PNC-353 EXPERIMENT DIRECTOR COGENCE-EVAL-PERS TZF STATION AB-1 AZIMUTH, SOLAR ASTEROID BELT
JANUARY 7TH, 2125 CE
“Upon that threshold, we encroach. Anticipate not the universe entire, for precedent demonstrates such expectations are doomed to eclipse reality, and what is not empirical is merely frivolous. Nevertheless… our endeavors embody not just a prodigal bound in understanding, but that which may yet herald a paradigm shift in the nature of our understanding altog—”
*Vweeeeet! “Experiment Director Cogence-Eval-Pers, your attention is requested immediately!*”
Neuronal impulses, jarred from their dormancy by the intrusive Direct Cortical Interface Communication signal wired into his neurome, seared to frenetic vivacity through axon and synapse. Cogence-Eval-Pers, his consciousness having slowly waned to somnolence over the course of several hours deprived of rest, jolted from his inadvertent nap with a seething hiss of inhalation. Groaning, he wiped the bleary films from his earthen eyes and combed back an errant bang of dusky hair. Having long developed the habit of ignoring his internal physiometrics monitor’s admonitions for fewer violations of his circadian rhythm, the senior researcher now often found his cumulative deficit of adequate sleep involuntarily repossessed, most typically at inconvenient times. In this instance, whatever he had been unfortunate enough to doze through was important enough to warrant a DCIC message despite his explicit instructions against them.
“Ughhh, shit, I should really quit those red-eyes.” Grumbled Cogence to himself. Massaging the soreness from his neck, he sighed and responded via DCIC in turn.
“*What is it? This had better be justified.*”
“*Res Cogence, AB-1 Installation Director Resolve-Susta-Ind and his retinue are scheduled to arrive in five minutes, whom you are supposed to greet on site.*”
Cogence seized up, recollection cascading into his mind in concert with a deluge of horrified shock. His eyes flicked over to his desk, vision coming to rest upon a colon-bisected four-digit numeral splayed in azure light upon its glassy surface. 16:25. Three hours past he had last drowsily glanced upon it, and five minutes left to rectify his lapse. Acutely aware of how little time he was allotted to do so, Cogence leapt from his office chair and strode from the room to which it lent its title, tessellated-hexagon fabric of his flared coattail billowing out behind him and elastomer soles of his boots clacking upon the polished polymer flooring of his research campus. Muttering a rather creative composition of profanity under his breath, he wove his way through an assortment of corridors before coming upon his personal transport module, a prolate affair of polyvitroid curves fused onto a composite frame. Suspended above an HTSC maglev track, the pod would transport its occupant through a network of evacuated tubes with celerity and comfort… although one could always be sacrificed for the other. In this instance, Cogence opted for the former of the two, hopping into the shell with little pretense of ceremony and sealing the door. The tube in turn shuttered its airlock, vented the accumulated gas, and propelled forth both vehicle and occupant at velocities far from pleasant.
In seconds, the pod had spritzed from the confines of the capacious research facility, exiting a homogeneous stretch of tunnel illuminated only by dim luminescent strips at high speed to burst, metaphorically speaking, into the open. Even as Cogence queasily clung to his seat, stomach still churning from the snap acceleration, he could hardly help but marvel once more at the spectacle that greeted him. Stretching out before him, the vast tubular cavity that was Station AB-1, “Azimuth”, loomed in its hybrid technological and aesthetic splendor. The dull-silvery swathes and angles of Foundation laboratories and institutes, domiciles and fora, speckled as they were with blinking lights innumerable and interspersed with paths and rows of assiduously cultivated vegetation, encrusted the inner circumference of the cylinder. Some 3 kilometers in diameter and another 24 in length, the centripetal confines of Azimuth station had been hollowed out from an inconspicuous asteroid drifting unobtrusively along with its brethren beyond counting in the Solar Asteroid Belt, its location chosen for its surreptitious nature; some of the Zenith Foundation’s most secretive experiments were conducted here, in isolation nearly absolute. Rotating at a cozy period of once every 77 seconds and supplied with simulated sunlight from a concentric hemicylindrical irradiance pipe, Azimuth provided its occupants with all the amenities of Earth in self-sustaining perpetuity.
