The Caged Soul - Wanderers
Auras
The doors behind Dr. Andreas almost instantly disappeared into the left and right sides within the wall revealing that it was a vertically split door. Behind it the segments of a thick cylindrical steel core slowly rotated, separating into layers of metal that quickly retracted into a complicated looking mechanism in the wall in a fashion that one without knowledge of the antimatter field projection concept could only describe as witchcraft, the way into a large room filled with expensive looking scientific equipment opening ahead of the small group. Almost everything was covered with cables that had been marked with black pieces of duct tape, some thicker cables being tied together to multiple smaller ones all running along the floor towards what emerged in the middle of the octagonal room with no windows, doors, holes or even ventilators.
In the middle of this room, upon a large compressed hydraulic piston rested a sectioned seat, it lay in an almost complete vertical position consisting of three separate leather cushion covered parts yet forming a whole by the frame they were hold upon: the head piece, a slightly larger chest piece and a long buckled up cushion for the legs all suspended upon the same frame mate of thick metallic tubes. It somehow reminded Noliel of a dental clinic seat and looked strangely comfortable in contrast to everything else within this room. In the middle of the chamber, floating above the seat was a large plastic encased device that resembled the helmet of a pilot but instead of a regular visor there were a large assortment of rods installed upon it, ending in the thick cables that were being held out of the way by more frames made out of long metal tubes leading up to the ceiling into a even larger piece of machinery covered in thick layers of metal sheets which were only open were ventilator grills or cables had to go through into the interior. All cables within the room originated from this device on the ceiling and either came down in the center leading towards the strange helmets visor or were guided along the cold blunt concrete walls and onto the ground towards the other devices Noliel saw earlier.
“This is what we call a throne of Zeus.” Dr. Andreas said.
“Bring the girl to the seat and strap her tightly so she does not fall off.” Mingus said.
“And her not being able to sense anything does not mean that you can be rude, I got my eyes on you.” He warned the fat man with the long black hair. Noliel blinked as the said man leaned over her to release the respiration assistance device, his hair falling right onto her face causing her to blink in disgust. It smelled of cheap eau-de-toilette. After that the man strapped a rubber mask around her face covering her mouth and nose. She could feel air rhythmically streaming out of the mask, obviously serving as replacement for the breathing assistant on her stretch. The man then placed his hands under her shoulders, pushing her upwards.
“At least I’m not going to suffocate while being carried by this gorilla.” She thought.
The men quickly lifted the slim yet weakly muscled body of the young woman over his shoulder, her thin hospital attire being the only thing between her skin and this ruffian. For once she was glad she didn't feel anything below her neck. Noliel feared that he would let her fall, her only sensing her head being thrown around the air, landing in a quite uncomfortable position facing the man’s buttocks. She closed her eyes trying to ignore what she had just seen or in which position she was hanging from the man’s back.
“For lying in a bed all night she has a damn sweet bum” the man said, Noliel opening her eyes grimacing in protest. She growled in her mind at the mere thought where this brainless monkey had his hands right now.
“You are and will always be an insolent swine, Gregory.” Andreas said.
Noliel tried to get a better angle but her hair and her arms hindered her from seeing anything besides of what she could see through between the ‘gorilla’s’ fat legs. She could only make out the frame of the strange seat she saw when she was brought into the chamber. What in the world would they be doing to her with that weird machine? Would they try to reanimate her body like Frankenstein’s monster? Would they dissect her head with that weird helmet with the tubes and cables coming out from the visor? Was she surrounded by a bunch of Lunatic scientist who just acquired a new victim for their tests? She had no choice but to wait and observe, as that was everything she was able to do.
Gregory quickly trotted towards the middle of the room, not bothered by Noliel’s weight. He placed her behind on the seat first, and then he lay her chest down, while doing so Noliel showing Gregory her Tongue through the transparent rubber mask on her face. In return Gregory put up a fake broad smile showing two rows of rotten teeth, the young woman grimacing in disgust.
“I hope yo pheel lots’ pain when they ionize yu!” Gregory grunted at her.
She wondered how this man was entitled to wear a lab coat… Before she could do anything else then showing her obvious resentment the ruffian placed the strange helmet on her head and closed its visor over her eyes. It smelled muff and old and was uncomfortably narrow. As she quickly glanced around, her eyes wandered over three metallic rods, two of them just a few centimeters away from what she believed the dead center of each of her eyes and another pointing at the center of her forehead. She felt someone adjusting the helmet, the rods moving slightly to the left, then to the right and finally stopping as leather straps were tightened under her chin keeping the device in place.
