The Lead Cloak (The Lattice Trilogy Book 1) by Erik Hanberg Read Free Book Online Page A

controls, so it made sense to strike out on his own. There was a touch screen keyboard on the ceiling of the jump box, where he entered yesterday’s date, at 0745 hours.
    A globe of the Earth appeared on the screen, and Shaw zoomed in on it until he was staring at the roof of the Lattice Installation. Close enough.
    He tapped the screen and jumped.

    Inside the jump, Shaw was hovering above the roof of the Lattice, the hot desert sun causing him to squint in the light. Back in the box, using a scrollball under his right hand, he aimed for the Installation. He sailed through the solid walls of the metal building—it was still hard for Shaw not to instinctively flinch when he passed through them. Inside the jump, he was only viewing the arrangement of atoms as they were at that particular moment in time. They were not the real atoms, just the Lattice’s representation of them in the jump box. Because of it, Shaw could jump through solid rock to the Earth’s core as easily as he could fly through the vacuum of space.
    Inside the Installation, Shaw flew through the hallways until he found Tim Yang showing his badge at the security entrance. Not Tim Yang, this was Yukihiro Ono in disguise, Shaw reminded himself. Ono was ushered through security and Shaw pulled his hand backward over a different scrollball in the box, this one under his left hand, to cause time in the jump to slow and then come to a complete standstill.
    Moving forward with the other wheel, Shaw maneuvered until he was right up against Ono’s back, then inside his head. He jockeyed around, his vision filled with the pink and gray innards of Yukihiro Ono. He pressed down on the scrollball. The jump box took a moment to read Ono’s biochemistry and molecular structure and then it buzzed. Shaw backed out of Ono again and pushed the wheel under his left hand forward. Ono began moving again, and this time Shaw stayed with him, the tag created. Now that the jump box recognized Ono, it would keep Shaw within four meters of him at all times, freeing him from having to navigate. It also meant that he could watch Ono at a pace faster than real time, and still be able to keep up.
    He pushed the time wheel forward again, moving it past the resistance that marked real time, and stopped when Ono appeared to be moving at two or three times the normal pace.
    Shaw flew past Ono by a few feet and twirled the scrollball, giving him a view of Ono’s face instead of his back. Ono went through his morning as Yang, filing out paperwork, getting a tour of the Installation for his new job, dropping off a duffel in the temporary housing he’d have on base. It wasn’t too long before Ono was hurrying down the hallway to retrieve Shaw from the bathroom.
    Slowing time closer to normal speed again, Shaw watched himself adjust Ono’s cuff. Trying not to focus on himself, he noted Ono’s eyes searching out his own as he adjusted the cuff. Apparently this small moment had really touched Ono, but Shaw had been oblivious to it then, and even now still couldn’t see what the big deal was.
    Ono and Body Shaw—which was how Shaw thought of himself whenever he saw himself in a jump—went back down the hallway toward the command room again. Ono still appeared nervous, something Shaw remembered registering before, but he’d written it off to nerves about the raid.
    They were soon in the command center, and Ono stayed closed to Body Shaw, his face strained. When Body Shaw asked for the wireless, Ono jumped to get it almost enthusiastically. When Body Shaw deviated from standard operating procedures and tried to reason with the pilot, Ono’s face seemed like a child looking up in wonder and surprise.
    And when he swiped at Body Shaw with the nanoshock, there truly did seem to be a sense of regret in his face. Shaw tried to ignore his body writhing on the floor and put down the memories of the pain it had caused. Instead he watched Ono’s manipulation of the touch screen table. It was