“Definitely not.” Rachel shook her head. “I was at the hospital a few days ago, and I passed a few coma patients while I was there. What Shawn was doing? His mind was almost identical to theirs.”
“Identical, or almost identical?” Jenny asked, as she washed her hands and shook them dry.
“If I had known you needed this, I would have paid attention…” Rachel growled, thinking back to that hurried walk down the hallway. “Almost identical… Shawn had some blue to him.”
“Blue meaning…”
“Calm. Rest. Um…” Rachel mulled it over: she rarely saw the emotion she was thinking of in anyone from OACET. Still… “Peace. He was at peace.”
“Good,” Jenny said. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”
She took Rachel’s left hand and removed the light bandages the EMTs had used to cover the injuries, and then inspected the deep cuts across the palm. There was no exchange of emotions or sensations at the contact; Jenny was a professional. Rachel had once asked her how she blocked out emotional transfer to her patients when she was working, and Jenny honestly couldn’t answer: emotions didn’t—couldn’t—become part of the medical process.
“I see you did some bathroom surgery,” Jenny said. She never spoke aloud around open wounds if she could help it.
“Bathroom surgery?” Rachel fought down her nausea as Jenny rolled her hand around in her own and applied a local anesthetic.
“Digging around on your own and making things worse,” Jenny said. “Did you use a nail file?”
“Uh, no. My teeth.”
“Oh, for…” Rachel felt the slightest shiver of annoyance from Jenny. “Rachel, these cuts will most likely become infected. I hope you know this.”
Rachel laughed. “If you’d seen the state of that basement, you’d have used your teeth, too.”
“Mhmm,” Jenny said, nonplussed. She opened a suture packet and prepared a needle. “This’ll be hard to watch. You might want to turn away.”
Rachel grinned up at her, and Jenny squeezed her eyes shut. Embarrassment flooded Jenny’s conversational colors and broke through her composure to run across Rachel’s skin. “Oh! Rachel, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay,” Rachel assured her. “I’m happy you can forget. I’d hate it if it’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of me.”
“Nobody thinks of you as blind.”
“So this trick that Shawn does,” Rachel said, changing the topic. “Why did you want to show it to me?”
Jenny looked up at Rachel, the slightest hue of orange-red frustration seeping into her colors before she clamped down on her emotions and started to stitch up Rachel’s hand.
“Fine,” Jenny said aloud. Rachel flipped off visuals and concentrated on Jenny’s mental voice as the physician worked.
“Well, the first time I saw it, he did it in bed. To surprise me, I guess. It scared the complete shit out of me. I came out of the shower and found him all but dead. I never thought to ping him—I just went straight into doctor mode. I did all of the same vital checks you just did, plus a few more. By the time he woke himself up, I was standing over him with a primed crash cart, ready to hit him with the pads.”
“Did you scream?” Rachel asked.
“Like I was in a horror movie. I scared him worse than he scared me. It took him a few weeks before he felt secure enough to show it to me again.”
“So what is it? What’s he doing when he plays dead?”
“It’s what I said. It’s a deep meditative state, similar to slow-wave non-REM sleep. So far, it’s also the best example of how the implant may be able to change us physically as well as mentally.”
Rachel had to keep herself from yanking her hand away.
Jenny must have felt her sudden surge of anxiety, but her mental tone stayed calm and level. “Keep in mind this is all pure theory at this point,” she said. “You’ve heard of biofeedback?”
“Yeah,” Rachel replied. “Enhancing mind-body relationships through machines. Plug a person into something that dings when his blood pressure goes up, and he can train himself to stay out of the danger zone.”
“Right. Except for us, the machines are in our heads. Quantum organic computers, each one becoming more individualized through use. I’m working on the theory that our implants learn how we use our bodies, and then help us to use them more efficiently. Like how you trained yourself to make those insane trick shots of yours.”