“At least we don’t need to strap the legs and arms in this case!” She heard Gregory saying. So this was not the first time they were doing this. She wondered what happened to the other people that went through the experiment or whatever it was they were doing to her. She frowned and realized that she would soon enough find out herself, her personal opinion about this matter obviously not being held in high esteem.
“Alright the girl is positioned. We can initialize the anti-ionization process, Control can you read us?” Andreas’ voice echoed through the chamber.
Who is he talking to? She wondered. Her question was answered just in the second it crossed her mind.
“This is control; we have her vitals and bio-frequency on our monitors. Her case should be exceptionally easy as her aura is no longer fused to her body. According to our sensors it is being dragged around like baggage.” A female voice said over speakers.
What where they talking about? Noliel began to feel more and more uncomfortable, lying on that seat, her vision almost completely obstructed. Pearls of sweat formed on her forehead and she felt them rolling down along her cheeks. She thought that she was ready for anything that could happen, but this exceeded her expectations. Maybe it was not the fear of not knowing what was going to happen to her, but the strangeness of this location, the cold behavior of the people around her treating her like some object like something to run tests on. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted.
She felt through her jaw vibrating against her maxillary, that the piston holding the seat she was lying on down must have been released, her body being lifted along with the seat and the strange cabled assembly on her head up to the center of the chamber. She could not see any of it besides rushing movement outside, a small fissure between the rods menacingly pointed at her eyes allowing her to see the wall of the room, yet it was hard to determine movement without feeling it with the whole body and without a solid reference point to fixate ones vision upon. The voices from the speaker that called themselves 'control' confirmed it to her.
“Subject lifted to central position. We can start the ionization process at any time now, Sir.” The voice of the woman said.
“Thank you Lilli. You can start the charging of the reactors now.” The voice of Mingus echoed through the sealed-off room.
“Sir, we should abandon the test field if we don't want to get unsynchronized along with the girl.” Andreas said.
“Of course we do. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Gregory said.
Noliel could hear the voices get softer and disappearing after the rumbling noise of the steel lock's individual components fell back into place, locking the octagonal concrete chamber.
“Don't worry girl, it will not hurt much.” The voice of the scientist called Lilli said.
She blinked, but the voice of a woman who hid behind a who knows how thick barricade of concrete and metal whispering words of confidence over an intercom speaker comforting the young woman.
“Initializing charging of ionization rods” Lilli exclaimed over the speakers.
Noliel looked downwards through the little fissure once more. She observed her thighs covered by the thin fabric of her hospital pajamas; they were slightly heightened by the bump in the seat she was lying on. What would she give to move or even just sense them? Her pupils rotated upwards to avoid staring directly at those metal rods directed towards her.
“We will now initialize the ionization process.” The voice of Mingus now echoed through the intercom.
“We will initiate localized anti-ionizations within the cells of your body, more specifically to your central nervous system. You will experience a slight sensation of extreme pain for 1 or 2 seconds and after that you will be caught by our systems and transferred into the ASC.”
ASC? Transferred? Like to another room? Wait? Anti-ionizing her brain? That sounded dangerous! Central nervous system? Pain? Her teeth's instinctively started gnashing against each other causing a vibration like that of a woodpecker knocking on a piece of solid wood in her skull. Her eyes blinked uncontrollably now. She thought how arrogant and stupid she had been to assume she would be able to go through this trip without a care in the world.
“Loading the fusion material into the ionization rods. Preparing firing mechanism and waiting for standby for release of holding barriers by Gaia command.” Lilli’s voice resonated through the chamber.
Suddenly something happened with the rods inside the device installed over Noliel's head. They started to buzz and vibrate, the air around them starting to swirl and distort what Noliel could see through it like a dessert mirage. It was as if the rods were heated to a high temperature, yet she felt no warmth radiating on her skin.
“Control to Gaia command. Requesting release of pressurized anti-ionization agent into the subject.” Lilli said.
“This is Gaia command. Authorization for the anti-ionization of the subject has been given by the government. Release the holding barriers and un-synchronize the subject. Have a antimatter field projected to suspend her and prepare for immediate recovery and transfer of her aura.”
“Authorization confirmed. Entering access codes into the manual control console.”
