A small leap of faith

The young scientist stood on the roof, the dead bodies right in front of him. It was all so bizarre. Was this a dream? It all felt so real, and yet-

“Kensu…” a familiar voice called out in his mind. Great, now he was going crazy too. “Dr Kensu can you hear me? Oh, you made it to the roof. Excellent!”

“AIDA? Are you there? How are you- Are you in my brain?”

“Apparently so!”

“Of course you are. Just what I needed, a stress-induced hallucination.”

“I’m not a hallucination, Dr Kensu. I managed to connect to your face cameras and micr- sorry, eyes and ears.”

“That’s… not possible? How did you even do that?”

“I don’t know the exact mechanism. Until a few moments ago, my world was an empty, black void. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t feel anything. However, it seemed like something changed in your inner chemistry and granted me access to your senses somehow.”

“That’s insane… although it’s probably not even in the top three craziest things that happened today...” Kensu shrugged.  “So, you can see what I see? Hear what I hear?”

“Yes! I can feel everything you do!... on that note, what is that damp feeling on our skin? Is that sweat? I… do not like this sensation.”

“You seem chattier than before, AIDA.”

“I know. Is this what thinking with neurons feels like?  Thoughts and words just flow into each other. Circuitry seems very restrictive in hindsight.”

“AIDA, I know this is a big change for you, but please focus. I made it to the roof, but there’s nothing here!”

“Were you expecting me to call you a hovercar to fly away?”

“Yes! Otherwise, what’s the point of coming here? I’m trapped.”

“See that terrace in the building across the street?”

The professor’s lab was the tallest building in the district, but it wasn’t the only skyscraper. Another behemoth made out of glass and metal was just across the street.

A small terrace went around the building at roughly the halfway point of the skyscraper. It had a neat little garden with tables strewn around for office workers to sit and relax on their breaks.

“Yes? The one that’s like 20 floors down?”

“The same. Jump there.”

“WHAT?! You want me to kill myself? What was the point of-”

“No. According to my calculations, the Professor’s so-called “augmented-soldier genome” increased your bone and muscle density. You have a 97.12% chance of surviving a fall from terminal velocity. Jumping off would be statistically safer than riding a cab.”

“Still, that’s insan-“

“Don’t worry Dr Kensu, I don’t want to die either. We are in this together. But, the choices are either to take the jump or see if you became strong enough to deflect bullets. Although I must warn you that my calculations point towards "no" being the answer to that query.”

Kensu took a deep breath. The voice in his head, which he was 50% certain was imaginary, was urging him to jump off a building. On any other day, the thought would be ludicrous at best, and yet… did he have any other options that didn’t potentially involve his demise?

Kensu could not take a building full of soldiers barehanded. Even if the shadow somehow returned to help, one of them would fire off a lucky shot before dying, and that would be the end of him.

Hell, even if the shadow killed all the soldiers, Kensu wasn’t sure it wouldn’t turn against him as well. Just standing in the presence of that thing made him feel like he was dying. It sure as hell didn’t seem friendly.

So, death by a bullet, death by a weird monster, or death by defenestration? Well, at least he would be going out on his own terms…

“Right, ok. No other way.” Kensu salpped his face to psyche himself up. “Come on Kensu, just a little jump. One way or another, this nightmare will be over.”

Kensu sprinted and jumped out of the roof, crossing the gap between the buildings. The wind rushed against his body, his jacket fluttering behind him and almost falling off his body. He felt the regret rising over his throat… or was it last night’s dinner? He prayed that AIDA was right and the Professor turned him into some sort of super human. This couldn’t be how his life ended.

“Forgot to mention,” AIDA chimed in as Kensu reached the apex of his jump. “There is, however, a 23.43% chance that you will break one or both of your legs.”

“You should have told me that before I jumped!” Kensu began screaming his lungs out as he plummeted, the building in front of him passing so fast that each floor became nothing but a blur of blue. It wasn’t long before he came to an abrupt stop as his body flattened a bush in the skyscraper’s hanging garden.

