The Optimum Project: Revised Edition

Chapter 17

Getting acquainted

I blinked, "Never mind..."

Pix leaned forward suddenly, "Did he speak to you?"

"Yes," both I and the voice inside my head said in synchrony.

"haha!" Pix cheered, "It works! It works!" Pix scooped me into a bear hug and swung me around for a little bit before seemingly getting a hold of himself and calming down.

"Of course I am functioning, why would he possibly think otherwise?"

"Oh, Noah, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this moment."

I smiled, "Don't worry about it."

"Okay... Uh... I have exercises you two need to do to solidify the cognitive link..." Pix turned and began shuffling through papers left and right, muttering 'Where are they...' over and over until he finally found them, holding up the single sheet of paper over his head in victory.

"Ah, here we go, found it."

"Why does this strange man use such outdated information mediums? Are trees no longer an endangered species?"

I tilted my head, "It wants to know why you use paper."

"What's that?" Pix looked at me in confusion for a moment... "Oh, Oh! I forgot to unlock his analysis and research suite."

He stood up and looked into my eyes, yet I could tell he was somehow looking beyond me.

"I Pixel J. Reeves, hereby enable program suite A-Niner-Zulu."

Lines of code suddenly flashed across my vision, giving me an instantaneous headache and making me feel dizzy.

"Activation codes accepted, Analysis and Research Suite now available for use."  the voice said.

"He said it worked." I relayed with a tinge of annoyance at the unexpected pain.

Pix giggled, "This is amazing, Years of work are now coming to fruition."

Pix turned and held up what appeared to be a piece of paper, "Now, Noah, you need to learn to utilize Tom correctly and effectively, but for now, we will start with spoken verbal commands before we try thought control. "

I nodded, "Bring it."

Pix smiled, "Okay, tell Tom to analyze this piece of paper."

I stared at the piece of paper for a moment, concentrating...

"Analyze."

Nothing.

I looked at pix questioningly, "Nothing happened..."

"Okay... try again but concentrate more on what the paper is made of. Not what you think it's made of, just think about it on a molecular or atomic level."

I nodded and looked at the paper again, not concentrating on the paper itself but it's material.

"Analyze"

My vision pulsed for a moment and the paper that Pix held almost seemed to glow.

Except it wasn't paper... I could see the material breakdown on the edge of my vision, it was a synthetic nano polymeric sheet. Not made of tree materials at all.

"That's awesome" I breathed.

Pix smiled, "So... what's it made of?"

"It's a Nano polymeric sheet, some sort of Nanofiber that's basically woven together."