God has done a bang up job, really,
and for that we are appreciative.
It's just now we can give him a helping hand.
- Doctor Gerard Jung
Ottavio awoke to see white. It was unnerving, a startling blankness. Was he blind? Perhaps he was he dead? That could well be it. Consciousness danced wearily to life as a thousand thoughts rushed through his brain, each fighting for his limited attention.
His heart began to beat.
He tried to remember if his heart had been beating before now, before five seconds ago. For sure he could not say whether he even existed five seconds ago. Considering each second felt like a year in his world of nothingness, it was difficult to pin anything down.
His heart started to beat faster. Where was he and why could he not see anything? If he saw blackness at least he could be assured that there was nothing to see, or if his vision was blurred he could put it down to a lack of focus, but this was white distilled, a white that was so bright yet came from no source and caused him no pain to view.
It was a white that bounced of nothing, cast no shadows, and revealed no forms. It was useless, really. A light that was perfectly luminescent was perfectly useless.
A rhythmic hissing reached his ears. Only after a few seconds did he realize that it was his own breath. He tried to feel around but found that he could not. His arms, torso and legs had been firmly bound, it seemed, preventing him from so much as wriggling. A voice blared into his ears, “Stop struggling please, we are almost done here.”
In an attempt to talk back to the voice, he cleared his throat. His tongue, however, was pressed down, and his jaw was clamped in a restraint.
“And do not speak, please, it will only delay matters,” came the voice again.
It was female, clinical and unfamiliar. At least it was polite.
He rested, trying to calm himself down as he waited for the voice to return. He fought furiously with his brain to try and remember anything about his present situation. The last thing that came through the fog of memory was his graduation from Shawcroft Military Academy.
It was not a chalkboards thrown in the air moment. Rather a hurried ceremony, a quick speech relayed via the internet and a certificate and code messaged to him. The military was in great demand in those days, and as a young lad Ottavio convinced himself that it was for the benefit of all that he lend his life to saving others.
Besides, college had not been an option. It was not because he did not have the grades, nor the drive, for academia, but rather because the three nearest campuses had been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble ten years before he had a chance.
His graduation stuck in his brain. It was the moment of truth, the day when he would be an active member of society, the day he could stand up and be counted as one of the good guys. It was also the day when he and his fellow mates fell into a seedy, underground bar and spent the rest of the night in a lockup for disorderly conduct. Youth was a hell of thing to shake off.
Surely there was more to his life since then, he was convinced. He searched deeper into the bunkers of his mind but came up empty handed. It was like looking through the pages of a diary only to find the words had jumbled themselves, making no sense, not revealing anything. Name, faces, places, they were all there, just not in any recognizable way.
His eyes shot to black, like someone had flicked a switch. He flinched uncontrollably. In the darkness he did his best to control his breathing, waiting for something, anything, to help him understand where he was and what was happening to him. First white, now black, but still nothing to see.
A sharp pain at the back of his head made him gasp. A bolt of electricity shot through his spine reaching every extremity in his body. His body convulsed against restraints.
“Hold still now, we are about to bring you back. You might feel some discomfort as we return sensation to your nerves,” said the woman. The pain in his head intensified, throbbing, searing.
It crept down and around his face. His teeth exploded in his mouth, his jaw clenched in indescribable agony. Fire and ice raged through his lungs and up his throat.
His fingers jittered and wiggled, his jaw ground down on its restraint.
“Haah!” he moaned, fighting the urge to scream.
Saliva drooled out from his mouth piece. The agony reached a crescendo, thrilling his whole body, and then quickly dropped away, leaving him breathless, moaning.
The pain was gone. The electric sensation had subsided. He felt, apart from a little nauseated, breathless and scared, quite normal.
The voice returned, slightly more animated, “Welcome back, you can open your eyes now.”
After a second he remembered how to use his eyelids and they shot open to see the faint image of a woman in a lab coat. His eyes focused and he blinked a few times. Her face became clear. It was pale, but not white, underneath a head of neatly shaped hair. Her eyes looked stern but friendly, shielding the gentle woman inside by an air of professionalism.
She spoke, “Let us get that uncomfortable mouth piece out from there, shall we?” She reached up and unbuckled a clip near Ottavio's mouth and pulled the restraint out, trailing saliva behind it. Immediately his jaw began to ache. He opened and closed it to get some feeling back. The woman before him merely placed the restraint in a glass container on the bench and got to work on his head and arms.
