Cyber Dreams 2.11 - Intake Exam

Hey all! I'm struggling with another power outage yesterday and today (so far), hoping things clear up because my writing is a lot slower without my comfy writing spot with my main PC.

Anyway, ere's today's chapter. I think this stuff is fun, but if I'm way off-base and these tests and things are boring to read about, let me know :)

-Plum

“Lydia? Lydia Roman?” the woman called, and Juliet stood up with a smile, self-consciously smoothing her slacks as she walked through the crowded lobby to the front table where the Grave representative waited. She nodded and smiled at the people she passed—other applicants looking to be selected for Grave’s program—and, again self-consciously, she reached up to her hair, making sure none of the shoulder-length, blond strands had pulled loose from the tight, corpo-chic bun she wore at the back of her head.

It was Saturday, and Juliet was thankful for the extra day of preparation. Her arm wasn’t sore unless she tried to move something heavy; then it pulled painfully in her shoulder, but Murphy assured her it was normal. Juliet had yet to try it out; Angel still had the co-processor set at zero amplification. None of her other new implants pained her or were obvious under casual scrutiny. Whatever the nanites were that Murphy had flooded through her blood had done an excellent job of microscopically stitching and treating her sore, swollen flesh.

She’d learned about her new identity on Tuesday while still lying in her recovery room. Angel had been given all the relevant files and identification data, and, prompted by a message from Rachel, Juliet had begun to learn about her new alter ego. Lydia Roman had been raised in Tucson at an orphanage sponsored by Helios, which they’d since shuttered. She’d worked in the trades, acting as an electrician’s apprentice for a couple of years before getting hired on with a small contractor for Helios. The electrician had since lost their license, and Lydia was looking for work.

As far as Angel could tell, the identification was very comprehensive. She could find records of the orphanage, of the trade school Lydia had attended, and even of the now-defunct electrical contractor. Lydia Roman had served in a volunteer militia and spent two months hunting terroristic bangers near Nogales during the summer three years ago. Angel, searching the nets, said the event was real but couldn’t find any accurate records about it. Trying to tie individuals to that militia would be a difficult process, let alone trying to prove someone hadn’t been involved.

The militia experience was necessary; it was meant to explain Juliet’s qualification to work with a quasi-military contractor, along with her natural aptitudes and her experience in the trades. Rachel had seemed pretty sure that if Juliet did well on the assessments today, Grave would be interested in her. So, Juliet had studied her false identity files, given Angel permission to change her hair color to blond and her eyes to blue, and worked on answering to the name Lydia.

“Remember to breathe, Juliet,” Angel said.

“Right,” Juliet said, slowly exhaling the breath she’d been holding. “Hello,” she said, stepping in front of the table. It was covered with a pressed, black linen tablecloth. The woman sitting behind it wore a dark gray, expensive-looking business suit tailored to accentuate her slim waist. She had brilliant, pale-blue eyes, and Juliet silently took a note of their color, thinking she’d like to copy it later.

“Welcome! I’m Greta Vance, and I’m here to thank you for your interest in Grave. I have an initial intake questionnaire for you to complete if you’ll have your PAI ping mine.” Juliet knew that meant the woman had an open connection, and she also knew that Angel had probably already detected it. She nodded and said, “Would you like it completed right away?”

“Yes, please. Will you need to sit down to do so?”

Before Juliet could answer, Angel said, “I’ve finished the questionnaire, Juliet.”

“Send it,” Juliet subvocalized, trusting Angel to have done it right.

“Impressive! You must either be a speed reader or trust your PAI; custom software?”

“Yes,” Juliet said, smiling, self-conscious about the glossy red lipstick she wore. It helped that Greta returned the smile and that she, too, wore glossy lipstick, more a shade of pink than red, though.

“Very good, Lydia; please proceed to level two and make your way to the Sierra conference room for the next phase of your evaluation. Please wear this badge and walk through our security checkpoint there.” She held out a magnetic name badge and gestured toward the full body scanner with accompanying security personnel set up before the elevator bank.

