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Triangulation
10 June 2009 16:35When most animals hear something, they automatically tilt their head. It’s because they only have two ears. By tilting their head, they get a third position and can triangulate where the sound is coming from. It’s an automatic function. You can see dogs doing it. Humans do it, too.
The psychics we’ve created in our laboratory tend to rock like autistic children. It enables them to do something similar to triangulation but we can’t quite figure it out. When they’re not rocking, it’s like they can’t dip into the thought-streams around them correctly. The rocking motion allows them to move around in other people’s minds. They weave like metronomes, like Stevie Wonder playing the piano. It’s like a repetitive dance to a drum beat that we can’t hear.
I guess we all thought we were pretty smart, all of us scientists sitting prisoner here in this room. They didn’t need to tie us up or kill us. They just reached into our heads and told us all to come here, sit down, and stop moving.
We made them to read minds. We didn’t know they were powerful enough to take over.
When we don’t report to our command leads in Washington at the daily time, the alarm will sound and we’ll go into lockdown. The kids can’t control machines with their minds. We’ll be quarantined until the matter is investigated. Either they’ll barge in with weapons and save us or they’ll quietly gas the whole place. Or they’ll let us starve to death. We were expendable and our project had failed.
The kids didn’t know this of course. They were off in their own, silent world.
Lockdown wouldn’t happen for another hour. I willed them to stay here and not go out into the world. I tried to think this over and over so that they’d read my mind and stay here in the compound.
That’s when I noticed 26 looking at me. That was the number tattooed on her cheek. She was eight years old. She’d been left to guard us and keep us in stasis. She was moving back and forth with that eerie, rhythmic precision but her eyes were focused on a spot on my forehead. She was like a cross between a snake and a bird at that moment. Interested but emotionless.
Her eyes widened and I realized that by willing her and her kind not to go outside, I had actually pictured what ‘outside’ looks like.
She smiled like someone turned up a smile volume controller on her face. It was like someone was pulling strings attached to the corners of her mouth. It never touched her wide eyes.
She turned and left the room. I still can’t move. I heard the pitter-patter of little feet for a while but it’s been silent for ten minutes now.
I don’t have to be a genius to know that she told all of the other children about ‘outside’ and that they had to leave in the next hour or else they’d be trapped.
Hopefully we’ll all be able to move once the kids get far enough away from the base. Either that or we’ll sit here until our bosses come in and punish us for letting forty-eight psychic child-weapons loose.
Like I said, I guess we all thought we were pretty smart. I’m only realizing now just how stupid we were.
tags
The psychics we’ve created in our laboratory tend to rock like autistic children. It enables them to do something similar to triangulation but we can’t quite figure it out. When they’re not rocking, it’s like they can’t dip into the thought-streams around them correctly. The rocking motion allows them to move around in other people’s minds. They weave like metronomes, like Stevie Wonder playing the piano. It’s like a repetitive dance to a drum beat that we can’t hear.
I guess we all thought we were pretty smart, all of us scientists sitting prisoner here in this room. They didn’t need to tie us up or kill us. They just reached into our heads and told us all to come here, sit down, and stop moving.
We made them to read minds. We didn’t know they were powerful enough to take over.
When we don’t report to our command leads in Washington at the daily time, the alarm will sound and we’ll go into lockdown. The kids can’t control machines with their minds. We’ll be quarantined until the matter is investigated. Either they’ll barge in with weapons and save us or they’ll quietly gas the whole place. Or they’ll let us starve to death. We were expendable and our project had failed.
The kids didn’t know this of course. They were off in their own, silent world.
Lockdown wouldn’t happen for another hour. I willed them to stay here and not go out into the world. I tried to think this over and over so that they’d read my mind and stay here in the compound.
That’s when I noticed 26 looking at me. That was the number tattooed on her cheek. She was eight years old. She’d been left to guard us and keep us in stasis. She was moving back and forth with that eerie, rhythmic precision but her eyes were focused on a spot on my forehead. She was like a cross between a snake and a bird at that moment. Interested but emotionless.
Her eyes widened and I realized that by willing her and her kind not to go outside, I had actually pictured what ‘outside’ looks like.
She smiled like someone turned up a smile volume controller on her face. It was like someone was pulling strings attached to the corners of her mouth. It never touched her wide eyes.
She turned and left the room. I still can’t move. I heard the pitter-patter of little feet for a while but it’s been silent for ten minutes now.
I don’t have to be a genius to know that she told all of the other children about ‘outside’ and that they had to leave in the next hour or else they’d be trapped.
Hopefully we’ll all be able to move once the kids get far enough away from the base. Either that or we’ll sit here until our bosses come in and punish us for letting forty-eight psychic child-weapons loose.
Like I said, I guess we all thought we were pretty smart. I’m only realizing now just how stupid we were.
tags