The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) (28 page)

“I’m glad to hear it. Because we have one more stop on our tour, and I want you to have an open mind for it. Let’s visit the addicts.”

“No, Taveena, I don’t—”

“It’s my tour, Shaw.”

Jump.

“The orgasm jumpers, of course, are the most well known, so we’ll start with them,” Taveena said. A massive OJ clinic, at least five times the size of Ellie’s clinic, sprawled out in front of them. It was a sea of men, representing all different ages and ethnicities. “Some have been here for more than ten years. None of the treatments anyone’s come up with work reliably. A few isolated cases get out, but most are here to stay. I probably don’t have to add that the attempted suicide rate is astonishingly high.”

Jump.

In a shanty, a man with no arms or legs was getting his heart removed. Taveena narrated. “Not all addicts who give up limbs and organs are as lucky as Annalise. Her operations were relatively clean, and we were able to clone her new limbs. This man’s new heart will last a couple years if he’s lucky. But he’s not thinking of that, of course. He just wants to get back into the Lattice.”

Jump.

The thinnest woman Shaw had ever seen was lying on a narrow bed. There was a tiny tube going into her mouth, and a bag at her side, filled with urine and shit. She wasn’t moving, and then he saw a fly on her upper lip. “She’s one of the endurance jumpers, who thinks this is a goddamn sport,” Taveena spat. “She planned for a six day jump. Constant supply of food and water, a big empty bag to take it all out. Problem was that the drugs you need to stay up that long wreak havoc with your body’s signals. The feeding tube got pinched on day two. She died of dehydration, and she never knew it. Too busy in the Lattice.”

Jump.

They were hovering over a body, which was facedown in the water under the nighttime lights of Seattle.

“A gambler. He usually made wagers on things inside the Lattice. What time the King of England would get up the next morning. How many times the President of the United States would have sex in a week. Dumb, but harmless. Until he got addicted. When those bets weren’t enough, he started placing bets on himself. How long he could stay in a jump inside the mind of Jack the Ripper. How long he could watch the gas chambers in action at Auschwitz. Eventually, he discovered the Lattice version of Russian Roulette. He lost.”

“There’s a Lattice version of Russian Roulette?”

“His opponent put six rings on a table. Five are orgasm jumps, and the sixth is possibly the worst escorted jump ever created. It drove him crazy, even after leaving the jump. He threw himself off a ferry and drowned.”

Jump.

A meeting room, filled with families. People were queued up for what looked like chocolate chip cookies and milk.

“You might have heard of this one. The cult Erastus founded in Manchester. He taught that after death, people would be reborn inside the Lattice, free to visit all of history and space and spend their lives in exploration. Eventually, he talked them into a mass suicide so they could be reborn inside the Lattice together. The milk and cookies they have …” In her anger, her voice failed her. She coughed. “Well.”

Jump.

An older man in a business suit, reclining in a comfortable office chair, clearly in a jump.

“Bain Brighton, former CEO of Titan Water. This is him at the height of his career. He’s leading a conference in a chat room for employees and clients. Right now, tens of thousands of people are listening to him, and hanging on his every word. Within the water generation industry, he’s a legend. He’s a good man, too. At his direction, Titan gave free water generators to thousands and thousands of poor families every month. The problem? Bain was vain. His avatar was always set to look like him, until …”

Jump. Shaw recognized the Lattice-generated chat room. Brighton’s avatar was at the front of the room, speaking to everyone. He was ten years younger than the real Brighton Shaw had just seen. “This was a month later,” Taveena said. “He liked the look of this so well that six months later—”

Another jump, another chat conference, and Brighton’s avatar looked bulkier, more barrel-chested.

“Three months later.” Another jump, and Brighton’s thinning, graying hair was replaced by long blonde locks.

“Two months later.” Brighton was taller now, Shaw thought. His face more chiseled. And, Shaw realized, the number of avatars in the room was substantially lower too.

“Two months later.” Brighton wasn’t wearing a shirt. Just a sash over a glistening hairless chest. He was an Adonis. The chatroom, which adjusted to the number of attendees, held a few dozen, rather than the multitudes it held before.

