The Lightcap (16 page)

Adam was impressed, but he also wondered what the penalty would be if they were caught.  Of course, he had already done enough to ruin his career and get blacklisted, at least in Metra Region.  Adam figured he didn’t have much more to lose at this point.  He also couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had happened to Damen, or forget the images of something terrible happening, no matter how many times he reminded himself his main source of evidence was nothing more than a dream. 
Maybe I am crazy,
he thought, though he doubted insanity would serve as a defense if they were caught.

His thoughts of the trouble he could get into caused him to miss Aria’s first few words, as she said, “ . . . to get our hands on one of those prototypes.  Just to see inside it, try and get a code dump.  I don’t give a damn if I get fired and sued back into the gutters.  I measured and marked off small dots on my fingers with a pen so I could get the dimensions of the Lightcap as we handled it each day.  I’ll use my 3D printer to create a replica of one and leave it in my bag in room 4C when we go wherever it is they take us each morning.  When we get back and take them off, I think I can get clearheaded soon enough to drop mine before putting it on the table.  If not, one of you will have to cause a distraction.  I’ll switch the real Lightcap for the fake, then bring it back here where we can try to figure out exactly what in the hell it does.  Dej has something else you’ll be interested in.”

Dej seemed excited for this one, as if he had saved the best for last, or was finally allowed to tell a long-kept secret. 

“We copied a dozen terabytes of data from an archive on LaMont’s storage node,” Dej revealed with a look of pride.  “Had it for over a month now.  It’s encrypted, but I’ve got a brute-force crack running on it, so we’ll see.  It had connections logged from Metra Corp and Adaptech headquarters, so there could be anything in there.  You want a copy?  I can transfer it to your dome when I load the point-to-point messaging software.  If we all coordinate it might cut down on some processing time.”

Adam’s eyes widened.  He briefly considered turning them in and using his having done so as a bargaining chip to have his own transgressions forgiven, but he had too much respect for Dej and Aria to do that.  He also knew there was more to this story and that it would be difficult to uncover on his own.  Something about the far-off look on Velim’s face, the way LaMont had responded to his questions about Damen’s disappearance with threats of termination, and the deliberate deflections about how Lightcap actually worked made him want to know what the device was really doing to them all.

Adam, Aria, and Dej agreed to work on cracking LaMont’s encrypted data, and Aria made a note to double check the measurements before beginning work on printing a Lightcap replica.  They decided it would be best to wait until the next post-shift meeting in three weeks’ time, in case Aria didn’t come to her senses quickly enough to drop the device while lowering it to the table.  This gave them extra time to make contingency plans.

Adam felt excited as he made his way home with Dej’s new point-to-point messaging code and terabytes of LaMont’s encrypted data loaded on his dome.  He walked quickly from Aria’s neighborhood and caught the subway, the trip back to his flat full of worry and exhilaration, glad to finally feel the promise of answers, even if those answers meant throwing away everything he had worked to achieve.  Adam had spent years at Adaptech working toward making a name for himself, but if LaMont and his fellow administrators could get rid of Damen, what would stop them from doing the same to him or anyone else on his team?

Adam got home well past dark and stumbled through his door, shaking his frost-bitten limbs to move his blood.  He changed out of his work clothes into warm wool pants and a long sleeve cotton shirt, then brushed his teeth.  He had just finished when there was a quiet knock at the door.  Hana looked up at him and smiled when he opened the door, her expression one of apology.  After their conflicts, she would usually be upset for a day or two, then request or grant forgiveness, depending on the situation. 

She leaned in, kissed Adam on the cheek, and half whispered, “Hi.  I thought I heard you come home.  I just wanted to see you and apologize for getting upset a couple of days ago.  It’s not my place to push or to pry, and I definitely don’t want to get you in trouble.”  Adam invited her in, and she sat down on his sofa.  “Speaking of which,” she continued, “you’re home awfully late.  Long day at the office?”  This time her question seemed to hold nothing more than casual interest, as if making conversation.

