Socket 3 - The Legend of Socket Greeny

by Tony Bertauski

  “Auto-pilot engaged,” the car reported.

  The tires hit the gravel on the shoulder as the wheels turned the car back onto the pavement.

  I was slumped in the seat. My lips were fat and rubbery. The moon passed between branches. The car found its way to the secure location of the wormhole while I tried to get the feeling back. Only when we entered the blue swirl could I take the wheel. I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I knew enough that these weren’t normal visions. If they got any stronger, I’d be dead. I had to get some answers.

  I flew across the boulder-field toward the vertical wall of the Garrison. The Commander would get my reports soon enough, but not before I made one last stop. Call it compulsion or gut-instinct. Or insanity.

  If I have anymore visions, Pike said. As if he knew I would.

  I called ahead to my office. When I arrived, Pike waited with his legs folded beneath him. A string of spit jiggled from his mouth. The minders appeared behind him.

  “Wha’ dewyew wan?” Pike lifted his heavy head, his dark glasses askew, revealing the white eyeballs filled with rooty veins. “So soon?” He smacked his lips and sat up. “To what do I owe the pleasure of—”

  “What do you know?”

  “I know, I know… what do I know? What do you know?”

  “You know something, Pike. Something about the things I’m seeing. You tell me WHAT YOU KNOW!”

  His mind was scrambled, thoughts floating like weeds in the ocean. Perhaps that was the idea, make things chaotic, hide the secrets in plain sight. Like a shredded document thrown into the wind. It would take centuries to put it back together. And the minders just kept blowing.

  “Play a game with me, wonderboy, shall we?” Pike smiled.

  “You think this is a game, Pike? You’ve lost your mind.”

  “Quite right, you are. But if you want me to tell you things, ole Pike will tell you things. Let’s play a game.”

  I snatched his neck; the knobby Adam’s apple pumping up and down in my palm. “You tell what you’re hiding, you filthy traitor. You know something about these… these visions.”

  He slid his glasses back up his nose with a single finger and waggled his eyebrows. I threw him against the seat and paced to the back of the room. This just didn’t make sense, these experiences were unlike any others, but now they were bringing images of nonsense. In what universe would Chute attack me?

  I crossed my arms, staring at the back wall. Had I made a mistake coming here? No, Pike knew something. He was very specific about if I had anymore visions. He knew.

  Eh-hem. He tapped his foot.

  I looked over my shoulder. “This is all just a game to you.”

  “It wouldn’t be any fun if it wasn’t. Indulge me.” He waved his arms and the floor shifted between us. A checkerboard formed with globular shapes, each taking a space. “And I’ll tell you everything.”

  The globular shapes were black and white, each of equal number. Outwardly, each piece looked exactly the same, but each was as unique from each other as a dog is from a cat. Another checkerboard formed several inches above that one, this one smaller with fewer squares. And above that, another smaller one and another, until there was a total of seven boards forming a pyramid, the top level a single square at eye-level.

  Reign. He wanted to play Reign, where the rules and moves were beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. The object: get the king piece to the top. First, one had to see the king piece, but not with your eyes. It required opening your mind, to see the pieces differently, to feel them, sense them with extrasensory perception.

  I sat down in a chair forming below me.

  “Ill-advised, Paladin Greeny.” The middle minder stepped forth. “Opening your mind to a convicted—”

  “THERE IS NO THREAT!” The walls shook. The minders felt the infinite power of my mind peel through their advanced minds. They faltered, then resumed their dutiful focus. My outrage would be reported to the Commander. Hell, I was surprised the room didn’t just shut down. But it didn’t.

  Pike looked over his shoulder. “You’re talking to wonderboy here, Mo. Better watch yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self.” He threw his head back and howled.

  What was becoming of me? I didn’t like the mystery. Why did it seem the answer was right in front of me? It just countered any logic, but still, there was something here. I was losing control of the visions, why were they changing?