As it were, Cogence had neither the opportunity nor the inclination to gawk at the scenery for long, even if his reclusive and workaholic habits oft precluded him from witnessing it. His transport was coming upon one of the far ends of the great tube, to a broad swath of pavement where passengers and cargo entered the atmosphere-endowed portion of Azimuth after running through the adjacent transition-cosmodrome. Slowing to a halt with yet another nauseating lurch, Cogence’ pod slid into the disembarkment lane beside the loading zone, soon disgorging the frazzled man as he stumbled ignominiously from the shell’s interior. Already, a small crowd occupied the spaceport square, some in anticipation of the Installation Director’s arrival, and most others for reasons completely tangential. His ocular implants indicating that mere seconds remained until the notoriously punctual Resolve-Susta-Ind and his entourage walked through the spaceport’s entrance doors, Cogence hastily regained his footing and began to jog at a pace just fast enough not to seem desperate.
Just as he crossed half the square’s length, the double-doors separating the cosmodrome terminal’s interior from the “outside” world split along their vertical center and slid aside with nary a whirr. Trailed by half a dozen faceless Foundation Martial Corps security officers and flanked by two pleasingly familiar figures, Resolve-Susta-Ind emerged into the synthetic sunlight. Cogence immediately slowed his pace to a brisk, businesslike trot, so as to give the impression of contrived perfect timing, as opposed to fortuitous near-tardiness. Striding up to the nine with the scrupulously formulated air of a Zenith Foundation researcher, and one with a senior position despite ostensible relative youth no less, Cogence smiled cordially and gave a respectful nod of his head as a gesture of welcome.
“Welcome back, Ad Resolve. Your return was long anticipated.”
Cogence’s elder colleague cocked his head ever so slightly, his stolid eyes exhibiting hardly a flicker beneath their prominent brows. Small silver nodules bearing little blue lights sat on his temples and beneath his ears, while an intricate assembly of biomechatronic components beneath a flexible shell of interleaved alloy plates stretched from the base of his skull downward, disappearing beneath his clothing.
“Mmm, is that so?”
Resolve then cast his even gaze all around the cavernous stretch of artificial landscape.
“All is going well, I presume?”
Cogence smirked, absentmindedly smoothing some of the creases from his coat lapel, where the Zenith Foundation’s insignia, a geometric dart superimposed inside a hexagon, glimmered proudly.
“You knew the answer to that better than I ever did the moment you entered the signal enclosure.”
In reaction to this minor instance of lip, Resolve gave naught but a blink.
“Indeed…”
The senior administrator’s eyes narrowed, taking upon themselves an unnervingly piercing quality as his vision met Cogence’s.
“…and yet it seldom harms to observe such introductory formalities when the circumstances permit. Of course, it is well within our technological capacity and respectably within range of our social capacity to do away with such trivialities. Candor, albeit of the sarcastic sort, seems to be your modus operandi. Perhaps, if you so disdain them, I could do you the favor of interacting in only the most efficient manners possible? I do recall your love for DCIC, after all.”
For a moment, Cogence stood in stunned incredulity… to be remedied seconds later when he spotted the slightest hint of a grin tugging at the man’s lips. Half scoffing, half sighing in relief, Cogence shook his head and chuckled.
“Dammit man, why do facetious-serious you and actual-serious you have to appear exactly the same? Rattles me every damn time.”
Resolve sniffed in the closest approximation to a laugh he had ever explicated.
“That is where the humor lies, Res Cogence. Now, enough idle chat about… nothing in particular. I have been informed that significant strides have been made on Experiment PNC-353 in my absence. A presentation on your progress would be much appreciated.”
Cogence gave another nod, contemplative this time.
“Of course, of course. Please, follow me.”
Cogence motioned towards his transport pod, to which Resolve waved a hand in negation.
“No, thank you, but I would prefer to walk for now. Even a few months in biostasis take their toll, now that any semblance of youth has left me and I have not the fortune of being as augmented as some. In any case, such will provide you with ample opportunity to visit with those whose return you genuinely anticipated.”
