File 9.7 - Ghost in the Machine

The transport landed at the test site with no further delays or complications. It came as a relief to them. They had more excitement than planned and the testing was delayed as well. Something a little more scheduled felt welcome despite the conditions.

As the two walked off the back of the transport, they were greeted by the team leader for the tests. A white coat and simple man, he got blown around by the engines still being turned down. “We’ve rescheduled the combat test until tomorrow! We still want to do the activation now for final adjustments! If you would follow me!”

“Understood!”

They followed the man out of the hangar into the underground of the test site. All that was on top was the landing pad. Outside appearance was that of a simple strip for the local village a few kilometers away, which was also a front. Hidden inside the comm. tower was an elevator that let them down into the central facility.

Breaking through the surface, the shaft quickly changed from solid plates to chain links and open rails. All around them were heavy machinery and people shouting about. The two AESIR stood within the gigantic underground hangar surrounded with beams and piping. It had an older look to it than the base that Shizuka was used to seeing. But it felt significantly larger and they hadn’t even seen the test grounds yet.

Work teams gathered around at the elevator with their arrival announced. Some of the faces were familiar while others were new. At the lead, Paul, Ed’s head mechanic and engineer greeted him friendly. “Ed, my boy! You’re in pretty shape for being thrown out of a moving plane!”

“Yea, gonna hafta try harder next time tah get rid of me.”

“I’ll come up with a better plan next time.”

“Shizuka!” Natalie called, quickly approaching her and checking her shoulder. “I heard you were injured. Have you been treated?”

“The doctors haven’t looked at it, but for just an activation test I should be fine.”

“The AESIR connects with your mind through your nervous system, pain and injuries can make it worse or disrupt the connection. There could be feedback, Shizuka.”

“I’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt right now. The activation just needs to happen, it’ll be quick.”

“Just be safe.”

“I will.” She motioned to Natalie to direct her over to the machine. It felt odd finally seeing it fully completed. There was no longer exposed plating or unfinished segments. The monster was finished. As she looked at the Freya, there was something surprisingly human about it. Not just the fact that it had two legs and two arms with a body and head. The form had an elegance to it that looked less mechanical and more like art. A little out of focus and she might have thought it was actually a person, maybe even a woman. She didn’t expect that. Edgar’s Od had the same sort of feeling when she saw it next to the Freya. They looked like they belonged together, a couple destined to be together. That part felt a little unnerving, like they might be alive.

At the foot of the machine, a wire with hand and foot holds swung free waiting for her. She looked back at the work team and researchers that planned to monitor it all. “Do I need the flight suit?” she remarked, still being in the standard uniform.

“It’s just an activation, your sync rate doesn’t need to be very high. The test tomorrow will require it.”

“Alright…” Her hand gripped tightly the handle and she pressed the release button where her thumb naturally rested. The machine began pulling her up to the exposed face hatch. It had an unnerving quality going into the face of the machine.

She stared into the cockpit with the seat staring back. It beckoned to her. While not the first time she saw the interior, it had been filled with circuit boards and wires everywhere. Now finished, it looked more like the simulation cockpit she had been in for weeks. But even that didn’t make her feel ready for how much of a presence the chair had. ‘She said I’d understand once I sat in it…what will I understand…’

Shizuka stepped off the foot rest onto the Freya’s neck and chest to collarbone section, if it had been a human being. It had enough width for her to walk around on, but still feel like she could fall if she made a poor step. Cautiously, she stepped forward into the darkness of the cockpit. Nothing was powered up yet, despite already having a presence.

Pushing through the unease, she turned around to fall into the seat. It felt more rigid than the simulation one and heavier. There was a sinking weight to it that Ed’s question came back to her at the moment.

Over the comm. pad at her side, Natalie came through, “Shizuka, we’re going to close the hatch. You can start up the Freya at any moment.”

“Alright…” she replied weakly. Her hands rested on the arm rests not reaching for the sticks. Metal sliding against metal filled the cockpit from below as the hatch began to close. Darkness quickly filled in the chamber leaving her completely alone and sealed off from the outside. ‘I have to do this…I must see this through…’

Thinking of it only as a test helped her, even though her mind looked into the future. This wasn’t an end, but a beginning. It only helped a little with her thinking.

“Shizuka, is everything alright?”

“Yes.”

“Please start.”

“I know.” Pressure on her, she didn’t have an option to delay anymore. She leaned back in the chair, completely feeling it surrounding her. Her fingers stretched out to the control panel at the base of the sticks. Pushing the system button, a keyboard slid out from within the chair. The OS prompt screen flashed on the full 360 monitor awaiting input.