  I scratched my chin and considered the multi-layered game and innocuous pieces. Pike waited patiently. And then I opened. He sat up, tasting the availability of my mind, its essence wafting toward him. His feeble mind crept forward like arthritic fingers. Pike clapped. Pitter-patter. “You-you go first, my guest. Guests go first.”

  I allowed my awareness to penetrate the game. The generic pieces exposed their true shapes as my psychic vision opened, forming rooks, animals, weapons and warriors. Pike’s pieces flickered, changing identities as he integrated with them. This was a game of deception. Of hiding. And exposing. It required strategy and trickery, the ability to hide deception within deception within deception. To lay traps within traps.

  Pike’s mind entered my space. It was ragged and frayed, but still capable. It observed how I moved, how I planned. How I reacted. In turn, I reached out for his mind, to see what he was planning. Looking into your opponent’s intentions was the equivalent of looking at one’s cards in a game of poker. But Reign was psychic deception.

  Sometimes you wanted them to look.

  “I see, I see,” he said. “You have dreams.”

  My pieces flickered back to ordinary shapes, away from the powerful warriors that defended my regal king piece. His gallant knight pieces crossed the bottom board to trap me.

  “Not exactly dreams,” I said.

  “Who do you think gets the rose?”

  “The what?” Pike’s monkey-beast pieces advanced to the second board, pulling his king piece with it while his knights kept the majority of my pieces trapped. He was talking about the vision where Chute places the rose on the stump. “I’m not talking about that one.”

  “Because you like it, do you?”

  “Because it makes sense! None of the others…” I stopped short. He didn’t need to know anything else, but it left me wondering how he knew about the rose and the stump.

  “Who says that is you?” His laughter was almost a growl. “In the vision, it looks like you, but who says that-that is you with her, huh?”

  “What?”

  “Your dream.” He coughed. “You think that is you in your dream, in your vision. You… with your…” He coughed, again. “You think that’s you with your wife?”

  “Who else would it be?”

  “Well-well, now. Looks can be a tangled web we weave, if we seek to deceive.” He gazed back at the battle. “Or something like that.”

  My pieces transformed into nimble swordsmen slashing his pathetic soldiers into pieces before advancing to the second level. Only a strong ring of rooks formed around his king piece kept me from destroying everything.

  “Who is sending these… vi-vi-visions to you?” he sang.

  “No one sends them.”

  “Oh? So you, you think them up, huh? You think up the future, wonderboy? Is that how it works?”

  “Insights are an extension of my being, a connection with presence. The moment contains all past, present and future.”

  “Oh, you are such a treat, wonderboy.” He laid his head back savoring the moment like it was melting on his tongue, then spoke softly. “If they are an ex-extension of you, then why don’t you stop them, huh?”

  “They have something to show me.”

  “You? You have something to… to show you?”

  My pieces transformed into brutes with oversized axes and began chopping at the protective rooks, bricks and mortar scattered across the second level, trickling to the bottom board. My king advanced to the third level while his cowered behind the crumbling walls.

  “Don’t pat
ronize me.”

  “NOR ME, WONDERBOY.”

  A force of a once-great minder punched the unguarded fabric of my mind, but it was mild, nothing more than a slap, and I took advantage of the distraction by wiping out the entire second level. His king piece leaped to the fourth level, but without protection it was doomed.

  “Who is sending you visions is irrelevant.” He looked over the game while his king drew a sword. “A better question is why he is sending them.”

  “Why is it a he?”

  “He, she… whatever. God is a he, no? Yes?”

  My three warrior pieces, the only remaining besides my king, surrounded his king piece. I would walk to victory.

  He laughed at me. “Where is someone taking you, wonderboy, huh? Steering you like a ship to where, huh? That is the question you should investigate. That question you should be asking and answering. Wrong questions beget wrong answers.”

  My warrior pieces transformed into enormous serpents with impenetrable scales and dagger teeth. My king piece slowly moved up behind them.

