After Image
Chapter 16

After finally being able to shower - even if she was watched the entire time by a female guard - and dressing in relatively normal clothing - jeans and a T-shirt - Viola found herself sitting nervously in a strange chair. It was actually quite comfortable for a chair that had her arms locked in restraints. Her right hand was outstretched and face down on a conductive surface that was attached to a table also made of conductive material. She found it really ingenious. They would be able to get her to Image the desired item onto the table and the quantum energy to pull it into reality would travel through the conductive surfaces where it would pop into existence. This way even if she Imaged something that could help her escape it would be too far for her to reach even if she managed to break out of the tight restraints clamped around her wrists.

Scientists hovered around like flies. They all had tablet computers and were calibrating various machines that were in the room. Unlike the white sterility of the room she was confined to, this room was instead made of grey and black components jutting out from every direction and was less a box and more circular. Various lights around the room blinked on and off, blue, white, green and red and were the only source of light in the room aside from the glowing tablet screens and one overhead lamp buried into the circuitry overhead. Am I actually inside of the quantum computer? It felt as if she was in the heart of a machine. She wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

She pulled against her restraints just to make sure they were working. She would feel foolish if she hadn’t been restrained at all and instead just assumed she was and didn’t take the chance to escape. As she was doing this, she saw one of the scientists looking over his glasses at her. When he saw she was looking at him he spoke, “We are going to initialize the quantum chip in your brain now. It might feel a little strange at first.”

His words were suddenly lost as a new information stream mixed in with the synapses of her brain. Suddenly overwhelmed, her brain shut down all the other stimuli feeds to focus on analyzing the new one and Viola was plunged into sensory depravation. The world went black, she felt suddenly like she was floating as her kinesthesia stopped feeding her information about her body; she couldn’t taste, smell or hear. She felt like she was holding her breath, but even then she couldn’t really feel anything at all. Had she not been able to think, might feel a little strange? she might have thought she had died, the chip in her mind overloading her brain and killing her instantly. She had no concept of how long this deprivation lasted, but slowly her brain began to adjust to the connection of the quantum chip. Unable to properly interpret the information being streamed into the chip, she started suddenly seeing bits of sparkly colours floating in the darkness before her. She also began hearing a mix of random audio sounds, smelling strange things, and tasting acrid and bitter tastes in her mouth. Unable to move or change what was happening, she tried instead to focus on the least pleasant of the sensations which was in fact the random sparkling colours that were in her vision. Her brain took this as the most likely proper feed from the bunch and as if a switch had been clicked on, her brain thought, oh that’s what it is, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by the site of hundreds of browser windows. The most prominent ones were that of her vitals, a 3D model of her brain with patches of colours displayed on it as portions of her mind became active and dormant, and a strange feed of numbers that looked vaguely like coordinates. And as quickly as she saw that she felt herself exhale and became aware of her body once again. She realized that her eyes were open and that there was a scientist hovering over her shining a light into her eyes to see her pupil response. When he saw the sudden dilation of her pupil in response to the light he pulled it back and slid Viola’s glasses back onto her face.

“Viola, can you hear me?” he asked.

“What on God’s green earth was that?” She yelled at him, struggling against the restraints holding her down.

“That was your quantum chip synchronizing with the quantum computer. Everything seems to be up and running now. Your vitals look good,” he replied.

Viola decided against telling him that for a moment she had seen absolutely everything that was running on the computer as interpreted by her brain and instead said, “It would be nice to know the names of the people I am forced to work with.”

The three scientists in the room looked up at her comment. The female, the one that Viola believed was holding the tablet that had the strange coordinates on it, was the first to respond. “I am Dr. Holman.” She pointed to the doctor nearest to her next. “That is Dr. Ludlow, and the man that shone the light in your eyes is Dr. Pfister.” After the introductions she went back to working on her tablet. At least she acknowledged that I am a living conscious person. Viola was determined to remind them at every opportunity that they were dealing with an intelligent human and not a lab rat.

“Today’s experimentation is going to be shorter than regularly scheduled due to your recent surgery and lack of oral intake,” Dr. Ludlow said and moved towards the conductive table. Viola had an image flash through her head of the doctor putting his hands on the table and her using the quantum energy to electrocute him. It was a satisfying if not disturbing image. She didn’t usually have such violent thoughts towards people. Then again, she was not exactly used to being treated like a thing instead of a person.

