The following day I woke to an alert; a pre-set I'd registered exactly one year earlier. It informed me that my reason to exist was entering phase two, one I'd catalogued as 'significant progress.' The fluttering commences in my abdomen; I'm grateful when I fail to reach the levels of nausea I have experienced previously with thoughts of my purpose, emotions that cripple me. A steely resolve has replaced the fragility, today will prove to be another step closer.
When I reach the Facility, I find Lars immediately tiresome; extremely so. His usual calm consideration had been replaced with what I can only describe as giddiness, immaturity displayed more often in a child. Evidently this regression is a result of his breakthrough rather than mine, his revolutionary research into the world of facial recognition.
I grit, then grind hard until my facial muscles spasm with the tension. I'd set out with such purpose; I don't have time for delays and distractions, today was to be a marker, one where I made significant gains in my progress to locate what I came here to find. I leave in search of a fix, mirrors to calm me. I don't even bother to explain to him where I am going.
It wasn't just Lars; every atom in the universe had misaligned themselves, grating up against my nerves. Last night's attempts at sleep were meagre; ineffective and fractured by images, bulbous characters made up of those I knew, looming in to meet me. It was a low budget affair; I sat in the cheap seats, watching the parade of jerky movements, dictated by puppet strings. The puppeteer never revealed himself, always at the peripheral edge of my vision, a dark spectre in the shadows infecting my core with foreboding.
I spent the dream chasing an illusion, limbs powered by my desire to find whoever was pulling the strings of these macabre images.The show failed to reach a conculsion. The story of my life.
A watery dawn, grey as a wild hare found me exhausted, twisted in sheets damp from my articulations. I lay on my side scrunched inward, feeling my heart thudding out its threat of danger before I'd even checked the mirror. Thousands of hours of my own research had taught me how lack of sleep and dehydration presented the most significant damage to my skin. I have masks for such occasions, although after application, even the slight improvement I observed in texture and brightness failed to elevate my mood that morning. Had Lars shared his developments with me on any other day, I feel sure I would have been capable of mustering an excitement to match his.
The entry system installed in the health club had worked well for us; so well in fact, I doubt an alternative method could have recruited such high numbers with this degree of success. Lars had been working on taking the intelligence one step further, the use of facial recognition. The concept wasn't revolutionary; already employed in sectors across the world, it had so far shown only failed performance in the selected environments.
Lars insisted on taking me down to his workspace where he had lain out the results; data evidencing the capabilities of reading individuals faces, or brains to be exact. The data capture was similar to the swipe system already in place, but the advances FR made were mind blowing.
Literally.
Displayed across his computed tomography wall, a series of images showed the differing lobes of the brain, each area classified by a bright splodge of colour. I recognised this to be chemical dye, an identifier the subjects had been injected with prior to scanning. Lars went onto explain how the subjects were put through a series of facial recognition tests to see if the software could identify the differing lobes via the bold colours. In addition to distinguishing between the frontal, parietal and occipital locations, it also interpreted the general moods occurring within each lobe.
Previously FR had gained its following as a security measure; a tool used for entering secure facilities, or as an alternative to password supplication. Both applications were fast becoming an outdated method of data protection. Lars believed he was the first to discover the software's ability to read backgrounds, what was really going on behind the eyes.
YOU ARE READING
VIRAGO
General Fiction'I'll admit; I've lost control of certain elements in my life, like the flaw finding. I wonder occasionally, if things are getting out of hand. And then I remember my purpose, what this is really all about. You should know with absolute certainity...
