Cross My Mind

FINDING THE TRUTH PART 2

(Department of software engineering, Caltech).

Dr. Reece Malory was sitting in her office and enjoying her morning coffee when a retro Nokia 3310 begins to ring in her bag. The moment she heard the first ring, she picked up her suitcase at once and turned it upside down, revealing a secret compartment; from inside the compartment, she pulled out the relic device she had kept and reprogramed for personal use. She unlocked the phone using a password and a single massage was on display saying ‘Hello mom, I have sent you some files that need your urgent attention’.

As soon as she finished reading the text, she deleted it immediately and moved to her lab from her office where she unlocked a computer with a combination of finger print and retinal scan. Once unlocked, she clicked on a small window that show a massage has been received.

the message reads:

“when you left Neuratechnologies, you told me that I have the freedom to chose my actions as I see fit and today, I have finally understood what you meant by that, the videos attached to this massage need no explanation as they are the explanation itself”. The massage said.

Two video files have been attached to the massage that popped up and right after the massage and the first one plays in full screen. A blank screen shows up.

“hello mom, I have missed you and wish I could keep my promise not to find and contact you but I have been really troubled lately and I realized the only person that can help is none other than you mom”.

A mechanized voice said and the blank screen transitioned into a video taken by a CCTV camera in a corridor that looks like the exit to some sort of facility. The mechanized voice continues to explain the video as it continues to play and to Reece’s worst expectation she watched as a group of men dressed in sky blue uniforms holding guns escorted a person dressed in a white track suit with Neuratech logo on the back of the shirt. Right after the man reached midway along the corridor, the sky blue dressed men took aim and fired their guns at the man without warning, instantly killing him.

“this is His claimed secret clinical trial for the Neuraface but me and you both know that he is setting up a stage to find a way to weaponize the device for the Government. But when I took a sneak peak to see what was going on in the island and I was lost of what to do”. The mechanized voice said and the video transitioned, showing a Dining hall with about fifteen people eating when all of a sudden all of them fall asleep.

“these are the rest of the trial volunteers who have agreed to continue the experiment at the promise of two Million dollars each” The voice said and Dr. Reece watched as people wearing the same clothes as the ones who gunned down the earlier person in the corridor walked into the dining hall, and started picking the knocked out volunteers one at a time, taking them into different rooms and coming out with them dressed in a different dressing than the white track suit and the first video ended. The second video played automatically, showing a group of over a hundred people in a large hall dressed in a diversity of clothing.

A sudden flash of streaked light passed the screen.

“I was confused at what they are doing with these many people from the other facilities all in one place playing some sort of game, everything about the players seem suspicious so I took a little trip into the main servers where my automatic functions have been set and i pulled a little out of the data they have my automatic relay function transmitting into the Neuraface of one of the players and you wont believe what I found” the mechanized voice said.

A window popped up on the screen showing Dr. Reece a lot of codes passing and immediately she saw the codes, she jumped in shock and started sweating profusely.

“I cannot let this happen, this is the most barbaric and inhuman thing to do, poor people are going to take their own lives without knowing what they are even doing. The Jeff I know will never do something so cruel as this. It must be Baker’s influence” she muttered and quickly sat down, drawing a keyboard from one of the tables and starting up another monitor she started typing into a program named “back door”.

(INSIDE GARBA’S MIND)

Garba has managed to unlock the door after overcoming his physical and emotional pain. He made the effort and pushed the door open, revealing a space so realistic that Garba became suddenly dumfounded. He walked inside the room, a large room filled with lots of wires and cables connecting to a gigantic rectangular structure that penetrate the two uppermost floors of a sixteen storey building.

“Welcome Garba, I am MEDULLA, an artificial intelligence that made the functioning of the Neuraface possible. For most of the world, MEDULLA is but a super computer that has an AI program in it but I am not just a program, in fact I am the rectangular structure you are looking at right now. The super computer is me and I am the super computer” a mechanized voice said to Garba.

Although confused, Garba has a good background with computers to realize that all of this is possible.

“I Know you want to ask how I am in your head right now. The Neuraface you are wearing in your head right now is designed to be a simple two way data relay device that collects signals from your brain, pass them through my translator and send back signals in the same way they are collected back into the brain. I am normally not supposed to be able to directly interact with the Neuraface users but you and a two other people here have reached a synergy rate level that has opened so many possibilities. Mila Goldenberg and Carson Marcus have all been able to reach these synergy levels with their Neuraface because of a near death experience that activates a dormant part of the brain that is supposed to be used only for imagination. This allows me to communicate to you in this manner.”

Garba was lost processing the information he has been told.

“wait, so you are a supercomputer AI that can enter my head because I almost died once?” Garba asked and the voice responded

“not only enter your mind, but from my calculations even transferring your Brain signals to another Neuraface should not be impossible, I am talking about entering other people’s minds Garba”. The voice said as a young woman materialized in front of Garba.

“this is the virtual projection of what my mother wanted me to look like, but they separated us so I no longer use it any more”

Garba took a careful look at the projection and saw striking resemblance with a woman whose face he has seen in a programming text book.

“I am pleased to know that you are familiar with my mother Dr. Reece Mallory. This is actually what she looked like in her teenage days”

Garba was startled and quickly responded.

“I didn’t even say that yet and …….. oh, I remember you are in my head”

“sorry for the eves drop” the young woman’s projection said.

