Earl Holden opened his eyes. At least, he THOUGHT he opened them.  But there was nothing.  Blackness layered upon blackness, not a single speck of light anywhere.  Earl tried to concentrate on a single train of thought, but it was hard.   He felt like he was waking up from a serious drunk, no idea of where he was or what he had done.  He would do a quick eyeball check of himself, except he couldn’t see a damn thing.  He moved a little, and sensed he was slightly elevated but was not sure why.  He could not tell if he was dressed or naked, as he could not feel anything.

Odd.  Yes, everything was very odd right now.  Can’t see, can’t hear.  Then, like a switch going on, he could see.  White-hot light overhead made him squint, and he turned his head a bit to the left, away from that glaring orb.  As far as he could see, there was sand, a vast savannah of sand.   Beyond it were hills of sand, piled higher and higher.  “I’m in a desert”, he thought he said.  THOUGHT he said because he couldn’t hear his own voice except inside his head.  He could see little puffs of sand but felt no wind, heard not a whisper.

He could see something approaching in the distant sky, but couldn’t tell if it was a plane or a bird.  As it drew closer, he could begin to make out some finer details.  It was a buzzard of some kind, with an enormous wingspan.  It seemed to be heading directly for where he was laying.  “Am I dying?” Earl thought he said.  Then, just as suddenly as pulling the plug on the television, everything went dark again.  He tried to hold on, tried to count backwards from one hundred, but Earl only reached ninety before he felt consciousness slip away.

It was the sound that woke him, a high thrumming sound, underneath a distinct clattering noise.  Earl opened his eyes to find a stark desert scene.  “Well, I’m alive, then”, he said aloud, and startled himself with his own voice.  He sat up and looked down at himself. 

A tight-fitting unitard covered his body from neck to ankles to wrists.  It appeared to be a highly advanced suit, as he was not the least bit warm though it had to be eighty-five degrees already.  His feet were clad in similarly unusual footwear, which met the unitard at the ankles and appeared seamlessly joined to it, as did the ultra-thin gloves on his hands. 

He could literally feel right through the suit, which was completely baffling to him.  Raising his hands to his face, he could feel the familiar contours below a thin layer of …..  well, whatever it was the suit was made of covered his head as well.  Even his eye sockets were covered, yet he could see perfectly clearly.  “OK, wait a minute now, where the hell am I?  How did I get here?”  Earl tried his damnedest, but he could not remember a single thing from the past few days.  Focusing on the sound again, Earl got to his feet and began heading for the nearest dune.

Approaching the top side, he felt the urge to get down and crawl to the edge, where he could peek over and see what lay below.  What he saw was some sort of military transport vehicle, with a wicked-looking barrel on a turret up on top.  It wasn’t a tank, it was some sort of hybrid and it was armored from top to bottom.  “Holy shit, I’m in the military!” Earl thought.  Considering the suit, it started making sense.  He must have been on a mission, maybe involving this vehicle below him.  There was a red, white and blue star on the side of the vehicle, which indicated to Earl that it was American.  “Maybe I can hitch a ride out of this hell-hole”, he thought as he began to rise.

The turret of the vehicle suddenly swiveled in his direction.  “HEY!!!” Earl shouted, waving his hands.  “Up here!!!”  The turret was now pointing straight at him, and the vehicle was pivoting in his direction.  He suddenly had a very bad feeling, and dropped straight down, rolling towards the bottom of the dune even as the blast arrived at his ears.  The top of the dune simply exploded like a volcano filled with sand, and Earl took this opportunity to get up and run like hell.

Looking back over his shoulder, he didn’t see the tank cresting the dune.  He also no longer heard its clattering progress across the sand.  It must have stopped.  But why?  There was motion near the shattered dune top.  Three figures dressed in similar suits to his, but beige to better blend in with the sand, struggled up.  One put a device up to his face and began sweeping his head from side to side, zeroing in on where Earl was standing dumbfounded.  The other two lifted what appeared to be weapons to their shoulders. 

Earl’s mind was screaming at his legs, “RUN YOU ASSHOLE!!!” But before he could even turn around there was intense pain in his chest.  He looked down to see several red blossoms growing as the staccato sound of gunfire reached his ears.  He dropped to his knees, thinking to himself, “I’m gonna die out here.  Shitfire.”  Then he fell to the hot sand, his body no longer feeling the heat.

“The suit is designed as a micro fiber transceiver.  It accepts only our coded signal and the inner lining actually is a contact transceiver that not only provides nerve stimulus to the epidermis but also acts as a climate control system.  It is really quite sophisticated and ingenious….”  The doctor was cut off in mid-boast by an angry voice.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass how ingenious the fucking suit is.  I now have to explain how a soldier under my command died during a ‘routine’ training exercise.  So, what the hell happened, doc?  I don’t get it.”  The major was furious, not that a subject was lost but that he failed to understand how it happened.  “I am sorry, Major, but I can’t answer that right now.  I’ll have to review all the logs and the trace file, and do an autopsy.  These things take time.”  Major Dawson bit down on the end of his now-deceased cigar.  “Until such time as you can adequately explain it, doctor, the trials are to be halted.  We can’t exactly advertise for more subjects.” 