“Initializing ionization procedure. Nucleon charges at stable levels. Targeting frequency entered into the aiming hardware. Firing rod physical integrity at 98.76%. Holding barriers still active preventing unauthorized use of this system before safety parameters and authorizations have been confirmed.” A computerized voice monotonously exclaimed into the hall.
“Starting countdown for the unlocking of the holding barriers by Director Mingus Peertris' access key.” Lilli said through the intercom.
The machines distributed along the room to which some of the smaller cables were led started to ignite their electronic cooling systems, a subtle but constant humming resonating against the concrete walls.
“Inserting Gaia master key for the Ionization of the subject and release of the charges occurring in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,...”
Noliel closed her eyes biting on her lower lip, so hard that blood spilled out of the skin she punctured with her canines.
“4, 3, 2,...” the sound of Lilli's voice mercilessly counted down.
Noliel opened her eyes wide. She decided to confront whatever would happen with her eyes open. She made a determined, angry face and stared right into the two rods directly pointing at her pupils, as if two warlords of opposing armies had just found each other on a huge battlefield and were ready to engage in a duel. The rods started to glow bright white, the girl not closing her eyes, as if in protest, solid like a rock withstanding a hurricane.
“...1!”
The rods in front of Noliel's pupils flashed in an intense overwhelming white, her mind turning blank for a second. Not a single thought or subject ran through her mind in that instant. There was only an intense nothingness of white, endless, bottomless and infinite.
Then her brain reacted to the effect of the anti-ionization, as the men in plastic-cloths called it. From the center of her head she felt a pain so intense, so crushing, that her subconscious cried out the command for gasping for air, cried out for her limbs to grasp for something to hold, her throat to call for somebody, someone, something... to make it stop, but of course nothing would happen. She was there, alone, reflected with a experience so agonizing to her presence that she prayed for falling unconscious - but she did not. Instead the pain started to spread through her head as if someone had substituted her blood with acid, being pumped through the filigree of arteries in her head spreading that unendurable pain to her entire brain. The 2 seconds the girl on the intercom talked about felt like an eternity.
Then in just that instant it all stopped. The entire pain completely faded into nothingness, Noliel's blurred vision clearing quickly her eyes staring down along her chest. She was shocked by the sight:
Thousands of tiny droplets of blood covered the skin of her body, viewable under a fold of her thin hospital cloth which was starting to soak up the red liquid, becoming smudged with little red blotches. She directed her vision downwards, perceiving the skin on her face. Likewise it also was covered in tiny droplets of blood coming from under her skin looking like water vapor in a warm shower condensing on a very cold window, just colored dark red instead of transparent. She wanted to react by closing her eyes, but they did not follow. She tried to open her jaw, move her tongue... Nothing. The little muscles of her head to which she grew so used to in the months after her accident suddenly abandoned her as well. She tried to cry, no tears forming between her lids and her eyes.
One question suddenly shot through her consciousness. How was it possible for her to perceive pain so intensely directly in her brain? If not for her muscles, how could she change her field of vision? She focused on trying to push her vision backwards as if to move her neck, her vision wavering from the front slowly in a backward motion, her visual perception suddenly turning dark as she seemed to fall through a light-less tunnel, but without sensing any resistance imposed by the air, by pressure or air humidity or anything at all! She felt so weightless and unbound as if her consciousness was floating in a void, just like in her dreams in the hospital but much more real, much more engulfing and strangely peaceful. Then the presence of sound ringed through to her perception of reality: Voices.
“We are losing the frequency. Adjust the fanning of the Aura-sensors.” She heard the voice of Lilli say, her voice clear and unobstructed.
“If you lose her I will have your heads for murder!” The voice of Mingus echoed through the chamber.
“Adjusting the fans for possible positional changes.”
“Try lowering the target location a few centimeters downwards. She might instinctively be receding downwards as auras are too used to the presence of gravity.” Dr. Andreas said.
“If she leaves the antimatter field she is a goner haha-rrrk-haha!” The voice of Gregory said grunting through his laughter.
“Adjusting sensor fans for relative position aiming 5.4 degrees down... 5.6... 5.8...”
