Training Room

Rina dove over a bench and rolled under the conference table as a dozen dumbbells, kettlebells, and loose weight plates shot through the air. They splintered the wooden table and cracked the concrete walls. Grey paint chipped off and dusted the floor. ‘Get to the door,’ I told Rina.

Rina poked her head out but pulled back as a green bumper plate blew past and lodged itself into the table. ‘You have the Fulcrum?’ Rina asked.

‘You aren’t trained.’

‘Learn by doing.’ Rina shuffled away from the table, arms wide and tensed. The Fulcrum glowed red.

We’re dead, I thought, but pulled. The table levitated.

‘It’s working!’ Rina yelled, but she stayed motionless, as if saying: Now what? She levitated the table but couldn’t throw it. A resistance band whipped under the table and wrapped around her leg. It yanked and she landed on her back with a thud. She dragged along the floor and into the open, where the woman, Ume, stood.

The resistance band unwrapped. Ume levitated Rina directly. ‘Is it true you murdered Johnny?’ she asked in a sultry, accented whisper.

‘Gutted him,’ Rina replied, smiling.

Ume’s eye twitched. ‘He may have been an idiot, but…’ She flung her arm, sending Rina crashing into the wall. Rina screamed as her limbs splayed apart, like a lab rat about to be dissected.

‘How will Kishimoto react if you kill me?’ Rina said. It was a good response. She’d been kidnapped so Junko could recover the tech implanted in her body. If she died, the tech would be permanently synced with her.

‘Kishimoto can go to hell,’ Ume snarled. ‘She didn’t care about Johnny. Nobody but I did.’ She began to form a fist. Rina clenched her jaw. I sensed her emotion again. It pulsed through my room. Pain. Like a gradual pressure.

Rina managed to look sidelong, at a stack of steel plates. She tried to gesture at them, but the Fulcrum didn’t react, as if she couldn’t get a firm grip.

‘Focus on her,’ I said.

‘No shit,’ Rina thought back.

‘Focus on her telekinesis. Counter it.’

Rina turned her attention back to Ume, who took pleasure in slowly inflicting pain. Ume had almost made a full fist. I didn’t know how much more Rina could sustain. She choked. The vision through my window blurred. It started to fade, when…

The Fulcrum glowed bright red. It made sounds like a roaring steam engine. The metal was warm to the touch. I pulled and pulled, every muscle tensed and straining. I roared, tendons in my neck taut. 

The imagery through the window restored. The pain diminished. Rina took great panting breaths and slid down from the wall. Ume formed fists, but nothing happened. Rina had her hands raised, too. The air between them distorted, like a heat mirage. Their power pressed against the other. For a second, neither budged. Then Ume’s feet scraped backward by a fraction. She couldn’t resist. At a glance, I could tell she didn’t have Rina’s strength. It didn’t matter if a Source was stronger. The Conduit risked becoming the bottleneck.

Ume’s weakness cascaded. She got pushed further back. Her knees buckled. She tried to recover, but it put her left arm in a compromised position. Crack! She screamed as her shoulder dislocated.

Rina didn’t push much further, only enough to get Ume on the floor. I had conflicted feelings about her mercy. Ume aimed to kill her, so a dislocated was minor by comparison. Part of me hoped Rina would hurt her in retaliation. Instead, Rina removed Ume’s clothes and replaced them with her hospital gown. Then she bound Ume with skipping ropes and tape from a cabinet.

Now, Rina wore jeans, a workout singlet, and a baseball cap. I hoped she resembled Ume enough to trick the guards.

‘Were you looking?’ Rina thought.

‘No.’

‘Liar.’

I chewed my lip. Good guess.

With the immediate danger dealt with, I stood up and stretched. My hip still had a mild irritation. I paced the room. The greyness of the room contrasted starkly with the window and colours beyond. We had to escape.

#

Rina left the training room. The rounded hallway outside was empty. She traced the wall, keeping her head low, letting the baseball cap cover her face. The alarm had turned off and guards must’ve gone to sweep other sections. That didn’t mean the current area had been neglected: At the end of the rounded hallway, a massive blast door blocked the way. Rina inspected a control panel, but it needed biometrics and a code. She and I discussed forcing Ume to open it, but Ume might not have clearance. Or if she resisted for too long we’d get caught. Or she’d have a way to trigger a new alarm. Too many variables.

