Journey

Lorelei: Darkness

"Where is Alivia?" I ask Third Shipper Keofi.

"I don't know Commander," He says.

Than my com goes off.

"Alivia?" I ask.

"Commander I need you to come to the third floor. I found a piece of evidence that you might want to see," She explains.

I leave the room and head down to the third floor. I don't know what would be on the third floor. All we keep down there is storage that we will need for planet landing. I enter the room Alivia told me. Its extremely dark in there. The Commander doesn't like this and is telling me to go back upstairs but Alivia would never lead me wrong. Out of nowhere someone kicks me. I fall to the floor. The lights flicker on and I see Indiana. Past him is someone else but I am in such pain I can't make out who it is. He picks me up and punches me and I black out. When I wake up I am hanging on a wall. I see Indiana Alivia and America all sitting in the room. I see red. Alivia speaks.

"This isn't what it seems like," She says.

"Than what is it," I demand.

That's when I notice the blood dripping down my back and the horrible pain in the back of my neck.

"What did you do?" I scream.

"Lorelei please. Thrashing will only make it hurt even worse." America warned.

"What is going on here? What did you do?" I scream.

"Lorelei listen to me for once in your life. Ok you were in danger. The Commander put your life in danger." America said.

"What do you mean?" I ask loudly.

America pulls out a little blue book that I recognize as Rebekkah's Journal.

Dear Journal,

Day one

Today was the day I tested my project out on a real test subject. It had some interesting results. The test subject is now compliant to the mission. I am waiting another week before I officially call it a success.

Day Two

The subject is showing interesting results. We are tracking its brainwaves. It doesn't have any other thoughts beside for the mission. It is thinking about it on an obsessed level. I may need to fix it.

Day three

The experiment took a turn today. We lost the test subject for about two hours today. It turns out the AI was making the test subject kill the protesters. If it continues like this I may have to terminate the project.

Day four

Today we finally came to the decision that we won't destroy the AI but we will remove it and discontinue research on project Commander. When the doctors tried to sedate the test subject with a syringe and it attacked them with scalpel.

Day five

The captain is pissed. He wanted me to give him the Commander but I wouldn't give it to him. He was down in the labs earlier looking for it. I have decided that I can't have kept down in the labs anymore. I decided to hide it on the secret floor.

If the Commander is ever uncovered it needs to be destroyed immediately. It is dangerous and itmakes it so the subject doesn't have any personal thought. Do what I couldn't do and destroy it before it causes anymore deaths.

"Indiana, go float the Commander," America said.

Indiana left the room and I thrashed against the restraints.

"How long are you going to leave me hanging on the wall for?" I ask.

This time Alivia opened the book.

The subject started showing signs of coming back to themselves 5 hours after the Commander was removed. 

"So you're going to leave me hanging on the wall for five hours?"

"Yep." America pipes in.

"Oh Wonderful," I groan.

I black out for most of the five hours. Mostly from pain but some from sheer exhaustion. Finally after what seemed like forever they unshackled me from the wall. I didn't fight them because I didn't have any fight left in me. They start stitching my neck back up and it causes severe pain that I am sure will never end. I don't even realize I am screaming until they shove some of my pant leg they cut off into my mouth. I grit my teeth as they finish. They dab some antiseptic on it and leave me writhing in pain on the table.