Adam was caught by surprise.  He had expected Hana to tell him she had forgiven him, not to apologize for her actions.  He said, “It’s no big deal.  I’m not angry or anything.  I just have to be mindful of staying within the bounds of my work agreements.  I didn’t have a long day at the office, I just went out after work.”  He sat down beside her on the couch.

“Were you with someone?  Where’d you go?”  she asked.  This disturbed him.

“I went out for a drink with Dej,” he said, doing his best to sound unconcerned, knowing a lie was better than the truth.  He could not tell her what they had talked about, but she had shown signs of jealousy in the past, so Adam thought it best to leave out any mention of Aria.  Dej was also one of the few people whose name she knew.  Everyone knew Dej.

Adam was surprised she didn’t push it further.  Instead she asked, “Oh, and were you home earlier today?  I thought I heard you, but when I came over no one was here.”    

“Nope, wasn’t me,” Adam replied.  He momentarily wondered if someone had actually been in his apartment earlier, but he dismissed the possibility.  She seemed to believe him.  They laid down together and Hana drifted off to a quiet sleep.  Adam lay awake, his nose still tickled by the musky scent in his apartment, wondering what he had got himself into.

Groggy, sleep-filled eyes opened. 
Was Hana here last night
? Adam wondered.  He had lost track of time.  He reached over and felt nothing but cold sheets.  He struggled to recall the sequence of events making up the past several weeks, but each cycle of night and day blurred into the next, like cream stirred into coffee. 
Speaking of coffee,
Adam thought as he got out of bed, rubbing his face and eyes.

Another morning trek began with an elevator ride down to the ground floor, Adam’s feet pushed forward step by step with motivation which seemed to come from nowhere and lasted just long enough to bring him to the subway car.  The slow back and forth rocking of the car threatened to lull him back to sleep.  Just as Adam’s eyes were about to succumb to gravity, the subway car screeched to a long, slow halt.  His stop and another day at work lay ahead of him. 

The conspiratorial agreement he had made with Aria and Dej caused him tremendous anxiety, though they hadn’t yet done anything.  Adam’s notetab was still running at home, as it had been for the past several days, cycling through millions of different combinations of words, letters, and phrases in an attempt to crack the password needed to decrypt LaMont’s data, but the code remained unbroken. 

Dej’s hidden messaging system had provided novel pleasure at first, but this soon wore off as the threesome quickly found their conversation topics exhausted.  None of them cared to emulate the news nodes by reporting nothing at all.  The knowledge the system existed was still a comfort, though, and gave Adam the solace of knowing he was not alone.

As Adam entered room 4C, he was greeted by the gazes of his entire team.  His eyes immediately went to Aria and Dej.  They gave him no special greeting, no secret winks or knowing nods.  They barely acknowledged him.  Aria’s eyes lifted from her notetab screen, quick enough to miss had he not been paying attention.  Dej gave a brief smile, and then was back to his animated conversation with Jared Tinge about sports, including insults traded on the nature of the sexual tendencies of the other team’s players, complete with insinuated relations of a maternal nature.

Adam did not remember having seen such joviality in room 4C.  He had never excelled at social interactions, so it was possible he hadn’t noticed or had been too distracted by his own thoughts.  Regardless, the happy noises of conversation immediately stopped when the door swung open to reveal Sera Velim, with Roman LaMont a half step behind her as they walked into the room.  LaMont’s face carried a huge grin.  Adam could not recall ever seeing him look that happy.  Velim looked tired, her expression difficult to read.  They both took a seat, she at the head of the table, he off to the side.  LaMont’s eyes lost focus as Velim addressed the room. 

“Good morning, team.  Today we will be doing some physical and neurological assessments while you’re under Lightcap.  We wanted to let you know ahead of time, since you may experience some slight aches and discomfort after your shift this evening.  We didn’t want you to worry.  Are there any questions?”

