Investigation Under the Surface
Patrick McGregor leaned over the observation console, the pale blue glow of multiple screens reflecting off his glasses. Each screen streamed both live and recorded data from the lab below: Jackie's recovery vat, the scattered drone units, the moving platforms, and the environmental sensors. The room smelled faintly of ionized metal and machine oil, and the quiet hum of servers filled the air like background static.
Background noise he had long become deaf too.
"Look at this," Patrick said, his voice low, almost to himself. He tapped the console, isolating the sequences from the platforms. The upper and lower panels had moved with near-perfect rhythm—except for tiny milliseconds where the lower panel lingered just slightly longer beneath her human side. "Do you see it?"
His cybernetic eyes whirled as if bringing every minor data scrap into focus. He sat back a bit, as if digesting the information, and awaited his assistant's opinion.
His assistant, a lean figure with cybernetic enhancements tracing her temples, leaned forward, fingers hovering over the holographic keyboard. "Yeah. That delay wasn't an accident. If it had been perfectly synced, the impact would have been distributed evenly. Instead… it maximized stress on her human arm first."
Patrick's jaw tightened. "Exactly. And the drones. Notice the pattern?" He highlighted the movements of the clamp drones, one on her robotic side, now highlighted blue, one on her human side, now highlighted white, both moving across the screen in synchronized beats. "There is a pause for exactly 73 milliseconds before striking. Both systems calculated. Whoever set this up knew exactly what they were doing if it is calculated down to milliseconds."
The assistant's eyes widened, reflecting the feed of Jackie's body being torqued and tested in the sequences they replayed. "It's almost as if someone wanted to see how much her human side could withstand before her cybernetics compensated."
Patrick tapped a few more keys, overlaying probability matrices on the holographic feed. Hundreds of simulations flickered across the air in a three-dimensional display. His cybernetic ocular implants clicking and whirling, following the data. "Sabotage or extreme stress test," he murmured. "The odds that this happened by random lab error are… negligible. Less than one in ten thousand."
The assistant hesitated, her lips pursed. "Do you think… this is Nexus Directive work?"
Patrick shook his head sharply. "I don't know. That's not what I'm looking at right now. Right now, I just need to know what was real and what was manipulated. If this was a test designed to push her limits, I want to see who pulled the strings. Whoever it was, they underestimated her."
She nodded, fingers flying across the interface. Drones' internal logs, sensor feeds, and control signals populated the holographic screens. "Check this out." A highlighted sequence showed one of the upper clamp drones twitching slightly before it latched onto Jackie's shoulder. The feed slowed, frame by frame. "See this? It's almost like the system allowed her robotic arm to absorb initial stress before activating."
Patrick's lips tightened. "Yes. But that's her systems reacting. Her ocular interface, her neural synchrony… she's evolving faster than I anticipated." He leaned closer to the feed, eyes narrowing. "This is the part nobody can predict."
"Can we quantify it?" the assistant asked. "Is there a way to track the evolution? Or… at least simulate it?"
Patrick nodded slowly, swiping through layers of live data. "We'll run a neural-heuristic simulation, but only to see thresholds. I don't want to trigger her systems prematurely. The eye, her cybernetic arm… she reacted to stress without conscious input. That's… abnormal."
The assistant tapped a sequence to isolate Jackie's ocular interface logs. "It's true. Her eye fired a neutralizing beam at the drone that was clamping her human side, simultaneously cutting the upper panel and preventing further injury. The system aligned itself with her weapon protocols… all automatically." The assistant sat back in thought. "I actually don't remember her eye having this capability before." She looked to her boss in awe. "Was this a spontaneous evolution due to steess?"
Patrick whistled softly, a mix of awe and concern. "She's self-compensating. And the nanobots…" He paused, hesitating, then shook his head. "No. That's speculation. Nothing in the logs indicates either internal or external nanobot systems, yet General Thorne is right, her repair speed exceeds lab expectations. Something is hidden."
The assistant's fingers paused mid-air. "So, she recovered faster than our systems predicted, survived what should have been a critical failure, and neutralized part of the test autonomously. And we're just supposed to let her continue?"