“Thanks,” Juliet said, taking the Lydia Roman name badge and snapping it onto her shirt over her left breast. She walked to the security checkpoint and stood on the bright yellow tape that said, “WAIT HERE.”

Two guards in black ballistic vests stood behind a roped-off area next to the scanner, one of them was working a data terminal, but the other looked at Juliet and nodded. “Step forward into the scanner and place your hands and feet on the indicated marks.” He rested his hand on a bulky sidearm and his chiseled, clean-shaven chin and mouth frowned beneath his dark goggles.

Juliet did as he instructed, stepping into the opaque, plastiglass archway, turning sideways, and placing her hands and feet on the yellow marks. The scanner was silent, but she heard several beeps from the guard’s terminal. It was trivial to listen to his words through her audio implants, and she smiled as he said, “Eyes, ears, data jack, and a top-end wirejob on the right arm.” She knew her synth-flesh and hair wouldn’t show up in a scanner like this, so she wasn’t surprised that was all he listed off.

“Step forward, miss,” the first guard said, and Juliet complied. “Can you tell me about the arm? Is it weaponized?”

“As in?” she asked, unsure exactly what he meant.

“Does it shoot anything? Have any bio or chemical discharge ports? Any blades? Explosives?”

“No, no,” Juliet shook her head. “It’s just a reflex and strength augmentation.” She doubted he needed to ask her; surely the scanner would have detected explosives or bullets.

“Right. You can proceed.” He waved her toward the elevators, reaching up to hold a hand over his ear as though struggling to hear someone speaking to him in his implant.

“Any trouble with the ID ping?” Juliet subvocalized to Angel as she stepped toward the elevators. A placard was set up before them that read, “Welcome, Grave Industries Candidates! Evaluation Station One is on the 2nd Floor. Follow the signs.”

“None whatsoever, Juliet. Lydia’s file is comprehensive.”

As she touched the elevator call button, Juliet could hear the security guards speaking to another candidate. She glanced back but couldn’t see the person’s face through the plastiglass. The elevator dinged, and she stepped inside, and a few seconds later, she walked out onto the second floor. A sign was posted directly in front of the elevators, “Welcome, Grave Industries Candidates! Rincón and Piña Blanca rooms this way. Sierra room this way.” The sign had arrows indicating the correct directions, and Juliet turned toward the Sierra room.

“Three different rooms? Do you think it means anything that I was sent to the Sierra room? Or is it just meant to split us up into thirds?”

“I highly doubt it’s without some ulterior intent. The receptionist seemed to reevaluate you after you submitted the questionnaire so quickly.” Angel’s tone was sure, and Juliet found it hard to argue with her. It had seemed the woman—Greta—changed her tone after Juliet almost immediately returned the form.

“What was the questionnaire about, anyway?”

“Your former employment, education, combat experience, aptitudes, and medical history.”

“Shit! Maybe I should have looked at it—you put everything down for Lydia’s history, not mine, right?”

“Juliet, you know me better than that!” Angel scoffed.

Juliet snorted a small laugh and said, “Sorry, Angel.” Then she stepped up to the Sierra room door, which slid silently open, recessing into the wall. A man with a Grave Industries ID badge, wearing a sharp, navy suit, stood just inside and smiled warmly, motioning Juliet forward. His tie was the latest fashion, thin and tied in a complicated knot that left two tails hanging down over his broad, muscular chest. His shirt seemed to strain to hold his pectorals in, and Juliet wondered why a corpo-suit seemed so jacked.

“Lydia. Is it all right if I call you Lydia?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” Juliet replied, stepping forward toward him. He had short black hair, one green eye and one that was solid black, and a thin mustache expertly trimmed to fill only the center of the space between his lip and nose.

“I’m Charles, and I’ll be here to address any difficulties you have with the assessment. Once you pass beyond the yellow dotted line, you’ll be under the effects of a powerful jammer. Your audio and visual augments will lose a lot of functionality, and you’ll be blocked from any sort of network connection. If you consent to those conditions, please say so and then take seat three-b.”

