On Silver Wings by Evan Currie Read Free Book Online Page A

point, at least for the moment, but wasn’t especially happy about it. “At least tell me that the threshold isn’t a hundred percent.”

    She quirked a slight smile, “I’m a big girl, Reed. I can take care of myself... but since you asked, no, it’s an adaptive threshold algorithm. Right now it’s holding just under fifty percent.”

    Fifty percent. That wasn’t so bad, he supposed. At a hundred percent, the shunt was effectively the equivalent of being a quadrapalegic, at least from the body to the brain. Signals going the other way were passed along fine, for all the good they did. People didn’t navigate well when they were cut off from all sensation below the neck.

    A fifty percent threshold rating didn’t cut the signals in half, instead the system was designed to intercept only signals which passed a certain frequency threshold. Light tactile sensations were unaffected, but more extreme signals, such as those caused by injuries, were intercepted before they could reach the brain.

    Side effects were the lack of pain sensations, some loss in coordination, and complete lack of awareness of any sensation that surpassed the threshold setting. Which meant she could break her leg and not know it until she turned off the shunt, walking on the ruined limb until it was entirely beyond hope of healing and had to be amputated.

    Of course, those weren’t the reasons the shunts had been outlawed. Psychological effects of being impervious to pain were profound, to the extent of causing wild personality changes in otherwise normal individuals. The affected people were often called Shunt Psychos or, more clinically perhaps, referred to as suffering from Superhuman Psychosis, and were known for doing insane things across the board. Earth entertainment dramas often made use of them as the villains of action pieces, because of the street mythos that had grown up around them.

    “Let’s go,” she told him, jerking her head toward the jungle, in the general direction of the camp.

    He nodded, shouldering his own pack, and they set off quietly.

    “What happened last night,” he asked after they were well into the jungle.

    She was silent for a moment, her face pensive.

    “I’m not sure,” she admitted, “I’ve been thinking about it all night. I think it was some kind of automated defense system... It cut off almost as soon as I penetrated the jungle line... like it lost me. A human would have kept firing on visual for at least another fifty meters.”

    “It was weapons fire then?”

    She shook her head, “No. It was rocks.”

    Jerry blinked, “What??”

    She looked over at him as they walked, “That’s not what happened to you?”

    “No... we told you, there were these explosions...”

    “I didn’t see any evidence of explosives.” She said, shaking her head. “I don’t think there were any.”

    “I’m telling you what I saw...”

    She held up a hand, “Don’t get excited. I believe you, I’m just saying that what you saw wasn’t caused by explosives. There was no evidence of fire or scorching, and most of the damage I saw seemed to be all wrong for explosives. My best guess is that the explosions you heard were secondary, stuff like the crawler hitting the ground and what not.”

    He let out an annoyed breath, “I don’t suppose you know what it was then?”

    “No...” she shook her head, chuckling dryly. “I’ve never had an enemy throw rocks at me before... Well, actually, there was that one time in Pakistan...”

    He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not from her tone, and just let the comment pass as he sighed, “You mind if I ask a question?”

    She shrugged, catching herself against a thick tree as she stumbled when her ankle went out from under her. “Ask away.”

    “Last night you said something about bacteria in your blood?”

    She half laughed, “Yeah. Bugs.”

    He raised an eyebrow, “Bugs?”

    “You know...” She waggled her fingers in front of her mouth