Chương 48: Premise

One simple set of instructions and I screwed them up already. Don't let any of the fucking team know about the raid besides May since she was participating. There Sam was, looking at all my paperwork.

"The Hell are you doing here?" I asked, unable to hide the sound of recognizing my own fuck-up.

"Kids wanted to see the fish and Chris isn't home so I wasn't gonna break into his room. Plus his room is full of weapons." She pointed towards the glass wall, where the littler Sams were in awe of the view. To me it was just water and fish. Didn't see the big deal.

"You really shouldn't be just bursting into my room, I'm trying to focus on confidential documents f-""For the raid? You know I'm permitted intel on that, right?" She asked, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. My head tilted at that statement.

"What? Tancred said to only talk about May-" I tried reviewing my memory of it. Been a day, so it wasn't clear, but... He said Chris. He said Jairo. He said Eliza, and Perry. No Sam. Huh.

"Wait, why didn't he mention that you were part of the raid?"

"Well... because I'm not part of the raid. But I am, you know, your researcher, your support specialist, also did he not tell you you're getting a riot shield for the raid? Who did you think was making that?" Well, that sucked the wind out of my fear-sails. For the best, I wasn't interested in going on an expedition into panic any time soon. Wait, weapons? My face scrunched.

"What do you mean Chris' room is full of weapons?"

"Oh yeah his entire room is basically a dojo. So he's got like, staves, and nunchucks, and a spear, and a sword in his room. They're basically decorations but I don't want the kids even near that." Quite considerate, despite the fact her kids were within toddling distance of a hydraulic press whenever they were in her lab.

"Okay," I conceded, before trying to get back on track.

"I guess that makes sense. Why a shield though? I'm already bulletproof." She waved that off dismissively.

"You're bulletproof with your mask on. We don't know if you're bulletproof without it on, AKA most of your body. While yes, your suit can withstand quite a bit due to the weaves it's made from, but sustained gunfire from something that's not a snubnosed revolver could easily be higher risk. This will let you stay the bulwark of the raid."

"What's it even made from?"

"Same materials as your mask, the braces on your gloves, your boots, and your shoulder pads. It's an initial plate of Dumb Metal, then a spider-web of graphene-based carbon nanotubes, which are then filled in with a rubbery polymer material called acrylonitrile butadiene styrene as a shock absorber. Then it's coated with another styrene and butadiene cement, which we colored orange and blue with a polyurea coating." I just stared at her. After a few seconds, she got the hint, letting out a frustrated exhale.

"Dumb Metal, some strong metal springs, and I covered it in a bunch of really really sturdy rubbers." A very slow nod from me.

"That makes sense. And what, it'll basically just never break?"

"Not never. But it'll take a lot to damage it, given Dumb Metal's whole thing is it doesn't know how to break. But just keep in mind it does know how to bend since I had to teach it that for shaping purposes. In theory, if all they have are rifles and deployable tree logs like what you dealt with before, you should be fine. It'll be insurance." Another nod from me as I put the closed folder down, leaning on my desk.

"Okay." I then looked up at her.

"Hey, could you help me with running a test? I think you'd have the ability to test it, at least." She sat her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, sure, what do you need?" I then sat up in my seat, resting my hands on my knees.

"That spacing out thing. It's been getting pretty severe. I've lost hours to it. It's happening a lot more, too. Usually when I'm thinking about stuff. I feel like something wrong is happening. Is there any way you can figure out if something is like... physically wrong with me? My brain?" The doctor's gaze sat on me for a few seconds before nodding.

"Okay. I think I can do something for that. Head to my lab, I'm gonna have the kids go to their rooms so that the testing won't be interrupted. Go to the infirmary section and wait for me." Wasn't gonna argue that, only chance I had at figuring out if I had a tumor or something. Getting up and heading up the stairs, I overheard her kids yelling "Awww!" in frustration. Poor things. It was a few minutes of sitting on the infirmary bed in Sam's lab before she showed up, carrying a plastic basket full of rubber...

almost looked like suction cups. Without any words from her, she started licking the ends of them and pressing them on random parts of my head.

"Is that sanitary?" I asked, while she shook her head.

"You don't have any open wounds and I clean my mouth three times a day. It might actually be good for your skin."

"What the Hell even are these?"

"Electrodes. We're doing what's called an electroencephalogram, or in simple terms: Recording electricity in the brain. Your brain functions through electricity, little tiny arcs of zaps going between all the wrinkles are how you do anything. I keep a few for interacting with all of my wireless tech here," she explaind, tapping her head. So she was gonna just read my brain directly. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"I told you about mine, I think. But a lot of my tech is something I can just review through my glasses. I've got a little brain map right now I'll be observing while you do your thinking. Mine all operate wirelessly, too, which means you can walk around and talk or do whatever while I take a look." Nodding, I slipped out of the bed and rolled my arms.

"Is there anything you want me to do in particular?"

"Hm. Well, you said it's when you think about stuff. If it happens then, that's where we should start. Try thinking about something normally. Like uh... think of an apple. Try to visualize an apple in your head." I let out an exhale as I followed her instructions. An apple. Could see its skin reflecting a light that shouldn't even be there, as it was all in a black void.

"Okay," I confirmed.

"Oh cool, you can visualize with your eyes open. I can see your primary visual cortex flaring up a little. It's this little nub at the back of your brain. Let me..." She pulled out a notepad, scribbling away with a pen before holding up a crude drawing of a brain, circling the back end.

"Right there. Thinking about the apple, in and of itself, is a visual phenomenon, so it's engaging the part that regulates and processes vision. Now rotate it in your head. However you want." I imagined the apple slowly turning like it was on a spike, spinning like a top.

