Manifestations (6 page)

Zach hated looking at the lives of other children and redirected his attention. The thing about the mother’s partner disappearing interested him but if he looked through any information connected with Atlantic a flag would go up and he’d have to explain to Mister Lizney what his interest was. The Cape was a no-go zone.

What is my teacher up to now?
he wondered. Now that his bugs had been disabled he had to watch from the outside. Zach tuned to the omnipoles near his teacher’s residence and watched. Omnipoles were everywhere in the WU and some people joked that they were the real civilisation and we humans just ran amongst them; they were regularly spaced streetlights, Weave nodes, and held an array of passive sensors and inductive power coils. There were four poles in proximity to Lizney’s home and Zach had each of them adding their data directly to his own stream for processing.

The light in Lizney’s unit went out. A woman rode past on a bicycle. Zach sat and waited, but nothing more happened.

So why does a man like Lizney not have a symbiot? Belief system, impairment or because he had a negative assessment from the ups? What exactly was a ‘negative assessment’? How did one get ‘negatively assessed’? Technically, he knew that the Will could restrict someone’s activities if they deemed them counter to the Will, but in reality he couldn’t see how this would ever apply to a person.

He scanned through the Weave and compiled a better definition: when the actions of a given Citizen are deemed to be of negative effect to the World Union. It was a common phrase that meant little; Citizens had actions denied all the time, every day. But what kind of action would the Will decide was such a threat as to deny a person a commonplace item like a symbiot?

Of the sample cases he looked through, there was nothing like it. Unless of course he just couldn’t access such cases. There was lots of data behind the Lizney wall he couldn’t see. As he was only thirteen, the Will determined that not all information would be available to him. This would repeal as he got older, and when he became a Citizen and gained more value.

It didn’t make any sense anyway. If Lizney was a malefactor, and the Will was denying him a symbiot, surely such an untrustable man wouldn’t be allowed in charge of twenty impressionable children?

Maybe it was privacy. Zach didn’t really know what that was. It was something a lot of older people spoke of. They didn’t see the Weave as he did, didn’t always have their streams on. A stream to him was just like clothing, you always wore it. To be out of contact with the Weave, to have part of your life go unrec, was a real anxiety for him. He couldn’t wait to get a symbiot.

Zach felt himself fading into sleep, his helmet automatically starting to pull him out. He had to stay awake and he demersed just enough to reach into his bag for the stimulants he had been sneakily collecting. He needed something.

He spent the rest of the night pinging around as fast and randomly as he could. He couldn’t concentrate enough to read. He fixed three broken links all by himself that were easily corroborated and tagged for implementation.

The WU was working towards a day when the information on the Weave would be cross-referenced and sacrosanct; parity. In the future, Miz Maxwell told him, there might not be a need for scouts to look for errata, as it would be impossible to enter false information.

Bronwyn was clearing the kitchen when he clicked off the next morning and went down for some breakfast.

She giggled as he studiously ignored her and requested his food allowance from the fridge. Since he was living out of sync with the other kids, most of his meals were automated ones.

The other guardian of the orphanage was preparing the ingredients for lunch and tutted at the girl.

‘Now, now, Bronwyn. You’re even. Play nice,’ Lily said. She stirred a large pot of spiced beans and legumes. It smelt good to Zach and he hoped she would save him some for tomorrow.

‘Yes, Miz Patch.’

Zach sat down and lathered spreads on plain toast. Bronwyn chopped apples but kept a wary eye on him in case he was about to throw something at her.

‘Will that be enough for you, Zach?’ Lily asked. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘Yes, please. I’m pretty tired.’

‘You look it. It was wrong of Bronwyn to interfere with your studies. As penance she will be taking over some of your chores until your badge is complete.’

‘I’ll what?’

‘Don’t protest. It’s all you deserve. You know Zach is working hard and the least we can do is support him.’

‘But he —’

‘Knocked your files around, I know. Zach will be doing penance for that too. But you know the rules.’

‘Yes, Miz Patch,’ Bronwyn retreated. Zach smiled and bit into his toast, which all of a sudden seemed to have more flavour.

They were quiet for a moment, Zach chewing, Bronwyn cutting and Miz Patch checking the loaves she had rising. The orphanage was quaintly naturalistic. Lily had lived on the outskirts of Andreas before taking on the orphanage and strongly believed in ‘real’ foods, things that she made herself.

‘What do you do in there all night anyway?’ Bronwyn asked him.

‘I’m scouting.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I go on the Weave and look for problems,’ he answered and thanked Lily as she brought him some peppermint tea; home-grown and dried in the herbarium in the yard.

‘You know, Zach, Bronwyn has never immersed before. Perhaps you’d like to show her sometime?’ Lily said casually.

‘Never,’ he said.

Lily tutted. ‘You owe me a penance, young man. And it would be good for Bronwyn to dive soon. You could show her the ropes.’

‘But I’m trying to get my badge. I don’t need her bratting me while I’m working.’

‘Zachary. Please remember our ways here. We help each other. Besides, Tom has already confirmed for me that there is a badge for introducing new people to the Weave.’

‘She’s too young.’

‘I’m only two years younger than you,’ Bronwyn said.

‘Then you’re two years too young,’ Zach replied.

‘You’d like to learn, wouldn’t you, Bronwyn?’ Lily asked, ignoring the pair of them.

‘I think so.’

‘You see, she doesn’t even want to.’

‘Zachary. Perhaps it was my mistake to have phrased this as a request, but I was only being polite. You don’t want me to tell Mister Lizney that you were too selfish to help one of the other children, do you?’ Lily asked sweetly, while sprinkling sugar on the warm loaves.