“You have undergone surgery. I am sure that you have many questions, and all of them will be answered soon, I promise you, but not by myself. I will, however, remove you from your restraints,” she said, “You may feel weak at first, but believe me you are fit to stand and walk around. I encourage you to do so. If you do feel like you cannot proceed at any point, however, please do not hesitate to tell me.”
She had said those words many times before in much the same fashion.
She unclipped his head, then his arms. As she got to work on his legs he held his hands in front of his face, moving them about, retraining himself how to move.
“Penelope,” he croaked.
It was unintentional, and surprised himself. The woman before him, though, her name was Penelope. Penelope... something. He was not sure if that was even significant, but it was the only thing that could remember clearly.
Penelope looked up at him and smiled for half a second, before dropping her head and getting back to work on his leg restraints.
“Miss Penelope, Agent.”
He swallowed, trying to ease his throat. “I'm sorry,” he breathed, “I didn't... I mean, I don't know why...”
“Do not worry, it is merely your memory returning. It usually takes a good while, over a day or two, for one's brain to get completely over the trauma. Until then you will have many more episodes of involuntary utterances,” she said, undoing the last strap.
“In a way,” she said, turning back to a bench and typing on her tablet, “It is like looking through a box in the loft and stumbling across an old photograph or two. Personally, I think I would find it interesting.”
“You called me an Agent?” asked Ottavio, becoming annoyed at her nonchalance.
She looked back at him, as if ready to have a chat with an old friend, but she regained herself, professionalism winning over.
“As I said, all your questions will be answered. Until then you had best work on walking around and trying to remember as much as you can. Start with little things first, the basics. Like breathing, walking,” she said, indicating a robe on the bench next to him, “Putting on clothes.”
Ottavio followed her finger and then, with a start, looked down at himself. He was naked. His cheeks went red as he scrambled over to the bench, throwing the robe over himself and tying the cords awkwardly. His fingers felt like sausages, still tingling and complaining about being told what to do. The back of the gown was open so he kept himself facing toward Penelope.
Penelope smiled wryly and typed a few more notes onto her tablet. It beeped and whirred softly as she did so, lighting her face with greens and blues. There were a couple of perks to her job, mundane as it was sometimes. She pivoted on one foot, picked up some strange looking instruments from off the bench and walked briskly toward the door.
“Wait,” croaked Ottavio feebly. His throat felt like sandpaper.
Penelope did not. She keyed in a number into the locking keypad. It turned green and the door slid open with a breath. She walked out and turned around, and the door closed behind her leaving Ottavio and his bare behind alone in an ill-fitting robe.
He sighed and looked about him. The room was for the most part bare, with uninteresting gray-white walls, fluorescent lights coming from recesses and a clinical, stainless steel bench.
Where he had been restrained was an upright bench, leaning slightly backward, the straps now dangling loosely. The mouth restraint grinned at him garishly, glinting in the cold white light. Behind where his head had been was a glass cylinder affixed to the wall. Inside was a savage looking array of blades, actuators and needles. He shuddered to think what they could have done to him.
Carefully he put his hand to the back of his head, feeling for any sign of damage. All he felt was a slight tinge of pain, a scratch really, on both the left and right side. And a lack of hair. His scalp had been clean shaven leaving only a faint dark dust on top.
Behind him was a large mirror. He walked up to it and looked at the rest of his body but, apart from a couple of needle marks on his hand and arm, everything appeared how it should. Or at least how he thought it should.
It was like looking at a lost friend. He knew it was himself in the mirror, but there was something unrecognizable, something intangibly different. The kind of something that a distant acquaintance would be rude enough to blurt out during polite conversation.
“Ottavio,” called a voice, male this time, “I am so glad to see you up and about.” It came from his right, a black speaker box.
He walked over to it and prodded it with his finger. The voice chuckled, “I am on the other side of this mirror. Just talk openly, and we can converse.”
Ottavio looked at the mirror closely.
“Hello?” he said cautiously.
“Hello indeed, Ottavio. Tell me, do you know who I am?”
He shook his head.
