(Episode II) (Act 2)

“I’m going to put on a little story that has to be told. In fact, I’m obligated to do this for all my siVis victims,” Leslie shrugged. “I should use the term used in said ‘video’, but maybe it’s my personal views seeping in again. Are you uncomfortable with it?”

“…Un…Comfortable in the sense of I know how much I’ve messed up and it stings more than the mess I’m in…” Jackie said, defeated.

Leslie didn’t retort immediately. He tapped his foot, he looked at the canister, then up at the ceiling.

“…I’m not doing this, this whole spiel? To make you feel bad in the why you think I’m making you feel bad. I’ll elaborate after you’ve received this full disclosure.

…At least Jackie thinks and admires that he can think about what to say…

But she fell back into her bed, groaning, “I feel like an utter bad kid. Like I’m a bad kid and I’m watching a Drug PSA after getting caught with weed…”

“More like hardcore heroin or opium—buuuuuut personal views, personal views…” Leslie added not one second after Jackie accepted his gesture, like a handshake turned assassination. Up close, barrel straight into the chest. She somehow sunk onto the bed more.

With a swipe in the air, he commanded an overhead projector-scanner hybrid emerge. He aimed the inward lens directly into the way of Jackie’s forehead. He inserted the canister and then backed away, arms crossed.

Before the thought of “At least with this watch, I’ll get away from him”; Jackie was transported back in time as the stream of information poured directly into her brain.

The scene was set, before she could realize that she was sitting in a fine leather armchair. From the wooden inner decor, a roaring fireplace that lit a dim room warmly, trinkets with Spaniard design lining the walls up and down, with a white carpet with a black ring pattern; this was home more than the office Jackie realized it to be.

Notes were scattered across the carpet, textbooks of nearly everything at the time littered and filled corners. Markable drawing boards took over the walls more than the trinkets did, and a unmistakable sight gave Jackie enough clues to what exactly is going to happen.

A desk, that was more machine than it. Way too advance for the time period yet completely vague to even Jackie who lived in an “era” where the “technology” she known was modelled after it. The only one that could work it was sitting before her, back turned. The one that could make sense of this mess. The Mother Modern.

Dr. Gia Taber turned around to face Jackie, giving her a worn smile. “Hello,” she said. “You must’ve gone through a terrible thing, haven’t you?”

Or rather, her ghost, if one could say. Jackie heard about these Information Streams and only heard about them because of the one of many abandoned initiatives was to enhance learning about history by going on a historic, simulated experience. The Good Doctor flickered briefly, leading Jackie to wonder if figuring this out meant breaking the so-called illusion.

There was another thing, a tragic truth that more or less caused the designers to use this image of Dr. Taber. Everyone knew, even the non-history buffs unlike Jackie, that the Good Doctor worked herself not only ragged, not only ancient, but was heavily warped due to the effects of researching the Shifts. One…Of many, on that terrible day, shocks when she resurfaced before her death was the fact that she looked the way she did and not like how this Dr. Taber looked.

When her skin was soft and a chestnut brown, jet-black short-cut hair with a prompted fringe that was swept above her earthy, brown eyes. When she wore super causal clothes with a lab coat draped over her shoulders and her hands in the pockets. When she looked like her age, a young woman of 35.

Ironically, again, a look before she was caught within the disastrous Shift that changed the course of her—everyone’s—life.

“You look so tired!” she jovial said, before taking in a yawn.

Jackie smirked and it found itself unsteady, “It comes nowhere close to your standards of being tired, I assure you.” She knew it was some sort of program, and it on some level knows it’s a program as well. Why patch in authenticity especially for a person that never had the time to be with people? It’s not calming her down, and in some ways; is triggering the uncanny valley if she thought hard enough.

Dr. Taber grabbed her baggie of assorted sweets, held it in her iconic way by its bottom and shook them at an airy, jiggle-driven rhythm, balancing the bag as it begun fall over each time. It would’ve been just a personal tick if said candy company, Avandale’s, didn’t turn it into a commercial, memetic gesture. She shoved the candies in her mouth and chewed softly while closing her eyes.

Gulping, she said, “The reason for the personality-driven narrative is that… Well, it’s rather easier to digest information when it’s on a conversional basis, yes? To summarize, break apart, discuss and digression; it is natural to talk about the unnatural this way, I feel.”

“True…” Jackie was forced to admit.

Dr. Taber scoffed at her next point, shaking her head as it leaned against her raised shoulder, “And people want things explained to them from people that are either masters, unparalleled and/or the creator. And unfortunately, I was all those three whatever I liked it or not.”

