The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) (25 page)

“I don’t understand, Erling. What—”

“It’s not just us. The raiders we work with through the spheres are the same, too. We spend all this time researching the thoughts of people who hate the Lattice, trying to find the ones we trust enough to send a sphere to and open communication. We look for people who feel betrayed, who feel like the whole world has stomped on them. Those are the people I’ve been around—the people I’ve spent my time in the minds of—since I came here.

“The happy people? I don’t see them, and if I accidently find myself in the mind of one, I jump out, because they aren’t useful to us.” Erling took a deep breath, “And then after the raid failed, I had to spend time in you. Wulf and I both researched you, listened to all your thoughts, and learned all about you. And you’re so different from the rest of the people I have to listen to.”

“I’m not that different,” Shaw said, trying to shrug it off.

“You
are
. I know that even with the Lattice it’s hard to truly hear yourself, but you are. You want to know why I was on your side from the moment you met me? Because I’d already met you. I loved spending time listening to you. You and Ellie were happy. You were about to have a baby. And then we took them from you.”

Shaw didn’t trust himself to answer.

Erling looked away. “I know what it’s like, to lose your family in an instant. I know how much of a hole that leaves inside. Jpeg and Helix and I … sometimes it feels like we have a pretend family, like I turned them into my parents, just to try to fill that hole. But listening to you reminded me what a real family can feel like.”

Erling’s voice got soft and when he looked back there was a film over his eyes. “I almost feel like it’s worse for you now than it was for me,” he continued. “Because you have a chance of getting your family back, and I know it’s torture.”

“I intend to get them back.”

“I know. But … I’m afraid you won’t be able to commit, Byron. Commit enough that when we jump in your head, we won’t see scheming.”

“You just said you expected conflict.”

“We do. All of us experienced it. But none of us, when we were killed and brought here, had anyone missing us. Most people barely noticed we were gone. But not you. You have a wife and a baby on the way. I don’t know how you’re going to do it. And I want you
so badly
to win this vote. To help us destroy the Lattice and then go home to them. Because you have what I lost. What I want for myself. I hate that we took it from you.”

Shaw reached out for Erling’s shoulder, to calm the tears that had appeared on his cheeks, but Erling brushed him off and sprinted down the corridor before Shaw could touch him.

Shaw was alone in his room when he heard the door buzz. It slid open to reveal Wulf. “Am I interrupting?” Wulf asked.

Shaw shook his head. “Just thinking.”

“I wanted to tell you, you’ve made progress, Byron. Annalise and Erling are solidly in your corner. And Kuhn seems to like you, which means you’re getting closer to your five votes. But more importantly, Erling tells me that at breakfast you were truly trying to think of ways to destroy the Lattice. It was a problem your mind was legitimately working on.”

“It wasn’t intentional.”

Wulf laughed. “I know. That’s kind of why I was pleased to see it. I’d like to reward you, but I’m not prepared to give you your own ring just yet. So I’ve authorized Taveena to take you on an escorted jump. She’ll have control over where you go and what you see, but it will be a chance to be in the Lattice again, if only for a little while.”

“Thank you,” Shaw said, feeling real gratitude, before catching himself.
He’s been holding out on me, he’s put my life up to the whims of a vote, and I’m
thanking
him for a few minutes in the Lattice?
How had he let himself get so dependent on this man in just two days?

“Meet Taveena in the great room in fifteen minutes. And please, for me, take what she says seriously. It’s going to be hard to hear, but it’s incredibly important.”

Shaw showed up early—he just couldn’t stop himself.

He found Taveena floating alone in the great room, her legs crossed, the back of her palms resting on her knees. She was mediating.

He tried to step out without disturbing her, but she spoke. “Don’t worry. I’m just finishing up.” She looked at the door. “Do you meditate, Byron?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever tried it.”

“I have an open session every so often for the rest of the team. You should come.”

“I don’t think I’d have the patience for it.”

“No one does, not at the start. I still don’t sometimes, and I’ve been doing it for almost twenty years now. I still get bored and restless, just like everyone else.”

“What’s it like? Is your mind just … blank?”

