Cross My Mind

Episode 2

{AT NEURATECHNOLOGIES HEADQUARTERS TEXAS}

Mr. Jefferson Lockwood arrived at Neuratechnologies Headquarter in Houston with his convoy of security operatives, among which includes well trained bodyguards who have undergone standard military training. As the world’s rising billionaire who climbed the ranks to the 8th richest person alive position in the last five years, Mr. Lockwood takes pride in being a futurist who would go the extra mile to create future technology that’ll be very beneficial to mankind.

In the middle of western Houston urban center landscape, Neuratechnologies Headquarters’ main building stands as a 16 storey building that dominates the entre urban center. At the very top of the center lies what Mr. Lockwood claims to be the most sophisticated piece of technology on the planet. In a press conference, months ago he announced the completion of the company’s highly anticipated super computer named ‘MEDULA’ which he claims to posses new artificial Intelligence capabilities that allows it to rival Japan’s Fugaku super computer which has been hailed as the world best super computer.

Sitting inside his car, Lockwood who is a forty years old man and the CEO of Neuratechnologies had received a call earlier from his most important employee and the head of research in Neuratechnologies, telling him that a breakthrough has been made and he needs to be the first person to witness it. Mr. Lockwood flew five hours from his vacation home to Houston so he can see what kind of breakthrough has been reached. He pulls up his custom satellite radio phone and dialed the only channel the phone has been made to connect with.

“Dr. Akihiro, this is Lockwood. Send my lift down” he said on the phone and within seconds, the door by the left side of the main entrance of the building which many believed to have been a fire escape exit beeped open, revealing an incredibly spacious, well designed and decorated elevator. The security team quickly got off their vehicles and secured the parameter after which Mr. Lockwood stepped out of his vehicle and walk into the elevator; the door slide shut and the lift began to ascent the building.

[Four months earlier]

Garba stood by the bedroom door holding his weeping six years old sister Salma’s hand and staring at the madness unfolding before his teen eyes with utter confusion, his confusion accompanied by fear and complete bewilderment has left him numb and unable to unable to console his sister who has been crying and screaming at the top of her lungs from the obviously confusing event they are witnessing for the first time.

Inside the bedroom, Garba peeps and sees the television broken and the dressing mirror which has been shattered to tiny bits on the floor from the continuous projectiles that their mother keeps throwing at their father. In the middle of the room Garba could make out the blurry figure of their father whose shirt is being gripped tightly by their mother who is shouting all kinds of insults at the top of her voice.

Garba who is a fourteen years old boy can understand that his beloved parents are fighting, in itself this is new and confusing to him because although his father is polygamous and sometimes there is friction between the three wives among which one is his mother, Garba has never seen or heard of a time when his mother fights with his father and even more confusing is the fact that the fight keeps getting physical by the second.

For Salma who is just six however, all she could do is cry which Garba has become vividly aware of in the last minute because she has been crying nonstop.

“I guess this is to be expected of a six years old” Garba said to himself.

With a languid attempt, he reached the hand sawn silk curtain veil covering the bedroom entrance and draw it to the side, inside the room he saw his mother still clutching his father’s shirt and screaming at the top of her voice calling him a cheater. Mr. Danladi who is Garba’s father on the other hand keeps asking her to let go of his shirt.

“let go of my shirt woman or you’ll regret it” he said but she doesn’t seem to be hearing him at all. In a split second, Garba watched as his father lands a direct slap on his mother’s face with a force strong enough that it sent her crashing down on the floor of the bedroom.

Before Garba realizes what is going on, Salma has slipped out of his grip and ran into the bedroom to where their mother now lies on the floor sobbing.

“dad please don’t hurt my mommy” the six years old said with eyes full of tears. But instead of consoling his little daughter, Mr. Danladi starts walking towards the door and said to his sobbing wife

“I have dissolved this marriage and your divorce papers would be ready tomorrow, pack up, leave my house and while you’re doing so take your witch eyed children with you”

With tears rolling down his cheeks, Garba remains by the door and mortified by what he has just witnessed and as his father passes near him by the door, he gave him a cold gaze that sent chills down his spine. In his father’s eyes, Garba could see visible disgust and resentment that broke him down into a sob.

Garba wakes up in a translucent glass room hyperventilating, crying, sobbing out loudly and profusely sweating with itching sadness in his heart. The Glass room is a rectangular cubicle that is big enough to be a hotel room. The roofing of the room is a flat and completely transparent glass that spans the entire room and connects the four glass walls. Mounted on it are an air conditioner side by side of a ventilation fan and a massive projection screen.

Inside of the room contains a double size bed and rectangular toilet whose walls are also made out of glass.

He sat up on the bed with tears still rolling down his cheeks. “it has been eleven years, why cant I get this memory out of my head, the past cant be changed and our background doesn’t necessarily define who we are” Garba reassures himself as he sat on the bed trying to recover from the flashback he just had in his sleep.

After some minutes, he stood up and slipped on the white shirt and pants that have been provided to all of the applicants last night. He walked into the toilet and went straight to the mirror; Garba’s lips widen with a faint smile at the sight of his own reflection. A tall figure with a glowing dark skin. He turns and moves his face to the edge of the mirror just enough to reflect only right side of his face which reveals a long nose, dark bushy brows and a light brown eye that complements his dark skin tone.

