Fragment of Destiny
Chapter 15 – The Sensorium

The darkness gave way to a pale sky and a sprawling mountain vista. Tess blinked with eyes that were not her own. A thrill of fear washed over her at the sudden loss of control. It was as if her mind and all her senses had been transplanted into a foreign body. Then she remembered, this was a memory, the body she was in belonged to Yami.

She felt his lungs expand and contract, breathing in cold mountain air, the smell of dirt on her hands as Yami rubbed his nose, and the feel aching muscles from hiking in wild terrain. Rocks and shrubs crunched under her feet with each step and yet she had no control over any of it.

Without warning, the view swung down as Yami examined his phone. A topographical map sat on the display, showing several points of light littering the mountainside. Somehow Tess knew that the scattered yellow lights were buoys, and the two blue dots belonged to Yami and Admeta. Green lines radiated out from each buoy like ripples in a lake. Several of the ripples flared red and broke apart across the scanner. The two blue dots were nearly on top of one set of the broken ripples.

A powerful gust of wind nearly took Yami off his feet as he hunched low against the mountainside. Beside him, Admeta stumbled, her feet slipping as a patch of loose rock gave way. With surprising speed, Yami reached out, his strong fingers holding Admeta steady against the violent wind. Only then did Tess realize just how high into the northern mountains they had climbed.

“You alright?” Yami asked as Admeta pushed away from him and grumbled something unintelligible.

“This should be close enough,” Admeta said pulling a red and white Raiden’s Den lanyard from her pocket. At its end was a long cylinder the diameter of her thumb, a gray crystal laced with marble white veins protruding from its tip. On her right hand, Admeta wore a juggernaut arm. The massively oversized gauntlet was four times the size of her fist and reached as far as her elbow. Though it was smaller than the ones used by enforcers Tess had no doubt that it was powerful enough for digging through rock.

Popping a latch above her wrist, a guide rail appeared allowing Admeta to insert her crystal into the gauntlet. Black curls fell in Yami’s face as he retrieved a pair of goggles from atop his head and secured them in place and Admeta did likewise. Tess watched in amazement through Yami’s eyes as boulder-size chunks of rock broke apart and tumbled down the mountainside. In seconds Admeta had dug a hole large enough to shelter them from the wind.

Slowing her pace, Admeta began ripping off suitcase size pieces of rock instead. Within another minute she had carved out a small landing of level ground big enough for the both of them to stand comfortably. Despite the amazing feat that should have taken a team of three shapers an hour Yami seemed unimpressed. Instead, he was interested in what they were about to find. As if moving such a massive amount of rock was not enough Admeta buried her hands into the solid stone and began scooping away fistfuls of sand.

Yami checked his phone toggling the display to show Admeta’s progress from every angle as he guided her forward. Like pressing through a dense liquid Admeta was nearly swallowed up by the sand. Pulling herself free Admeta uncurled her gauntlet revealing a large gemstone shone with a gleam of cobalt. Without warning Tess was cut off from her five senses, leaving her in a box with just her thoughts.

The claustrophobic confinement lasted only a moment then light returned. Once again Tess saw through eyes that were not her own, however, it quickly became apparent that they did not belong to Yami either. Almost at once a violent mix of tension, anxiety, and weariness crashed over her like the breakers of the great rift. Her view swung around coming to rest on a smooth-faced woman. A surge of affection only served to intensify her growing worry. Even in rough black leathers studded with metal plates, the woman was beautiful. A new fear all her own began to fester. While she was viewing Yami’s memories she had experienced all of his sensory input but not his emotions. This was too much like the vision she had felt when she first made contact with her crystal.

The view shifted again as Tess’s host looked back over their shoulder. Behind, a small company of armed men followed in step. Points of spears and notched arrows gleamed in the last bit of evening light. Each wore similar attire to the woman at her right.

As the view turned back, a blurred figure veiled in black moved against the tree line. The next instant bolts of flame originating from somewhere behind her scorched the nearby trees and wisps of shadow fled in its wake. A strong torrent of wind arose from the stillness shearing limbs from trees and exposing deep roots. In moments a writhing purple mist began to spin overhead surrounded by a twisting vortex of fire. In the blink of an eye, the band of soldiers had formed a defensive perimeter around Tess and her companion. Tess felt a thrill of fear as everything seemed to happen all at once.