Speaking clearly, she addressed the Freya, “Kitawara, Shizuka.” The screen responded by filling out her name and compiling reference data. It prompted her for rank. “Petty Office, Third Class.” Accepting the voice recognition, the systems began booting up.

Appearing in a window on the corner of her view, Natalie’s image from a camera in her pad displayed for direct communication. “We’ve confirmed the OS activation and pilot security. We’re going to start the neural connection test. This is going to be different from the simulation where the feedback is significantly reduced.”

“Understood.” Multiple screens popped up around the main monitor with data on the machine, connection protocol steps and brain wave sensors. At this point, most of it was out of her control. It was up the machine’s onboard systems to find her. Unlike the simulation, neural activation in the real Freya wasn’t so straightforward.

She got a countdown from Natalie so she could prepare herself. Though even that wasn’t enough for the sudden injection of a mystery ghost in her mind. Even though there was no physical contact made, her body still responded as though there had been. She jerked forward nearly out of the chair and fell back. “Something…inside…me…get it…out…”

“Shizuka! Can you hear my voice? Shizuka!”

Everything drowned out for her. Her body bent over in the chair with her arms shaking. A pounding racked through her mind. It felt like a hammer went through smashing all of her walls to build something unwanted. It was foreign and organized, too organized. There was nothing natural about it. It felt heavy and alien worming through with her unable to halt it. And a voice in the distance that she did not understand calling to her. It never stopped, but it never got clearer.

“Shizuka?!”

As the pain started to ease up, she could barely hear Natalie through it all. “I’m…her…”

“Listen to my voice, Shizuka!”

“I…”

“Follow my voice and focus on it. Let it guide you out, don’t allow yourself to be distracted or pulled away.”

“It’s…calling…”

“No, Shizuka! Stay on my voice!”

“Natalie…?” More of an image started to appear around her eyes. The darkness peeled away a little and she could see Natalie staring at her through the video screen.

“That’s right, Shizuka! Hang in there and follow me! It’s almost over, you just need to push through the wall.”

“Wall? It’s in the…way…”

“That’s right, you need to push through the wall, Shizuka! Make the final connection!”

Drawing towards Natalie, she tried to stretch out her hand toward the video. The ghost in her head started to fade away. She couldn’t find it anymore or the voice. All there was Natalie in front of her. Shizuka drew up leaning back in the chair. Taking a heavy breath, she recovered her body though with a tingling sensation that flowed through as though not full her own anymore. “I feel weird…”

“You made it, Shizuka! The sensation you’re feeling is the Freya AI system. It’s tapped into your nervous system responding to your movements and thoughts. The phantom senses are the AI mirroring you.”

Shizuka lifted up her hands. They were hers, but it didn’t feel like hers. She felt separated from them, but also more deeply connected. It was unlike anything she had felt before. “It feels like I’m sharing my body with someone else. The simulations didn’t prepare me for this.”

“The simulations focused on understanding how the machine works rather than the actual connection.”

Her body hurt far more than she remembered, including her shoulder. It felt like the wound reopened from the activation. She just wanted out now. “Is it finished?”

“Yes, Shizuka. Thank you! We’ll take it from here.”

“Right…”

Natalie turned around with the data read outs. The team leader approached, having already finished up everything with Edgar and seeing him off. He leaned in to look at the results. “Are these the sync rates?”

“Yes, sir. It is without the pilot suit.”

He looked back over at the Od and then to the Freya. “Petty Officer Dubois had twice this without the suit.”

“I know, sir. It barely activated. The feedback within the system was higher than we’ve ever recorded before. And the noise percentage is worrying as well.” She flipped through all of the data on the specifics. It painted a clearer picture to the cause of her panic before.

“And she’s still alive?” he asked with some amount of seriousness mixed with rhetorical tone in his voice.

“Somehow. There’s been some that have gone brain dead with less.”

“At this rate, the machine could take command of her leaving her just a puppet.”

Clenching her hand around the pad, she knew the truth just as well. The data scared her and yet shocked her too. She didn’t know how Shizuka survived it or how she remained functioning. Behind them, she heard the spinning of the wheel lowering her out of the machine. They both stared quietly from their position out of sight of her monitoring her movements. Everything seemed normal. “Should we cancel the test in the morning?”

“Have the doctors run a full scan. If she passes, we move forward. We don’t need a repeat of ten years ago.”

“Yes, sir.” Natalie tapped on the pad sending a message ahead to the doctor. She glanced up momentarily to watch Shizuka again walking away. ‘She should be in a coma…but she’s still standing… Is this why Doctor Kitawara picked her?’ Miracle that she was for surviving, there still remained the problem that her sync rate was dangerously low. That part worried her even more than how she could walk off that brush with death.