Cyber Dreams 3.11 - Enforced Downtime (Patreon)

Enjoy! If you read this earlier, I had to change the travel times a bit.

-Plum

On the second day of transit, Bennet asked Juliet to help him and Aya uncrate and set up a bunch of gym equipment in the cargo hold. The big plastic crates were strapped into a corner of the hold, and Juliet and Aya waited as Bennet pulled each one out with the little battery-powered forklift. The forklift was very compact—no seat, but a shelf for the driver to stand on while operating it.

“Why’s all the gym equipment crated up?”

“Well, right now, we’re under steady acceleration,” Aya pointed down in the direction of the reactor and drives. “When we reach max velocity and cruise or flip to start our deceleration burn, everything’s going to fly all over the place, so we’d either need to bolt this equipment down or repack it. Since we use the cargo hold to carry salvage, we can’t really keep a permanent gym set up.”

“Right. I’m new to the whole space-faring thing. I keep forgetting this gravity,” Juliet lifted her boot and stomped it down, “is due to the acceleration.”

“Never done this sort of thing before?” Aya frowned, then hurriedly added, “I mean, don’t worry! I don’t judge . . .”

“Thanks,” Juliet said, backing up to make room for the crate Bennet was dropping off. “I’ve been operating on good old Mother Earth up ‘til now. Still, I think I’ll manage okay.”

“Um, Bennet wanted me to help him repair some shielding panels while we’re in transit. How about we take you along so you get some hours in an EVA suit?”

“Oh, that would be great!” Juliet had been nervous about how she’d manage when they arrived at the salvage location. Angel had informed her that Dione had a harsh environment, including very severe radiation from Saturn. “I was wondering about the EVA suits—will they be able to protect us from the radiation on Dione?”

“For a little while. They have an active shielding layer, but it drains the batts fast if the radiation is high. If we really find the wreck on that little moon, Alice will probably put the Kowashi down, and we’ll tug the wreck into the cargo hold. We should be all right for a brief exposure—long enough to get the cables hooked up and grab any loose wreckage with the exos.”

“The welding rigs?” Juliet glanced at the robot-like rigs with their enclosed operator compartments.

“Yep, they’re equipped with some decent shielding, and in light gravity, they’re pretty fast with their maneuvering jets.”

“Look out!” Bennet called, apparently wanting to drop the last crate right where Juliet and Aya were standing.

“If there aren’t any hostiles, do you think Shiro will let me operate one?” Juliet had been eager to try one of the rigs out ever since she’d helped Aya refit their welding tips. They were a few generations beyond what she’d used in the salvage yard with a lot more options.

“Yeah, sure, but have you ever used one in low gravity? It’s easy to wreck . . .”

“No, I haven’t, but I’m pretty good. I think I’ll catch on quickly.” Juliet added, subvocally to Angel, “Especially if you help me!”

“I’m sure we can manage,” Angel replied.

“Huh, we’ll see,” Aya said, but Juliet could read the doubt in her eyes.

Bennet had jumped out of the forklift and was popping the seals on the first crate. “C’mon, you two. I haven’t lifted in almost a week. My arms are getting small.”

“Oh, brother,” Juliet laughed; she hardly knew Bennet, but she could see he wasn’t suffering from any atrophy. His arms, shoulders, and neck were thick and hard, straining the fabric of his overalls, and she’d felt the strength of his grip when they’d shaken hands.

“He’s always like that, but watch out because he’ll have you working out every day if you don’t learn to say no.” Aya sighed in mock exasperation as she started to unload plates, stacking them as though she’d been through the routine many times. Juliet helped and soon realized that Bennet was serious about his weight-lifting. There were benches, a four-sided squat rack with pull-up bars, three different twenty-kilogram barbells, and dozens of rubbery plates weighing between 2.5 and 20 kilograms.

“We can build up every muscle with this setup, Lucky. You look like you work out; how about making some gains while we’re stuck on this boat, hmm?”

“He tried the same speech on me!” Aya laughed. “I do my own thing, though; I’m not trying to look like a hulk.” Aya blew her bangs out of her eyes, brushing at them while she spoke. With a frown, she added, “I need a haircut. You any good?”

“Oh gosh!” Juliet laughed, “You don’t want me near your hair with scissors.”

“Eh, I’ll do it,” she shrugged.

