Ability (Omnibus)

by Hill, Travis

  The sextet were able to sway the emotions of their audience, from side-splitting laughter, to tear-jerking sobs, to a passionate lust that ended with more than a few escorted out by event security and police. The four friends debated endlessly about whether or not the A Capella singers had gained the kind of ability Brian had briefly exhibited. Derry wondered if maybe the sextet did have some kind of ability, but hadn’t figured it out yet. Michelle wondered immediately after what might happen should the group figure out that they did have an ability to lyrically suggest listeners do certain tasks or feel certain emotions.

  For the first month, YouTube tried to pull the videos, and for a while they almost stayed ahead of the uploads, deleting or rejecting them as fast as they went up. Within a couple of days, it became clear that it was a losing effort, as users would create new accounts and upload the videos with different names. When YouTube figured out what was happening, it programmed the upload servers to check the content of the holos and 2D videos and reject them if they contained either the module or the Receiver formula.

  This brought on a storm of black site hackers who simply made brand new, original vids and holos that contained the formula, and had their robot army of infected computers across the globe start uploading the new versions every two minutes on burner accounts. The hackers tasked other zombie machines to upload new videos that were of random scenes or popular shows for the first ten to fifteen minutes, then linked straight into the induction module. YouTube finally gave up and took the entire site offline at the request of the American government, only to bring it back up within twelve hours, after what seemed like the entire internet flooded Google’s support desks and message boards with venom, knocking all thirty-two of Google’s cloud farms offline.

  The module was easier to keep down, as it couldn’t be altered. Video and holo upload sites were commanded to set the algorithms on their upload servers to reject the module version, but it was too late even for that. No one needed YouTube, or VidCasa, or any of the other major players within two weeks. Within two months, a net search of the module would turn up two hundred million links, and that didn’t count all of the Usenet, FireFly, N-Torrent, and private websites that hosted or traded the module.

  Within three months, the buzz was almost deafening on the net. Trolls, defenders, accusers, and objective observers all flocked to their virtual stations to talk about Receiver and the induction modules. And talk about it. And talk about it. And argue about it. And preach to others about it. Flame wars ignited and died daily. Religious persons entered the fray in force once the Pope stood on the mezzanine of his cathedral and proclaimed that God was being usurped by the forces of darkness.

  Law enforcement had to ramp down their search for the parties responsible for releasing the formula and the module to protect citizens from each other as battle lines were drawn. The modern net users believed in Receiver, the modules, and their ability to sing in a beautiful voice, as well as the promise of what was to come in a few months. Others railed against the anarchy of the networks, the use of drugs, the unnatural acquisition of the ability to sing from the learning module, and the threat of Armageddon coming in a few months.

  Overall, Brian, Garret, Derry, and Michelle were pleased at the success of the plan. The creativity being displayed by the world’s singing voices was beginning to drown out the negative side of thousands of professionals finding themselves out of work and no longer relevant. The negative side effect was lessened even more as the true professional singers began to learn via induction. Trained their whole lives, and with a lifetime of practice and a new wealth of techniques and song knowledge unlike anything they’d ever possessed, they quickly found their way back into the spotlight. The old pros, their new nickname, introduced evolutions in vocal performances so extreme, so entertaining, that the number of inducted singers across the world submitting videos of their new talents dropped off sharply.

  The four never let their guard down, even though there hadn’t been a single whisper of threat that the authorities had them on radar. If word got out that any of them had been involved, the rest would soon follow the first one into a dark hole in Federal Bay, where ‘terrorists’ had been held since Guantanamo’s closing. It hadn’t gone as perfectly as they’d planned, but they had to admit to each other that even though the chaos and eruption of violence in some places had been surprising, it hadn’t gone as badly as their worst-case scenarios.

  They kept their heads down and started on the final phase of their plan.

  CHAPTER 11

  August, 2045

  “We have a problem,” Brian said from the edge of Garret’s bed.

  “Jesus, Bri, what the hell?” his roommate asked, checking to make sure he had covers on and wasn’t sporting morning wood while trying to push the fog of sleep from his brain.

  “I overdosed on a test batch by accident, and it has produced a very frightening side effect,” Brian said as he stood and turned toward Garret’s bedroom door.

  “What ki—”

  Garret’s words were cut off by the sound of his bedroom door slamming shut. When the knob seemed to lock itself, Garret looked at Brian with fear in his eyes. For a moment he thought Brian meant to kill him. Then he realized what the side effect was.

  “Jesus, Bri, did you…?” he asked, all worries of morning wood or a naked Derry next to him gone from his head.

  “Yeah, I did,” Brian said. He turned to the digital clock on Garret’s nightstand. It lifted off the surface and wobbled for a couple of seconds, spinning in place twice before crashing down. “It’s kind of weak when doing stuff like that, real precise stuff, but a sudden burst like slamming a door… I can put a lot of power into it.”

  “What changed? What happened? Have you told the girls yet?”

  Brian sat down on the corner of Garret’s bed again. “No, and we aren’t going to tell them. About anything you just saw. About anything you are going to be able to do in less than an hour.”

