Sol Survivors Chapter 7 (Interlude): Lila – Shared Static

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Lila slips into the makeshift infirmary on the Solvo, the first spaceship she’s ever been on. The converted crew cabin hums low with the ship’s heartbeat. Dim lights cast long shadows over scarred bulkheads. Rand lies on the narrow bunk, his chest rising slowly under fresh bandages. His face looks almost peaceful in sleep. The scars, the gray in his beard, the lines etched deep, all softened for once.

She moves quietly. Her fingers brush the small origami wolf she has been working on for hours. The folds are sharp, the fangs crisp. She tucks it carefully into the edge of his chest bandage, right where he will see it when he wakes.

A soft step sounds behind her. Toku fills the doorway. He is already geared up, wearing a worn but clean Sol Libertatis uniform that has been de-badged to remove the affiliation. The OD green fabric hangs right on his lean frame. An AK2K is slung easily over one shoulder. In his arms, he carries another folded uniform and a belt with a holstered HK pistol, loaded and ready.

He nods once at Rand, then at her work. His voice is low. “Good job with the bandages. Clean lines.”

Lila’s hand drifts up. She almost taps the port behind her ear, then catches herself, tapping her temple instead. “Yeah. I know some things.”

Toku’s eyes flick to the origami wolf. A faint lift appears at one corner of his mouth—surprise, then approval. “You are full of hidden talents.”

He sets the bundle down quietly on the footlocker. “I left clothes for you in the room you picked. Smallest I could find. Probably still big on you, but I found you a belt.”

She nods, looking down at her grimy tank-top and tattered prison uniform, charred and bloodied. She does not trust her voice right now so she just nods in thanks. Toku lingers for a second, as if he wants to say more. Then he’s gone. The door hisses softly behind him.

Lila stays and watches Rand breathe a moment longer. The big grizzled Marine who barked orders like thunder but took them under his wing like a guardian. She does not know him. Not really. But something about leaving the wolf feels right.

She slips out and heads across the hall to the cabin she claimed as hers, the decision based on the fact that it’s closest to the small mess hall and showers. The door slides open to a small, personal space.

A uniform waits on the bunk. Same OD green as Toku’s. Tough fabric. Folded neat. Too big, like Toku said. Beside it, a white tank top. Clean. Sized small, probably so a skinny young marine could look more ripped in a tight shirt.

Her MP12 submachine gun lies by her pillow, not yet cleaned. The mag is removed, the chamber empty. Safe.

Scattered across the bunk are  dozen or so half-made origami wolves. Some crumpled, fangs uneven, tails lopsided. Practice. Failures. The one on Rand’s chest was the only good one. All the instructions in all of the manuals stored in my head are no match for not really knowing what the fuck I’m doing.

She sits heavily on the edge of the bunk. Her fingers rub the Neuro-T port behind her ear, a smooth metal circle under the skin at the base of her skull. A comfort habit. The data inside feels old. Manuals. Tutorials. Music libraries. Twenty-two years out of date. Oddly still full of useful info.

Build a bomb from a microwave. Play every song from before the world cracked. Hotwire an autoloader to take down a sadistic prison warden.

She thinks of Hari. The Neuro-T was his idea. His gift to her. Her connection to him. Lost. Tewnty two years passed. Her eyes start to sting. She hugs the MP12 close. Cold metal presses against her chest like a milled aluminum and steel stuffed animal. Like safety.

The room blurs. Her mind drifts.

Back to the beginning.

Lila’s head still throbbed where the tech had drilled the port in. The back room of Kovac’s Tattoo and Body Mod Parlour smelled like burnt plastic and antiseptic. The chair was reclined too far; she felt like she was falling backward even though she wasn’t moving. Hari sat beside her on a rolling stool, legs sprawled, tablet balanced on one knee. The data cable snaked from his device to the little metal circle behind her ear that was her newly installed blackmarket Neuro-Tether wetware interface, most often shortened to “Neuro-T” and affectionately called a “Tee” or “eNTee”. Every few seconds Hari tapped his screen, frowned, tapped again.

She tried to swallow. Her mouth was dry. “So… what’s actually happening right now?”

Hari didn’t look up. His fingers kept moving. “Calibration. Baseline sync. The Tee’s mapping your neural pathways so it doesn’t fry you when the data hits. Relax.”

“Easy for you to say. Feels like someone’s poking my brain with a screwdriver.”

