Radioactive Revolution: A Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic Adventure

by Richard Hummel

  Jared’s voice trailed off. He didn’t need to finish his thought, as everyone knew what would happen should the cities find out what they could do.

  “Not only was the process dangerous, it was also incredibly painful. I’d hoped that it wouldn’t be the same for everyone as it was for me, but it looks like that won’t be the case. Carla can tell you personally that it was probably the most pain she’s ever experienced.”

  Carla nodded her head vigorously, shivering as she relived the pain.

  “As you can see, this was not an easy task. Unless you bond with one of Scarlet’s brothers, I imagine this will be the same for most of you. It will probably be best if a dragon is always present to help restrain whatever creature you’ve chosen. They can physically restrain something, or perhaps use their telepathy to daze whatever it is you’ve chosen to bond with. What I don’t want is a repeat of what Carla had to endure. It was just too dangerous. We need everyone for the coming war, and we can’t afford you to become mortally wounded, or worse, die a meaningless death.”

  “Why did you let Carla go?”

  Jared looked for the speaker, but couldn’t see who it was.

  “I—”

  “Yeah, she could’ve died.”

  Again, Jared couldn’t identify the speaker, but it was definitely a different person. “I know that now, we—”

  “You shouldn’t make decisions for us.”

  This time Jared knew who’d spoken and his blood boiled.

  George.

  “Listen here—”

  Vanessa laid a hand on Jared’s arm and stepped forward. “Look, I know what you’re feeling. If something happened to Carla—I understand. But nothing happened to her, and now she has a wonderful creature as a companion. Jared risked his life to keep her safe. You all saw what he did.”

  “She shouldn’t have been up there at all!”

  “What’s the reason for having a dragon if she doesn’t help us?”

  Jared knew this would happen if he left George unchecked. Now the man started sowing discord among the group. Who knew how many he’d infected with his insidious nature.

  It was Jared’s turn to step in front of Vanessa. He didn’t want her labeled as the bad guy in all this. He needed her to remain strong and true to her people. If anyone wanted to point the blame at someone it should be him. He could at least try and alleviate their fears though.

  “Look, I apologize for not seeking everyone’s counsel. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’m not…”

  Jared frowned, trying to think of the best way to phrase his next words. “I’m not a leader. There’s a reason I’ve asked Vanessa to lead this little colony. In matters of how best to live and survive, I defer to her. However, when it comes to bonding, battle, and the war with the cities, I will make the hard calls. Everything I’ve done up to this point has been in your best interest. I’m fighting for all humanity here on the earth. Yes, even the Daggers. I want the world to go back to the way it used to be before the nuclear bombs destroyed everything.

  “That means I’ll need to make unpopular choices. You may not agree with me, I get that, but I promise I’m not doing any of this for myself.”

  It probably wasn’t the best way to end his monologue, but he wanted the seriousness of the situation to sit in the forefront of everyone’s minds. They needed to know how dangerous it was, but also that everything he did was for them.

  After everyone returned to their rooms, he made his way over to a fire pit, asking to be left alone. The pit overlooked the small valley they’d claimed for themselves. Many of those here called it Haven. It was a simple name, but for many, it represented safety. A second chance in the world.

  “Jared?”

  Glancing to his side, Jared smiled. “Hey, Pete, what can I do for you?”

  Hesitating, Pete glanced down before he spoke. “I...c-can we make a t-t-trip to our old home t-tomorrow? I want to g-get appliances for the kitchen and we c-could use more wiring. Also, if s-some of those electric vehicles survived the explosions...”

  Smiling at Pete’s enthusiasm, Jared held up a hand. “You had me convinced at kitchen appliances. We don’t have too much going on right now and, so far, no one’s requested a specific companion. I think it’d be good to get out and do some salvaging. Let others know we’ll be making a journey there. If we do this, I want to be back in two days. That’s when Scarlet’s brothers should be here, and I don’t want to miss their arrival.”

  Pete left to get things ready, snippets of his excited chatter floating in his wake. Turning back to the fire, Jared stared into the flames, lost in thought. The ambience was peaceful, and he’d had little time to just sit and enjoy himself recently. Fire danced hypnotically, jumping from log to log. The crackle and pop lulled him into a meditative state. Conversations around him became a buzz in the background.

  Jared quickly found himself in his mental room of doors, the highway of his mind where all thoughts flowed back and forth. There was no intent or purpose to Jared’s meandering. His consciousness drifted among the byways where snatches of thoughts and actions briefly passed through. The more his mind wandered, the easier it became to understand the numerous thoughts rampaging through his mind.

  Many thoughts demanded attention, emotions warred within him, and inner conflict of his recent actions fought for control.

  There were fragments of pain and loss from those that had passed on, and if Jared let even one of these fleeting events fixate in his mind, the doors around him slammed shut as his entire focus latched on to that one ephemeral object.

  Frowning to himself, Jared focused on the room he stood in, a massive, infinite space with no real boundaries. The doors at first glance appeared finite, but if he focused on enumerating them, it quickly became impossible. The room itself was a construct of his own making. His mind didn’t have boundaries, and there was no way for him to prevent a thought from occurring. All he’d done so far was cast strands of thought away, or refuse to acknowledge them because his fickle mind couldn’t handle it, or so he thought.