Resolve gestured towards the two figures at his back, another sly smirk twitching at his mouth. The first, a huge security android perhaps 23 decimeters in height, glared at Cogence through twin ocular receptors glinting ghostly blue. The researcher had already witnessed the ultra-advanced ancillary and its hefty mechatronic corpus in simulated combat, witnessed its arsenal of weapon as of now concealed, witnessed its martial capabilities both with and without them. Even given the researcher’s familiarity with the ancillary, its presence was sobering all the same. The second figure was a different story entirely; although most certainly no less a destructive force of nature on the battlefield as the accompanying android, this figure was in the form of a woman far easier on the eyes. That ostentatiously iridescent hair, those eyes that seemed always to shimmer with mischief, that perpetually smarmy, cocksure smile she wore ad infinitum. Cogence would recognize it anywhere.
“Ahhh, AB-1 Security Director Enmity-Oblit-Effic. Long time, no see.”
Enmity chortled in retort, placing a hand on her waist and raising an eyebrow. Resplendent in her crisp, immaculate officer’s uniform, stylish in its utilitarian austerity in a similar vein to all Foundation clothing, she was the picture of a poised combatant of the Zenith Foundation Martial Corps. Needless to say, however, she bore the less savoury aspects of her occupation all the same; twin pistol grips jutted from holsters on her hips, and the stock of a vicious-looking PDW betrayed the weapon’s location on a hardpoint on her lower back, a precaution past what even protocol dictated. Cogence had seen her in simulated combat as well; only the mesmerizing scale of the heavily augmented soldier’s abilities served to distract the violence-shy researcher from how abjectly gruesome it all could be.
“Likewise, Res Cogence. I’d ask if you cheated on me at while I was gone, but that’s assuming your sorry ass could ever get another.”
Cogence sniggered, turning to follow Resolve as the party now of ten leisurely strolled onto a picturesque promenade leading to the researcher’s campus.
“Oh, now that’s a little harsh, don’t you think? Besides, whose to say didn't, hmm? Surely being a Foundation researcher has to count for something, my legendary virlity notwithstanding. Now what, on the eight and all of their moons, would you do about it?”
“Hah! Well, suspending considerable disbelief, I suppose I’d first applaud what would have surely been a monumental effort on your part, then mourn for the poor girl’s tragedy in shacking up with you. As for your ”legendary virility”, if you’re referring to that one time that Terran mare started trying to get frisky with you, perhaps you really are a stu—oh, wait, no, I remember now. You ran back to the car and locked the doors."
"Hey now," protested Cogence, an exaggerated faux-wounded look on his face, "that was a very traumatic experience. Besides, you're mocking yourself as much as me; I'm your tragedy, after all."
Enmity snorted in playful derision.
"Cog, in case you haven't forgotten, I'm a soldier. Tragedy like you is a challenge I welcome."
"Oh, so I'm a welcome challenge now?" Cogence guffawed, then snapped his fingers while flicking his wrist to the air. "So much for that insult."
"Yes, a challenge to put up with."
"And yet, somehow you manage."
Enmity grinned widely, reaching over to entwine her hand in Cogence's, their gazes locked.
"Somehow."
A tender moment of salience... alas not to last a moment longer, for at the slightest hint of escalation a steely grey head suddenly thrust itself in between the flirting couple, cyan oculars gleaming bright. A synthesized voice, artificiality intentionally evident in its acerbically discordant tones, hummed from the ancillary's cranial unit.
"Excuse me, but are you two going to do this every time you see each other after more than a week? What is this... the third, no, fourth time? Please, spare us the anguish. Oh, and by the way, it is a pleasure seeing you again, Res Cogence."
Cogence bit his lip, mild vexation evident in his furrowed brow.
"Nice seeing you too, Ceekay. For a second there, I was worried I might've actually started to enjoy myself."
"Of course, Res Cogence. It is my directive to assist in any way I can."
In an effort to ameliorate the researcher’s irritation, Enmity gently placed a hand on his shoulder. We’ll talk later, her eyes seemed both to shout and whisper. Cogence nodded in return, briefly grasping her hand before letting it slip loose. Naught but a withering glance was returned to the android, however.
“Uh-huh, yeah, sure. In any case, how was Meridian? I hear there is talk of upgrading the peripheral acc—”
“Hey! You there!”