‘Fine. She can dive in with me, but she better not slow me down.’

‘Good, then. Tonight it is. Now you should get off to your classes. Bronwyn will clear your plates away.’

‘I’ll what?’

‘Bronwyn, every time you say that I have to come up with more chores for you to do. Speak in full sentences, please.’

‘Yes, Miz Patch.’

~ * ~

Zach checked and saw that to earn a guide badge he only had to get a freshie to work up an avatar and take them on the Weave for thirty consecutive minutes. There were steps and guidelines he had to follow and she had to give him a positive report at the end of it. He would have to pretend to be nice to her.

There was a knock at the door. He opened it and stood to one side. ‘Please come in.’

Bronwyn was wearing a one-piece of flexy material and carrying her blankets. ‘I didn’t know what I should wear,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t matter. You will be lying down the whole time. Here, take a seat.’

Bronwyn sat on the edge of the pallet that he’d put beside his.

‘Okay, now lie back,’ he said.

‘Don’t do anything to me.’

‘I’m not going to do anything, Bron. I’m trying to earn a badge. You just have to behave and try not to ruin it.’

She poked her tongue out at him, but lay back.

‘Now, because it is your first time I have to strap you in. We don’t want you to roll off the couch and hurt yourself.’

‘I’m not letting you tie me up.’ Bronwyn snapped back to sitting position.

‘Don’t worry, it’s just webbing. Nothing you can’t get out of by yourself.’

He got her to lie back down and he pulled two wings of webbing over her, clipping them on either side of the couch.

‘Are you comfortable?’

‘No.’

‘Good, then. Now, in your right hand is a button. This is your emergency eject button. You can press it at any time and the program will demerse you instantly.’ She clicked the button in her hand. ‘It won’t do anything until you are actually in the Weave,’ he said patiently.

‘I was just testing.’

‘You can have it in your left hand if you prefer.’

‘Zach?’

‘What is it?’

‘Um, well. This is going to sound silly to you.’

‘There are no silly questions, only silly answers.’ He’d got that one from Mister Lizney.

‘What’s going to happen?’ she asked.

‘Next we put on the visor, or helmet, and run some checks. Then we dive in.’

‘No, I mean, what happens? What is immersion?’

Zach looked at her. She looked confused and tense. ‘You don’t know?’

‘I know what I’ve heard about it. That I’ll be put on the Weave but I don’t know what that really means. I don’t know what immersing does.’

Zach scratched his head. He’d never had to explain it before. He ran a scan in the background for an explanation he could use. ‘When you immerse, your natural senses are overridden and replaced with sensory information from the Weave.’

‘That sounds awful.’

‘It’s not ... it’s, it’s magical.’ She didn’t seem comforted. ‘Look, on the Weave you can do anything. And be anything. If you want to be a bird and fly over the city, we can do that. If you want to visit the wonders of the world, then we can do that.’

‘But I won’t really be there?’

‘It will feel like you are. The Weave has many levels to it, and a representation of the real world is only one of them. Then there are all the fictional places. We call them fabula, the made-up things, and that level is nearly infinite. And if you can’t find what you want, you can build it. Tell me one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but can’t.’

Bronwyn bit her lip. ‘You won’t laugh?’

‘No promises. But I won’t tell.’

‘I want to dance in a palace.’

‘Done.’

‘Like in that show with the three princesses.’

‘I bet you we can find the exact castle.’

‘And I want a fabulous dress with lots of layers and ribbons.’ ‘Easy.’

‘Really?’

‘I think I’ve found just the place.’ He smiled at her. ‘But first you actually have to dive in. Which means relaxing into the couch, getting comfortable and putting the helmet on.’ He held it up for her to look at.

It was old and made of soft fabric straps with ferric bands sewn inside — they were what did the work of marrying the brain with foreign stimuli. And then there was a pair of goggles and earmuffs that blocked out external light and sound.

‘It’s ugly.’

‘It’s all I could get on short notice. It’s this or nothing, Bron.’

‘Okay, but don’t take any pictures of me in that thing.’

‘Of course not. Here, let me help you.’

Zach gently adjusted the straps, reminding her that once the muffs were on she wouldn’t be able to hear anything until she was immersed. He was about to flip the goggles into place when she stopped him.

‘Why are you being nice to me?’ she asked.

Zach shrugged. ‘Lily said I had to, so there’s no point making this worse than it has to be. Let’s have fun.’

‘Well, I like nice-Zach.’ She giggled and kicked her feet about. ‘Let’s go dancing.’ She was so keen and excited about her first dive Zach nearly felt bad for putting adhesive over the inside of the goggles.

With Bron safely in the ganzfeld he pulled out his own helmet, which was not a hand-me-down. He had worked hard for the slick foldaways, which were simple unbridged mirror spectacles that hung down from the forehead lattice. He was advanced enough now not to need a full ganzfeld to immerse.

‘Okay, Bron. Can you hear me?’ He looked over at her but she didn’t move. ‘Just nod or something.’ She still didn’t move. That meant she must be in.

Zach quickly lay on his own couch and dove in to find her stream, waiting in the blank space where she couldn’t escape until he said so.

He saw her standing on an empty grey that stretched to a darker grey. There was no space here, only a sense of space.

‘Who are you?’ she asked. He was dressed as Musashi.

‘This is my avatar, Bron.’

‘Your what?’

‘My visual representation on the Weave.’

‘You look like some kind of samurai.’ She started laughing. ‘Is that how you see yourself?’ Her laugh rolled into a cackle and she bent over double.

‘There’s nothing wrong with it!’ he shouted at her. ‘You just look like your normal boring self, but in here I can be whoever I want. In here I am Musashi and if you don’t like it —’