Ability (Omnibus)

by Hill, Travis

  “I don’t know. I guess that’s what we are going to find out,” Brian answered with a grin. The other two could see the excitement in him. “What are we going to learn tonight?” he asked Garret.

  “This might sound weird, but I thought we would try something totally off the wall,” Garret said with his own grin. Derry’s grin told him she already knew what Garret was going to say. “Tonight we are going to become the greatest chefs the culinary world has ever seen.”

  “Really?” Brian said, genuinely surprised.

  “Really,” Derry answered.

  “That actually sounds really cool,” Brian said, his brain twisting and turning with all the possibilities. “But we don’t have diddly-squat in the fridge, and even if we did, we don’t have but maybe two pots and a few pieces of silverware.”

  “Gotcha covered. I hope you don’t mind, but I uh…borrowed some money from the stash. Derry knows the guy who runs the Outreach Co-Op, and they teach cooking classes there. We got the place for the night, and I gave him a shopping list of stuff to get so we could make whatever we wanted.”

  “Awesome,” Brian said.

  He wasn’t concerned about the money at all. He’d let Garret know a long time ago where the bag stuffed with paper credits was hidden. It was better to stash it in the bottom of a closet than try to explain to the Feds how a recent graduate, an unemployed recent graduate, could have a bank account with a balance of almost a million credits. One look at his major in chemistry and they’d have to be stupid not to make the connection. Brian’s fake website business laundered almost quarter of his money, and he paid all of his taxes on time, but if anyone took a closer look, they’d see it for the house of cards it was.

  He knew Garret felt like shit every time he had to dip his hand into the bag, but Brian had told him what they were doing was too important for Garret to go out and get a job beyond the part-time game design gig he was doing from home. Garret’s paychecks were going almost exclusively toward upgrades for his main workstation and the small server farm that had overtaken a small walk-in closet. The credits spent to upgrade the hardware allowed him to convert more modules in less time, a necessity as the complexity of the induction modules increased with each new revision. Brian encouraged Garret and Derry to use the extra cash in the closet. If they’d predicted correctly, then once they set the whole thing in motion, whatever cash was left over would be less valuable than toilet paper.

  “Why ‘cooking’?” Brian asked, purely out of curiosity. He wasn’t opposed to it at all, but he wasn’t sure why the other two had chosen it as the experimental activity.

  “That’s easy, bro,” Garret said with a smile.

  “It’s to keep you from starving when all you have left is a lonely potato, you crackhead,” Derry added, getting a cackle from Garret for her wit.

  Garret nodded at her. “That’s some of it. But the first thing we learned was almost pure textbook application of a knowledge. Medicine is such a specialized field, and almost all of it is learned from facts and books and holos and such. There’s room for opinions in medicine, but only in terms of an expert’s opinion within his field. Just like Derry said that night, we might all know how to treat headaches because of our very broad, expert knowledge of medicine. Our opinions would be within the facts of our field…we know that oxygen, psychedelics, and sumatriptan therapies are all valid, but we might have differing opinions on which one to use first, on which one is the most effective.

  “The ice hockey module was about taking a set of factual rules of the game, some facts of physics and motion, and applying them to a skilled, strenuous activity. We needed to know if our bodies were prepared for heavy-duty physical skill training. Humping a hill under fire in a simulation is one thing, but humping a hill in stifling heat and humidity, carrying fifty kilos of gear, some asshole on the top of the hill shooting down at you while his buddy lobs grenades or maybe some flamethrower gel…we wouldn’t really know the induction was a success unless our bodies were physically able to master the specific moves and motions.

  “Cooking is all about subjective opinion. It’s a test to see if we can actually write a book without sounding like a robot wrote it.” Brian gave him a confused look. “See, we can teach a computer how to write novels, right? But since a computer doesn’t understand emotion, it only uses the rules of language and the rules of writing stories to create new stories. But those new stories are emotionless, and they are really nothing more than bits of other stories copied and pasted together to form something that the computer can then evaluate as having all of the language rules obeyed, all of the story rules obeyed, and the story itself different enough from every other story in the computer’s memory so as to not be considered plagiarized.

