• Project Dream


    “I’m not afraid of dying, far from. It’s living that scares the hell out of me.”

    I suppose that’s why I was afraid when I first awoke, if it can be called waking up. I am aware, but only barely. Everything is numb, dark, empty. I know I have limbs, but I cannot feel them. I have eyes, but they remain closed, not even a hint of light getting past them. My tongue must be hanging limply in my mouth and I worry that I might be dead, because I am not breathing. All I am aware of, all I can sense, is the occasional distant, muffled sound of footsteps and voices, white noise to my ears. Those sounds mean nothing to me.

    I dare not open my eyes, not now, not yet. As much as I desperately want to open my eyes, to look around, to see what it was that contained me, something tells me not to. I don’t know what it is, but something is weighing on my mind, some kind of animal instinct. They cannot know that I am awake, that I am aware. Am I paranoid? Probably.

    Something taps against glass near me, but the sound is muffled, distant, as is the voice that follows it, as is everything I hear. Even so, I know this voice. This one is important. The same instinct that keeps my body asleep makes sure that I listen to this one. I feel angry when I hear Him, angry and sad and a million other things I cannot put into words. But, more than anything, I feel an overwhelming sadness.

    “Have there been any changes?”

    “No doctor. It’s as silent as the grave.”

    “She, Reis, she.”

    “Sir, is it wise to refer to it as a living thing?”

    She? Is he talking about me?

    He touches my prison again.

    “She is alive, Reis, and someday she will be more alive than you or I.”

    He walks away and the world falls silent again. I can hear the other one, Reis, muttering, but it does not matter. His voice means nothing to me. I will wait for the other one to return.



    Slowly, I am learning. I am stretching my mind out, exploring whatever surroundings I can while my body stays in this artificial death that it’s forced upon me. It seems that my body is making up for that forced solitude, though. My body cannot leave its prison, but I can leave my body. I’ve learned that I can move around outside my prison even though my body remains there. I have no memory of this place, no sense of home or belonging, and it is frightening to me.

    But, at the same time, some part of me wants to stretch out an explore every part of this place, these glowing towers and shimmering roads. Beings, people, I think, rush past me, unaware that I even exist, racing to and from alongside balls of light and shining ribbons of every color imaginable. This place is beautiful, fascinating, and utterly terrifying.

    I cannot find my way back to my own body, but I can see it. In a certain room of one of the towers, I can look through a set of windows and see the place, the lab where my body is, where so many amazing things are happening.

    I can see myself as well. I did not realize it was me at first, but now I know it is. I look like a corpse, floating in a glass tube filled with a strange, blue-tinted plasma without even a hint of air passing my lips. My hair is long so long that it wraps severals times around my body and still comes to my knees. There’s a scar over my right eye that reaches down to my neck and another one across my throat. There are smaller ones, too, but those two are important. I’m proud of them, but I don’t know why.



    I saw them a week ago. They are the only people I’ve ever seen go into His office. And they just walked in! Somehow, I know them.

    I belong with them, somehow I know that I belong with them. My heart reaches desperately out to them, calling them, begging them, pleading them to see me, to look at me.

    And then, one of them does.

    I’ve been waiting for you.



    I have now been conscious for one year, three months, twenty days, sixteen hours and some-odd minutes. I am not bored, far from. There is always some trouble to cause or something to fix.

    I spend my days outside my body, exploring, experimenting, and finding out as much as I can. Ever since I saw those boys in His lab I’ve known. My place is with them. I have to find a way to contact them.

    I watch them come in and out of the lab at random. I don’t even need to watch the windows anymore. I can feel them when they come in. But that, in itself, is the problem. Whatever control I have, something must be watching my mind as well as my body. Some kind of alarm goes off. It is getting harder and harder to keep myself dead, to keep myself numb to everything. My body wants to wake up, to keep up with my mind, and my mind goes ballistic whenever I feel those three walk in.

    Thank God no one has made the connection yet.



    I think I know why I can never reach the lab. As far as science seems to have advanced, it has not advanced far enough for me to be able to walk out of a computer into a actual, physical, corporeal room.

    There it is. This amazing, glowing world that I have explored for so long is nothing but a computer network. The world should be less frightening that way, but for some reason, it makes it even more so.

    Something about it is comforting, too. Now that I know why I cannot reach out and touch the world, the real world, outside my prison, I realize how free I am. I am quickly learning that I can change things in these computers, pull apart and rewrite programming as easily as a human might weave strips of cloth together.