“No, not exactly. It’s different every time, of course. When I’m in the zone, it’s … open. Like looking at a distant horizon. Full of possibility, but not really full of anything either.”

“It sounds nice.”

“It is. But sometimes it’s a fight, too. Just part of the process. You’ve never jumped into the mind of someone who was meditating?”

Shaw scrunched his face. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s for the best, really. I used to work with people who did. They’d find some ancient monk in China or something who had been meditating for his entire life and then jump into his mind. And then they’d get a taste of inner peace, and want to try it on their own. But meditating is one of those things that doesn’t work if you have a goal in mind. You can’t chase the feeling someone
else
had while meditating. The people who did that just got discouraged and visited the mind of the monk again. It makes no sense. You can’t meditate with someone else’s thoughts.”

Taveena had wiggled closer to him and held out her hand. Shaw took it and pulled her to the floor.

“People are dumb,” Shaw said, for whatever reason, perhaps to cover the awkwardness he was suddenly feeling. Maybe it didn’t matter why he said it. People
were
dumb. Meditating in someone else’s head seemed to qualify.

Taveena paused, appearing to give his statement genuine thought. “Yes, I suppose that’s probably true in the end. People can be dumb. But it’s not their fault. They don’t have the opportunity to be otherwise. Can I show you what I mean?”

“Show me in a jump, right?” He felt like he needed to clarify that before moving further.

“Yes. Wulf’s given me permission to take you on an escorted jump. Do you feel ready for that step?”

Shaw nodded.

“All right. I have a ring to loan you,” she said, pulling one out of her pocket. “It won’t work on anything other than an escorted jump, so don’t get any ideas. You still need Wulf’s permission for a jump on your own.”

“I know.”

“We’ll go to my room. There’s too much open space here. I don’t want you drifting into a wall mid-jump.” Shaw glided after her, wondering if there was any reason they were going to her private quarters.

“I hear you had an interesting conversation at breakfast,” Taveena said over her shoulder.

“Something like that.”

“Do you think you made progress?”

“I don’t know. Wulf thinks it’s good I was coming up with ideas about how to take down the Lattice. So maybe.”

“And with Kuhn?” she asked, coming to her door and opening it. Shaw grabbed the sides of the door and pushed into the small room.

“I suppose. She didn’t stomp off like Tranq or Helix.”

“That’s a start,” she said, as the door closed behind him.

Shaw looked around the small bunkroom, trying to avoid noticing how close he was to Taveena.

“This would be a good time,” she said quietly.

“A good time for what?”

She tapped the side of his head. “We’re listening, Byron. I see the reports on your thoughts. I know that every time you see me you want to ask me a question, but you’re afraid. I can’t stand cowardice. So go ahead and ask it.”

He shook his head as if he didn’t catch her meaning. Taveena moved closer, her belly just an inch away.

“You want to know why I’m fat.”

“You and Wulf,” he corrected.

“That’s not what Erling’s reports say. He says you’re pretty focused on me. That whenever you see me, you picture me naked. That you want to see what a fat woman looks like underneath the clothes.” Now her stomach was definitely touching his.

“Taveena …”

“Is that why you want your own ring? You want to jump and watch me shower?”

“No! I wouldn’t—”

“I’ll show you. If you’d like. Without the Lattice. Show you what it’s like to ‘fuck a fatty’—isn’t that what you wondered? A direct quote, I think.”

“I’m married.”

“You
were
.
Were
married. Ellie’s a widow now. What matters is here and now. If you don’t survive the vote, then this will have been your last chance. And if you do—if you join us and help take down the Lattice—then you can reunite with Ellie afterward and she’ll never know. She’ll never be able to jump up here and find out.”

“I … Taveena … You’re taking things out of context.”

“So you didn’t spend time wondering what it would be like to fuck me?”

“No, I did, but … not seriously. It just popped into my head, I can’t control it. It’s not fair to judge me by that.” He suddenly realized he was repeating exactly what Tranq had told him the night before. That was an unsettling thought.

“No, it’s not,” she said, backing away. She pushed off the floor and angled into the top bunk, her eyes on the ceiling. “There are plenty of other much more fair reasons to judge you.”

