Terminal Eyes

STORY SYNOPSIS:

THE HANDFUL OF DOCTORS AND SCIENTISTS are gathered around a computer monitor in a high-tech lab for a demonstration that will signal the culmination of years of research and work.

The lights dim and the screen glows with an image. It seems to be a video of a small animal being trapped in the jungle, taken from the animal's point of view, followed by scenes of the animal in a laboratory cage, also from the animal's POV.

In spite of the seemingly innocuous imagery, the scientists cheer victoriously, especially when one of their number, York Lawrence, appears on the screen as if seen through the animal's eyes.

"They were downloaded yesterday." Boasts project supervisor Darwin Zhiqiang.

This team of scientists has successfully developed and implanted a microchip into the brain of a small monkey that allows them to tap directly into the neural patterns of the mind and download them as digital data onto the mainframe computer.

Zhiqiang hails this as a boon to mankind. "The next step in man's evolution is technological, not biological."

York raises his usual concerns about the morality of what they are doing, much to the consternation of his wife, Yuan Mei, also a part of the project. But the elation of the group quickly sweeps his objections aside. It worked, and for the moment that's all they care about.

The research facility is a joint Chinese/US government project, housed in a prominent Shanghai hospital. The six scientists and doctors all take their leave, excited by their success. Zhiqiang asks Mei to remain behind for follow-up.

But over the next three hours, four of the six scientists are brutally murdered in a carefully organized, near simultaneous offensive, their deaths made to look like accidents. Falling from the balcony of a 40-story condo. Electrocution in the bathtub. A fatal carjacking. An out-of-control house fire.

York's car is rammed by a loaded cement mixer, launching it three stories into the air before cannoning into the side of an office building.

But miraculously, when the paramedics arrive, York is still alive. He is rushed to the very hospital that houses the research facility. Zhiqiang personally takes over his case, performing emergency neurosurgery to repair severe cranial damage.

Mei is barred from the surgical theater because Zhiqiang believes her to be too emotionally involved to be of any assistance.

YORK RECOVERS IN A PRIVATE HOSPITAL SUITE annexed to the research facility, his life spared. That's when the nightmares begin. His mind replays the horrifying accident over and over.

But there is something else. Images of children flying through the air, but horribly deformed children. And wrenching, split-second images of an aircraft crash in a desert. Brutal death and horrific dismemberment.

Mei comforts him, and tells him of the work's progress, the further tests on the monkeys. She does not tell him of the death of the other members of the team.

The nightmares continue, growing in intensity and terror. And the flying children, misshapen and mutilated, swimming through the air, become more and more prevalent. Even as his body fully recovers, his mind is teetering on the brink of insanity.

In spite of Mei's objections, Zhiqiang orders York restricted to his room, ostensibly for further "observation." But York is allowed a computer so he can carry on his work.

Surfing the Internet, he decides to catch up on the news he missed while recovering, and comes across a newspaper account of the death of his four co-workers. He is terrified. His car wreck was no accident – he was supposed to die with the others. But why was he spared?

And why is his wife still alive? He can trust no one, and begins making plans to escape.

ZHIQIANG HOLDS A BRIEFING with Chinese and American military brass, showing them the results of their investment. Mei is with him. Many of them don't quite grasp the benefit of being able to see a monkey's dreams, so Zhiqiang spells it out.

"Do you believe in the Bible, gentlemen?" Not a lot of believers in this room. "Well, I am fulfilling Biblical prophecy." He holds up one of the tiny chips. "Behold, the Mark of the Beast."

They may not believe, but this is making them all damn uncomfortable. Zhiqiang explains that as they know, there are currently tests being done with chips in smart cards, and in Europe they are even experimenting with chips implanted in the back of the hand.

The Darwin chip, as Zhiqiang has named it, is designed to be implanted in the frontal lobe of the brain. Total population control. Not only the ability to track every person on the globe, and their transactions – but actually eavesdropping on their very thoughts.

That got their attention. Where did this miraculous technology come from? Zhiqiang just smiles enigmatically. "I have top minds on this project." The brass are anxious for human tests, but of course, human tests must still be years away. Not so, grins Zhiqiang. He has a little surprise for them.