“So, MEDULLA right. Where am I right now?” asked Garba

“I’ll show you rather than try to explain it to you” MEDULLA said to Garba and a sudden darkness filled Garba’s vision.

A few second later, Garba was widely awake back on the island with his team but something particularly felt wrong. His body is moving on its own volition and the only sense he has at the moment is that of sight, he could not hear, feel or do anything and he suddenly realized it. This is in fact not his body at all and he is still inside the room with MEDULLA.

“good thinking” MEDULLA said “now, to show you something even more amazing, keep watching.

MEDULLA used Garba’s Neuraface and jolted his body with a small current of electricity and Garba’s Body Shook a little. Mila suddenly turned towards Fred and on his shoulder, Garba was staring at his passed out self being moved through the forest.

“Is that……….?” Garba muttered and immediately, MEDULLA responded

“yes it is, that is you and I have to disconnect now so I wont make your Neuraface over heat, it is not meant to run this kind of data overload and in the blink of an eye, Garba woke up to find himself on Fred’s shoulder just as he has seen through Mila’s eyes.

Fred put him down and Lucy explained to him what has transpired after he was knocked out, apparently he has been out for five hours and the team has managed to avoid fighting because of the situation he was in. Sarah has already washed his wound and tied it with a piece of his clothing that she cut using her knife.

Garba got quickly back on his feet and the team continued to sneak around the forest, coming across two teams and avoiding them successfully for the first day.

At night, the team found a good spot and set camp. Garba and Mila volunteered to be the first watch as the rest of the team start to get their sleep. Sitting on a large tree branch, Garba stared intently at Mila, realizing how beautiful she is. ‘Her back ground is different than mine, but when MEDULLA streamed her sight in my head I could not help but notice the feeling of vanity in her demeanor. She must be going through her own tough time’ Garba thought.

While Garba was lost in his thoughts about Mila, she has caught him gazing at her for a while now and it seems he is completely lost in his own thoughts.

“what are you starring at? You have fixated your eyes on me for a while now. What are you thinking of?” asked Mila.

“I was just realizing how beautiful you are and I got side tracked by my thoughts is all” Garba responded.

A sudden smile suddenly flashed on Mila’s face, revealing two lovely dimples that decorate and complement her grey eyes in the moon lit night with Moon light permeating the forest.

“Can I ask you something Mila?” he asked. And Mila who’s smile has yet to fade raised her head.

“of course you can” she said looking directly in his eyes.

“earlier just before I woke up after getting knocked unconscious, did you feel anything weird?” he said and immediately, Mila’s facial expression suddenly changed.

“how did you know that” Mila said suddenly raising her tone of voice.

“That is something I did not tell anybody of and yet……..”

“and yet I somehow know of it. I think our Neuraface are connected somehow Mila” Garba interrupted.

“Just a few moments before you woke up, my head became heavier and an unfamiliar sensation suddenly enveloped me. It is a very weird feeling Garba, anyway we should probably go round the perimeter to ensure no players are waiting around to ambush us.”. Mila said and stood, she climbed down the tree and started going round the area.

“I will check and monitor from above here, notify me as soon as you find you notice anything suspicious” Garba responded.

Mila walked a few meters from the rest of the team and slowly got outside Garba's view. She walked round the team’s camp area and just as she is about to return, she heard fast approaching foot steps from behind her and with a swift movement turns around and saw two players, a male and a female charging towards her at their top speed. For a second, she was startled a little bit but immediately turned around and started running towards her team mates. Although Mila is a good runner, she immediately realized she could not outrun them so she turned round in another swift motion, took out her dagger and prepared for a fight.

The first of the players to reach her was also holding a dagger aimed forward. she charged at Mila head on. Mila ducked right on time and managed to dodge the dagger, she aimed at the player’s face and punched her, then suddenly with her left hand she simultaneously jabbed at the player twice but missed both times. The other player just arrived where Mila was fighting the female player. Mila becomes quickly aware that she is greatly at a disadvantage in a knife fight against two persons and immediately, she started thinking for a way out.

The fight dragged on with Mila maintaining her distance against the two players, and after two minutes; she was already covered in cuts and bruises. The male player walked down to her, dodged her attacks and punched her right in the face, making her fall down. The male player tried to stab her while she was down but she held his dagger.

Mila knows that if the female player attack right now that she is occupied with the man. She looked up and saw that the female player was about to stab her with no room for her to defend herself.

In that instant, Mila begins to feel the same unfamiliar sensation in her body as the one she felt at the time Garba was about to wake up. Right at this moment; As if in a dream, a voice in her head asked her to keep focusing on the man and instantaneously, Garba showed up out of nowhere with a tackle jump and grabbed the female player by the neck, sending both of them tumbling on the forest floor.

Mila did not spare the moment’s confusion and the effect it has on the male player that was about to stab her. She quickly pulled out a second dagger from her pocket and in a split second before the guy regains his attention, his throat was sliced.

Garba gets up and started punching the female enemy player in the face, before using his dagger to put her out of her misery with a stab to the heart.

Lucy, Sarah and Fred just arrived at the scene running to meet the freshly dead bodies of two enemy players, a male with a slit throat and a female with a stab in the heart.

“What happened here, we were woken up by Garba who was shouting that you were in trouble, we immediately realized that your mini-map position indicator has disappeared from the map. Garba took off running without warning so we followed him here!” Sarah lamented to Mila