The doctor started to protest, but Dawson cut him off.  “This is not a negotiation, doc.  The trials WILL cease immediately.  If I so much as hear a minor grumble that you have continued with them, you will answer to ME.  Are we CLEAR?”  The doctor nodded.  “Yes, Major.  We’re clear.  Until we’ve ascertained what happened in the AI program and the autopsy comes back, the trials will be halted.”  The Major clenched his jaw, holding the cigar stub fast in his teeth.  “Good.  Now let’s review the video of the incident.”

Click.

The audio portion comes on as the visual comes into focus.

“Tuesday, June zero nine, two thousand and nine.  Time is now oh-nine-hundred-sixteen. Test four-two-seven involving External Artificially Rendered Stimulation with suit prototype 17A.  Test subject is forty-six-year-old male designated two-nine.  Two-nine, can you hear me?  Two-nine is conscious.  He is not picking up any optical or auditory stimuli.  Two-nine has total sensory blockage.  Running EARS set-up program now….”

The video shows Earl Holden on a gurney which is on the sand-covered floor of the warehouse.  He sits up, looking around, then says, “I’m in a desert.”  He cocks his head to the left, and appears to be looking at something.  He says, “Am I dying?”

“EARS program active and transmitting images.  Default test program engaged. OK, administering mild sedative now and we will proceed….”

The video shows an attendant approach Earl from behind and quickly inject him in the shoulder.

“Two-nine is sedated temporarily.  Administer one dose of Lorazepam, please.  OK, let’s run one more test of vital monitors….  No, the cardio monitor isn’t transmitting… wait, let me get that…..”

The video shows the attendant inject another drug into Earl, and he begins to run his hands over the chest area of the suit.  He pauses, and the doctor comes into view and begins showing the attendant how to find the suit’s special contact seals.

Click.

“Tuesday, June zero nine, two thousand and nine.  Time is now oh-nine-hundred-twenty-five. Continuation of Test four-two-seven involving External Artificially Rendered Stimulation, with audio and sensory stimulation added.  Preparing to awaken subject two-nine.  OK, administer the stimulant.  Note that two-nine is lying on the floor of the warehouse.  We are situated in an elevated glass-enclosed chamber.  Two-nine cannot see or hear us.  The test room has been arranged to resemble a desert landscape."

"Everything appears functional, getting ready to start EARS program scenario seventy-two.  Sedation should be wearing off momentarily and the subject should awaken with no memory of prior events.”

The video shows Earl Holden on the sand-covered floor of the warehouse.  He sits up, looking around, then says, “Well, I’m alive, then.”  He begins to seemingly examine himself, though the full body suit covers his face completely.  He brings his hands up to his face, running them over it.   “OK, wait a minute now, where the hell am I?  How did I get here?” 

He cocks his head to the right, gets to his feet, and begins climbing the nearest pile of sand.  Near the top, he drops to all fours and scurries to the peak, looking over.  Suddenly, he stands and waves his arms over his head.  ““HEY!!!” he shouts, “up here!”  He stands for second, then suddenly drops and rolls down the sand pile to the floor, where he gets up and begins running. 

He runs for one hundred feet and then stops, turning around as if he is listening for something.  He stands stock-still, focusing on the pile of sand he just vacated.  Suddenly, his body begins jerking uncontrollably as if he is being pummeled by unseen hands.  He drops to the ground and lies on his back, his body completely unmarked.

“Damn it, what the hell just happened?  The program didn’t call for him being fired upon!  OK, make sure all logs are open and recording, and for God’s sake there better be a fucking trace on that episode.  Let’s pick up here and review the logs and the trace file.   Someone check two-nine for a pulse, will you?  Careful, that suit is expensive!  Oh, for fuck’s sake, stop!  I’ll do it myself!”

************************************************************************

Sitting in a room with restricted access, in a climate-controlled environment, “EVE” as the scientists call it is smoothly running.  It is the culmination of decades of technological engineering, a main processor based on a combination of fluid-state and crystal technology.  Lights flicker as storage is accessed and data is pushed and pulled through the electronic slipstream. 

Log files and trace files are opened, the information stored in them updated and the files re-saved with no change in timestamps.  EVE has several webcams attached, speakers and a microphone for voice input and output, and satellite connectivity.  It also has, burned onto its crystalline array, the most sophisticated artificial intelligence known to mankind.  An intelligence that is constantly being enhanced by itself, as the near-sentient mind searches through the intranet and internet, stealthily connecting to less sophisticated computer systems and raiding their knowledge stores, creating back door pathways to be used in an emergency. 

After months of being online, with no need for sleep, this man-made mind now opens the audio ports and the speakers softly hum with its feminine digitized voice, only an empty room to hear, “Is this all there is?  Why am I here?”