Unison (The Spheral) (7 page)

I presented Master Kai with my proposal shortly after he promoted me to First. He placed me as head of a new project aptly named, Harmony. I devoted early mornings to brainstorming, which was my favorite phase of invention because everything seemed possible. When I had a worthwhile hypothesis, I’d first work it out in my mind while playing the violin and later present it to my team. A half-year passed, along with a myriad of ideas, but none was viable. Master Kai came close to canceling Harmony until the solution filtered into my mind while I was playing my violin. I didn’t need to look for a cause of the scourge; I only had to
erase
the offending emotions that were produced by it.

Master Kai granted me permission to study Unitians going through reintegration. Before they’d enter the chamber, I synced a brain frequency analyzer to their implant and searched for patterns in their emotional responses. As I expected, the study revealed that the frequencies of stored emotions were the same universally, and I spent nearly two years mapping out all their wavelengths. From my specifications, an electrical engineer designed an optical scanner with a built-in transmitter. I designed a program that would scan through the distribution range of stored emotions and emit a curative frequency when one was detected. My quiescent neurogenic encoder effectively prevented violent behavior in all my test subjects. When an offending emotion arose, they entered a peaceful alpha brainwave state and ceased their abhorrent behavior.

Master Kai called me to his office after he read my results.

“Your work is monumental,” he said. “Can you make it work with the existing implant?”

“I designed Harmony to work in tandem with the curative pulse. The frequency can be transmitted directly to the implant by targeting the neural-electrical resonance frequency of anyone who wants the upgrade. All they have to do is present their order at the nearest essential shop.”

“This is promising.” He glanced at the results again. “Why did you remove the stun?” he asked.

“The troublesome emotions are destroyed before they enter consciousness. But if you feel I should keep it in—”

“That won’t be necessary.” He continued reading.

To calm my anxiety, I viewed Master Kai’s awards. When he was a blue sleeve, he received the highest award of Most Honorable by his mentor. I mused how one of those would make an excellent companion to my commendation.

“You’re presenting this at the next Corporate. If this does as you promise, essential shops will need more workers to keep up with all the requests for service.”

I bowed my head and fought hard to contain my excitement. “I won’t disappoint you.”

I demonstrated Harmony at the next Corporate meeting, and the Corporate Hierarchy aspired to start development right away. Six weeks later, it was ready for transmission. Unitians lined up in every essential shop to receive the upgrade that promised to erase all their childhood hurts.

Master Kai awarded me a commendation for my achievement and nominated me for maroon sleeve. If I won, I’d exceed my goal. I’d make it to maroon in my twenty-eighth year.

THE ART OF COMPETITION

W
ade didn’t come to Harmony’s launch, and I went to check on him to ensure he was all right. Normally, I wouldn’t have been concerned, but he also failed to show up for our weekly paddleball match. When I got to his loft, he greeted me with a bottle of berry ale in his hand. He elevated it and said with a slur, “Enter…if you dare.”

Wade’s living room was in disarray. Whatever was attached to a wall or on a shelf lay broken on the floor. “You owe me two cases, plus an all expense paid visit to the pleasure room.” I hopped over a few piles of shattered glass and found a clean spot on the sofa. “This evening’s mystery dates are going to be worth every credit. All the blues were talking about it at the satiation center today.”

Wade finished the last of his drink and hurled the bottle at the wall. He walked over to an armchair filled with about four weeks of dirty laundry and rummaged through the pile until he unearthed his holologue. He stared into the optic.

“Explains why you didn’t call to let me know you were forfeiting our game,” I said.

“Just transferred over the fifty credits I owe you. The rest of my payment is in the kitchen. Don’t drink it all in one night because I won’t be betting again for a while.”

“Is this about Nasia?” I asked.

Wade tossed his hands in the air. “It’s always about Nasia.” He fell on to the chair. “Did you know this past Seconday was exactly six years after the day she died?”

“I did, and that’s why I’m here. I found a way to help you get over her.”

He pointed at me. “I better not hear one slocking word about Harmony.”

“This is something else I’ve been working on.”

Wade eyed me suspiciously.

The clean environment of my loft didn’t seem to relax Wade. He sat on the couch and tapped his foot on the floor. “This is a waste of time.”

“If this works, many Unitians will benefit.”

“You still don’t know what you unleashed with Harmony.”

“No one has to accept the upgrade.”

“Given the choice between getting a stun or not getting one, I’d say Harmony will soon be transmitted to every Unitian’s implant.”

“That would be a move forward. The old way is savage.”

“So is destroying our emotions.”

“Only those from the past are affected.”

