“Undaunted” – Book #6 in the Dreamscape Conspiracy Series
This is an extract of a work-in-progress chapter from “Undaunted.”
Would love to know your thoughts – gdogwise@live.com
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Chapter #6 – 8.3 Seconds to Paradise
Celeste was about halfway through her first cup of coffee when Wayne walked by her office, stopped abruptly, making the sound of tires screeching, pulled an about-face, returned to her doorway, and rapped his knuckles back-handed on the door frame. “Can I buy ya a cuppa?”
Celeste turned in her chair, cringed when she saw who it was, and then did her best impression of not cringing. “The coffee is free here, Wayne. Try the breakroom.” She dismissed him by turning back around. She truly did not like this man and had no legitimate reason to feel that way. It’s not as though she spent cycles thinking about it, but possibly, it was his juvenile behavior, always joking around and trying to be the center of attention.
He had a flair for the dramatic and talked with his hands, gesturing with almost nervous energy, and it caused her to think…and judge…doubting if there was any bite behind his bluster. He appeared to be intelligent, but all she heard so far was noise. Celeste enjoyed her solitude, so her tactic was to steer clear.
“You can’t buy me something that’s already free, Wayne,” she answered in a not-so-friendly voice. “What is it that you want from me?”
Wayne stiffened, shuffled his feet, and became unsure of what he should do with his hands before he stopped fidgeting, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Slack.”
“Slack? You want slack from me?” questioned Celeste.
“Yeah, give me enough slack to get to know whatever it is behind your dislike of me. I feel it, and it’s not deserved. I want enough slack from you to sort out whatever it is…with you…because it needs to go away. It needs to go away because I believe you’re the exact person I need to share an idea with that could enable an amazing breakthrough if it holds water. I think this may be right up your neurological alley.”
Celeste softened without giving up her hardness. “Convince me of your sincerity by grabbing me another cup, black, and come join me.” She rose, handed him her mug, and moved to the round table in the corner of her office to sit down. “Leave the bull shit in the breakroom and then help me better understand this breakthrough idea of yours.”
Wayne grinned and said, “Straight up black?”
“Straight up,” said Celeste. Wayne wheeled around and headed for the breakroom.
How quickly a day can change, she thought. One minute, she waded mindlessly through emails she didn’t want to wade through, then here comes someone she thoroughly disliked, who wants to buy her a cup of coffee that’s free.
Wayne returned to her office with steaming cups in both hands. When he approached the corner table, he started to hand Celeste a cup, then pulled it back and said, “Hmm, one of these has been sipped from, and I’m not sure which one it was.”
Celeste’s trigger tripped. “See! This is a perfect example of what sets me off, your incessant funny shit, Wayne. Are you ever serious? And you tell me you want slack. If you ask me, you are the slack you seek. If I’m wrong, what would this slack you want from me look like? Tell me straight.”
Wayne leaned forward with both arms stretched out on her table, palms flat and fingers splayed, ignoring her last request. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
Celeste did not know what to say, but gave a nod.
Wayne didn’t know either but defaulted to direct shock and awe at this hard-nosed woman. “How long has it been since you’ve gotten laid?”
Visible evidence of shock and awe was precisely what washed over Celeste, and she had no clue how to respond. She looked at Wayne with a silent question etched on her face, disbelief painting her features: Did you really ask me that?
He plowed ahead and said, “Don’t answer that, Celeste. It doesn’t matter, and it’s none of my business. I think you’re wrapped way too tight and could use a little slack yourself. It is also my opinion that you need to warm up to the talent on this team, and that includes people like me, whom you clearly dislike.”
Wayne leaned back, said nothing else, and took a sip of his coffee, studying her face to see what a little shock and awe would do to somebody already wrapped as tightly as this woman. Celeste remained silent and refused to surrender with response, mirroring Wayne’s body language as she sipped, studied, and pondered what had just happened. Should she punch him in the throat, or consider the truth of what he said? Was that a truth she wasn’t ready to entertain? Could there be more here than meets the ear?