“No? Well, I am not surprised. I am Doctor Gerard Jung, and I have been your surgeon for the past five days. It was quite a delicate operation, but your gray matter is of a good sort, the kind that takes well to this sort of, um, punishment, er, if you will excuse the expression. But it was quite straightforward, quite a neat brain you have. Why, um, only last month I and my team operated on another subject for over thirty eight hours straight just to navigate the cerebellum.”
Ottavio looked at the mirror blankly. It was hard to talk to a person he could not see, harder still since he had not the faintest recollection of who he was.
“What surgery?” he managed to ask, his throat hoarse and dry.
“Well we did not perform a mere appendectomy, Ottavio. What you have been through, as you will soon remember, has been a series of enhancements, er, adaptations if you will.”
“Adaptations?” managed Ottavio.
“You must be parched,” said Jung, “We have kept you sustained intravenously, which is very adequate but not at all comfortable. Here.”
A plate on the wall to Ottavio's right slid up revealing a tray with a bottle of clear liquid.
“Go on, I will be right here.” Ottavio looked at the bottle suspiciously, smelled the contents and took a sip.
His throat immediately felt better. He took another few swigs and turned back to the mirror.
“What is this?”
“Water. I'm sure you remember what water is?”
“Doctor Jung,” he said, taking another drink, “Where am I?”
“In a room. Specifically, a, er, recovery room.”
The panel slid closed.
Ottavio coughed. It cleared his throat some. “Can we be a little less specific?”
“Ha! Of course. I was being facetious. You are within an underground facility surrounded by the finest of surgeons who have worked tirelessly on you for the past week. But enough of this, we have much that needs to be done,” said Jung, “Please listen carefully. We had to, ah, disable your memory for a bit. It is nothing permanent, I assure you, and you will begin to feel more like yourself soon enough. I have to go now and, er, prepare your next room, but I will return. Do try to remember, yes? Concentrate. Work on smells and, um, textures. The brain responds to, um, those kinds of things. In the meantime you can speed up the process with a bit of a bite to eat. Hmm... where did Maxwell put – click!”
Next to him the panel slid open again, this time presenting an unappetizing looking stew. Ottavio scratched his head, took a swig of the bottle and put it down on the bench. He picked up the tray, set it on the bench and had a nibble. Although it resembled glue, it was quite tasty. Very soon he had finished the bowl.
As he set it down a memory came floating to the front of his mind. It settled there, a fleck of a seed. Little by little it grew, dropping roots and spreading out fresh tendrils. This facility, Miss Penelope, Doctor Jung. An image flashed in front of him. Of course, Doctor Gerard Jung. He wore stained shirts.
Ottavio was not sure why that was significant, but it seemed to make sense, and so he clung to it. Stained with yellow nicotine from the way he held his cigarettes too close to his chest when he was thinking. The smell of stale tobacco on his breath. His missing eye that he did not bother to cover up with a patch, or use a prosthetic, preferring to let people see him as he was.
Ottavio swished his finger into the bottom of the bowl, drawing up the last remnants of stew, and sucked on it. It had been more than a little strange, but these people were not enemies, and this place was not altogether unfamiliar.
His memory was returning, as promised, and he was starting to feel at ease. He perched himself on the bench and shuddered.
The cold steel against his naked rear was like a knife. He sat on his hands and looked about, waiting for Doctor Jung or Miss Penelope to return, and keeping himself occupied by examining any thread of memory he found.
Over the next fifteen minutes his thoughts became progressively clearer. He was Ottavio Manieri, operative Agent for Houston Corps, one of the great forty Entities, the largest in America.
Among its many roles, all of which turned profits, was Social Peace and Enforcement of Common Law. It was in this branch that Ottavio was enrolled.
He had been recruited eight years ago and had since worked his way from being a general grunt, to a field agent and now an operative Agent.
Miss Penelope, he was sure, was a senior somewhere in the Research and Development division. He remembered meeting her at a cafeteria along with Doctor... Oh, the name started with a W. Winchester, Winfield, no. He tried to look at the face in his mind from another angle, sneaking up on the name he had associated with it. Winifred. Doctor Winifred, head of some department or other.
“Well met,” he had said. He was a little odd, and his accent reminded Ottavio of a character from a period movie he had seen. Head of Surgery? Biology? He was the head of something.
