Pulse

Chapter 10 - Eyeshine

Grace woke up after what seemed like an eternal sleep. She was sitting on a cold metal chair, her wrists bound with steel restraints. A strange kind of pain pulsed up and down her body in regular waves. Her eyes felt as if they were being pulled out of their sockets with fish hooks. Winking them open, she peered into the dimly lit room. A man and a woman sat in front of and to either side of her, purple colored Dust taking shape and swirling around them like playful dragons.

The man and the woman wore matching, elegant, close-fitting, sheersuits, golden trims neatly tracing the seams down the sleeves, elaborate insignias hanging from toggles zipped all the way up to their chins. They sat uncomfortably as if they'd been waiting for this moment for quite some time. Through her blurred vision, Grace noticed something unusual about their foreheads. Holographic glyphs like amber rings hovered just off their skin, slowly rotating and changing shape like magical charms.

The man leaned forward, his hands clasped together as if praying, and said, "Hello Grace. How are you feeling?"

Grace didn't feel like disclosing her state of wellbeing to complete strangers. "Where am I? Who are you people?" she asked angrily.

"You're inside the Blade Complex Grace," said the woman. "My name is Mizuko Lo and this is my coworker Deepak Singh. It's our job to make sure that everyone inhabiting the Blade feels secure at all times. If you don't mind, we'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Why am I tied up? What have you done with Kalen? I mean... Captain Rose?" Grace still felt incredibly weak even though anger was surging from the depths of her being, worming its way up into her mindspace.

Mizuko sighed and Deepak continued, "We mean you no harm Grace, but the restraints are absolutely necessary, for our own safety. You see, the report from our security team, the team that brought you in, tells us that you are capable of extreme violence towards humans, which is highly irregular for a service mech. And as Agent Lo already explained, our job is to keep people safe. At all cost."

"This is bullshit!" growled Grace, stunning the two agents. Their eyebrows rose in unison, the glyphs on their foreheads spinning and twisting into new shapes. "We were under attack and I acted in self-defence. I demand that Captain Rose and I be released immediately."

"I'm afraid that your friend, this... Captain Rose, is still out there Grace," said Deepak. "Our security squad was attacked by an operational ICU before we could get to him. Again, highly irregular, but you came here alone Grace. You should be grateful that we found you when we did. The streets beyond the walls of the Blade Complex can be a challenge at the best of times. We did what we could while evac preparations were under way, but the time has come to redirect our resources to our primary goals. Unfortunately, life in the SCELECs will soon descend into unbearable chaos."

Grace was feeling terrible. Something was going horribly wrong. She could barely stand to listen to the agent's voice. Her eyes now felt like they were being pushed inwards by an outside force.

"If you cooperate with us, we'll understand your needs a little better. Just a few answers to our questions. That's all we ask," said Agent Lo with a hint of compassion. "We can even help you find your friend if that's what you really want. Is that what you really want Grace?"

Agent Lo's face was zooming in and out with hypnotic power. Meanwhile, Grace's mind was tearing itself apart like something was drilling into the machinery of her brain, flashes of colored light giving way to images forming in her mind's theatre. What was going on? None of this felt real. The room and everything in it, including the Sentient agents, began to warp and pulse at a steady low frequency.

She'd known humans who suffered from migraine headaches and wondered if this was what it felt like. She tried to speak, but all that came forth from her mouth were jumbled sounds. This is what deaf people sound like, she remembered. Grace had dealt with many humans with disabilities in her past and the memories came flooding back all at once as she experienced one symptom after another coursing through her body. Compassionate care had been her response to others upon detecting these problems in them, but only now did she fully understand what they were actually going through.