Cyber Dreams 4.6 - Lattice Practice

Good morning, everyone! Hope you enjoy. As always, please share your thoughts.

Reminder: I'll deliver a chapter on Monday, but then I'm off for a week as I move.

Thanks,

Plum

Juliet settled into the little booth right next to the huge Diamatex window that afforded a view over the cruise liner’s bow. The Earth hung in the background, off to the left, and up close, just below the window, Juliet could see the top of the dome that covered the front third of the ship. Altogether, the panorama offered too much for her to look at, to the point where she felt like she was about to suffer from sensory overload. “Wow.” She’d already been dumbstruck by the Earth once that day, so she let her eyes drift down to peer into the dome. She saw a small park, the shimmering pool, and several well-shaded dining areas lining the edges. It didn’t look crowded, but quite a few people were swimming and lounging on blankets and chairs.

“Spectacular, isn’t it?”

Juliet looked around to see a waiter had come to the table while she’d been absorbed by the view. He was neatly dressed in the standard crew uniform but had a flair of uniqueness with buzzed black hair and a lot of facial piercings. Juliet started to count, without intending to, and had gotten to five eyebrow rings and three septum piercings and was moving her eye toward the jumble of rings and chains on his ears when he cleared his throat. “Can I start you with a beverage?”

“Uh, sorry. The view kinda knocked my brain off the rails.”

“It has that effect, especially when we’re near a planet. Shall I give you a moment to gather yourself?” He spoke with a slight lilt, and Juliet wondered where he was from.

“No, that’s all right. I think I’ll have something cold and crisp. Anything hoppy on tap?”

“Yes, ma’am, we picked up an acclaimed IPA from Mars when we passed through last week. It won the Hellas Brew Fest two years running.”

“Sold!” Juliet offered a grin and sat back, inhaling deeply through her nose.

“Lovely! I’ll be back with it shortly. In the meantime, I’m sure your PAI can access our menu . . .”

“Yep, got it. I’ll think of my order while you’re gone.”

“Great! By the way, my name’s Len. See you in a minute.” He turned, and Juliet watched him wend his way through the tables, only a third of which were occupied. She’d wanted to try the lattice out in a crowd but felt like this was a good compromise. Even with the empty tables, there had to be fifty people in the near vicinity.

“Will you start right away?”

“No,” Juliet subvocalized, “I want to order first so he doesn’t come and interrupt me right away. Can you show me the menu?” A window appeared in her AUI, and Juliet flicked through it. Something about her vacation mentality made her want to order a burger and fries. Of course, the restaurant didn’t serve anything quite that simple. Nevertheless, she found something that looked close, and when the waiter returned with her beer, she smiled up at him and asked, “Are the crater sliders any good?”

“Very good! You’ll receive a platter of four sliders, all with different proteins and house-made sauces. The buns are baked in-house, and they’re all delicious. My favorite’s the shellfish slider.” He cleared his throat, raised an eyebrow, and added, “You know it’s not real shellfish, right? It tastes just like buttery lobsters, though.”

“And one of them is beef?”

“That’s right! Vat-grown on Luna, prime grade.”

“Okay, let’s give that a try.”

“And your sides? You can pick two.”

“Um,” Juliet glanced at the window on her AUI, where Angel had helpfully highlighted the selection of side dishes, “let’s go with the sweet potato fries and tangy coleslaw.”

“Great! I’ll have it out in just a few minutes.”

After he moved off to speak to another customer, Juliet lifted her frosty pint of beer, took a long drink, and set it down. It was good—crisp, cold, and just the right amount of bitterness from the hops. “Ready?”

“Yes, I’ll be watching your temperatures very closely.”

Juliet took one last look out the window, eyeing the massive, luminous planet, and then closed her eyes and leaned back. For the first time since getting the lattice, she let herself fully relax in a crowded space, tried to let her consciousness expand, and willed herself simply to be open. Almost immediately, she began to hear voices. They spoke over each other, giving her the impression of half-spoken sentences or, she revised the analogy, of rushing around a room, catching snippets of conversation.

That’s what she thinks . . .

. . . then I can talk to Rita, we can make our plans and . . .

Not one more time. I won’t come to his rescue! I’m tired of him blowing all his spending cash on the first day!

Wow! Such a juicy cut!

Just be cool; he smiled at you. Wait ‘til you’re done, then offer to buy him a drink . . .

“Your lattice is showing a lot of activity. Intracranial temperatures are rising. Activating the cooling system.” Angel’s voice was clinical, but the calm, complete thought helped Juliet to refocus, and this time, as the voices continued to wash over her, she determined to try to focus on a single one.

One, two, three, four olives . . . will he just drone on and on? Is he going to eat . . .

God, just a few minutes alone with her. Is that too much to ask?

Not bad. Twenty-five k and a ticket off this boat at Io Station—just gotta knock off an old lady. Juliet furiously tried to focus on the voice, trying to hold back the deluge of other thoughts. She celebrated momentarily as the definitively feminine, sultry voice continued: What would Kirby say now? Who’s holding whom back? Suddenly Juliet saw an image: a pale hand with painted blue nails holding a slender metal rod. The hand depressed the tiny button on the side of the rod, and a ten-centimeter, needle-tipped pick sprang forth. The thumb touched the button, and the pick retracted into the rod—snick-snack.