Satisfied that he was where he should be, Ottavio let his mind wander a bit, hoping it might lead him back to exactly why he was here. He let out a sigh and closed his eyes.
The speaker box broke his daydreaming, “Ottavio, please come over to the box.”
He did so.
“How are you feeling now?”
Ottavio rubbed his eyes and scratched his ear. How did he feel? Like he had just been born. Shaky, slightly sick and utterly confused.
“Alright, I suppose,” he lied.
“If you would be so kind,” said Jung, “I am going to ask you to go into the next room. In there you will find a shower and a set of clothes. Wash, put them on, and, um, we'll go over... no, hang about. Um, yes, wash yourself and put some clothes on. Then, ah, you know, await further instructions. Ah, I left it right there all along.”
The door at the other side of the room slid open, revealing another room, much like the one he was already in. He stepped cautiously in, waited for the door to slide closed behind him and headed to the waiting shower recess.
The feeling of warm, cleansing water on his skin was like rain on a dry river bed. His pores opened and he gasped, letting the steam fill his lungs. For a while he did nothing but let the water work its wonder.
The speaker sounded, “Sometime today, please.”
His joints and muscles ached as he lathered up and rinsed. Reluctantly he got out of the shower and got to work getting dressed in the bright orange jumpsuit laid out for him.
It felt instantly humanizing to wear the clothes. His feet felt snug and protected inside boots, the underwear awarded civility. He tossed the white robe on the table and looked to a mirror on the wall. The collar on the jumpsuit was flipped, so he straightened it instinctively.
And there he was, Ottavio Manieri. Much like he had last seen himself, only void of hair, from his head to his eyebrows all the way down his toes. He wondered whether the man looking back at him was as bewildered as he was, trying to make sense of it all. If only someone would help them out.
He did not have to wait long.
“Well done. Your comprehension and motor skills appear unaffected,” said Jung, “Not that we have need to worry, but you, um, understand that we must perform all post-operatic tests before we, ah, can give you the all clear. Now if you are feeling up to it, can you please tell me who you are?”
Ottavio cleared his throat. It came out from him before he even realized he was saying it, “Ottavio Manieri, operative Agent four ought eight, Social Peace and Enforcement of Common Law of Houston Corps.”
Something else slid up his throat and out of his mouth, “Sir.”
Jung sounded satisfied, “Mm hmm. And do you know who I am?”
“You are Doctor Gerard Jung, head of Biological Adaptation and Enhancement sector, sir,” said Ottavio. That took a little more effort.
“Very good, very good,” muttered Jung, “Your memory is coming back nicely, I see. That means we, um, can meet face to face.” In an instant the mirror dissolved to nothing and there stood Doctor Jung, squat and dumpy, hands clasped in front of him.
He nodded his head lightly. A little puff of light hair flipped down over his dud eye. He brushed it out of the way impatiently, beckoning Ottavio to come through.
Ottavio stepped through the opening where the mirror used to be.
Doctor Jung nodded and bustled him through, “I do apologize for the security. Sometimes the subject panics, you see, ah, being in an unfamiliar environment and all. The basic animal instincts have a tendency to take over but you, um, seem to have your wits about you.”
Jung turned and walked over to a desk, flicking a few switches. He beckoned to Ottavio, “Come, come! I want you to see what we have done. There are others watching this, too, so, um, do not delay. Come on!”
He pressed some more buttons and a body burst out from the desk, hovering gracefully over the two of them. It was clearly a hologram but that did not stop Ottavio from flinching. He looked closely and realized that it was actually a hologram of himself, standing straight and tall.
Jung gave a little laugh, “Do not be alarmed. Ha! It is merely a generated reconstruction of you. See?” He waved his hand straight through the apparition's leg.
“It is the latest in projection technologies. We use this before and during the surgery so we can spot complications earlier rather than, um, later. And afterward, as an added bonus, I can perform demonstrations like I am now.”
Jung put his thumbs into his suspenders and stood back, allowing Ottavio a chance to show his admiration.
After an awkward silence and a look of slight confusion on Ottavio's part, Jung cleared his throat and continued, “Well, hum. Yes. Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen of the Board, I thank you for your time.”
He fiddled with some controls. “Is this thing even working? Hello?”
“Yes, Doctor Jung, we are here. You can proceed with the demonstration,” barked a voice from his console.