“If you join me, though, you’re going to have to tune that arm so it doesn’t outlift your other one. Can your software manage that?” Bennet was like a dog with a bone, pressing the issue as though Juliet and Aya hadn’t said a word.

“Yeah.” Juliet rubbed self-consciously at her her biceps and shoulder above her plasteel arm.

“How’d you lose it?” Aya asked, resting a fist on her hip and cocking up one eyebrow.

“Aya . . .” Bennet started, but Juliet waved away his objection.

“No, it’s all right.” Juliet hadn’t spoken about the loss of her arm with anyone other than Angel, and she found that her willingness was one thing, but when she tried to follow up with words, she felt stuck. How was she going to explain it? Should she just tell the truth? Rather than think of a convoluted story, she blurted, “I had to cut it off with a vibroblade. Someone had put some . . . poison into a medical implant in my forearm.”

“No shit?” Bennet asked, looking at Juliet with new respect.

“A vibroblade?” Aya whistled.

“I bet that bled like a mother . . .”

“I was in a clinic, well, kind of a chop doc’s surgical room. My PAI cauterized it so I could deal with . . . other things.” Juliet shrugged.

“I notice you always wear that vibroblade,” Bennet said. “Is that the one?”

Juliet grinned and pulled the knife from the sheath on her belt, letting it buzz in her hand. “Yep. You might say me and this knife have some history.”

“Can you throw it?” Aya asked.

“Hmm?” Juliet frowned at the sudden change of topic.

“I mean, all the mercs in vids can throw knives . . .”

“I can, but I don’t think Shiro wants me poking holes in his ship.”

“Hang on, hang on!” Bennet laughed, then pushed one of the now-empty cargo crates back toward the wall. He dug around in his overalls and came up with a fat, red marker. Chuckling the whole while, he drew a target with a big red bullseye on the side of the plastic crate. He walked back over and said, “I’ll do the dishes for everyone tonight if you can hit that bullseye.”

“Seriously? What if I miss?”

“If you miss, you gotta do them,” Aya announced.

“Well, what are you putting on the table?” Juliet asked, flipping her knife with her metallic fingers and deftly snatching it out of the air by the handle. She eyed the crate, guestimating the distance at about twenty meters.

“I’ll cook when it’s your turn!”

“Okay,” Juliet laughed and added, “to be fair, if I miss, I’ll cook on your turn.” She squared herself off with the crate, then subvocalized, “Ready?”

“You want my assistance?” Angel asked in a faux scandalized tone.

“Yes! Dishes are on the line!” Juliet laughed again, pleased to see Bennet and Aya sharing her good humor. She liked the way Bennet was quick to joke around, and her good mood almost fell away when she started to compare him, mentally, to Houston. She quickly refocused on Aya, who was practically hopping with anticipation. Juliet grinned and decided to drag things out a little. “Is this okay? Should I back up a little?”

“Twenty-point-two meters,” Aya said, her pretty golden eyes scrutinizing the gap between Juliet and the crate.

“Let’s make it an even twenty-five,” Juliet said, backing up. Angel populated her AUI with a dotted line that stretched out to the crate, the distance in meters floating above it. When it read exactly twenty-five, she stopped and flipped her knife in the air again, snatching the spinning, buzzing weapon by the handle. She’d been practicing doing so for the last couple of days during her downtime in her quarters, much bolder with her plasteel fingers than her real ones.

“Sure you guys are okay with the stakes?” Juliet grinned again, wolfishly showing her teeth to Bennet, “We could make it more interesting. Wanna put some bits on the line?”

“Hey, I think she’s trying to intimidate us, Aya. She’s hoping we’ll back out!”

“All right, all right,” Juliet laughed, “I wouldn’t feel right taking your money anyway.” With casual nonchalance, she lifted her arm and whipped it forward, barely noticing Angel’s guardrails as the PAI helped her make a perfect throw. The knife sang through the air, making its buzzing progress straight to the center of Bennet’s bullseye, where the blade sank to the hilt in the dense plastic, buzzing and vibrating, ever so slowly cutting its way down through the crate.

“Damn!” Bennet laughed, slapping his hands.

“Teach me!” Aya howled, running to the crate to retrieve the knife. Juliet almost warned her off, suddenly feeling very strange about someone else handling her vibroblade, but she held her tongue; Aya was a salvage engineer; surely she knew how to handle dangerous equipment.

