Chaos Theory (5 page)

Never before had it been that obvious how she learnt was
different.

Kali watched fight scenes and mimicked everything,
everything
, flawlessly.
She watched a body movement once, and without having to practice,
she copied it. Her body remembered the movement, and she didn’t
forget how to do it.

She made Max swear not to say anything to anyone.

They debated possibilities in-between the endless search for
employment, and ruled out her ability being supernatural or
paranormal in nature. There was a logical process her brain and
body went through. She couldn’t think of anything then do it. She
had to
see
the
movement to replicate it. Anything she watched enhanced or altered
by special effects became apparent.

“
I searched the IntraWave for the characteristics I’m
displaying,” she said. “I didn’t find anybody who has ever reported
similar abilities, but I think I found something relevant. If I’m
right, I have an extreme muscle memory syndrome. I found an article
written by a scientist that suggested a skill called Implicit
Procedural Memory might be possible in humans. I think that’s what
I’ve got.”

Kali spoke of the ability like an illness, and that reflected
how she felt. She was already a bump in the elitist road. This was
another oddity that would single her out as a freak.

HiEco society demanded perfection and uniformity.

It burned her parents were shunned by their peers and not
invited to Alliance banquets because of her, because she was
‘defective’.

“
Alright.” Max shrugged. “That’s better than what I
had.”

Kali cocked her head. “What did you think it was?”

“
That you’re an alien superhero thrown off your home plant
because you have mental problems.”

Pinching her lips, Kali threatened to throw her TalkMe. He
pretended to duck and chuckled as he munched from an overloaded
spoon. Milk dribbled down his chin. He swiped it away with the back
of his hand, and wiped it on his grimy tank top.

“
Not funny,” she grunted and smacked his beefy arm. “I have a
serious–” Whack. “Medical–” Thump. “Condition.” Slap. “You’re not
allowed to take the piss.”

He fended off her blows by jerking to the side and kicking her
stool. She squealed when it tilted dangerously and grabbed the
tabletop to keep from falling.

“
We’ll do more research.” The spoon he shoved inside his mouth
muffled the words. “Is the scientist still around?”

“
No.” Kali made a sad face. “He died early twentieth, a dead
end there.”

“
Ah. Message me the link. Maybe we can follow up somehow. He
must have published other articles or research on this theory.
Don’t worry. If it’s there, we’ll find it.” He paused. “Ask Rikard.
If there’s anybody who can help it’s your father, Kal.”

She grimaced. “I don’t want to worry my parents right now.
They’re concerned I haven’t found a job. Each day the light in
Papa’s eye gets more intense when he asks how it’s
going.”

He patted the top of her head. “How is it going?”

“
Awful.” She was too depressed to even take a swing at Max for
the head patting. “They see the name Loklear and start salivating,
but the nanosecond they realise who I am the excuses roll in. I’m
too young, too educated, not educated enough, or I’m lying when I
say I graduated already. If by starlight they get past all of that
they get prissy when they find out I have no experience.” She
raised her hands and let them fall to slap her thighs. “Of course I
have no work experience. I finished studying three years early a
month ago.”

“
I’d get you a job at Pluto’s if Dod was hiring. He had to let
people go last week. I’m waiting for the day he slaps my shoulder
and tells me to take a hike.”

“
Yes, because I’d love to tell my insanely successful parents
I’m working as a serving girl for LoEco citizens. If things were
different I’d be grateful, but I’m an embarrassment to them
already.” She sighed. “At least you have a job. It’s something to
put on your profile.”

“
Yeah. Freezing my ass off on my bike for four hundred credits
an hour doesn’t exactly impress, Kal.” Max shook off the melancholy
and grinned. He was a cup half full kind of person, always able to
push everything away to have a good time. The tabletop got drummed.
“I want more action.”

Kali plucked the knife from the wall in case she forgot to
remove it before her parents got home. “Max?”

“
Yeah?”

She flipped the knife and caught the tip on her forefinger,
balancing it on the point. Grabbing the hilt, she hurled it at the
chopping board on the other side of the room. It landed dead centre
in the block of wood. The blade wobbled, rooted at an
angle.

Max swallowed hard and dropped this spoon into the mixing bowl
he’d been using as breakfast crockery.

Kali’s fists met her hips in satisfaction. “Do you know how to
use the FeedMe? I need to make a dumpling.”

5.

Lara stood in the middle of her single-roomed dwelling and
stared at the middle distance, grinding her back teeth together.
She was jittery. Not only did she have to deal with everybody
thinking she used all her credit for freaky enhancements, her body
was going through
something.

At least the pressing need to learn about the weapons that
lined her walls was gone now. The information she had on
constructing weapons of mass destruction was tucked away in her
memory banks, and her fingers no longer itched to test out the
explosives she was able to create from substances as common as
grain and bleach.

Should she be relieved or afraid she no longer felt the urge
to gather such information?

She wasn’t stupid it was all connected. What she was, why she
did the things she did, and why she needed to hide it from
everyone. The question she had was why all of a sudden had
everything either stopped or accelerated. She had noticed subtle
changes in the last few months, as if her body geared up for
something.

Her hair was driving her crazy. She used to dye it bright
pink, now the colour wouldn’t hold on her new hair growth. It was
that horrible freakish white-blonde. Worse, her eyes kept changing
hue. It was like a kaleidoscope behind her irises.

Before it had been easy to lie about why she had fangs as
enhancements, and why she had decided to dye her irises. Now the
excuses were flimsy. She was a waiter for one of the slummiest
strip bars in the quadrant. How was she making enough credit to
keep altering herself? Nobody bought it. Even her boss was wary. He
kept hinting that maybe it was time for her to pack up and move
on.