“And I’m supposed to ask what those reasons are?”

“Your fascination with weight to start with. Your unwillingness to own up to it and ask the question when it’s offered.”

Shaw pursed his lips together. “Why are you fat, Taveena?” It rushed out of him.

“Fuck off, Byron. You don’t get two chances, especially when the first chance is served up on a silver platter. Offer rescinded.”

“I’m sorry.”

Taveena stayed silent.

Shaw was torn between heading for the door and trying to patch it up. “You know … I was a chubby kid. Before I got the treatment.”

“We’re not going to bond over this, Byron. Being a chubby male kid and an obese adult woman are entirely different things.”

He was casting about for something that would save the situation. It wasn’t just the promised ring—even if it was only for an escorted jump. A jump was a jump at this point. But for some reason he wanted this woman’s approval. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, hoping that Erling or whoever was listening to his thoughts would report back to Taveena that he was sincere. This time he did head for the door.

“You ever jumped into the head of a fatty, Byron?” Taveena asked.

Shaw turned around. “I don’t know,” he answered slowly.

“That sounds like a ‘no’ to me. For someone who seems to notice every fat person he sees, you’d think you’d remember jumping into one.”

Shaw felt like he’d been poked and prodded, and finally it was too much. He had been trying desperately to avoid this conversation but now that he was in it, he leapt in with both feet. “So what if I’ve never jumped into any fat people? There’s just not that many around anymore, or hadn’t you noticed?
Everyone
gets the treatment. It’s free, it doesn’t hurt, it’s good for you. Why the hell shouldn’t people get it? The only people who don’t get it are just trying to make everyone else feel uncomfortable.”

Taveena laughed, the first time Shaw had heard it, and clapped. “Finally! There’s the real Byron Shaw!”

“
That’s
what you wanted from me? To get pissed at you?”

“I wanted to have an actual conversation with you, but you were too scared you were going to offend my delicate sensibilities. Because I sure as hell want to offend yours.”

“What delicate sensibilities? I’m not carrying a giant chip on my shoulder like you are,” Shaw said. If she wanted a conversation … she was going to get one.

“Oh
man
, can you even hear yourself, Byron? What you just said? You think that anyone who doesn’t go along with you and the rest of the crowd is doing it just to make
you
uncomfortable. As if it must have something to do with you, as if they couldn’t have reasons of their own! It’s the same problem with you and the Lattice. You can’t bring yourself to call it what it is—a tool of oppression—because it’s just the way things are. And Byron Shaw never challenges the way things are. You go to the extreme other side. You
protect
the way things are. Your job, your heart, all your energy is devoted to protecting the status quo.”

Shaw was bewildered. “What does any of that have to do with why you don’t get the treatment?”

“Because when you see someone like me, who’s made a different decision than you have, you feel like I’m attacking the status quo. Attacking the way things are supposed to be. The treatment is free, so everyone should get it, because otherwise it makes you uncomfortable. That’s bullshit.”

“I just … I just don’t know why you would choose to be fat. Unless you’re trying to make some sort of statement.”

“I used to get the treatment,” she said, directly meeting his eye. “I loved being thin with taut muscles all over. I loved running, feeling that blissful soreness after a long run. But even though I was thin, these,” she said, her hands in front of her breasts, “weren’t that much smaller than they are now. I was a magnet. It wasn’t terrible, nothing most women haven’t learned how to handle. But after I won my first triathlon, it got so much worse. A little fame came can be a terrible thing.”

“I tasted a bit of that myself.”

“Did you? Did strangers come up and tell you that last night they’d watched you fuck your boyfriend in a jump? Did they compliment you for a tight pussy? Did they think they were being kind by wanting to reminisce with you about losing your virginity when you were fourteen?”

“No. Jesus … And I didn’t mean to suggest—”

But Taveena wasn’t letting him in. “Those animals. It was like drive-by
rape
. They jumped, they watched me, and then they’d come talk to me about it like I was supposed to bond with them, like we’d shared some happy memory together. That’s all they knew about me—my big tits and my fourteen-year-old hymen. They didn’t know any of the details.