Rachel nodded. One of the first things she had done with her new senses was relearn how to use her gun. Compared to her, the best sharpshooter in the world looked like a kid with a leaky water pistol. “You’re saying Shawn wrote an autoscript.”
“Yes. He taught himself how to do this by accident. He was watching videos on meditation, how to keep calm under stress. He learned how to put himself into a... I guess you’d call it a trance? He kept finding a state of relaxation, then pushed himself deeper. His implant learned to mimic the process. He can drop himself into it, any time he wants.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“No. If someone doesn’t ping him, he wakes up on his own. It’s very close to a natural sleep state. He just uses a shortcut to reach it.”
“Do you want him to stop?”
“No!” Jenny must have shaken her head, hard: Rachel winced slightly as the almost-unfelt thread tugged at her palm. “Current thinking is the body does most of its repair work during slow-wave non-REM sleep, but we only experience it for thirty minutes at a time. Maybe forty, if we’re lucky. Do you realize what it might mean from a medical perspective, if we could figure out how to trigger this at will?”
“We could heal ourselves…” Rachel breathed. She flipped on visuals, then emotions, and looked through the wall towards Shawn. He hadn’t moved from his spot on the floor, but his colors were blue and there wasn’t a hint of gray in them. He still wasn’t whole, but he was so much better... He was pushing himself to get better. “Jenny…”
“It’s not just Shawn,” Jenny said. Rachel turned her scans back to her; the other woman was burning yellow-white with excitement. “You know how I’ve asked you and a couple of other Agents to keep track of your workouts? I need to run a few more tests—a shitload more tests, actually—but I think you’re all writing autoscripts which improve your physical performance.”
“What?” Rachel arched an eyebrow to make sure the sarcasm landed.
Now that the wounds were closed, Jenny began to speak out loud. “Athletes injure themselves,” she replied. “It’s a fact of life. Athletes pull things, sprain things... But we have atypically low rates of injury. Like, practically non-existent. We’ve got martial artists, weight lifters, triathletes... I should be treating soft-tissue injuries or putting on a cast at least once a week. And I used to! I used to treat you guys all of the time! When we moved out here, I saw the usual number of exercise-induced injuries. Less than a year later, if I’m asked to treat anything, it’s a pre-existing condition.
“Physical training is a form of biofeedback, where you continue to improve your performance through repetition, by teaching your body how to work more efficiently. My working hypothesis is the implant facilitates all biofeedback, including athleticism.”
“Or we spent five years out of practice, and we’re just getting back into the groove.”
“Except not everybody was out of practice. Take Mulcahy, for example. He started lifting weights during the worst of it, and he still suffered sprains, muscle tears… After his implant was fully activated, these gradually stopped. And you’ve always jogged, right? When was the last time you twisted an ankle?”
The rhythm of feet on bright metal… Rachel shook her head. “Not that long,” she said. “Couple of months?”
“You’re going to lie to your doctor? I treated that ankle back in March. The only injuries you’ve had since then have been sustained in the line of duty.”
“Jenny, I just fell through a floor. I’m not exactly a bionic commando.”
/>
Jenny glared at her, then tied off the suture with a deft twist of her fingers. “Biofeedback results in small changes,” she said. “If the implant does facilitate biofeedback, you’re never going to see yourself sprint at cheetah speed or jump entire buildings in a single bound. Your response time might be slightly faster and you may have increased stamina, but the implant is not going to magically morph your body into something other than basic human physiology.”
“Aw,” Rachel feigned a groan as Jenny clipped the thread. “And here I was all excited that I was about to turn into Wolverine.”
“Sorry,” Jenny said. “On that note, I’m using liquid bandages on you—which I hate—but I know you won’t keep a proper wrapping on your hand. You’ll show up every twenty-four hours so I can change it out and check for infection.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Don’t you ‘yes, mother’ me,” Jenny said, as she snipped the line and set Rachel free. “If I were your mother, I’d handcuff you to the wall until the risk of infection passed. We’re entering the post-antibiotic era. Like it or not, we’ve each had brain surgery and a foreign object grafted inside of us, so we’re at increased risk. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to rely on biofeedback to keep myself healthy.”