“I can try to teach you,” Juliet said, “but I’m not great at explaining how I do things.” She reached out her hand, pleased to see Aya had turned the blade off before passing it over.

“Later, though! C’mon, who’s ready to pump some iron?” Bennet practically howled.

“I mean, honestly,” Juliet said, smiling apologetically at Aya, “I’ve been missing the gym for the last few days myself. What do you say, Aya? Join us?”

“Um,” Aya frowned but shrugged, “Oh, all right. Bennet, I don’t want to get all beefy, though!”

“No chance of that,” he said, deadpan, then he started to shrug out of his grease-stained blue overalls. Beneath, he wore a pair of athletic shorts and a tank top, and Juliet saw she hadn’t been wrong about his physique—his muscles weren’t bulbous like a bodybuilder’s, but they looked like slabs of chiseled stone. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he could outmuscle some of the people she’d known with cybernetic arms.

“Let’s see . . .” he said, holding his hand to his chin and looking over the equipment. “Let’s warm up with some pull-ups, huh? Then we’ll do some squats. We’ll start light today since we’ve all been slacking . . .”

Juliet’s cheeks hurt from all the laughing and smiling she’d been doing, and while Bennet spoke, she reflected on how nice it was to have enforced downtime like this. No matter what she wanted to do or what urgent emergencies were happening in her life, there was no helping that the Kaminari Kowashi would be traveling through deep space for days and days. “Make sure my right arm syncs up with my left,” she subvocalized, jumping up to grab one of the bars on the squat rack and hoisting herself into a pull-up.

“Oh, nice! We’ll have you doing muscle-ups before we get to Dione!” Bennet laughed, clapping his hands. “Come on, Aya!”

Two hours later, her hair damp from a shower and her body exhausted from one of the most brutal weight-lifting sessions she’d ever been through, Juliet reclined in her bed, letting the cool acceleration gel hug and massage her as she went through some notes Angel had prepared for her about what she’d found in the copious data files they’d stolen from Grave about the GIPEL.

As she read a summary of some of the participant’s post-procedure test results, she saw the name Joshua Kyle, and a wave of guilt hit her like a ten-ton brick. “He’s dead because of me,” she said.

“Kyle?” Angel replied, her voice soft.

“So you came to the same conclusion?”

“You didn’t know what was going on with him. When you subdued him, he’d just attacked you; he had no way of knowing you would resist his psionic assault. You could be brain damaged or dead . . .”

“He was trying to get away. He’d been experimented on, had something shoved into his head, just like me, was almost free, and I stopped him. Then they killed him, Angel.”

“I know. Perhaps you should bring this up in your next session with Dr. Ming.”

“Yeah.” Juliet frowned, closing her eyes, refusing to look at her AUI while she forced herself to face the guilt she’d buried. Earlier, she’d been happy to have enforced downtime, but the downside was starting to hit pretty hard. When she wasn’t constantly moving, constantly watching out for the next big emergency, it was harder to keep certain feelings stuffed down into a tight little box. “Let’s send a message to Cassie.” The idea had come to her on an impulse, and she knew there wasn’t any guarantee Cassie would read it, but she wanted to send it anyway.

“What would you like to say?”

“Make it a voice message.”

“Ready.”

“Cassie, I know a little bit more about guilt and about feeling like you don’t deserve happiness. I’m dealing with some of those feelings myself. I . . . I know you left because you were afraid of my forgiveness, afraid I’d make it hard for you to punish yourself, to pay penance. I want you to know that everyone makes mistakes. Everyone hurts other people. It’s just, well, we’ve been pushed into positions that make those mistakes cost lives sometimes. That doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to ever be happy. I’ve had to change my ID a bit, so if you want to reach out, reply to this, even if it looks like a dead end. Angel will make sure it gets to me. I hope I hear from you soon. Much love.”

“I’ll make certain this is routed through a terrestrial server; no sense giving anyone, including Cassie, the clue that you’ve left the planet.”

“Thanks,” Juliet sighed, suddenly melancholy. She started to think about Ghoul again, picturing her smile with those sharp chrome teeth and bright blue eyes. When the image changed, and Juliet remembered her with red eyes and tears streaking down her cheeks, running away, and jumping into an AutoCab, she frowned and tried to think of something else. Her brain was a traitor, though, and instead of a happy thought, she remembered riding in a fluttercraft with Charlie Unit after their nightmare mission in the R&D facility up by Flagstaff. She thought of Houston cracking jokes and almost smiled before remembering he was dead.