“Ah, yes. Ah, sorry, I thought I'd lost you. Um, where to begin? Um, yes. I'm here with Agent Ot... Agent four ought eight, who has just come out of, um, surgical stasis. After a brief introduction, I shall demonstrate the latest update in calibration techniques.”
“Yes, keep it brief, Doctor. We are interested in this update, especially the optical display.”
Doctor Jung jumped, “Of course, of course. A lot of the operation had to do with, er, modifications along the optic route. Let's begin with that.”
He moved a mouse and clicked around while the image spun and grew, revealing a close up of Ottavio's head. Hair, skin and bone dissolved away to reveal a gruesome brain, shiny and sticky.
A bulbous part started to glow softly. “As you can see, this part highlighted in orange is the cerebellum. A little up and over, through a few sensitive areas and along this route we find the optic center.”
A red line wiggled its way along, terminating in a pulsing circle.
“This is the path from his eyes to the part of his brain that processes the signals. And we have inserted the two optic interceptors, here and here.”
Two dark, metallic cylinders appeared, animated clumsily toward the brain and clamped themselves over the nerve.
Ottavio instinctively touched the back of his head. He tried to imagine he could feel these little devices under his skin, but he could not. “What do they do?” asked Ottavio, regretting the words as he spoke.
Jung smiled broadly, “Ah! An excellent question, an excellent question indeed. These interceptors receive the signals coming in through the optic nerves. These are the upgraded model from, um, Agent three nine five's own insertion.”
A member from the board spoke up, “Speak only of the current iteration, Doctor.”
He fiddled a bit, replacing the image with a complicated diagram.
“Your eye is a sensor, yes? And a sensor reads in data from the outside world and sends it back to be processed. In this case, the sensor is your eye, hmm, and data is sent as electrical impulses to your brain to be, um, processed, yes, processed into information. The optic interceptor manipulates this data along its route, adding, removing and filtering to, ah, provide better data that will ultimately result in better information.”
A Y-shaped device animated in and attached itself to the interceptors via barely visible fibers. “This fine fellow is the processing unit. It is also attached to auditory interceptors here and here, along with other sensors placed throughout. The interceptors themselves only receive and modify the data signal. The original signal is sent to the main optical unit where it gets processed. This, as you can see, is fitted close to the brain stem.”
Ottavio looked suspicious. He said, “But... everything looks normal. I mean, nothing looks different or anything.”
“Quite right, quite right. That is because they have not been switched on.”
“There's a switch?” asked Ottavio. He felt again the back of his head. There were no surprises.
“Of sorts. And you can stop doing that. The units are underneath the skull, encased in a protective shell which are further encased in biologically neutral membranes with no contact to the outside world except through what is received via the sensory nerves. The power comes from your brain itself, only a small amount is needed, really, which means that we could leave them on indefinitely. Well, so long as your brain keeps ticking along,” said Jung, adjusting the diagram, “See here. The interceptor is on standby, as it were. What we need to do is, um, run the startup and calibration routine. There are many, many modules included, but we shall only activate a few for now, and more as you proceed through training. If we had it turned on after the surgery, without proper calibration, well, you can imagine. Ha!”
The board member spoke sternly, “Doctor Jung! Stop your chit-chat with Agent four ought eight and proceed with the demonstration!”
Jung closed the diagram, apologizing profusely and walked over to a head brace facing what looked like an alley in a firing range, flanked with dully glowing lights embedded in the walls.
“Please,” he said, “Sit here, place your head in here, and we can begin. To tell you the truth, I am very excited to see this in action. We have refined the software a fair deal and upped the specs of the hardware to new heights, you see, which should cut the calibration time down by over three quarters. It put a bit of a dent in the budget…”
“Of which we are keenly aware…”
“But I am sure the Board is willing to overlook such trivial financial details if the results... ah, yes, sorry, please sit down, Agent, come on now.”
Ottavio walked over and sat down, placing his head in the vice. It locked behind him, holding him firmly. While it was not causing him pain, it certainly was not the most comfortable position to be in. His sudden immobility caused a pang of fear. He worked hard to convince himself that Jung meant no harm and, moreover, knew what he was doing.
“What the Hell is this thing, Doc?” grunted Ottavio.
From the back of the alley a screen zoomed