She dragged on a lightweight bodysuit and grabbed her
rucksack. It was already packed with supplies to last
weeks.

Lara slipped her favourite laser knife into the secret
compartment in her pocket. It stopped the weapon being picked up by
the pesky BodyScan.

It was time to stop hiding, time to reach out and discover
what was wrong with her.

She even had a place to start.

Grabbing her TalkMe, she scrolled through the blog that
grabbed her attention months ago. Lara sniffed at the encrypted
data hiding the blogger’s BMID, and started hacking.

6.

The door slammed open, and a muscular body crowded the
doorway. “I found something,” Max bellowed. He shut the door,
waited, and then shook his head. “Your parental units are too
understanding. If the A.I. in my house logged a male in Madeleine’s
bedroom closing the door the alarms would go insane.”

“
Madeleine’s four years old,” Kali grumbled.
Up to the chin in the bedcovers, she squinted at the time projected
onto the wall. “
I’d
go nuts if some strange man was in her room.” She
scooted over, and Max sprawled out on the bed beside
her.

He took out his TalkMe, fingers swiping lazily. The harsh
glare of the artificial light had Kali tucking her face into his
arm. She loved it when he let her snuggle, he was like a big
teddy.

He prodded her stomach. “I’m going to message you the blog I
found.”

“
Read it aloud.” When Max started talking, she pinched him.
“The last update, not the feed address.” She yawned, her jaw
cracking. Jamming the heels of her palms into her eye sockets, Kali
rubbed hard. “Do I have my ComUni in bed with me? And what does
quadrant U stand for? Which quadrant is the blogger’s BeepMe ID
registered?”

“
U stands for Untraceable. That’s what’s interesting about this
feed. This citizen is blocking his BMID from the network making him
anonymous. No one can trace the wave mark. You’re bounced a link to
the address of an empty junkyard in Quadrant18.”

“
We know it’s a he because…?”

“
I can tell. Where’s your TalkMe?”

Kali waved a hand toward the discarded clothes. Depression had
knocked her flat after another rejected employment application.
Sleeping off the hurt was more attractive than crying. Folding
clothes, and removing the TalkMe hadn’t been high on the to-do-list
when she tumbled into bed. “There somewhere. Wait, nobody knows who
this citizen is?” That was strange. Privacy of that magnitude
didn’t exist. Citizens of the Alliance were registered in the
BeepMe network. Period. It was unifying. Knowing an identifying
username was the only way you were able to communicate unless you
stood face to face.

“
Isn’t the A.I. synchronized into house functions?” Max asked.
“Ask it to read it out to us.”

“
The A.I. has been programmed to speak in emergencies. Papa
doesn’t like the intrusion into daily life.”

Insults were mumbled.

Kali shot him an evil look and nudged him with the heel of her
foot.

“
Standard, listen to this.” Max cleared his throat. “There are
others like me. I pass them in the street. We gather knowledge and
store it away for some unknown purpose. I don’t think we’re all
information hoarders. Some of us are fighters gifted with
intelligence and superior physical ability. Combine unprecedented
skills of reasoning you are left with a warrior more deadly than
humankind could create. These clandestine soldiers are more deluded
than the ones who seek information. At least we recognise what
we’re doing is strange. They are being trained, conditioned, and
regimented in ways I cannot begin to–”

“
Max,” Kali groaned. “What space crap is this?”

“
Some doomsday feed that’s getting millions of hits. This
citizen believes a massive world event is going to happen. He says
certain people around the planets feel it too, and are preparing
without realising it.”

“
Stars, it’s just some moon mad conspiracy theory.”

“
It’s connected to you, to what you can do.”

From the corner of her eye, she slanted a considering look at
him. He sounded sincere. “Gut feelings?”

He nodded, solemn. “Big gut feelings.”

“
Cosmic,” she grumbled. “I’ll tap the feed when I get
up.”

She was genuinely tired, and staying up until the wee hours
logged on was taking its toll. Kali had played the night before
until dawn peaked the horizon. Games no longer had such intricate
and detailed storylines as they did in the twentieth, but
VirtuaGames were still impressive. Submerged in the full experience
of HoloSphere technology you were able to see, hear, feel and smell
hooked into a game, but the storylines were bland in comparison to
the way they used to be. The designers sacrificed quality scripts
for complex action sequences.

She complained, yet Kali had no desire for technology to
regress. Old Generation tech was disconnected and fractured. There
used to be hundreds of companies that produced the same products,
and nothing was compatible or could communicate. With the
introduction of globally interconnected networks things improved,
but only optical devices with the capability to connect to the
wireless network were of any use. With the introduction of genetic
locking and BlueAtom8 the world’s technology began to function
efficiently, and managed to remain within the development
limitations of Treaty10.

Kali was fascinated with how tech had evolved, and she’d
researched why Blue Matter had been necessary. The BeepMe network,
the fundamental structure that linked citizens of the Alliance
together in a gigantic web of route pathways, was originally a
social network used solely for recreation. They used ComUnis to log
on that came in lots of chunky pieces sat on tables instead of
hovering screen as thick as her baby finger. Baffling.
Communications were done in live time with sound waves picked up by
an audio device with a microphone called a telephone. How did one
message more than one person at once, and why in live time, why no
visual element in the transmission? The telephones weren’t even
genetically locked to their owners. What if that person was busy
and could not pick up the message?

“
Busy later?” Max asked.

She cracked an eyelid. “Who wants to know?”

“
Come to Quad6’s range with me?”