Chapter 10: Experiments

"There." Jeeves pointed out a distinct angular wave in the black and green screen of the oscilloscope reminiscent of an earthquake mark in a seismograph, "See the power spike I've been talking about on the phone?"

The research room was still shrouded with cigarette smoke as it was the day before. Lights have been cut down save for the raster-induced light from the monitors and various light indicators of machines found around the room. Two men sat at one corner of the room staring at what seemed to them as an unfolding miracle to their bleak situation.

The glow from the dark green waves of the device and a disinterested grimace made Chris's face orcish. He smiled and said, "This one happened just this morning?"

"Yes," replied Jeeves while tuning one of the various knobs on the tool with one hand and clutching his labgown with the other, "The last time this happened was last night, just after she disappeared. The power consumption value of my computer fell for the rest of the night but became normal after daylight. Then just now, it spiked again and tapered off."

Both men stared at the monitor as though they were just reading morning news. Chris eventually smiled, "You were saying over the phone that the power consumption of this computer is relative to the power intrinsic activities of our subject right? Spikes like this can only mean..."

"Usage of force of the LAZAR core inside her body - equating to both her strength and consciousness."

"Interesting. Most interesting. Now we can monitor her power usages and consciousness through this device."

"I think I get where you're going. I was thinking though, too much power in this machine can make our subject too... superhuman. It sounds dangerous having her go wandering without monitoring though. Do I shut it off?"

Chris paused for quite a while, thought immersed with the dancing of accumulated smoke in the basement laboratory. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, "No - I want to wait till we see the project again. This project is seeing second light. Think of this as field testing. Just make sure the power of this machine is restricted, Jeeves."

The other man almost laughed. "You have to be kidding me. We aren't even sure that she's really around. And we don't even know the face that was behind the cerebral modulation mask when she was still in the tank. How do we know that it's her even if we do find her outside this laboratory?"

Jeeve's superior leaned back from the computer table. He picked up a montblanc roller pen and pretended to be in a mock swordfight with an invisible foe. "The true nature of LAZARUS is not humanitarian research. Our primary sponsor next to the Brothers is the military. She has a personality override chip located at the base of her spine between her neck and back that gives her some sort of combat mode as specifically requested by the bigwigs at Bonfacio. That's one of the confidential details of this project."

"Combat Personality override chip? What's that? Like a kill mode or something? Are you saying we just let loose a superhuman killer in a densely populated campus?" Jeeves stood up and slammed his hands on the table. "Why the hell did you keep these things from me Chris?"

"Slow down, dragonslayer. She is programmed to disable any opponents, not kill. Like I said, field testing. We'll know her by the wave of destruction she'll be creating," Chris replied with a confident tone.

Jeeves didn't reply but instead stood up and removed his labcoat, exposing maroon longsleeves with oversized collars and flaunted cuffs from the hippie era. "Where do you think you're going, Jeeves?" asked Chris.

"I'm going outside. Who knows, I might even run across her."

That said, the young researcher left the room, leaving Chris resting his chin between the knuckles of his fists, arms arched on the computer table. "Be careful what you wish for."