  In the calm center of his mind, Jared understood he couldn’t bottle his thoughts up anymore. He needed to exist within them, let them flow through him.

  Staring into the fire, Jared blocked any external stimuli from his mind. Breathing deeply to prepare for what came next, Jared closed his eyes.

  His entire focus inward, he obliterated his room of doors. Hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of thoughts and fragments of memory flooded through his mind. The moment his boundaries disintegrated, a message flooded into view, and Scarlet’s words echoed in his head.

  “Well done, Jared!”

  Clear Mind Unlocked!

  Mental boundaries and limitations no longer exist. This is an active and passive ability. Every enhancement to the Mind will also improve this ability. The state you reached to achieve this level of understanding will often elude you until it grows in strength. The stronger your mind, the more this ability moves into a passive state. Enhancing your mind sufficiently will allow you to maintain a Clear Mind indefinitely.

  Jared’s mouth dropped open in surprise. In the next moment, the barriers of his mind slammed shut, and he snapped his eyes open. Not really seeing anything around him, his eyes darted around seeking the enlightenment he’d achieved, but his thoughts were in too much turmoil to revert so soon. Shaking his head, Jared willed himself to focus. The level of awareness he’d achieved felt the same as sharing a thought space with Scarlet. Limitations and shackles in his mind dissolved, and limitless possibilities emerged.

  No matter what it takes, I will make this ability permanent, Jared vowed to himself.

  Jared’s mind reeled from the ability he’d just unlocked. The possibilities seemed endless. It was no wonder dragons were so smart. They always had a Clear Mind and could process thought so much faster than humans. Mastering the ability wou
ld take a long time, but it would be invaluable in their fight.

  “Scarlet, this ability—it’s incredible!” A sliver of mania tinged his thoughts. “Is this what...how...did you learn how to do this the same way?”

  Scarlet sounded amused as she replied. “Yes, in a way. I did not have to unlock the ability. It was always there for me. From the moment I was born, I could see and hear every thought. The harder part for me was figuring out how to process everything at once, but that came in time as my mind evolved.”

  “I can’t imagine living every moment like that. It’s overwhelming right now.” The sheer number of thoughts that bombarded him when he’d achieved Clear Mind staggered him.

  “Now that you’ve learned how, you must learn to quiet your mind lest you become sluggish. If you dwell on every possibility for everything you do, it will slow your reaction time down.” Scarlet reverted to teacher mode, no doubt multi-tasking while she was out hunting with Attis and Kitty. “You could counteract it with Hyper-Cognition, but it would be better if you learned how to quiet your mind using active meditation.”

  “What is—”

  “Active meditation differs from what you use to enter your mental storage. Active meditation is something you can do physically. Find a rhythm to everything you do such as the way you walk, how you perceive your environment, or how you blink. These are all physical actions you can use to help focus your mind.”

  Jared thought about all the individual actions and realized he’d never considered them before. They were subconscious thoughts, and his body did them in the background. However, in a Clear Mind state, he realized his body unconsciously processed them with little effort. Perhaps focusing on them to harness the jumble of thoughts would work for him.

  “You will also want to find a tempo or cadence to the thoughts running through your head. When we shared a thought space, your mind opened to the possibilities, but what you likely did not notice is the order to my thoughts. It is not chaotic because I learned to harness the thoughts and direct them. Do you remember experiencing my thoughts as I fly?”

  He cast his mind back to that first time they’d shared a thought space in the air and remembered thinking it was amazing she could consciously force her body to fly amid the hundreds of other thoughts running in her mind.

  “I remember thinking how incredible it was that you could multi-task while flying.”

  “Exactly. That is one way in which I practice active meditation. It is almost subconscious for me because I practiced with my mother for hundreds of years while incubating. When the time came for my hatching, I’d already mastered the ability through my mother’s experience. You have no such experience and must start from the beginning. I will help you along the way, but I recommend you activate the ability and practice as often as you can.”

  “Do you have any idea how it’ll work when I assign nanites to this ability? The description you wrote for me suggests that eventually it’ll become a passive skill without the need to activate it. How does that work?”

  “Think about it this way: the more nanites you allocate to the ability, the more it builds additional neural pathways through your mind, increasing its ability to see and understand the information passing through it. Hyper-Cognition works the same, only at much greater speeds and only temporarily. My mind can do this natively.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this, and what you described makes it more relevant. Let’s say I do this and become dependent on this neural framework built in my mind. What happens if we come across a technology that can make the nanotech stop working?” Jared had thought about this before and dismissed it because the nanites coursing through them were a biological hybrid, but they still kept some electrical properties.

  “I do not know. I am not familiar with any technology that can do this.”

  “I remember reading about electromagnetic pulses, or EMPs, that can destroy any electrical circuit. When you get back, we can share a thought space and you can go through the lessons I had on it. It isn’t much, and definitely won’t help us answer the question now, but it’s something we should think about.”