A coarsely accented voice crassly eviscerated Cogence’s sentence midway through, claiming as collateral his train of thought on the matter as well. Deep and throaty, especially when bellowed at max volume, the cry belonged to a burly, somewhat bellicose-looking hulk of a man clomping his way over to the group, traipsing through a cluster of bushes and trampling several of the delicate plants underfoot. His torso was heavily clad in layered plate power armor, tarnished to a dark, sooty gray and pockmarked with scrapes, divots, and dents. A cloak of grainy black cloth was draped from his broadly muscular shoulders, crowned with a mantle of steely gray fibers vaguely resembling fur, and a from a chain swishing around his neck dangled several large, unpolished gemstones. A great mass of hair the color of flame and rust sprouted in tangled tufts from his head and as a bushy beard from his face, piercing moss-green eyes peering belligerently from the vermillion jungle.
Enmity sighed, grumbling bloody pirates under her breath before detaching from the group and swiftly striding to meet the towering outlaw a safe distance from her less action-inclined colleagues. Trailed close behind by her six subordinate soldiers, she came upon the pirate and firmly raised her hand, palm facing him, in a signal to halt. After he failed to heed this less than palpable warning, Enmity waited until he had walked within arms’ reach and solidly planted her palm on his chest. The imposing beast of man stopped dead in his tracks, body jerking like he’d walked into a lamppost. He turned his head towards the smaller figure holding him at bay, a seemingly effortless task subtly attesting to a strength far in excess of what even her sinewy arms appeared capable of, and growled in anger.
“Stop right there, Rotmord. You can’t just barge around like you own the place, not here.”
“Move aside, little lady. I have business with the grey stiff over there,” he leaned in close enough for Enmity to catch a waft of his sour breath as he lowered his voice to a menacing hiss, “and you’re in my way.”
“Yes, and soon your face will be in the way of my fist if you don’t tell me what the hell you’re doing here.”
“I don’t have to tell a fucking ziff like you jack shit if I don’t wa—”
“That’s quite enough, you two.” Resolve’s authoritative command cut short their little feud, drawing the attention of everyone present by habit. “Sol Enmity, let him approach. I know why he’s here, and what he’s here for.”
“Yes, administrator.”
Enmity curtly acknowledged the command, giving Rotmord a shove imperceptible to the inattentive eye before dropping her hand. In response, the pirate roughly shouldered her aside then spat at her feet, leaving her to sneer and fume as he approached Resolve. As he neared, Cogence’s innately observant attention caught a few further details of the pirate’s constitution. His milk-pale face, as the researcher fully expected, was riven through with scar tissue in a myriad of shapes, each one a trophy of some raid or battle sustained and won. Most of his teeth had the distinctive sheen of off-market ceramic implants, save for one gleaming canine wrought from some sort of carbide cermet, whilst the few of his natural teeth that remained were chipped jagged and stained yellow. His infernal hair was greasy and uncombed, the fortunate benefactor of natural curliness that gave it a semblance of structure. Two huge, blocky firearms—Cogence would have called them SMGs were they not clearly chambered for calibers large enough to mince a rhinoceros—dangled from slings around his shoulders and chest, and peeking over his shoulder was the hilt of Rotmord’s most infamous status symbol; a gigantic thermochain-bladed greatsword. A brutal affair whose construction was the confluence of Zenith Foundation technology and garish belt-pirate aesthetics, the sword had come to symbolize the unique quasi-barbarism of Rotmord’s fleet and all the terror it entailed. Cogence found it all decidedly tasteless.
“You,” huffed Rotmord, jabbing his finger at Resolve, “you promised me that my crew would have their weapons two bloody months ago! We almost got crunched near Hygiea by an ambush while shadowing for you! And it would’ve gone a lot smoother if we had the shit you said we’d have.”
Resolve’s equanimity wavered not a hint, not even in the face of this aggressive pirate.
“Calm yourself, Rotmord. I only just returned to Azimuth from Meridian, s—”
“I don’t want your fucking excuses, I want my fucking weapons!”
“—and you shall have them, but only when we’re finished preparing them. Fortunately for you, the latest stock was completed a few days ago. Sol Enmity.”