“He’s killing his business,” Shaw said.

“He became a joke to them. Titan Water stumbled, and the board fired him shortly after this. But he kept refining and refining. His avatar was never good enough.

“As they age, some men look for younger women to feel younger, but some just want to look younger. That was Brighton. He received plenty of surgery, way more sessions of the treatment than is recommended, but it was in the Lattice where his real self was. He needed to be loved and admired. I’ll show you where he spends his hours now.”

Jump.

A chat room with an immense bed. The Brighton avatar in the middle of the bed was an absurd cousin of a human body. The proportions were all wrong, the features grotesque and exaggerated. Nude male avatars—near carbon copies of Brighton’s—surrounded him, each with fantastically large penises that were in a perpetual state of ejaculation over Brighton’s body.

Back in the
Walden
, Shaw had floated against the underside of the top bunk and was struggling to reposition himself so he could move his arm. He touched his ring to his temple and escaped the jump. The metal of the top bunk was right above his head, and he was floating in the sleep sack.

He tried to get his breathing under control. Above him, he could sense Taveena listening.

“You think that’s me.” He finally said, his breath returned. “That’s why you spent so much time on Brighton. He’s this normal guy, but he can’t help himself, and the Lattice just enables all his worst tendencies.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, Shaw. Do
you
think that’s a description of you? If you had kept using the Lattice unchecked, would you have spent all your time back at Gettysburg or Bull Run, looking for a chance to be a
real
soldier? Not just a ‘trumped-up security guard.’ Is that what you’re afraid of?”

“He’s different than I am. The people who get hooked on the Lattice chat rooms and the avatars and the simulations, they’re different… it’s all a fantasy. I was always into real life. It’s not a part of the Lattice I’ve ever been interested in.”

“I know. You explored history. But it’s not about
where
you jump. It’s about the effect it’s had on your life when you’re not jumping. How much you crave it.”

Shaw didn’t answer.

“I’m not trying to shame you. I want you to have a little self-awareness.”

“I have plenty of self-awareness.”

“You don’t. You aren’t seeing yourself from the outside. Or from the inside, even. If you were jumping into your own mind, what would you pay attention to? What would you report back to Braybrook?”

“That I enjoyed casual trips into the Lattice, and was very aware of its dangers. But that I’m not a damn junkie.”

Taveena sighed and with a flicker of movement sailed over the edge of the bunk. “You can’t see past your own ego, Byron. You couldn’t possible have a problem. That’s not who you are. Other people are different, they’re the ones who are junkies, right?” She gave him a shrug. “I know Ellie spends months if not years counseling addicts to reach a level of self-awareness, but you only have a few days. I need you to see yourself clearly.”

“I can.”

Taveena looked like she was ready to respond, but Shaw heard a light buzzer coming from the door.

“I guess our session’s over,” she said.

The door opened to reveal Kuhn. “Hi, Taveena, hi, Byron.” As if it was the most natural thing in the world that they should be here in her bunkroom. “Wulf wants to know if you want to push this back until later,” Kuhn said, looking at Taveena.

Taveena shook her head. “No, I have enough to report. This was … informative. Even if it wasn’t that productive.” She looked at Shaw pointedly, daring him to argue, and he looked away.

When he looked back Taveena had sailed out of the room silently, and Kuhn was turning to go as well.

“Should I be joining you?” he asked.

“Sorry, this one’s for us,” Kuhn said.

“Staff meeting, is it?”

Kuhn laughed. “Even terrorist raiders have boring meetings.”

“Am I on the agenda?”

“You. And that lead dome over the Lattice that Taveena showed you.”

“What’s the dome have to do with you?”

“If they finish it, our job is going to get a lot tougher. The lead keeps the entangled Lattice particles in, but it will also keep us from transporting spheres or anything else inside. We think the bots will finish within two weeks. Not much time to launch another strike, considering the last one was years in the making.”

“Maybe I can help,” Shaw ventured.

Kuhn looked away, and Shaw wondered if he’d stepped in it. “Don’t say it till you mean it.”

She left and the door closed behind her.