  “There are rules to cooking. An egg has to be boiled for this long to be soft, this long to be hard.” He paused while Derry and Brian snickered at his unintentional innuendo. “Emotional amateurs. Anyway, all of those rules are only good enough to tell you the facts of food. Your emotions and your senses guide your creativity in combining flavors and foods into a pleasing, palatable dish.”

  Brian and Derry broke into howls of laughter at Garret’s seriousness, at the way his voice and his words changed to almost emulate a proper Englishman. Garret looked hurt for a moment, until Brian passed him the pipe. He took few heavy puffs, then finished his explanation.

  “So…all of the rules of the module will deal with frying, baking, boiling, broiling, mixing, seasoning, everything we’ll need to know to be able to follow a recipe perfectly. The point of the experiment shouldn’t be whether or not we can follow a recipe. We’ve already proven that the modules work when combined with Receiver. What we should hopefully prove tonight is whether or not pure knowledge can be shaped creatively. If all we can do is make the greatest cookies that were ever made, but only because we followed a recipe to the letter, then that’s maybe a bad sign.”

  “Because if all we do is follow recipes, we won’t be able to take the knowledge stored in our brains and apply it in ways that will modify it to fit any given situation that might randomly require it,” Brian said.

  “Exactly. Creativity is equally important. After you’ve learned the facts and rules.”

  “You can’t break a rule and improve its function if you don’t understand why it’s a rule,” Derry added, causing the two roommates to groan as loud as they could until she flipped both of them her middle finger and stomped away to the kitchen.

  *****

  The ironic thing about having an entire night in a Co-Op kitchen was not having enough storage, nor enough plates and silverware for everything they’d created. The night had been a lot of fun, with the three of them inventing endless challenges, each more complex and difficult than the last. None of them had eaten much of what had been created, but that was due to the parts of the LSD and MDMA making food not nauseating, but not appealing either. Food tended to have a rubbery, tasteless, uninteresting quality to it in the middle of a trip. They had been clear-headed enough to realize this, and had made sure Derry’s friend also supplied them with enough plastic wrap, aluminum foil, storage bags, and containers to transport it all home when they were finished.

  “I think we’ve arrived at an important point in this,” Brian announced as they sat around the apartment, eating cold fried chicken and warm cherry pie.

  “What do you mean?” Derry asked.

  “We’ve got the modules tuned to where they have a temporary effect without the Receiver, and a permanent effect with it. I say we find someone to test it on.” When they gave him concerned looks, he clarified what he meant. “Not like ‘kidnap someone and force him to.’ Sheesh. I meant we should find a proper candidate to test it on. Remember, we’ve been doing this for over a year now. We might not be able to notice some of the effects anymore because of our experience and our tolerance. What if a virgin dose gives someone crazy abilities? What if it makes them foam at the mouth and their heart explode? We’ve been on a steady p
rogression of formulas and dosage strengths for a long time. We need someone who has never taken Receiver, and has never watched one of the modules.”

  “I agree,” Garret said through a mouthful of cherry pie. He set the plate and fork down and chewed for a few seconds before going on. “We’ve never been able to replicate the thing that Bri did that first night. But we’ve flashed how much crap by now? Twenty-five modules? We can speak eleven different languages, play hockey with the big boys, cook, clean any weapon from a pistol to a shotgun to a military assault rifle, and shoot them all with expert marksmanship. We’ve learned how to play musical instruments, do advanced trigonometry, understand psychology, and can even perform surgery if the situation should arise, God forbid. We know it works on us. We need to know if maybe we’ve just done too many drugs.”

  “You mean it might not work on someone else?” Derry asked.