He snorted. “That’s just the initial handshake. You’ll thank me in about thirty seconds.”

She shifted. Winced. “The ads made it look painless. Happy families sharing memories. Blind kids seeing sunsets. Firefighters running marathons on new legs. Old drunks getting new livers. ‘Neuro-T: Everyone’s Second Chance.’”

Hari laughed, short and sharp. “Yeah, ZLO Bio-Dynamics marketing is gold. They show you the grandma hugging her grandkid for the first time in twenty years because her new synthetic corneas finally work. They never show you the fine print.”

“Which is?”

He finally glanced at her. Eyes bright, half-smile. “The fine print is that every thought, every feeling, every dirty little secret streams straight to ZLO’s cloud. Every time you look at a billboard, they know what your pupils dilate for. Every time you feel horny or scared or pissed, they log it. They build profiles. Sell them. And if the government asks nice—or not so nice—they hand over the keys. One firmware update and they can nudge your dopamine to calm you down when you’re about to riot. Or crank it up when they want you angry at the right target.”

Lila’s stomach twisted. “That’s… conspiracy theory ApeX Jones shit.” she noted, referencing the A.I. gorilla conspiracy theorist that has become a tongue and cheek web phenomenon, especially when his conspiracy theories end up with some truth behind them.

“Sure. Until it isn’t.” He tapped the tablet again. A progress bar crept forward. “The official line is beautiful. ‘Instant knowledge. Never forget. Always connected. Augmented reality. Medical miracles.’ But the second you plug in, you’re not just a user. You’re a node. And nodes don’t get privacy. Nodes get optimized. Nodes get used.”

She stared at the cable. “So, tell me again why we’re doing this?”

“Because I got us the good shit.” He grinned wider. “This isn’t the cloud version. No ZLO backdoor. No mandatory sync. It’s a prototype that ‘fell off a truck’ before they locked it down. All the storage is local, terabytes right in your skull. I already dumped half my library in there. Music. Tutorials. Wikis, How-to guides. Classic books. Anarchist cookbooks. Everything. And the link?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Just us. Private mesh. Brain to brain. No middleman. You feel what I feel. I feel what you feel. Real connection. No leash to the suits and their lapdogs.”

The progress bar hit 100% and something clicked behind her ear. A warm pulse spread through her skull, like sinking into hot water.

Then it hit.

Data flooded in. Terabytes. Manuals. Music. Code snippets. Tutorials. Everything at once. Her mind stretched. Screamed. Her skull was too small. Overload.

The seizure took her.

Lila woke in the dark, disoriented, unsure of how much time passed. She found herself in their bed. Sheets tangled. Music thumped from the living room. Laughter. Bottles clinking. Hari’s friends, always around.

“Hari?”

No answer. She sat up slowly. Her head pounded. The room spun. She reached up and touched behind her ear where it was sore. A cable was still plugged into Hari’s tablet on the nightstand.

“HARI!?”

The door creaked. Hari leaned in. His grin was wide. “Hey, sleeping beauty. Finally awake.”

He slid onto the bed. His friends were visible behind him, gaming, drinking, music loud.

“What happened?” Her voice cracked.

“You got overwhelmed. Most Tees tie straight into the net and they have it metered to ease you into it. I guess I should have done it in stages, but I gave you a ton of the shit I’ve been collecting for myself all at once and just hit go.”

“Whoa.” She tested it through her throbbing headache. Thoughts flicked through menus. “I… I think I know how to hotwire a car.”

Hari laughed. “See? Told you it’d be cool.” He unplugged the cable. Set the tablet aside. “Now we test the fun part.”

He leaned closer. Their Neuro-Ts found each other—wireless, instant.

His buzz hit her first. Warm. Dizzy. A little drunk on cheap beer and adrenaline. She swayed. He steadied her through the link, sent her some calm, it leveled her out.

“Easy,” he said softly. “Breathe. You’ll get used to it.”

She did. And then the warmth deepened. Their minds brushed. She could feel the shape of his thoughts, sharp, excited, possessive in a way that felt safe. Protective. Like he’d never let anything hurt her.

She had never felt anyone this close.

“This is…” She swallowed. “Incredible.”

Hari smiled. Slow. Satisfied. “Told you. Welcome to the real second chance.”

She believed him.

She always believed him.

“Let’s see how this goes.” Hari focused on her, forgetting his friends in the other room as he pulled her into his embrace.

Days blurred into weeks.

