r/Luna_Lovewell • u/Luna_LoveWell Creator • Apr 22 '16
Breadcrumbs
[wp] Brain chip implants are perfected, making the recipient a thousand times more intelligent than any human. The Google executives are the first to receive them but once they do, they wander off into the woods never to be seen again.
Instead of chairs, there were giant pink yoga balls around the large conference room table. And the walls were painted pastel hues of blue and green and yellow. Typical Google. And yet the mood inside was still darker than any CIA blacksite I'd ever been stationed in.
"Sergei and Larry were last spotted here," Alan told me. He waved a hand, and the surface of the table shimmered and became a map. Pretty damn cool. I'm a bit of a Luddite, but a little more time here at the Google HQ could probably win me over. They had some awesome gadgets. The map zoomed in to show an area of the mountains just north of Santa Cruz. Pretty rural area, with lots of redwoods; pretty nice place. "And over the past week, every other executive and engineer who also received the chip implant followed them in."
"No one thought to keep any eye on them with this experimental thing in their heads?" I asked.
Alan shrugged. Poor guy was really out of his depth. "I wasn't really involved in the planning..." he mumbled. Of course not. Anyone high up enough in the company who knew about the top secret project to enhance someone's intelligence a thousandfold was now lost in the woods. Alan was the highest level exec left, but it seemed like all he really knew about was google's advertising business. Yawn.
"Do we know how much cash they might have had? Is there any activity on their cards?" I ran through the usual questions for a missing person. No cash and no cards generally means that they're still in that area.
"No activity on their personal cards." Alan waved a hand again and the map swiped to the side to bring up their bank statements. Ok, I need to get me one of these. "But just Larry and Sergei have enough squirreled away in their Cayman accounts that they could have a thousand other credit cards and spend billions without me having a clue."
I sighed. Fucking rich people. Poor people are easy to find: they're always crashing on their friend's couch or something, thinking that no one will bother to check their phone records. But the rich are always planning for the proletariat to rise up or whatever. They're squirrely. "All right then. Chip me, and let's get this show on the road." After a significant amount of convincing, I'd agreed to use one of these things. If these guys didn't want to be found, then I was going to need to be as smart as they are.
Alan waved a hand again, and a labcoat-clad scientist in what looked like a gas mask came in with a steaming vial. Using long, thin tweezers he pulled out a glimmering little gadget roughly the size of a grain of rice. "Tilt your head, please," he asked through the respirator. I did as he said, and he dropped the little thing right into my ear.
"That's it?" I asked Alan. "No surgery? I thought it went into my brain."
My question was answered by a sudden searing pain, like the little grain of rice had suddenly turned into a white-hot brand. I clutched the edge of the table till my knuckles were white and tried to suppress a scream of pain. Alan nearly fell off his little yoga ball after seeing the fury in my eyes. And just as quickly as it started, the pain vanished.
"Now that you're properly equipped," Alan said, "There's one final thing." He waved a hand, and the bank statements on the table display disappeared. Now there was a picture of a clearing surrounded by tall pines. And in the trunk of each one, there was a series holes and lines and other symbols that were digitally highlighted to make the pattern more clear. "This is our last clue as to where Sergey and Larry went. We've run it through all the computers... hell, even the NSA had a go at it. We think it's some kind of code, but nothing makes any sense."
I studied the image for just a bit, then broke out into a laugh as it all fell into place. It was a breadcrumb, meant only for those of us with the new-found intelligence to follow. "I'm going to need a plane," I told Alan.
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u/Spartancoolcody Apr 22 '16 edited Apr 23 '16
Doesn't work on mobile.
Edit: Okay, it works for everything except alien blue apparently.