Past tense. That didn’t just make things even more weird…

Dr. Taber smiled, lifting her head and leaning forward towards Jackie with her crasped together hands on her lap. “What do you want to talk about first?”

Jackie promptly sunk into her chair. Not because the ghost created unease, but the fact that she had to voice something that was trapped inside, rattling inside and against her. That feeling that’s beginning to characterize her more than she cared to admit, that the question didn’t have to be materialized or thought over.

“Clarify siVis for me,” she found her face deep into her palm. “I thought I knew. I had my assumptions. They were right sure, but ultimately there’s something missing.”

“And what’s that…?” Dr. Taber asked.

Jackie wiped her face down with her hand, it being a trade versus nestling into her chair uncomfortably. “I clearly… I clearly missed what that truly meant. All of us did, I guess.”

It was odd, seeing her express a dark face, one of disappointed grimace that also she made an effort to hide. It was such a detailed and accurate take that she felt that Dr. Taber wasn’t exactly disappointed in her, or everyone. But herself.

What are its limits? How much truth is this molded from? Even then…What’s truth and what’s embellishment? With her life, is such a thing a possibly…?

“siVis,” Dr. Taber began, “Was founded by me, in both senses of the term. I was an anthropologist at a time where if you didn’t get into studies related to helping understand the Shift Noumena; you were shunned and even excommunicated from certain places. Heh… But, after my… accident, I realized the ruins that I found before the Shift, the information I decoded… Unlocked something within me. Something utterly new yet was always there, waiting.. And with this heightened enlightenment, it was the only way I recovered as much as I did. Began to understand the Shifts as much as I did. Many upon many runs we thought siVis came from space, or was residual Shift influence that can be channeled, many, many silly things… When the power came from me. What I had all along. My disguisable traits as a human and the ones I shared with humans. It simply showed me what I had all along, outlined and guided it for me.”

“Things I could have found on my own,” Jackie couldn’t help but to sound dejected, hallow. “Naturally. Thank you, Dr. Taber. I needed to hear that in words, about how absolutely dumb I am. I altered myself for something I could’ve just figured out had I sat down and thought for a second.”

The Good Doctor smiled with empathy. Worn, but a smile, nonetheless. “Hey. If anyone is to blame, it’s me who didn’t work hard enough to solve these problems. You kids inherited my sins and had nothing left to do…”

Jackie nodded. “I apricate the sentiment. I would like to talk about the inner workings, now I have to live with them, please.”

She nodded in return, “Of course. But I would like to say first to start; you need to heed the fact that self-respect is vital of keeping you and fellow Ones with siVis to maintain yourselves.”

Jackie stayed silent, just to accept the depths of self-hatred she stewed in, more than letting her talk.

“siVis can be just as much impressionable than it’s influential. It’s so intertwined with our emotional, physical and mental states that it can be just as fleeting, so it can be an accurate servant of expressing them. So, when you tear yourself down, degrade yourself, and be taken by the sway of self-destruction; it becomes tangible as well. Trying to walk that back can illustrate self-delusion as well, compounding the overall problem. For the sake of yourself, or even the fact that you want this problem not to evolve further, please. Accept that you’ve made a mistake, let it hurt and the pain ache. Let it and the experience become a defining moment. But never become it and it alone.”

Jackie paused before she responded and soaked in the words. Not just the mechanics of the powers, but the ideas it presented to her. “So, I’m not helping my case. Okay.”

The Good Doctor leaned in toward Jackie, with Jackie tensing until she looked down at Dr. Taber’s outstretched hand, the assortment of candy resting on her palm. She pointed then glided her finger above the various chocolates, nuts, flavored hard candies as she clearly made her point.

“People deem siVis to be magic, science, overall some sort of supernatural based power… And while it plays in each of those stereotypes, it really isn’t any of them all the same,” she pointed at the chocolate with the slight white chocolate icing swirl. “It’s far too detailed to be as mystical as magic,” she then hovered over the hard-shelled, rough chestnut. “But too absurd to conform to a steady base of logic or be put through the various methods of study, regarding science.”

“And it’s far too personal, too limited, to be considered wish fulfillment superpowers that can bend reality itself,” The Good Doctor took Jackie’s hand by the rest with her other and poured the candies into it. Using both her hands, she closed Jackie’s full hand into a fist gently.

“Keep in mind these words; ability, capability, maintainability, versatility and possibility. siVis takes cues, your cues, from these concepts and you in the end are able make them a reality. Magic, science, power; they are all too broad, too hard to pin down in the end and have their respective limits that are not your own. Remember, this is you being brought out, materialized. Keep it consistent with yourself.”