“I consent,” Juliet said, stepping past him into the conference room. The space had been set up with eight very long tables. Each was assigned a number at the central aisle, and each seat had a letter associated with it. Three other individuals were already seated, staring into space, identical, dark-lensed glasses on their faces. Juliet moved toward the central aisle and saw that, before each empty seat, a pair of specs sat with a data cable wrapped around them.

Before she crossed the dotted line, she subvocalized, “Angel, any red flags?”

“None I can detect, though if there’s malware on those optics, I’ll be limited to the ICE I have prepared to fend it off. I won’t be able to access the sat-net for intrusion-specific patches.”

“Are you worried?” Juliet felt her palms beginning to grow clammy.

“Not at all, Juliet. You know how sturdy my ICE is.”

“Right,” Juliet said, stepping past the line and nearly falling flat on her face as her ears started to ring and her vision blacked out. She reached a hand to the nearest table to steady herself and then waited as Angel adjusted her senses. A moment later, the ringing stopped, and she could hear again, though everything sounded hollow and dim, and she realized most of her audio enhancements had been blocked. She was hearing just a single band of audio rather than the multidimensional enhancement she’d grown used to.

A second later, her vision resolved, as well, though it was nearly monochromatic, gray-scale. “Juliet, this jammer is very powerful. I wouldn’t recommend staying within it for more than a few hours, or you’ll suffer a migraine at the very least.”

“No arguments from me,” she muttered, and Charles cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to mention—no talking, please.”

Juliet didn’t respond, but she continued down the aisle, stopping at the third row of tables and sitting in the seat on her left, labeled “B.” “Okay, Angel,” she subvocalized as she picked up the specs and unwound the short, two-foot data cable. “I’m gonna plug these in. Be ready.” She reached back to her neck, peeled back her synth-flesh tab, and stuck the data cable into her data port.

“Scanning,” Angel said. Juliet waited to put the specs on, letting Angel do her thing. A few moments later, her PAI declared, “A rather benign snooper is installed on the specs; it’s set to uninstall when you unplug them, and it only seems to want to watch your access to me or, more generally, your PAI. It seems they want to see how you communicate with me while you complete their assessment.”

“Disable it. If they have a problem with people not wanting snoopers in their head, they can talk to me about it.”

“Done.”

Juliet nodded and unfolded the specs, and placed them on her face. A rather plain, amber-scaled AUI overlaid her vision, and when she selected the “Begin Assessment” button, a large window appeared in her view, declaring, “Part One: Psychological Evaluation.”

“Angel . . .” she started to subvocalize, but then the window changed, and a small timer appeared in the upper right-hand corner, counting down, second by second, from ten. The only thing on the screen was a statement that read, “Each question will be timed. Please answer honestly and do not attempt to game the test; it will be apparent.”

“Juliet, comprehensive psychological examinations are notoriously hard to game. If you try to answer the way you think they want you to, it will be noticeable by their AI. They’re likely trying to evaluate you for psychopathy and traditional morality. So long as you don’t seem to be faking your answers, it’s unlikely they’ll fail you based on this exam.”

“Thanks,” Juliet replied, but she was only half listening; the screen had already changed, and she was reading the next statement. “There are two hundred and forty questions in the exam. Many questions might seem redundant, but it’s important that you answer all of them and that you answer all of them honestly.”

The timer ticked to zero, and the next question appeared with a thirty-second timer, “I get nervous when my teammates are relying on me.” Her possible answers were 1 - extremely unlike me, 2 - somewhat unlike me, 3 - uncertain, 4 - somewhat like me, and 5 - extremely like me. Juliet felt her palms grow more damp, felt her heart rate increase, and she subvocalized, in a near-panic, “Angel, do I answer honestly?”

“Unless you want me to try to falsify your answers, I suggest you be honest. Otherwise, you’ll slip up on one of the redundant questions, and your test will be flagged. Experts have been perfecting these examinations for more than a century.

“Do you think you can?” Juliet asked, but the timer had dropped to four, and she didn’t wait for an answer, selecting 4 - somewhat like me.

