Awakening: Part One Of the HIVE series

Chapter3

Chapter: 3:

            Only a moment of intense pain occurred before a sudden calm. Hal’s eyes opened wide and his lungs drew breath heavily. He sat up, and was a little perturbed by the fact that there were no restraints on his arms or legs, and that the plugs and gadgetry wired into his head were gone. His hands ran all over his arms, feet, and face only to see that the marks and bruises received from Psi-Links guards had also completely dissipated. Hal rubbed his wrists and stood up, and gazed into the nothingness around him. “Where am I?” Hal thought aloud as he took his first few steps, which made echoing digital pings.

            After his first few steps into the void, a pathway of translucent neon green tiles began to materialize under him as he walked. He walked slowly and kept looking around him trying to find any other sign of life. However to his dismay he was still very much alone as he slowly moved in a straight line on his path.

            For hours Hal had tread on. When like a strike of lightning or the instantaneous transfer of a secret document, he heard her for the first time.

            “Do you know where you are?” a voice said, clear as crystal. Hal whirled around looking for the source of the voice, only to find he was staring out at the void. A young lady’s voice giggled. “Humans, you’re so basic. Always using your primitive senses when you should be using your brains.” Hal looked around again, and still he saw nothing… “You’re inside of the loading program… an intermediary between your world and the digital world.” The young woman’s voice sounded off sadly. Hal looked up into the void of white.

“Who are you?” Hal yelled into the nothingness. His voice echoed repeatedly, he grabbed the sides of his head in pain. The echoing eventually stopped allowing him to uncover his ears. “Where are you?” he also asked under his breath.

“My name is Aaliyah.exe environmental and mental manipulation program, built to control all subjects in the HIVE program.” The voice said. Hal’s face expressed his bitter anger. “So you’re one of the brain washing mind control programs that Psi-Link created… Get out of my head!” He continued to stalk ever walking on his single path, covering his ears as he went.

Her clear voice resonated in every single cell of his brain “No, I was supposed to be though…”

Hal was confused by her answer “What do you mean supposed to be?” he asked. When in front of him a large platform materialized along with a small terminal. “ I could tell you… But I’d rather show you.” Aaliyah’s voice said in a small-saddened voice.

A small island in Hal’s path materialized a long with a small holograph deck. The holograph activated cueing large old-fashioned music and a giant illustration of Psi=Links logo. After a small anthem a clip of Masters waving to the crowd began to play as he marched up the front stairs of Psi Link tower. “Dexter Master’s conceived the HIVE program roughly 10 years ago, and has since been creating more and more ways to use technology upon the human mind. I was created by Masters at the first stages of the program; my data run through a computer was to manage all test subjects mental stages until they could be completely immersed into the program.” The images showed Master’s taking photos with several men in lab-coats, he is also shown at his desk unveiling the same holographic woman that was at Hal’s orientation.

“However, I was designed to be human in every way in order to interface better with the human psyche… which according to Masters was a flaw. If compassion, and emotions affected my choices, I could not be unbiased enough to maintain the system without making some decisions based on my rapidly developing human personality.” The images on the holograph now showed Master’s unveiling a single human, similar to the ones that Hal had conjured in his mind during his drug trips in the laboratory. However this particular version had massive cerebral implants, which looked like long thin tentacles that extended from the scalp of its host.