Chapter 16: Past V - Doctor Schwartz

“This time it’s the primary motor cortex, huh?” Barlo Schwartz strode into the control room. He looked with disgust at the wet patch on his shoulder. He hurriedly took off his lab coat and tossed it onto the hook. “She drooled on me.”

His colleagues looked on sympathetically. He knew most of them had been drooled on too. Luckily, he didn’t mind all that much. Science waited for nothing, much less dirty laundry.

After she fell asleep, he just deposited the girl into the medical scanner before making his way up here. There were images of of her brain scans on the screen, from before and after her piloting of the construction mech.

Most of the movements that they’d had her in that mech do had been leg related movements.

Running, jumping, walking, squatting.

Halfway through the exercises, the diagnostics on the mech had reported problems with the pilot starting with the primary motor cortex, and now the scan confirmed it.

“Looks like we were right. The mech is resisting the movement commands her brain is sending, and when she overrides the resistance unconsciously, the synchronium strains her brains. Look, it’s stopped responding right about...now,” one of Barlo’s colleagues said, pointing at the red-highlighted part. 

She paused a video that had been simultaneously playing, depicting a moment where the construction mech’s left leg buckled at the same time as the brain part flashed red. The mech quickly recovered, but the damage had been done.

Indeed, signals from the brain to the legs had ceased almost completely whenever the girl tried to move her legs. Instead, the mech moved. 

Meanwhile, the cortex responded just fine to everything else the girl did.

“Nervous damage this time?” Barlo asked.

“Nope.”

“So still just synchronium, huh? Hmmm... Damn, it’s almost time,” Barlo said, cursing as he looked at the electronic clock in the corner of the lab. “You guys keep working. I’ll have to go talk to Lady Florent. Damn.” 

There was nothing he wanted more than to stay and dedicate himself to the research, but he had other responsibilities as the leader of his research team—like tending to his host who so generously offered up her own daughter as a lab rat. 

What a sick woman, he thought. Then he giggled. As if he had any right to criticize her. 

As he left the room, he looked back. “If you see anything new in the process, write it in a report, okay?”

“Okay. Hey Bar. What about your coat?”

Barlo just waved back. Who the hell wanted to wear a slobbered on coat?

His shoes clopped on the hard metal floor. The air buzzed as he walked closer to his destination. A powerful jamming field permeated the air.

He had walked this route so many times he bet he could do it in his sleep. It was unfortunate that his employer insisted on face to face meetings, though he supposed it was the right choice. 

The things they were doing might actually bring the BME down on them, and neither his team nor his employer would appreciate that.

Those people cared way too much about little things like ethics, as if they weren’t doing shady things as well. They weren’t so naive as to think that humanity got this far with kiddie gloves, so why not embrace true and unfettered science?

Barlo grumbled to himself as he turned to an unmarked door. The door slid open after he inserted an electronic chip card. He couldn’t help but marvel at Vesmelda’s paranoia. The chip card only worked for a couple of hours and then the codes in the doors changed.

The cards then had to be reprogrammed to the new code, and in a few hours the process started all over again. Once, he had been too wrapped up in his research that he missed the time window, and he couldn’t get into the room.

Fortunately he wasn’t too late this time and the card still worked. The door slid open.

Knightmaiden Vesmelda Florent sat in a chair, tapping away at a console. Her back was straight and her posture was perfect. Barlo couldn’t help but admire her discipline. He’d be hunched over by now.

For a moment, he stood there, until Vesmelda’s cold voice cut through the dry, cool air.

“Are you just going to stand there like an idiot or will you speak?” she asked.

Barlo snapped back. “Ah. No, sorry. Today, Annabelle damaged her brain again. Nothing major; her primary motor cortex just stopped working for her legs, likely due to the io-silica inhibiting the signals to her legs. Normally that would be permanent, but....”

Vesmelda waved her hand dismissively. “Yes, yes. Your machine can fix the damage. That’s the reason I allowed you to do your research. If you permanently damage Annabelle in any way, you won’t leave this place alive.”

“Oh? The witch cares about her daughter?” Barlo asked, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t expect that.”

Vesmelda didn’t reply, but her frosty aura told Barlo all he needed to know. That woman had a heart of ice. She didn’t see her daughter as a person at all—Annabelle was nothing but a chess piece for her. Likewise, he himself was just a convenient piece.