THE NIGHTMARE IS MORE INTENSE than ever before. York has fallen asleep while working at his computer. The desert air crash. His auto accident. The flying children.

He awakes with a start, which always banishes the dreams. But not this time, because the horrific images are still replaying on his computer screen.

Suddenly the picture on the computer screen changes to an image – of a computer screen. In panic, York looks around the room, then back to the screen, only to see his very sight replayed on the screen about 10 seconds later.

With cold terror he realizes the truth – a chip has been implanted in his brain. He screams in horror.

The military, however, are delighted, visions of world domination dancing in their heads. Zhiqiang relates that the system only works with images so far, no sound or sub-visual processing. But the first human test is a resounding success. They order more as soon as possible.

MEI TAKES THE NEWS RATHER WELL, saying that the work is of such a surpassing importance that the small sacrifices of a few are inconsequential. Besides, her husband is none the worse for the experience. He is alive and well, and should be honored to be the first.

But York is not nearly so sanguine. Using his wits and his desperation, he overpowers two orderlies and escapes from his room.

The way out, however, is blocked by too many guards and medical personnel, none of whom he can trust. The only avenue left is down, down into the bowels of the building.

Lost, he is nearly discovered by two lab-coated technicians. What are they doing down here? He follows them to a security door that requires a retinal eye-scan to admit entrance.

When the door opens, he is suddenly assaulted by a barrage of shocking images, not of his auto accident, but more of the flying children, the desert crash, and new images, of something trapped in the center of a huge high-tech laboratory. The last thing he senses before passing out is a voice pleading with him, begging for help.

The voice is coming from inside his head.

YORK AWAKENS TO THE SOUND OF SEARCHERS looking for him. They carry palm-sized computers, and the moment he opens his eyes, the sights he views become images on their computer screens, delayed by 10 seconds. They can see what he sees, and so converge on him.

Nearly caught several times, he suddenly rounds a corner and comes face to face with Mei. What will she do? Is she on their side, or can he trust her? She answers him by punching his lights out.

When he comes to again, he is blind. No, not blind, but blindfolded. Feeling about on the floor, he encounters the unconscious bodies of two of the searchers. Recoiling in fear, he runs into Mei, who restrains him, tries to calm him.

She completely turns his world upside down by explaining that she is an agent. Chinese Anquan Ju – Ministry of State Security – on deep cover assignment. Zhiqiang is up to much more than what either the Chinese or the US government sanctioned him to do.

York tries to remove the blindfold, but Mei prevents it. That's how they found him in the first place. They can see what he sees – and the images he thinks. In fact, she is probably compromised now, because as they have been talking, he has been constructing images of her in his mind, memories.

If they are ever going to get out of there, he cannot be allowed to see. In fact, he can help them greatly if he uses his mind to imagine images of other locations in the hospital, memories of rooms or hallways that will send them searching in all the wrong places.

He can talk, and even think, but his real thoughts must not be visual, or they will know what he is up to. He must exercise supreme mind control.

A difficult task, but soon the search parties are in confusion, rushing to different parts of the building as York imagines them, reconstructing them from his memory.

Trying to visualize one thing while talking about another is nearly impossible, but he tells Mei about the clandestine security door and they make their way there.

But of course, because of the retina scan, they cannot get in. So they wait, giving York a chance to keep imagining different places in the hospital to throw the searchers off.

When a couple of technicians arrive at the door, Mei handily decks them, surprising York. They have been married three years, and he had no idea about this side of is wife. "That's the point of being a secret agent," she chuckles.

Mei holds one of the unconscious technicians up to the retinal scanner, and the door opens.

But immediately upon entering, York's head is filled with images and voices, causing intense pain and confusion. Someone is being held a prisoner in this room, and is begging York to help him escape – or to kill him and end his misery.

York can see a clear picture of the inside of a huge room, from the point of view of the captive, and describes it to Mei – science and data processing stations set up in a circle around the center of the room; cutting edge technology.