  “Why not? This is awesome! Holy shit, Bri, this is… this is… awesome!” Garret repeated.

  “No, it isn’t. If Derry finds out about this, we’ll be in a lot of trouble.”

  “Why? What kind of trouble? Like she’d go to the cops?”

  “No, not that kind of trouble. You know how she feels about this whole thing already with the ‘changing of the world’ and ‘human evolution’ stuff causing societal collapse. That’s just from learning skills like languages, medicine, science, whatever. There’s no fucking way she’ll be okay with giving the entire world abilities. Whatever it is I can do now. She will not be okay with this.”

  “She can’t stop us, Brian,” Garret said. He stood up and pulled on a pair of shorts and a shirt. “She can cry about it all she wants, but she can’t do anything about it.”

  “Are you fucking stupid?” Brian shouted at him, standing up. “It’s Derry. You’re in love with her. I’m in love with her.” He surprised himself by saying it out loud. “Think of how she’ll feel if she says no and we tell her to go pound sand. Then think of how you’ll feel every time she sees you, looks at you and knows, the same as you do, that you ground her heart up and then dumped it in the trash.”

  “I don’t care,” Garret said softly, not letting himself get baited by Brian’s anger. He’d worried that this might eventually come up. “I’m going to see this through no matter what. If that means hurting Derry because she doesn’t agree with it suddenly, then I guess I’m just an asshole. But I’m not going to let her, or anyone else but you, stand in my way.”

  “And what will you do if I stand in your way?” Brian asked, his voice low and dangerous. Garret could see Brian’s fists rubbing against the side of his pants.

  “I guess nothing,” Garret answered, more wary of Brian’s mental abilities than his ability to fight. Garret knew that all of his inductions with the major fighting arts styles would be worthless against an opponent that could freeze him to death, or fling him through a window and down to the par
king lot below simply by thinking about it. “That’s what I’m saying though, bro. You’re the only one that can stand in my way, same as I’m the only one that can screw you over.” He sighed and sat down on his bed. “I don’t mean to sound ugly. I really don’t. I am in love with her, but you know as well as I do that this… thing we’re doing, this is the most important moment in human history after crawling out of the swamps and learning to make tools. Our ancestors made stone, then metal, then plastic tools. We’re making mental tools.”

  “Don’t fucking try to hard-sell me, Garret,” Brian growled.

  “I’m not trying to hard-sell you. Tell me that you don’t believe exactly what I just said. That this is the most important thing modern humans will ever do, and not even Derry saying no will stop this train from rolling.”

  “Fuck you,” Brian said and sat on the bed next to Garret.

  Garret put his arm around Brian’s shoulders and said, “Bro. Brian. I agree that we won’t tell her. Or Michelle. Good job on that, by the way, you lucky prick. Anyway, we’ll keep it under wraps. But have you thought about what she’s going to think when release day comes and suddenly instead of everyone being able to speak Swahili or Portuguese, they, including her, are able to drop-kick shit with their mind, do Exorcist-type shit on doors or windows or whatever?”

  “No,” Brian said, the lie on his face visible from the moon.

  “Riiiight. So what’s going to be the worst way of ripping her heart to shreds? Telling her now what’s going to happen, and then telling her to fuck off when she protests? Or keeping our mouths shut and her finding out we lied for months, and worse, we lied because we both knew without question that she would have said ‘no fucking way?’”

  “I don’t know,” Brian mumbled.

  Garret gave his roommate’s shoulders a friendly shake. “Neither do I, Bri. If you figure out which one is worse, tell me, and we’ll do the other one.”

  “Fuck you,” Brian said, but this time he couldn’t help laughing. Garret always made him laugh when he didn’t want to.

  “Well, seriously, man. Michelle James? You think Derry isn’t feeling the burn over that?” Garret asked, giving him a friendly shove.

  “Derry’s the one that’s always harping about not being anyone’s property. She didn’t have a problem rotating between our beds, nor among quite a few others when we didn’t see her for weeks at a time,” Brian said, miserable again.

  “Shit is burning her up, man,” Garret said. “She maybe don’t show it around you, but I think secretly she has this fantasy that we’d both always be here for her to fall back on.”

  “Dude, that’s cold as ice.”

  “Is it? We’ve always been here for her to come back to. Remember Rob Tukel? Jody Chambers? Marlin What’s-his-face with the big nose and the giant horse-cock? She slips between my sheets as easily as she does yours. We’ve let her do it because she’s a fantastic fuck, and because she’s insanely smart, both street and book, and because we’re in love with her. But it’s too late for that.”

  “I think you’re high,” Brian said.

  “Maybe. You also think I hit it on the head. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. You don’t hear me complaining about getting to ride that ass, do you?”

  “Don’t be a pig about it,” Brian said, upset that Garret was talking about her as if she were just a piece of ass from the club or a campus whore. That she was known for being a bit of a campus whore made Garret’s words sting even more.

  “All right, that was shitty of me,” Garret admitted, backing off. “But you weren’t complaining about it either. Both of us got lazy because of it. Why bother to go look for a steady piece of ass when we knew good ol’ Derry would wander back into our lives any day now, or she was already in our lives, in your bed, and so I could just wait a week, or maybe even just a night, and she’d be in mine again.”