Garba stood intently staring at his own reflection, taking a brief moment and wondering what his life would have been like if the other side of his face reveals the complement to what he is seeing right now. After a short while of admiration, he let out a sigh and stepped to the right; allowing his full face to show on the mirror. He took a deep breath and let out a tired sigh that would give any watcher the impression of a man seeing his face for the first time in his life.

A smile slowly conjures up on his face showing intense fervor. The left side of his face reveals an exact complement of the right side except for one part; instead of a light brown eye, what is visible is a deep blue eye that gives a glowing effect in the bright light of the research cubicle.

On the side of the bed, an alarm clock went off at the same time the projection screen on the ceiling slowly manifest a visual. A display of the schedules that the volunteers have for the day shows up indicating that it is time to have breakfast. Later during the day, all volunteers are to fill their forms , sign an NDA and officially sign the trial contract they are here for. Garba grabbed his phone and begins to prepare for his first day activities as part of the trial team for Neuratechnologies’ new device which is believed to be the first device that would work as an interphase for the human brain to connect to a computer. A brain-machine interphase.

Neatly dressed in white shirts that have been tagged with the company’s badge, Garba walk to the glass door of his room; upon stepping outside, Garba finds himself in the hallway of a farm of large rectangular glass cubicles such as the one he just stepped out of. Although this is not the first time he is seeing this maze of glass rectangles as he saw it already the previous night, his mind is still blown that a structure like this exist under the canopy of the mega building which gives the illusion of being a stadium from the outside.

On the inside, from a bird eye view, the clusters of the cubicles would look like an entire city, each building replaced by a cubicle and each street replaced by hallways that pass through the clusters.

Numerous low hanging projections from the roofing of the entire building dangle in each hallway giving directions to the different facilities that are inside the mega building. Garba raised his head to see an instruction telling him that the blue and green LED lights on the floor are also there for the purpose of guiding the new volunteers to the various parts of the mega building they need to go to.

“The green LEDs lead to the cafeteria” a voice said from behind him in an accent which he immediately read as American, he turns with visible surprise in his expression to see who gave him the information he has just figured out but to Garba’s surprise, as soon as he turned around, a tall woman which he immediately gauge to be in her mid twenties met his gaze with a soft recoil by reclining back her head and widening her eyes in a facial expression that shows clear surprise. Garba understands her surprise and didn’t make a deal out of it.

she finally says

“lets head there now, everyone is heading there as well” flinging her blonde hair and started walking.

Garba slowly follows behind her and in a few seconds, they find themselves in an expansive space that resembles a fancy school cafeteria; inside are long tables with chairs, each table decorated with a variety of different food that have been specially made to suit the different backgrounds of the numerous volunteers. After a while of looking around and drifting from table to table, Garba spots a halal table with some African style dishes and sat. he begins his breakfast.

To his surprise, the woman from earlier walked to his table and sat opposite him, Garba minded his business and keeps chucking food down his throat, paying all his attention to his breakfast but he cant ignore her, not when she is staring at him this intently. With every spoon full of food, she keeps examining him and after a minute, he couldn’t take it and raised his head to meet her eyes since she has shown obvious and clear interest in him.

“I am Mila By the way, came here all the way from Youngsville Louisiana, doing this for the cash as most of us are I’m sure. What about you?” she asked.

Garba let out a reluctant sigh and raised his head, paused from eating and finally face her properly, the second their eyes meet again, he can see a faint tinge of surprise in her eyes and a slight change in her facial expression that goes from blank to excitement.

“I am Garba Danladi from Kaduna state of Nigeria, nice to meet you Mila” he said.

Mila stood up moving closer to see his eyes more clearly, she flipped her bangs again and said

“what kind of contacts are you using, or is this your natural eye color? Do African Americans even get blue eyes at all?” she asked

“actually, as I have already mentioned just now, I am African not American.” Garba said realizing where the conversation is going so he took the initiative and continued.

“Heterochromia, ever heard of it?” he asked

“not ever” Mila responded

“I thought as much, see your eyes are grey; only three percent of all the people in the world have grey colored pupils which makes it very rare but there are people who have green eyes which make up only two percent of the global population. But Heterochromia is different, it is a very rare genetic condition that occurs only in less than one percent of the global population. This means that I may be the only person you’ll ever see that has it. To put this simply, Heterochromia leaves a person with two differently colored eyes as you can see in my case brown and blue but sometimes it also makes a person to have different colours in the same eyes as in the case of my sister Salma who has blue and brown eye colours in both eyes”

“No way, I get yours but to have two colours in one eye that’s not possible” Mila quickly objected.

Garba, who has also anticipated it coming pulled out his phone and shows Mila a close-up picture of his sister Salma and Mila could not argue.

“I imagine it must be fun growing up with Heterochromia, must be quite the thing to brag about” Mila said but immediately, Garba frowned his face.

A bell goes off and a massive projection is now visible from all parts of the Mega building.

A face flickered to life on the screen and said “good morning to our wonderful volunteers, we are finally ready to start the day, if you would please follow the blue LED lights on the floor to the numbered stalls. We have enough stalls so please move there once you’re done eating, our lawyers will guide you through all of the process and the benefits we are offering. Thank you”