"Alright, now your parietal lobe is lighting up a bit. That handles spatial relationships like rotation." Dr. Way scribbled some more before showing a middle "band" of my brain being what she was referring to.

"Now, let's try faces. Think of... we'll say Tancred, since his is easy to remember." Not only was that easy, just doing so pissed me off because he was the last thing I wanted in my mind's eye.

"There's your temporal lobe. That handles faces. And you're fully alert, just confirming."

"Yeah, no, this is all going easily enough. I'm not really caught in thought." She nodded, scribbling something else down before showing me the new region, just under where that prior one was.

"Now just open and close your hand for me..." I did so, not sure how that was relevant.

"Okay, posterior parietal cortex. That one normally flares up for hand movement, there's no hard correlation yet but the theory is it's due to being sort of a middle-man between your senses and physical activity. What's catching me is your mediodorsal thalamus has just been... rolling this entire time. It's basically a big fusebox that turns parts of your brain on or off. It normally should only flare for starting things, but..."

She trailed off, scribbling away before showing me the drawing of the brain again, this time with a little arrow pointing to a small circle within.

"Deep within there."

"Is that not supposed to?"

"So like I said, normally you should see a flare when your body does something specific, like starting to move your hands, or starting to think of an apple. It's just been lit up the whole time. Not harshly, but it's like it's constantly managing something. I see all sorts of normal flares, like your auditory cortex going off whenever I talk because you're hearing noises." She clicked her tongue.

"So is that bad?"

"Not necessarily bad. But we need to figure out why. I'm gonna start with the first real test. Let me present you a scenario. Someone's been kidnapped by a man with a gun, inside of a library. They're in a storage area deep inside. Don't tell me out loud, but just think about the steps you'd take to figure out how to get inside and save the kidnapped person." There's a lot of factors she didn't even include. How big was the library? That would determine crossing distances, avoiding detection, the like.

Where was the storage area besides "deep inside?" If it was the basement, I could just stomp through, but if it was on a higher floor, I'd need to navigate stairs and halls. Who was the victim? Breaking through a wall would give an older person a heart attack. Where was I physically in relation to the library? Since there would likely be a time factor at play. Would I be dealing with the law or ROE?

Since anyone who just kidnaps people deserves to have their arms bent in the wrong ways, but I would need to set up legal justification if I was still trying to stay legal. Was the kidnapper superhuman? Powers would have to be considered. What kind of gu- My nose was flicked. Reality came back to me.

"There you are. Do you remember what number I yelled out?"

"You didn't yell out a number."

"I did, about eleven seconds in. I gave it another eleven before I tried to get your attention. So you were zoned out for twenty two seconds. I was talking clearly, the whole time. Your auditory cortex flared, but not as prominently, meaning you were receiving sound but it wasn't being consciously processed. Your mediodorsal thalamus, however, was still completely active."

"Could we just call it a more understandable name?" I asked, exasperatedly.

"Oh, yeah, sure. Let's go with... fusebox. Like I used for the comparison earlier. It's the fusebox in your brain. I will also note your medial prefrontal cortex, your anterior cingulate cortex, and your dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were all active as normal. Those are all the 'planner' parts of your brain. Now I want to test your motor skills during it."

She strolled over to one of the many desks nearby, opening a drawer to a cacophony of clattering and clanking sounds before pulling out what looked like a spring with two rubber prongs.

"Grip trainer. Please don't break it, just go light and keep giving it light squeezes, okay?" She asked, handing it to me. I got started on that, using the grip trainer in my left hand. I didn't even notice any resistance. But I followed along regardless, as she spoke.

"Alright, new scenario. You're on a dock. One boat is full of armed drug dealers. The other is a cruiseliner full of civilians. You need to get into the drug dealer boat and get the ringleader, who's in the middle, out. No casualties. Start thinking about that, and don't stop using the grip trainer." Decided to visualize this one, just for the sake of easier planning. One fancy, ivory-white ship with many decks. One dark green freighter covered in storage containers. Armed drug dealers meant they'd have weapons.

Any shooting towards me would go to the cruiseliner if I was on the wrong side. So I would have to consistently stick to the side that didn't have crossfire go towards the cruise ship. Technically easy. The issue is getting inside. Once you hit the middle, bullets could go in any direction. Now there was a casualty ri- Flick. Sensation came back to my hands. I didn't break the grip trainer, thankfully.

"What animal was on the back of my shirt?" She didn't even turn around, from what I recalled.

"How would I know?" She shook her head.

"Just confirming you weren't seeing. Seahorse, by the way. Anyway, you can engage your motor skills alongside your planning skills. Overall time out was eleven seconds. But we're still not seeing where the zoning out is coming from. But, I do have one guess."

"What would that be?"

"Can't tell you, would mess with the experiment. Last one. You're on a moving train. You're at the caboose. Terrorists are there, and setting up a bomb at the front. You're also actively fighting Technofiend. Stop them, stop Technofiend, save the day." My memories boiled back to that fight. Doing that alone, in a cramped train, would either be a blessing or a curse. While I would be able to swing with wild abandon, the recoil could derail us. I would have to get him to follow me to the front.

The issue is moving while getting hit. He could physically hurt me. That stuck with me, that uneasy rocking through my bo- Ow! What the fuck!? My vision cleared as I saw my hand being held up by Dr. Way, who was crushing my finger with a pair of nutcrackers.

"There we have it. Leo Holt, your powers require conscious control." What the fuck was she talking about?