“I hear you,” Rachel sighed. “I’ll try to stay out of dank basements and septic tanks.”
“That’s all I ask,” Jenny said.
“By the way,” Rachel said, remembering. “I used your autoscript the other day. I found a victim at the bombing, and it gave me a diagnosis right at the scene.”
“Really?” Jenny’s colors brightened. “How did it work?”
“It was pretty accurate. I visited the same guy in the hospital, and the only thing the autoscript missed was part of his burn damage.”
“Okay,” Jenny said, nodding. “Improve the accuracy of the topical injury section. Thanks.”
“Could you also add an English translation for those of us who aren’t fluent in Medicalese?”
“Uh-oh,” Jenny laughed. “Santino giving you shit again?”
Rachel sighed. “Nerds. Hand to God, there is nothing that man doesn’t know.”
“I’ll work on it. It might take some time to get layman’s terms in there. I don’t think that way, so I’ll have to figure out how to add a different language. Do you want to try a second one?”
For a moment, Rachel wasn’t sure what Jenny was asking. Then she felt the back of her chair slam against the wall and realized her lizard brain had tried to escape, and had taken her body along with it. She took a slow breath before asking, “Shawn’s autoscript?”
The other woman nodded. “It’s safe,” she said. “I’d like you to test it.”
“More data?”
“Always,” Jenny sighed. “It is safe, I promise.”
Rachel slipped out of her suit coat and rolled up one of her shirt sleeves. “If I go stark raving mad, I’m taking you with me.”
Jenny laughed and gently wrapped her hand around Rachel’s wrist.
Autoscripts were passed from Agent to Agent via skin contact, and receiving a new script was far, far down at the bottom of Rachel’s list of enjoyable afternoon activities. Her hard resolution to get through the next five seconds netted Rachel a smile and Jenny’s best bedside manner. “Shawn found the way,” Jenny said gently. “I’ve tamed it down. This script will feel like me, not him.”
The autoscript moved from Jenny to Rachel in a hot, slippery push of energy. Rachel’s skin broke out in goosebumps, and she shut her eyes against the sudden pressure in her mind. The new autoscript held its form for a moment, then dissolved and blended into her in a rush of Jenny.
“How do I activate this?” Rachel asked, a little too loudly, as Jenny released her wrist. She scratched at her own arm until red welts appeared under her nails.
“It’s just meditation,” Jenny said, taking Rachel’s hands in her own to keep Rachel from ripping herself apart. There was no autoscript this time: Jenny’s warmth and confidence passed into her, and Rachel forced herself to relax. “Lie down somewhere quiet, then activate it. It’ll be like you’re falling asleep. You can set a timer or let yourself wake up naturally.”
“You sure this isn’t sleeping?” Rachel asked. The collective had strict rules against falling asleep with an active implant.
“Very sure,” Jenny nodded. “In normal slow-wave non-REM sleep, the conscious mind isn’t involved. You saw Shawn wake up when I pinged him. We’re still alert when we do this. It’s very, very deep meditation, but that’s all.”
“Okay,” Rachel said. “I’ll let you know how it works.”
“Oh,” the other woman added. “Don’t forget to have someone there with you to monitor your vitals the first time you use it. Not Santino—it’s got to be one of us, in case you need someone to ping you.”
“Damn it, Jenny,” Rachel sighed. “You said this was safe!”
“As your physician,” Jenny said, “did you really expect me to let you leave without telling you the fine print?”
“Woman, I have a gun!”
TEN
HALF A BOTTLE OF WHITE wine in an old plastic cup had not had its intended effect. Rather, it had been too effective; she had filled the largest glass she could find, and the wine had relaxed her to the point where she was almost asleep in her chair. Rachel was doing her best to stay alert as Santino and Josh shouted at the television, pretending she actually cared the Chicago Bears were about to lose their third game in a row. She usually enjoyed game night, but after that hour in the basement, all she wanted was to take a hot bath and then go straight to bed.
