System Seven (32 page)

“It means the priests
have actuated yet another extraordinary response to protect their charge, Austin
Bakken. Volgograd is nearly there with combining so it’s possible the druids
have succeeded ahead of us. In which case Brusse is just a figure, not a single
entity with extraordinary power. Of course, Austin may be even more valuable,
given their willingness to use Brusse in such a revealing manner.”

Another voice,
synthesized to disguise, asked, “What is Austin’s value?”

“Still unknown.”

“What of their
prophecies?”

“I cannot speak to
that directly, sir, without sufficient information. You are aware what the legends
state. We see one subject exhibiting unprecedented influence in the mesh.”

“This must be
resolved.”

Director Tomov nodded.
“Highest priority has been given to locating both targets. Patterns have been
issued to all Signus teams and G3 are fully involved in the coordination.
Overseer is engaged. There have been no incidents suggesting further release
activity at this point.”

“Locate him.” The
synthesized voice said. “Locate them both and contain them. Lead this effort,
director. All resources. Utilize Decimation Protocol if necessary. Whatever it
takes. Do you understand, Director Tomov? Whatever it takes.”

• • •

A white Citroen van
sped along a lane draped in the shade of English oaks. Thirty kilometers
outside Epping Forest the farmlands and old growth forests shared land with
country manors and small townships in sleepy elegance.

City life seemed a
sickly perversion by comparison. Here the accomplishments were in the order of
the fields and the crops they yielded, in the standing homes and structures
from centuries past – not in the model of Mercedes or BMW you drove or in your
zip code. There was a harmony and quiet dignity in the way the people worked
and lived here.

Sean drove while Austin
stared out the window.

“What’s that?” he
asked Austin. “You’ve got a willow’s look on your face.”

“I just like it out
here. America hasn’t got the grace England does.”

“Grace? I think you haven’t traveled much.
Grace is Milan or Venice or Athens or Bucharest. But I think I know what you
mean. Okay, here we are.”

Sean pulled off the
road and stopped under a stand of trees lined with tall bushes. He took up a
camera bag. “If anyone asks, we’re just out taking pics. If pressed, we’re
taking stock photos to sell on the internet. I’ve got the business card.”

“Farmland pics, got
it. Big demand for that.” He grabbed his own bag.

“Just another assignment.”

They climbed out and
pushed through the bushes. Beyond, an expanse of recently-tilled field
stretched outward a quarter mile, half that across. Splotches of partially
dried dirt made for good contrast. Sean produced the camera and began shooting.
“Get started.”

Austin took out a
spongy yellow ball and tossed it on the ground. Dropping into the grid was
easier now. The sense of ‘touch’ came from a direct experience of meta –
rathad, the seventh sense. The ability to feel the underlying structure of the
physical world allowed him to target it, to become entangled with it. Beyond
that, it came down to the still-mysterious conversion of intention to
actuation. Once connected to the yellow ball, he wanted it to roll and it did.
Like in a lucid dream, the dreamer in him arranged for the change to occur.

“Float it.”

The ball rose into the
air without effort.

“Good. Now the empty
can.”

He tossed an aluminum
can to the ground. With only slightly more effort, it rose into the air and
spun slowly.

“What’s Atharrachdainn
mean?” he asked Sean.

“It’s Celtic. To
change. To become something else. Now try the full can.”

One at a time, he
floated the objects from his bag, each one heavier than the last. The red brick
was the heaviest and was much easier this time. Handling two at once wasn’t
something he could do yet. As expected, Sean instructed him to try. The yellow
ball floated upward and hovered. Splitting attention to reach for the empty can
caused the ball to fall. It seemed a case of either or, no matter what he
tried.

Sean saw him struggle.
“Alright, let’s try something else.”

At the edge of the
field was the tilling machine used to turn the field. It was a smaller unit, no
more than six feet wide, designed to be pulled behind a tractor. Sean nodded
towards it.

“You kidding? That’s
gotta weigh half a ton.”

“Last night’s
increased dosage may help. Can’t hurt to try.”

“Don’t be so sure
about that.”

Wrapping his attention
around the tiller was awkward, probably because the thing was just so damn large
and heavy. The obstacle was even considering that he could move it. Over the
next several minutes he managed to focus and really feel the machine. With some
mental adjustment, an understanding came. Heavy yes, but when he thought of
moving it, a feeling grew. The same intention that let him lift bricks
blossomed by degrees until he thought he might actually be able to lift the
tiller.

Sean sensed the change
and looked over. “There you go. Be careful with it.”

In his mind’s eye, the
machine became a three-dimensional cutout, its form something he wrapped his
entire rathad around. Potential surged.

“Here goes.”

The flash of effort
immediately narrowed his senses. The field and sky and his own body disappeared
– leaving only the machine and its relationship with Raon. The grid was just X,
Y, and Z and he was going to move that thing in Z, straight up.

The tiller creaked
under an imprecise pressure. A fender guard bent inward.

“Easy does it,” Sean
said, amazement in his voice.

“Ain’t nothin’ easy
about this,” he said with clenched teeth. The tiller raised several inches from
the dirt before a headache burned outward like lightning forks. He panicked and
set the machine down with a thud.

“Good fucking job,
mate. Most impressive.”

He circled back into
the shade of the trees rubbing his head, staring at the grid before him. He’d
spent a lifetime taking it for granted – knowing now that it could be altered
so severely with just human thought was both intoxicating and frightening as hell.

“You’re telling the
truth, I hope,” he told Sean.

“About what?”

“About me being the
only one who can do this kind of TK. That neural protein research is exclusive
to the Runa Korda.”

