NEURA

Love is love

It was a day like no other for Will Stuart, and the importance of it surprisingly didn’t add gravitas to the moment. Instead Will bounded with extra energy. He had long hoped to be in the position that he was now in and after some false starts he was finally here. Finally sure. “She’s the one”, he thought to himself. It was a matter of fact declaration. Sure he would shout it from the hills but for him it was the simple truth. As he primped in his bathroom mirror he went over his game plan for the night. He was meeting Yvette for dinner at Frenchette in Tribeca, which had become their spot. The staff had been alerted to his plan and he felt relaxed and assured of himself.

He grinned as he remembered the first time that they met. He loved her gentle smile and carefree laugh. Her perfect bronze skin was soft and supple as he caressed her arm. That unwavering and probing gaze. He felt an immediate draw to her, and he was beside himself when he realized that the attraction was mutual. They clicked well and the convo was smooth and flowing. Yet despite all of that Will had to suppress what had become his default action of sabotaging his relationships. But his resolve kicked into overdrive as they spent more time together. He reminded himself to not fuck it up as often as one would self-prompt to straighten their shoulders. His corrective efforts paid off. They quickly fell in love and in short manner had created mutual memories that would become reminisces in those calm, silent moments.

Will gave Yvette a quick call as he bounded out of his apartment.

“Hey babe, I’m on my way.”

“Hi love, I’m almost there. I’ll see you soon.”, she responded.

Will hailed a cab and got in for the relatively short drive to the restaurant. He fumbled with the ring box in his jacket. Tasteful bling. “She should like it”, he thought. He had the window cracked in the cab and he gazed up at the city skyline. New York City felt grown up in the early fall, especially in the evening. And that was perfect since Will was about to do the most grown up of things. He wasn’t even worried about her saying no. She had said yes so many times with her words and actions. Tonight was a confirmation of their love. A validation of their bond.

It was great that their families had meshed so well. You’d think that there would be more conflict what with his working class background and her more elite, educated roots. But her parents and her brother Aeryn loved him. “Moms always love me.”, Will thought. And that was great, because the feeling was hella mutual. He had done the traditional and a little bit archaic thing and had asked her dad for her hand in marriage. The elder Williams caught him off guard with a wordless hug that was tight and lingered a little awkwardly in the manner that only a genuine moment can convey. Right then and there Will knew he had made the correct decision.

As the cab pulled up to the restaurant, Will glanced at his watch. He could already see Yvette sitting at their favourite table on the patio. Will paid the fare and stepped out of the cab, straightening his jacket as he took in her smile, her effortless beauty, her essence. He was enraptured with her, so much so that he barely heard the screech of the delivery truck as its too tired and somewhat drunk driver veered into him with deadly finality.

A new life with Yvette was over before it had begun.

The ring and Will Stuart were no more.

Theoretically speaking

“Would you want to know? Should anyone know? If life is about discovery then we should reject this concept. But if life is about discovery, we need to know.” — Aeryn Williams, neuroscientist

It wasn’t often that one could catch Aeryn Williams off guard, but this appeared to be one of those rare moments. The good doctor had carved out his own professional niche in academia as an expert of some renown in neuroscience. He was finally on the tenure track at Princeton, teaching while also running a lab that focused on molecular analysis. His relatively high profile had some perks: media interviews and a big research budget were among them. But he had one itch that he couldn’t scratch. One unattainable goal that he had yet to reach. Aeryn wanted to answer a question that had seldom been directly asked. But it was a question that was still fundamental to the human condition.

Are we good or are we evil?

It was a loaded query fraught with interpretation. It depended on morality. Ethics. Throw in spirituality. Situational aspects. Such a simple posit with only complicated answers.

It had remained a secret question too. Aeryn wasn’t ready to have his findings peer reviewed just yet, in fact he was engaging in what he called parallel research on the subject matter. All of his public work had a bit of his ulterior motive in it. He was intent on taking a piece here and a revelation there to see if they could all fit together and make sense.

He knew that a traumatic event or enlightened epiphany could alter a person’s path, he had seen that in Yvette, withdrawn even now, years later after the death of Will. He despised the driver who had been at fault and felt a hollow joy when he was sentenced but was that man evil? Even if his act could be considered as such? How do you measure such a thing?

Aeryn unclenched his jaw as he exhaled the memory from his mind. He had to maintain a clinical approach if he were to find the answer. His research had led him to explore the frontal lobes of the cerebrum, which control personality, decision-making and reasoning. Of particular interest to Aeryn were the so-called “newborn neurons”, which human brain stem cells constantly create throughout a person’s lifespan. The prevailing thought was that they had an effect on mental illness. He felt that there could be a correlation between their growth paths and how humans adopt personality traits. Traits that could be generally classified as positive or negative. By mapping these neural networks Aeryn hoped to find a way to precisely identify their origins.

Aeryn walked in the doors of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, a gleaming building on campus that still had that new car smell almost a decade after it had been officially opened. Today he would be spending time in the neuroimaging facility with postdoc student Kay Ellis. She was in on his research ruse and had a knack of filling in any gaps that he had in his analysis.

“Hey Kay.”, he said as he entered the lab. “How are the results of the latest fMRI scans?”

They were using functional magnetic resonance imaging to map the neural response of subjects as they were exposed to positive and negative imagery. The algorithmic software that they ran the results through would catalog them as “good” or “bad” based on the criteria that they had laid out.

“Hey Doc Aeryn. We had some irregular readings that don’t correlate with previous data patterns. I’m wondering if there was an error in the last control group. We can always…”

“Hold that thought.”, Aeryn interrupted. “Show me the anomalies.”

