Synthetic Intuition

Chapter 1 - Reassignment | Lazlo

A pleasant pur sent vibrations through my ankles as I pressed my foot slightly harder against the accelerator. I watched as I overtook a silver SUV to the right of the vehicle. The freeway was my domain. With little to no traffic to slow me down, I could comfortably approach the speed limit. 

The hot sun blazed down on me as I rolled down the window. I looked down at the dials momentarily, the silver and gold Porsche logo on the steering wheel glinting back at me as I switched lanes, approaching my exit ].

I pulled into a steel gate, one of many surrounding a set of blocky white buildings that seemingly towered over the bare New Mexico landscape. I leaned out the window, pulling my glasses to the edge of my nose as I looked up at the security booth window.

"Looks like you're late doctor, Quinn," The security guard said, glancing at the monitor that was angled towards himself. I cast a quick look at the clock on the car dashboard. It read 10:42. The main entrance to the building closed almost 15 minutes ago.

The security guard wore a light blue shirt with a black tie. His dark navy blue hat rested behind the half of the sliding window that was closed and on the right side of his chest, he had a tag that read Calhoon. 

"All right I will let them know you are on your way," Calhoon said as he pressed a button to his right. The gate opened and I drove into the full lot. Given my tardiness, my usual spot was taken forcing me to park to the back of the lot.

With a twist of the car key, I let the engine putter into silence, and I leaned across the armrest to grab my clearance card, clumsily slinging it over my head as I skipped out the door. Walking around the car I gave the spoiler an affectionate swipe of the hand. I had only just been hired when My father had gifted me the 944 before leaving the country as the war started, saying it was a late graduation gift and I would need a vehicle more than him.

The large company logo and name loomed over me and my surroundings as I approached one of the buildings.  V-bonix in large slanted letters split right through the middle of the word making the top half a bright orange and the bottom a sky blue with the logo to the left of the name merging into the V of V-bonix.

The logo itself was a blue pentagonal shape of a gem lying on its side but it was broken up by the same orange theme in the shape of cracks going down the middle of it and then spewing out of the top of it like lava spewing out of a volcano.

I walked through the tall, grand glass entrance to the front of the facility. The reception desk was empty. I rushed to the next door in an attempt to slip by unnoticed. "You're late. On a Saturday. C'mon, you're lucky we let you even sleep in on weekends. Innovation won't manifest itself" I fumbled my security clearance, startled by the shrewd goblin of a receptionist and unfortunately her majesty the wife of my boss the CEO.

"you don't really mean innovation though do you," I said hastily holding my security clearance up to the scanner pad next to the door.

"Fine. Military contracts won't just walk in the front door." She moved into her chair, sliding to the monitor, probably to note this in my employee file. The screen above the door keypad lit up. On it read my full name, Lazlo Isaac Quinn. Below that was my birth date, 05/29/2011. Finally, it listed "Occupation: Computer engineering and AI research"

A keyboard slid out from under the scanning pad requesting that I input my personalized password which every employee had. I hastily typed in my latest password. The light next to the scanner turned from red to green as it buzzed. I heard the door click and pushed it open.

Somehow, I felt like I was risking my life every time I set foot in the labs. It seemed like such a high-priority target for the Covenant that it felt like they could decide to blow it up at any moment if they wanted to hinder valuable progress directed toward ending the war.