by Ernest Filak
Fortunately, he didn’t have to go too far to get to the module adapted to his needs. He treated the time spent in the common rooms like another unavoidable duty. He heard that some surfers took rest breaks but he never did. Every second without working meant a loss of hundreds of credits. He made sure Marilyn was acting normally and that was enough.
Despite the fact that the computer showed his cocoon was working just fine, he activated the test of the system. In the meantime he checked the state of power cables and tightened the screws on the probes. The familiar moves made him feel relaxed. He felt the excitement growing. His whole body was trembling in anticipation of sensuous moments that were just about to start.
He took off his clothes. They were unnecessary now. He walked down the steps to the pool filled with liquid and sat down on a spongy seat. The jelly like goo sucked in his legs. He evened out his breathing.
Brett attached the sensors starting with the insides of his legs, through his groin to his chest. What remained was the least pleasant procedure. In his hands he was holding a corrugated tube with a nozzle. If the new system that the company wanted to introduce worked, he wouldn’t have to go through it again. One, two, three. He leaned his head back and inserted the tube into his throat. The most difficult part was to swallow it. But he managed. It wasn’t so bad. The retch shook him only once. Things were good.
He had yet to put on specialist contact lenses and then he could lie down. The feeling of possessing his body was slowly disappearing. He couldn’t even hear the engines that would squeeze tight the cover.
“Relaxing music, please,” he ordered.
He floated surrounded by sound. He pushed out of his consciousness all the surrounding conductors, kilometers of cable, capacitors, transformers and all that technical junk that helped provide Earth with pure energy. He didn’t care about it at all. He was a Surfer, one of the best that had ever worked for the corporation. He had beaten all the records and yet he knew he had not shown all his potential. He was on a roll and his every session was better than the previous one. Keep up the good work.
Through the lenses he saw the image of the Sun. From automatic stations thin energy threads stretched out and shot into the open space, where they were snapped up by gravitational mirrors, transformed and sent out farther inside the planetary system, to all the places where man had left a sign of his presence.
There was no technology that would make it possible for the human body to work in such extreme conditions. That’s why Brett had to make do with artificial stimuli. But he didn’t feel any discomfort. Losses of boards happened more frequently that he could wish for but nobody wanted to lose their life as well.
He chose his target.
“That station over there.”
The supercomputer obedient to his will delivered data from sensors and cameras on board of the chosen collector. The machine was floating in space in the zone of minimal temperature, which was only 4170K, quite low considering that in the high crown it was approaching 2 million. Lower, near the surface, it was hotter with its 6000K. So far engineers have not been able to produce materials that would be able to withstand such extreme temperatures. And would not for a long time in the future.
Brett felt very warm. The computer system monitoring his capsule heated the gel he was floating in. In this way the sensations he was feeling were very real and alarmed him of every danger, in case he inadvertently crossed his limits. He sometimes had his body burned after losing a board. The company made sure it hurt. The surfer’s carelessness and a loss of a power-acquiring station meant hundreds of thousands of credits lost. These were bloody expensive boards.
He thought of his life as divided into two periods. Everything happened before or after he started working. Just as if he was born again. In his previous life he only knew basic colors and never paid attention to them. In his new life he learned tens of shades and hues of yellow, gold and white. He developed an interest in painting. He could spend hours staring into an old master’s piece. He felt a timeless bond with him. The stranger from centuries ago felt closer to him than family. He repeatedly tried to explain this fascination to them but in vain. Fortunately, they all treated this as a harmless quirk. So he stopped. Sometimes, though, in moments like this, he missed company that he could share his thoughts with.
He synchronized himself with the steering system and took over full control. He instantly realized that the meteo people messed up the weather forecasts again. The board was trembling in magnetic vibrations and the read outs jumped crazily all over the scale. Just like before a storm. He lifted himself up. Let’s keep quiet. It was not worth going too fast at the beginning of the shift. He let himself be carried, trying to find quieter regions. But it was to no avail. The Sun wasn’t calm today. Too bad.
“Let’s start.” Once he said that energy-catching nets slid out of the rear of the kilometer long board. At the same time the music he was listening to changed tone to sharper notes.
“Here we go!”
He moved himself lower in the direction of local turbulences. The temperature was getting higher as he was pushing through the sparse strips of mass hovering over the granules. The Sun didn’t have a uniform structure. Its outer layer was made up of round lumps called granules, which grew as large as one and a half thousand kilometers and lived up to twenty minutes, after which they were replaced by subsequent ones.
Brett dived into a valley between two such monsters. This is where his Eldorado was and the board started working at its maximum efficiency catching the electrons and protons. The concentrated bundle of pure energy shot out towards the interceptor stations.
“Fruit juice,” he ordered.
He had at least a few minutes of relative quiet. This was the distance to the next nearest granule, where he would have to adjust his course. Looking at the side walls of the canyon that were shining golden, he estimated that he had a moment of rest. The granule on the right was almost orange. Soon buoyant forces would destroy it, pushing another ball of solar mass out of the core.