Shaw stayed in the room, using his fingertips to push his body off of the bunk, up to the top bunk, and back again. He was bored, restless, and still very angry. He looked at the ring on his finger and put it to his temple. Nothing happened.

In a sudden burst of energy, he left Taveena’s room and went cruising the halls of the
Walden
.

Pushing off as fast as he could, he bounced into bulkheads and let his full weight slam into them. The pain on his shoulder felt good. Cathartic. It made him forget the jumps, forget the addicts, and the insinuations of Taveena. He’d lasted days without jumping, and he was fine. Taveena and Wulf could call him what they wanted, but he was in complete control. They were puritanical—to them, anyone who used the Lattice at all had to be an addict.

What had Erling said? That Shaw didn’t like black and white? Well, that seemed to be the only way they saw the world. White/black. Good/evil. Pure/Addict. Lattice/ … Lattice/ …

Lattice
what
? What did they think, that if they got rid of the Lattice everyone would just give up on it and go back to reading Shakespeare? Who were these people?

Almost itching for a confrontation, Shaw flung his way to the great room. But no one was there, the Earth shining its light against empty gray walls. The bright day illuminated India and its ocean.

The small mess hall was empty too. Shaw’s anger left and was replaced by an idle curiosity. What room was big enough for them to meet in? He started opening doors at random. A few didn’t respond—bunkrooms mostly—but some did. He’d seen it all before on Annalise’s tour. Where was the control room again? He knew the vague location on the ship, but he’d never seen the door. Passing below decks, Shaw silently passed through the halls, pressing his hand on doors and naming them. Storeroom, storeroom, locked, spheres.

Spheres.

Shaw pressed his hand to it, and was surprised to see it open. He stared in wonder at the immense collection of spheres. They were all identical, just like the one he’d seen in the hotel room. How many operatives? How highly placed?

Maybe I should just tell all of them to confess, like Pelier.

He smiled to himself at the thought of hundreds of people all confessing at the same time, but then his smile froze.

There was something much better he could do in here.

No one was here. They were all in a meeting. Even if he was being watched, no one could stop him if he acted fast.

The spheres were arranged geographically. What part of the Earth had he seen in the great room? India. He grabbed at a sphere that looked to be in the general geography of Asia and pulled it off of the shelf.

It flashed in his hands—it must be flashing on the other side too, telling its owner there was a message coming in. But what to say? Tell them he was Byron Shaw and he was alive? Someone working with the raiders wouldn’t care. They might think that the group been compromised. He needed something to reveal the
Walden
. To everyone. To show everyone where to look. But not in a way that the person on the other end of the sphere would find suspicious.

How do you reveal an invisible ship? He tried to think back to his history lessons. Before the Lattice, how had they been discovered?

And then he knew.

FIND A STRONG LASER.

SWEEP IT OVER THE GRAND ORBITEL SHIELD.

IN ORBIT ABOVE YOU NOW.

He put the sphere back and picked up the one next to it. It flashed and he repeated his message. More, more, more. How many of these people knew English or had a wrap nearby to translate it? How many could get a strong enough laser? Or knew how to target it?

At least a few should. If he could just get enough of them the message.

He kept going, working his way westward along the wall of the spheres. A few replied back, but he barely had time to see what they’d said, he was so focused on the task at hand.

He felt like he’d written hundreds of messages, but by the time the door slid open behind him, he realized he’d only done a couple dozen. For a couple minutes of work, maybe not so bad.

But was it enough? Would anyone notice if a blast of laser light didn’t reach the shield and instead ended abruptly in space? Would anyone remember that lasers were the only kind of light that didn’t bend around an invisibility cloak?

Shaw calmly put the sphere in his hand back on the shelf. He turned to face the rest of them, ready for his fate, the deed complete.

Crowded into the small doorway were Wulf and Taveena, disappointed more than anything, he thought. Behind them was Tranq—who looked almost glad of the opportunity to punch Shaw—and Annalise, who looked … lonely? Abandoned?

Shaw wiped his brow—he hadn’t realized he had been sweating. “I don’t know if it was enough. But it might have been. If even two of these people can pull this off, their lasers will expose the ship. And then you’ll all stand trial for the attack on the Lattice.”