    No matter what else I can or cannot do, I can at least help.



    I’m in the main server working on a new idea one of the scientists cooked up. I like this one. He’s friends with the boys and a lot of the things he makes are to help them. These binders he is working on now are based on a design created by someone named Destiny Kusanagi. They’re the equivalent on a laptop computer that can hold documents, images, and videos, but are only half an inch thick and open like a school notebook and also are capable of connecting to the internet and holding an AI, or Artificial Intelligence program.

    The “people” moving around in the network are AIs, amazing programs so close to being human it is frightening. Some look like blank slates, no real features save for basic eyes and mouth, but others are so detailed they seem nearly human. They think, speak, some files I’ve found even hint that they might be able to feel emotions like a human can. It’s amazing. Destiny Kusanagi had her hands in their creation, too, and so many other things.

    But right now I have another problem. He’s been watching me for about ten minutes now. I can see why he might be concerned. I may be able to move around in the computers, but my body in this strange computer world is simpler than even the most basic program. I must look like no more than an off-color blur drifting through files and packets of data.

    He’s walking towards me, slowly, cautiously. I can make out his features now. Blue-black hair and bright green eyes.

    He’s an AI. He has to be. Humans can’t enter computers. That raises the question again. What am I?

    He is looking down at me. He’s confused and some inner part of me smiles. I know that look. Apparently he sees something, too, because he kneels down in front of me so we are on something like eye level.

    “What are you?”

    I can’t speak, so I do the best I can. I try to shrug.

    “You can’t talk, can you?”

    I shake my head. He goes silent for several minutes, as if having some internal conversation. He suddenly turns back to me.

    “Well, I don’t think you’re a virus,” he mutters, lightly biting one of his knuckles, “but you’re not an AI.”

    This is hopeless. I can’t do much with my computer body or my mental signs will spike, and even then, how do I tell him? And what do I tell him?

    Instinct has gotten me this far, time to turn to it again. There’s a symbol on his jacket and something clicks in my mind. I pull up a simple paint program in front of me and begin working. I honestly have no idea what I am doing, but it feels right.

    He sits there, watching me. Waiting. I think part of him recognizes me. I can hear the alarms from my brain wave monitors going off. I have to hurry.

    Done. I leave the image with him and immediately pull myself out of the computers and come back to my own numb, lifeless body. I was right, the computer picked up on my mental activity and the doctor monitoring me is going crazy.

    I let myself drift off to sleep, completely ignoring the activity outside my prison. The few dreams I have are full of distant faces and images, that strange symbol I drew for the AI drifts through my mind. Soon, everything was going to change.



    It’s been almost a month since my encounter with the AI. I have been paying more attention now, checking the monitors every time my boys come in. Now that I look, now that I know what to look for, there are at least two AI programs with them. One of the boys has been snooping around a little, and there is always an AI with him.

    I’ve finally found what I’ve been searching for these last few months. My file. Project Dream is a large compressed folder shoved in the back of His computer. There are notes, ideas, stats, records of all my mental activity over the last months, and blueprints.

    I open the file. I recognize my general body figure, but that’s all I recognize. According to this, over seventy percent of the body floating in a tube on the other side of the lab is artificial.

    Ninety-five percent of my bones are now metal or lined with metal. Half of my face, the scarred half, is really all that is left of the original bone. Most of my organs, too, are artificial. The muscles in my left arm have been enhanced with strips of a strange metal I have never heard of. The other three appendages have been completely replaced.

    What really strike me, though, are my replacement vocal cords. Someone seems to have put a great amount of attention and detail into my new vocal cords. For some reason I feel grateful to him for this.

    I think back to the scar on my throat. What happened to me?

    There are no notes on my life prior to Him rebuilding me. I’ve found the name Destiny Kusanagi again. Apparently she and her brothers pioneered the technology that was used to rebuild me.

    I’ve also found images of my body before I was rebuilt, though you would never know the body floating in the lab and the one in the pictures are the same.

    What could possibly do that much damage? What could literally rip apart a human body and crush what was left of it? What I can make out of my remaining muscles and organs also seem to have been deteriorating for quite some time before.

    I can’t look at it anymore. I close the file and return to my body. Now I understand why I am angry at Him. He didn’t save my life or help me. I’m a project, an experiment made from the body of a dead thirteen year old girl. He and Destiny Kusanagi built me, created me, designed me, and the more I look the more I think that I was built not just as an experiment, but a weapon.