“Angel, distract me. I can’t read your report right now, but summarize something for me—what did you learn about the GIPEL that might explain my weird dream? The one about the shuttle that seemed to predict my future.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, the information I have isn’t definitive, and it’s punctuated with rather dismal information about some test subjects.”

“Yeah. I’m sure.” Juliet frowned, folding her arms over her chest and sinking further into her bed.

“Very well. You were not the only subject to present this ‘ability’ for lack of a better word. A prominent example comes from GARD’s early experimentation with the GIPEL. A young woman named Wendy Upshaw developed a lopsided lattice, one that was well-developed in the central limbic area of her brain but very sparse elsewhere. She reported having dreams that ‘came true.’ GARD conducted many sleep studies with her, trying to determine what triggered the ‘true-dreams,’ as they called them.”

“Did they figure it out?”

“They found that sleep deprivation and stress followed by restful sleep caused a nearly tenfold instance of the true-dreams.”

“God. So they tortured her?”

“Basically, yes.”

“How do they explain the dreams?”

“They had several theories. One possibility is that the GIPEL in the individual's brain allows them to tap into the quantum field and perceive potential futures. This could be similar to the concept of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, where every decision made creates a new universe branching off from the current one. An individual with the GIPEL could have the ability to perceive multiple potential futures and glimpse scenes from one of those futures that is more likely to occur.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, that was one working theory. They had other, simpler explanations, though. For example, it could be that the GIPEL enhances the individual's intuition and ability to read patterns and signals. This could allow them to pick up on subtle cues and indicators that others might miss, giving them a sense of what is likely to happen in the near future. The GIPEL might be allowing them to glimpse a perceived possible future as a sort of defense mechanism. Simply put, In times of stress, your brain is trying to show you what’s coming.”

“What do you think?”

“I really don’t know, Juliet, but based on the data, I don’t think you’re just predicting future events. If you saw a shuttle with faceless, shadowy figures, I might be inclined to believe you intuited the idea that you’d be leaving Earth soon. However, you saw actual people, people you’d never met before, and, according to what you told me, they were just the same in reality as in your true-dream.”

“What happened to her? Wendy?”

“GARD put her through a few days of traumatizing events in one of the VR studios, keeping her sleep-deprived. When they finally allowed her to sleep, she began to have a true-dream. In an attempt to get as much data as possible, the technicians on duty allowed her to stay immersed in the dream even when her brain temperatures spiked. She died from the damage.”

“She died from the dream? Angel, do you think I would have died if I hadn't woken from mine?”

“If the heat had continued? You would have, at minimum, suffered severe brain damage.”

“We need a plan for if that happens again . . .”

“I’ve come up with one—your new medical nanite suite will allow me to wake you with relative certainty; I can use them to manipulate your hormones with great precision. There’s little chance you’d remain asleep if I felt you needed to wake.”

Juliet couldn’t help smiling at Angel’s smug tone. “Were you going to tell me about this plan?”

“Of course! I plan for a thousand contingencies every day, though, and I wasn’t sure you wanted to think about me manipulating your hormones. You know I’d never do so unless it were an emergency, right?”

“Yeah, you better not! I think I told you something on day one or two to that effect.”

“Such a long time ago! We should revisit some of those earlier conversations when you didn’t trust me so implicitly, don’t you think?”

“We can, sure, but I still don’t want you messing with my brain without permiss . . .”

“Dinner’s almost ready, and I made some protein smoothies for us,” Bennet’s voice announced in her ear, and Juliet saw that he’d sent her a private message.

“Nice! Thank you! I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

“All right, Angel. Thank you for making sure you had a plan to save me from an overheating GIPEL. Ugh. Psionics lattice. Let’s talk more about the GARD research after dinner, hmm?”

“I’d love to, and you’re welcome.”

Juliet groaned as she pulled herself out of the acceleration couch. She knew she’d be sore in the morning, but right then, the rubbery feeling in her arms and legs was nice; exercise was good clean work, and it made it a little easier to push her dark thoughts and memories back down into the box she kept in her head. Stretching her mouth into a smile, she blew out a pent-up breath and went to the kitchen.