The Watchers: A Space Opera Novella by Jeffrey A. Ballard

CHAPTER ONE
    Slip .
    Music booms through the crowd, swirls, pirouettes, and weaves its way through the club, binding them as one. They dance in rapturous delight, the rhythm guiding them, the beat keeping count. Their bodies heat the air, sweat drips off them forgotten, the air shimmers overhead, the lights mix and combine their auras.
    Find the potential instigator .
    It’s too loud, there are too many .
    The speakers pump more of the elixir into the air, higher and higher, driving them faster and faster. The floor shakes in rhythm. A group of women dance as a subgroup, forming a circle within an organized chaos. One wears a sheer sleeveless top, casually brushing the woman’s arm next to her. She moves to the beat, but her thoughts are elsewhere—a suitor, a fight. They were fighting about her spending time with an ex-lover, the woman next to her: Yvonne. The woman slows her dancing, looking around confused.
    Too Deep .
    Slip .
    Vehicles honk, people shout, nighttime. The street is packed with street vendors selling food. The crowd ebbs and flows around them, cell platelets moving through the veins of the city. Two hundred individual minds, two hundred individual needs, goals, desires.
    Find the pickpocket .
    It’s too many, I can’t .
    Split your mind. Do it .
    Three teenagers look for a cheap snack. A father searches for a disobedient daughter. A man sells some type of street-food wrap, hoping to break even and make a profit tonight. A traveler kills time. A wife delays going home. A couple wanders aimlessly on a first date.
    Split more .
    A musician worries about new competition on the south side. His rent is due soon, and he hopes to cover that tonight. The new competition is nervous—it’s his first night playing, and he doesn’t know what to expect from the crowd or his fellow musicians. He has heard that musicians can be territorial, so he had bought a weapon, a knife—purchased earlier that night, from the third stall on the main boulevard. The proprietor doubted the man’s claim of ornamental, but sold it anyway. He has to pay for his gifted kid’s private school that wouldn’t provide a full scholarship. A woman passes by, her right shoe is pinched. She had bought them in haste; her screaming child had rushed her.
    Split more .
    Kimiko walks through the street on her way to meet friends—Audria is showing up; Kimiko hates her. She has this stupid false little laugh that grates on Kimiko. It reminds Kimiko of her mother turning into a phony around other people. Meryl seeks something light to eat—her lunch eight hours ago wasn’t enough; she worries about what Jerald thinks of her stomach. She’s caught his eyes wandering a number of times to prettier girls. They’ve been together for two years now, why hasn’t he proposed? Willie paces the street for food, something cheap. The sizzle of meat juices dripping down from a turning spit attract his attention. His stomach rumbles at the savory smell, the roasting fat melting into the meat, the cracked pepper and salt forming a delicious crust. He needs to hurry though; he has to get back to studying—exams are tomorrow, and if he doesn’t pass his father might cut him off. Willie dislikes studying law, but his father is a lawyer, and when he graduates, he has a guaranteed job. It’ll pay well; maybe then in his free time, with cash, he can pursue what he really loves—painting.
    The crowd slows as one and comes to a stop. They look at each other in confusion and share one thought: what’s happening?
    Too deep .
    Slip .
    ***
    I rip the neural patches off my scalp. The quick tears of the adhesive are nothing compared the tendrils of a migraine only beginning to form. I slide out of the metal consciousness projector and fall to my knees on the sterile white floor, holding my head. “How, how can you do that?”
    “You think two hundred is bad?” Joslyn, my teacher and mentor, asks, irritated with my failures. She’s already disengaged herself and