“Quickly the most time she has left even within the antimatter field is around 15 to 20 seconds”
Suddenly Noliel felt something numbing, the voices blurring out of her mind, her consciousness slowly falling into a blur of memories, feelings and experiences of her live. The images of her live started, first slowly then increasingly faster to flash through her consciousness. In the next instant the images flashed by so fast that they blurred into a white light that emerged itself in front of her, a tiny spot of light piercing through the void then starting to rip a fissure into the darkness. Noliel did not feel fear but an endless curiosity towards what was happening. Suddenly tendrils of white slowly and carefully reached out towards her through the fissure that was still growing in size. The hole in the darkness grew more featureless as more tendrils of light crawled through the gap through which the soothing white light shined. The tendrils slowly approached her, involving her surroundings in a haze of semi transparent glowing white dust. She heard a resonating melody entangling her perception, this light, sounds even though never heard or seen by her before in her life sounding and looking so familiar, her mind slowly wanting to fall into a transcendent sleep and rejoin with a old forgotten something.
“I got her on frequency” Lilli exclaimed hectically, moving the positional slider of the manual adjusting control slowly along its dedicated rail. The screen above the controls showed a scattered colored image that looked like a star which had its surface ignited beyond normal and violently flared lashes out into space. The other screens were blinking in red, warnings being written upon them.
“Get the ASC connections ready to store the aura and make the supporting systems ready to bind.” Dr. Andreas shouted diligently, his forehead covered with a faint film of sweat.
“Initializing collection sequence of the ASC extensions.” Lili said her head now buried in the face-formed orifice of the manual control station as she directly leaned over the control panel now, able to directly target the subject.
“Come on... come on...” She said, her fingers slowly moving the small plastic sticks on her control console in various directions by tapping them gently, apparently trying to influence the position of fine electronic targeting systems within the devices installed in the test chamber.
Noliel felt as if she was slowly but gently being dragged towards the fissure from which the white shining tendrils emerged, her state of mind soothed and numbed by the melodic oscillations resonating within her being. Suddenly she felt something interrupting the melodic resonance an unseen force pulling her away from the fissure of light, those soothing tendrils gently inviting her into their reign of warmth and tranquility. She tried to let go of the force that was making her move away from the fissure in the darkness, the tendrils retreating back into the void, as if themselves were also being pulled by an unseen force. She tried to rotate her vision like before, but the powers acting upon her were too strong. She felt a sudden spike of unsynchronized noises hammering on her thoughts, her sense of direction and equilibrium being lost in the process.
Then the noise stopped. She was suddenly floating in a dark space once more slowly rotating or so she thought, but she felt different. She sensed that this time instead of being in an open wide endless infinity there was something creating barriers, confinements and lines drawn around her presence like a invisible cage. She tried to look down, images flashing within the dark area she was floating in. The pictures were of her memory once again blurred yet so familiar, yet they were presented to her not as thought, but as an observer like a person watching photographs of her own life. Then she suddenly felt the strange sensation as if she was slipping from the ground, a ground not visible to her eye, her sense of balance leaving her and gravity pushing her downwards to an invisible floor. She tried to prepare her mind for pain, brace for impact of the end that would come after the falling.
Instead she continued falling of what she conceived as a tunnel, yet she did not know how she felt like that, if there was no air to be felt in resistance, nothing proving the reality of this space. It all felt so unreal, so abstract, and so unnatural. She did not count the time but after a few moments she felt as if she was decelerating, once again the reasons for such completely out of Noliel’s capability to understand. There was now definitely something she was drawn to, a huge flat solid object with no ends or borders approaching her, drawing closer and her own sense of speed slowing with each meter she felt to get closer to that floor. As all sense of acceleration disappeared, her consciousness now stood still in that lightless void.
She knew that there was something right before her, but she could not reach out to touch it, no body at her command, her mind floating there as a observer, a powerless consciousness standing in a black spot, doomed to spend the rest of eternity like this? As she pondered that possibility she was overthrown with the urge to yell out in defiance of whatever force was doing this to her, from the core of her being she screamed within her thoughts. She continued until she became overcome with tiredness, one that made her sense of consciousness blur into nothingness.
When She opened her eyes things seemed to have changed once more as she felt a featureless flat yet solid ground under her body. Wait, her body?
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” She shouted out, terrified at hearing her own voice in a clear melodic and beautifully sounding noise resonating in the darkness. What happened to her? She slowly tried to stand up, only to fall on her chest, her chin hitting the ground as if her limbs were no longer used to being controlled by her brain. She felt like a fawn that had just been given birth, trying to stand on its own feet.
“What happened to me?” She asked herself, rolling around on the floor, letting the hard cold feeling be received by her consciousness.
