The seat reclined like a dentist's chair.
She was escorted over by the medics who covered their faces with surgical masks. She was still woozy from the injections they had given her. She had counted three when she was awake, but her arms had scabbed over with a number of holes—suggesting she was further injected with a substance while unconscious.
When they entered, she could not walk, so they carried her with her toes dragging along the cold, green, newly mopped floor. It was a hospital setting. She didn’t remember being transferred from her cell to this other location. She didn’t know where she was. She just didn’t like being strapped in the dentist's chair.
Once the restraints were affixed, they walked away and left her alone. They had placed a leather belt-type strap over her mouth, but she managed to yell through it for attention.
None came.
Her voice echoed off the black walls and bounced around large distances, giving the impression that the room was larger than she had first imagined. Digital words began to appear in large lettering on a wall directly opposite. It was a screen of some sort that was oval-shaped; it covered the curvature of the room. The words aligned with her cries for help.
One by one, they appeared and vanished.
HELP!
GET ME OUT OF HERE!
They appeared before the screen went blank, and she sat alone in the dark.
“Darlene,” said a voice that boomed around the darkened hall. “Darlene, I can hear you. We can all hear you.”
She tried to relay her emotions through the leather that sat between her lips but couldn’t muster the words.
“Don’t talk, just think,” said the voice.
UNTIE ME! — the words illuminated in bright lights on the screen. Exactly what she was thinking.
“In time, Darlene… In time. First, we just want to spell out a few things, if you will indulge us… You’re not going anywhere anytime soon, so I guess you have no choice,” the laugh of the voice echoed off the walls. Darlene felt her eardrum pierce. She wanted to place her finger to her lobes and protect them, but the wrist straps were particularly tight.
“Your name is Darlene Quinlan. You have been an inmate at Sellview Correctional Centre for the last seventeen years. Is that correct?” the voice asked. Darlene drew a breath to answer. “Don’t say it, Darlene, think it,” the voice said.
YES — appeared on the screen.
“You have been convicted of eighteen counts of murder in the first degree and were sentenced to three hundred years in prison… Is that correct?”
WHAT IS THIS PLACE?! — appeared on the screen.
“Concentrate, Darlene, focus on the question.”
Darlene struggled in her seat. The volume of the booming voice was loud and penetrated her inner eardrum. She wanted to free her hands. She tossed and turned in her straps and screamed through the leather mouth restraint.
“Darlene!” yelled the voice. “Think your responses and we will lower the volume,” it directed.
Darlene calmed her body and slowed her breathing.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
“That’s not an answer to the question we asked… You killed eighteen people and were sentenced to three hundred years in prison… Is that correct?”
YES.
“Do you want to know where you are?”
YES.
“Do you want to know why you are here?”
YES.
“Do you want to know how you are projecting your thoughts on the screen in front of you?”
YES.
“Darlene, you are inside a tetrachrome dome. You are all alone for our safety. There are thousands of tiny lasers focused on your brain right this instant. They have mapped every inch of it and have identified — to us — the exact element of your mind that has caused you to lash out at all those you have killed. This machine is so powerful, it is also able to identify the areas used for verbal communication and zone in on those areas to allow you to use physical instinct to translate them onto the screen for us to read,” the voice explained. “You no longer have to use your oral attributes for the duration of this meeting.”
WHY AM I HERE?!
“Well, that’s a good question, Darlene,”
GET ME OUT OF HERE she projected on the screen.
“All in time, Darlene. That I can promise you. You see, the tetrachrome dome is not just a mind-reading machine. It is also the world’s most advanced AI surgical suite. It has the ability to perform microsurgery on your brain, right now. It is so accurate and so delicate that it can place inside of your head, with little pain associated, I might add — a tiny neural processor with the capacity to regulate your thought patterns and allow you to lead a normal and decent life. If you give consent, we will install this machine through your nasal passage right now and you will be untied and will be able to walk out the front door of this facility. No questions asked.”
Darlene had given her absolute attention. She craved freedom.
I CONSENT she declared on the screen.
“We thought you’d say that… But we are obligated to showcase to you — first, what life would be like with a neural processor inside the brain tissue. This room, whilst you are inside and strapped to the chair — can give you a taste test. I will program the simulation now and get the microlasers to replicate the implant.”
The room went quiet. Darlene could hear her breathing wheezing through the leather fabric. She wondered if this entire encounter was an illusion.
“Okay, Darlene — I want you to do something for us right now. Project onto the wall the worst, most heinous, most violent thing you can think of… Or if you cannot do that — give us a sentence or cuss words or anything deranged that you can imagine,”
Darlene closed her eyes and opened them to see what the fruits of her labor would muster. The screen was blank. She turned her brain to the places where she stored her darkest desires, and they were empty. Blank. She attempted to bring up a basic four-letter swear word, and she could not name it. She had a vague understanding of its existence but could not relay what it was called, what letters were associated with it, nor what letter the word began with.
“It worked,” said the voice.
“She’s completely incapacitated,” said another over the speakers.
I DON’T CONSENT she projected.
“Can we ask why you don’t consent, Darlene?” asked the voice.
I DON’T CONSENT she repeated on the board.
“You can walk out of here today. Right now. Right this instant,” the voice reiterated.
Darlene began to pant.
I CAN’T BREATHE! she projected. She was hyperventilating.
“We cannot enter the dome while the machine is in operation. While it is scanning your inner consciousness. Why don’t you give us permission? We will install the processor, we will enter the dome straight away and untie your restraints and you will be released as soon as possible,”
Darlene continued to breathe erratically.
I CAN’T BREATHE! I NEED HELP!
“Just give us your consent, Darlene. We will install the processor, and you will be let go. All you have to do is say yes…”
She attempted to regulate her breathing. She was failing. Her panting grew worse.
“Just. Say. Yes,”
YES! she projected.
A metallic arm emerged from the floor beneath the reclined chair. It rotated at the tip to reveal a sharpened tiny drill with a precision hole that displayed the micro-processing chip that, she presumed — would be implanted.
“Just hold still,” said the voice.
The machine swiveled in the direction of her left nostril and traveled up the canal, making a stinging, whirring sound as it sliced through cartilage, then bone, to arrive at its destination inside the base of the soft tissue of her lower brain.
The pain was temporary as the euphoria of a dignified existence swept over her. The lights lit up the entire dome, revealing its true enormity.
A door opened off in the distance, and two men in hospital scrubs jogged over to their subject. They removed their surgical masks as they arrived.
“Darlene?!” one of them asked as they arrived. The other began unstrapping her restraints.
Darlene looked to the heavens. They were briefly masked by the roof of the iron dome that surrounded her.
“Darlene?!” asked the nameless man.
“Is it a beautiful day?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, Darlene… How are you feeling?”
“I feel like it’s a beautiful day,” she said as she smiled a broad smile.