Juliet felt a strange pressure in her head, though it wasn’t painful. Angel hadn’t spoken up with any alarm, so she tried to ignore it, tried to refocus on the woman’s voice, but other images and words began to flood her mind. She saw many hands doing things—was that how people pictured their actions? A man’s hairy-knuckled fingers grabbing a pair of pale breasts, a woman’s arms and hands turning on a bathtub and throwing balls of scented salts into the water, and another man throwing a pair of dice on a felt-covered table. She tried to focus on one of the images, but they were fleeting. Were they memories? Plans?

Good lord, lady, what happened to you? Is something wrong with the beer? She seemed so sweet and pleasant, but now her skin’s positively green! Juliet recognized Len’s voice. Ugh, I hate this part . . . “Ahem, everything all right, miss?”

Juliet snapped her eyes open and saw that Len was standing at the edge of the table, slightly leaning forward, and she had the absurd realization that his top two buttons were undone and he had a well-manicured, hairy chest. She cleared her throat and said, “Oh, man! I just about dozed off. Lunch already here?” She reached back and kneaded her neck, offering a sheepish grin.

“It’s coming! I just wanted to see how the beer was. You had me worried for a sec there; I was afraid you were feeling ill. Some people notice the vibrations in these big ships and get a kind of motion sickness.”

“I feel fine, thank you, though. Beer’s good.” To demonstrate, Juliet lifted the glass and drained half of it. “Bring me another with my food, will you?”

“You got it!” He winked at her, grinning straight, white teeth, and sauntered back toward the bar where he seemed to have an ongoing conversation with the lonely bartender—not a single person was seated in her area.

“Your lattice was exceptionally active, more so than when you passed out in the GARD testing room. I’d say my cooling design is passing the assessment with flying colors!” Angel spoke as soon as Juliet was alone again.

“I feel okay. My head doesn’t hurt, but I have a kind of weird pressure behind my eyes . . .”

“I was going to say there’s some buildup of electrical activity along the lattice. It seems to be clinging to the bio-silver nodules that are woven in this complex pattern near your frontal lobe.” Angel displayed an image of a brain—hers, Juliet figured—and highlighted some weird clover-like shapes the bio-silver had made near the front of her brain.

“Is it?” Juliet frowned, studying the complicated pattern the nanites that had constructed the lattice had made in her brain, wondering how it could be possible that it wasn’t doing her any harm.

“Is it?”

“Electricity. Sorry, I didn’t complete my thought. Are we sure this ‘activity’ on the lattice is electrical?”

“There’s definitely an electrical component to it; I can measure the charge and see the effect it has on your tissue; it’s what raises the temperature in your brain. Nonetheless, there could be more to it. We’re dealing with something utterly undocumented other than in the files we stole from GARD. They were just starting to understand the various phenomena that occurred with the construction of the psionic lattices.”

Juliet took another drink of her beer and stewed on Angel’s words. She tried to think of a better way to describe the feeling behind her eyes, but then another thought struck her, “Why isn’t it going away?”

“I didn’t want to alarm you, but I was wondering the same thing. You’re no longer using the lattice, correct?”

“Not intentionally! I’m not picking up any thoughts if that’s what you mean.” Juliet rubbed her forehead with the meat of her palm. “It’s like a pressure, almost like . . . you know, it feels like when you need to sneeze; like I need to let it out.”

“I can’t relate, but I think I understand your meaning. Perhaps it’s a build-up of psionic energy? We never did come to an understanding of how Kyle was able to hurt you and Polk. Do you think you can manipulate this energy? Can you feel it other than as a pressure? Is there a . . .”

“Chill, Angel. Let me think for a second.” Juliet contemplated Angel’s words about Kyle and how he’d been able to . . . do something to her and Polk. It had felt like a concussion, like a wave of something had hit her. Had he been able to manipulate the buildup of Energy in the lattice? Was his lattice shaped differently than hers? That was something they’d found in the GARD papers—the nanites found “connection points” in a person’s brain and designed the lattice around and between them. It was a complicated process, and the nanites, while short-lived and single-purpose, had been some of the most sophisticated Angel had ever seen; unfortunately, their design wasn’t in the documents they’d stolen.

Juliet shook her head and tried to refocus, thinking about the weird, painless pressure. Why wasn’t there any pain? Was Angel still running the cooler? “Is the cooler still active?”

“Not in the last couple of minutes. Your intracranial temperature has stabilized.”

“But the . . . energy is still there? In the lattice? I can still feel the pressure.”

“Yes.”

Juliet pressed her fingertips against her forehead, trying to use the external stimulus to better pin down the feeling inside her skull. “If only I could . . .”

“Here you go, miss,” Len announced, walking up to the table with a serving tray. Juliet tried not to scowl as she looked at him, and he smiled, setting her rectangular plate of sliders, bookended by her two side dishes, in front of her. He placed another IPA next to her nearly empty one. “Anything else?”