Several heads shook.  An uneasy silence stagnated the room.  Adam raised his hand.  Velim’s eyebrows raised in response, as if she was surprised anyone would ask a question, particularly him.  He decided not to wait for her acknowledgement and asked, “What kind of tests?  I can’t speak for anyone else in the group, but I get a physical twice a year, so why is this necessary?”

Velim was quick with her reply, as if she had rehearsed the canned response this exact question.  “Well, of course we expect you’re all taking good care of yourselves.  Wouldn’t want to bring undue hardship on the company by increasing our health care costs, would you?  If you take a look at the employment agreement, you’ll find a major aspect of the Lightcap testing is making sure it doesn’t cause any issues with brain chemistry or physiology, or have deleterious effects on other systems in the body.  We’ve performed psychological tests before, as you know.  Today’s test will include a physical component, so we wanted to be proactive about dealing with any questions you may have about the process.”   Her expression was blank as she said this, indicating no emotion.  When Velim finished, she looked at LaMont.

LaMont stood up and barked, “All right, let’s get started.  We’ve taken the liberty of providing comfortable athletic shoes for each of you, so your performance won’t be inhibited by dress shoes.  Retrieve them from under your seat and put them on.”  After the group complied, LaMont continued.  “Great.  Put on your Lightcaps.”

The last memory Adam had of the day was the sight of his arms lifting the Lightcap past his head.  Then there was nothing but darkness.

Adam was sure his head had been split in two.  He brought his hand to his forehead in response to the white-hot pulse of pain shooting from the top of his head to the bottom of his neck with each beat of his heart.  He could feel that he wasn’t wearing his dome or Lightcap.  Adam’s eyes worked to focus against the dim light and numbing pain in the center of his head.  He realized he was at home, in his own bed.  He also heard sounds of water against metal in his kitchen.  He swung his legs off his side of the bed and sat up, only to gasp in pain as his head protested against the sudden motion.  He gave serious thought to laying back down.

Several deep breaths helped Adam to gain his sense of balance, strength, and purpose, and he pushed off the bed.  His body almost immediately crumbled back into the soft comfort of the edge of his mattress.  Adam, caught off guard by the vertigo, regained his balance and stood up, bracing his arm against his dresser for support.  Eventually he made it into the kitchen, and found Hana cutting vegetables as a pot of water boiled on the stove.  She smiled at him and said, “Hi, honey.  Feeling better?  You were a ball of sunshine earlier.”   She playfully slapped him on the arm when she said this, and the pain that traveled upward from where his neck met his shoulder caused Adam to wince.  Hana turned back to the vegetables, the knife in her hands tapping as it connected with the cutting board, green onions and carrots falling into sliced rows.

Adam tried to mask his confusion and responded, “I don’t remember any of that.  How long have I been here?  Did someone bring me home?”  Even as he asked, his vision dimmed.  Then there was a bright flash and he was between two men, their arms secured under his own, his weight carried by their strength.  Adam’s feet scraped against the frayed carpet in the hallway outside his apartment, unable to move under their own power.  Just as quickly, he was back in his kitchen hearing Hana’s voice echoing off his brick walls.

“ . . . Came home, said you were tired, then lay down.  You seemed really upset, so I thought I’d make your favorite meal while you napped.”   Adam noticed the smell of baking chicken.  Hana had never apologized by cooking for him.  Even as the scent of dinner filled him with hunger, Adam caught another odor in the air, pungent and familiar.  He could almost taste it.  Hana distracted him from trying to place it by saying, “Dinner will be done soon.  Normally I’d ask you to make some drinks or set the table, but you’re in rough shape.  Why don’t you sit down?”

Adam’s legs still wobbled, his head still throbbed in agony.  He didn’t require much convincing.  Adam sat at his dining room table, his head down, and rubbed the back of his neck.  Then he experienced another flash.  This time he was in the hallway outside his apartment, being dragged across the threshold by the same muscled men.  Hana was there, watching as they brought him in.  She followed behind them quietly as they took him into his bedroom and dropped him against the mattress with a loud
thunk
.  The sound in his mind brought him back to reality.