by Erik Hanberg
Grace and Nosipho’s arrival was the clearest sign that the Lattice cartel had fractured beyond recognition. Grace and Altair had betrayed it and were now actively working against Dvorak Systems. Cunningham and T-Six had bailed as well. After that, even Kanjitech and LRI got cold feet. Now it was just Galway and her company, purveyors of fine jump boxes, available everywhere.
The five companies still jointly controlled the new Lattice, of course, and no new players would ever be admitted to that exclusive club. They would certainly be continuing their monopoly that created staggeringly high prices, ads that were addictive at a neurological level, and worse.
But they would no longer share joint control of the laser satellites and pooled mercenary forces. The fiction that a majority vote amongst the cartel was needed to authorize force was gone. Now the companies had their own private mercenaries and armed satellites to do with as they saw fit.
If someone had told Shaw even the day before that the cartel would be broken apart like this, with Galway isolated, he would have been ebullient. But it was hard to get excited about it now. That slim reed wasn’t enough, and it was being drowned out by a torrential cry from around the world.
From every continent, millions if not billions of people were pleading with China and the United States to use their lasers to take out Taveena and the Walden immediately. They spoke in a chorus: Why risk the global catastrophe that would come from the Lattice going down again? Why risk such devastating consequences when those governments could stop it with a flip of a switch and a burst of red? Yes, Ellie and her daughter were innocents, but think of the greater good. What were two innocent lives when weighed against plunging the world into economic and environmental chaos?
The world crying out for the death of Shaw’s family was too much too bear. He was numb to everything around him. Numb, and powerless to do anything to stop it.
He made a few last-ditch attempts at leveraging past relationships. He had reached out to Yang, who was furious with his chain of command for allowing Galway’s attack in Montana to go unchallenged, but his anger wasn’t changing any of his superior’s minds. Shaw reached out to Wu in Hefei as well, who said that China would follow the lead of the United States. Which meant that they—conveniently—wouldn’t interfere either.
Everywhere he turned, he was coming up empty. He was trapped. It didn’t matter that Grace and Altair were on his side, the numbers were overwhelmingly bad. There were no arrows left in the quiver.
Except maybe one.
He knew it was dangerous to reach for—mostly because he wanted it so badly—and that was the only reason he’d held off for so long.
He turned and met Aquinas’ waiting eye. The saint knew what was coming. “Can you calculate any method of attack or defense that will lead us to victory?” Shaw asked.
Aquinas shook his head solemnly.
“Even if Taveena takes out the Lattice, Galway will still attack here,” Shaw confirmed.
“She is making plans to use overwhelming force against us if the Lattice falls,” Ignatius said. “A massacre, with none of the precision targeting the Lattice allows. She’s not taking chances.”
“Then I want access to the raw feed,” Shaw said.
“Even if you come out a broken man on the other side?” Aquinas asked.
“I might also come out with the answer.”
Aquinas relented. “Godspeed. It’s ready when you are.”
Shaw took a deep breath, put the ring to his temple, and jumped.
He saw—
He felt—
He smelled—
He was conscious of—even a part of—every atom and particle around him and forces acting upon them.
A hundred meters above Saint Peter’s Square, a breeze full of nitrogen atoms encountered a cluster of floating water molecules and they danced through each other—the nerve in the shoulder of a man moving armaments was radiating pain—a clod of dirt skittered down the slope of the battlefield outside—the Joan of Arc AI was accessing Galway’s thoughts—the Ignatius AI was recalibrating estimates on the arrival of the army of Northerners twice a second—the glands on the palms of a guard on the roof were starting to excrete sweat—blood flow increased in the pope’s pre-frontal cortex as he recalled a memory of a day at the beach as a child in Poland—the stone of the Vatican itself was contracting a thousandth of an inch as the hot sun went below the horizon—
It kept going. A wave of pure information from the world around him washed over his mind and filled it with details he never could have imagined knowing.
And as suddenly as he’d jumped into the river of information, Shaw was released from the jump. He was trying to catch his breath, like he’d just finished the last sprint on a marathon.
“How long was I in?” he heaved.
“Thirty-nine seconds,” Aquinas answered.
Shaw couldn’t begin to guess how many thousands and thousands of facts had crossed through his consciousness in that time. His eyes darted around, trying to further clutch any new information, but the details he’d gathered were already fading away. He could remember the stone of the basilica had been contracting. But there was something he’d learned about the guard… And what had the pope been thinking of? Something from his childhood, but what? Like a dream, the more he tried to clutch at the specifics, the quicker they slipped through his fingers.
Shaw put his ring to his temple. Nothing happened.
“You have to send me back,” Shaw said.
“It’s already clear to me, there is nothing to be gained by it,” Aquinas answered.
“We don’t know that!” Shaw nearly shouted. “There may be some detail, some idea—”
“Your brain isn’t built for that,” Aquinas said. “Even at the slow speed I let you experience it, the raw flow of information in the Lattice is too fast for you to store in your long-term memory.”
“But I need to find the answer. It’s in there somewhere.”