“Ok. Sure thing.” Kay swivelled back towards her laptop, and scrolled through the data on her screen. “You see right here, check out the physiology of these dendrites from the first subject group.” Aeryn leaned in and pursed his lips. “Length, width and structure are all the same. How is that possible? What about the axon terminals?”

Kay clicked on that program tab. “They match up. In all cases. So the data that’s input…”

“…will have a predictable output.”, Aeryn replied. “That’s it. I mean, it’s not that we are born good or evil, it’s that life shapes us. And now we can conceivably predict, direct and edit that path.”

Kay whistled long and low. This moment was more profound than both of them could grasp.

In practice

They had adopted midnight camo as their default uniform. It made sense since they mainly operated under the cloak of darkness. They were a small but tight knit group that knew and trusted each other.

They moved fluidly, almost as one organism. They had a quiet efficiency that downplayed the lethality bubbling just below the surface. The unit itself had no name, at least nothing that couldn’t be denied or disavowed. But essentially they were black-ops. Wet works. Not the ones that you wanted to see coming towards you. Not that you’d actually know anyways. They were the Unseen.

Eduardo Ortiz wasn’t aware of them. He didn’t have to be. He paid good money for intelligence and the security team that kept him alive and well. His detail was the best and they handled every situation with ease. Ortiz occupied that rarefied air of the connected person that knew everyone but who no one truly knew. Few had direct access to him and fewer still even knew of his hand in everything. Life after state politics had been kind and why not? The above board and grey area deals and relationships had rewarded him with power and money. But he had found that the real wealth was in what he called “high level vice”. Drugs. Guns. Corporate and political espionage. It was dangerous, as such things tend to be, but Eduardo Ortiz floated far above the worrisome fray. It was impossible for him to be in his business and not make enemies. He placated the most powerful of them with money but the alliances were always tenuous. Violent murder kept the rival lackeys in line but it was always an uneasy dance. But he was untouchable.

Until he wasn’t.

Ortiz’ vanity became his ultimate undoing. An unnecessary home reno was the perfect cover to insert a two man team to plant the custom pressure plate IED that was remote activated to ensure target accuracy. Ortiz had gone into the master bathroom to admire the design that was coming together nicely. He was preening in the ornately framed mirror when the green light was given. Had the structure of the house stayed together his bloody viscera would’ve been painted all over the new tile work. As it stood the message was sent. This particular illicit pipeline was irrevocably changed.

Report

The thing about soldiers is that they are predictable and easy to control. All you needed to do is convince them of the validity of their mission. And the more specialized the unit, the more amenable that they are to embracing anything that makes that mission success an outright inevitability. With the God Node you only had to get their buy-in once. The research team had been able to streamline the original design to make it appear similar to a cochlear implant. The device’s neural map rested directly against the skull. The input node was visible and relayed the coded bioelectric pulse that “flipped the switch” in the subject group. After it was implanted and activated the volunteer was in the control of higher ups. But they didn’t function as walking zombies. What was strengthened was their natural resolve. What was lost was their moral and ethical inhibitions. No hesitation. No questioning the mission. No PTSD afterwards. Just matter of fact task execution. Violence when required without pesky ethics gumming it all up.

Dr. Williams scrunched up his nose as he looked at the biometric readout after the latest debriefing.

“Two unit members had elevated endorphin levels. How do we account for that?”

“Their BP and brain wave activity were within range, I think they just take pleasure in their work.”, replied Jones, the intake specialist.

“Acceptable.”, answered Dr. Williams. He turned his attention to the remote subject feed of the mission. He noted how the clean brutality of the Unseen’s actions barely made him flinch anymore. He almost felt like an elite soldier himself. In a way that made sense since he was the de facto head of the unit. Sure he had military masters but no one could do what he did. No one truly understood how his discovery had shifted humanity forever. It was a sober and sombre talent, being able to control such diametrically opposed forces of good and evil, but Dr. Williams himself felt neither. He was apathetic to it all. And that made him more dangerous than anyone else.

With purpose

Kay Ellis-Stanton was nervous. She knew more than she should know. Although she had extricated herself from Aeryn’s project years ago she was hearing the rumours and seeing what for her were the tell-tale signs that he had actually gone forward with their discovery. The unexplained but murderous events were piling up. They all had no witnesses, no signs of perpetrators, no usable evidence. These were the hallmarks of what she and Aeryn had discussed and debated fiercely in their many lab sessions. It was the reason she had left. She saw the God Node as something that had therapeutic value, a device to be used to balance out and temper psychotic tendencies and other mental illnesses in patients. She was distraught that Aeryn had given in to his latent rage to turn the God Node into a destructive catalyst. But she wasn’t surprised, he HAD christened the discovery as the “God Node” after all. What bloody hubris. That being said, Kay’s new purpose was to use her knowledge to thwart Aeryn at his own game. She had begun to assemble a shadow lab that was built to replicate their earlier work. But she had no intention of creating her own army. She was going to make the kill switch.

Kay had to keep things low key to stay off Aeryn’s radar. The last thing that she wanted was for her or her small team to become their next target. She had long ago changed her research focus to something barely on his periphery. She had no delusions about what would probably happen though. She knew that if her postulations rang true that she would have to eventually get back into Aeryn’s orbit. At that point in time a decision would have to be made. Lives would need to be lost to save even more. What Kay anguished over is whether that sacrifice would involve herself or Aeryn.

“When the time comes…”, Kay said to herself, letting her words trail off into nothingness. The gravity of the conflict to come was heavy. But like Aeryn, Kay would do whatever it took to achieve her goal. Humanity’s goal. There could be no other outcome.

Kay Ellis-Stanton was ready.