“Not right now. Thanks.” Juliet forced a smile and watched him depart, then she pushed her plate back, her earlier hunger forgotten, and pressed her fingers to her head again. She could feel it there, like a ball of something, wanting to move, to get out. She’d compared it to an unreleased sneeze earlier, but that wasn’t right. It didn’t tickle or itch; it didn’t feel urgent. It was more like a freshly held breath of air. She knew it was in there, but not what it was doing. How did she breathe it out?

Juliet snapped her eyes open, looked at her table, and focused on the nearly empty glass of beer. She stared at it, and then, with a focus she’d never applied to breathing before, she pushed out a slow breath, willing the ball of energy in her head to go with it, to follow the line of her sight and touch that pint glass. She almost screamed when the glass slid several centimeters over the tabletop and then tipped, spilling its contents over the smooth, polished faux-wood surface. “Holy shh . . .” she trailed off, looking around, wondering if anyone had been watching her.

“Did . . . did you just do that?” Angel asked. “The electrical buildup in the lattice is greatly diminished.”

“I did! I did that!” Juliet whispered, too wound up to subvocalize. She didn’t see any eyes on her, so she picked up the glass and tried to mop up the spilled beer with her linen napkin. It didn’t absorb very well, but she pushed all the liquid into a puddle and pressed the bunched-up napkin into it. Then she turned to her plate, her hunger suddenly back with a vengeance.

“This is a big deal, Juliet.”

“I know! By the way, I picked up some creepy thoughts when I was . . . surfing.” She ate several fries between subvocalizations, savoring the crispy, salty sweet potatoes.

“Do you think you’ll be able to do what Kyle did?” Angel was like a dog with a bone.

“Maybe, maybe. I don’t know, but I am a hundred percent sure that I want to keep practicing. I was never this excited about the lattice before; I feel like a creep listening to peoples’ thoughts, but . . . if I can move things? If I can . . . Angel, there are so many things I can imagine now! It’s thanks to you, you know? Your cooling device is a game changer. I never felt any discomfort!”

“We still need to closely monitor your tissue, especially where it’s bonded to the bio-silver. Just because you aren’t suffering debilitating headaches or passing out from overheating doesn’t mean you aren’t damaging the micro-cellular structures. I’m going to program your new medical nanites to do an exhaustive survey around the lattice.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She picked up the first slider and bit it in half, savoring the rich, creamy sauce. She couldn’t tell what kind of protein the “burger” was made of, but it was good. She polished it off, then chased it with a big swig of her second beer. Len approached the table as she was swallowing and reaching for the soaking wet napkin to dab her fingers clean.

“A little accident?”

“Sorry, Len.” Juliet couldn’t hide her good mood. She could feel the flush in her cheeks, the smile on her lips as she licked a glob of sauce from the side of her thumb.

“You’re looking a lot better! I thought you were about to get sick on me, if I’m honest. I had the cleaning crew on standby!”

“Nah, I’m good.” She watched as he wiped up her spill with a white dishtowel, then he pulled a fresh napkin out of his apron and handed it to her. “Another beer?”

“You know, I think I will have another one.” She took the napkin and, after wiping her mouth, draped it on her lap. When she looked up, Len was gone, moseying back to the bar. Juliet looked around the dining room, trying to guess which woman had been musing about murdering someone for twenty-five k.

“Something you’re looking for?” Angel asked.

“Yeah. I was just about to tell you. As I said, there were some really creepy thoughts out there, and one of them was a woman thinking about killing an old woman for money. I saw her either remembering or fantasizing about the weapon she was going to use. She had pale hands and blue nails. You see anyone like that?” Juliet continued to scan the dining room, trying to get a view of everyone’s hands.

“I’m not seeing any yet . . .” Angel trailed off while Juliet went back to her meal, taking a bite of another slider—this one tasted like barbequed beef, and she groaned with pleasure as she chewed. “Are you going to try to stop her?”

“I don’t know. It probably wouldn’t be smart, but, well, you know me. I have a hard time seeing people suffer, especially if they don’t deserve it. I might like to look into her a little to see if she’s a real baddie or at least maybe try to figure out who her mark is.”

“In that case, I think I saw her.”

“What?” Juliet jerked her gaze back to the dining room. “Were you going to tell me?”

“Of course! I just wanted to know what kind of outburst to expect if you knew who she was.” Suddenly Juliet’s AUI flickered as a yellow outline surrounded the bartender Len had been talking with throughout her meal. Sure enough, she was leaning forward, her hands under her chin with her long, pale fingers twisting her silky black hair around blue fingernails.

“Oh wow! She works here.” Juliet surreptitiously stared at the bartender. Something like fifteen or twenty meters separated them, but with her optics, she could zoom in to see the pores in the young woman’s skin. She was pretty—fit, with clear skin and nice, natural-looking brown eyes. Her hair was dark, and she wore it in curls that fell to her shoulders. She didn’t wear much makeup, but her eye shadow certainly complemented her nails. Juliet searched for a gut feeling and, coming up empty, stared harder into those eyes and reached out for the woman’s thoughts.

What is that bitch staring at?