The forevers fixer 13, p.10
The Forevers - Fixer 13, page 10
You couldn’t apprentice to become a Biome Tech. You could, however, apply, once you had proven yourself in one of the other tech areas. A tech apprentice was a very unlikely candidate, even one of Jayne’s ability. Jayne had looked up the records and could find no examples of someone being accepted into the Biome Tech program without a journeyman’s papers. Again, she suspected and hoped someone would intervene and she didn’t think that someone would be one of the sentinels. She felt the silver star grow warm against her skin and thought of the watcher. That was her name for the person or persons that she sensed were watching her. She also thought they were the ones that directed her to the Luck Games Room and to see Professor Greenway.
Lucky spoke again. “Jayne are you alright? You seem,” Lucky paused, “distracted.”
“I’m fine. I am just wondering if I will be accepted,” said Jayne.
“You will be. Your test and practical scores have been exemplary. I would recommend you,” Lucky said smugly. “I looked up the scores of some of the previous inductees and you have them all beat. But it is not just based on scores. There seem to be other considerations.”
“Such as?” asked Jayne.
“Well, some specific scans. I do not understand why they would be deemed necessary for the job, but apparently they are,” said Lucky.
“Let me guess,” said Jayne, thinking of Professor Greenway again, “connectome scans.”
“You have been scheduled for a series of connectome scans this morning. How did you know?” asked Lucky.
“With Greenway?” Jayne asked.
“Who is Greenway?” Lucky asked back. “Just a moment, I will check. You are to report to the Neuroscience Center and Training Facility today.”
“Where is that?” asked Jayne, concern creeping into her voice. The Neuroscience Center sounded like a very unpleasant place to visit.
“Well, it is not here in the HUB. It is seriously out of PUT pad range. You will have to take a flier. You leave today,” said Lucky and then he paused. “It looks like there will be two of you going, at least there have been two bookings made.”
“Who else is going?” asked Jayne.
“I am sorry but I am not privy to that information. It has been blocked,” replied Lucky.
“When do I leave?” asked Jayne.
“An hour from now,” answered Lucky matter-of-factly.
Jayne stood up and ran to the clothes drawer. “I have to pack.”
“Not required,” stated Lucky. “According to the reservation, you are to take whatever you have on at this moment. Please take a PUT pad to Flier Station 3. I will program the PUT.”
Jayne stood and walked out of her cube to the hall PUT pad. She stepped on it and breathed in deeply. She thought of the sentinels and the forevers and of puking and of human hearts in boxes and of murdered Omies and of GravBall and, finally, of Joseph following her like a puppy. That made her laugh. She stopped laughing when her nose, that had not quite healed, twinged with pain. She thought of Joseph pushing her into the linevac that was not a linevac. She frowned as she stepped off the PUT pad in Flier Station 3.
The fliers were totally automated. They used grav propulsion. All fliers flew between 1000 and 2000 meters from the ground. Their flight path was designated by a flight computer system. They travelled like a train along a monorail except the monorail was digital and dynamic. They were fast and silent.
Jayne entered a twelve seater with four sets of three seats and an aisle down the middle. She sat down at the back. She had never been in a flier before. She had never travelled very far and, for short distances, the PUT pads were all that anyone needed. As the time ticked down to departure, she thought she was going to be alone on her two hour flight. She looked out the window and saw a boy running down the platform, on to the gangway and on to her flier. Jayne slid down in her seat. She would be invisible to anyone entering the flier. The boy, out of breath, flopped down in the front set of two seats. He tossed the small bag he was carrying onto the seat across the aisle from where he was sitting. He exhaled air loudly and said, “Made it.” Jayne peeked out the side of her seat and looked down the aisle. All she could see was a pair of feet sticking out from the seats that held the reclining boy. He moved and Jayne ducked back out of sight. Jayne peeked between the seats and could see a head of dark ruffled hair. She blinked and looked again. He turned and she could only see the back of his head. She saw him become alert and start to scan the cabin. She ducked out of sight again. Jayne could hear him opening his bag and she peeked down the aisle again. The boy was reaching into his bag. Suddenly he stopped and froze. Jayne ducked back. There was silence. The silence seemed to go on forever. Jayne could wait no longer. She slowly stuck her head out into the aisle. Her eyes grew wide as she stared into the wide eyes of the boy looking down the aisle at her. They both stood and they both looked quickly from side to side as if searching for an escape route. They both knew there was no escape.
Jayne recognized the dark-haired boy from the bean bag game. Number 91. She never knew his name. The dark-haired boy recognized Jayne. Fear clouded his eyes but soon it dissipated and was replaced by anger.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he spat. “I am not sure what you did to me that day in the Psi Center but you sure are not going to do it again. After I looked at you, it was all gone. You somehow sucked it all out me and took it for yourself.”
