Cross My Mind

AN IMPENDING THREAT

Furious at the loss of one of his three prized subjects that showed him potential of unlocking the door to utilizing more cerebral capacity of the human brain through Symbiosis with artificial intelligence through the Neuraface, Akihiro flung the tablet in his hands in the air, where it tumbled and fell on the floor, scattering into pieces.

He turned back and started heading towards Dr. Nora who he tasked with monitoring MEDULLA’s trapping and deleting from their servers as well as tracking where MEDULLA is connected to the servers from. When he arrived, he snatched the tablet he earlier gave Nora with an aggressive manner. Nora knows perfectly well how Akihiro gets when his experiments don’t go perfectly as he expects them to so he didn’t respond to the aggression at all, rather, he stood up with his own tablet and pointed the screen at Akihiro.

“I was watching your tracking system searching and scanning the entire codes and applications on the entire server, looking for any changes in codes that are an error or misaligned, but I quickly realised that this may not be the only way to search for a loophole in our systems so I picked an old application I have been working with to track the activities of a certain individual and tweaked it a little bit.

I managed to detect two sources that are connected to our servers and one of them is from our headquarters in Texas, presumably that should be MEDULLA. But who is the second person and where are they tapping into the servers from, I have no way of knowing but I have tracked the person’s IP address already” Nora said.

Akihiro suddenly brighten his face and handed over the tablet he had snatched from Nora earlier.

“Input the IP address here and we shall have the location of the dirty mole infesting our servers within ten minutes” He said.

“Hope is not all lost, and having a capable colleague like you Nora puts my mind at ease, knowing that you can take care of things that I leave you to. I am going further down to check on Carson, if he is still alive, I may as well try saving him since he has many uses for me. Send me the paramedics and prepare a room upstairs for immediate surgery and resuscitation” Akihiro added looking at Nora and went straight to the elevator, pressed the last button and begin to descend into the underground facility.

Immediately he was out of sight, Nora looked at a man standing by the side on a computer awaiting his next orders.

“You heard the man, tell the doctors in the medical unit to prepare for surgery and as well send a team of paramedics down to meet Akihiro” he said to the man and quickly continue to monitor the tablet screen that is currently trying to pin a target at the second person infiltrating their servers from the outside.

The team of paramedics arrived a few minutes after Akihiro and found him in a large underground space that resembles a factory, with the dead bodies of all the players that were killed from the game of chess scattered on the floor, on one side, Akihiro was on his knees performing CPR for one of the players who has a knife in his gut and as well sticking out of his face. Even though Covered in the player’s blood, Akihiro paid no heed and continues to perform the CPR, leaving the paramedic team stunned and lost of what to do.

In a brief moment that they are lost, all of them was stunned back to action as the player with the knives sticking out of his body started to cough out blood and breath again.

“If this man dies, none of you leave this island” Akihiro said in a villainous tone as he hands over Carson to the paramedics and walked back to the elevator, going back up.

Back in the control room, Nora has finally managed to get a lock on where the mysterious person who is currently accessing the servers is doing so from. He heard the elevator coming up, realising it must be Akihiro coming back up.

As soon as the elevator doors beeped and opened, Nora picked up the tablet and begin to walk towards Akihiro who is covered in blood and looking happy. “It can’t be that he killed someone down there right” Nora thought and proceeded towards Akihiro turning the tablet screen towards him.

“I have tracked our little mole down all the way to California institute of technology, what should we do?” Nora asked.

Akihiro took a good look at the tablet screen, Nora noticed a little shock on Akihiro’s face but waits to see what the Doctor would say first.

“Cast this location on the big screen” Akihiro commanded and without a word, Nora touched the screen of the tablet a few times and the map indicating the location of the mole.

Akihiro moved closer to Nora and used his blood stained hands to enlarge the map, showing which specific building in the institution the target was lock on.

“You have done very well Nora but Cut this connection immediately and stop the tracking this individual right now. And stop looking at me like that simply because there is blood stains on my hands and clothes, I didn’t kill anyone, I saved Carson instead. I had to give him CPR before the paramedics got down there. I need to wash up right away and go to the Mansion to talk to Jefferson Lockwood, we have yet another problem” Akihiro.