  “Exactly. All of us had dosed with Receiver for a year or more before we found out what it could do when combined with the modules. What if we give it to someone and have him watch modules, but nothing happens? What happens if his head explodes all over the apartment? What if he watches a module and does like Brian did, but freezes one of us solid, out of fear? Or just because the dude is an asshole?” Garret asked, making the other two think about it carefully.

  “Who should we ask?” Brian wondered.

  “I was thinking of my old prof, since I showed him the module part already,” Garret answered.

  “That’s actually a good idea, except he is still a professor at UT-A, and asking him to do drugs is a hell of a lot more than asking him to watch a module and speak Arabic for ten minutes,” Brian said. “I could always find one of the chem hackers close to Austin. They’re secretive as hell.”

  “I don’t know,” Garret said, “I think we’d be better with someone we actually know. What if the hack is a psycho, or a paranoid schizo or something? If somehow something out of the ordinary happened, I’d rather it be with someone we know and can talk down from the ledge before he fries us with his mind. Even if nothing like that happens, I’d feel better with someone we could trust to give us honest answers or feedback. And that we knew well enough to know if they were lying or hiding something from us.”

  “I know someone,” Derry offered. Both of the boys turned to look at her.

  “Who is he?” Garret asked.

  “It’s not a he, you gender-mangling misogynist,” she said. “She is one of my best friends. You’ve met her before.”

  “Nira?” Brian asked, hopeful it would be the girl with flawless, midnight-black skin that Derry had hung out with often during the last year of his college career. She’d been a lot of fun to party with, though Brian thought he would suffocate each of the twenty or so times he’d almost wound his courage up enough to ask her out.

  “No, but that’s also a good choice, other than you want to eye-fuck her,” Derry said with a huff. “Michelle James. The redhead that went clubbing with us a bunch.”

  “Another good choice,” Garret said, remembering the fiery girl with the sultry voice, and the take-no-shit attitude that let him know within five minutes of meeting her that she’d rather eat her own feet than give him the time of day. It didn’t stop him from constantly ogling her, no matter how many times she caught him.

  “Why her?” Brian asked. He remembered her as well, remembered rubbing against her at the club many times while rolling on X. She had a scent that was so unique that he had always figured it was the drug messing with him. It wasn’t musky, or sweet, or anything that he’d ever experienced before.

  “Because she has a brain in her head, unlike you two idiots,” Derry said, pointing a finger at each of them. “She’s a Psych major. She’s never had any kind of trauma in her life, like being molested or raped or beaten, and I roomed with her for two semesters. And she’s hot as hell.”

  The two boys raised their eyebrows. Derry smiled back at them. Brian had to agree with her assessment of Michelle’s looks. He didn’t figure Michelle and Derry as compatible though, since neither had ever given any hint or indication that they swung that way, not even after a night of rolling on multiple hits of X.

  “Are you done fantasizing yet, pervs?” She asked after giving them a minute to digest what she’d said. “Fucking men. A woman calls another woman attractive or comments on her tits, and your dicks get so hard that you start to think of all the porn you’ve consumed over the years since you found out what it was really for.” The looks on their faces told her she’d scored a direct hit. “Stupid boys, girls can be attracted to and talk about each other’s looks without being queer. So remember that.”

  Brian let out a breath. “So what’s the plan then? You’ll just call her up and say ‘hey, Michelle, remember Brian? He made this killer drug. And remember Garret? He made this other nerd thing. We want you to come over, eat a pill, watch a video, and then tell us if you can turn people to stone or pick up a chair with your mind.’?”

  “I think I’ll be a bit more subtle, but yeah, that’s about the gist of it,” she said.

  “When?” Garret asked.

  “I’ll find out what her schedule is like, since she actually has a job, but hopefully by the end of the month we can set it all up.”