Shaw squeezed his fist tight, keeping his anger in. Yelling at a sainted AI didn’t seem like it would be helpful, but that’s all he wanted to do.
“Remember, I know what you’re thinking and feeling, Grand Master,” Aquinas said. “And I’ve been yelled at before.”
“There’s a soldier whose shoulder was in pain. I felt it myself,” Shaw suddenly remembered. “That’s actionable. A general needs to know the condition of his troops.”
“It is an excuse,” Aquinas said. “Nevertheless, I will show you the men and women fighting for you.”
Shaw was in a new jump, a quick-fire tour of the men and women under his command. There was tension in a man’s tendons as he loaded a newly-created missile into its launcher—despite being seated, a woman’s heart was pumping faster as she thought of her children in Naples and wondered if she would live to see them after the coming battle—an officer was trying to believe the words he was saying to comfort a younger man—a man and a woman had found an out-of-the-way corner to have sex against a marble column—soldiers had filled the Sistine chapel for midnight mass with the pope—
The flashes of knowledge kept coming until once again Aquinas pulled Shaw out of the jump.
“Twenty-four seconds,” Aquinas told Shaw’s fetal form, answering his unasked—but thought—question.
“That’s fifteen seconds less than last time,” Shaw croaked.
“Your mind is weakened from the last jump.”
“It should be stronger. Like a muscle flexing.”
“Some things work like muscles and make you stronger the more you use them,” Aquinas said. “Some things work like alcohol and make you weaker the more you use them.”
Shaw tried to answer but it turned into a cough. He hacked for a couple of seconds and by the time he was done, his sharp retort was lost.
“Again,” he asked.
And again he was plunged into a jump, taking in the world and the people immediately around him. He stayed in for thirty-two seconds. When he emerged, he asked to g
o under immediately.
The next one lasted twenty-nine seconds.
Then twenty-five seconds.
Nineteen seconds.
He kept cycling in and out of jumps, until one of his jumps was less than two seconds long.
“Again,” he asked. But nothing happened. “Again!”
“I won’t let you jump again,” Aquinas said.
The three saints were watching him, their faces not giving anything away except—it felt to Shaw—their judgment.
“Again!” Shaw shouted in rage.
“Tell me, Grand Master,” Aquinas said quietly, “After how many jumps did you stop looking for a solution to the problem and start looking for another fix?”
Shaw fled.
He pushed through doors seemingly at random. He was as despondent as he’d ever been, and his movements were sluggish, like that of a drunken man. He opened one door and found himself in the Vatican gardens.
Out here, in the quiet and away from everyone, the truth of his situation became apparent. He had fought and negotiated and fled and fought and negotiated and fled and fought again. Everything he’d done had only got him a little further. Or delayed the inevitable. He’d pulled rabbits out of hats and hats out of rabbits for all the good it did him. Because it had left him here. Drained by his experience with the raw feed of the Lattice. And no closer to finding a path forward. He was powerless to save the world from the effects of the Lattice going down again. Powerless to save himself. Powerless to save his family.
He wanted to call Ellie. Before it was too late. But the thought of putting his ring to his temple to say goodbye was just too painful. His grief and hopelessness would be evident, and no matter what he said, some of that would transfer to her. He felt like he was carrying an emotional virus, ready to infect whomever he approached with his despair.
To make it worse, he was embarrassed and ashamed that when Ellie faced this moment, she’d been able to make the call, and yet here he stood delaying it. He was embarrassed too about the craving he still felt for the raw feed that Aquinas was denying him.
He wished he could see some silver lining. Something to give him hope, so he could pass it on to Ellie when they spoke.
But there was almost nothing to console him. Taveena still had Ellie and Jane. Galway was still coming for him and them. If Taveena succeeded in her goal of destroying the Lattice, Ellie and Jane might have a chance at life, but at what price? The rest of the world would be a disaster. Food shortages and mob rule like he had seen in rural France. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad as before, perhaps Florian was right—people were prepared. But there was a chance it could be far worse as well. Shaw wasn’t ready to count on it either way.
What would it all be for?
If he were going to die—and he really let himself feel it now, more intensely than he ever had—if he were going to die, if his family were going to die, what was worth giving his life for?
Not to destroy the Lattice, certainly.
But not to save it, either.
What did he want then? What was it all for? If he wasn’t fighting for the Lattice to be destroyed, and he wasn’t fighting for the Lattice to be saved, then what? He wanted to scream at the universe and beg for an answer.
Instead of the universe, he was sent something much better. His wife.
Ellie’s avatar approached Shaw in the garden, a holographic nymph. She left no footprints in the wet grass she walked on, she stirred no air. And yet when Shaw saw her, she seemed like the most real and vital thing he had seen in years.
He stared in wonder, and she smiled.
“Ellie!” Shaw exclaimed. “How—”
“Aquinas,” she said, as if that explained everything. “He called me. He thought we should talk. In fact, I’m using the same projections that he uses to be here.”
Shaw wanted to hug her, but he knew that was impossible. He held his hand out, and she held hers out. The light of her projected fingertips passed through his. Then he remembered what he had to do and his face fell. He turned away and they stood in silence.
