The Analytical Files

The Analytical Files -- Chapter 1

Maddie gritted her teeth and clenched her fists as she looked at her knee.

A stream of blood ran from it diagonally down her shin; some of the blood dripped directly from the wound down onto the concrete below her.

"It's just your brain," she whispered to herself quietly, irately. "It's just your brain telling you to feel shit."

That annoying, nagging part of her brain responded, But your brain makes things hurt when something happens. It's not like things hurt for no reason. If tissue is damaged, it hurts to tell you you need to get away from the situation and make it hurt less in a way that heals it.

Maddie shoved that thought to the back of her mind and tried to dull the sensation.

"You're an Analytical!" she screamed at herself. "Besides, the wound's not too bad, it'll heal, just control your senses like you were made to do!"

Maddie concentrated on the synesthetic color of the pain from the wound, trying to block it out and paint it over with a dull grayish-white that she pulled from her memory.

She thought of the day she had seen it, on the coast of the Drained Sea with Paul and his uncle, a patrol guard who kept watch over the coastal border and protected it from threat of invasion from the distant cliffs of Ikilis.

That day, the fog had been too strong to see Ikilis from his binoculars, but they could see the island of Havenfield peeking out from beyond the fog, its sides grayish-white stone and its edge covered with banyan trees.

Maddie had heard that strange people lived in Havenfield, traditionalists who were not genetically modified and enhanced by CRISPR. She didn't understand how anybody could scorn the enhancements.

There were so many benefits of modifying the fetus – from the enhanced mental capabilities and control over surroundings that Analyticals got, to the increased senses and equilibrium with the natural environment of Agrarians. Even the Ikilisians, and Maddie loathed to admit it, were superior to the Havenfielders with their powerful physical features and senses better than those of Agrarians.The Ikilisians were so strong that they posed a threat to the Analyticals and their Agrarian workers, and everyone knew it. They could even resist pain...

Resist pain...

Maddie continued trying to block out her pain and, after some success, got up slowly.

A shadow passed over her.

"Maddie! What happened! What were you thinking? Why didn't you levitate?!"

"Attál, Paul," Maddie said in a dry tone as she looked up at a small boy about her age with a shock of brown hair.

"Seriously, though, Maddie! You should have levitated! Why did you not levitate when you went down from the wall?!"

"Because. It's freer." Maddie said. "Levitation is like walking. Boring, controlled... When I jump it feels freer."

Paul sighed. "Whatever. Break started just a few minutes ago and I want to have some free time without having to take care of you. Here's a bandage."

He threw a sealing gauze-and-tape bandage at her and she pulled it around her knee.

Once it sealed, she concentrated deeply and let her mind roam around her, relaxing as she slowly levitated up into the air.

Once there, she looked at Paul.

"Don't want to miss break? Come on!" She moved quickly and fluidly through the air as if it was water, her movements mimicking running.

He struggled to catch up with her, his movements in the sky jerky and slow.

"Slow down!"

"Learn to levitate!"

"You know that no one can do it as well as you!"

"That's not true!"

"Remember when we watched John's Candidacy? When he, Quijad's best student, was outshone by you? When you were seven years old and he was... twelve, thirteen, what was it?"

"So what, we're both part of the Uncontrolled Generation!"

"The Uncontrolled Generation. It's basically just a plan to get the best of us, you know, to see if there are any positive mutations or changes that could occur from not modifying the latest offspring. So basically, it's so that we can get stronger to fight the Ikilisians and force them back. Or, even, destroy their power grid and make their civilization go dark. They're not the brightest; it'll take a while for them to get it back. But we need someone strong enough to do that. They can detect ships, but not humans, especially flying ones, entering the country. So, Uncontrolleds need to compete to be chosen as the Analytical Saviour who will stop the Ikilisians."

"Your point being?"

"You know what I mean."

"I make too many mistakes." This, in Maddie's mind, was true. She wobbled and lost focus and made minor and major errors that she shouldn't, like angling her body in a strange way or keeping a bent posture as she levitated.

The Analytical Saviour couldn't be just good. They had to be perfect, something that Maddie never would be. And Maddie didn't want to be the Analytical Saviour, anyway. She didn't want to be in danger like the danger that the Saviour would face.

Paul tsked.

"Remind me of the date of your Candidacy, Paul?" Maddie asked.

"In two weeks from today. And yours a week after. Soon."

"Tell me... do you want to practice together?"

And then their argument dissipated, levitating exercises and talking too difficult for even the high-powered, Analytical mind, well-engineered for multitasking, to handle.