  *****

  January 2045

  Michelle James was still as fiery as ever, and she still took no shit from Garret. Garret couldn’t help himself around her. He made a fool of himself trying to impress her, talk to her, be near her. She’d finally sat on Brian’s lap and put her arms around his neck, snuffing out the last hope Garret had of some magical connection happening between them. Derry had smiled and sat on Garret’s lap, and didn’t even seem to mind that he couldn’t hide that she was second choice for him around Michelle.

  “How long does it take?” Michelle asked after they’d settled into the beanbag chair.

  “Should be about ten more minutes to make a full hour,” Brian said, shifting some of her hair out of his face. Whatever her scent was, it was driving him a bit mad, and he was trying to keep her from feeling that madness through his pants.

  “And you think I’ll be able to learn Japanese in thirty seconds?” she asked.

  “Practically guarantee it,” Garret said over his shoulder while he queued up the learning module.

  “But how will I know if I’ve learned it completely?” she asked, still doubtful.

  Brian and Derry began conversing in Japanese, then switched to Mandarin, then to Russian. Michelle stared at them with wide eyes as if the two of them had performed a magic trick. Garret added a comment in German with an exaggerated falsetto that ended in a choreographed three-way high five. They broke out into gales of laughter when they saw Michelle’s face rotating between the three of them, trying to determine if they were having her on in an elaborate joke.

  “I’m sorry,” Brian said, and kissed her on the cheek. “You’ll understand in a few minutes. Trust me.” He wasn’t sure if he was going to end up naked with her before the night was over, but he wouldn’t be upset one bit if it happened. He’d always wondered what she looked like without her frilly skirts and tight, full-sleeved tops.

  “I’ve heard all of those things from men too many times before,” Michelle said, eliciting another high-five from Derry.

  “Okay, it’s ‘go time,’” Garret announced.

  Michelle made her way over to Garret’s computer chair and sat down. He adjusted a few settings, then asked her for her H-Vis access code. Once that was locked in, she confirmed that she could see the module, frozen in her field of vision.

  “Ready?” he asked her.

  Michelle took in a deep breath and asked, “Will it hurt?” Three chuckles hinted that it would not hurt. “How long does it take again?”

  “Thirty seconds of your life,” Derry said, putting a hand on Michelle’s shoulder. Girl power, or girl support. Derry elbowed Brian in the ribs when he gave her a leering grin.

  Garret tapped the command, and they stood si
lently while Michelle’s body stiffened, jerked, and then relaxed. Brian tried to not look at his friends, but he couldn’t help it, and he saw his fears mirrored in their eyes. It would still be a triumph of technology, even if it didn’t work on Michelle, for the fact that it worked just fine for them. There wasn’t much chance of getting people to take the drug regularly for a full year just to condition their brains to finally start accepting the inductions. At the least, Garret had said earlier, the fact that they’d advanced this far was promising enough to be able to get some kind of attention, cause some kind of waves. Maybe some European researchers would take them in and study the combination of Receiver and the induction process.

  Michelle looked up at the three of them. “Is that it?”

  “That’s it!” Derry said, her face lit with excitement.

  “I don’t think it worked,” Michelle said, disappointed.

  “Except we are speaking in Japanese,” Garret informed her. He reached over and motioned a command for the left monitor on his desk to play the live feed of Tokyo-2. A game show was on, brightly dressed contestants smacking each other with foam sledgehammers, the announcer shouting in a mocking voice as to which ones were scoring the most points.

  “Oh my God,” Michelle said, this time in English. She switched back to Japanese and said, “Oh my God. This is…crazy!” She paused again, and asked in English, “Is there no word for ‘fucking?’ I couldn’t think of one.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Brian explained to her. “You have to practice the language to pick up all of the nuances. It should feel like you’ve spoken Japanese all your life. You can also think fluently in Japanese, but you’ve never actually done that either, so your mind is still trying to make proper neural connections. Watch the monitor for about half an hour, and you’ll be able to quit your job and work as a Japanese translator if you want. Keep watching the Japanese feeds or reading Japanese sites to hone the skill.”