Triptych

Chapter 6

Mac

Katherine McKenzie took the mandatory aptitude test when she was ten. After years of begging her mother, who for some reason, was convinced she wouldn’t score high enough to land in a reputable class. She wasn’t smart enough for the medical or engineering fields, and anything below a technician is just shameful. Living her life without undergoing some major enhancement means acknowledging you serve no meaningful purpose in the perfect machine of society.

“Thank god you’re pretty.” Her mother used to tell her, four words that always followed some sort of complain about her cognitive development skills. Little Katherine was absolute pants at math, a hazard with sharp objects and too easily distracted by the bright colors of the world to memorize something in minimal time. Her mother thought she was too hopeless to be controlled by the strongest inhibitor, and her less than stellar test score sealed her fate. As the boys from her apartment complex gradually got fitted with surgical fingers, X ray vision lens or echo-locating, Mac got injections for perfect lips, a nose job, fine-tuned vocals and hair treatments until she resembled one of her pretty dolls by the time she was sixteen.

And Mac resents every single time she went under the knife. Every cut made into her skin is a bad memory shoved deep down into her mind. After she got her last surgery, she started stealing outdated hardware to experiment. Mac taught herself the skills people spent years in elite schools for, until she was faster and better without a single specialized upgrade.

And when she was eighteen, Mac hacked into her own neural web – the network of nodes injected in people’s brains to connect to the internet cloud, to inhibit and control their thought processes and to help assimilate to further enhancements. Her singing career thrived while she assembled her lab, the only thing holding her together when she sits through condescending interviews that portray her as a mindless doll for the audience entertainment. Artists aren’t authorized for any bio enhancement other than that to improve their looks or voice, but Mac told herself if she could fool the system designed to monitor her thoughts, she could do anything she wanted without the bio enhancements.

Yet sometimes, her frustrations are hard to conceal. Japan has strict laws to prohibit unsanctioned upgrades for people who aren’t in the right classification and a person’s whole life is decided when they’re too young to pronounce the field they’re to be classified in. Its impossible not to wonder what she can be, without the world hell bent on pushing her in a perfectly shaped box. Its drab walls closing in on her dreams and passions, despair pressing down on her chest.

Hacking into Candor’s upgrade is supposed to make her feel euphoric. Mac goes in expecting another standard FOCUS graduate, with no original thought in their brain unless it’s related to their field of work. What she doesn’t expect is to see a reflection of herself in a twisted mirror. Entering another’s subconscious thoughts is the highest violation, but it’s Mac’s best chance to go undetected by the sensors. It works for about ten seconds, and Mac secretly smiles, amused at Candor’s choice of daydream. She lingers there as she works on accessing the details of the upgrade. It makes her a tad uneasy, the sheer scale of alterations being made. She hesitates, fighting the urge to shut the whole thing down. She might hurt Candor, and she promised Orion she won’t interfere with his brain.

Her hesitation costs her, and she knows she’s been detected the second Candor pulls out of his celebrity dream. Mac tries to plug out with the data she has so far, but Candor is onto her. Instead of shutting down and alerting his techs like Mac expects him to, Candor pulls her into another dreamscape, this one just as familiar as the last one, and a lot more unpleasant.

For the first time in a long while, Mac truly panics. She feels Candor’s presence now, fear paralyzing them both on the operating table where Candor’s body lays. The room is empty and dark, seemingly abandoned long ago, just like Candor’s lifeless body. Mac tries to plug out, tries to get up but its futile, she might as well be pushing against a brick wall, because that’s how strong Candor is. Keeping her trapped with him with the sheer force of will.

But there is something else behind that wall, something haunting and dark that tells mac that Candor hates this place as much as she does. Maybe even more terrified of staying here than keeping her confined. Mac takes a deep breath, and stops pushing back. Instead she focuses all her energy into moving the body on the table. Its then that she realizes that the body is undoubtedly female. She jumps up from the bed, vaguely becoming aware of unfamiliar limbs as the room gets engulfed in fire. Candor is quiet, as if waiting to see what she’ll do. Mac contemplates for a moment, studying her surroundings for an easier way out, before taking a running leap out of the shattered window. She knows that the shock, more than anything, will get them both out of the dreamscape.

Mac shoves the neural link helmet off her head. She looks around frantically, a bit surprised to find herself back in her lab. Orion strides towards her, his face marred with concern. Mac raises a hand to stop him, standing from her chair ad she tries to regain control of her breathing. She moves to the wall length windows, rests her head against the cool glass and just – breathes.

In and Out

In and Out as she looks upon the city from high above and with every breath she pushes the memories down

Down

Down until the phantom weight on her chest recedes. “What happened?” Orion inquiries from behind her. The question is quiet, his voice hoarse with repressed emotion, possibly anger. Most likely directed at her.

“It’s a girl.” Is what she managed to choke out.

“What?” Orion snaps, coming to stand next to her, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Lana Candor. That’s her name” she says slowly, turning to face Orion with her head still leaning on the window. The chill is soothing, grounding her when everything seems too fragile around her, inside her.

“That’s impossible.” Orion whispers in surprise. No, awe. “Such extent of enhancement, FOCUS has never allowed it on a woman before. Its too, well, altering.”

Mac chuckles humorlessly. “Exactly. Explains why she was listed as a male in the system files. Wonder what strings were pulled to manage that feat.”

Mac eyes her screens still running analytics on the data she pulled from Candor’s brain. She remembers Candor’s stuttering thoughts, her paralyzing fear in the nightmare. She hides a shudder and looks away.

“Something else happened.” Orion observes. “Did something happen to the girl? Did you --” He backtracks at Mac’s glare. “Did something go wrong with the upgrade?”

“Nothing I could tell” Mac replies softly. “She – she’s different from what I imagined.”

“Different how?” Orion asks, surprised.

“I want to meet her” Mac says suddenly, ignoring him. “Yes. I want – I need to meet her.”

“You think that’s wise after you just infiltrated her neural systems?” Orion raises a skeptical brow. “She could get you arrested. Or worse, your inhibitor may get reset again and then where will we be.”

“She won’t do that” Mac waves his concern away. “If she wanted to she would have done it tonight.”

“She caught you?” Orion almost yells in alarm. It causes her to chuckle.

“Yep, and let me tell you, not fun.” She says, taking her seat in front of the monitors again.

“And you still --” Orion starts. Mac just smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes.

She knows Orion wants to push her for details, reprimand her more on the stunt she just pulled. “You should take the night off” she says suddenly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

As Orion leaves, he gets a message through the private link Mac installed. Hidden from FOCUS’s surveillance.

Was it her?

Orion sighs. He expected this sooner or later.

She wants to meet her. Is she alright?  He responds back.

She’ll live.  Is all he gets back, hours after he’s reached his home. Miles away from FOCUS central and Mac’s secret lab.