“Nah, let me use the bathroom first,” Maynard said.
“Funny.”
“I thought so.”
Karl glanced up at the large mirror in the room. He wondered how many of his peers were observing his every action from behind its one-way surface. He had been moved from his personal office to one of the theatre labs. As a scientist himself, he saw the importance of having several witnesses to his work. Still, he would be more comfortable with his own desk. His own chair. His own mirrorless walls.
Surely not every lab coat in the building was behind the mirror, but Karl knew most were. The mindshare process was the single most important project in the lab’s history. It would change everything about cybernetics. In fact, it would likely change everything about science itself.
He turned to the mirror while Maynard was preoccupied and waved.
“How’re you all holding up in there?” he asked, a friendly smile spread out under his nose.
There was no reply.
Odd, Karl mused. Someone’s usually quick to talk back. They must all be out on a coffee break.
There was a bit of quiet whistling deep in Karl’s brain while Maynard fiddled with the new program. Some might liken it to the sound of a dog whistle, but the psychologist wouldn’t compare it to any other experience he’d had. He waited for the I.I. to say something.
“Whoa,” Maynard said.
“What?” Karl asked without a shred of patience. “What is it?”
“It’s—it’s you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah,” Maynard replied. “You reek.”
“I—what?” Karl started to react. Then the full meaning of Maynard’s words hit him. “You can smell?”
“I can smell,” Maynard said. “I was hoping my first whiff would be of flowers, but I guess I’ll settle for body odor.”
Karl ignored the insults and threw his hands up in jubilation.
“It worked!” he cheered. “We have a new sense!”
“Hooray,” Maynard said with sarcastic enthusiasm. Though he tried to hide it, Karl could sense a bit of genuine joy. “Bring me around a barbeque if you really want me to get excited.”
Karl examined the clock on his cerebral computer.
“We finished a full four hours ahead of schedule!” he cried out. “See what can be accomplished when we cooperate?”
“Does that mean we get to take a break?”
“Aww, what, you’re already tired?” Karl teased.
“You want to keep going?”
“Come on, if we power through we could have the framework for taste established.”
“God, you’re relentless.”
Before Karl changed his focus to a new sense, he started to back up several copies of his successful smell program. With just a simple mental command, it was sent over to his head of programming for debugging. Karl felt confident that few, if any, issues would be found.
The psychologist stood up to stretch his back, reaching up for the empty pockets of air above his head.
At that moment, a deafening boom erupted and drowned out every other sound in Karl’s ears.
The Lab
Ringing stole Karl’s hearing. The blaring shriek inside his ear brought a splitting sensation through the rest of his brain. It took him more than a minute before he could open his eyes, and when he did, the lights in the ceiling seared his corneas. Everything swirled around him in a sequence of images rather than fluid motion. From all the squealing and buzzing, Karl could make out only one noise: Maynard’s voice.
“What the hell is going on!?” the I.I. screamed in his head.
Karl had no answers for him. Even if he had, he had lost all ability to be able to communicate them. His tongue felt loose and disconnected, like a piece of tape that had lost its adhesion. His head was pulsing and felt like it might rip apart like wet bread.
Once the ringing started to recede, Karl could make out other sounds. A bit more distant, muffled through the walls of his office. People were shouting. Some sounded angry, but most sounded afraid. A few even screamed.
There were thuds banging along the hallway outside as people tossed furniture and each other out of their escape paths.
The sound of a gunshot ripped through the tense atmosphere.
The pace of the unseen stampede hastened, and the panicked yells transitioned into shrieks of terror.
Without thinking, Karl dropped to his knees and froze. There were no windows to watch from, but even if there were he wouldn’t dare look out them. Instead he focused his stare on the threads of his carpet, unable to do anything more than listen.
“Who is shooting!?” Maynard shouted.
I don’t know, Karl thought. His breath was too icy to speak.
“Why are they shooting?!”
I DON’T KNOW!
Another shot rang out, then another. A soft thump hit the corridor floor.
What do we do? Karl asked. What do I do?!
“You’ve got to hide,” Maynard replied in a firm tone.
Where?
“Anywhere.”
Karl lifted his head as high as he was willing to, which wasn’t more than an inch or two. Using his peripheral, he located his desk and crawled with intense care toward it. Every now and then, he could hear the pop of a gun discharging, usually somewhere in the distance.
Maynard remained silent while Karl moved, not inclined to break his host’s concentration. With a shaky hand, the psychologist shoved the office chair out of its cubby and crawled under his desk.
His respiration was labored, and his heart seemed to have difficulty keeping tempo. The blood pounded in his temples until he was sure the vessels would pop. At least then he wouldn’t need to worry about whoever was shooting.
“What do I do?” Karl asked aloud in a soft, trembling voice. His thoughts were too crowded to speak to Maynard with any degree of intelligibility.
“Stay down,” the I.I. urged him.
Karl had no arguments. In fact, he wasn’t sure his legs could move him any more than they had. All his extremities were having their own panic attacks.
He jolted when the sound of crashing glass shook through the walls. More screams. More gunshots.
Time was stretched and twisted until Karl could make no sense of it. It felt like a week had passed, though it had been less than thirty seconds. Every heartbeat felt like
