Lambent Laboratories, Cell 3,

Africa Dome

Peppermint craned her neck. Who was it? Jasper disappeared, held a brief, hushed conversation with the newcomer and reappeared holding a cap. Its entire circumference was studded with clusters of white dots connected by thin, pale circuits. Peppermint's eyes widened as she stared at it.

Stepping forward, Jasper gave her a curt smile. He slipped the cap over her head with a practised gesture, gently brushing away her hair. The scrape on her palm throbbed as his fingers touched her. Peppermint squirmed. Her heart clenched in her chest. The weird was overwhelming her.

"What's this?" she whispered.

Intent on his task, Jasper didn't answer. Paranoia surged through her. Her mind flooded with irrational thoughts, fuelling a fluttering anxiety.

Was something wrong with her brain? Was that what the cap was for? Had the strange sound test revealed some problem with how her mind worked? Was she going to end up like Rose, thinking she could fly?

At the Academy, they'd been taught about Phoenix's first genetic trials. The denizens born of the program had been brilliant, but insanely so. Most had to be deleted. It had taken a few trials before Phoenix had established the correct genetic makeup to ensure all future denizens were produced with stable, intelligent minds and healthy bodies. But maybe she was different. Perhaps—

A figure appeared at the corner of her eye. She turned, but Jasper applied a gentle pressure on her temples, straightening her head before she could get more than a glimpse.

A man.

The newcomer stood to the side, silent and unmoving as he observed her. A blush crept up her cheeks at the intense analysis. Jasper finished securing the cap and stepped back, freeing her. Her head swung of its own accord.

The man moved with a casual grace that was both intriguing and intimidating. His head cocked to the side as he studied her. A fleeting expression crossed his face before he glanced down to consult the tablet computer in his hands.

"Peppermint." When he looked up again, his eyes mirrored the sternness on his face.

There was only calm assertion in his voice, but Peppermint was compelled to nod. The examination room's lights gathered in his dark blue eyes, making them sparkle with a cold brilliance. His long, white hair was secured into a tail at back of his head, the tip dangling down to the nape of his neck. But he wasn't old. His face was smooth and unlined.

"Jasper tells me you have questions." Each word was perfectly enunciated in a calm, euphonic voice.

The movement of his lips as they formed each syllable mesmerised her. It took her a few seconds to force her eyes back to his.

Her voice was barely audible. "Yes."

"An irregularity in your Medex visit triggered a notification." Onyx held his arms behind him, tucking the tablet against his back as he stepped toward her chair. He halted a short distance from her.

Peppermint's heart thudded in her throat. "Irregularity?" First it was an anomaly, now this?

"This is only a precautionary measure. The Medex booths are not equipped to perform any specialised medical examinations. They are rather... crude."

Her eyes flashed up, flicking open her weConnect as she tried calling up Onyx's profile.

The console opened, but its display greyed out after a few seconds.

Her voice sounded slightly stronger now. "What's wrong with my weConnect?"

Onyx moved his head as if to view her from a different angle. "We run an internal network here. Only staff have access to it."

His eyes moved past her. "Remove her ring."

Jasper materialised at her side with a tray and grasped her wrist. She wrenched her hand free as he touched the Cerberus unit on her thumb.

"We need to remove it," Jasper whispered. "It interferes with the readings."

She reluctantly gave her hand back and allowed him to remove her ring. Peppermint craned, trying to see how he took it off — she'd tried several times without success.

His deft fingers slid over her thumb and the ring sprang open. He placed it on the tray and disappeared behind her. She lifted her hand, wriggling her thumb. Her hand looked so naked without her Cerberus. Wouldn't Phoenix be upset if she didn't have her ring on? She supposed they had some kind of authority to remove it without her getting in trouble. Phoenix. WeConnect. She couldn't access her weConnect? That wasn't terrifying at all. What if she wanted to call Nick or Maple? What if she wanted to—

"Your heart is racing," Onyx said

Her eyes shifted to him. How did he know? His expression softened for an instant, as if hearing her unspoken thought.

"Relax and breathe deeply."

Deep drafts of air poured into Peppermint as her lungs expanded of their own volition.

"I'm trying," she murmured when his expression didn't change.

"Just keep breathing." He watched her with shining blue eyes, his mouth an unchanging line.

She'd never had to wonder how old denizens were — their profiles could be called up in an instant, providing her with a plethora of information. Onyx looked young, perhaps only ten years older than her, but the way he carried himself, made him seem much, much older.

Jasper whispered something unintelligible to him while she focused on her breathing. It grew deeper and slower than before. Her hands relaxed their grip on the armrests, her tensed legs sank into the padding. Taut neck muscles loosened, cradled by the headrest. Her heart fluttered as Onyx turned his attention to her. What in the name of tech was going on?

"Close your eyes."

She fought the urge to stare at him and obeyed. The musky odour of Jasper came closer. There was a prick of pain in the crook of her elbow. Her heart thudded, but she focused on her breathing, attempting to ignore any external stimuli.

Not even the initial, unglitchy hours of yesterday's VR session had affected this level of bliss. Her mind became serene, its usual flood of harried thoughts lessening. The air beside her shifted as Jasper moved around her. The chair flattened out.

Jasper's voice came from far away. "Has your mind stilled, Peppermint?"

She exhaled, and her breath paused before entering her again.

"You will hear some sounds now," Jasper said. "Just listen to them."

White noise played into her earbuds. It filled her mind. At first it was unchanging. Then it undulated and a deep, singular tone became audible. The thought of it produced a single white line across her mind, rising and falling in gentle dunes.

Air caressed Peppermint's face, an indication that the chair was moving, but her focus was fully on the sound. The distance between each peak and fall grew while the distance between each wave decreased until gentle dunes transformed into an eager, wriggling channel. Soon she could no longer trace the sound wave as it scurried through her mind, only able to focus on the tremor between her ears.

The pitch descended, deepening. Every neuron in her mind reverberated in unison with the pulsating sound. Still the tone descended. It led her into subterranean chambers that echoed darkly around her. They compressed her mind, focusing it. She travelled through a narrow tunnel, the smooth walls around her formed from a weave of vibrating sound waves.

The pulse slowed until each peak and fall was indistinguishable from the other. She drifted on a bobbing sea of sound, carried forward to a destination as foreign as the one she was leaving.

A new sound emerged, so subtle she wasn't aware of it at first. Then her breath hitched, synchronising with it.

In the Academy they'd been taught about the wonders of the universe. Now she could finally grasp the concept of one of the most enigmatic subjects they'd studied.

Dark matter.

Its presence known only from its effect on the star stuff it held in intangible clutches.

A brief lull, caused not by the absence of sound but by the interjection of another tone, formed a new rhythm. Again her breath hitched.

Her mind succumbed, numbed by the leaden waves of silence, driving her deeper into her subconscious. The darkness expanded until her mind was filled only with the echoing of a strange emptiness, lost and floating on a black, celestial sea. She lost all sensation in her limbs, her body merging with the air around her.

Peppermint's consciousness, no longer contained by her flesh, slipped away and unravelled between the stars. 

. . .