As neither Santino nor Rachel cooked, their formerly-formal dining room had been turned into an all-purpose media room. After Santino had moved in to her house, they had removed an old built-in china cabinet to make space for his new 70” high-definition television. Then they’d had a hell of a fight over what to call the room. Santino had said it should be the Man Cave; Rachel had replied she was not a man and the room was too open to be considered a cave. Santino had amended this to the Cyborg Café; Rachel had said that name was also wrong, as he was not a cyborg and besides, visitors might get the room confused with a certain bar uptown. This discussion had escalated until Santino had removed the set from the wall and hauled it upstairs to his room, threatening to keep it to himself until she apologized. He brought it back downstairs when he finally realized she had started the fight to get rid of the television until the World Series was over.
(Rachel, who was of the opinion that if baseball were any slower it would be called farming, was still trying to work out a way to escape the impending monotony of sixteen premium channels devoted to spring training.)
The doorbell rang. Santino and Josh stopped mid-expletive; Josh started grinning.
“It’s Phil,” she explained to Santino as she stood to answer the door. “Sorry, should have mentioned he was on his way. Mako’s coming over, too.”
“More the merrier,” Santino said, not shifting his attention from the game. His conversational colors, a dark navy blue streaked with white-rimmed orange, didn’t even bother to pick up Phil’s silver-light core.
Rachel was halfway to the door before she realized Phil was deeply gray. She yanked the old farmer’s door open, and he peered at her over two cases of beer. She moved to help him and he shook his head, stepping away so as to not touch her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Rachel…” he began, and then shook his head again. “In a minute. Right now, I don’t want to do anything but put away as many of these as I can.”
She reached up and pulled down the top case, then covered Phil’s hands with her own. He exhaled through his teeth as her languor passed to him; she had an image of scales balancing as his tension crossed over to her, and she was suddenly awake.
“Thanks,” she said, reclaiming her case of beer and heading towards the kitchen. “I needed that.”
“You needed that? I’ve been hum
ming at capacity since mid-afternoon.”
The beers were crammed into the empty crisper drawer, and she and Phil retreated to her study. This room was hers alone; Santino was not allowed in except to clean. The study was her favorite room in the house, lined with windows and long cubby shelves overflowing with her book collection. It was also the only room in the house without a single potted plant.
Phil closed the French doors and flopped in one of her overstuffed leather armchairs. His beer frothed from the sudden drop. “Damn it,” he swore through their link, and took huge mouthfuls while she tried not to laugh.
“I can feel that,” he said.
She pretended to be sympathetic. “Are you okay?” she asked when Phil was finally in control of the bubbling.
“No. Rachel…” Phil’s mental voice trailed off. “Those pieces of the canisters I told you about? The ones with the serial numbers on it? It was our military hardware. We traced it back to Homeland.”
“What?!” It was aloud and loud; bad news, that.
Phil nodded. “There was a shipment stolen a few years back. The canisters were part of an aerosol fire suppression system. This guy I know over in Forensics? They found the supplier who works with Homeland, and got an intact canister from the same production line. They used the canister as a comparison, and the fragments we recovered are a match.”
“Man,” Rachel said, tossing her feet up on her old pine coffee table. “That won’t go over well with Homeland.”
“You’re not kidding,” Phil said, shaking his head. “I’m glad I’m not in charge of this. Sergeant Andrews asked Homeland to explain. From what I hear, they tried to rip him apart. And Andrews gave as good as he got.”
“Really?” she asked. She didn’t quite believe him. Sergeant Andrews was in charge of First MPD’s bomb squad, and Rachel had never seen him angry—in fact, after meeting Andrews, she was convinced that the primary job requirement for the head of a bomb squad was an innate inability to become angry.
“Yes. He… Penguin, he was all set to go to war with Homeland.”
Maker Space Page 13
