
and rotated it in her fingers, seeing the liquid inside slosh first
to one side, then the other. Liquid death, or whatever came to you
when your brain dissolved, neuron by neuron. She didn’t know
why, but the vial in her hand gave her an instant sense of security.

Security? What
would you do if someone attacked you now?
Chal thought.
Ask
them politely if they wouldn’t mind drinking it?

There was a noise in
the hallway. Chal slipped the vial of serum into her lab coat pocket
and swung the cabinet door shut, locking it. There was a box of
sterile syringes on the counter, and she grabbed one of them as well,
pocketing it just in time. As she turned to leave, Evan walked into
the lab.

“Evening, Dr.
Davidson,” he said, nodding pleasantly. He still wasn’t
comfortable around her, but that was okay. She was going to talk with
Alan again, and that was all that mattered.

“Evening,”
she said, passing by him with only a twinge of anxiety.

It was evening? She
felt more confused than ever. Time was impossible to gauge here. She
felt her pocket, where the serum and syringe were hard underneath the
coat fabric, and breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

***

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“At present,
human scientists are attempting to communicate outside our species to
primates and cetaceans, and in a limited way to a few other
vertebrates. This is inordinately difficult, and yet it represents a
gap of at most a few SQ points. The farthest we can reach our
"communication" with vegetation is when we plant, water, or
fertilize it, but it is evident that messages transmitted across an
SQ gap of 10 points or more cannot be very meaningful. What, then,
could an SQ +50 Superbeing possibly have to say to us?” -Robert
A. Freitas Jr.

***

“I don’t
think the next session will require the sensory deprivation tank,”
Chal said. “He seems adjusted to the normal stimuli already.”

“No, I agree.
I’ll get them to bring out a chair for the next questioning.”
Dr. Fielding and Chal were overseeing the assistants as they ran the
bloodwork. It was mostly Dr. Fielding who was overseeing; Chal was
running through all of the things that needed to be taken care of
before her session with Alan.

“His language
was fully developed,” Chal said.

“He’s
matured surprisingly quickly,” Dr. Fielding said. “The
synapse density in certain parts of his brain is quite high, almost
that of a completely mature human male.”

“It seemed
that way, didn’t it?” Chal said. “Pushing him so
far might have accelerated his development. That which does not kill
you makes you stronger, right?”

“I’ve
always found that a rather barbaric saying,” Dr. Fielding said.
“But you’re probably right about the development.”

“How do you do
it?” Chal asked. The question had been milling around in her
brain since the beginning.

“Do what?”

“The
programming. His brain. All of the code that I’ve used in my
previous experiments has been very straightforward.”

“And this
isn’t?”

“I mean that
we basically code our subjects to mimic existing neuronal structures.
Rats, for example.”

“It’s
very much the same here,” Dr. Fielding said. “Backwards
emotional induction based on existing neuronal data.”

“Who do you
use as your models?” She was curious about the man Evan had
mentioned.

“That’s
classified information,” Dr. Fielding said.

“Could I look
at the code?” Chal asked. “I’d like to at least see
the overall structure we’re building on.”

“Of course,”
Dr. Fielding said. “I’ll show it to you later.”

Chal had the feeling
that he was lying to her, but she wasn’t going to confront him
over it. There was too much else to do now without worrying about
what his preprogrammed structures were. The brain development was
progressing far more quickly than Chal could ever have anticipated,
and she needed to adjust her questioning based on his developing
maturity. The code could wait.

“Why do you
handcuff him to the bed?” Chal asked abruptly. “Do you
think he’s going to run away while he’s under deep
sedation?”

“No, Dr.
Davidson. But there is the problem of theft.”

“Theft.”
Chal raised her eyebrow.

“The prototype
is a piece of research worth many millions of dollars,” Dr.
Fielding said. “There are many who would like to steal it.”

“It would be
impossible for a thief to get all the way down here,” Chal
said. “There are guards everywhere.”

“Highly
unlikely, to be sure,” Dr. Fielding said. “But not
impossible.”

“Really?”
Chal said. She raised an eyebrow at Dr. Fielding, who raised his
hands in mock surrender.

“Not me!”
he said. “I’m just a scientist.”

Chal smiled and
focused her attention on the prep work. “Me too. Too bad, or we
could split the profit.”

“I thought you
were a businesswoman as well as a scientist,” Fielding said. He
seemed to be probing her. “On the covers of so many magazines.
Doing commercials.”

“Gotta pay the
bills,” Chal said.

“Ah,”
Dr. Fielding said, and was quiet again. The assistants had a question
about the bloodwork, and he stopped to help them. When he returned
his face had dropped into a more somber attitude.

“Problem with
something?” Chal asked.

“No, not at
all.”

“Good. You’ve
got a good team here working under you,” Chal said.

“Yes. So many
famous scientists have stepped on the backs of their subordinates on
their way to the top.” Dr. Fielding directed the last statement
towards Chal, and she felt chastised.

“Good thing
we’re underground, then,” Chal quipped. “In any
case, the important thing here is making sure Alan’s
development goes smoothly.”

“I’m
glad we are on the same page,” Dr. Fielding said.

***

They had brought
Alan into the room. This time he was sitting not in a tank but in a
chair, a sheet draped over his body. To mimic the same awakening
process, Chal had reclined the chair back, but had not bothered with
any of the lighting or sound. The last session had not needed those
trappings, and she felt as though he was beyond needing that kind of
help.

The IV began to drip
green, and Chal tried to calm her nerves. He had asked for her, but
why? She had been trying to avoid reaching the conclusion, insane as
it was, that they had formed a strong emotional connection. Whether
she blamed it on her sleep deprivation or anxiety, though, there was
no getting around the fact that he had asked for her specifically.

Dr. Fielding didn’t
act put out by being made to stand in the sidelines. He was cool,
reserved, and Chal admired his dispassionate approach more now that
she had seen his side of things. She still thought he was a racist
asshole, but even racist assholes can be good scientists.

Alan’s eyelids
fluttered. He opened them slowly, looking around. He looked down and
felt the sheet in his fingers. Then he saw Chal and, impossibly,
blushed.

“Hello, Alan,”
she said, smiling.

“Hello, Chal,”
he said. “I wanted to thank you.” He reached out and took
her hand in his, as naturally as if they were already close
companions. Her fingers pressed against his warm palm, and she felt
again how strong he was.