  “It sounds shitty and cold and mean,” Brian said numbly.

  “Yeah, it does. It’s a hard truth. We used her, use her, just as much as she has us. She gets free dope, free dick, free place to crash, and free of worry about either of us pissing and moaning about her promiscuous lifestyle.”

  “It sounds like we’re her best friends,” Brian said, “but it doesn’t feel like we are.”

  “Sure we are, bro. Sure we are. Best friends hand you the pipe, hand you the cock or the pussy, whichever they have that you are into, whether theirs or a friend of theirs just to hook you up. Best friends hand you a couch to crash on when you need it. And best friends hand you the pipe again instead of being your mom or dad and telling you what a piece of shit you are for the choices you’ve made.

  “Best friends look out for each other. Just like we do for each other. We wouldn’t let anything happen to her. If some guy she was banging beat her up, we’d probably pay to have him buried alive in the desert. And we’d pay extra to be there when they nailed the lid of the box on and put him in the ground, just so he’d know who and why.”

  Brian looked at his roommate, his best friend, and asked, “Is hiding something as important as this what best friends do?”

  “Sometimes best friends have to make hard choices,” Garret told him, slapping him on the back and going to the door. He unlocked it, stepped back, and asked, “Would you do the honors? I need some coffee, then I need to get really fucked up and learn how to do what you’re doing.”

  Brian concentrated from where he was seated on the bed, willing the doorknob to turn, imagining his own hand doing it, feeling the cool metal of it in his mental palm. It jerked once, twice, then turned all the way, and he gave it a mental tug that swung the door back. Garret smiled at him before walking through the doorway and into their little kitchen a few feet away.

  Brian sat on the bed for a few moments, wondering if he should sabotage the whole thing. He wondered if he could live with Garret’s hatred or resentment at ruining it all more than he could live with Derry’s hatred and resentment for lying to her. Sometimes best friends have to make hard choices, he thought.

  *****

  October, 2045

  The next six weeks were a flurry of activity for the four of them. Brian rolled out the new formula to his contacts by hand at casual meetings in public places. It felt weird having lunch or dinner in a regular restaurant, as if he were a spy passing secrets along. He’d never been so paranoid in his life. The thing he worried the most about was what he would do if local cops or federal agents suddenly tried to accost him. His part of the plan was now finished, but if the authorities closed in on him, it would destroy everything they’d worked for the last two-plus years to achieve. Especially if he freaked out and hurt a lot of people in frightening, unnatural ways.

  Garret barely spoke to anyone during that time, working for thirty and sometimes forty hour stretches thanks to the baked goods that Brian brought home from the cook house. He’d perfected the induction modules for learning, but after Brian had revealed the side effect, he decided to tinker with it one more time. Instead of having a hundred different learning modules ready for reveal, he was going to release just one.

  Derry was like a butterfly, flitting to and fro, making sure everything was in place, meeting up with contacts that Brian didn’t have time for because of his cook schedule that couldn’t be interrupted. It was too close to reveal to have any of his clients question his sudden unavailability. A few of the men who’d shown up to the house had talked to him about this crazy new drug and the YouTube video, wondering what his take on it was. His Russian contacts were especially curious, knowing that he had extra interest in the Lyborsol-8n that they delivered to him to turn into Crash.

  One particular chemist, after cooking up a batch, had run an analysis of the formula, cross-referencing it with other chemical compounds that shared the same chains. He’d posted it on a few newsgroups and an online discussion forum, where it got picked up by both the Russian mob and the DEA. The Russians were pissed at the number of new federal agents suddenly snooping around their t
erritory. The DEA was pissed that the chemist posted his analysis as an almost step-by-step breakdown of the entire process in an instruction manual format, which instantly began to seed its way across the net.

  The news reports for two straight weeks detailed how the authorities had captured the person responsible. Brian had felt guilty that the chemist was probably locked in a dungeon somewhere under a mountain, being endlessly interrogated. Derry had suggested they help the man out, but Garret argued hard, harder than she or Brian had ever witnessed, that while it was unfortunate for the poor, stupid chemist who didn’t bother to mask his identity and posted in a very public net forum, it kept law enforcement focused on the suspect and his social circles. Derry’s look perfectly described how she felt about it, but Brian had been forced to agree with Garret.

  Michelle had her own role to play. She used proxies, a hardware encryption key that Garret had embedded in her tablet’s comm, and VPNK connections from hacked private access points to keep her nose to the ground in the medical communities, especially the psychiatric and psychology fields. Doctors and scientists were all over the spectrum in their discussions about the effects of Receiver. None would post more than an academic interest in Receiver in public net discussions, but on the black sites, they were hailing the drug as the next step in psychiatric and mental health care, if they could just have another year or two to study it.

  Universities and governments did their best to shut down open discussions on such topic areas, firing or arresting anyone that might make a good lesson to others. Overall, it had little effect. The black sites were like shifting sands in the Sahara. The FBI and NSA hackers might gain access to one or some for a short period, but within hours they’d go to log in only to find the entire network gone, a black hole in cyberspace.