“haha...hahahahaha...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha”
The girls laughter, vivid and loud resonated through the empty space, it sounded full and strong. She lay on the floor and quickly moved her arms up and down, turning her hands around and passing the tips of her fingers over the solid ground. It was a feeling that she had long forgotten yet for which she had craved for since such a long time.
In the middle of this room, upon a large compressed hydraulic piston rested a sectioned seat, it lay in an almost complete vertical position consisting of three separate leather cushion covered parts yet forming a whole by the frame they were hold upon: the head piece, a slightly larger chest piece and a long buckled up cushion for the legs all suspended upon the same frame mate of thick metallic tubes. It somehow reminded Noliel of a dental clinic seat and looked strangely comfortable in contrast to everything else within this room. In the middle of the chamber, floating above the seat was a large plastic encased device that resembled the helmet of a pilot but instead of a regular visor there were a large assortment of rods installed upon it, ending in the thick cables that were being held out of the way by more frames made out of long metal tubes leading up to the ceiling into a even larger piece of machinery covered in thick layers of metal sheets which were only open were ventilator grills or cables had to go through into the interior. All cables within the room originated from this device on the ceiling and either came down in the center leading towards the strange helmets visor or were guided along the cold blunt concrete walls and onto the ground towards the other devices Noliel saw earlier.
“This is what we call a throne of Zeus.” Dr. Andreas said.
“Bring the girl to the seat and strap her tightly so she does not fall off.” Mingus said.
“And her not being able to sense anything does not mean that you can be rude, I got my eyes on you.” He warned the fat man with the long black hair. Noliel blinked as the said man leaned over her to release the respiration assistance device, his hair falling right onto her face causing her to blink in disgust. It smelled of cheap eau-de-toilette. After that the man strapped a rubber mask around her face covering her mouth and nose. She could feel air rhythmically streaming out of the mask, obviously serving as replacement for the breathing assistant on her stretch. The man then placed his hands under her shoulders, pushing her upwards.
“At least I’m not going to suffocate while being carried by this gorilla.” She thought.
The men quickly lifted the slim yet weakly muscled body of the young woman over his shoulder, her thin hospital attire being the only thing between her skin and this ruffian. For once she was glad she didn't feel anything below her neck. Noliel feared that he would let her fall, her only sensing her head being thrown around the air, landing in a quite uncomfortable position facing the man’s buttocks. She closed her eyes trying to ignore what she had just seen or in which position she was hanging from the man’s back.
“For lying in a bed all night she has a damn sweet bum” the man said, Noliel opening her eyes grimacing in protest. She growled in her mind at the mere thought where this brainless monkey had his hands right now.
“You are and will always be an insolent swine, Gregory.” Andreas said.
Noliel tried to get a better angle but her hair and her arms hindered her from seeing anything besides of what she could see through between the ‘gorilla’s’ fat legs. She could only make out the frame of the strange seat she saw when she was brought into the chamber. What in the world would they be doing to her with that weird machine? Would they try to reanimate her body like Frankenstein’s monster? Would they dissect her head with that weird helmet with the tubes and cables coming out from the visor? Was she surrounded by a bunch of Lunatic scientist who just acquired a new victim for their tests? She had no choice but to wait and observe, as that was everything she was able to do.
Gregory quickly trotted towards the middle of the room, not bothered by Noliel’s weight. He placed her behind on the seat first, and then he lay her chest down, while doing so Noliel showing Gregory her Tongue through the transparent rubber mask on her face. In return Gregory put up a fake broad smile showing two rows of rotten teeth, the young woman grimacing in disgust.
“I hope yo pheel lots’ pain when they ionize yu!” Gregory grunted at her.
She wondered how this man was entitled to wear a lab coat… Before she could do anything else then showing her obvious resentment the ruffian placed the strange helmet on her head and closed its visor over her eyes. It smelled muff and old and was uncomfortably narrow. As she quickly glanced around, her eyes wandered over three metallic rods, two of them just a few centimeters away from what she believed the dead center of each of her eyes and another pointing at the center of her forehead. She felt someone adjusting the helmet, the rods moving slightly to the left, then to the right and finally stopping as leather straps were tightened under her chin keeping the device in place.
“At least we don’t need to strap the legs and arms in this case!” She heard Gregory saying. So this was not the first time they were doing this. She wondered what happened to the other people that went through the experiment or whatever it was they were doing to her. She frowned and realized that she would soon enough find out herself, her personal opinion about this matter obviously not being held in high esteem.
