“There are a few rules that are taught to Tsla’o children to ensure that a link is comfortable and as easy as possible for both parties. The first is to keep your eyes closed. Another will be borrowing the audio and visual centers of your brain, so it is important to avoid conflicting inputs.” Carbon was running Alex through the basics of how to do a neural link while conscious while they switched the mess from dining room to lounge. “The effects are unpleasant: vertigo, headache, vomiting. Best to avoid them.”
Alex finished feeding their empty beverage tubes into the recycler and folded the table and benches up into the wall, clearing room for the couch on the other side of the room. “Oh yeah. It’s not the same but I think I know exactly what you mean. When I was a kid, me and some friends cobbled together a couple of broken dive-style VR rigs. Having several games running over each other doesn’t work.” In his experience, it would give him vertigo, a headache, and make him vomit all at the same time, almost instantly.
“If that means what I think it does, the effect would be very similar. Which brings me to the second item. Do not think about what you are seeing. It is not like a game. It is not your memory, you cannot change what was being looked at, what was being listened to. Relax and let it be shown to you.” She folded the couch down, one armrest partially cut off to make room for the Tsla’o food dispenser that had been welded into the corner. “If you are familiar with the practice of meditation, I believe it would be of use in this situation.”
“That was actually something we did a lot of in the CPP training. You can’t argue with the machine when it’s using your brain, and that goes a long way to keeping things peaceful in there while it’s happening.” Alex double checked the latch on ‘his’ side of the couch and settled in, threading an arm over the back to keep from floating off.
“That is... good.” She visibly shuddered at the thought of a machine accessing her mind, slipping a boot into one of the handhold loops and sitting on her knees, basically eye-to-eye with Alex for once. “The third thing is to breathe through your nose.”
“That seems deceptively simple.” It also wasn’t how he’d practiced breathing during meditation, but he’d cross that bridge when he needed to. If he needed to.
“Some things just are simple.” She said, with what looked like a smirk on her muzzle as she pulled the AI interface off her shoulders, setting it aside before she shook her antenna out. “One cannot always count on having good breath.”
He laughed at that. “Fair. Anything else I should know?”
Carbon tilted her head forward, antenna flipping over to the front, dangling there in the air in front of her face. The shafts were finger-thick at the base and tapered rapidly, sheathed in keratin the same blue-black color as her fur. The tips were, for lack of a better term, little fluffy balls in a light shade of blue that matched the stripes on her back. “Normally, there are formalities and etiquette that would be considered. Perhaps if you find the experience worth returning to, we will speak of them. Until then, all you must do is follow my instructions.”
“Easy enough.”
She leaned in and clasped the sides of his head with her antenna, and closed her eyes.
Alex was somewhere between amused at how comical it looked, her face framed by fluffy deely bobbers, and trying not to have to stifle a laugh just before engaging in a deeply personal and socially important experience. The stirring of someone else's presence in his brain was enough to instantly cast both of those thoughts out.
“Eyes, please.”
He did as she asked, closing his eyes and clearing his mind as he slowly exhaled through his nose. The prodding resolved into an inquisitive feeling, maybe about his preparedness.
“Yes?” He said it out loud.
Amusement co-existed in his mind and a message filtered into it. Just think what you mean to say.
Easy for you. He struggled with that little sentence, and the feedback he got was confused.
Garbled, but good for a first try. We will work on it more later.
Alex started to nod in agreement, catching himself before he actually did so. What now?
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Clear your mind, I will show you a memory.
Despite his familiarity with meditation, the situation was utterly alien. Instincts did not care for another presence in his mind, part of him simply wanting to flee the unknown he was facing down. He forced himself to slow his breathing, painfully aware of Carbon in his mind watching this process with no small amount of curiosity. He tamped down the urge to run, the need to look around. Carbon’s presence pulsed with a mixture of pride and relief and it reached down and slipped fully into his mind.