  “I control my own destiny. I am responsible for my own actions. Are you having difficulty accepting your own fate, Pike? You betrayed us. No one else is at fault for that.”

  “Don’t lecture me.” He spat on his lap. “I despise this flesh and everyone like it. You like it there in your skin, wonderboy?”

  I took a moment to gather my composure. Pike was controlling the conversation. He could plant suggestions in a victim’s mind with a seemingly innocent conversation. Great minds did not need to overwhelm victims to beat them. Victims of great minds never even know they’re beat. They never even hear the swooshing of the guillotine; only feel the pinch of its blade.

  Pike sang a song while my king piece climbed to the sixth level. “Why do you come to see me?” he asked, unconcerned he would lose.

  “I come,” I said, slowly, “because I cannot accept a world where you live.”

  “Oh, that.” He raised a finger and cleared his throat. His king piece spiked the long sword, its only weapon, into the board, clearly giving up with no options past the vicious serpents. “I particularly enjoy that vision, wonderboy. It gives me reason to live, if you want to know the absolute truth. That one day, I may be free to murder and pillage and raze this planet, that-that-that gives me hope there is a god.” He raised his arms up and gave thanks to the ceiling. “There must be a god, don’t you think?”

  “No god would allow you life.”

  “The world needs the devil.”

  “Love is the reason the world exists.”

  “And evil is its soul-mate.”

  “I could end you, Pike.” He felt the power of my mind slither coldly inside him. With a thought, I could will his heart to stop. My king paused.

  “That would be… suicide.” He struggled to breathe. “Death to me… there-there would be no reason for you.”

  “It would be justice.”

  “Are you God?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m the judge and jury.”

  “Then I want a new trial.”

  I removed my mind from him. He only got pleasure from it, anyway. Any feeling was better than the numb imprisonment he endlessly experienced. I had all I needed from him. The game was over, there was no need to finish. Sometimes gut feelings led to dead-ends. The details of the room began to shrink as I got up.

  “Have a safe trip,” Pike said.

  I stopped. The room remained in full detail. I recalled my last interaction with Pike, found no reason that he should know about the trip. When I turned, he smiled mischievously, like a child that sprang a secret.

  “How do you know about that?” I penetrated his mind again, but there were only random thoughts. Pike offered no resistance to the invasion, relishing the uncomfortable sensations of his stretching mind. “Tell me, Pike. How do you know anything?”

  “You think-think old Pike is useless, huh? There are things that… leak in the air, you know.” He waved his hands like a magician pulling something from space. “Perhaps I know you better than you know you, wonderboy?”

  You never even hear the swooshing of the guillotine.

  “You know, it’s funny,” he said. “If you think about it, we don’t control anything, really. The universe tosses us about like an ocean of water. Really, we’re just driftwood. If you think about it, really. That-that-that’s what I think.”

  “You’re a plague.”

  “We remember pain, wonderboy. Remember that. Pain makes us feel human. Do you understand? It is not love that reminds us of who we are, it is pain, it is loss, it is death. Humans relish suffering, holding it close to their heart. They define themselves by the hurt, do you understand, wonderboy? Do you? We are vulnerable. Pain reminds us of that, that we exist. It is not love that we remember.”

  He lifted his chin, as if to offer his neck. Pike was repulsed by his own flesh, yet he craved the satisfaction of his being, his own essence. To feel. To be. He wanted to escape the misery of his ghostly existence, the separation of his own self, divided into psychotic elements. He did not see clearly. And for that, he would always suffer.

  “Remembering is not a prerequisite to humanity,” I said. “It is our presence.”

  “But it helps. Otherwise, you are a goldfish.”

  “Without presence, we are computers.”

  “Oooo, touché. Memories and presence. Like milk and cookies, would you say?”