Dr. Taber shrugged, hands in the air, “But there will be some that will try to make siVis into magic, science and a power, maybe something new and beyond that, with or without heeding these words. And while it’s hard, it’s not impossible to do. But after the end of the experience, they’ll wonder if it was even worth it at all…”

She then rubbed her chin, “Or rather, they won’t care, and their hubris will be the in the shape of the very thing they created. Either or, it has a habit of working itself out.”

Jackie looked at the candies, swirling the bunch against her thumb, watching them melt under her simulated body heat. She wasn’t the one for sweets, it would lead into messing with so much all for a delectable taste. She wanted to voice that she doesn’t eat candy, but Dr. Taber literally forced her hand and she just can’t give them back, especially now. She maybe after the possibly weeks of recovery, she’ll work this and the other things off…

Then Jackie realized that this wasn’t real at all, and then shoved the candies into her mouth. A tasty mixed bag, from her first impressions.

Once she tried to crunch them, then the problem presented themselves. Rough, hard, yet soft at multiple, different points of her mouth. She soldiered through, but she had a wincing face as she did, before swallowing. And the Doctor had this for years?

She recomposed herself, sucking her chocolate covered fingers as she asked, “And these… Abilities…” From what Jackie’s seen, heard of, it was harder to swallow the fact that all of this is so personality and humanity based versus the candies, “What are they?”

“You’ll receive greater control of your body,” Dr. Taber recited, as if this was an elevator pitch she memorized, “Unlocked aspects of each of your senses and awareness. All coming together to allow surprising accomplishments and feats. Everything that is you, everything that you can do, and everything you never knew about you; all there now.”

Jackie scratched her head, “Right…”

“Trust me,” Dr. Taber smiled, “It’s insanity said out loud, but you’ll find yourself able to do those things and now what it means and how to do it. You’re a puzzle now, and you have to use your pieces as you see fit.”

Taber continued, “Of course, you have to discover this and see it for yourself…”

Jackie raised an eyebrow, squinted.

“You’re not going to teach me how…?”

The Good Doctor instantly shook her head, “No, I can’t. Any outside influence, including someone like me or your parents, will rule over your control. And when that breaks, when the flaws of such rear their head, you’ll be left defenseless towards the things we couldn’t see. All I can do is inform, because in the end, it’s up to you on how you process this…”

Jackie relaxed her face, but into the shape of worry. “So many warnings… Possible shortcomings by just using the damn thing…”

Dr. Taber rested a hand on her knee. “Don’t think about it as usage, okay? Your body isn’t a vessel…”

“Oh, trust me,” Jackie agreed with her on that at least, “My body is a tower of power with amazing marble columns and intricate tapestries. B-but I won’t, okay…”

“Good,” Dr. Taber smiled.

And Jackie couldn’t help to return a small, meek one. A caricature of societal idolization or not, it felt human. It felt healing, when she was reminded nothing but the pain since she woke up.

Dr. Taber then got up, withdrew her hand and stood up. She put her hands in her pocket as she walked back into her desk, her back towards Jackie.

“Well, I think we’ve made progress here,” she sounded distant, sitting down as she put her palms against the alien machine, “You seem to get your general questions answered. I’m afraid I can’t help with the rest.”

“B-but,” Jackie caught completely off guard, shooting up from her seat to look at her. “That’s all I need answered sure, but there’s still stuff left! You just can’t throw me out like this…”

Dr. Taber lowered her head, for a few moments. As soon as they were up, she begun operating it, Jackie can’t believe that a human hand can perform such movements. And like it’s appearance, the machine created noises, if they can be called that, beyond even her ears now programmed to pick up the beyond.

“You have to come to those conclusions, to find those answers, yourself. But don’t be disheartened because what we did here is progress. Take that, hold it close and keep it in mind because today, you’re one step closer. You already have the tools to help you; now formulate a plan. siVis will show you everything, even your mistakes.”

“…Formulate my plan…” Jackie was taken aback. But nevertheless, proving the Doctor’s point, something clicked into place.

Jackie snapped out of the mindscape, panting and looking side to side at first due to the subtle shock of it, winding down. She saw Leslie take the canister out of the projector as it slinked back into the ceiling, sealing up slowly, but machine-efficient. She shivered watching it, never getting used to Shift-related technology at all and the room felt even more boxed in.

She closed her eyes again and breathed. It was becoming a bit more natural to her.