Jayne pulled her head back behind the protection of her seat. Her body tensed. Questions rumbled through her mind. What was he talking about? She had not taken anything from him. Was he sick? Had one of the bean bags caused permanent damage? Was he going to the Neuroscience Center too? Maybe he had suffered brain damage. She remembered one of the bean bags hitting him in the head. What the heck was a Psi center?
She heard him start down the aisle toward her. She stood up. The idea of him standing over her was an unpleasant one. They stood facing each other with the width of one seat between them. Jayne did not know what to say. She spoke anyway. “I’m sorry you got hit. Is your head OK?”
“What are you talking about? Does my head not look OK?” he asked viciously.
Jayne stepped backward for a moment and then forward again. “You must be deluded. I never took anything from you. That day, playing the bean bag game, you made a wrong choice and got hit. I made a wrong choice right after you left and got hit. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. Sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not.”
“I am always lucky unless you are around. And, no, I do not have a head injury. I am going to the Neuroscience Center because I am being sent there. Why are you going?” the dark-haired boy asked.
“I am being sent there too,” she answered. “I had nothing to do with you being hit, so don’t go blaming me. What is your name anyway? Mine’s Jayne Wu. My friends call me Thirteen.”
“Alright Thirteen, I’m 91. That is as much as you get to know,” he said, as he menacingly pointed his finger at her face. He was wearing a silver chain around his wrist. Dangling from the chain was a silver star slightly smaller than the one around Jayne’s neck. She instinctively reached up and placed her hand over her star. It was almost hot against her skin. She looked from the star to his face and back again. “He is being watched by THEM just like me,” she thought as he dropped his arm, concealing the star once again.
“Alright, I get it. You hate me because you think I did something to you. Which I didn’t. So let’s agree not to have any more conversations, especially those that end up with you threatening me. You sit up there and I will sit back here. Hopefully, this will be the last time we see each other. But, somehow I doubt that will be the case,” Jayne warned.
“Why do you say that? After all, I am still pretty lucky,” he said with a smirk.
Jayne shrugged and turned back to her seat and sat down. She stared at his back as he walked to the front of the flier and sat down. She muttered to herself, “Not as lucky as you think. Not with that star on your wrist.”
They spent the remainder of the trip in silence. Jayne could not help but wonder if 91’s star made him sick when he took it off. Were the forevers reading him too? Did the sentinels know about him? Were they going to the same place for the same reasons? She closed her eyes and opened them again when the flier arrived.
Chapter 17 – “Tests and Scans”
Education was critical in a fixer’s world. It meant freedom and choices. Without it, you were assigned the most menial of jobs. Usually fixer cleaner if you were a male or older female. Everyone had to work. There was no choice. Work was deemed critical to the survival of the species. If you chose not to work, and there were some who did, you were not treated like you were part of the human society. You were exiled and received none of the benefits. If you changed your mind you would always be welcomed back as long as you were willing to become a functioning member of the fixer society.
Education was always available if you proved yourself able. Sometimes the requirements were very difficult. Tech was very hard and Biome Tech was the hardest of all.
Jayne and 91 exited the flier without so much as an acknowledgment of each other’s existence. They were individually directed to specific testing rooms in the neuroscience facility. Jayne, once alone, relaxed and waited. Her clothes were draped over a chair. She was now dressed in a hospital type gown that was far from flattering. She was lying on her side on the examining table, propped up on one elbow, waiting for someone to arrive. A young man entered with a MED VID in his hands. He looked at her, looked at his VID and looked back at her and spoke. “Who are you?” Before Jayne could answer, he spoke again. “Are you Ranovich 91?” He looked up at Jayne. “No, I suppose not. It says male. You’re not male are you? No,” he said, answering his own question. He swept the surface of his MED VID a few times and then he read to himself whatever was on the screen. He looked up again and stared at her. He spoke, “You must be..,” he paused and looked down again, “Yes, you must be. What are you doing here? Get dressed. I will be back in two minutes.” He turned and left the room.
Jayne got up and quickly put her clothes on, all the while keeping an eye on the door. Once dressed, she sat on the bed and waited. “Ranovich 91,” she thought, “that must be his name; the dark-haired boy’s name was Ranovich.”
A few minutes later a woman came into the room. “Why are you still dressed? Didn’t they tell you to put on the gown?” She gestured to the gown now on the back of the chair. “Obviously not, because you are still dressed. Never mind. Roll up your sleeve. I need to take your vitals and some blood and you need to fill this.” She took an empty vial out of her pocket and waved it in front of Jayne. “Now let’s make sure you are who you are supposed to be. Look here,” she said and she held up a hand held retinal scanner. Jayne looked into it. There was a flash of light. The woman looked at the scanner and nodded. A few minutes later Jayne was alone, again laying on the bed, propped up on her elbow – waiting.
