Assessment Protocols, do not involve active participation on the part of the subject, requiring only societal permissions and psychological cooperation with the SASAP system as it reads and assimilates pertinent information such as Base Template Persona, Temperament and Experiential Imprint data. The profiles thus created are used by the system to adapt later stage exercises, translate and package the resulting equation for use by the Surrogate Array System to accommodate the subject's specific needs when calibrating Billets and Zip-Braces.
The Correlative Stage is a series of simple group problem solving scenarios that have no final resolution. The subjects of each group work in cooperation to reach consensus for a given problem. The exercises are expanded on and redirected according to the need of the group dynamic. The system observes the individual subjects as they relate to specific criteria. Once the criteria forays the group subjects is fulfilled the exercise is stopped. Subjects are reorganized into secondary groups determined by the first group's results. The process is repeated with a second similar exercise and then the subjects are peat the entire process a third and final time.
The final Synthesis protocol exercises use artificial disconnect dampeners from the array. Despite not being actual severance the affect on the individual can engender insecurities and paranoia. For this reason the first sub-section focuses on the group dynamic. Subjects are once again organized into groups for team building exercises meant to engender sense of community. The second sub-section, referred by many as the No Mind Protocol, involves repetitive physical activity designed to help the individual focus on something outside the self that is specific, demanding, and does not require interaction with another individual. The final sub-section is a series of one on one trust exercises designed to strengthen empathy rhythms outside the array.
~ from The Official Ministry Severance Training Manual
Salinetech was more than satisfied that the class was progressing extremely well for a group its size and nature. In fact, he expected the class to be ready for actual severance a earlier than usual. Much of the reason for the quick turn around was that Artificial severance had had no affect on Allele. She seemed to flourish under the test conditions. Driven as she'd been organizing the expedition, her mental acuity became even sharper during exercises. She seemed totally at ease. It was as if she had her own personal array and any group to which she was attached appeared to benefit form the connection.
The SASAP system picked up on it immediately and ran a self diagnostic figuring there to be a problem with its sensors, when it found none it accepted Allele's data as received. Salinetech didn't realize something was amiss until he noticed that the SASAP always responded to groups that included Allele by running a self diagnostic. No one was more surprised at the news than Allele herself. She had suffered great anxiety prior to beginning the program. When she initially felt no negative affect she thought it must take time to manifest, she would grow uncomfortable gradually, but Salinetech dismissed the idea and had Allele's entire developing profiles undergo extensive analysis. He believed Allele was what they called a floater, needing little if any adjustment for differing group dynamics, and the instructor suspected actual severance would be no different. Salinetech had never seen a floater as unaffected, but neither had he worked before with an Allele.
***
Lepton was accustomed to Allele's middle of the night epiphanies. Though he enjoyed the occasional rewards he received for his patience, most nights he would try to only listen enough to give scattered grumbles of agreement and otherwise try to slip back to sleep unnoticed. On this night he was as awake as Allele. In the morning they would meet with the entire project contingent at Ministry to sign off on having their monads removed from the array to be transferred to the already established Base Camp Billet at the rift. He lay in a twilight sleep, a deeper sleep his anticipation of the coming day wouldn't allow. All hope for sleep of any kind was lost when Allele leaned over and whispered, "I'm changing our search pattern. I've worked it all out and will show you the details when we are billeted at Base Camp. Now go to sleep."
Sitting up, now wide awake, Lepton nudged Allele who had taken on the appearance of sleep after delivering her bomb, and said, "Wait! What? Change the search pattern how? It took us a solid week to develop that and you're changing it based on a mid night inspiration?"
She raised herself on one elbow and answered, "Of course not, this has been playing in my mind for several days now. It's not a major change anyway. You'll be doing the same thing as in the plan we worked out."
"...and submitted for approval, which we got, and which Ministry is expecting us to follow," Lepton growled.
"It's not a big change Lep. We've been assuming that the richest location for artifacts will be at the center of the collapse where there appears to have been some sort of major facility," Allele said
"Not a bad plan that." chided Lepton.
"I know, I know. I know it was I who wanted to see if we couldn't get a few quick results that way to shore up the viability of the expedition, but..."
"And this is bad now?"
"No not at all and I still want the main thrust of the search to do just as we planned. You and your team and the excavation crews will continue as planned."
"What will you and your team do?"
"I want to equip my team as a self sufficient satellite operation to cover the outer portions of the search area where we've mapped some possible sites of small outlying facilities."
"Why can't they wait?"
"Because the collapse was a catastrophic event and though the central facility may be rich in artifacts, much of what you find may be destroyed. They'll look great in the museums but may not tell us much. If I can find an outpost that was far enough away from the focus point of the collapse, it may still be partially functional, and that would be a find worth its weight."
"Do you really think you're going to find a working outpost, Allele? That's crazy."
"Maybe but maybe we'll find something of value. Look, I'm just taking my team, you'll survive without three Anthropologists on your tail."
"Well that's true," he agreed fending off Allele's attempt to jab him with her finger.
"I'll just need one of the observation craft converted to a makeshift base of operations. We'll pull the windows and install two launch bays for Laborpods, enhance the ship's communications to reach the farther off Rhumbulian, and load it with supplies. We'll take turns in the pods and see what we come up with."
"Okay," Lepton sighed. "You're the boss. Can we get some sleep now?"
"I don't think so," she answered reaching her free arm around his neck. She smelled Scotch.