Wayne spoke first. “I have an idea for using Dreamscape 3.0 to track brain patterns of those using pharmaceuticals to fight afflictions like anxiety, depression, PTSD, or whatever. Our archive of dream maps features thousands of patterns captured in mind maps from dream prints. You know what we did with Russ Carter and how his PTSD was positively impacted with your Alternative Outcome Dream Manipulation using transferrables from archived dream captures. These are all validated practices and applications.
I want to expand Dreamscape’s application. If you recall what we did with Howard Delaney, sleep was not involved. Dreamscape was tracking and capturing activity in a brain that was comatose and eventually dead. In theory, I believe we can gather more data by utilizing AIMEE’s advanced pattern analysis capabilities to replicate the effects of pharmaceuticals directly through the NeuroNet interface.
What changes occur in the brain when a drug is introduced? Can NeuroNet and Dreamscape see and capture correlating patterns of change from the physiological effects of a participant who is awake? If we could measure the delta between the before and after drug introduction…Could Dreamscape replicate the delta, create, and deliver transferrables to bypass the drugs altogether? You know, trick the brain into feeling the effects the drugs would have produced had they been used.
Celeste had leaned in, said nothing, and actively engaged with his idea. It never occurred to her that this flaming idiot may bring more to the party than jokes and hilarity. She would never admit to changing her opinion, but there was room for it to change if she could endure his insufferable self.
“Tell me more, Wayne, if that’s your real name or one of a hundred aliases on the net, and I thank you for the refill.” Celeste lifted her cup as a salute and nodded, nearly hiding a smile on her lips.
Wayne decided right then that he liked this woman and felt his efforts to build a bridge with her may have been successful, and that’s what he wanted to get from her, no matter what it would take. She was hard on the exterior, but who knows what lurked on the inside?
He continued, “I think we may have dream maps already in the archives that AIMEE can parse for physiological signals in the brain, which we have never analyzed. We could not have analyzed them even if we had a hundred years because of the volume of micro-patterns we would miss as humans. Too much to analyze, and no ability to compare the patterns within the patterns themselves. That’s why AIMEE can unlock our existing archives and extract things we never considered were available. We just refreshed the value in four years’ worth of archived data by what AIMEE has accomplished with Dreamscape 3.0.
It has been my opinion all along that we are only scratching the surface of how we can impact the human mind. What if we could replicate the effects of a pharmaceutical regimen?
Through your relationship with CEO Dr. Delaney at Memorial Hospital, we have fertile ground to explore the concept of drug reduction therapy using the same Dreamscape technology that enabled him to say goodbye to his critically injured son. He’s already sold on the technology, and convincing him to partner with us should meet little resistance. If we’re successful, the VA Hospital in Raleigh would be worth pursuing for a deeper engagement.”
Celeste finally spoke. “I’ve not asked you any questions, but I have several queued up that we will have to address, but at first blush, I think you’re onto something. Isn’t Dreamscape designed to capture and transmit dreams while sleeping? Isn’t that design a limiting factor?”
Wayne said, “I would’ve said yes a few months back, but what we accomplished at the hospital with Dr. Delaney’s son proved dreaming was not required. His son was critically injured and comatose, not sleeping but deep in a coma, and we were able to communicate through Dreamscape. Minutes later, he died, and Dreamscape scraped his unoxygenated brain to gather the remnants of remaining brain activity. We did not plan to complete an untested, brain-scraping activity, and unintentionally discovered that Dreamscape captured data, which turned out to be critical GPS coordinates after Howard’s death.
Dreamscape surprised me once again by marking brain activity outside of active REM dreams, and even after death. That said, I believe Dreamscape can do more if we’re adventurous enough to try.”
You don’t know this yet, but perhaps you do – not much remains a secret around her for very long. I’ve already tried something new, and it worked. It adds another dimension to a dream that not only stimulates sensation but delivers the sensations firsthand. You feel the dream, not just dream it. AIMEE worked with me to capture physiological sensations in dream maps and brain patterns captured in Dreamscape. Those captured patterns were used to replicate the sensations for insertion into a transferrable transmitted into a sleeping person using NeuroNet.