There was no warning of what would happen next and it was probably for the best. Alex was dumbstruck for a moment, pressed down into one of Carbon’s older memories.
For the first time in his life, he experienced the world through the eyes of a young Tsla'o girl. Laughing and playing with her father - flying kites, actually. Happy as could be on the sandy shore, purple-red grasses bent and waving in the cold wind on the dunes behind them. Everything was a little out of focus, memories faded with time but something singular, almost mythical permeated the experience. It was something she remembered often, but rarely shared.
As quickly as it came, the memory left. Carbon was still there, enmeshed in what had been his mind, now belonging to neither of them entirely. Show me one of yours. An older one and happy. The thoughts were excited, almost elated that it had worked.
He considered it for a moment, and had just the thing. He remembered the day he had gotten his atmospherics license like it was yesterday, crystal clear. Anybody could get a ground vehicle endorsement for their ID with a simple test, but he had put the time in to study outside of school and prove himself capable of handling an aircraft. It had been his hard work that had paid for the training and test. Not the youngest person to get their license, but still only 14.
He remembered sitting at the kitchen table, lit from the bright spring afternoon, and ripping the letter - an actual physical letter, signed and stamped - open, the cold synthetic of the license between his fingers, something that he had earned. A grin that wouldn’t go away for another day crept across his face, a rush of pride like he’d never felt before, the first step on his journey to become a scoutship Pilot.
Carbon made a little noise, a quiet exclamation of surprise and the link severed with an electrical pop and twinge in his head. She sank forward against him, arms slipping around his torso and pushing him down as she stretched out, feet braced against the arm of the couch.
Alex blinked in the light, voice louder and more alarmed than he intended. “Are you alright?”
She nodded, her face blissful as she nestled herself down against him. Tsla’o were definitely mammals. “Excellent. Please be quiet while I enjoy this.”
Carbon seemed... not in any sort of distress, so he let it go and waited for her to get talkative. It didn’t take more than a few moments before her eyes fluttered open, squinting in the light. “So what was that?”
“It is...” she trailed off, her voice unusually soft. “Ah, emotion-narcotic? There is no specific translation. I did not expect such a fresh memory or one of such intensity and I left my defenses down.”
“Uh huh. Narcotic? So is this addictive?”
“Not like a chemical dependency. Give me just a few more minutes and I will be better, I am still disoriented.” She smiled and closed her eyes again, a sly little laugh escaping her as she continued, “I should have been more specific about how old it should have been, but you chose the feelings well.”
“You did say happy. That’s pretty self explanatory.”
“I should have explained in greater detail. I made an assumption that you not having antenna would have limited the va- ah... intensity? But that is not so. This is why we start with good memories. Waiting for this to pass is pleasant.”
That was an interesting way to explain that. “And if I had not followed instructions?”
“Positive emotions provoke positive feelings and the effect is pleasant. Negative emotions can be terrifying.”
“The trip depends on the baggage, then?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment and then giggled into his neck. “That is very clever and an apt description. You know, this is how we used to deal with criminals.”
“I can’t see this being an effective deterrent.”
She shook her head, “the criminal would be beaten or starved until they could not defend themselves and the victim or their family would be allowed to do what they felt was appropriate.”
That was easily the most shocking thing Alex had heard in awhile. The Tsla'o always seemed so peaceful. “That sounds horrific.”
“It was.” Carbon nodded again. “Once we really started to understand how the mind worked, that practice fell out of use. It has been centuries.” She pushed herself up and rubbed her eyes, slicked her antenna back and still managed to look disoriented.
“Are you going to be ok?”
“Yes, I’ll be fine shortly.” Her voice was almost back to normal and she smoothed her jumpsuit out. The skin of her ears darkened with a blush. “I did not intend for that to happen, I am sorry.”
“I didn’t intend to do that to you. I’d say we’re even.”
“Very well, we are even.” She smiled and laid a hand on his knee. “We will have to work on your control during a link, but I feel much better than I have in some time.”