Enmity snapped to attention.
“Yes, Ad Resolve sir?”
“Take our colleague here to the armory, and ensure he’s satisfied with the equipment we’re providing him.”
“Affirmative, administrator.”
Enmity stiffly nodded, then jerked her head in the armory’s approximate direction to signal where she and Rotmord were to head. The pirate grunted oafishly, following Enmity’s rigid military pace with his own indolent lumber. Cogence watched them both embark a transport pod, noting the displeasure on Enmity’s face at having to share such a confined space with the bandit captain and his potent odor. In a flash, the two had zoomed off towards the Martial Forces garrison, both handling the acceleration better than Cogence could ever hope to. Shaking his head, he took his side by Resolve and Ceekay as they resumed their stroll. Along stretches of picturesque pathway and through the premises of several research campi they serenely walked, and before long they had come upon Cogence’s own, one of the largest and most sophisticated of its kind on the entire station. As eminent as the facility may have been, what it harbored within was of far greater import; one of the most significant experiments conducted in the entirety of the Zenith Foundation, and indeed all of humanity. The gravitas was palpable.
The group passed the threshold of the building, stepping into its sterile white interior to be greeted by the mellow bustle of scientific, technical, and attendant personnel going about their work. Most were involved merely in the experiments and investigations auxiliary to what Cogence owed his title of Experiment Director. PreterNatural Cognition Experiment number 353. Commanding via DCIC the preparation of the primary experimentation chamber and subjects, Cogence led Resolve—as if the computationally integrated man didn’t have a nigh-instinctual knowledge of every square centimeter of his installation—onto an elevator platform, bringing the group up to the campus’ upper levels. Stepping from the lift, Cogence trotted past two sets of sliding doors and entered the primary laboratory. A vast circular room at the heart of the compound, the chamber consisted of a central columnar area teeming with equipment and the technicians tuning them, bound by two storeys of concentric looping corridors circling the chamber, glass walls on the lower level affording a clear view of the interior and a catwalk on the upper level likewise providing a direct vantage to the goings-on within.
“Welcome, Ad Resolve, to Experiment PNC-353. I can demonstrate sequentially the progress we’ve made since you departed… or perhaps I can cut to the chase and show you the end result thus far?”
“The latter, if you please, Res Cogence. I can review the compendium at a later date if need be.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll give you a brief synopsis of what we’ve determined. This way, if you please.”
Cogence gestured for Resolve to enter the center chamber from the periphery, clearing his throat and launching into presentation.
“The noofield; one of this world’s most anomalous, yet pervasive phenomena. Even with our capability of inducing, albeit with frustrating imprecision, the development of an advanced noo-based perception manifest within subjects, our understanding of the noofield and is governance of the interphysical perception manifest remains nebulous. However… I expect that the results of this experiment will begin to shed a galaxy’s worth of light upon the subject, for the stages it has progressed to touch at the metaphysical nature of knowledge itself.
The nature of the noofield itself remains cloudy, but Res Echelon’s research and the information it unearthed has proved invaluable to this experiment in particular. See, we surmise the noofield to be… how does one put it… a medium of interaction, of sorts, although that is a rank oversimplification. It is intrinsic to all that can be conceived as information, in the most basic sense of the physical concept. I have hypothesized that, because of the interphysical perception manifest present in sapient beings, information of the world in its core conception can be drawn directly from the noofield, via the interactions it mediates.”
At this point, Cogence’s voice had begun to stray from dry technicality, a manner of excitement almost juvenile seeping into his tone as his hands enthusiastically began to gesture at the air.
“If we can perfect this technique, drawing upon the noofield as a sort of universal archive of all that is, was, and will be, the implications are inconceivable! Do you see what I mean? This would fundamentally alter the very nature of knowledge and understanding itself! All that we have accomplished up to this point, all of science itself, has merely been the product of empirically observing and delineating the laws of nature, deriving a posteriori our understanding merely from proximate evidence. Shadows and fossils, compared to this.”
His eyes had now taken upon a luminous brilliance, sparkling like the stars entire as he lost himself in imagination.