“Alright the girl is positioned. We can initialize the anti-ionization process, Control can you read us?” Andreas’ voice echoed through the chamber.
Who is he talking to? She wondered. Her question was answered just in the second it crossed her mind.
“This is control; we have her vitals and bio-frequency on our monitors. Her case should be exceptionally easy as her aura is no longer fused to her body. According to our sensors it is being dragged around like baggage.” A female voice said over speakers.
What where they talking about? Noliel began to feel more and more uncomfortable, lying on that seat, her vision almost completely obstructed. Pearls of sweat formed on her forehead and she felt them rolling down along her cheeks. She thought that she was ready for anything that could happen, but this exceeded her expectations. Maybe it was not the fear of not knowing what was going to happen to her, but the strangeness of this location, the cold behavior of the people around her treating her like some object like something to run tests on. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted.
She felt through her jaw vibrating against her maxillary, that the piston holding the seat she was lying on down must have been released, her body being lifted along with the seat and the strange cabled assembly on her head up to the center of the chamber. She could not see any of it besides rushing movement outside, a small fissure between the rods menacingly pointed at her eyes allowing her to see the wall of the room, yet it was hard to determine movement without feeling it with the whole body and without a solid reference point to fixate ones vision upon. The voices from the speaker that called themselves 'control' confirmed it to her.
“Subject lifted to central position. We can start the ionization process at any time now, Sir.” The voice of the woman said.
“Thank you Lilli. You can start the charging of the reactors now.” The voice of Mingus echoed through the sealed-off room.
“Sir, we should abandon the test field if we don't want to get unsynchronized along with the girl.” Andreas said.
“Of course we do. Let’s get the hell out of here.” Gregory said.
Noliel could hear the voices get softer and disappearing after the rumbling noise of the steel lock's individual components fell back into place, locking the octagonal concrete chamber.
“Don't worry girl, it will not hurt much.” The voice of the scientist called Lilli said.
She blinked, but the voice of a woman who hid behind a who knows how thick barricade of concrete and metal whispering words of confidence over an intercom speaker comforting the young woman.
“Initializing charging of ionization rods” Lilli exclaimed over the speakers.
Noliel looked downwards through the little fissure once more. She observed her thighs covered by the thin fabric of her hospital pajamas; they were slightly heightened by the bump in the seat she was lying on. What would she give to move or even just sense them? Her pupils rotated upwards to avoid staring directly at those metal rods directed towards her.
“We will now initialize the ionization process.” The voice of Mingus now echoed through the intercom.
“We will initiate localized anti-ionizations within the cells of your body, more specifically to your central nervous system. You will experience a slight sensation of extreme pain for 1 or 2 seconds and after that you will be caught by our systems and transferred into the ASC.”
ASC? Transferred? Like to another room? Wait? Anti-ionizing her brain? That sounded dangerous! Central nervous system? Pain? Her teeth's instinctively started gnashing against each other causing a vibration like that of a woodpecker knocking on a piece of solid wood in her skull. Her eyes blinked uncontrollably now. She thought how arrogant and stupid she had been to assume she would be able to go through this trip without a care in the world.
“Loading the fusion material into the ionization rods. Preparing firing mechanism and waiting for standby for release of holding barriers by Gaia command.” Lilli’s voice resonated through the chamber.
Suddenly something happened with the rods inside the device installed over Noliel's head. They started to buzz and vibrate, the air around them starting to swirl and distort what Noliel could see through it like a dessert mirage. It was as if the rods were heated to a high temperature, yet she felt no warmth radiating on her skin.
“Control to Gaia command. Requesting release of pressurized anti-ionization agent into the subject.” Lilli said.
“This is Gaia command. Authorization for the anti-ionization of the subject has been given by the government. Release the holding barriers and un-synchronize the subject. Have a antimatter field projected to suspend her and prepare for immediate recovery and transfer of her aura.”
“Authorization confirmed. Entering access codes into the manual control console.”
“Initializing ionization procedure. Nucleon charges at stable levels. Targeting frequency entered into the aiming hardware. Firing rod physical integrity at 98.76%. Holding barriers still active preventing unauthorized use of this system before safety parameters and authorizations have been confirmed.” A computerized voice monotonously exclaimed into the hall.
