The Extinction Trials(82)

As he pulled the gray outfit on, he sensed a presence in the room, a stranger, sitting in the corner. He turned quickly, but the club chair beside the couch was empty. And, of course, it was. The door hadn’t opened. But he could have sworn someone was in the room.

As the feeling faded, he realized how exhausted he was. He lay on the couch, telling himself he’d just close his eyes for a moment. As soon as he did, sleep overtook him.





Owen didn’t know how long he’d slept, but it must have been ages. When he woke, his body was stiff and sore. The exertion of the trek through the city and the hills to The Colony had finally caught up with him.

He was groggy, but that feeling of someone being in the room came again.

He sat up, his eyes adjusting to the light—and found that this time, there was, in fact, someone in the room.

Blair’s father.

Darius Aldridge sat in the club chair across from the couch, staring at his forearm. He pulled his sweater down when he saw that Owen was awake.

“Good morning.”

Owen sat up.

Darius held out his hand, but Owen didn’t shake it.

“I wanted to see you—to personally thank you for returning my daughter to me. I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

“You’re welcome. She’s a remarkable girl. But the credit goes more to Maya and Cara. And I’d like to see them.”

Darius nodded. “That can be arranged… Depending on our conversation here.”

“Conversation about what?”

“Your future—in The Colony.”

Owen studied the man’s face. Something had changed. He wasn’t even sure what he was seeing.

He felt a tingling on his forearm. He pulled the sweater back and found a single word there:

LOADING...





He watched, horrified by what he saw.

MeshOS Initiating...





He felt the presence again. Of not being alone.

“What’s going on here?”

A smile tugged at the man’s lips. A strange thing happened then: Owen understood. He could read the expression on Darius’s face. Owen knew, instinctively, that Darius didn’t find what he saw funny. Or sad. He was proud—the sort of look a painter might have when inspecting his masterwork.

Owen felt as though he was hearing a foreign language, one he had heard his entire life, a language everyone spoke, one that he struggled with—a language that was now crystal clear. He imagined this is what it felt like for a person who had been partially blind their entire life to see for the first time.

He felt, in a word, complete.

“This room isn’t just a holding cell,” Darius said. “It’s one of several suites in this entry terminal. It’s a transition area for people we bring into The Colony. Alliance defectors. Extinction Trials participants. Even some ARC personnel right after the Fall. The entry terminals provide security but the most important thing they do is perform scans on anyone entering The Colony.”

“Scans for what?” Owen asked.

“Brain abnormalities—that’s what concerns us the most.”

“Why?”

“Because they have the potential to disrupt The Change. We’ve found that certain minds can’t handle it. Every human resists change to some degree. Some more than others. Especially those who have been indoctrinated against our ideology. And there are just those stubborn individuals who will never change. We were a little concerned about you. And not just because of your beliefs.”

Darius stood. “As I’m sure you’re aware, you have an abnormality in the right hemisphere of your brain. It’s a genetic defect. One that I imagine has put you at something of a disadvantage your whole life. How does it manifest? Issues differentiating colors? Difficulties with language production?”

“No. Reading expressions: faces and body language.”

Darius nodded solemnly. “That must have been tough as a child.”

“I managed.”

“Obviously. And you thrived. Tell me, did the defect manifest in other ways? Did you have any particular affinities? Or a strength? Something your brain could do that offset the deficiency.”

“Pattern recognition.”

“Interesting,” Darius whispered. “The human mind is the most fascinating thing in the universe, in my view. Your mind saw those dead ends in that region of your brain, those neurons that took electrical input and couldn’t relay it, couldn’t fire, and it wired around it, like a muscle that had been cut out, growing scar tissue and strengthening the connections around it. A highway re-routed. A highway that, thanks to us, has been rebuilt. Those faulty neurons have now been replaced with a synthetic nano mesh.”

“What kind of nano mesh? What are you talking about?”

“Think about it as a sort of neuro prosthesis. We see the brain like any other part of the body. If you lost your leg, doctors would provide a prosthesis. You were born without a part of your brain. A very small part, but an important one. A part no one could see, but one that affected you every day. The mesh has filled that gap. But the mesh is much more.”

“More how? What are you telling me?”

“I’m telling you that the mesh is an integral part of The Change.”