The temperature indicator beeped to indicate its growth. The left granule moved a kilometer farther increasing the force of pressure it exerted on its lesser colleague. Just to be on the safe side, Brett hovered above it. It was always better to mount a stronger horse. After this one-time jump the situation turned stable again.
“Disc one, position ten,” he recalled the data that he had recorded right before his shift in the cocoon memory.
He couldn’t use holovision in real time because of strong interference. At least that’s what the corporation technicians had told him. He had to make do with the data recorded straight in the cocoon.
A small rectangular panel of a player showed in his field of vision.
“A hundred thousand for a tattoo?” A commercial break started in which Lora Lock advertised a subscription of a new porn channel, together with an extra special service.
Brett wondered for a while whether he could afford to spend money like that. If he decided on the extension of payment for his future island, he could toy with the idea of getting some pleasure from the hands of the celebrity. Lora Lock was worth every sum of money.
“Anomaly!” the sensors went nuts. The steering computer cut off the transfer of unnecessary data broadcast in the cocoon to switch on the emergency mode. The image of the porn star disappeared.
“Is this a storm?” Brett asked himself, trying to find some sense in the influx of data from the numerous sensors.
Staying in the canyon was too dangerous for the board. The wave over a rolling granule moved him higher, from where he had a better view. The temperature around him grew. He hissed when he felt a burning sensation in his feet. This was not optimal temperature for work, but he knew from experience that the equipment would endure another ten minutes. He could always go back to cooler regions. He would have to hold out.
“There it is!”
From a distance he saw disturbances typical of a sudden and unexpected erup
tion. He speeded that way trying to make it before the shot. He had a nose because once the mass disconnected from the surface he was already at its base. Whirling currents lifted him up, turning around and around. He worried that the computer would lose connection with the board. But this time the risk paid off. He was whizzing on the rising wave to the higher strata of solar atmosphere with the astonishing speed of 250 kilometers per second. The solar disc was left behind. This moment in his job was the most beautiful and given to a few select surfers. Many preferred not to take the risk and decided to remain down below. But where there was risk, there was money. The best quality energy came from eruptions like this, and what followed, his commission. One jump like that financially equaled a few two-week routine shifts. Brett almost saw how money digits in his account moved in a frenzy.
“Lora Lock, you have a new client,” he was so happy that he almost didn’t feel the burning heat that accompanied the moment of travelling through the hottest layers of the solar crown.
The board worked to the full of its ability. The cooling and transformation systems howled outside the norms.
“How I love it,” he felt almost a sensuous delight.
He had to deal with a regular eruption of mass, and he could keep the contact for a long time. In an arcane type of prominence he would have to abandon his board in the final phase. Now he had a chance to return to the surface with some of the mass that was descending in an arch. He dived with his board under a breaking wave. His duck dive was perfect. Now he didn’t want to lose his lucky board. He was surrounded by glow. He was bathing in it and magnetic interference distorted the signals. What mattered now was his experience and professional routine. It was no longer about money. He had earned enough not to worry about damaged equipment. What mattered now was prestige. Fully successful returns were managed by very few.
Given the speeds that the wave reached, the board engines could only manage minor position adjustments. He switched to backside position and let himself be carried. The surface was getting closer at an alarming speed.
Suddenly the gyrocompass whirled around and the mass indicator went crazy, as if the surface of the sun retracted. He checked the readouts. The backup systems confirmed the indications – the Sun shrank by 0,99 per cent. Never before had a phenomenon like that been recorded.
He had no time to think. He tacked towards the new supergranule, gave full speed to the weak engines and fell into its gravity well. The board signaled localized damage to the paneling and burned isolation foam. He clenched his teeth and decided he would get out of this intact to save his honor. To climb out of the gravity wall he would have to reach the heights of his abilities. Fortunately, after the mass eruption a propagating Moreton wave appeared and he was able to take advantage of its whirls. He then quickly moved through the temperature minimum of the solar atmosphere, which gave him time to take a breath. He moved over the spine of the wave that was now spreading wide and ascended into calmer layers. Brett was safe now.
Down below all the hell broke loose. Uncontrolled waves floated in all directions, contradicting all the known scientific facts. He didn’t even dream about repeating his crazy feat. Too many things were changing and the changes were too sudden. He could only watch passively. Every storm would pass, sooner or later. This one would pass too.
Contrary to all expectations and common sense, the Sun surprised him again by increasing its volume. Brett jerked up again towards the higher layers of the atmosphere, anxiously watching if he would manage to run away.
“What the fuck is going on?” he swore under his breath.
The company must have lost many of the energy-acquiring stations in these conditions. The machines were not prepared for a phenomenon like that. On the other hand, with energy shortages the prices would go up and, as a result of that, his profits as well. Every cloud has a silver lining.