“Walk with me?” she asked quietly.
They began walking through the garden together, the light of her hologram mingling with the moonlight to show them the way.
“Why would Aquinas invite you to come?” he finally asked.
“Because he believes there is still hope,” Ellie said.
“I don’t see it,” Shaw said, shaking his head.
“He thought that if I came to you it might… shake you out of your stupor,” Ellie answered.
“Is that what this is? A stupor? It feels far worse.” Shaw cast about, deciding what to tell her… what he was willing to say out loud. Finally, he decided not to say anything at all. He removed his Altair ring from his right ring finger and held it up in front of Ellie’s avatar. “It’s yours,” he said.
“I have one,” Ellie answered.
“It’s—no, I know that. This is a… promise. A promise to you and a promise to myself. If we get through this… I’m not going to jump again.”
“’Not going to jump again?’ Why? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Because I’m addicted to the Lattice. I’ve been scared to bring it up. For a while. Since before even Taveena and Wulf attacked the Nevada Lattice Installation. But after all this, I don’t want to die—or live—with some… I don’t know, dark secret in my soul. And I really don’t want the Lattice to be a barrier between you and me. I don’t want to be an addict. If we make it through this, I want to start rebuilding with you. Without the Lattice.”
Ellie took a cold hard look at the ring and then at Shaw. She shook her head. “I’m not prepared to accept that.” Whatever Shaw had been expecting, it wasn’t that.
“But—”
“How long have you thought you might be an addict?”
“I think I’ve wondered for a long time. I get bored and want to jump instantly. Like it was an itch in my head that I always have to scratch. Then, when the raiders kidnapped me, they took away my ring and my wrap and I realized just how hooked I was. And it just kept happening. During the Dark Eighteen, I checked my blank wrap so many times. And then just now Aquinas hooked me up to the raw feed of the Lattice and… it practically incapacitated me. I just… can’t have it be a thing I’m wrestling with anymore. I want to be healthy for us.”
“Jumping saved your life, too,” Ellie said. “Don’t forget. In Saint Peter’s Square earlier today. You recognized that the swinging door would work because you’d lived it before through Chamberlain’s eyes.”
Shaw wavered. “I guess. But I thought I’d find what I needed in the raw feed. That there would be some piece of information—some… revelation that would occur. And then I’d know! I’d know what to do. Instead, I just got hooked on the feeling of knowing—and the pace of it!—even if it didn’t lead anywhere.”
“By, I appreciate the gesture. But you’re not an addict.”
“I think I am.”
“I’m sure the raw feed felt like a head rush at the time. There’s a good reason you had a hard time coming out of it, as Aquinas predicted. That will pass in time. Because you aren’t an addict.”
“I don’t know how you can say that so certainly,” he said.
“Because this is my job!” Ellie exclaimed. “Or was. I know I worked at a clinic specifically for orgasm jumpers, but don’t you think I can spot a junkie from a block away? Before you got all worked up about whether you were an addict, did you ever think to ask your wife, who has a degree in clinical psychology, what she thought?”
Shaw was silent.
Ellie sighed. “Enjoying an addictive substance doesn’t necessarily make you an addict.”
“But—”
“When Aquinas turned you down, did you threaten to kill someone if he didn’t hook you back up again?”
“No, but—”
Ellie plowed through him. “Or remember your friend Annalise… she auctioned off her body parts to spend time in the L
attice. Would you do that to get back into the raw feed Aquinas offered you?”
“No,” Shaw said, remembering the way Annalise avoided all contact with the Lattice after she’d been recalled to life on the Walden.
“If you were doing those things, I might accept your ring and check you into a clinic,” she said. “But you’re not. You found something you want—something you perhaps want very badly—but you’ve already shaken it off.”
“It doesn’t feel that way,” Shaw mumbled.
“Give it time,” she said.
Shaw snorted. “Time. The one thing we haven’t got any of.”
“Do you have any aces up your sleeves?” Ellie asked. Her avatar started walking (gliding, really) through the garden.
Shaw shook his head. “I hoped something would occur to me in the raw feed of the Lattice. That was my last idea, and it was a terrible one.”
“When Aquinas reached out to me, he said I should ask you about the Flathead Reservation,” Ellie said.
Shaw stopped walking and Ellie turned to him. “Ellie, I…”
“Just tell me about it,” she said. “That’s all. Aquinas said you had an opportunity to save me and Jane but that you didn’t take it.”
“It’s not like that. Saving you and Jane… at the cost of all those deaths on the reservation just felt… wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.”
“By…” She looked down.
“I’m so sorry, Ellie. I—”
“No. That’s not what I meant. Saving me and Jane at the cost of the Lattice and all the consequences we saw last time… that feels terribly, terribly wrong to me too.”
Shaw stared at her. “What are you saying?” Was she offering herself? Or was she just being a realist about her fate? He couldn’t comprehend looking at his own life from such a dispassionate view and coming to that conclusion. “Don’t you want to live? You and—”