14. Zero Sensation

Jack Mason was sitting at his computer, watching through a side monitor as the children filed into their pods. He read the numbers and made notes.

“Do you believe that they’ll be able to synchronize completely?” An assistant asked.

“I do. However, I am uncertain that will be the case for all, but most will.”

Jack’s colleague sat down at a computer next to his. “The observation room for Miya Weskaber is set up,” he said.

“Good, I’ll be needing to act from there for the time being. Due to extenuating circumstances…”

“You mean her father?”

“Whatever it may be is of no concern,” Jack responded.

His colleague tapped at the keyboard. “Tell me Mason, the engineers have expressed a concern about future ramifications of connecting brain waves, do you suppose—”

“I do not,” Jack interrupted, “problems may occur, problems almost always occur. But sacrifices are made in pursuit of the next level of human development. What we may lose today, no matter what it is, will be trivial by comparison to the amount of good deeds this technology can produce. The free time that will be given to the world. Children can learn in an instant, soldiers can train in days instead of months. Simulations, shared memories, justice by discovering the truth about murders, arsons, kidnappings.”

“What about principle, freedom?”

“You aren’t here because of your moral compass.”

“You’re right. I’m just curious. What could happen? Complete and total mental collapse, seizures, schizophrenia, death.”

Jack was quiet momentarily, before replying with, “Perhaps.”

His colleague laughed. “All for the greater good, huh?”

Jack left the room to go into the observation chamber.

We were all hooked up to the pods and once the bright light flashed, and I felt myself getting tired, I woke up surrounded by the rest of them. We were all in the virtual world together this time. It felt and looked just as it would in real life. I saw Taika doing a backflip.

“I feel rather lightweight here,” Taika cheered.

I heard my father speak, “Astounding, you all managed to link this time. Though it does seem as if there is some interruption coming from Alice.”

Alice folded her arms in defiance. Of course there was interference, she hated us.

“Little miss party pooper is giving us a hard time,”Taika teased.

Alice glanced at the twins. “Traitors.”

“Alice,” they tried to apologize but Alice was not about it.

My father continued, “Today’s assessment will be about movement. I want you to get adjusted to the wavelengths within the simulation. Try Jumping.”

We all did as we were told and began hopping like trained rabbits. Maybe Taika was more of a kangaroo. I felt like an idiot.

Then behind us, something...materialized. It was a group of floating blue/white pads that ascended upwards and out towards the horizon.

“I want you to attempt an obstacle course now,” my father ordered next.

“This seems like a video game,” I said aloud.

“I suppose,” Miya responded.

Taika shouted, “Race ya!” He then jumped onto the first pad and began climbing, leap by leap up the platforms. It seemed we were capable of jumping much higher than normal while inside the simulation. Or Taika was a professional basketball player. One or the other.

The twins held hands and began to jump together in unison. Juliet, Miya, Ayase, even Iki all began to climb the platforms, it was almost fun.

I scaled them as well, feeling my body propel itself upward effortlessly. I was weightless. I could jump, and glide through the air. There was no breeze however. When that thought came to mind I realized I felt no temperature as well. There was no sensation on my body whatsoever. I landed, and jumped, landed and jumped, and I felt distracted by the lack of sensation. Disoriented even. It was unnatural.

As we made our way through the course, the platforms began to move. Some up and down, others left and right, I turned behind and noticed Alice, she jumped towards my platform but it moved out of the way, she missed it, and out of reaction I reached my hand out and grabbed hers. I braced myself for the pull of her weight, thinking for sure that she’d pull me down with her, but I felt nothing. She was weightless as well. I pulled her up and she glanced at me.

“Hmm.” She huffed and hopped away to the next platform. Not so much as a thank you.

“You’re all lagging behind!” Taika cheered as he approached the end, Miya only a platform or two behind him.

As we made it to the end and I watched the platforms dissolve I wondered how all of this worked. It seemed unfathomable to assume something like virtual reality of this nature was possible.

All of us were out of breath, save for Miya and Taika. Although I felt weightless, I was drained. As if it took a lot of mental energy to move instead of physical. I wanted to sleep.

“You wimps,” Taika chastised us. “Come on then, round two!”

Iki was huffing and puffing, I thought he might keel over at any second.

“Are you two even human?” I wondered seriously.

“Define human?” Taika asked.

“Pulling you all out now.” My father said, and everything went black.

As we exited the pods I stood up and stretched. It was impossible to tell time from inside the simulation but about an hour had passed. The sessions were short. My father was attempting to slowly adjust us to the procedure. I turned to face Alice who was fixing her hair with an angry look in her eyes.

“You know, you could probably connect better if you hung out with us,” I suggested this knowing it was a dumb idea.

Alice peered up at me. “I don’t need your advice.”

“Are you sure?” Miya wandered next to us. “You seem to be holding us all back.”

“Excuse me?” Alice said, annoyed. “Listen, I didn’t ask to be part of this, they chose me. Only damn reason I am suffering through this is because I’d like to get into better schools and advance my opportunities.”