“I am going to describe to you an object and you will be required to Image that object on the table,” Dr. Pfister said, pointing to the table that Dr. Ludlow was standing by.

“Alright,” Viola said. She could already feel the tingle in the tips of her fingers as her mind anticipated what she was going to do. She had been getting tired of air writing to keep her quantum energy level down and was actually starting to think she was developing carpal tunnel in her right wrist from the repetitive strain it caused.

“Use terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol to make a polymer base -” Dr. Pfister started.

Viola started laughing and Dr. Pfister looked at her, clearly not amused.

“Terephthalic acid, ethylene glycol, polymer, wait, polymer is plastic right?” Viola said through her giggling fit.

“If you are not going to take this seriously there will be repercussions,” Dr. Pfister replied.

“Sorry,” Viola replied and stopped giggling, trying to put on her most serious face which lasted for a few seconds and then she cracked into a wide grin. “Let me tell you how this works, Dr. Pfister, because the way you are trying this, I am never going to Image what you want.”

“Excuse me?” Dr. Pfister asked. Viola was suddenly reminded of a gorilla puffing up his chest to beat on it as Dr. Pfister stood taller as Viola questioned his methods. She could almost read what he was thinking, what does this stupid girl who doesn’t even have a science degree know about what we are trying to do?

“Well it’s just that I am not actually creating the object from scratch, I’m pulling it from another universe,” Viola said, sounding as condescending as she could.

Dr. Pfister flared his nostrils. “I understand that.”

“Okay. What you don’t seem to understand is how my mind works, which is the tool we are trying to use to pull said object from another universe.”

“The scientific data that we have collected about what you do suggests that you need to ‘imagine’ the object in your mind and that triggers the quantum energy in your brain to pull the replica of that object into this world.”

“A+!” Viola replied. She heard Dr. Ludlow and Dr. Holman trying to suppress their chuckling as Dr. Pfister glared in their direction.

“I am trying to supply accurate information so that you can correctly Image the object,” Dr. Pfister replied.

“As lovely as a scientific mind is, with all its perfect accuracy down to the smallest molecule of data, and although I do have that same capacity within me, it’s not the science part of my brain that is pulling Images.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Dr. Pfister asked.

“How do I explain this? Say you have this person that is an extremely amazing archer, they hit the target every time even when they aren’t looking at it. You would make the assumption that this person knows absolutely everything they could replace out about their craft, right?”

“That would be an accurate assessment,” Dr. Pfister said.

“Now that same person who can hit any target has a visor and it is telling him everything from wind speed, to distance to the target, the density of said target, etc. He tries to shoot the arrow using all this information he is provided with and completely misses the target, doesn’t even come close. What happened to the amazing archer?”

“I would say that he was bogged down with too much information,” Dr. Pfister replied.

“You got it in one!” Viola replied sarcastically. She could see that Dr. Pfister was almost to his breaking point concerning the way Viola was talking to him. She didn’t care. “Well, I am that archer. I am amazingly good at pulling Images into this world from other universes, but if you give me too much information, too much detail, I can’t pull it here, I can’t even imagine it in my head. Imaging accesses the creative part of my brain, not the logical scientific part. For me it’s more an instinctual thing. I understand that with this lovely quantum chip that you have put in my head you can gain more accurate information about how I do what I do, but if you bog me down with that information nothing is ever going to happen. Do you understand me?”

“Make a red rubber ball,” Dr. Ludlow said in reply before the very flustered and angry Dr. Pfister had a chance to reply.

Viola responded by making a red rubber ball on the table and felt the energy transfer as it formed on the conductive table surface.

“Do you understand, Dr. Pfister?” Viola asked once again.

“Yes, Viola, I understand,” Dr. Pfister said with a malicious smile on his face. Viola had the sudden feeling that her little game may not have been such a good idea after all.

Viola spent another half an hour Imaging simple objects for the doctors and was sent back to her room. Before her escort left, she asked to see Will again. She was surprised when they complied and Will showed up in her room an hour later.

Viola began to talk before Will could say anything. “Look, it should be obvious to you that I will cooperate while you hold Eli, but you should understand that I would cooperate fully and without reluctance if you let him go. You’ve demonstrated that my family is not beyond your reach, you don’t need to keep one of them captive to prove that. Could you please let him go?” Viola asked.

