TRIAL OF THE PILOT: BIG BEE

Red alarms blared. Wires and patches and frantic leads tugged at Bee's body as the cockpit was filled with furious, urgent warnings.

EXTERNAL PRESSURE AT 400 ATMOSPHERES

NEURAL ALIGNMENT 19%

He was standing, his body suspended by slings that attached to numerous robot arms that rotated around him. 80% of his vision was screens that showed external cameras, and all of them were terrifying.

Dark water rushed past, broken up only by banks of luminous coral that grew and disappeared from his field of vision as swiftly as cars passing on the highway.

Bee's brain ached, like his hemispheres were being pulled further and further apart. He reached up and held his head, as if he could force the two halves back together. "Ughhh, what's happening?"

The wrap-around cockpit screens were overlayed with flashing UI messages that were blasted out through overhead speakers in a grating text-to-speech voice.

EXTERNAL PRESSURE AT 450 ATMOSPHERES

NEURAL ALIGNMENT 17%

Someone else started to scream.

It was a screech made with unfamiliar vocals, like the shriek of high-pressure water thrashing against jagged metal.

Bee looked to his right and saw Guzzlord, its bulbous body strapped hooked up to a similar setup of slings and diodes. Black fluid flowed through thick tubes embedded in its arms and legs, and light-up patches studded its skin, flashing red so that it looked like a unhappy Christmas tree.

"Guzzlord! Are you okay? I'll get us out of here, don't—"

A bank of coral emerged from the darkness and crashed into them. The cockpit flipped, and a crunching, lancing pain shot through Bee's mind and arm. The two of them screamed in unison, their minds splitting and drifting in a haze of disjointed pain even as their bodies experienced the present in joint agony.

NEURAL ALIGNMENT 13%

DESYNC IMMINENT

COMMENCING FORCED SYNCHRONIZATION

The monster wave rose behind Bee as he pulled himself up onto his feet. His board shook and shuddered as the wall of water rolled up like a punch. His board tipped, and the coiled fist of water picked him up and smashed him into the sand. He lungs were full of salt water and his face and arm were scratched to hell and back.

NEURAL ALIGNMENT 11%

"Here kitty," he whispered, inching closer to the neighborhood cat. "It's okay, I have food." He pulled out the packet of fresh salmon and put a piece on a paper plate. He slid the plate under the car. Reluctantly, and maintaining eye-contact the whole time, the tortoiseshell took a sniff of the fish. It paused. Then it took a huge bite, latching onto the fillet and pulling it off the plate and further under the car.

He watched the cat eat. "Good, huh?"

Some asshole on a motorcycle roared down the street, spooking the cat. It raced out from under the car and climbed him, claws slashing up and down his body as it fled the fish and furious sounds. He ended up getting eleven stitches.

NEURAL ALIGNMENT 9%

Snow-dusted Alaskan slopes shot past on both sides. His skis carved twin lines in the mountain, kissing the fresh snow like he was a passing ghost and this ski run was Demi Moore. Suddenly he hit something poking out of the snow. His ski shuddered and disconnected. One leg went one way and his body was wrenched sideways. He felt muscles tear and saw only red.

NEURAL ALIGNMENT 7%

Dozens of painful scenes shot by, as if his mind was flicking through memories in search of something specific.

He was arguing with his girlfriend about something stupid. It escalated and suddenly he was alone on the couch. Both of them were sure they were right. Nobody ever apologized. She never picked up her stuff.

He was slicing vegetables in the kitchen. The knife slipped and sliced open his hand.

He was racing down a street on his motorbike. The road was slippery from rain and he crashed. He ended up in the ER.

He was attending Nick's funeral in a too-big suit.

He slammed his fingers in a car door.

He was getting his teeth pulled with insufficient anesthetic.

He found out that a close friend and coworker had been stealing from the company. He went home, after what was the most recent long day in a very long string of long days. Call it a long month at this point. He put his car into park, turned off the engine, and cried his eyes out.

NEURAL ALIGNMENT 4%

He was learning to walk. He lurched forward with one pudgy leg, testing it with his weight. His soft knee buckled and he fell forward to land face deep in the cream-colored carpet of his grandmother's apartment. It smelled like a thousand years of faded Febreze, with just a hint of feet. He pulled himself up again, only to fall once more. His body was closer to the ground back then. His bones were bendier. They weren't brittled by years of pain and failure.

This was an early memory. Maybe his first memory. It was just a snippet. A tiny speck of pain pulled from the bottom drawer of his mind. It wasn't a memory Bee ever revisited, but there was something primal and unsullied about it. It was a deep and true part of him, a foundational memory. The start of who he was and would become.

He resurfaced from the red fog of memory and looked over at Guzzlord. The creature was in pain. It lurched from one side to the other, swaying and screeching as if it were stepping on a bed of hot coals.

Stepping.

Left. Right.

Bee looked down and saw he was doing the same.

Left. Right.

COMMON MEMORY LOCATED

SIMILARITY 72%

COMMENCING MNEMONIC FUSION