Once again, he was reminded of how much less important he and his team were to Vesmelda than she to him. Where else would he be able to get his hands on someone whose brain automatically repaired damage to itself over time?

The ability was truly miraculous. 

Once, they accidentally allowed the girl to sustain so much brain damage she fell into a deep coma. He had wanted to repair the damage immediately, but instead, Vesmelda banned them from interfering.

Instead, they observed the girl regenerate her brain over several months. They had truly struck the jackpot with their research, and their progress advanced by leaps and bounds.

The next time it happened, they managed to speed up the process to just under two weeks.

“And one more thing. Annabelle finally damaged her aptitude. It fluctuates a bit, but recently, the highest she’d gotten is Grade B+ instead of her usual A.”

Without waiting for Vesmelda’s reply, Barlo walked out. When he looked inside one more time as the door slid shut, the ice woman had stopped typing.

 

Annabelle pushed the knob on her armrest and the wheelchair began to inch forward. She pushed it further and suddenly the wheelchair flew forward, pushing her into the backseat. “Yaaaa!”

She laughed. Then she stopped as she almost fell out. As she waited for her heart to stop pounding, she couldn’t help but think that not being able to feel her legs wasn’t so bad after all. It was scary at first, but she got used to it after a few hours. 

If she hadn’t gotten that ‘side effect,’ Mister Swarts wouldn’t have gotten her this wheelchair. 

She wondered if she’d be able to keep it after her legs were back. She glared balefully at her legs that were starting to tingle. At this rate, she’ll be able to walk in a few days.

As she drove her wheelchair around the large room, she quickly lost track of the time.

The door to the room had slid open and shut without noticing and Annabelle just barely stopped in time to avoid crashing into her mother who suddenly appeared in front of her.

The stop pitched her body forward and she hit her head and nose on the ground with a solid thunk.

Pain flared up in her nose and red liquid started dripping into a pool on the floor her face was on and she froze.

The puddle began to spread, and suddenly she realized she had a nosebleed and her head really hurts.

She was about to cry when she caught sight of shoes in front of her and her sniffles caught in her throat, unable to escape. Instead, she began to hiccup.

She quickly covered her mouth and sat up, but she couldn’t hide the shudders that ran through her body whenever she hiccuped. Blood dripped down her fingers and splattered onto her shirt.

As the red stains grew and her nose throbbed, tears began to pool in her eyes.

“Hic...”

“Mommy, I’m sorry... hic...”

She tried to stop herself from moving at all, stopping her breathing completely, but the next hiccup erupted, spraying blood, her spit, and fluids from her runny nose all over the floor. She watched in horror as some of the tiny droplets landed on her mother’s shoes.

Unable to stop herself, she looked up to see her mother’s expression to find her staring down at her, face blank.

“Stop crying and stand up.”

“Hic...” Annabelle quickly wiped her tears with her sleeves and did her best to stop her heaving chest. She did her best, but the second part of her mother’s command she couldn’t accomplish no matter what. “I-I can’t...”

Her mother knelt down, bringing her face close to her own. Trembling, Annabelle fell back, hitting some kind of bone on her butt as she did so. She swallowed back the cry of pain and waited for her mother to do something.

She couldn’t say anything or her mother might punish her. 

She couldn’t disobey or her mother might punish her.

Nobody, not even Mister Swarts could help her.

“Stand up. Do you think I don’t know how well your legs have healed? That much should be enough for you to stand,” her mother whispered.

Annabelle could only nod and did as her mother asked. She twisted around so that she was face down and on all fours. Blood dripped from her nose as she pushed against the ground, trying to make her legs move. Heat filled her legs.

But although she tried her best, she couldn’t do it.

“M-mommy, I’m sorry... I can’t!”

Her mother shook her head. “No. You can do more. You alone can. Come on, Annabelle.”

Annabelle froze as her mother stroked her chin. Her cheeks were already starting to heat up although her mother hadn’t even touched her anywhere except her chin yet.

But the slap she expected never came. She was just about to relax when her mother’s gaze sharpened.

“If you can’t do it alone, I’ll help you, in the most painful way possible. The sooner you succeed, the sooner I’ll stop,” her mother said, in an almost whisper that sent shivers of fear down her spine and made her teeth tingle.

“Adversity is the fuel of greatness.”

“No, mommy! Please...!” Annabelle protested, squeezing her eyes shut, but her mother did not stop. Long nails scratched the top of her head as her mother grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled, dragging her to her feet.