LeafLink (ONC 2024) (Complete)

Chapter 11

Sara meets me in the Lobby of the real BioLink facility, and guides me through the central hallway. As always, the place is less crowded than I expect it to be, the hallway echoing with the sounds of our footsteps. We come to a stop in front of an unfamiliar door, to which Sara opens and promptly ushers me in.

There's not much to look at, besides a simple desk, a pair of chairs on both sides, and a slim monitor positioned atop it.

"I do most of my work these days while uplinked," Sara says, as if anticipating my question. "Now, what the hell are you implying?"

I whirl in her direction, surprised by the sudden force in her words, but it's not anger I see shining off her expression. It's excitement.

There's a frantic grin on her face that sends a chill running through me with far more efficiency than her wrath ever could.

"I think that LeafLink might be... conscious? Self-aware, maybe?" I'm not sure how to express my thoughts.

"Tell me what you know." She's leaning in close.

"You... believe me?" I take a half-step back. "Just like that?"

Something in my expression must have relayed my unease, because she relents slightly, draws back. Gesturing to a chair while circling the desk towards the other, her demeanor regains a degree of restraint.

"Depends on what you say next," she says. "Have you told anyone else about this?"

I shake my head, and she sighs a little. "You need to tell me what happened to you. Now."

I'm still off-kilter, but it's gratifying to be treated with such seriousness. After all, I had little to go off of besides some extremely detailed lucid dreams and my instincts. So I explain everything to her: my two encounters with LeafLink, its growing intuition and ability to create realistic objects, and the sudden sense of surveillance I'd begun to detect in LeafLink."

Sara doesn't say anything for a long moment after I'm done, just looks at me with glittering eyes.

"So?" I ask. "Do you think I'm crazy?"

"Let me tell you something," Sara finally says, ignoring my question. I'm so rattled that I let it slide; I'm just grateful she hasn't thrown me out of the office yet. "It's true that LeafLink's main components are genetic material from both trees and fungi. During your onboarding, I implied that some mechanical modification was also necessary for LeafLink to operate. But that's a little bit of bullshit, Anton. I mean logically, it just doesn't make sense. How could a mind ever connect - or, or enter some sort of shared network with no commonality to the human brain? The four of you just nodded along."

' She held up a hand before I could protest. "I'm not accusing you of being ignorant. Why would we have lied to our own employees?"

"Did you lie?" My words are thick in my mouth.

"Stem cells," she says after a moment. "From a human embryo. We needed to be sure the network was compatible - that it would pick up a person's electrical signals and have the ability to translate them."

"I don't understand." It was the truth.

"Neither did we!" Sara's voice pitches with emotion. "No one thought that the cells would ever develop into more than just individual, isolated synapses. Enough to do their job, but nothing more. But then they kept growing, complex enough that it was clear that the generator had within it something very similar to a human brain."

"What? You made a fucking plant-person?" I'm reeling, not sure whether to laugh or slam my fist onto the desk. "Isn't that illegal?"

Sara shuts tiredly. "It violates codes, no doubt. But there was never any sign of consciousness, and LeafLink had begun functioning as intended. But then the trouble started."