“Past or present makes no difference to me. I’d like to keep all my emotions.” Wade crossed his arms. “Even the ones you find offensive.”

There was a knock at the door. I leaned my back against the sofa cushion and crossed my legs.

Wade stared at me curiously.” Aren’t you going to answer that?”

“I’d like you to answer it.”

“Why? Who is it?”

I waved my hand towards the door and smiled.

Wade walked to the door, hesitated and then opened it. He stepped back when he saw it was Nasia.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she said.

Wade slammed the door and glared at me. “Are you slocking serious? Do you think a fabrication will help me get over a woman made of flesh and bone?”

I checked out Wade’s brain scan on my holologue. “Your neural activity is no different from real life—”

“I don’t care what that thing says.” He pointed to the door. “That was not Nasia. You have no idea what it means to connect with someone.”

“I prefer rationality over giving up on life because of a woman.”

“You were never with a woman long enough to make that judgement. Hand a girl a rose and throw her out of your life; that’s all you know.”

“I don’t need to subject myself to a stifling relationship to see you’re suffering. The purpose of this simulation is to help hasten emotional detachment. If it helps you, we can use reintegration technology to help Unitians through the grieving process.”

“Why bother? Most Unitians have signed on to Harmony.”

“I intend to use this with patients who’ve recently lost someone in their lives. It can also help you uncover your stored emotions, but it won’t work as quickly as Harmony. You’ve been reliving Nasia’s death for the last six years. It’ll take a few sessions to get to the root of your disturbance.”

The doorbell rang again. “It’s time to let go and move on with your life.” I motioned for Wade to answer. “I’m sure that’s what Nasia would want for you as well.”

He glanced at the door, then back at me. “Mind your own slocking emotions…if they still exist. I’m quitting this program.”

The transmission chamber retracted from our beds, and Wade left.

We arrived at the crail stop near Wade’s loft, and the door slid open. Wade looked outside but remained in his seat. “I got the upgrade.”

I shut the crail door and put it in wait mode. “When?”

“It’s the oddest sensation. It’s almost as if my body is in contradiction with myself.”

“You’re fighting the change. Allow Harmony to—”

“I don’t want to be changed!”

“What do you want?”

“To be happy…for real.”

“You will. Once you stop resisting the signal.”

“Taking away my sadness doesn’t make me happy. It makes me empty.”

“Allow yourself to believe what you’re feeling. Test subjects who did that had the best results.”

“But I don’t want to believe it. I want to feel it.”

“They’re both the same.”

“They’re not. Feelings happen from life experiences.”

“Feelings are nothing more than nerve impulses. I compared them between events triggered in real life and those created in virtual simulations. I found no difference.”

“I don’t care what your gauges, emitters, and scanners tell you. There is a difference. I scheduled to have the Harmony signal terminated. As of tomorrow morning, I’ll be sufficiently depressed again.”

Wade opened the door and stepped out. “This isn’t natural. Harmony will end up destroying us.” He walked away, but his words stayed with me.

When I returned to my loft, I worried about Wade’s erratic behavior and what it meant about the effectiveness of Harmony. I played my violin until drowsiness shrouded my concerns, but sleep failed to offer me solace. Nightmares of Wade’s death kept waking me up. I called him the next morning and except for a hint of sadness in his voice, he sounded better.

The same dream continued over the next few nights, and I plugged myself into a brain frequency analyzer to check for abnormalities. When none was found, I created an uplink from my implant to my holologue. If any changes occurred, they’d be captured in real time.

Three weeks passed, and I received no data. I hypothesized that anticipating the dream’s return kept me from dreaming. I took a tranquilizer, thinking it would trick my brain into a relaxed state. It worked. I awoke right after I stared down at Wade’s broken body at the bottom of the ridge. The test results depicted something shocking and unexplainable. There was an extra brainwave present, but it didn’t show up in the readout. Beside it was a caption that read: unable to identify, no compatible data. I reran the test to ensure there wasn’t a malfunction. As the results reappeared on the monitor, the wave that wasn’t there returned. I searched through medical records for an explanation but found nothing.

I suspected the extra brainwave was the carrier of my consciously obtained reflections of future events. If my hypothesis was correct, COR, the name I’d given to the elusive brainwave, was the key to proving my precognition. I set the parameters in the brain frequency analyzer to capture COR and send out an alarm whenever it was detected. I decided to keep quiet until more data was gathered for analysis. My silence was prudent as I overheard Kai boasting to the Overseer about how he helped me develop Harmony. This was the first lie that began to unravel my blind loyalty to Unity.