They roamed the slums together. Crumbling towers. Trash fires glowing in alleys. Street vendors hawking fried mystery meat. Smells of oil and ozone. But the link made it beautiful. Shared senses. When he was happy, warmth flooded her. When she nailed a new tutorial, he sent approval that felt like sunlight. Petty jobs started small. Boost a delivery drone. Hack vending machines for free snacks. Hotwire a scooter for quick rides. Each success. Each time she did what he suggested. Warm rush. Better than any high. She chased it. Craved it.

He’s proud of me. We’re an unbreakable team.

One night they hit a protest downtown. Crowds thick. Signs blurry. Chants about equality, justice, or something, it didn’t matter, the energy crackled.

Hari grabbed her hand. Excitement through the link. “Wanna see something? Something the hacks let us see that no one else can.”

She nodded. She trusted him.

He guided her with his hand over her eyes through the press of bodies. The chanting grew louder. Angrier. Pepper in the air, a distant spray, slight stinging. Bumps jolted her. Fear spiked.

He felt it. Sent calm through his Tee to hers. Some reassurance. A warm wave washed fear away. Made her float until they stopped moving through the crowd.

“Okay. Open.”

Hari’s hands dropped from her face, his fingers brushing down her cheeks as she opened her eyes.

She looked up. Her smile dropped.

A tall figure towered in the crowd. A horror, inhuman. Its head was bloated like a pig’s, glassy eyes half-lidded in rapture, wet snout flaring, tusks curving from a slack mouth that dripped with something viscous. An absurdly colorful bob haircut with bangs framed the grotesque face. The body stood upright, but the clothing hung loose and decadent—rich fabrics sagging, bulging in places that should not bulge. Beneath the hems and cuffs, tentacles writhed slow and thick, glistening with a sickly sheen, waving lazily above the heads of the protesters, absorbing the rage below like it was a banquet. The air around it felt heavy, wrong—grotesque pleasure radiating from something that should not exist in the open, feeding on the chaos with quiet, obscene satisfaction.

“Isn’t that crazy?”

Lila didn’t hear Hari. Terror ripped through her. Cold. Sharp. Overwhelming their connection. All the warmth gone.

She screamed.

The thing’s glassy eyes snapped open. Locked on her from its saggy eye sockets on its bloated, snouted face. Rage. Hunger. Recognition.

Chaos exploded in the crowd as if a switch had turned from anger to murderous frenzy.

A tentacle whipped fast. Coiled around Hari’s throat. His panic flooded her. Raw. Choking.

Fear. Hate. Love. His danger. Hari!

She remembered a baseball bat in her hand, from somewhere. She swung wildly. Connected. Wet thuds. Crunches. Blood sprayed hot. Screams everywhere.

She swung again. Again.

She remembered a shifting in the sound. Her metal bat no longer against flesh bone and tentacle, but on metal. The last she remembers seeing is a hulking robot. Crowd control, nets, batons… and the tasers.

She does not remember the sedatives, the trial, the body count on news feeds that replayed rioters killing their own in a blood frenzy until the city’s riot control robots squelched the mayhem. They called it the Newark Heartbreak Massacre. “The Newark Heartbreak showed us what happens when unchecked emotionally frenzied hearts rule unchecked, instead of brains! Thank AI that the robots saved what was left. We have a mental health crisis in this country!”

How many dead?

All she remembers is being alone. Head silent. No Hari. A cold withdrawal.

On the shuttle to Ares, beneath the engines rumbling, one final buzz. A thought, not her own.

I’m sorry. I love you. You’re not alone.

She clung to it. Repeated it. Through the ice as the cold enveloped her.

“I’m not alone.”

Back on the Solvo, curled up on her bunk, her MP12 clutched tight. The security of cold metal.

Tears slipped hot down her cheeks.

“I’m not alone. I’m not alone…”

She wiped her face roughly. Sat up. Her fingers touched the port again. No buzz. No warmth. Just static.

The uniform waited on the bunk. The pants too-big. The white tank top, loose but close enough.

She stood. Pulled on the tank. Cinched the belt tight. Rolled the cuffs on the baggy pants until they stopped dragging.

Her MP12 rested in her hands. Its weight now familiar.

These people. Rand. Toku. No linked minds. No shared highs. Just quiet gestures. Origami. Clean uniforms. Trust.

She wiped her eyes one last time.

Time to see what this new connection feels like.

 

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