  “Yes, we need to think this through.”

  “Is there a way for me to make these changes more permanent? Could I use Remodeling to build these neural pathways?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I wonder if it’s possible for me to hold the Clear Mind ability active, while also directing nanites in Remodeling to build the pathways the ability creates. For that matter, I could do that with all my abilities. I wouldn’t need to depend on the nanites anymore!”

  Scarlet didn’t answer for a time and Jared became increasingly agitated as he waited for her to think through the possibilities. If he could make them permanent, it almost made him regret enhancing any of his current abilities and physical attributes. He should’ve pushed everything into Remodeling. Then again, he’d needed to increase his mind sufficiently to even get to a place where he could understand the nanites and how to do any of this. One thing was certain. If he could do this, he’d need to change up his instructions to Carla and Elle.

  Finally, Scarlet responded. “I think you might be onto something here. If you can hold your Clear Mind state and force your mind to sleep while maintaining a single thread of awareness, I think you’ll be able to trick the nanites into thinking your body is asleep. I’m able to do it because I partition my mind. For you, it will be a much harder task and I think you should experiment with tiny portions at first. As for constructing the neural pathways yourself, I also think you can do this. You already understand nanites at their base level because of your enhanced Intelligence. If you are merely following a framework established by the technology itself, it should be trivial to replicate it using Remodeling. It could take a long time, and a lot of nanites, but I think it is possible.”

  “If I can do it with my mind, I should be able to do it with the rest of my body too!”

  “Yes, but there are things you cannot do permanently, like your Natural Armor. That is a shield made up of nanites.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense, but most things I can and should be able to replicate. Like my enhanced vision. We know that the nanites contract the lens so I can see farther, right? If I use Remodeling to add muscles to that effect, I won’t have to rely on the nanites. Same thing with Heat Vision. Right now, the nanites detect the heat wavelength and relay to the cones added to my physical eye. You told me it used something called the trigeminal nerve, right? If I can replicate it, then it would work. Night vision is even easier because I only need to change the optic nerves to increase my pupils to absorb more ambient light.”

  Scarlet laughed. “Yes. I can see that it intrigues you. Let us discuss more at length when I return. It will go much easier and faster when we share a thought space. In the meantime, keep practicing your new ability.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll wait until you’re back, but Scarlet—”

  “I understand. This could change a lot.”

  Jared spent the next two hours staring into the fire, periodically activating his new ability. Each time he activated Clear Mind, he examined the nanite coding and their areas of assignment. It was easy for him to see what each of them did and where they resided in his body. Scarlet had a point; some skills he couldn’t replicate. Natural Armor and Telepathy were two he couldn’t figure out how to replicate. Perhaps studying Scarlet’s mind would help him understand how she used telepathy without nanites. With the little understanding he had, it looked like magic.

  Feeling something bump into his shoulder, Jared opened his eyes and found Vanessa sitting next to him. He hadn’t heard her approach and didn’t know how long she’d watched him.

  “Hey, Vanessa.” Jared put his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder. “How long have you been sitting here?”

  “I think a few hours. I watched you staring at the fire, and you go
t this really surprised look on your face, but you didn’t seem to realize I was here. Then your face took on that faraway look it does when you’re conversing with Scarlet for long periods of time.”

  “Sorry, I was preoccupied. I gained a new ability. Well, I guess it might not be new, but I managed to unlock my mind? It opened new possibilities and gave me clarity I never had before. Scarlet called it Clear Mind. It basically allows me to break down any mental barriers and process all of my thoughts, conscious and subconscious, at the same time. It’s the same way her mind works. It’s just another skill I need to activate at the moment. However, as I add more nanites to it, it’ll become a passive skill. Meaning, I’ll always have a Clear Mind.”

  “That sounds difficult. How do you think about many things at once?” Vanessa wrinkled her brow in concentration. “If I think about multiple things or try to multi-task, it isn’t at the same time. It’s more like quickly switching back and forth.”

  “Exactly! The same thing happened when I used Hyper-Cognition. When I went into the hyper-speed mode in my mind it didn’t let me think through every scenario at once, just rapidly speed through a lot of different pathways in succession. After the last round of enhancements to my mind that changed. I could reach a meditative state to see and control the thoughts in my mind. It was like standing in a room with a lot of doorways. All I had to do was open one and the stream of consciousness continued. I’d reached the point I could open half a dozen of these doors simultaneously, but mostly when I was in a stationary, meditative state. I think the most I managed while active is three, and that’s likely because my life was in peril when we went looking for Scarlet’s family.”

  “What changed now?”

  “I’m not entirely sure why it was different now, other than I’ve practiced a lot. This time I let my mind wander and destroyed the room I’d constructed on a whim. The moment I obliterated the room, everything rushed in. Even more incredible, I understood and could process all of these threads at an instinctual level. That’s when I got the skill. I suppose it’s like the skills we get passively when the nanites adapt to our surroundings. If we use an ability enough or get exposed to something a sufficient amount of times, the nanites adapt. I unlocked neural pathways I didn’t know I had and now everything is clear, a Clear Mind.”