system did not even recognize his signature of ACPC so he was not going to be admitted access anyway. She only acted as a safety precaution. He pulled out a device that would override the security system but he seemed unsure about using it, concerned about violating privacy rights by entering.
Another soldier saw him pacing nervously as if he was on lunch break then called him over. They met on the very edge of the camera’s view. All Maria could see was a disembodied elbow that hovered in the air but luckily there was audio.
“What are you doing just standing around?”
“I think I saw Maria enter that warehouse but I am not completely sure.”
“Then go check.”
“I don’t have a warrant to search for her.”
“These warehouses are government owned and you are not searching through personal items. You are looking for the girl. You don’t need a warrant.”
“Really?”
“Yeah now hurry we can’t let her escape.”
“I guess you are right.”
In a few seconds later they reappeared within range, approaching fast to confront her. She widened her senses to encompass the passing traffic then directed it in front of her warehouse then caused the auto-flyers to accelerate around the building, forming a barrier. They were forced to stop before the speeding craft as one called for backup.
More arrived within minutes, bringing cop cruisers in hopes of using their transmissions to stop the dangerous flow of auto-flyers but they had no lasting effect, since Maria kept scrambling their signals.
Desperate someone tried to contact her mind through her Artificial Cerebral Processing Chip. She listened to their thoughts, awaiting their surrender.
“You can’t keep this up forever.” were the thoughts that drifted into her head as she clutched Snickers tighter.
“Who are you to define my limitations?” Maria demanded then broke the connection without waiting for an answer.
A Byproduct of Science
Maria broadened her senses, adopting the cameras as her eyes. Her guard stood resolute, awaiting her command a few feet away. Snicker’s familiar softness was pressed against her skin.
The silence pressed in on her, filling her apprehensive mind as she scanned the visible area around her warehouse. The soldiers had long gone but she knew they would not leave unless they had a plan to capture her. She was sure that at least a few remained hidden, waiting for her to drop her guard or exit the secure warehouse. It was only a matter of time before they made their move. She needed to be prepared, though she was unsure how long she could keep this up. They were right after all she could not wait them out indefinitely.
It all seemed so hopeless that she became trapped in such a situation as this. She should be home with her new guardians. Her parents should still be alive. None of this should have ever happened.
She knew her oddness was not due to some genetic variation or she would have heard stories about her relatives possessing the same abilities. It could be related to the recent technology but surely one of her relatives would have noticed the effect before they died.
She was also aware that her father conducted some mysterious medical procedure on her so she would not be affected by her mother’s degenerative disease but he did not anticipate the odd side-effects. Even after extensively studying her condition extensive for several years, he could never figure it out. He died in ignorance, despite his genius IQ.
She is an unseen consequence of science that eludes human comprehension. She was a mistake that physics overlooked, an impossibility made possible. She shouldn’t exist yet she does despite all reason.
The cameras went blank as static filled her ears, causing her to wince. She detached her consciousness from the surveillance system when she heard the doors being forced open by mechanical means. She commanded her guard at her side with its gun raised, when Dr. Shaw and his team entered the warehouse.
“Put that down.” Dr. Shaw commanded when she noticed that one of them was carrying a portal force field. It seemed that they had no intention of being underprepared. She commanded her guard to lower its weapon as they neared. Her guard attempted to put up a fight but its systems were scrambled with an electrical device by one of the trained men.
Maria got up then backed away slowly as Dr. Shaw approached her, leaving the company of his team. Maria looked around, though kept her main focus on Dr. Shaw’s confident strides.
“So tell me how you can use your Artificial Cerebral Processing Chip to reprogram machines. I know you have to have the answer.”
“I don’t know because it can’t be known. My father has tried to figure that out for years and he never discovered the answer because there is no answer.”
“That is impossible there is always an answer. And I will find it even if I am forced to biopsy your brain.”
“I am not going to let you touch my brain!” Maria yelled as she attacked his mind without restraint.
He grew very still then dropped to the ground, his body assuming an unnatural position. His muscles tensed, his body rising up as if he had suddenly been possessed by a demon. His eyes rolled back, becoming featureless milky white orbs. Everyone cringed as a scream tore from his mouth that quickly filled with a frothy foam that eventually succeed in gagging him. His body grew limp once more as he sank back onto the floor where he laid perfectly still, even the slight periodical expansion of his chest was absent as he stared at the ceiling with smooth opal eyes that saw nothing.
The others gathered around him, one stooping beside his unmoving body as he checked his pulse. He glanced back at the others fearfully before all of their eyes slowly drifted back towards Maria.
Another man took out a scanner which he passed over Dr. Shaw’s body. His eyes seemed to attempt to pull free of their sockets as his eyelids pulled away as if they could not take in enough light to make sense of the readings.
“He died of a massive seizure that originated from his Artificial Cerebral Processing Chip and that spread throughout his entire brain even causing a debilitating wave of over excitation in many nuclei within his spinal cord. She did not only stop his heart. She destroyed nearly every neuron with his central nervous system.” he announce in disbelief.
“That is not possible.” Someone reminded him as Maria backed away, horrified.
“I didn’t mean to but he wanted to pick at my brain. He wanted to kill me!” she reminded them.
“You killed him!” someone yelled.
“I just want to go home so please just leave me alone.” Maria begged as someone picked up Dr. Shaw then carried him away, as if to protect him from further harm as the others glanced at the door fearing for their own safety. Maria turned to her disabled guard as it reactivated itself. It turned on the men with its gun raised.
“Get out!” she commanded as the men fearfully turned to each other before racing out the door, thinking of how she killed their leader with a mere glance. After they were out of sight, she buried her head in her hands as tears surfaced.
She shouldn’t be able to do the things that she could. She shouldn’t exist. She was a mistake, an unforeseen side-effect of advancement. She is the missing premise in a logical argument, the natural gap in reasoning. She was like a bacterium that grows more resistant to the efforts of science to eradicate it. She is a product of science’s restless pursuit of knowledge yet she was beyond human comprehension. She is a form of chaos that develops naturally from entropy, from a decaying world.
It seems that everything could never be known for science is simply the active pursuit of past information. Information that has already been eroded by time, scrambled by countless events, lost to the chaotic working of the universe. As limited beings there will come a day when information has become so unrecognizable that it will be rendered unreadable, a day when information will be forever lost, never to be known, dubbed with exclusive title of impossible. It seems that she has become a scientific impossibility.
All Possibilities, Considered
r /> Maria watched the men carry Dr. Shaw out of view. She was not naïve enough to believe that it was over. They would be back and next time they would not hesitate. She could not stay there. She had to do something.
She had to find somewhere else to hide but there did not seem to be anywhere on earth where she would not be found. She was even found on Mars, even the distant cosmos could not provide her with refuge. There was nowhere for her to go. There was nowhere she could call home.
If only this never happened, if only she could return to the past when she was happy. Then she remembered that she could go back in time, before her parents were born or auto-flyers were created or any of this ever happened. She could hide in the past. She just needed to get to the wormhole the historians use to gather information about the past then she could live with her great grandfather Rico Rivera, the only relative that she knew of in that time and whom she has never met. It would be odd but she wanted nothing more than to be with her family.
The idea seems odd though she knows it would be foolish to believe that she would change the future because it is common knowledge that there is only one timeline so the future has already been assured by the presence of the past events that have shaped it. If she chooses to hide in the past then it has already been done and the effects have already taken affect. Her future actions are set in stone and are no more subject to change than that of the