Read Online The Lightcap by Dan Marshall - Free Book Online

the commands of some far-off queen.  You spent about fifteen minutes here answering questions and interacting with your team.  That’s all.  I’m sorry you don’t remember any of it.  You were much more personable than you’re being now.  I think everyone was impressed with how lucid you were, actually.  There always seems to be an expectation that the Lightcap will turn you into a burned-out husk of a human being, barely functional, with monosyllabic grunts in response to simple questions and confused indifference to anything requiring deeper thought.  It’s not like that at all.  Would you like to see?” 
    Adam nodded.  Sera looked over to the wall, where a large screen appeared in place of the bare surface.  Almost exactly to scale, Adam turned to see himself in profile along with the rest of his team, already seated and frozen.  Sometimes it was disconcerting to watch someone use a dome to control a device.  Even after many years, Adam still felt for the briefest of moments as if some kind of magic carried out the command.  As it always had, however, that fleeting impression gave way to the knowledge and recollection that the dome’s marvels weren’t driven by mysticism but caused by advanced technology.  At Sera’s silent command, the images on the wall shifted and began to move while sound played from hidden speakers in the ceiling.  The video started as Velim commanded the team, except for Adam, to take off their Lightcaps.
    Adam’s team members touched their heads and moved their arms downward in identical parallel movements, reminding him of synchronized swimmers.  When the motion ended, their Lightcaps sat on the table in the same rows he’d seen upon his return from darkness.  He watched their faces and saw traces of the same consternation he had felt just a dozen minutes before.  Several of his team touched their temples and winced slightly, confirming to Adam the headache he had experienced wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.  He listened as the recorded Velim explained to the group that though their day had ended she wanted to give them a brief glimpse at what it looked like to wear the Lightcap.  She politely asked Adam to stand.  His recorded body silently stood, chair pushed back by his legs.  Velim instructed the team to test the entranced Adam, to see if his mind had been muddled by the device. 
    They started by asking if he knew his name.  “Adam Charles Redmon,” came the even response.  The present Adam noticed his recorded, Lightcap-wearing self provided his middle name.  He never freely offered that.  The team challenged him with logic puzzles and math questions, at one point even asking him to list pi to the hundredth digit and give the first thirty numbers of the Fibonacci series.  They then asked Adam to close his eyes and touch his nose while standing on one foot, challenges more likely to come from a Blue giving a sobriety test than a group of geeks in a corporate conference room. 
    On the recording, Velim asked the standing Adam to sit.  In the actual conference room, Adam watched, thinking his entranced self had performed better than expected.  When he was sure the playback was about to end, Dej asked, “Adam, how do you feel?”
    The question did not get an immediate response.  The video had been recorded from an angle that made it difficult to see the expression on his face after the question was asked.  He did notice his recorded form seemed to look at Velim, who gave a slight nod.  “I am well,” he responded.
    “Yes,” Dej said with an amused sigh, “but how do you feel ?”
    “I feel . . . fine.”  Adam conveyed no emotion.  The pause was brief but obvious, at least to Adam.  He couldn’t help but wonder what he had thought while trying to parse the question or come up with a response.  He tried to remember but couldn’t.  All he could recall of the experience was the blinding ball of light, as in a memory of staring into the