“It is almost as if we could peer into the source code for the universe itself, transcending base observation. In science, one could ‘prove’ nothing, only support a theory to a conclusive extent. But now, we are looking at the prospect of divining truth, from its origin. Epistemology becomes a science! The pursuit of knowledge and understanding, our very reason to be, coalesced into its most elementary essence and given almost palpable form! For us, for the Zenith Foundation, it would be… Nirvana.”
For all but a moment, Cogence let linger this final word, enraptured by his visionary tangent until his vision caught the face of Resolve. Intrigued, yet also concerned. He was old and experienced enough to know when a researcher let themselves become consumed with zealous idealism for pet projects, forsaking the objectivity and scientific integrity they so treasured. Cogence was familiar enough with the phenomenon and its effects as well, as he sheepishly reminded himself.
“…of course, that all borders on the conjectural. What we have observed thus far suggests as much, but not conclusively. I… expect that many years and numerous obstacles still lie between us and this… ahm… fabled singularity. In any case, I digress. The prospects are not yet relevant.”
Resolve simply arced one of his greying eyebrows, nodding for Cogence to continue.
“…yes, right. Fascinatingly, Echelon discovered evidence to support the notion that the noofield is both ubiquitous and homogeneous across all dimensions; permeating space, time, even the Haydritch seven and Sarcoletti five with parasymmetrical perturbations. That is, noofield interactions are independent of dimensional bounds.”
“Does… that portend a psion of adequate ability being capable of...?”
Cogence grinned widely, idly watching his laboratory staff finish preparing the demonstration before scurrying off, only a few critical operating personnel remaining.
“…retrocognition? Clairvoyance? Precognition, even? Yes, or at least we hypothesize as much. Remember, in the noofield, all three are one and the same. Their distinctions are based solely on spatial and temporal vectors, to which the noofield is only parallel, non-intersecting.”
“Hmm. That predicates macroscopic nonlocality and noncausality, two principles whose overturning warrants more than supposition. Moreover, if this is true, all observed instances of noofield phenomena would appear very different. Thus far, they have shown no indication of either.”
“Ahhh, I’m glad you bring that up. As corollary hypotheses lay out, the behavior of IPMC noofield phenomena largely rests within the bounds of conventional physical laws due to the mimicking tether effect, in fact; because the physical brain eliciting those phenomena exists within the physical world, so do those phenomena. The key is manipulating the IPMC so that this close mimicry is overcome. That being said… we’ve still yet to reach a full consensus on how possible this is. Evidence for macro-nonlocality is very strong, but whether or not noo-based clairvoyance it is capable of superluminal transmission has yet to be conclusively demonstrated. Likewise, noncausality as a whole is one capability we are still very unsure of.”
“Mmmh, yes, quite curious. I can imagine Res Echelon, or especially Res Paradigm would be very interested in what this experiment is slated to reveal. Have you sent any compendium runners out yet?”
Cogence shook his head.
“Not yet. Conditions have not been favorable for transporting a compendium this sensitive, and we only have a single Photon on hand at the moment. At the earliest opportunity, it’s getting sent straight to Prime Director Cenodyne.”
“Aha, of course. Now, relating back to the experiment itself, what has been accomplished in real terms? Simply put, just what exactly can your subjects do?”
Cogence smirked, beckoning over to a small crowd of young adults quietly conversing amongst themselves, all dressed in TZF experimentation subject suits. A single member of the cohort, a comparatively diminutive young woman whose stringy brown hair was tied back into a bun, detached herself from the rest, approaching at the researcher’s behest.
“This ability to gain information from the noofield, it’s almost a sixth sense of sorts. It’s difficult to describe to those who do not possess the ability, but as one of the subjects so poetically put it, one perceives and elucidates, then enlightenment follows. Very curious. Moving on, explaining precisely what the subjects can do is difficult, since the second generation of optimization test subjects do not appear to exhibit any real pattern of variance. Some have been duds, and others prodigies, each in different respects. One of them, however, has far and above exceeded all the rest.”
The young lady halted before the two, eyes wide and hands shyly clasped.
“Ahh, yes. Subject, please inform Ad Resolve here as to your name.”
Ever so quietly, the young woman spoke, her words but a whisper in the breeze.
“Paries-012.”