“So, because you’re lazy and selfish you’ll drag this entire multimillion dollar program into the ground?” Everyone tried not to interfere. The two of them hated each-other enough without our intervention. It did make the atmosphere unsettling however. “Everyone’s thinking it, I’m just saying it.”

“Really? You all think that?” Alice shouted at us.

“No, of course not...the only thing I think is that you should give us more of a chance…” I tried to mediate the situation as best I could but Alice was having none of it.

“You guys too?” She shot her look at the twins and Iki.

The twins looked at her nervously. “Alice, we can all be friends, can’t we?” Melanie sounded desperate to make Alice understand. I already knew that it was useless so watching her pleas felt painful.

“So you do think I’m dragging you down?” Alice said softly.

“No, but I think your attitude makes it difficult to get along with—” Natalie began to explain but was cut off by Alice’s protest.

“Excuse me! Natalie? Serious right now?”

“Alice, this isn’t fair! You need to listen to us for once in your life! Shut up for once!” Natalie shot back.

Alice got quiet. Her eyes, fierce.

“We are your friends. That hasn’t changed.” Natalie began and Juliet seemed nervous watching the confrontation. I stood a bit closer to her out of some sense of primal energy, as if I was a man and had to defend her from a fight that had nothing to do with us. Then I felt stupid. But she didn’t seem to mind me being so close.

“As your friends you need to understand that you can’t just walk all over everyone you see while being in such a shitty mood twenty four-seven. It makes it difficult for anyone to like you,” Natalie spat sharply.

Melanie grabbed her sister’s sleeve and whispered, “Natalie…”

“You’d rather hang out with them, is that what you’re saying?”

“Is that all you think about! Oh my god! Them or you? Is that always your question?” Natalie was furious and the frustration was prominent.

Juliet was fidgeting, and looking back and forth nervously. Her voice was soft and bell-like, “Guy’s, don’t fight.”

“Fine…” Alice said quietly, “I’ll leave, whatever.” Alice turned and walked off silently.

My father walked into the room at that point as Alice passed him.

“Wait!” I called out, “dad aren’t you going to stop her?”

“Everyone is free to go as they please,” he responded.

“Damn it,” I was about to run past my father but Juliet was ahead of me and caught up to Alice. I trailed behind her slightly as Juliet walked next to her.

She was ignoring us until eventually she said, “Stop wasting your time.”

“We need willing participants,” I replied.

She said nothing.

“I want you to be there,” Juliet said next.

“Why the hell would you want that?”

“Why not? You’re smart, clever, good-looking and fierce,” Juliet answered. “You’re a lot of what I want to be and I want to get to know you, the real you. Because I know you’re amazing and if you want to leave, I can’t stop you. I just wanted you to know that.”

“You try too hard,” Alice chastised. “If you really want to be me, then you can’t be around them. Obviously I can’t and you like them, so don’t waste your time.”

Juliet sounded confused, “I don’t understand.”

Alice stopped walking and faced Juliet. “You care too much about everyone. It will hurt you traumatically one day.”

“That’s fine. I’m willing to bear that if everyone’s happy then I’m happy. No matter what I have to walk through. That means you too.”

Alice’s face softened. “You can’t say stuff like that. Or feel that way. You have to matter to yourself. Which is why I'm leaving.”

“Juliet is tougher than she looks, and so are you, Alice. Knowing that, I’m really shocked you would give up,” I said.

“No one asked you. You know nothing about me,” Alice argued.

“Sure, but it doesn’t mean I can’t have observations, that I can’t be concerned.”

“Why would you be concerned? She's a puppy, why do you care.”

“I’m talking about you too. I’m the new kid, aren’t I? I was scared out of my mind that I wouldn’t be able to make friends, I hate the feeling of being alone. But Taika opened up, arguably too quickly, and the others were amazing. If not sometimes complicated. But it’s fun overall. So...Just don’t force yourself to be alone. Your friends are here. You said it yourself, it was a good opportunity for you, does it kill you that badly to open up just a tiny bit?” I did my best to explain my feelings to her in hopes that it would do something.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Alice denied, “and that sappy lame soap opera monologue doesn’t work here.”

Juliet charged in and puffed up her face. “I think the loneliest person is probably someone who is in the middle, Alice, you’re being quite childish,” Juliet straightened out Alice’s clothes and pushed her back towards the room.

“What are you doing?” Alice questioned.

Juliet was trying to be intimidating, but it was easy to tell how scared Juliet was. She was trying incredibly hard. “I’m revoking your leaving rights.”

“Who do you think you are?”
“I’m Juliet Elizabeth Captor, who are you?” Juliet said angrily (by her standards).

“Don’t make such a cute thing angry, it’s kind of scary…” I suggested.

Alice folded her arms, “will you stop with that face if I go back?”

Juliet was puffing her face even fuller now, and I thought she might pop.

Alice watched Juliet for a moment, then blew a strand of hair away from her face before rolling her eyes. Then she reached out and slapped Juliet cheeks together playfully, forcing Juliet to let out the air as her face “popped.” Then Alice motioned towards the room, “come then, before I change my mind.”

My father debriefed us but that was essentially it for the day. All of Juliet's efforts amounted to a few more minutes in the room with Alice and everyone, but it was a step forward.