“As far as I know
we’re the first.”

“So they could have
this tech. They could have found someone like me.”

“It’s possible, sure,
but we’ve had no indication. None. You worried about duking it out with another
TK?”

There was that but
what he didn’t say or even think about was the fear of being turned into a
weapon without the freedom to say no.

“Something like that,
yeah.”

• • •

The windows of the
cottage looked out over an unkempt yard facing the English Channel. Johan wiped a pane clean to watch the waves
march in, an endless army on a suicide mission to dash against the stone-lined
shore. The old man lived there alone and like a biological chimney he smoked
his pipe nearly constantly. The cottage held two small bedrooms, a bathroom,
kitchen, and a living room made into an office. Covering the walls were paper
sketches pinned three and four deep or more. Some were detailed and drawn with
care, others were hastily done and only roughly suggestive. Faces, places,
scenes, and storyboards of all kinds filled the living room and spilled onto
the kitchen’s walls.

Two easy chairs faced
the windows, a small table and lamp between them. The lamp’s shade was a sickly
mustard color. The curtains, too, were nicotine-stained. The house sat still in
time, evidenced by magazines dated three decades ago and furniture much older
than that. The phone, buried beneath sheets of sketches and newspaper clippings
on an antique desk, was the only visible hint of the modern world. A small
woodstove might have been nineteenth century.

He waited and listened
while the old man finished work on a sketch.

His name was Pons, a
Frenchman, another long-toothed druid probably older than Edward. He spoke four
languages and had forgotten three others though he cussed fluently in all
seven. He demonstrated that while he worked his sketch. Pons was thin, of
average height with tousled gray hair cut short, probably with scissors from
the desk. His gray beard was similarly short but kept more neatly. He wore
farmer’s overalls, old brown boots, and a plain white t-shirt. Beneath the
beard, a pale and wrinkled face focused on the paper. Still trying not to gag
on the smoke, Johan considered going outside again.

“Alright, then. That
will have to do.” Pons folded the sketch in fourths and tucked it into a pigeon
hole in his desk. He turned to face him. A pipe hung from the corner of his
mouth.

“An honor to meet you,
Johan. I did not mean to be rude. I forget how important time is to people.”

“You sketch your
dreams.”

“I do. I’m no welet
but I’ve got sketches that depict a lot of what has come to pass. That’s what I
do – study dreams.”

“I’m here to learn
more about them.”

“That you are, yes,
and more. I expect to eventually learn from you but we have to get you rolling
first. What you did for Cathbad was bold and reckless, which just so happened
to be the exact thing needed at the time. I hope that was instinct because it
will make my job much easier if you already have it.” He emptied his pipe into
an ashtray and stamped out the embers. “Go and crack the windows, open the
door. You aren’t used to the smoke and I shouldn’t be.”

They sat in the easy
chairs and enjoyed the breeze off the channel. Long weeds swayed outside the windows, a lazy dance accompanied by the
surf’s lapping against the concrete beachhead beyond the yard.

Pons produced a
toothpick and used it in place of the pipe. “You understand, no one wants you
going into Saoghal making dreams that attract every damned korjé there is. It is
like real life: to control the experience you need to temper your intention at
all times. To control your intention, you need to know you are dreaming.”

“Lucid dreaming.”

“Yes. You will become
aware
. Night will become another kind of
day. You will find it is a high buy-in until you are used to it. Don’t say I
didn’t warn you.”

He studied the
yellow-orange nicotine-stained windowpanes. Sunlight passed through them and
emerged a sickly semblance. A little like his former self passing through the
gauntlet of change.

“Relax, you will get
used to it,” Pons said, reading him. “Just takes time. You’ve had your basic
training.”

Seagulls squawked
overhead, soaring on channel winds. The same winds rang the chimes on the
porch. In the distance a ferry churned the sea white in its wake.

The flow of meta
reached and left his brain. Sensory imagery and memory-born associations mixed
to create the always-new pinnacle of emotion, the subtle paint on the canvas
that formed reality. Each moment, captured in turn, fed back into the meta in
an endless loop of creation, yielding awareness, experience, and memory.

He breathed deep from
a rising breeze, sensing all the awareness flying around unseen corridors of
reality. The world was alive with consciousness.

“What about dreams
then?” he asked Pons. “What can you teach me?”

“Well, you already know
that sleep is the act of unplugging from the grid. We withdraw all but the life
cord of the droichid, withdrawing almost completely into our meta-self. For
recreation, as problem solving exercises, or whatever the reason, we dream. A
dream is a stage set by a meta in Saoghal, a bubble of reality unto
itself. Everyone spawns these bubbles
because everyone dreams. The Comannda’s korjé are rangers in this realm. They
take control of a dreamer, of the reality, unless the dreamer is also lucid. In
that case it becomes a question of power and cunning. Not lucid or overpowered,
a dreamer becomes imprisoned for as long as the korjé can manage. The
imprisoned cannot wake up, cannot plug back into the grid. The body is
suspended. This you saw with Austin. The good news, Johan, is that you have no
match. Or shouldn’t, if the Words are right.”

“So I kicked korjé
ass, eh?”

Pons smiled. “Yes, you
did. But who knows what would have happened had you stayed longer to fight?
Hmm? That is what we are going to try to find out today. Right now, in fact.”

“Right now?” He
reached into his pocket for the pillbox Edward gave him.

“No,” Pons put up a
hand, “you won’t use those. You are going to learn to dream on the go.”

“On the go.”

“Yes,” Pons twisted
the toothpick in his mouth. “You daydream, right? Everyone does. Far more than
we realize. Even while driving.”