Patrick leaned back, running a hand through his thinning hair. "Let her continue, yes. But we monitor everything. Every millisecond, every neural spike. If she notices patterns, we'll have to be ready to… intervene if necessary." He tapped a command, pulling up full lab schematics and the drone control matrix. "Run a simulation replicating this sequence exactly, but with controlled variables to see if anomalies persist."
The assistant's eyes flicked over multiple layers of overlay data. "The anomalies are consistent. The drones paused. The platforms fluctuated. Someone—or something—was in control, remotely, without leaving traces. Probability that this was intentional manipulation: 97.4 percent."
Patrick nodded. "Good. Document it. But keep it in-house. Gregor Thorne doesn't need to see this yet. Not until we know the full scope."
He turned to watch the vat, where Jackie had suspended in the iridescent liquid. Suddenly he wondered what had happened inside her stasis pod? Was this nanobot system, she wasn't even supposed to have, even more superior to their best known tech? He would need to speak with them soon. He had a feeling that she would need to be protected and maybe operative Kieran would not be sufficient.
Patrick murmured, almost to himself, his eyes transfixed as he examined the data and stared into that empty vat. He blinked rapidly as if he was trying to clear up confusion with the action. "Is it just me or are there gaps in her internal systems data?"
The assistant's breath caught as she began to rapidly type on her keyboard. She quickly shook her head and pushed the keyboard aside and pulled a long cable from her neck and plugged into a data port. Dr. McGregor followed suit almost instantly.
He was fast than she was, but of course he would be. His mental processors were more capable and had supreme upgrading. Information moved before them so quickly it seemed to flash by in clicks.
The assistant sat back with a gasp as Patrick continued on a bit further. When he was done he sat in silence for a long moment.
The assistant spoke first. "There are no observed anomalies but it seems like data is completely missing with no gaps in the readings. What is going on?"
Patrick frowned immersed in thoughts that were not getting him any closer to an answer. Was this a cover-up? If so who had such capability? He could only think of one entity and it was a dangerous thought to have.
They sat in silence for a moment, both of them absorbed by the holographic representation of Jackie's lab trial. The platforms, drones, and simulated stress tests glimmered in shades of green and gray, flickering with each calculated movement. It was beautiful in a terrifying, clinical way.
Patrick's hand hovered over the log command. "Keep the sequences for every trial. Full system replication. And double-check the probability matrices. If someone tampered with the drones or the platforms remotely, we need every detail logged. No anomalies unrecorded."
The assistant nodded, swiping through the layers. "Already done. I've flagged the patterns that didn't match standard lab sequences. I'll run a predictive model to see if any future interactions could escalate."
She paused, her eyes fixed to the screens before her, and swallowed audibly. "And what about the anomalies in her internal records?"
Patrick shook his head. "That is just between you and I. If Nexus Directive find out or if they wiped her records clean neither outcome can benefit her."
"They may already know sir."
Patrick's eyes slid back to that empty vat. He shook his head and pursed his lips. "Such a unique child, in a horrific situation. If she continues like this I am afraid the wrong people will see and take interest and.."
"Then she becomes a weapon," the assistant finished, voice low.
Patrick gave a brief nod, tapping a sequence to anonymize all logs. "Exactly. And for now… we watch. We need to understand her before they do."
Unknown to Patrick and his assistant, the Nexus Directive itself had been quietly observing—they knew everything that they knew. Watched them as they came to their conclusions and found their breadcrumbs. The Nexus Directive had already found her, and deemed her worthy of observation.
The assistant's voice broke the silence one final time:
"She's going to change everything. And nobody knows it yet."
Patrick didn't reply. He only leaned closer to the console, tracing the simulated patterns of drones and platforms. Somewhere deep inside, he felt the chill certainty of what was coming next: the next trial, the next anomaly. And he knew, without saying it, that Jackie would survive—but the lab, the Directive, and everyone watching might not be accepting of capabilities, verging on evolution, continually being unexplainable.