“What’s Project Mind World you ask?” This is. You’re part of it. You don't understand? All right then, I suppose I’ll have to tell you the whole story from the very beginning...
~~~
That said, there’s quite a lot of different things you can do within that job and I wanted to do something new. I checked several web pages for work ads, but most of what I found seemed too similar to what I’d been doing before. I couple of weeks went by, before I finally found something that looked interesting. It was an ad for something called Project Mind World. An experiment where they would connect people’s minds and then have those people create a mental world together. It was something different, unlike anything I’d ever worked on before, and they did need someone who could monitor the brain activities of the test subject s. Both to study how the brain reacts to the different stages of the experiment and also to make sure it didn’t harm the test subject’s mental health.
This experiment had a job for me and I was interested, so I took it. A couple of days later, I left the home world to begin my new work. One of the reasons I wanted a change of work was because I hoped to avoid all those close minded military men that always seemed to come with your standard scout party. However, it appeared I wouldn’t be so lucky. As I arrived at the docking port, at the space station where Project Mind World was held, I was greeted by a security guard that looked to be about 30 years old.
‘You are Dr Hannah Todd?’ he inquired, in a tone that was very militaristic and a bit on the loud side. Like a sergeant, addressing a private.
I sighed inwardly as I confirmed my identity. He then proceeded to escort me inside, with a “This way ma’am!” and I followed him in silence.
The guard, Captain Chance Alden, led me to a lab in the lower levels of the building. In the middle of said lab was a table, with a lot of books and papers on it, and around the table stood a number of different types of machines, some of which appeared to be monitoring equipment. By the table stood two people, one a tall man with glasses and a cane by his side, the other a woman with permed hair and a bit too much make up. When I entered the room (the guard stayed outside) they both looked up and studied me with their eyes. The woman seemed rather unimpressed by my appearance, while the man just seemed indifferent. I introduced myself and in turn learned who they were.
‘I’m chief scientist Dr Toby Sniders,’ the man said, very matter of factly.
‘And my name’s Madison Carlyle, I’m the technician,’ the woman smiled, a very fake smile, and offered me her hand, which I took, if only out of courtesy. Dr Sniders then proceeded to tell Miss Carlyle to go and complete something in the test chamber. As she made her way out of the lab, he turned to me.
‘The test subjects will arrive soon…’ he said in the same tone as he had used before, but before that, let me show you how the monitoring equipment work’s’ I nodded and he walked over to the machines, that I had already figured were made for that purpose. As he did so, I noticed that he had a limp, which explained the cane. I followed him to the machines and he proceeded to show me their functions.
It was pretty straight forward stuff. There was one machine with a large screen, made to monitor brain activity, but there were also two smaller ones whose purpose was to monitor pulse and breathe respectively. Dr Sniders explained that while he didn’t think the project would pose any threat to the subject’s health, one could never be too careful.
I was just about to open my mouth to agree, when security guard Alden entered the lab. He told us that the shuttle with the test subjects had arrived and Dr Sniders and I left the lab to greet the newcomers.
We arrived at the docking port just as the outer door on the shuttle opened. Out of it came two girls and a boy, all appearing to be in their late teens, or possibly early twenties. The girls looked like each other’s opposites. The one called Melissa was pale and skinny, her hair blonde and her eyes blue. Audre on the other hand... well, she was the opposite of skinny, and both her curly hair and squinty eyes were dark as night. Taylor, the boy, was rather short. He had a gentle face and a dreamy look in his silvery eyes. I think he might have been bald, though I don t know for sure as he always wore a blue cap on his head. I shook hands with all three of them, each handshake being different from the other. One shaky and quick, one strong and firm and the last gentle, if a little absent.
‘We don t have to take any injections for this project, do we?’ Melissa spoke up in a worried tone.
‘No...No...,’ I began to answer in an assuring tone before I realised I wasn’t sure that was true. They don’t, do they?’ I turned to Dr Sniders, who shook his head. The girl looked relieved, but said no more as Sniders lead us all to a place called the access room.
In the middle of the said room was a metal triangle and by each corner of said triangle stood a chair. Miss Carlyle was screwing something onto one of the chairs when we entered and looked she looked up at us with another of her wide fake smiles.
‘All is ready Dr. Sniders,’ she said cheerfully. He only nodded in response and proceeded to lead the three young test subjects to their chairs. After that he strapped them in with cables and devises that I was told would connect them to both the Mind World itself and to the monitors in the lab.
‘Hey, could I make a food castle in this mind world?’ Audre asked.
