Hey Everyone!! :-)
Here's a little bit more of the third installment in the Petri Dish Chronicles! As always, the disclaimer is that this is a draft and, as such, it's unedited and likely full of errors and is subject to revision, revamping, and being completely scrapped and rewritten. But, with that in mind, I'm reasonably satisfied with the basics of it, at least at the moment, or I wouldn't have bothered posting it. Enjoy! :-)
Excerpt from the third Petri Dish book:
The limiting factor would still be rest. Vlad had explained that they would be able to enter a semi-sleep mode that would offer some respite and extend the amount of time they would have before their mental patterns deteriorated beyond recovery. The Arcanum had also assured her they could assist in that regard by channeling additional energy into them that would allow them to function longer without rest and by reinforcing their patterns so that they didn’t have to expend as much energy maintaining those patterns themselves. But there were still limits to how much they could be boosted, reinforced, and extended. At some point, they would have to truly sleep. And to do that, they would have to leave the rainbow.
Petri had tried to negotiate to allow for them to do just that, on the understanding that they would go back in after they had rested, but both Vlad and the Arcanum had been immovable on the matter. They seemed to believe that she would be more committed to their cause if she had the motivation of having her only choices be to succeed or die. Chessie had called it the Sword of Damocles, but Petri hadn't had time to look up what that meant.
What she had been able to do was negotiate for them all to be allowed to eat a good meal, get a full night’s sleep, and eat another good meal before going into the rainbow to begin with. To her surprise, Vlad and the Arcanum had readily agreed to this suggestion. The Arcanum had even gone so far as to ensure the quality of their rest by using their psychic power to channel their brain waves into a deep and restorative sleep.
It had been a bizarre and disturbing experience, to be honest. And Petri had been concerned that Daji would react badly to the strange and alarming sensation of having alien thoughts overpower his own and force his consciousness into dormancy. It had been difficult for her to allow it to be done to her, and she knew he would hate giving up that much control to the Arcanum. She felt guilty about it, really. It almost seemed like a form of rape, and Petri knew exactly how shattering that was to a person’s sense of self.
She had tried to talk to him about it, but Daji had brushed off her attempts by saying she was going to do what she wanted anyway, so he didn’t see any point in discussing it. Petri had offered to try to convince the Arcanum to exempt him from their version of a sedative, as long as he knew that would increase the danger he would be in once they entered the rainbow. But Daji had told her not to bother.
The interaction had left her confused and almost as unsettled as what the Arcanum had done. Petri wasn’t used to having to navigate sticky ethical questions and the murky waters of dubious morality. In Under City, right was whatever allowed her to keep on breathing, and wrong was whatever jeopardized that ability. It was still difficult for her to remember that not every situation was that stark; she was still learning to navigate all the shades of gray she was suddenly seeing all around her.
Ethical quandaries aside, Petri couldn’t argue with the results of what the Arcanum had done. She had never felt more rested and energetic, not even after she had stolen a glut of energy from several of the Arcanum who were training her, when they had hurt Chessie. She still didn’t think much of her chances of doing what Vlad and the Arcanum wanted her to do, but they had certainly done what they could to shift the odds in her favor.
And, they had pointed out to her, what the Arcanum would do wasn’t without cost to them. That had come during the most contentious portion of their negotiations. The Arcanum had informed her that they weren’t asking a sacrifice only from her. They were willing to continue channeling their support to her, even if it cost them the lives of some members of the Collective. Petri still wasn’t clear on how that could happen, since there were so many of them and they could always “refuel” by siphoning energy from the people they kept captive to be their food source, but they had assured her it was a real possibility. Somehow, the type of mental boosting they would be doing would affect the stability of their own mental patterns. And some of the weaker members of the Collective might not survive it. Especially, since it would likely have to be a sustained effort.
Despite their explanation, Petri still didn’t understand the mechanism of what they were describing. But what did become instantly clear to her was how it would affect her friends' safety. The Arcanum did not regard Chessie or Daji as people, and they would not want to sacrifice any of their own to safeguard the lives of individuals they considered to be no more than livestock. Petri had managed to extract a promise from the Arcanum that they would continue to support and boost Chessie and Daji’s bodies and mental patterns, no matter what the cost, as long as Petri was still working on solving their problem by pointing out that she’d have little motivation to continue if they allowed her friends to die. Eventually, the Arcanum agreed, though she could tell they weren’t happy about it.
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