  His king had taken a knee with hands folded atop the jeweled hilt of the long sword. My king reached for the top square and the serpents opened their daggered mouths to devour his king. And as they bit down, as my king neared the top, a long steel tip slid from the top square through my king’s head, impaling him moments from victory. Somehow, Pike’s king stood victorious at the top, the serpents left squirming on the ground.

  You only feel the pinch of its blade.

  “You come with questions,” he said. “I give you answers.”

  He was no longer smiling like the insane, but for once appeared quite lucid.

  “You give me nothing.”

  We stared for several moments until a smile finally broke his face. I called the room to break the connection and flopped into my chair, no clearer than I was before this senseless meeting.

  “If you see papa Pivot, pass along a message for me,” Pike said, as the details of his image began to shrink. I heard him shout one last word from a long ways away, could feel him smiling when he said, “SHOWTIME!”

  Perhaps the Commander was right. He was not one to toy with.

  Knotted

  My office was filled, once again, with the intricate web of wormholes that infiltrated the universe, illuminating the blank walls with an electric blue haze. It was a map to the universe’s roadway system and I was supposed to know it by now. I sat with my feet propped on the desk.

  I just couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t ever remember how many hours had passed since I left Pike and that was the first time I could remember ever losing track of time. I always knew everything, down to the very second, like my mind was a ticking clock. Now I felt like some insomniac consumed with work.

  Sound familiar?

  Back in my old life, before I was aware of my Paladin-nature, I spent countless nights waiting for my mother to come home, only to answer her calls that something came up, she was stuck at work. Sometimes I’d stare at her image when she video-called, notice the dark rings under her eyes, wondering when the last time she’d slept. Now it was me.

  It wasn’t some trivial distraction that had me wide awake. I wasn’t even thinking of the wormhole trip or the strange visions. It was Pike. The guy was a mental master and here I went and underestimated him. Even in his decrepit state, he knew how to hit me. He had me so consumed with him, I couldn’t think straight. Or sleep.

  He had answers to something, I could feel it. But I wasn’t asking the right questions, that’s what he wanted me to know. I think. Had he become some brat smirking behind his hand while he watc
hed me step into an obvious trap, milking every second of joy from my immediate future? Am I walking into it? Is he leading me there? Is this part of it?

  Get a hold of yourself!

  I dropped my feet and rubbed at my tired face. I really needed sleep, this was no way to deal with problems. But I’d just end up staring at the ceiling. And I couldn’t let this go. If I’m going to obsess, may as well stop half-assing it.

  “Show me Pike,” I said.

  The maze of wormholes evaporated, leaving a wide open blank space between my desk and the opposite wall. An image flickered a few feet in front of me, then materialized into a solid projection of a figure slumped in a chair. This was simply a projection of what Pike was doing at that moment. He couldn’t see me. Didn’t know I was watching.

  I paced around the desk. The three minders solidified in front of me, like immovable objects staring at the back of Pike’s bald head. Pike was hunched over with his legs folded under him, swaying back and forth like a mental patient. The ever-present string of drool jiggled off his lip while he mumbled. His glasses had fallen off, lying in his lap, exposing the sightless eyeballs that were filled with red veins.

  I knelt in front of him. This is how he spent his endless days. There was no sleep. No exercise. Just second after second of the minders frying his mind like a microwave.

  Showtime. What’d he mean by that? Out of everything he said, that stuck with me, like he knew something was coming. Something to do with Pivot. Or was he just clever enough to make me think he did, because there was no way this secluded madman could know anything.

  I paced around the empty office, leisurely throwing each foot in front of the other while I stared at the black floor. It was dark at the far end, barely lit by the image of Pike muttering near my desk.

  What makes you believe that’s you?

  The space brightened around me as I called up the vision. Weeds sprouted from the floor between rising boulders. The rose in Chute’s wrinkled hand. I walked around to look into our faces. The traces of white hair, thinner and receding, covered most of my head. How could that not be me? But now he had me wondering. I looked back at the image of Pike, still wavering. Still mumbling.