AIMEE oversaw the operation of Dreamscape while I played the guinea pig. The transferrable had a total duration of 8.3 seconds of sensation that an organic would experience firsthand, even though it was only a vivid dream. Reflecting on what we accomplished outside of a sleeping dreamer with Delaney’s son, I wonder if we can replicate that experience while awake. For my idea to old water, I need to test it.”
The test I want to conduct requires Dreamscape to transmit a transferrable into a waking participant’s brain utilizing NeuroNet. If that test is successful, that will serve as proof of concept. Next, field tests should be conducted at the hospital on select volunteers. Gaining access to Carteret County Memorial Hospital and local support are critical success factors, and somebody who has the inside track, like yourself, needs to be our face and sell the chance to be part of another breakthrough innovation. Sell it, girl.”
Wayne fell silent and watched Celeste for a reaction to his ideas, wondering where her questions were that she had lined up, because she had not asked a single one. Was he that convincing?
Celeste finally asked, but it did not sound like the question was older than his last statement. “Who will be part of this testing you want to conduct?”
Wayne said, “I’d like the participant to be the same person who is tasked to sell the concept to Dr. Delaney. Nothing could be more convincing than having experienced the concept firsthand. Are you up for an 8.3-second event?”
Her eyes locked on Wayne’s, and she said, “I could die a hundred deaths in 8.3 seconds. It sounds rather ominous to be honest.”
“You don’t know me well enough to accept my promise, but trust me, it’s harmless…if it works, that is. You don’t have to sleep and dream; you’ll be in the sleep station with NeuroNet on your head, and wide awake. If it works, you will experience an 8.3-second event.”
“What’s the event?” she asked pointedly.
Wayne shook his head. “To keep bias out of the equation, I cannot answer that question. It might not even work on someone wide awake. If it does, we are headed toward another CSU breakthrough, and it will bear your name. C’mon. Let’s go down to the sleep station and get you hooked up.”
When Wayne had NeuroNet connected to Dreamscape and placed on Celeste’s head, he gave final instructions. “Lie back on the chaise and relax. Eyes open or eyes closed is up to you. We’re only talking 8.3 seconds, so you should survive without a scratch. Okay?”
Celeste nodded, “Let’s do this.”
Wayne handed her the newest enhancement to Dreamscape 3.0, a handheld remote. He pointed to the play button and said, “When you press play, the transferrable downloads into the NeuroNet interface, and your event will be live.”
Wayne headed out of the room and said, “Get your head right. Relax. Just push play when you’re ready. I’ll be back in a sec.”
Celeste took a deep breath, then let it out as she touched the play icon. Nothing happened, and then it did, and a compilation of intense orgasmic sensations architected by AIMEE surged through her brain, and the transferrable delivered spectacularly. Her entire body was enveloped in waves of euphoric sensations. The euphoria ended abruptly, and Celeste’s eyes popped open wide, and she gasped and shuddered with residual pleasure.
Wayne returned moments later and asked, “Well?”
Celeste sat up, removed the NeuroNet, and said, “I think I just got laid.”
Wayne laughed. “I almost peed a little when you said you could die a hundred deaths in 8.3 seconds. I knew that was an exaggeration, but a righteous La petite mort would count as a spectacular, momentary near-death event, and you only need one of those.”
“You are one sneaky son of a bitch, Wayne Fitzpatrick. It feels like this was a setup where you scripted the whole thing. You ask me how long since I’ve been laid, and then drop this test on me when you know all along it would work. I feel like I’ve been gamed.”
Wayne pushed back. “Hey, I honestly didn’t know it would work. I was fairly confident it should work, but I needed someone like you who had never been hooked up to NeuroNet and Dreamscape to experience it with no expectations, plus, you were not gamed, you were laid in 8.3 seconds.”
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This is an extract of a chapter from “Undaunted”– Book #6 in the Dreamscape Conspiracy Series
Would love to know your thoughts – gdogwise@live.com