We tried opening it with telekinesis, but we didn’t have the strength. Rina took out the documents she’d taken from the training room and showed me one particular page. It outlined usage of the Dynamic Assertions & Meditative Parallels (DA&MP) system. Or, the Damp system. I didn’t understand, so Rina summarised. It worked by synchronising sensory information to enhance responsiveness between the Conduit and Source. Again, what? Rina simplified. It linked us so the power worked better. I understood that.

‘The Damp system is triggered by the verbal cue: D-A-M-P activate. Then both the Conduit and Source must assert truths while envisioning a meditative environment. This branches our conscious and subconscious minds.’

And – back to confusion. Rina didn’t have an explanation, either.

‘Let me try it,’ Rina said. ‘D-A-M-P activate.’ She shut her eyes. The imagery in the window vanished, replaced a moment later with a picturesque lake and waterfall surrounded by a rainforest. That must’ve been the “envisioning” part. ‘The sky is blue,’ Rina said. Was that asserting a truth?

‘You try,’ Rina said.

I doubted the system but shut my eyes. I imagined a polar desert, nothing but ice and snow. ‘I am a shut-in,’ I said.

Hot, sharp pain shot through me, like a massive migraine compressed into a single moment. I groaned and clutched my head. Rina did the same, falling to the ground. A robotic voice said:

‘Synchronisation failed.’

‘Good idea,’ I said.

‘Shut up,’ Rina replied. ‘Doesn’t matter anyway. We can’t leave without Gecko.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.’

‘I meant how? We can’t search this entire place, and if we have to choose between escape or saving her…’

Rina ignored me. Going back down the hallway, she checked the rooms we passed and those before the training room. We found offices, storage rooms, servers, a cafeteria, lecture halls, and some stranger places, like nurseries, napping quarters, and an aquarium.

We reached the other end of the rounded hallway, but we didn’t find a blast door. We found a reinforced wooden door with a glass porthole. Peeking through, we spotted about ten people, some in lab coats and masks, bustling around doing creepy science shit, like with a bunch of clipboards, test vials, vats of fluid, walk-in freezers, and human-sized glass tubes.

In the middle of the room, on an inclined operating table, lay an unconscious girl with green hair. ‘Gecko,’ Rina whispered. She inspected the door. ‘Another biometric lock.’

‘Should be able to force it open,’ I replied.

Rina braced herself and raised her hands, while I worked the Fulcrum. It took around half my strength. The door bowed outward into a convex curve, and then the lock snapped. The ruined door swung open. The ten researchers spun to look at the intruder.

Rina stormed inside, palms outstretched. ‘None of you cocksuckers move a damn muscle or I’ll—’

At this point Rina laced a bunch of expletives into her threats, but the general summary was: Don’t move or I’ll kill you.

The researchers raised their hands. The man closest to us asked if Rina was a Conduit.

‘No, I’m raising my hands in solidarity—yes I’m a fucking Conduit, idiot.’ Rina flicked her wrist, sending a countertop of conical and volumetric flasks shattering against the wall. ‘Release the girl,’ she said, indicating to the sedated Gecko with her chin.

‘Use your powers,’ I reminded.

‘Oh right,’ Rina thought, and gestured at the leather restraints. They snapped open. Rina used her powers to lift Gecko toward us.

One of the researchers, a bulky man with a handlebar moustache, took a step toward Rina. ‘You don’t know what’s happening here, girlie.’

Rina gently lowered Gecko to her feet and turned her attention to the man. ‘Good point. Tell me.’

‘Just you wait until—’

Rina flung the glass shards into the man’s leg. He gave a guttural shout and clutched a countertop for support. ‘Someone tell me or I turn him into a glass porcupine.’

'Please, wait.' Another man, diminutive and hand-wringing, stepped forward. ‘This organisation’s primary directives are threefold. First, to harvest and stockpile organs. Second—’

‘Why do you need organs?’