Lepton rolled away from her for a moment to reach for the light. He was relieved. He'd been waiting for weeks for Allele to come to that conclusion. Seeding her as prescribed for months, his faith in the project protocols had been waining, but his patience was rewarded with this late development. He shut the light, reached behind the base of the lamp, and pressed the button in the center of a small green stone holding it down until he felt it vibrate confirming the communique had been sent.
***
Bored and anxious, Allele sat on a lounge chair in the transference waiting room, a small cubical-like room that provided privacy for the dissolution of her persona projection when her monad was removed from its mount in the Samsaric Array. This was the first time her monad would actually be removed from the array, and though monads were nearly indestructible she feared a clumsy technician might drop hers causing permanent damage.
Her attention drifted to the texture of the walls. She allowed herself to see objects within the random pattern, faces demonic and angelic, inhuman creatures she knew nothing of, some with wings or tails that stood on four legs. The images confused her, but before she could form coherent memories of them her monad was pulled and she fell into a dream-like state.
***
Raymond Fellwell rarely had anything unique to do. Maintaining level nine of Ministry's monad repository in the Samsaric Array was generally pretty boring work. He walked the aisle confirming each monad was functioning properly by tapping it with a pen-like instrument that invariably lit with a positive signal. He concluded long ago that the exercise was merely to give him something to do. His actual purpose was simply to have someone present should anything ever go wrong. Each monad was mounted into the back of a narrow chair-like structure called a pew which faced into a wide circular chasm lined with ring upon ring of identical chairs each housing someone's monad. Why the repository was set up like this he, and not much of anyone else, had no idea. He would quip to his friends that it was to ensure that if everyone on Europa ever wanted to take the tour at the same time, they'd have someplace to sit and gape at all the rest.
But, today he actually had something to do. Today he slowly drove a lumbering Oneiric Shuttle along the corridor behind the long line of pews stopping at designated stalls in order to transfer the pew's monad to the shuttle. To do this there was a cord attached to the shuttle called an umbilical that fit on the extended section of the monad that projected from its setting in the pew. Once Raymond Fellwell attached the umbilical, the Monad automatically released from the pew, allowing him to remove it and insert it into a similar receptacle on the shuttle, as he was about to do once again. Holding the monad cupped in both hands like something fragile he carried it over to the shuttle, he actually could have thrown it down the chasm and not damaged it, but he thought of them as one might a religious relic and gave them their befitting respect. He slid Alelle's monad into it's temporary receptacle on the side of the shuttle.
Salinetech's prediction was correct for the most part. Though the shuttle's umbilical was keeping her in a twilight state, Allele felt as if immovable braces that had long inhibited her were suddenly blasted away freeing her to drift, weightless, but with a self empowerment like she'd never felt, and her sensory and reasoning faculties also seemed greatly enhanced.
When Raymond Fellwell inserted her monad into the shuttle itself and dislodged the umbilical Allele found herself on a platform next to a long narrow metallic cabin with three sets of sliding doors. She stood in front of the set midway along the cabin's length. A a bell rang, the doors slid open, and she stepped inside. The interior of the structure was brightly lit making her shield her eyes. When she could see again she found bench-like seats lining the walls beneath Windows that on one side looked back out on the platform. Those on the side opposite faced a flat tiled wall. Several people were already sitting here and there on the benches. None spoke and all sat alone. She recognized most of the cabin's occupants as members of the the various teams involved in the expedition. She made eye contact with a few of them but none responded to her smile or other gesture of recognition. She could sense their Emotional/Conscious state but was unable to communicate with anyone directly.
The bell rang again and the doors behind her slid closed. She looked down at the bench beside the doors and saw that Sita was there looking up at her with the same blank expression Allele found on everyone else. She went to sit beside her when the cabin jolted in one direction. Unprepared for the sudden movement Allele lost her footing but instinctively reached for a lateral metal bar that hung at eye level running the length of the cabin above the benches. Grabbing it in time to avoid falling, she swung herself onto the bench to sit next to Sita like she'd done the move a thousand times. Sita quietly turned away, paying no further attention to her.
After the cabin's jolt it picked up speed the platform and tiled wall slipping away to the left they were suddenly replaced by a the dark walls of what seemed a tunnel, after only a moment it began a slowing glide coming to a standstill with a small jolt beside another platform, deeper than the one she had disembarked from and on the opposite side of the cabin. Once again the bell rang and the doors on that side of the cabin slid open allowing another member of the expedition to step inside. This time the doors didn't slide closed immediately but waited as several more people entered the cabin one at a time. Allele reasoned they all must have been located close by in the repository but as there was only one umbilical only appeared individually. One entered the doors opposite hers, others entered at others, possibly dependent on where in the shuttle their monads were placed.. Once again the bell rang, the doors closed and the cabin started with a jolt almost lifting the still standing newcomers off their feet. This process repeated until the entire contingent bound for the rift were in the cabin. With the last member's arrival the cabin seemed to pick up speed and settle into an even gait, rocking gently side to side as the shuttle moved the passengers out of the city and toward the rift.
No one spoke during the entire journey, and after what seemed like a couple of hours the cabin began to slow, gliding again to a jolting stop. The doors opened but nobody stood to leave. Allele was puzzled by her own disinterest in disembarking, perfectly comfortable to wait beside Sita indefinitely. After a few minutes one of the engineering crew who was sitting across from Allele casually stood, walked out onto the platform, and promptly disappeared.
At regular intervals of about half a minute the passengers disembarked from the cabin one at a time as their monads were removed from the Oneiric Shuttle and inserted into the Base Camp Billet. Without making a clear decision to do so, Allele casually stood and strolled out the doors. The platform looked the same as when she'd first appeared on it. She began to feel a bit dizzy and the platform disintegrated before her eyes.
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