The image is out, and York can't control it, so Mei removes his blindfold. He looks at her as if seeing her for the first time. And then a thought hits him – if she is with Chinese State Security, why would the government be investigating the government?

Because, she explains, Zhiqiang has many contracts with the government around the world, but he is a private contractor, not a member of the Chinese government or military.

They sneak through the passageway and enter the big room. It is incredible. Unbelievable. An altar at the shrine of science. And in the center of it all is a huge, clear cylinder that appears to be filled with water, six feet across and nearly four stories tall.

Suddenly, York can picture himself and Mei, peering up from their hiding place on the floor. He looks up at the cylinder, and nearly screams at what he sees.

It's the flying child.

Or at least that's what it looks like, a small child with pale white skin hovering in the center of the cylinder on gossamer wings.

But on closer look, it appears less childlike and more completely otherworldly. And the mutilations on the head that were so graphic in his dreams now appear to be gills. It is breathing underwater!

This creature is also the source of the voice in his head.

"I see you've met my friend." Zhiqiang's voice booms throughout the room. Mei knows it's impossible to hide now, so they boldly walk into the center. They are immediately surrounded by security.

"It's not everyone who has their own personal extraterrestrial. All the army ever got were dead bodies." Zhiqiang appears near the base of the cylinder carrying what looks like the lifeless body of a traditional alien – slender white body, large almond-shaped head with huge, dark eyes.

He throws it at York, who recoils in horror. But on closer inspection, he can see into the eyes. It's hollow – a spacesuit!

Zhiqiang confirms his speculation. No one guessed that the alien appearance was in reality a space suit, not the actual alien. They are aquatic creatures from a water world. Not water, exactly, but oxygen-rich hydrogen trioxide.

On earth, water is H2O. And we have hydrogen peroxide, which is H2O2. But on their planet, they live in a liquid atmosphere of H2O3. On earth H2O3 is a very unstable substance, boiling at a very low temperature, giving off pure oxygen that is extremely volatile.

The interior of their spaceships are filled with H2O3, as ours are with oxygen – they literally swim or fly around inside their craft. That's why the vast destruction at the 1942 crash in Xinjiang, Shanxi Provence – the oxygen boiled off when exposed to our air, and exploded.

This alien is from that UFO crash – much like the incident in Roswell, New Mexico in the 1947’s, but never publicized. Zhiqiang's father, a scientist, was prospecting for uranium in 1942, and came upon the crash site before the military got there.

Being every bit the opportunist his son is, he managed to get away with several key pieces of technology, and two living aliens. The military never knew.

But they paid the price ever since, in expensive government contracts, because his father, and later Zhiqiang, exploited the alien technology to its fullest extent, all technologies the Chinese were accused of stealing from the West – electronic miniaturization, fiber optics, solid-state technology, genetic engineering, the very tiles on the US space shuttle – and the chip in York's head.

Every alien has one. That is how they control their craft and all of their technology. No buttons or gages or switches. Just the perfect mind/machine interface. He discovered the chip when the second alien died in captivity.

Zhiqiang is poised to take all of humanity into the 21st century, and beyond. And make an astronomical profit at the same time. He is both shrewd and crazy.

And he's quite content to let the military take all of the heat for the alien cover-ups and conspiracies, while he takes all of the profit.

Suddenly, York is thrown into convulsions, and drops to the floor, writhing in pain. The same thing is happening to the alien in the tank. York experiences intense visions of the flying children, which now appear on monitors throughout the room.

It is a beacon, a signal from another alien Probeship, looking for their survivor. This has happened before, and Zhiqiang has always hidden from them. But this time he has a plan to capture the new ship. Imagine the money and power to be had from possessing such technology.

Zhiqiang had downloaded the alien's response to the last search beacon a few years ago, and now plays it back in order to lure the Probeship into a trap.

Mei can see that with this new technology, Zhiqiang will be unstoppable. She whispers to York, "Can you communicate with your alien pal in there?" York doesn't know. She tells him to somehow let the alien know that he will need his space suit any minute now.

"And brace yourself."