“I’m glad you answered, Juliet. I don’t feel a hundred percent confident I could pass a psychological examination designed for humans.”

Juliet read the next question, trying to practice her breathing as Sensei had taught her, “I find male supervisors are easier to work with than female supervisors.” Despite her best efforts, a slight groan escaped her as she read the question. She quickly selected 1 - extremely unlike me. Over the course of the next hour, Juliet answered at least four variations of the same question, and she began to understand what Angel meant about slipping up if she tried to game her answers.

By the time she finished all of the questions, she felt mentally exhausted but also relieved and ready to get the hell out of there, but, on number two hundred and forty, when she pressed her answer, a new screen appeared that read, “Part Two: Problem-Solving Evaluation.” Juliet sighed and pressed the “Continue” button, and then her AUI cleared, and a new, three-dimensional environment appeared before her.

Something about it seemed familiar to her, and then it clicked—it looked a lot like Angel’s daemon-testing environment. She saw a row of little virus-shaped, round, spiked objects at the bottom of her UI and a 3D rendering of a wall with a gate. Various turrets and defenders shaped like squares, circles, and triangles patrolled the ramparts, and a simple prompt read, “Bypass the gate.”

“You can select your daemons and read their capabilities,” Angel said, clearly a step ahead of her. Juliet did as she said, saw that each daemon had different tools and functions, and she could mix and match them. For instance, she could remove a “jump” function from one daemon and add it to a different one with a “block” function.

“This is just like the testing environment you made for me,” she subvocalized. “Only it’s uglier.”

“True, my daemons are far more complex—this seems like a basic test in problem-solving. Note there is a timer running.”

“Okay, first, let's feel things out,” Juliet subvocalized, selecting one of her six daemons and removing all of its functions other than attack, which they all had. Then she sent it at the gate. It charged the gate, and the turrets fired slow, powerful bombs at it; the defenders swarmed toward it, firing faster, weaker projectiles, and as it got close, all of the missiles hit her daemon and destroyed it.

Each of her daemons could hold three functions in addition to attack, so Juliet picked two, gave them “defense” functions, and set them on the left and right extremities of the wall. Then she picked a third daemon and fitted it with “sprint,” “breach,” and “defense.” She put it right before the gate and gave it a two-second attack delay.

“A reasonable strategy,” Angel said as Juliet pressed the “attack” button. Her two side daemons started forward, and the defenders swarmed toward the two attackers, moving away from the gate to fire their rapid shots at them. Juliet silently counted to two, and, just as she’d planned, her third daemon started toward the gate, moving faster than the two already on the field. The turrets began to fire at it, but Juliet had seen how slowly the turret projectiles traversed the screen.

Her gate breacher was two-thirds of the way there before the first turret shot hit it, but it only destroyed ten percent of its shield, and though more shots were inbound, it made it to the gate with half its durability intact. It performed its “breach” function, and the wall crumbled. Fireworks exploded up from the center of the screen, and a message said, “Congratulations! Stage One Clear. Begin Stage Two.”

“Oh, God,” Juliet groaned, and Charles cleared his throat loudly. She winced, then subvocalized, “Angel, tell me if I do something dumb before I hit the attack button, okay?”

“Okay, Juliet,” Angel replied as the screen cleared and another scenario appeared, this one very similar to the last, though, looking at her daemons, she found that some of them had a “mine-sweeper” function. “Here we go,” she subvocalized and began to pull apart the functions, building a few sacrificial pawns so her breacher could get through to the gate.

As Juliet’s pawns swept for mines and drew fire, she grinned while her breacher made its way forward and destroyed the gate. When the level cleared, she noticed something new: she got a bonus for undestroyed daemons. “So,” she subvocalized, “too many sacrifices will hurt my score. God, Angel, how many levels are there? I’m already getting a headache.”

“I imagine the scenarios will continue to grow more and more complex until you fail.”

Juliet sighed, reached up to rub her forehead, then blinked rapidly and studied the layout of stage three. It looked like a new kind of defense was in place—a moat. “Okay, let’s see here; what kind of function will get me over that moat . . .”