[Camelot.exe] Chapter 8: Resonance Field

[camelot_exe]

 

Chapter 8: Resonance Field

The first person I saw when I walked into Café Null was Gav. But before I could reach him, a tired barista-hacker gestured toward a wall of Faraday lockers.

I knew the ritual. I had done it the last time I was here and still remembered the claustrophobic rush of disconnection when my world stopped listening. I looked over at Gav. Wouldn't he see it was just me? Surely, he'd understand I posed no danger, that I deserved to keep what was mine. My hand froze mid-air.

But Gav didn’t see it that way. One eyebrow lifted in judgment. “No phones. No watches. No smart anything. Café Null means null.”

Of course. The name wasn’t just clever, but literal.

I kept my laptop, as Café Null banned listeners, not tools. I still didn’t entirely understand the distinction, but I complied, dropping my watch and phone into a static-proof pouch. The lockers hummed faintly as I sealed them away, my lifelines to Camelot now entombed behind a sticker that read, ‘Your paranoia is welcome here.’

Without my phone or watch, I always felt naked. No MORDRED monitoring my location and health. No Grace texting strategy updates. No father checking in. But this time I felt, guiltily so, a little freer.

“So, how can we help you, King Arthur?” Gav asked, remembering how our last conversation had gone.

“Just curious what the chatter’s like down here about the information leaked from my company,” I said, trying to sound casual.

Gav took a slow sip from his mug. “That was pretty bad stuff. I can’t unleak it.”

I looked past him, searching for Dragon and for the man who was always with him.

“I’m not here for damage control,” I said.

“No?” He followed my gaze, his smirk softening. “Then you’re here for Mateo.”

I didn’t bother pretending. “He’s always here?”

“Mostly,” Gav said. “Sometimes he disappears for months, but he always finds his way back. Helps the n00b and expert coders alike, fixes what no one else can. Gets paid in caffeine and whatever snacks we can scrounge.”

Months. Mateo disappeared for months at a time. I wondered where he went and what he did. Whether anyone worried when he was gone.

“He could be rich,” I said before realizing how defensive it sounded. “With what he can do.”

Gav laughed, low and genuine. “The moment a megacorp slaps a price tag on code, it stops being alive. He’d rather keep it messy and free, helping the ones who still want to do good.”

I thought of MORDRED. Of optimization and control. Had we slapped a price tag on everything until it stopped being alive? Why did it bother me that Mateo had chosen the worn laptop, the café community, the unpaid labor over wealth?

Maybe because he refused everything I’d been taught to strive for.

“I just want to ask him a few questions,” I said. “Not hire him and insult his integrity.”

Gav turned back to his laptop, typing something I couldn’t see, then pointed a thumb behind him without looking up.

“He’s in the back, at the Echo Tables. Playing Resonance Field.”

“Pinball?” I asked. “He didn’t strike me as a pinball player.”

“Pinball. You’re in the default mode of the world,” Gav said. “It’s more than that.”

Default mode, that was an insult. Like I ran my life on factory settings.

Annoyance edged his voice. I wondered if it was because I, a corporate evil-doer, had come back to bother the good citizens of Café Null, or that I simply didn’t have the right to ask about Mateo.

Still annoyed by the “default” jab, I didn’t thank Gav, and walked toward the back of the café, past the mismatched tables and the low hum of conversations. The smell of burned espresso and overheated circuitry hit me as I walked followed the sound I’d first dismissed as background noise last time. An arcade area? Pinball? Or something more than pinball.

I saw Mateo’s dark silhouette outlined against a display as clear as pond water. Dragon lay sprawled beside him, chin on his paws, with the lazy vigilance of a guard dog who understood his master was singular.

I’d seen a picture of one of these machines years ago in an obscure tech magazine. I’d thought it nothing more than a refurbished pinball table, a nostalgia piece for aging arcade purists or the retro kids who hung around used-clothing fronts. (Because that’s what Café Null looked like from the outside: a thrift store, not a den of code and caffeine.)

But as I stepped closer, I saw that Resonance Field was something else entirely: a physical-digital hybrid pinball game. The player wasn’t just flipping metal rails but manipulating light itself through gesture, through something I couldn’t quite name. Maybe biofeedback or just willpower? The field responded to the slightest motion, like a living system tuned to its user’s pulse. It was perfect for someone like Mateo, whose strange synesthesia made him see the world in colors the rest of us couldn’t even imagine.

My heart was beating too fast for someone just looking to ask a few questions.

As I drew even closer, I saw he wasn’t touching anything. His hands hovered just above the haptic edges, fingers twitching slightly, as if playing an invisible piano. Three balls shot upward and spiraled through invisible currents until they hit a node and burst into a halo of blue and orange. A harmonic chord sounded, nothing like a game’s beep, but softer, more symphonic.

“Wow,” I said once I was standing right beside him. “This is a cool game.”

I startled him. The colors flickering against his skin dimmed instantly, and the balls dropped with a mechanical pings. Game over.

The machine flashed a new score:

MIXPAC 1203908902

 (fifth under:)

 

MYTH SLAYER 8903908902

MYTH SLAYER 7001562890

MIXPAC 2901763000

MIXPAC  2703908902

 

“Damn,” I said. “Who is MYTH SLAYER?”

“Me. I’m both MIXPAC and MYTH SLAYER,” Mateo answered, slipping into his usual don’t-look-at-the-corporate-shill posture.

“So good you have nobody to play against but yourself?” I chuckled, running a hand through my hair to make sure it was all in place.

He actually blushed, eyes dropping to his hands splayed flat on the glass. Did he have trouble maintaining eye contact with everyone or just with me?

“You don’t have to pretend to be impressed,” he murmured. “Just an arcade game.”

He looked exhausted, but that wasn’t new. He’d looked like that the last time I saw him.

“I’m not pretending,” I replied. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Or like what you did last time I was here.”

“That’s because you live in the part of the city where the machines tell you what to do instead.”

Before I could answer, Dragon wedged his enormous head between us. The beast gave me a long, suspicious sniff, as if trying to decide whether I was edible or harmless. Then he dropped back to rest on the floor.

Mateo, maybe bolstered by Dragon’s verdict, turned and leaned back against the Resonance Field machine, arms crossed.

“I didn’t expect to see you again,” he said. “Why are you here?”

I cleared my throat. “I wanted to ask you something.”

He didn’t walk off. That alone felt like a minor miracle.

“So,” he said without looking up. “Ask.”

But the question I meant to ask about the corporate leak slipped straight out of my mind. “Let me buy you lunch first,” I said instead. “I saw an interesting place on the corner.”

Mateo finally lifted his eyes fully to mine. And for a moment, I swore a current, like the last chord of the game, vibrated through me. Maybe some part of his synesthetic world was bleeding into mine.

Dragon thumped his tail once, slowly, a warning or a sign of permission. I couldn’t tell which.

“Okay,” Mateo said at last. “But your phone and watch stay here.”

My hand instinctively went to my empty wrist. Two hours without MORDRED knowing where I was. Two hours my father couldn't reach me. Two hours of being nobody but Arthur.

"Deal," I said, and meant it.