Foot fell over my foot as I crept forward. I paused as the silence reverberated in my ears. A faint, growing thud-
He came up on me from the right. The air vibrated as the Courser tried to slam his elbow against me. I leaned back as I maneuvered out of his reach. This had to be the hundredth time we had repeated this conflict, but this time like the last few, I was quick enough to grab him.
There was a loud snap as I broke his arm back and in half. Normally cool, composed, and icy, the Courser let out a shriek. I went in for the kill blow, fingers wrapped around the throat when the lights turned on in unison and a piercing noise made my muscles go numb.
"That is enough. Fall back, 09." Father spoke into the intercom. I already had taken several steps away as two Coursers marched in to take the other away. They hardly glanced my way as they helped their injured comrade. They hardly looked at me at all.
Up above on the platform, Father and the rest of the scientists and technicians were gathered in a circle as they talked. As usual, Father looked stoic as his counterparts were arguing animatedly amongst themselves. They wanted privacy but I could understand everything they were saying.
"She's still too emotional, we all saw how eagerly she went in for the kill."
"That is what we want, an effective, efficient, Courser that can not be noticed on the surface. She has begun to outpace the Synth Coursers faster than we had predicted-"
"There was no emotion, no hesitation, she was simply performing her job. The program is running effectively-"
"We must run further diagnostics to determine her readiness for a field operation. There are too many risk factors at play at the moment-"
Father turned his head, noticed I was watching, and held up his hand. Immediately, they all went silent and turned to look at me in unison.
The whole room, their eyes on me.
Everything was white here. Shades of it. The occasional pop of color was ugly and garish, too bright in contrast to the muted tones.
I was laying on my back against the cold steel. The cold, filtered air rose goosebumps on my bare flesh that was being poked and prodded by numerous machines I could not identify. I was staring up at the ceiling, shifting through different modes of vision. Fields of heat through infrared to a slightly scattered, web vision of all the different wires running through the walls.
Focus, and I could hear the heartbeat of the people in the room above, three of them, relaxed.
"The other Coursers do not like me." I said as Father carefully recorded the numbers on the screen into his notes. What he was looking at, I had no idea. It tired me slightly as my head began to whirl, had already started to decipher it without me thinking too hard about it.
"The Coursers can not feel anything like you are describing. I will adjust the receptors, those types of observations are left over chemicals still acting by nature. Those feelings will go away." He said over his shoulder, still engrossed in his work. He spoke as if I should be thankful to be rid of the insecure thoughts that plagued me.
"Was I very emotional before?" I asked after a brief pause of silence. Father looked up at me now, his brow furrowed together in deep thought. His heart rate remained steady, then he furiously scribbled in his notes.
"I don't know, it does not matter. Only concern yourself with what is happening now." He said and began to enter long lines of code into the computer station next to us. The machines whirled into action, and I felt a painful prick at the base of my neck. Pupils dilated then retracted as I felt a numb, paralyzing sensation overcome me. Father just stared down at me with an unsettling smile on his face, hands folded behind his back.
This was one of the few times I could get to be unthinking, undoing, the closest to unconscious I could get. I was beginning to learn that some things were better kept to myself.