He decided not to tempt fate and started observing the new phenomenon. He positioned himself in such a way that his recorders had the best image of the situation.
The volumetric expansion muffled all the storms. The granules beneath him rolled and swirled about incessantly fighting for survival. He gave the languid mass eruptions a wide berth flying among the burning columns. He kept looking.
He spotted the growing anomaly immediately. One of the granules melted but the empty place was not taken up by another one. It remained empty. He flew right over it. In the yellow mass there was a gaping red hole with the temperature much lower than its surroundings. Brett zoomed in with his camera. The image was blurred and fuzzy but still made it possible to see more detail. The anomaly covered a circular area of about twenty five kilometers in diameter. The granules that surrounded it froze in place, quickly losing energy. A corridor that reached nobody knows how deep was created.
The surfer felt like getting closer but fear of the unknown stopped him. He even increased the distance, which made him angry with himself. For the first time he felt alone. He activated a connection between his cocoon and the intercom on the station.
“Marilyn?”
His colleague was supposed to be watching over him. He was met with silence though. She must have been asleep or had already left for earth. He thought about activating an emergency connection with the operator of the nearest relay station but hesitated. He didn’t want to look like a jerk and panic. He could lose his license for something like that. Besides, a moment later he had no time for thinking. Something loomed in the heated atmosphere. On the edge of the hole a spindly leg appeared, carefully stepping onto the putty solar mass. The thing crawled on the surface like an arthropod. The insect-like six-legged creature moved farther away from the hole, taking up the position of a bodyguard. With bated breath Brett watched a few other similar creatures spill out in many directions. It was irrational and impossible. Was this the first symptom of a mental illness?
“Calling the relay station!” he didn’t hesitate any longer. Crazy or not, he had to tell somebody about this.
The strong radio signal attracted the attention of the spider-like creatures. They started to extend their legs his way. The surfer was terrified.
He overlooked the moment when the first one of the emerging monsters activated the package attached to its abdomen. Communications completely broke down. All electronic devices stopped working. Automatic power stations fell to the surface. Energy transmission was broken.
The emergency system worked the way it was supposed to. Brett woke up in his pool. It was dark and cold and the servomechanisms weren’t humming soothingly. He felt that he was suffocating and had to take a breath of air and leave the casket his body was lying in. He started hitting the side wall where he expected to find an emergency open button. He smashed the wall in vain, not being able to locate it. Brett was losing hope when the cover finally jumped open, pushed out by compressed air.
The surfer crawled out, pulling a mass of sensor cables with him. The gelatinous sludge covered his naked body. In the room even the emergency lights were out. Feeling the floor around him, he reached a box which contained a torch. With shaky fingers he tore the packaging containing new energy cells and pushed them inside. He welcomed the beam of light with relief and flashed it over all walls around, as if something could crawl out of them. He was beginning to calm down again.
He slid under the oblong bowl of the cocoon, where his personal disc was still attached. If nothing had happened to it, it should contain all the data recorded during his working hours. Clenching it tight in his hand, he moved towards the nearest wall. He leaned against it, hugging his knees with his arms and waited for the first spasm that normally followed a sudden disconnection. He had to go through it before he would take a decision about his future. A wave of pain slowly began to engulf him.
Chapter XXIII
Medical Center.
I was scared out of my wits about the implant procedure. I expected the worst of InCorp, including surgery without anesthesia. Of course, I did my best to pretend to keep my edge. I didn�
�t want Ingrid to think I was a wuss. Everything was weird, especially being ashamed of my Artificial Intelligence and all facing all these fears deep inside me. Was this what courage was all about? I was sure that our union made me a different man, or maybe I should say “we” are different? Is this going to last? What’s next?
Ingrid was very emotional about all this mess. I knew her, all her quirks, whims and mood changes. It was surprising that we were able to bear all that without jumping at each other’s throats. If all that was due to our feeling, I wished it would never pass. Because then we would descend from the top of our ecstasy into the bottom of hell.
“Hello, wake up,” somebody was shaking me by the arm.
I open my sleepy eyes. I’ve been spending too much time in the land of Morpheus, not to mention my meditations. Well, the nurse who is leaning over me has a very decent bosom. The aprons of the white personnel should cover up more. The fabric is almost transparent and I can see her lingerie. It’s quite easy on the eyes.
“I’ll show you easy on the eyes!” Ingrid is jealous, as usual.
“Honey, you know I only have eyes for you,” I assure her fervently.
But instincts are instincts and I quickly notice that apart from her breasts she has a very nice looking bottom.
“What a sexist pig!”
“The patient is awake and doesn’t show any catatonic symptoms,” somebody presents my state to somebody else.
I lift my eyes to scan the room. I can see a whole lot of doctors. There are so many of them that they don’t even fit in the assembly hall. I see many of them behind a glass wall somewhere up there. What is this? Am I a guinea pig or something? And why are all these white-coat-wearing baboons staring at me and not the hip swirling nurse? Perverts!
