Suppression

Kai rapidly tapped his finger on his desk as the teacher at the front of the classroom droned on about the signing of the Harmony Accords during the 25th century. It had been two days since the night of the concert, but his experience still bothered him. By every account, it was a success. The tri-restoration project had raised fifteen million and gained great momentum for the rest of its campaign, yet for a single moment on stage, he felt like his emotions weren’t his own. Or more accurately they had been stolen from him.

“Kai,” Mrs. Oldson called out.

He blinked and looked up at her piercing eyes.

“Can you name the four writers of the Harmony Accords?” She asked and then frowned as Kai continued to remain silent.

“No, I cannot.” Kai finally relented after another few agonizing seconds of quiet.

“Then pay attention. I know each one of you went over this last year, but we will review it one more time,” Mrs. Oldson said as she began to write the names on a shimmering transparent board.

Shame washed over Kai. I should know this. Normally he wouldn’t let something like this bother him, but this time he sat in the emotion, letting it stew in the back of his mind. His thoughts spun out of control and suddenly.

Nothing.

It happened again. It had been happening over and over the past few days. Perhaps it had been happening all along, but only now Kai noticed it. Whenever he let any emotion consume his mind and reach its peak, silently it faded away as if anything extreme was suppressed. Kai sat up straighter in his chair and decided to focus his attention back on the lesson because surely it was less disturbing than any conclusion his mind would reach if he dwelled on the reason behind this suppression.

The school day was coming to an end, and Kai entered his last class, a biology lab. Long, sleek, white tables bisected the room in perfect symmetry, and his instructor, wearing a white lab coat, stood in the front. The world blurred around him, but Kai quickly caught himself by gripping one of the tables. He glanced to his left and saw a black cord trailing to another table with a microscope. The student observing the microscope briefly looked up as Kai glared at him.

“Please plug it in somewhere else,” Kai grumbled. “People could fall.”

The other student nodded, and Kai continued as the instructor cleared his throat to explain the lab. Controlling the rate of cell division seemed mildly interesting, so Kai decided to put the incident behind him. Kai waved to Hari as he joined him next to the microscope they would be sharing.

“Nice job catching yourself.” Hari complimented him. “That would’ve been a nasty fall.”

“Thanks,” Kai muttered as he peered into the eyepiece and marveled at the tiny life forms arranged into structured patterns on the minuscule piece of tissue.

Once the instructor finished explaining, everyone quickly got to work. Hari gathered ingredients to make the acceleration compound. He pointed across the room to a table filled with materials for the lab. “Can you grab the cell-culture injector?”

Kai nodded and began to make his way over there. Once again he found himself precariously balancing between two tables as a cord caught his legs. He scowled at the same student as before. This time his idiocy was even more apparent. “Move…the…cord,” he said slowly, malice seeping into each word.

The student gave another hurried nod as Kai continued towards the materials table with a sigh still escaping his mouth. Grabbing the injector, he hurried back and hopped over the cord that was still not moved. Hari and Kai continued the lab, carefully observing the cells in one tissue rapidly expand and in another shrivel into dehydrated husks.

The end of the hour approached, and they began to clean up their station. Kai removed the slides from the microscopes and put them into a decontamination container that blasted the tempered glass with lasers. All the while, Hari prepared to dilute the acceleration mixture. As Kai turned back to his station, the sound of glass hitting the floor made the room go silent. It came from where Hari was standing. His friend quickly backed away to avoid getting any of the mixture on himself.

The instructor looked down the aisle with a tired expression. “Everyone keep away and be careful when diluting the solution.” With his gaze still fixed on the broken glass, the instructor’s voice seemed to stare at Kai. “Grab the hazardous materials cleaning supplies and proper PPE, Kai.” After a moment of hesitation, he added, “Quickly now!”

Sound returned to the room, and Kai sprung into action. He rushed towards the supply closet but soon found himself hurtling towards the floor. Smack! He hit the floor hard. The palms of his hands stung as they barely saved the rest of his face from smashing into the hard tile. Without even looking, he knew what the culprit was. He wanted to scream and let the anger pumping blood through his ever-quickening heart out, but like a switch, his emotions suddenly returned to a stable level.

Pushing himself up, Kai walked towards the closet as he heard several mutters of “Are you ok?”

He approached the closet despite pain aching throughout his knees. Grabbing the cleaning supplies, he headed back, the anger already a distant memory. Kai was determined to not let it fade anymore. He would remember.

Electronic starlight slipped through the blinds of Kai’s room and rested its rays across his bed sheets. Lyric floated in the corner. Silent but ready to answer any of Kai’s commands. The ring of blue light on Lyric’s face glowed softly and painted the walls in gentle hues. It was meant to help Kai sleep, but tonight rest would not come.