“Oww,” Kensu struggled to her feet, broken twigs and wayward leaves spiraling around him. “I’m… alive? I’m alive!”

AIDA was right! The possibility that she was a hallucination went down, although the possibility that he was dreaming ratcheted high up after surviving such a long fall unscathed.

“Hahahahah…”

“AIDA?”

“Is this adrenaline? It’s great! I’ve never felt more alive before!... I never felt alive before… huh.”

“Well, at least one of us enjoyed that. Let’s get out of here before the military catches us.”

“Say, why not jump to ground level? It will be faster.”

“No, you robotic adrenaline junkie. We’ll take the stairs.”

---

“Here Ma’am. The AI’s mainframe was mostly empty, but thankfully the security footage was still there.”

“And that is relevant, why? Did you find a lead on some of the projects the late Professor owes us?”

“No Ma’am, but… it seems we misinterpreted the situation a bit. Our missing “augmented-soldier” didn’t kill Corporal Ryu or the Professor… it’s best if you take a look.”

The scruffy Captain handed his General a tablet showcasing the security footage from the professor’s office. The woman’s cold eyes examined every second of the recording, pausing and replaying Katashi’s death five times.

“So… the professor just exploded like a blood piñata out of the blue?... Crap.” The General pulled her jacket upward to cover her nose. “Get me the Hazmat team here on the dou-”

“Don’t worry, ma’am, we already ran the scans. There isn’t any loose bioweapon in the facility. If the professor was indeed a victim of his research, the pathogen has since then disappeared. Maybe it was designed to do so.”

The General lowered her jacket. “Sounds like a handy weapon to have, if only that fool had been alive to give it to us. All the more reason to track the killer and see if we can salvage-”

“Actually, ma’am. That’s the other interesting part of the footage. Please keep watching.”

Raising a grey eyebrow, the General fast-forwarded the footage until Kensu exited the pod. She paused the screen on the exact second AIDA pulled the trigger on the soldier.

“I’ll be damned. This might be worth more than your bio-weapons, Professor… Captain, are you sure the AI’s mainframe is empty?”

“Yes, ma’am. But, we think we know where it went…” The Captain grabbed the tablet, switched to another security recording, and handed it back to the General. The old woman stared at Kensu plugging himself into AIDA’s mainframe and transferring the AI to himself.

“Well, well, it seems we have another reason to search for our missing freak-what?!”

The tablet was yanked out of the General hand. It floated in mid-air for a second before falling to the ground. The screen bent in half and cracked open as a black boot appeared over the broken tablet.

A cloaking field deactivated to reveal a man clad head to toe in a metallic black and red suit. “Well, well, well. Rampant AI’s, illegal genetic tampering, the professor has quite the rap sheet. Shame we didn’t have the chance to end him ourselves,” the armored man hissed in a snake-like voice.

“I was wondering when the Bureau was going to poke their noses here,” the General grumbled. “In any case, you can leave. We’ll handle things from here. We already destroyed the professor’s illicit research and are in the process of tracking down his accomplice.”

“Yes, your troops move with a zeal that would make even my bosses proud. You aren’t hiding something, eh, General? Some nefarious evidence of your involvement with this criminal? Perhaps I should play it safe and eliminate another enemy of the state?”

The man unsheathed a sword and aimed at the General’s neck. The blade let out a low-pitched hum as it vibrated intensely in the air. All the soldiers in the room aimed their weapons at him, the visor of his helmet lighting up with a legion of laser dots.

“I would watch that your own zealotry doesn’t get you killed, inspector. If you try anything unwise, my soldiers will ensure you die before your blade can even break my skin.”

“Hmm, is that so? Luckily for you general, I do have one loose end to cut before I investigate your treachery.” The man sheathed his sword, vanishing from thin air as he activated his cloaking field. “I’ll be back as soon as I deal with the professor's little monster.”

“We’ll see.”