A black leather gauntlet studded with a purple and black crystal came into view as her host extended an arm towards the mist. Swirling purple flared to life inside the depths of the crystal and the writhing mist began to solidify into the shape of a man. Once the form had become distinctly human the mist started to peel away exposing pale flesh underneath. To Tess’s disbelief, in only a few seconds a naked man now thrashed in the air where the mist had been. The man had a crazed look in his eyes and he shouted vehemently in an unfamiliar tongue. At the hate that welled up inside her host, Tess gathered that the man was not begging for mercy. Her mouth moved, and a male voice spoke.

“Tell Corwin, he is next,” The name Corwin tasted vile on her lips as it was said with so much disdain. Her figure nodded to one of the soldiers and a single long shafted arrow sprouted from the captive’s chest putting an end to the torrent of curses.

As the lifeless body hit the ground Tess felt claws of fire rip into her skull. With an agonizing shriek that made no sound, Tess was torn from her host and immersed in darkness once again. She felt like she had just taken a ride in a blender, as she woke to Yami’s strong hands shaking her violently.

“Tess! Wake up!” Yami shouted panting for breath. Her ears rang, and her head was splitting worse than anything she had imagined possible. Before she knew what was happening Admeta was there pushing Yami aside. Gently she rested a hand on Tess’s pounding forehead before prying at Tess’s eyes with a thumb and index finger. Mercilessly she shot a flash of light in each one.

The light was blinding and Tess reeled as her body attempted to acclimate to her physical senses once again. Thunderclaps exploded in her ears as Admeta snapped her fingers repeatedly. A gentle touch lifted Tess’s chin so that she was eye to eye with Admeta.

“How do you feel?” Admeta asked, genuine concern in the fiery woman’s voice.

“Like... like I’ve been hit by a skimmer. What happened?” Tess asked, hacking up burning bile.

“That’s what I wanted to ask you? You were out for longer than you should have been, and you wouldn’t respond when I tried to wake you,” Yami said before receiving a sharp jab to the gut from Admeta. Tess put a hand on her throbbing head. Why did he have to be so loud? Why did everything have to be so damn loud?

“I think I should go home,” Tess mumbled, “I need to… lie down.”

“Keep her awake,” Admeta said in a sharp tone that made Tess wince. Then Admeta was off in a stampede of clattering footsteps.

Tess closed her eyes for a long moment and was jolted back to reality with a stinging slap on the knee. In front of her, Admeta poured a vial of white powder into a cup of steaming liquid. Bubbles popped and hissed as she stirred and dropped in two blue pills before forcing the glass into Tess’s hands. “Drink it. All of it.”

Tess eyed the glass with suspicion, and Admeta gave her a firm look that threatened force if the demand was not met. Taking a sip Tess hacked a cough, both her mouth and throat were instantly on fire. The concoction had a sweet acidic taste and was far too hot to drink more than one small sip at a time. The way Admeta watched every sip made Tess feel like a child being forced to take her medicine as Nana hovered until she had finished it all. By the time she the glass was empty, Tess's eyes remained closed longer than open despite the occasional slap to the knee.

“You should get her into bed,” Admeta said rising to her feet. “Then you and I need to talk.”

Groggy as she was Tess felt the shift in the mood. It was no longer an older brother and little sister, but an upset mother about to throttle a heedless child. Yami picked Tess up and carried her down the hall to another cluttered room. Setting Tess on the end of a large bed he pushed piles of clothes and random machine parts onto the floor before helping her lie down. She was only vaguely aware of him when he left. By now she could no longer gather the strength to open her eyes, but she could still hear as Admeta exploded at Yami.

“Twenty minutes!” Admeta shouted, “She was hooked up to that thing for twenty minutes before you even suspected there was something wrong!”

“No. It was just twenty minutes before I thought I might need your help.”

“What were you thinking, using an untested device on her like that? Do you have any idea what could have happened to the inside of her head!”

“It’s not untested. I have used it several times with no problems.”

“Yes, but that’s you. Your brain, your own memories. You had no idea if she would even be compatible with the neural interface.”

“It has never had a problem with an outside mind using it before.”

“You brought other people down here! When? How many?”