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Will replied.

“When he is free, will you please show me?” Viola prompted.

“Of course, Viola,” Will said.

“Thank you.” She paused and hesitantly asked her next question. “As I am going to be a permanent resident in this room, I was wondering if I would be allowed to make it more homey. Like my own choice of clothes and maybe my mp3 player and some books that are actually interesting.” She pointed to the shelf which they had stocked with books that she thought must have been quickly collected without thought to content. Most of them were really old fiction books that were not appealing in the least.

“It will take some time for us to collect your requested items,” Will responded.

“If you would allow me a reprieve from this glove, I could save you the trouble and just Image what I want. You could go through whatever I Image and make sure I didn’t pull anything dangerous. I’m sure you are capable of stopping me before I pull an Image that looks dangerous. You can, after all, see the object I am about to Image before I pull it into this reality.”

Will held his hand to his ear and nodded in response to the instructions that he received. He pulled out his side arm and held it towards Viola and she felt the lock on the bracelet holding the glove onto her arm release. She pulled it off and looked at Will who still had his gun trained on her.

“Would you really shoot me?” Viola asked; she was completely shaken at having a weapon pointed at her.

“It’s a tranquilizer gun. I’m under orders to shoot you if you deviate from our arranged plan,” Will replied.

“You sound like a robot,” Viola replied and began Imaging. She started with an array of clothes, then books, and finally she Imaged her Galaxy phone. She thought for sure that Will was going to pluck the phone from her fingers and was a little surprised when he made no move towards it. She pushed the button on the side and unlocked the phone. She understood their lack of interest in her phone right away as she realized that there was no signal or Wi-Fi accessible in her cell. She clicked the phone off and put the glove back on her hand, clicking the lock back into place. Will immediately dropped his weapon and turned to leave.

“Thank you,” Viola responded before he left. Will turned and looked at her with a puzzled expression.

“Why are you thanking me?” Will asked.

“Well, you have complete power over me. I’m thanking you for the slight bit of freedom that you have allowed me.”

Will turned back to leave, hiding the smile that he had on his face. Viola kept astounding him. Who else would act like her in the situation she was in? He knew that had he been her, things would have progressed in a completely different fashion. He left her alone in her prison, closing the door firmly behind him. He kept replaying her words to him on the airplane: I feel that this power was given to me to help everyone, not just the richest and most powerful. I would gladly give all my powers to helping the entire population of earth. Think what I could do for third world countries? Bring them food, clean water, clothes, shelter, medicine. I want desperately to help every single human being on this planet. Can you say the same for your government? Can you really truly think that they have the best interests of every human in the world in mind?

What was his answer? He had never met anyone that thought like Viola. No allegiance to country, yet not a danger to anyone because she was thinking not of the good she could do for herself, she instead thought on a global scale. Could he believe her words? Could he believe that someone would actually have the power to help the world and not be corrupted by it? Could this power have actually been given to a person in the world that would use it as a force for good? The chances of that were so unlikely, but here she was, Viola, insanely smart and logical and so kind, even to her captors. How could a woman like her exist? Who apologizes and thanks the people who have imprisoned them?

He walked away from her thinking about the kiss that he had given to her. There had been no reason for him to do that. They already had plans to take her in to custody, so why had he done the one thing that she had told him she never wanted him to do? It had been her describing the rain, something he hated, and in one small moment, one small descriptive speech, she had made him long for and love something he had hated his whole life. He had not only seen her love of the rain in his head, he had felt it, as if she had injected each word she spoke with every ounce of emotion she felt in her body. He felt like that every time she spoke. She had passion dripping from her very being that was just bursting to break free. Her words were a balm, a salve in this cruel world. He had kissed her for her passion. He had kissed her for making him love something that he had hated. He kissed her because he was falling in love with her and every moment that he spent with her was another moment he fell deeper and deeper into her passionate world. He should leave; go back home and never think about her again. She was government property now. But he couldn’t leave, not now. He somehow needed to keep that brilliance that she exuded alive, despite her captivity. He couldn’t bear to leave her here alone to suffocate in this cage and stifle the amazing mind she had.

His mind was wrought with conflict as he sat listening to Mrs. Ironside and the rest of her team talk about Viola’s future. He suddenly felt as trapped in his situation as he imaged Viola felt in hers. How could a few moments with one woman change him so completely?