“Starting countdown for the unlocking of the holding barriers by Director Mingus Peertris' access key.” Lilli said through the intercom.
The machines distributed along the room to which some of the smaller cables were led started to ignite their electronic cooling systems, a subtle but constant humming resonating against the concrete walls.
“Inserting Gaia master key for the Ionization of the subject and release of the charges occurring in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,...”
Noliel closed her eyes biting on her lower lip, so hard that blood spilled out of the skin she punctured with her canines.
“4, 3, 2,...” the sound of Lilli's voice mercilessly counted down.
Noliel opened her eyes wide. She decided to confront whatever would happen with her eyes open. She made a determined, angry face and stared right into the two rods directly pointing at her pupils, as if two warlords of opposing armies had just found each other on a huge battlefield and were ready to engage in a duel. The rods started to glow bright white, the girl not closing her eyes, as if in protest, solid like a rock withstanding a hurricane.
“...1!”
The rods in front of Noliel's pupils flashed in an intense overwhelming white, her mind turning blank for a second. Not a single thought or subject ran through her mind in that instant. There was only an intense nothingness of white, endless, bottomless and infinite.
Then her brain reacted to the effect of the anti-ionization, as the men in plastic-cloths called it. From the center of her head she felt a pain so intense, so crushing, that her subconscious cried out the command for gasping for air, cried out for her limbs to grasp for something to hold, her throat to call for somebody, someone, something... to make it stop, but of course nothing would happen. She was there, alone, reflected with a experience so agonizing to her presence that she prayed for falling unconscious - but she did not. Instead the pain started to spread through her head as if someone had substituted her blood with acid, being pumped through the filigree of arteries in her head spreading that unendurable pain to her entire brain. The 2 seconds the girl on the intercom talked about felt like an eternity.
Then in just that instant it all stopped. The entire pain completely faded into nothingness, Noliel's blurred vision clearing quickly her eyes staring down along her chest. She was shocked by the sight:
Thousands of tiny droplets of blood covered the skin of her body, viewable under a fold of her thin hospital cloth which was starting to soak up the red liquid, becoming smudged with little red blotches. She directed her vision downwards, perceiving the skin on her face. Likewise it also was covered in tiny droplets of blood coming from under her skin looking like water vapor in a warm shower condensing on a very cold window, just colored dark red instead of transparent. She wanted to react by closing her eyes, but they did not follow. She tried to open her jaw, move her tongue... Nothing. The little muscles of her head to which she grew so used to in the months after her accident suddenly abandoned her as well. She tried to cry, no tears forming between her lids and her eyes.
One question suddenly shot through her consciousness. How was it possible for her to perceive pain so intensely directly in her brain? If not for her muscles, how could she change her field of vision? She focused on trying to push her vision backwards as if to move her neck, her vision wavering from the front slowly in a backward motion, her visual perception suddenly turning dark as she seemed to fall through a light-less tunnel, but without sensing any resistance imposed by the air, by pressure or air humidity or anything at all! She felt so weightless and unbound as if her consciousness was floating in a void, just like in her dreams in the hospital but much more real, much more engulfing and strangely peaceful. Then the presence of sound ringed through to her perception of reality: Voices.
“We are losing the frequency. Adjust the fanning of the Aura-sensors.” She heard the voice of Lilli say, her voice clear and unobstructed.
“If you lose her I will have your heads for murder!” The voice of Mingus echoed through the chamber.
“Adjusting the fans for possible positional changes.”
“Try lowering the target location a few centimeters downwards. She might instinctively be receding downwards as auras are too used to the presence of gravity.” Dr. Andreas said.
“If she leaves the antimatter field she is a goner haha-rrrk-haha!” The voice of Gregory said grunting through his laughter.
“Adjusting sensor fans for relative position aiming 5.4 degrees down... 5.6... 5.8...”
“Quickly the most time she has left even within the antimatter field is around 15 to 20 seconds”
Suddenly Noliel felt something numbing, the voices blurring out of her mind, her consciousness slowly falling into a blur of memories, feelings and experiences of her live. The images of her live started, first slowly then increasingly faster to flash through her consciousness. In the next instant the images flashed by so fast that they blurred into a white light that emerged itself in front of her, a tiny spot of light piercing through the void then starting to rip a fissure into the darkness. Noliel did not feel fear but an endless curiosity towards what was happening. Suddenly tendrils of white slowly and carefully reached out towards her through the fissure that was still growing in size. The hole in the darkness grew more featureless as more tendrils of light crawled through the gap through which the soothing white light shined. The tendrils slowly approached her, involving her surroundings in a haze of semi transparent glowing white dust. She heard a resonating melody entangling her perception, this light, sounds even though never heard or seen by her before in her life sounding and looking so familiar, her mind slowly wanting to fall into a transcendent sleep and rejoin with a old forgotten something.
