The Focus Effect

Ten

I wake with a strong sense of peace. The sun hasn't come up yet but the sky is brightening. I lay there in the quiet and think. Whatever life was like for me before all this doesn't really matter. I would love to have my memories back but accept that may never happen. This sense of peace I have is because I've let that life go. I can't explain how empowered I feel by doing this. For the first time, I feel I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

Having fallen asleep in the clothes I wore yesterday, I scoop up some clean ones and head for the bathroom. After I change, I head outside and sit on the balcony to watch the sun come up. I begin to notice guards patrolling the grounds and I wonder if they ever found Bob. Workers enter the house and I hear them continue with repairs. I try to decide what to do with the spare time I've been granted. It is the first real break I've had since waking up here almost four months ago. After the sun peeks over the trees, I go downstairs to get the bracelet. I take it out of the box and put it around my left wrist. It's one of those ID bracelets that have a latch and a sliding plate that locks into the engraved part. It remains silver. Good to go.

There's a man repairing the kitchen patio doors and a guard on the back deck. The guards wear black uniforms and carry assault rifles. They wear red and yellow insignia patches on their right arms below a patch of the American flag. The insignia looks like two red infinity symbols, one horizontal and one vertical that intersect at the center, making it look like a four leaf clover. There is a yellow four pointed star at the center of each "leaf". If you were to take the guns away from the guards and give them black balaclavas and swords, they would look like ninjas.

The repairman allows me to pass but the guard tells me he'll have to accompany me if I want to go beyond the deck. They haven't found the android unit, he says. I tell him I just want to sit on the dock. The guard follows me and waits at the far end so I guess I'm kind of alone.

I wonder how many people work here. It must be a lot. Where do they all stay? Somewhere back in the facility where all those hallways are, I guess.

The next day is quieter. The repairmen have left but there are guards posted around the cottage and several patrolling the grounds. Still no sign of Bob. Late in the afternoon, Kingshire calls me on the intercom and tells me to get my nanocarbon suit and meet him in the Safe Room. I hesitate until I notice my bracelet has turned jet black. I'm radioactive. There should be a song there somewhere, I think. I do as I'm told.

When I'm inside, the door locks and Kingshire's gray-bearded face appears on a newly installed TV. It's a little bigger than the old one I notice, somewhat distractedly. I try to pay attention when he tells me that he wants to run tests on the nanocarbon suit to see if it is functioning properly. I sink a bit further into the chair and wiggle around a bit. The chair is a tad comfier than the old one, too. Kingshire says he'll give me five minutes of privacy to change and then he'll be back whether I'm dressed or not. This snaps me back to reality. "Say what?"

"Get changed. You have five minutes."

I can only take his word for it. Maybe his one redeeming quality is that he's not a pervert. I don't waste any time when the TV goes dark. By the time he returns, I'm dressed and the ID bracelet has returned to silver. I'm guessing the suit is working and Kingshire confirms this.

"Have a seat," he says.

I do. "It only took two days for my radiation levels to rise this time," I point out, taking the lead. "What does that mean?"

"I think it means there's good reason to figure out how you shocked Bob. We'll have to conduct further testing, but it seems to me that the more energy you expel, the longer you stay clean."