Dr Sniders attached a device to her chest. ‘This project is not meant for the purpose of satisfying your personal fantasies,’ he answered coldly. ‘We’re supposed to create a new world for the entire human race. Ones the stage one testing is completed, we will start to merge the Mind World with the real world.’ With that note, he moved from Audre’s chair to a control panel on the far side of the room. The kids were instructed to close their eyes, as Dr Sniders opened the access point, and the three of them entered the Mind World.
On Sniders’ orders, I went back to the lab, to do my job of monitoring their brain patterns. It looked fine at the time and so it would continue to do for weeks. The kids were slowly, but steadily, building a world in their minds. Every morning, after breakfast, they would be strapped in their chairs and enter the Mind World. They had breaks for lunch and dinner and at ten pm they exit the project and go to bed. Meanwhile, Dr Sniders and Miss Carlyle would go between the access room, the lab and other parts of the station, to check that all machines and computers run properly, while Captain Alden patrols the corridors restlessly. However, one day, everything changed...
I had returned to the lab after my lunch break, only to be alarmed by what I saw on the brain monitor. The readings were off the scale! I turned to the other monitor and saw that the pulse and breathing of the test subjects had accelerated. I turned on the vid com to see what was going on in the access room. On the screen, I saw that Melissa was mumbling to herself, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Maybe I should have called for Dr Sniders immediately, but he had been acting quite uncaring towards these young people, so I was afraid he’d dismiss the danger they might be in and instead go on about the brain readings being remarkable. Therefore, I decided to leave the lab and check on the kids myself.
I entered the access room and went straight to Melissa, to hear what she was mumbling about, and was shocked when I heard the words. “Blood,” she said “too much blood .” It wasn’t just what she said that frightened me, but also the way she said it. It was as though she was in trance. I made the decision then to tell Dr Sniders about it after all. He was more invested in the project than I was and more likely to have a clue as to what was going on.
I was just about to go and get him, when suddenly...
‘Alert! Intruders in sector 5’
‘Alert! Intruders in sector 5’
The computer s voice and the accompanying alarm ring seemed to come from everywhere around me. I temporarily abandoned my idea to locate Dr Sniders and headed for sector 5, to see what was going on.
As I entered said sector, I heard a familiar voice trying to explain to Captain Alden that he was making a mistake, that they were not spies and that they’re arrival here was purely an accident. I smiled as I got to the corridor that the voice was coming from and saw a fair haired man dressed in a beige coat with a piece of celery in the lapel. He sighed heavily and appeared to just be about to try to explain himself to the Captain ones again, when he spotted me. His face seemed to light up and he grinned widely as he called my name. Captain Alden turned around and asked me if I knew these men. I was just about to ask him what he meant with “these men” when I saw a ginger haired boy behind the Doctor. He was wearing a suit and tie and had an annoyed look on his face.
Captain Alden got impatient, as I hadn’t answered him, and he repeated the question. I explained to him that I did know the Doctor and assured him the man could be trusted. When he asked me about the other boy, I told him the truth and said I had not seen him before. The Doctor explained that was because she hadn’t met Turlough (that was the boy’s name) by the time he last saw me.
I begged the captain to release the Doctor. I told him something was going wrong with the experiment and I thought the Doctor might be able to help. The captain looked alarmed by this and asked me what the problem was exactly. I told him I didn’t know and that was why I needed the Doctor’s help. The captain looked suspicious and I knew what he was thinking. He thought the Doctor and Turlough might be behind this.
‘The Doctor couldn’t have sabotaged the experiment,’ I told him, before he could even suggest otherwise. ‘Not if your alarm system is as good as you claim it is. The readings were off before the alarm started. So neither the Doctor nor his friend could have been the cause of that.’
After more arguing, I finally convinced him to allow the Doctor to help me. However, as he still wasn’t entirely convinced of their innocence, he insisted that he should hold the ginger boy hostage in the meantime. The Doctor reluctantly agreed to this. The boy was about to protest, but the Doctor gave him a hard look and he fell silent and with that I showed the Doctor to the lab, explaining the experiment to him on the way while his friend was led away at gun point by captain Alden to the cellar.
In the lab, I showed the Doctor the monitors and explained what they were supposed to show. He stared at the brainwave reader in silence for a while, before he pointed at the screen.
‘Todd, look at this,’he said.
‘What is it?’ I asked, as I followed his finger to a specific reading.
‘This isn’t one of the test subjects,’ He stated.