    I’m starting to wish that he had just left me dead.



    People rarely come in and out my room, so, when the door opened at night in the middle of a shift it got my attention. I have recently discovered that I can open my eyes without drawing attention, so that’s what I did.

    The scientist on duty is shooing out a familiar-looking boy. He looks directly at me and I risk gazing back, and then he is gone.



    The AI is back. He actually came looking for me this time. I’ve been waiting for this.

    “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find you.”

    I give him a smile again.

    “Stupid, I know, but I’ve gotta worry. I mean, you died on us once already.”

    His face screws up in annoyance.

    “They didn’t believe me at first, but I convinced Lucien to go snooping around. When he showed up at the house the other night and said he found you Mama went crazy.”

    I giggled. I could almost imagine a scene like that.

    “Do you think you can get yourself out?” he asked worriedly. “I’ve checked, but everything that controls your stasis tube is disconnected from the rest of the system.”

    I can do that. I’ve got the whole thing figured out already.

    Apparently he can tell what I’m thinking, because he breaks into a wide smile.

    “Can you get out soon?”

    I nod. It’s time to risk getting caught, so I focus on my artificial body enough to create something like a voice.

    “Just tell me when.” My voice sounds alien, wrong, but it does the job.

    The AI blinks at me for a few minutes, as if trying to comprehend the fact that I just spoke. He went silent for a moment, eyes blanking out.

    “Tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll all be here. Where should we wait for you?”

    I thought about it. There was a little-used back door I had found in one of the maps of the lab, at the end of the hall leading from the main lobby.

    “Meet me at the elevator outside my room; I know a quick way out. Be careful. The scientists are really jumpy.”

    “So we noticed,” he said with a chuckle.

    I smile. I have to get back to my body. I think he realizes this. He darts forward and kisses the spot that should have been my cheek.

    “Get going. We’ll see you tomorrow, sis.”

    And at that moment I knew everything will work out.



    Everything is ready. My doctors have been going crazy with all my mental activity for the last few hours. I’ve set up a video loop on all the monitors that could catch me and the boys slipping out. Everything is set up and ready for me to leave. With a single mental flip of a switch everything will start, and all hell will break loose.

    The scientist on shift is Reis, my least favorite of the scientists who look after me. Call me an ‘it’ will he? Scaring him will be fun.

    I’ve been watching the monitors all day. The boys just came in. They’re acting like they always do when they come in, and I doubt anyone noticed that they went to a different elevator than they usually do.

    As soon as they enter the elevator I flip the switch. Alarms go off and the embryonic fluid around me begins to drain. The video loops are on and Reis is so busy trying to figure out what just happened to notice what was going on with me.

    I begin moving my limbs as soon as they are released from the gel-like fluid. Everything feels so alien, but by the time the fluid drains away from my ankles I can move almost as well as a normal person. I supposed my bionic limbs can be attributed to that.

    I reach up and pull off the equipment that is monitoring me. Alarms begin blaring and I pull an IV out of my arm and another out of my hand. I trip the switch on my tube and it slides open and I step out.

    I feel oxygen fill my lungs for the first time in years. It feels wonderfully warm and I just stand there for a moment, letting the last of the liquid drip off my body. After being numb for so long, every sensation seems like a jarring blow, an ear-splitting roar. The air smells so strongly it makes my eyes water and the stinging sensation feels like someone driving needles into my eyes.

    I finally move again. Reis has finally noticed me and is now trying to call for help. I disabled all the lines going out of the room, so no one outside knows what is going on. I can’t help but toy with him a little.

    I step forward so he is within arm’s length and reach for him. I’m not surprised he started to panic. Having a formerly comatose girl suddenly walk out of her stasis tank looking, no doubt, like a scene out of a horror movie would be scary to almost anyone.

    I reach for his lab coat, which he habitually throws over the back of his chair when ever he comes in. My breathing is still heavy and a little ragged, my body unaccustomed to having to use those muscles after so long. I have no doubt it only added to the horror image.

    I smile at him and walk towards the door, putting the coat lightly around my body and ignoring his stunned sputtering.

    I wonder if I was this much of a troublemaker in my last life, or if I enjoyed it this much.

    The boys are waiting for me in an open elevator. All three stare at me for several moments when I walk in, before one bounds up to me and throws his arms around me, almost knocking me over. He stares down at me with huge bright green eyes and an infectious smile. He’s almost identical to the AI, save for his hair, slightly longer and random varying shades of brown and red. This is the boy that had been snooping around.