With that she immediately attacks the nearest guards, sending them all to the ground, and lunges for the cylinder. The other guards begin shooting, but Zhiqiang stops them – he doesn't want any sensitive equipment hit, and doesn't see much threat in Mei.

But she's got a few tricks of her own up her sleeve – like a slender string of C4 explosives, which she wraps around the base of the cylinder and detonates.

The hydrogen trioxide fills the room like a flood, washing the alien out with it. Everyone panics, because as soon as the H2O3 hits the air, it begins to boil.

The alien is literally like a fish out of water, and is drowning in a sea of air. York takes the small space suit, fills it with as much of the liquid as he can, makes his way to the dying alien, and finds himself face to face with life from outside the solar system.

But there is no time for awe and wonder. He helps him into the suit, then looks about for Mei, and a way out.

She has been thrown from the blast, and is recovering atop a piece of machinery. York helps her up, and they run for the door, but the alien stops them. He forms a picture in his mind, and York sees it – a back way out, something Zhiqiang had used in the past and the alien remembered. They run for it under the cover of confusion.

At the door Mei stops. She can't let this continue, and decides to put an end to Zhiqiang's work once and for all. The room is now filling with pure oxygen. One spark can set it off, and she's going to be that spark.

York's protests fall on deaf ears – she points out that he has to get the alien out. She's not going on a suicide run, but it is dangerous. York must leave now.

Through the door York finds a private elevator, and he and the alien board it. As it ascends, the entire building is rocked by a tremendous explosion. Flames leap up the elevator shaft, and engulf the car, but it keeps moving.

The doors finally open at a secret entrance in Zhiqiang's office and they rush out, York lamenting his wife's demise.

IT IS NIGHT, AND THE HOSPITAL IS IN A PANIC, thinking they have just had a severe earthquake. Medical personnel are attempting to evacuate the less-critical patients. York takes advantage of the confusion, puts the alien in a wheelchair, and races out of the hospital with a "sick child."

But once out of the building, they are confronted by some of Zhiqiang's armed guards. York tries to dodge them, but it isn't long before they are cornered, and facing certain death.

Until an ambulance streaks around the corner, scattering the guards like bowling pins. The driver is Mei! York and the alien leap in, and they're off.

Suddenly they find themselves bathed in a blinding beam of light pounding down from above. The alien Probeship?

No, for the light is followed by a hail of gunfire. Zhiqiang has also escaped, and appropriated the hospital's Lifeflight helicopter. He and his henchmen are raining bullets down on the unprotected ambulance.

The perilous chase leads through the serpentine streets of Shanghai, with Mei racing for the cover of buildings, bridges and trucks, the helicopter relentlessly pursuing.

The deadly gauntlet leads to the harbor, and they are trapped at the water's edge. But just before Zhiqiang closes in for the kill, a second set of hovering lights appear above the chopper.

It is the alien Probeship. Zhiqiang opens fire on them as well in a fanatic effort to bring them down and claim their technology.

Unfortunately, their technology doesn't include the ability to "beam" their comrade up from the ambulance, but it does include the capability to manipulate strong magnetic fields.

And that they do, launching Zhiqiang and his helicopter straight out into space. The last sight Zhiqiang sees before dying in the frigid vacuum of space is the shimmering blue earth slowly rotating a hundred kilometers beneath his feet.

But suddenly the alien craft lurches and pitches down, plunging into the frigid waters of the bay. Did Zhiqiang's bullets bring it down after all?

The question is answered momentarily, when the small Probeship bobs to the surface and navigates toward a dock. They are just keeping a low profile.

York and Mei carry the ailing alien down to the ship. The hatch opens, and as they look in, they can see what looks like children, flying around inside the cabin. They slide the alien in and watch as his rescuers remove his suit and let him swim free in the liquid atmosphere of their home world.

He looks back out the hatchway at York, and the two understand each other perfectly.

The hatch closes, and the Probeship explodes out of the river, and in a split-second has disappeared into the heavens.

York and Mei embrace on the pier, and an image forms in York's mind. He can see the earth fall away, the planets of his solar system streak by, and a universe full of stars – promise for the future.