The young man came back and spoke, “Wu 13?” Jayne nodded. “Come with me. I am sorry for the mix-up. Did you get your vitals taken?” Jayne nodded again. “Good, follow me.” He strode out of the room and down a hall to a larger room with a number of smaller windowed rooms around its perimeter. Jayne could see the dark-haired boy, Ranovich 91, sitting in one of the rooms. He was craning his neck out from his sitting position in a chair, trying to see out the door of the room. He looked silly.
The man took Jayne to one of the rooms and sat her in a large but comfortable medical chair that tilted and rotated in any direction. As soon as Jayne sat, the chair formed around her. If she shifted, the chair seemed to compensate for the changes in position. Jayne also noticed a section of the arm that probably held concealed restraints. She did not put her arms down on the armrests. She placed her arms in her lap and waited. The window into the room was mirrored on the inside so she could not see out but anyone out there could see in. She now realized why 91 was craning to see. She relaxed and became ‘nondescript’. It was a good way to be if you couldn’t hide and you did not want to be noticed. At this moment in time, Jayne really did not want to be noticed.
That was not to be. An older man entered the room. He was trying to be personable. He smiled. “Jayne, I am Dr. Thermonson. We are going to spend the afternoon together running a few tests. There is nothing stressful about any of them. In fact, they can be kind of fun. Some of the tests will have someone in the room and some will not. Sometimes, we will let you handle some small props and other times we will require you to look at images on the screen in front of you. The screen can be a mirror or a window or a video. Right now it is a mirror, as you can see.” He gestured to the mirror in front of Jayne.
“A one-sided mirror,” stated Jayne.
“Yes,” said the doctor. He frowned and spoke. “Does that bother you?”
“A little,” said Jayne. “It would be better if it was either a window or a mirror on both sides. Are there any cameras in this room?”
“Yes. Do they bother you?” asked the doctor.
“Yes,” answered Jayne.
“You don’t like being watched?” he asked.
“I don’t mind being watched as long as I can see the watcher,” answered Jayne.
“Fair enough. I will shut off the cameras and make the viewport a window. When we need the viewport as a video screen, I will invite any observers to come into the room. Are you OK with that arrangement?” he asked.
Jayne was surprised by this. In her experience, people in positions of authority did whatever they wanted and never considered her needs, wants or feelings. She nodded. “I have to set this scanner array on your head,” he said, as he picked up something from the small table behind her chair. He held it out in front of her. It looked like a gray skull cap. “It has a series of scanners that move over the surface as you complete each test. It measures, records and transmits specific brain activities while the test is occurring.”
Jayne nodded again and said, “Like the connectome scan that Professor Greenway gave me a few months ago. He used a scanner that was different than that. It was smaller and was not attached to a skull cap like this one.”
“Who?” asked the doctor.
“Professor Greenway. He gave me what he called a connectome scan,” she answered.
“You must be mistaken. The only place you could ever have received a connectome scan is here. We are one of two facilities on this continent that have the ability to record and read a true connectome scan. I have never heard of a Professor Greenway,” he said with an increasing level of irritation.
“Well …,” said Jayne about to argue. She paused. She thought better than to threaten this positive relationship with Dr. Thermonson. She continued, “I probably heard wrong.” And then to further distract she asked, “Does it hurt?”
Dr. Thermonson smiled and spoke. “Not in the slightest. Shall we get started?” It was not a question, it was simply a statement of what was to happen next. He spoke into his MED VID, “Subject – Wu 13 aka Jayne Wu; Test 1 – Zener cards - No viewer.” He turned to Jayne and handed her five cards with one symbol on each. He held identical cards in his hand. “The cards look like this,” he said as he displayed the cards in his hand.
Jayne fanned the cards he had given her and they were identical to the cards he had shown her. “They are called Zener Cards, after the guy who invented them. They were originally used to measure psychic ability. They are rarely used for that specific purpose alone, but in conjunction with a connectome scan, they can be …,” he paused, “informative. I will shuffle these cards, pick one from the pile and set it face down on this video scanner. I will not look at it. You will try to match my card by holding up one of your cards. I will record your card and the video scanner will record the object card. I will not look at the object card. We will continue for 10 trials. Any questions?”
“Yes. Will you tell me if I make correct guesses?” asked Jayne.
“Perhaps later. I won’t know until after all the tests are over,” he said. He reached and put the skull cap on Jayne. He adjusted a few controls and the skull cap warmed on Jayne’s head. He pulled a cantilevered table over the chair so she could place her cards on it. “Ready?”
She wiggled to get comfortable and the chair reformed itself to her new position. She wiggled again and again the chair responded. She nodded. The doctor took a card from his pile and placed it on the table. She smiled and grabbed the wiggly line picture from her pile and snapped it down on the table. “My ‘wiggly lines’ beat your ‘wiggly lines’,” she said with a giggle. The doctor recorded this on his MED VID. He repeated his actions after a short shuffle. Jayne responded with, “Gin, I win,” and another giggle as she snapped down the square on the table. The doctor looked at her and said, “Gin??”
