Perox Life Labs
Gates Lolich, a regulatory compliance specialist employed by the Syncline Group yet covertly serving the interests of Orion Dynamics, held his fork. His typical human intellect registered a shade above the median, a subtle distinction that translated into chronic low confidence and a pervasive inability to steer conversations. Beneath his awareness throbbed the regular memory nexus convolution, one that accused lolich of often coming across as erratic, his arguments lacking persuasive force, a sporadic mental tempo always one beat off the collective rhythm.
He ate a cube of high-fidelity, highly technical nutrient gel. Its ersatz strawberry flavor was rendered with luminous intensity on his tongue. The meal provided 2.4×103 joules of energy. Lolich, possessing skin as transluscent and thin as freshly shucked, uncooked shrimp cuticle, observed a momentary capillary dilation beneath the surface of his forearm. A speck of dust, ∼5μm in diameter, settled onto the crystal surface of his tray.
The Symbiont spoke in Lolich’s temporal lobe. “Syncline design included this expected flaw, the Symbiont affirmed. Observe the remote node ping latency this morning; the increase was eighteen milliseconds. Lolich, your evaluation stands, the Symbiont thought, its tone professional. Your payload delivery requires steady hands,” it said airily.
Lolich desired to present the facts to Director Krell. A direct delivery of the cost-benefit analysis appeared the best approach. The Orion contract provided improved throughput. Operating cost decreased by ten percent. These figures showed a clear advantage, he thought timorously.
The Symbiont once more cut through the thought like light through congested air. “Alpha field projection required attention, Lolich. Your unsteady eye movement gave away your stress. Direct your focus away from Krell. The R-117 event demands immediate attention,” it said.
Below, several thousand feet distant, the urban sprawl was compressed into a mosaic. He focused his clairvoyant attention. The “grazing field,” the public-access green space adjacent to the Syncline Group’s primary data center, appeared slightly blurred, a necessary compromise of resolution at this vertical distance.
He raised a hand to his face. A brief, inexplicable static discharge, measured at 3kV, dissipated across the microscopic ridges of his index finger before he inserted the digit into his left nostril. He extracted a minute, viscous filament. The gel cube’s ersatz sweetness intensified as his eyes locked onto a single pedestrian in the field below, walking at a steady 1.4m/s. A silver ring on the pedestrian’s left hand briefly caught the low-angle morning sunlight, reflecting a luminous point of light that momentarily caused a 300mV spike in the retinal cells of Lolich’s right eye.
A common micro-seismic shift, R−117 is irrelevant, the Symbiont calculated. The pedestrian’s rig is iridium-plated. Focus on the fiber optic conduit near Sector 4. I sense a shunt installed last night. Confirm the IP address accessing the L−4 server.
The L−4 server... That’s the one storing the proprietary bio-metric scans for the senior executives. If Orion gets those... The clairvoyance shows a brief green flare near the conduit. Yes. A tap. Lolich thought, a wave of familiar anxiety gripping him
A faint, high-pitched whirring sound emanated from the ceiling ventilation grate, a noise outside the typical acoustic spectrum for the system. Lolich noted the sound lasted for 450ms. The air’s relative humidity in the room increased from 42.0% to 42.1% during this interval. He swallowed the last fragment of the gel. The translucent sheen of his skin briefly pulsed a pale pink, a physiological event unaccompanied by any change in his internal thermoregulatory metrics.