lab. I’ll get the clearance and figure how the feck we can do it.”
I wince, knowing she will suffer brutally going back there. “Dash will leave me.”
“We won’t tell him.” She gives me a pleading look. “We both need the closure. Ya won’t ever be free of him and the cells if ya don’t do this. If that doesn’t matter to ya, do it for me.”
I nod, hating that I am agreeing when I know Dash is going to flip his shit. She grips my hands and squeezes. “I love ya, Janey.” She leans in and plants a real kiss on my cheek before she walks off.
9. SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE
I lie back, wishing I’d told him I was doing it, because Dash is going to kill me when he finds out.
The laboratory bed lies cold and hard beneath me for a moment until my skin starts warming it up. I look over at Rory in his bed. His chest barely rises and falls. He’s been under for a long time, living in his made-up realities. It might be part of why he’s so strong with mind runs. He’s grown stronger at creating the world he’s in from being trapped in a state of mind run for the last few months. While I have been taking drugs and having brunch.
If they continue to keep Rory this way, he will not live past the next mind run. Coma patients are weak. Forced coma patients are less weak, but still not strong enough to fight even the flu or a cold or atrophy and fluid buildup in the lungs. Or I might kill him.
Lying there, he looks peaceful, even if I know he is not. His sins have prevented him from ever finding peace. I will not let them stop me from finding peace.
Angie comes to my bedside, touching my wrist with a sensor. She attaches all the other monitors and clips the two pads to my temples with the verbal plan inside of them. They sit there, sending signals to the nanobot in my head, coinciding with the headset I will be wearing. The pads tell the bot to use the biochip attached to it to send in the story. I will be given a shot to put me into forced sleep where I will hover in a state of semiconscious REM sleep. It is only attainable in this lab.
The biochip administers drugs to create the perfect environment for the mind run. The release of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, histamine, and serotonin is curbed while melatonin is used to induce the sleep.
The prefrontal cortex is inhibited, tripped by the biochip, and cortisol is added to the system, creating a slightly more stressful environment in the dream world. It’s why they use spies and military personnel to do the mind runs—we already have fight-or-flight mastered and this system tends to leave the dreamer feeling the pressure of fight or flight in their dreams.
Reason and logic flee while the body believes it is in REM sleep, but being in a semiconscious state, the mind is more susceptible to subliminal messaging and repetition.
Once REM sleep occurs and the story is linked through to the system, it starts to play over and over. Soft speech—repetition of names, dates, and places. Creating facts inside the sleeping person’s mind.
Then the mind runner is hooked up to the patient, added to the same information as the dreamer. I never actually enter his mind, but we play together as if it were a video game.
We live the same dream, so to speak.
Angie hooks me up, getting me ready in silence until the other techs leave the room. Then she whispers, “I gave Rory an injection which sent another bot into his brain, like we did on the last run. This one is meant to search and destroy his old bot.”
“What happened to the last bot you shot in there trying to kill his old bot?”
“We didn’t try to kill the last bot, just override it. But he was somehow able to refuse the override. So now the last bot is a dud, just floating about, unable to receive or send anything, and his original bot is still running the show.”
“How do you know this one will work?” I can’t help but be dubious.
“Took the engineers two days with an entire team working
I wince, knowing she will suffer brutally going back there. “Dash will leave me.”
“We won’t tell him.” She gives me a pleading look. “We both need the closure. Ya won’t ever be free of him and the cells if ya don’t do this. If that doesn’t matter to ya, do it for me.”
I nod, hating that I am agreeing when I know Dash is going to flip his shit. She grips my hands and squeezes. “I love ya, Janey.” She leans in and plants a real kiss on my cheek before she walks off.
9. SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE
I lie back, wishing I’d told him I was doing it, because Dash is going to kill me when he finds out.
The laboratory bed lies cold and hard beneath me for a moment until my skin starts warming it up. I look over at Rory in his bed. His chest barely rises and falls. He’s been under for a long time, living in his made-up realities. It might be part of why he’s so strong with mind runs. He’s grown stronger at creating the world he’s in from being trapped in a state of mind run for the last few months. While I have been taking drugs and having brunch.
If they continue to keep Rory this way, he will not live past the next mind run. Coma patients are weak. Forced coma patients are less weak, but still not strong enough to fight even the flu or a cold or atrophy and fluid buildup in the lungs. Or I might kill him.
Lying there, he looks peaceful, even if I know he is not. His sins have prevented him from ever finding peace. I will not let them stop me from finding peace.
Angie comes to my bedside, touching my wrist with a sensor. She attaches all the other monitors and clips the two pads to my temples with the verbal plan inside of them. They sit there, sending signals to the nanobot in my head, coinciding with the headset I will be wearing. The pads tell the bot to use the biochip attached to it to send in the story. I will be given a shot to put me into forced sleep where I will hover in a state of semiconscious REM sleep. It is only attainable in this lab.
The biochip administers drugs to create the perfect environment for the mind run. The release of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, histamine, and serotonin is curbed while melatonin is used to induce the sleep.
The prefrontal cortex is inhibited, tripped by the biochip, and cortisol is added to the system, creating a slightly more stressful environment in the dream world. It’s why they use spies and military personnel to do the mind runs—we already have fight-or-flight mastered and this system tends to leave the dreamer feeling the pressure of fight or flight in their dreams.
Reason and logic flee while the body believes it is in REM sleep, but being in a semiconscious state, the mind is more susceptible to subliminal messaging and repetition.
Once REM sleep occurs and the story is linked through to the system, it starts to play over and over. Soft speech—repetition of names, dates, and places. Creating facts inside the sleeping person’s mind.
Then the mind runner is hooked up to the patient, added to the same information as the dreamer. I never actually enter his mind, but we play together as if it were a video game.
We live the same dream, so to speak.
Angie hooks me up, getting me ready in silence until the other techs leave the room. Then she whispers, “I gave Rory an injection which sent another bot into his brain, like we did on the last run. This one is meant to search and destroy his old bot.”
“What happened to the last bot you shot in there trying to kill his old bot?”
“We didn’t try to kill the last bot, just override it. But he was somehow able to refuse the override. So now the last bot is a dud, just floating about, unable to receive or send anything, and his original bot is still running the show.”
“How do you know this one will work?” I can’t help but be dubious.
“Took the engineers two days with an entire team working
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