“What about the two players left in the court? What should we do with them?” Nora asked

“Take them out of the cube, congratulate them and move them to the accommodation prepared for them to await further instructions there” Akihiro said and walked to the elevator once again, going up this time around.

Nora waited for the elevator to come down and boarded it, he pressed the second to the last lowest button, closing the elevator door and begins to descend down. After a few seconds of descent he arrived at the large arena looking facility with the oversized glass cube at the center, covering a similarly large chess court.

Outside the cube, stood the red dressed men holding their guns, now pointed downwards awaiting orders from their leader. Inside the cute at one towards one of the four corners sat Garba and Mila with their bodies still switched. A few minutes earlier, Immediately Garba stabbed Carson, watching as Mila’s knife implants itself on the man’s left eye, he knew that the two of them have survived for the moment.

The bigger question now is what will these evil people do to the two of us now? He thought. Mila ran and hugged him so tight that he had to remind her to use less strength since her current body is far stronger than her original one.

“What is next now how do we switch back?” Mila asked

“Same way you switched in the first place, I am hoping there is a break after this round where they let the two of you rest before they put you through whatever it is they have prepared next. I will take advantage of you two pretending to sleep to cross you back to your original bodies” MEDULLA said.

Their conversation was interrupted by the movement of the armed men around the glass, the men have left the sides of the glass and have moved a few steps up the seats to where a man Garba immediately recognized stood giving instructions to them. A few seconds later the men surrounded the box one more time, the box was lifted up and two of the armed men walked down to Garba and Mila, they collected their weapons and searched their bodies to make sure there are no weapons that have been concealed.

Once the men were done searching, Nora walked up to the two and offered them a congratulations, he however Noticed that none of them were as excited as he had expected.

“These men would escort the two of you to your new accommodation before we proceed to discussing how each of you want their rewards given to them as well as your travel details.” Nora said. He turned around and began walking back to where he came from when Mila said.

“Wasn’t this supposed to be a game? Why are you ignoring that part or perhaps, you and the other man lied to all of us is what I am suspecting”

He stopped on his track and turned back, walking back to where Mila and Garba were standing surrounded by the armed men in red.

“Garba Danladi right, this saves me the trouble of having to explain to you since you already know. Either way, you are standing here today only because you have managed to figure it out and strive for survival. Either way, please don’t try anything stupid, as you may have already figured out; we wont hesitate to dispose of one of you should the need arises. Even one winner is okay for us”. Nora said to Garba’s face, having no idea that he in fact is speaking to Mila Goldenberg.

The two were escorted to an apartment a few stairs upwards of the arena, they were each given a large room to stay and immediately they get the chance, Garba and Mila went to bed, pretending to sleep and asking MEDULLA to imitate the switchback.

In the Mansion, Akihiro has arrived at Jefferson Lockwood’s room secretly to make sure no one else knows what he was about to tell him, but upon unlocking the room and entering, he was met with two pistols pointed at his face by the two admirals.

“Stop” Baker shouted and the two Old Military men sat down back on the sofa.

“To what do we owe this surprise visit” Baker said with obvious cynicism in his voice

“This is Lockwood’s room, I simply didn’t expect the rest of our VIPs to be here as well discussing their possible profit from a weaponized Neuraface, anyway I need to speak with You in private” Akihiro said pointing at Lockwood.

“Just say it, you have nothing to worry about” Lockwood responded.

“It is Mallory Reece, she has found her way to our secure servers and I believe at this time, has already finished copying all of our data, including Neuraface data folder and as you can all imagine, even the records of your flight arriving and your faces recorded by CCTV surveillance as you entered the mansion as well. We don’t want such sensitive information getting out to the Media” Akihiro said.

Baker stood up and looked at Lockwood with a sudden serious face,

“We need to do it now, I can call the Chief of secret services to mobilize a few nearby assets to get the job done.” He said.

“Just give me a minute to talk her out of it first” he said and walks to his bag and pulled out his custom radio phone and dialed a number he pulled from the back of the phone. With a clicking sound, he put the phone on his ear.

“Reece, I know what you are doing, stop it right now before anybody gets hurt”