“It’s not like that. I tested it with a copy, and each performed flawlessly. Even yours…” Yami said. It was the last thing Tess heard before everything faded away.

“You did what? How dare you!” Admeta yelled shaking her fist in Yami’s face.

Yami stared silently unblinking then shrugged and walked back down the hall. Admeta felt violated, how had he gotten a copy of her neural grid? She trusted Yami, but something’s about him frightened her. Like his profound lack of respect for another person’s privacy. Gathering her wits, she stomped after him down the hall.

“What are you doing?” Admeta demanded from the open doorway as she stood with fists on her hips watching Yami stair at blurred lines of code that scrolled across his terminal’s view screen.

“I am trying to figure out what caused the malfunction,” Yami said without looking up. He sat hunched over the display with both elbows resting on the desk, and hands making a fist as he gnawed lightly on his knuckles. Admeta recognized it, Yami’s twitch habit, for when he was stressed about a problem, he had no solution for.

In front of him under the display, the sensorium sat cradled in a metal frame, blue seams glowing in a grid of intersecting lines. Admeta eyed the device cautiously. How much of her mind was floating around in that thing? How much of Yami’s mind for that matter? If it ever found its way into the wrong hands, it could jeopardize everything. There was too much risk involved with something like this, and too much she just didn’t understand. She would have to find a way to convince Yami to destroy the thing, but before that she needed to know more about it. Despite its apparent dangers such a device still had a draw to it. The desire to take it apart and put it back together gnawed at her.

Admeta pulled up a chair behind Yami to watch him work. She had so many questions, but she knew Yami. Knew when he started biting his hand and staring at the screen like that, he would not be answering anything, at least not until he had answered his own questions.

Lines of code slipped by, most of it seemingly jumbled bits of information. She was savvy enough at programming yet more often than not watching Yami work was like listening to a conversation in a language you only half studied in school. When it came to devices, she was a hardware girl. She knew enough to leave the software to Yami. However, it seemed he didn’t know when to leave the hardware to her. At the desk, Yami growled and ran his hands through his hair before returning to his knuckle biting.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Yami muttered.

“What doesn’t?” Admeta asked. She had no illusions that she could magically solve a programming problem that had Yami stumped, but ‘airing out his mind’ as Yami called it often helped him get past mental blocks.

“It’s this,” Yami said in exasperation, gesturing violently at the view screen. Admeta bit back her harsh words long enough to speak calmly.

“All I see are lines of code. What’s wrong with them?”

“They aren’t supposed to be here. That’s what.”

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“That’s not it. They aren’t supposed to be in the code at all. I don’t even know what they do. It’s like lines of gibberish.”

“So, delete it. Problem solved.”

“That’s the frustrating part. I tried, but every time I scan, no matter how many times I erase this segment it just keeps coming back. What’s worse is I am not finding anything that could be housing or generating this.”

“I’m taking it these code fragments were not a problem until now?”

“It’s not just that Admeta. These code fragments didn’t even exist until now. I did a full scan after each use. Whatever these fragments are they only just showed up after Tess used the device.”

“Are you insinuating that Tess inadvertently uploaded a virus onto your device from her brain?” Admeta felt ridiculous even saying it.

Yami shook his head. “I don’t know. It was working properly, and now it’s not.”

A determined look hardened on Yami’s face. Admeta knew that look. It meant he had decided to do something foolish and was not about to change his mind no matter what she had to say. The display snapped off and Yami snatched the sensorium from its cradle.

“What are you going to do?” Admeta asked.

“Confirm a hunch. Set a timer for twenty minutes. If I’m not up by then, wake me,” Yami said as he began twisting the sphere in both hands. Admeta whipped out her phone and set the timer, looking back to Yami she found him already slumped in his seat lost in the half-sleep of the sensorium.

Down the hall, a phone was ringing. Someone looking for Tess? That could be problematic. Admeta sighed and headed towards the room. This day was not going well. All she had wanted to do was relax and work on her projects. Now she was stuck having to babysit two sleeping princesses. Tess at least would still be out for several more hours after those pills.

Not the least bit worried about waking her, Admeta fished into Tess’s pocket and retrieved the phone. A missed call from the Imperium Capital, Office of Administration. Admeta deleted the call log and slipped the phone back into Tess’s pocket. It was well past time Admeta did her research on Yami’s little project.

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