“I got her on frequency” Lilli exclaimed hectically, moving the positional slider of the manual adjusting control slowly along its dedicated rail. The screen above the controls showed a scattered colored image that looked like a star which had its surface ignited beyond normal and violently flared lashes out into space. The other screens were blinking in red, warnings being written upon them.
“Get the ASC connections ready to store the aura and make the supporting systems ready to bind.” Dr. Andreas shouted diligently, his forehead covered with a faint film of sweat.
“Initializing collection sequence of the ASC extensions.” Lili said her head now buried in the face-formed orifice of the manual control station as she directly leaned over the control panel now, able to directly target the subject.
“Come on... come on...” She said, her fingers slowly moving the small plastic sticks on her control console in various directions by tapping them gently, apparently trying to influence the position of fine electronic targeting systems within the devices installed in the test chamber.
Noliel felt as if she was slowly but gently being dragged towards the fissure from which the white shining tendrils emerged, her state of mind soothed and numbed by the melodic oscillations resonating within her being. Suddenly she felt something interrupting the melodic resonance an unseen force pulling her away from the fissure of light, those soothing tendrils gently inviting her into their reign of warmth and tranquility. She tried to let go of the force that was making her move away from the fissure in the darkness, the tendrils retreating back into the void, as if themselves were also being pulled by an unseen force. She tried to rotate her vision like before, but the powers acting upon her were too strong. She felt a sudden spike of unsynchronized noises hammering on her thoughts, her sense of direction and equilibrium being lost in the process.
Then the noise stopped. She was suddenly floating in a dark space once more slowly rotating or so she thought, but she felt different. She sensed that this time instead of being in an open wide endless infinity there was something creating barriers, confinements and lines drawn around her presence like a invisible cage. She tried to look down, images flashing within the dark area she was floating in. The pictures were of her memory once again blurred yet so familiar, yet they were presented to her not as thought, but as an observer like a person watching photographs of her own life. Then she suddenly felt the strange sensation as if she was slipping from the ground, a ground not visible to her eye, her sense of balance leaving her and gravity pushing her downwards to an invisible floor. She tried to prepare her mind for pain, brace for impact of the end that would come after the falling.
Instead she continued falling of what she conceived as a tunnel, yet she did not know how she felt like that, if there was no air to be felt in resistance, nothing proving the reality of this space. It all felt so unreal, so abstract, and so unnatural. She did not count the time but after a few moments she felt as if she was decelerating, once again the reasons for such completely out of Noliel’s capability to understand. There was now definitely something she was drawn to, a huge flat solid object with no ends or borders approaching her, drawing closer and her own sense of speed slowing with each meter she felt to get closer to that floor. As all sense of acceleration disappeared, her consciousness now stood still in that lightless void.
She knew that there was something right before her, but she could not reach out to touch it, no body at her command, her mind floating there as a observer, a powerless consciousness standing in a black spot, doomed to spend the rest of eternity like this? As she pondered that possibility she was overthrown with the urge to yell out in defiance of whatever force was doing this to her, from the core of her being she screamed within her thoughts. She continued until she became overcome with tiredness, one that made her sense of consciousness blur into nothingness.
When She opened her eyes things seemed to have changed once more as she felt a featureless flat yet solid ground under her body. Wait, her body?
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” She shouted out, terrified at hearing her own voice in a clear melodic and beautifully sounding noise resonating in the darkness. What happened to her? She slowly tried to stand up, only to fall on her chest, her chin hitting the ground as if her limbs were no longer used to being controlled by her brain. She felt like a fawn that had just been given birth, trying to stand on its own feet.
“What happened to me?” She asked herself, rolling around on the floor, letting the hard cold feeling be received by her consciousness.
“haha...hahahahaha...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha”
The girls laughter, vivid and loud resonated through the empty space, it sounded full and strong. She lay on the floor and quickly moved her arms up and down, turning her hands around and passing the tips of her fingers over the solid ground. It was a feeling that she had long forgotten yet for which she had craved for since such a long time.