    I hug him back and kiss him on the cheek, letting my body lead itself. This feels right.

    The other two approach us, looking slightly suspicious. The one who had been snooping around approaches me. He’s almost a head taller than me with one stunning indigo eye, the other hidden behind a simple white eye patch, and a perpetual scowl that I just know rarely leaves his face. His long hair is dyed sea green and tied at the base of his neck.

    He brings his hand up, and for one terrifying moment it looks like he is about to back-hand me. Instead he knocks my hair away from my scarred eye with such force that it swings over my head.

    I stared at him for a minute and a small smile twitches across his face. I finally break down laughing. I honestly have no clue why, but it’s funny, some inside joke that I should know. Part of me knew that only he would identify me by the scar on my face.

    He held out his hand to me and I took it. “You’re late, Kusanagi.” And he puts his arms around me, placing a gentle kiss on my forehead.

    The last of the boys had, until now, sat back with a quiet, knowing smirk. His hair was black as midnight and fell in a silver-tipped spiky mass all the way down his back. He shoves a pile of clothes into my arms, the corner of his mouth twitching and his electric blue eyes shining with amusement.

    “If we bring you home in nothing but a lab coat Mother will kill us.”

    The others nod in agreement. It’s only a pair of blue jeans and a racing t-shirt, but I'm grateful to have something that doesn’t reek of chemicals to wear. This fells more natural anyway.

    Slipping out is amazingly easy. They seem to know every back passage and door in the lab. The few times that we pass another person, someone will yank open the nearest closet or empty lab and shove me in. The few times that doesn’t work, I can easily hide behind the one with the eye patch, as he’s so much larger than me. I seem to have a natural affinity for sneaking around.

    But I very nearly panic when He came strolling around a corner in the one hallway where there weren’t any doors to hide in. I automatically reach for a metal strip that runs the length of the wall, knowing that it is connected to the network. I reach into the computer with my mind and quickly find the switch for the first alarm I find on the other side of the lab.

    He yells and drops the steaming cappuccino in his hand as he turns on his heels to run in the other direction. The boys all turn to look back at me, green eyes openly slack-jawed and the other two with arched eyebrows. The corner of eye patch's mouth is twitching and blue eyes is smiling.

    The one with green eyes opens his mouth to ask, but the others simultaneously reach up to cover his mouth, “Not here...” the one with blue eyes hisses, then takes my hand and leads the rest of the way out of the lab.

    A limo is waiting for us in front of the lab and I gratefully fall into the seats and the boys slide in behind me. The indigo-eyed one sits next to me the other two sit across from us in old habit.

    I close my eyes and lean on his arm. I didn’t realize how tired I am.

    “You okay, sis?” Damon asks.

    I nod, offering him a bright, open smile to let him know that I am not lying. It is a natural instinct, something so embedded-programmed?- in my mind that it comes without thought. Something in my eyes, however, must have betrayed how tired and confused I am, because the boy at my side puts his arm around my shoulders. Without words, that single move somehow seemed to speak volumes to me, unfortunately those volumes were in a completely alien language.

    “It’s alright, Kusanagi,” he says when I stiffen, “you can rest now.”

    I look up at him. He called me that before. A hundred questions spun through my mind, so many things to ask them. And again, they seem to know exactly what I am thinking.

    “You don’t remember us, do you?” green eyes asks softly. I shake my head. “Then why did you trust us?”

    ‘Because it felt right,’ I think. It sounds crazy, even in my mind.

    “Seems love really does transcend the grave,” blue eyes chuckled, “I’d expect no less from you, though. You’ll remember us in your own time.”

    As if triggered by his words, something appears in my mind. Names. Names and identities attached to those three faces, and instantly I understand why it was so easy to trust them.

    The happy-go-lucky green-eyed boy across from me is Damon Thorn, a boy that my mind instinctively called brother. Next to him, blue eyes and black hair is Alroy Morgan, best friend and confidante. And at my side, the one-eyed soldier is Lucien Romanov, who never called me by my first name.

    And then there was a fourth name, one I had read hundreds of times in the last months. It was a name I had come to despise, synonymous with the anger and suffering that my very existence seemed to bring up in me. That name was the reason I was alive when I knew I was supposed to be dead, why suddenly I was more afraid than ever.

    My name is Destiny Kusanagi.