“There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors.” (Jim Morrison)

“Alright, Maurice,” called a voice from the intercom. “Can you see okay, the visor is correctly positioned on your face, right?”
Maurice cleared her throat and shook around the helmet on her head. “I think so.”
“What do you mean you think so?” he chuckled.
“I mean I’ve never done this before, and it is a test-run, so chill out, Derek.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s just get this done.” He turned away from the console with a smirk on his face. He looked down onto the testing room with Maurice standing in the center of a whitewashed chamber, complete with padded walls and fluorescent lighting that buzzed like a hive of hornets. “August thirteenth, twenty-sixty-three. Test number A037847-B. We have placed the test subject in chamber A, complete with experimental suit and the visor prototype, which I like to call the Spectercles.” Maurice laughed in the chamber below him.
“Seriously?!” she called out between chuckles.
Derek did his best to ignore her; he thought it was clever. The name ‘Vision Sensing Goggles’ was too formal, and they weren’t even goggles. He prattled on for what seemed like hours to Maurice, who was desperate to start the testing.
Around the room were panels that emerged from walls and floor tiles, designed for other test subjects to crawl out of in the dark. The Vision Sensing Goggles, or “spectercles”, were designed to analyze and orientate sight lines, which emitted microscopic rays of light in front of them. This is designed for stealth operations; it’s matching suit complete with soundless latex bodysuit and padded soles.
The blue visor stretched across her face, painting the room a ghostly hue of early morning. Derek called out from the observation deck, initiating the test.
“We’ll turn out the lights for two minutes, and we want you to count how many people you detect in the room around you. There’s only a small margin for error, so please do the best you can and don’t lose count, alright?”
“Aye, aye, caption.” She shouted, confidently.
Derek paused. “Captain, you meant captain.”
“Nope.”
Derek squinted at her disapprovingly, and flipped the switch.
The room was flooded with darkness, only the sound of the dying lights remained, but slowly dissipated into the void. She stood still, scanning her surroundings, feeling the tightness of the white suit around her, uncomfortable with how tight it needed to be. She was reminded of how she complained to the lab scientists about how ‘flattering’ the suit was, and they obliged to pad it down a mite, covering and flattening out her ‘assets’, as they called it. Pricks.
But through the murk of thought, something appeared on the visor, an orange cone of light, searching back and forth in the darkness.
One, two, three, four...
One after another, the panels struck open and other subjects crawled out, fumbling in the darkness. She counted each of their sight lines, marking up to about twelve people in the roomy chamber with her.
She heard their steps on the linoleum, and lightly stepped around them, testing the silent capabilities of her suit. It felt good to have an advantage, but before she could have any real fun, the subjects disappeared back into their panels, and the lights flashed back on, blinding Maurice, who had become accustomed to the darkness.
“Here we are, caption.” Derek called menacingly. “How many did you count?”
“Twelve in all,” Maurice called proudly. “Say, this suit works really well, too. Think I can bring one home to scare my cats with?
Expecting at least a snooty chuckle, Maurice sat quietly in the chamber waiting for results. She looked back up to the observation chamber, watching the white-coats bicker about something; Derek looked worried.
He leaned down to the microphone, with his brow in a knot. “A-,” he started, clearing his throat. “Are you sure you counted twelve?” His voice sounded different than it normally did, making Maurice feel a chill.
“Yeah? I’m pretty sure. Twelve.”
Derek turned back to the other scientists and bickered some more. It seemed like that’s what they went to MIT for, acting like a bunch of hens in a coop. Maurice sat down again, and waited for the buzzing of their voices to match the shining hornet’s nest above her. They synchronized very well.
“It’s seems like we’ll have to run the test again,” he sighed. “Something wasn’t exactly right with your results.”
Maurice smiled. “Good, this is fun!”
The lights shut out again, and Maurice carefully marked each line of sight that shot through the dark in a vibrant pallor of sunset, checking twice and even counting aloud for the third time, all while dancing around the other subjects unseen.
She was sure, this time. There were twelve sight lines in all.
“Twelve this time, too,” she called out as the lights flickered back on. “Just like last time.”
Derek was becoming angry now. “You counted wrong,” he scolded. “We only sent eleven men down into the chamber.”
She faced the deck. “Uhh,” she yelled condescendingly. “I counted twelve. I know I’m not a pen-jockey, but I can do simple math, y’know; I’m not an idiot. TWELVE.”
She turned from them and was met with something that may have proved the scientists right. There was a sight line remaining in the chamber, staring and unblinking. She could barely see it in front of the blinding pale walls, but there was a hint of orange blaring out into the air.
“Okay, I see what’s going on.” She apologized. “The visor messed up; I can still see a sight line down here.”
It was silent for another moment.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“My visor must be mistaking something for a sight line down here, because there’s still one here.”
The test chamber doors hissed as they slid open, and Derek called down, his voice soft. “Maurice, exit the chamber immediately.”
“Why,” she matched his tone of urgency. “What’s going on?”
“We only sent down eleven men.”