Kai cleared his throat and stared up at the ceiling. “Lyric.”

“Yes, Kai,” his AI companion responded in a hushed tone.

“Do I have control over my emotions?”

The light blue glow left the room and returned as Lyric processed Kai’s question. Heavy stillness lingered, and Kai was left to his thoughts for longer than he would have liked.

“Yes, you do.” No explanation followed, and the room went silent again.

“I’ve been feeling strange recently. Like my emotions have been suppressed. It’s not something I notice unless I’m paying attention, but it has been bothering me. Are you sure nothing is interfering?”

Again the light flashed, leaving the room in total darkness for less than a second. “Your brain is operating nominally. If you are worried, be assured that the city ensures optimal emotional stability through adaptive modulation.”

Kai frowned. Something about that last thing didn’t seem right. “What does this adaptive modulation entail? Has that been interfering with my creative pursuits?”

This time Lyric’s light didn’t flash. “I can ensure your creative pursuits remain untouched. This adaptive modulation works like a neural symphony; it simply tunes your mind to the greatest efficiency. It keeps your mind healthy and operating at your best. If you weren’t in your right mind, how could you compose all those wonderful symphonies?”

Kai relaxed his whole body as he considered Lyric’s explanation. Everyone else seems normal, and Mr. Liste is still able to compose amazing songs. This adaptive modulation wouldn’t affect just me, and it’s basically just a health check. Right? He sighed and kept staring at the ceiling, yet sleep still wouldn’t come.

“Hey, hand me that multimeter. I want to check the voltage one more time,” Grayson said, sitting across from Kai, as orange light cast long shadows across the room.

He handed over the device, and Grayson used the positive and negative probes to poke at his VR device.

“You look pretty tired,” Grayson told Kai without looking up.

Kai yawned. “Yeah, I couldn’t get any sleep last night. Need anything else?”

“Nope, almost done.” He pulled the probes out along with a circular battery. Replacing the battery with one slightly smaller, he shut the device with a satisfying click. “You know I’ve been thinking about your concert for the past few days, and I’ve had an idea.”

“And what’s that?” Kai yawned again. Right now he wished he hadn’t already promised Grayson he would help after school. Sleep kept calling his name.

“Well, since your music is promoting the tri-restoration project and my device is doing the same, wouldn’t it be cool to incorporate the two?”

“That could work, but,” Kai said as he leaned back in his chair, “you know that device doesn’t have the equipment to play a neural symphony.”

“Of course, I know that.” Grayson looked offended that Kai even presumed anything else. “You’d have to convert it into a basic audio file, but once you do, it could work.” Grayson stood up from his workbench and mimicked putting on the headset. “Imagine this. People enter this world of long ago, and your melody guides them along their journey. It’ll feel like a grand adventure, and who doesn’t like adventure?”

Kai winced at the thought of a whole other crowd listening to his mediocre song. “I’m not sure. The original song was designed for a neural symphony, so it’ll need some modification. The expo you’re showing this off at is tomorrow, right?”

“Tomorrow evening,” Grayson corrected as if that made it any better. “If it’s impossible, I totally get it. But my device will be a hit with your music. Please!”

Maybe it’ll be good to revisit the song one more time. “I’ll see what I can do, but no guarantee," Kai relented.

“Yes!” Grayson fist-pumped the air. “I promise it’ll be worth it once you see the whole thing together. Let’s start cleaning up; we’ve been here long enough.”

Kai eagerly pushed himself out of the chair and began gathering supplies on the workbench. As they continued cleaning, Kai realized the amount of materials Grayson had was astonishing. “How’d you pay for all this?” Kai asked. “I know the school grant money wouldn’t be nearly enough.”

“Don’t tell this to any of the staff.” Grayson lowered his voice even though they were likely the last ones in the building. “But I’ve been running a little side business where I remove the tracking chips from students’ AI companions.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“I don’t destroy the chip; I just remove it. I checked. Destroying the chip is what’ll get you in trouble.” Grayson grinned at finding a loophole that Kai thought was flimsy at best. “If you’re interested, I can do it for Lyric. It’s just the bottom right of the front screen behind the optical wires.”

“No thanks. I’ll keep the intended safety features.” Kai said as he tossed a screwdriver towards Grayson. “Let’s finish up.”

Tidying up the last few odds and ends, they left the school building a few minutes later. The light from the sky-dome had nearly faded, and a couple of street lamps flickered on as a high-speed train whirled by not too far away.

“The tech expo is at six in the evening,” Grayson said as they got to the part of their walk where they parted ways. “I’ll cover your ticket, so don’t worry. See you then!”

Kai shook his head at his friend's continued persistence. Well, time to get back to work. He tried to make the thought as energizing as possible, but exhaustion was already sweeping over him as he walked back home. That was one thing he wished would disappear.