‘That duty belongs to a different division. We are involved in the second directive, to outfit and improve Conduit operatives.’

‘Improve how?’

‘Enhanced muscle density. Individually tailored diets. Improved synchronicity rating with the Source. Experimental dual-Source—’

A tall woman with grey hair whirled to the man and glared. ‘That’s enough.’

Rina levitated a role of tape and stuck it over the grey-haired woman’s mouth. ‘What’s the third directive?’

‘Slave labour.’

‘Using shut-ins?’ Rina asked, and when he assented: ‘Why?’

‘To replace the android workforce in gathering resources and manufacturing the Conduit-Source tech.’

Rina inclined her head at Gecko. ‘She doesn’t have the tech. Why did you need her?’

The researchers exchanged looks. I didn’t like it. I’d seen that look before, a worrisome blend of shame, fear, and resignation, with a drop of defiance. Rina smashed another few flasks to get them talking.

‘T-Throughout history,’ the man started, ‘there have been instances when certain measures have been necessary. When mice or frogs prove inadequate—’

‘Get on with it,’ Rina snapped.

The grey-haired woman ripped the tape from her mouth. ‘Don’t say another word,’ she said, before Rina levitated the tape and wrapped a few lengths around the woman’s mouth and head.

‘Continue,’ Rina ordered.

‘For the good of mankind, on a grand scale, sacrifices must be made.’

Rina and I had the same thought simultaneously: Human experimentation. Rina’s emotion pulsed through the room, a sensation like sickly green bile trickling down the walls. She observed the room and honed in on the walk-in freezers.

‘Don’t,’ I told her, but the Fulcrum already glowed red.

‘Do it,’ she thought.

I took a deep breath, averted my eyes, and pulled. All the freezer doors opened. Rina sharply inhaled. Morbid and oh-so-human curiosity forced my eyes to the window. Most of the freezers were empty, but a couple contained frost-flecked corpses. They’d already been experimented on, and once finished placed in the freezers for collection later. Recycling. Couldn’t waste the organs.

Rina’s chest rose and fell with deep, steady breaths, not to induce peace but to subdue rage. I had similar feelings. My hands were already braced over the Fulcrum, waiting for Rina to do what we both wanted. A moment passed but she didn’t raised her hands.

‘We can’t let them live,’ I said.

‘Give me a minute,’ Rina replied.

‘We don’t have a minute.’

‘You’re pulling a piece of metal. I’m doing the deed. You’re the trigger, but I’m the bullet, so shut up and let me think.’

‘What’s there to think about? They’re murderers.’

‘Are all of you involved in the human experimentation?’ Rina asked the researchers, to which they shook their heads. ‘Wave your hands if you’re involved.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Great, the honour system.’

Sure enough, none of them complied. Rina swore, but a second later, the man who’d explained things waved. He’d already admitted it, so I wasn’t surprised, until he said:

‘Two of us are Dietitians. Three are pharmacologists. One is a physiotherapist. Four of us handle experimentation.’

The grey-haired woman didn’t bother to rip through the tape around her head. She lunged at the man. Rina, and I by extension, moved quicker. She levitated the woman and ordered the man to point out the four. The four ended up being the short man, grey-haired woman, man with handlebar moustache, and a guy in a knitted sweater who wore round spectacles.

And yet…Rina didn’t act; at least, not as I’d thought – or hoped. She ordered the ten to enter the freezers. The six she directed to a freezer without a corpse. The four entered a freezer with a corpse. The doors couldn’t be opened from inside. Before she closed them, she asked if anybody could open the blast doors. If they could, she promised to spare them. However, nobody had authorisation.

The punishment didn’t satisfy me. I figured some might freeze to death, and some wouldn’t. Did the six deserve it, too? They were complicit. There wasn’t a clear answer. Given the context, Rina did what she thought was correct. It’d be difficult and messy to murder all ten. At least we’d recovered Gecko and trapped the researchers, so they couldn’t alert the guards.

Levitating Gecko, Rina left the room and walked in the direction of the blast door. I asked why, to which she responded:

‘They gave me an idea.’