I frowned, not entirely sure what he meant. My confusion must have shown as the Doctor went on to explain that the reading he was pointing at couldn’t be that of a human brain.
‘There’s something in there with them,’ he said.
I was alarmed at this and was immediately reminded of the creature we had dealt with on Deva Loka. However, when I suggested to the Doctor, ‘…could it be the Mara that in the Mind World now?’
He shook his head. ‘I don t think so,’ he said, with a deep frown on his face. ‘Good guess though,’ he added and shot me what I think was an approving glance, before he returned his attention to the monitor.
‘Don t you think we ought to do something about it?’ I asked and the Doctor nodded.
‘Yes... but I don t think we could do much from here.’
‘You mean we have to enter the Mind World?’ Another question, answered with another nod from the Doctor. ‘Well, then we better ask Dr Sniders to give us access,’ I said and headed for the door. The Doctor nodded once again before he followed me out.
As we walked towards Sniders office I began to worry. My impression of the chief scientist, at that point, wasn’t that of a man who’d let a stranger, with no papers to prove his credentials, get involved with his project. I feared he would snap at the suggestion of the Doctor and I entering the Mind World and throw him off the space station. I was proven wrong however, very wrong, as we entered the office. The Doctor managed to quite quickly convince Sniders that he was a skilled scientist and they soon got along like a house on fire. So much so that they got so deep into a, frankly irrelevant, discussion that I had to remind them what we were really there for. Once I’d done so, Sniders then reminded me;
‘We need one more person to enter the Mind World. There has to be three to enter or else the access point won’t work.’
The Doctor suggested that Sniders himself should join us, but it was met with disagreement as Dr Sniders suggested that he would be of more help to us if he stayed on the outside. At least that’s what he himself thought and he may have been right.
‘What about Turlough?’ I suggested.
‘Who?’ Sniders asked.
‘My companion,’ explained the Doctor, ‘Your security guard has him locked away in the cellar I believe, as a hostage, to make sure I would behave.’
Sniders looked appalled by this. He had evidently been charmed by the Doctor and couldn’t understand how Captain Alden could mistrust this man. He agreed to let us release the boy, so he could enter the Mind World with us, and gave me his keys to the cellar rooms. We both thanked him and left to get Turlough.
As we headed down the stairs to the cellar Captain Alden came running up towards us, and yelling his head off, ‘Get it off me! Get it off! Off!’ his grace and dignity completely lost.
‘Captain, what is it?’ I asked, trying not to sound too worried when, in fact, I was almost laughing inside.
‘Get it off! Off!’ He repeated, pointing at his back.
The Doctor took a look and raised his eyebrows when he saw what the Captain was yelling about.
‘It’s only a spider.’ he said, as he lifted the eight legged creature off the man’s back.
The Captain didn’t seem to think there was anything only about having a spider on his back.
I yelled at the Doctor to kill it but the Doctor refused.
‘At least get it as far away from me as possible!’ and the Captain ran up the stairs to the ground floor as the Doctor put the spider down and we continued downwards.
When we finally came down into the cellar, we found Turlough laughing loudly in the room that had been made his cell. The Doctor shot his friend an angry look and the laughter stopped, though the boy still didn’t seem all that intimidated by the man’s glare.
While he did apologise, I highly doubt his words were genuine. I let the boy out and the Doctor explained the situation to him as the three of us headed for the access room.
As we entered it I could see that three new chairs had been set up between the ones that the kids still used. Please be seated,’ said a cheerful voice to my left. I turned around and saw Miss Carlyle smiling at us.
‘I will help you with the proceeding,’ she continued.
‘Where’s Dr Sniders?’ the Doctor enquired.
‘In the lab. Since Dr Todd will be entering the Mind World with you, Dr Sniders has to take over her monitoring job.’
The Doctor gave Miss Carlyle a response of understanding and then turned to the chairs. So, we’ll just sit down in those?’ He asked and Miss Carlyle nodded.
And so the Doctor, Turlough and I all got seated and strapped in. Miss Carlyle opened the access point and waved to us with a cheerful good luck as we entered the Mind World.
It was nothing like I imagined. I had thought there would be a city, or at least some kind of recognisable landscape, but no. It was mostly darkness, except for a strange, weak light with a slightly blueish tone.
‘I don t like this,’ I heard Turlough’s voice say from behind me. I couldn’t help but agree. The place gave me an odd, creepy feeling and it seemed to have the same effect on the boy. Even the Doctor, who seemed like a man who often faced danger, actually looked a bit pale. Though I suppose, that could just have been the strange lighting.