“I heard a crack, so that’s a good sign, right?”
Jeffie nodded and wretched again. Sammy only just got the bucket in time. A little splashed on his hand, and he thought he might retch, too. Her face regained a bit of its color. “I looked so stupid out there.”
“No, you looked great. You’re better than I’ll ever be.”
She lay back down and closed her eyes.
“Byron should be on his way. Brickert called him as soon—”
“Had you ever played it before?” she blurted out. Her eyes were still closed and her hand was on her forehead, concealing her eyes, but Sammy wondered if she was peeking at him.
He had to think about her question. Finally he asked: “You mean Star Racers?”
Jeffie nodded. He wished she would open her eyes so he could see them now.
“No. I haven’t—I mean I have, but not before here.”
She frowned weakly, her face still pale, but attractive nonetheless. “I’m such a freaking idiot.”
Sammy dug his finger in his ear. “I think I broke my hearing. Can you say that again?”
“You heard me,” she told him with a fragile laugh which quickly turned into a grimace. “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts.”
Sammy nodded complacently. Despite the smell of barf on her breath, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her very badly. But all he said was, “Yeah, I’ll work on that.”
“Thanks for trying to catch me, though.”
Her hand twitched like she made to catch something, and then the cafeteria door opened. Commander Byron entered pushing a wheelchair and behind him came a man with very brown skin wearing a doctor’s coat. Several curious Betas looked in over his shoulder.
“How are you, girl?” Brillianté called out from behind.
The doctor’s attention went from the trash can where Jeffie had vomited, to Jeffie, and finally to Sammy. He looked at Sammy for a long moment. His strange smile made Sammy feel weird. He shined a light in her eyes and briefly examined her ankle. “Let’s get you out of here,” he told Jeffie in a voice Sammy was sure he’d heard before. “I’ll have you fixed up in no time.” He picked her up tenderly and put her into the wheelchair.
Just like that, she was gone. As she left, he wondered to himself, What would she have done if I’d caught her?
Q q q
The days at headquarters came and went a little quicker as the routine settled deeper. Every few days or maybe once a week, Sammy thought about his friends, especially Feet, and missed running the streets with them. The strict life of a Psion at those times seemed too tedious, but between the Game and sims, enough adventure was still packed within the four white walls of headquarters to keep him interested.
As Jeffie predicted, she was out of her cast in a little over a week. She claimed to use the time in her sims to become the most precise hand blaster ever. Sammy wanted to write her off as an arrogant snob, but he’d come to accept that Jeffie had claimed for herself a little piece of his heart that he couldn’t quite take back. No matter how much she grinded his nerves, he couldn’t shake her. And he hated it when she spent time around Kobe.
Kobe and Jeffie aside, Sammy’s biggest problem was the growing disparity between himself and the other nukes in instruction and sims. The burden of constantly crafting his lie and the paranoia of being caught made him feel like he was in a pressure cooker. What had started as a little lie to protect himself from Jeffie’s jealousy had snowballed into a mammoth whopper, and only Brickert knew that Sammy was actually kilometers ahead of the others.
But even Brickert didn’t know that Sammy sat back in instructions while the Teacher raced through film clips and pictures in rapid succession while his brain soaked everything in like a dry sponge. Sammy didn’t understand what it meant, and he didn’t care. He just didn’t want his friends to think he was a freak. He feared someone, Jeffie especially, might walk in and see him zipping through a subunit, listening to a chipmunk on amphetamines.
What he did care about, and quite passionately, was his steady ascent in the ranks on his per-stats. He was at least fourth now in every category. At the conclusion of each training session, he checked his stats, priding himself when he climbed another spot. He hadn’t forgotten his goal to become number one in everything.
Saturdays and Sundays were his favorite. He loved the Game. In the Arena, it was almost like being back in the grocery store. The competition swallowed him up, and he forgot all his troubles. He’d kept his promise to follow his honcho’s orders whether he agreed or not. On Sundays, with the warmer weather, the Psions almost always left headquarters. Sammy enjoyed exploring the nearby areas on Capitol Island while Natalia told him and his friends all the latest gossip.
Brickert and Sammy were like brothers. They created new blast games to play in their room and looked for ways to sneak into the girls’ dormitory. Natalia said she’d heard that two Betas tried this and once were caught by Commander Byron. Brickert, besides having grown enough to barely reach the eye-scan on the door, eventually got over his crush on Brillianté. It wasn’t hard since he’d never had a real conversation with her. Days later, he confided in Sammy that he liked Rosa Covas. As close as he and Brickert were, Sammy could not understand why his roommate fell for the older girls.
Life at headquarters took a turn for the worse after a grueling simulation focused on weapon disarming. As usual, Sammy checked his per-stats and saw that he’d earned the number two ranking in timeliness and jumped to number one in efficiency. In celebration, he ordered his favorite meal, chicken cordon bleu. When he sat down to eat, he noticed someone missing.
“Where’s Jeffie?”
Kawai tried to hide a smile with her milk glass. “She said she’s staying behind to finish up her sim unit.”
“Combat sucks,” Natalia said, throwing down her french fry and splashing her ketchup onto Sammy’s arm. Her hair was now a dull gray, a side-effect from too many dyes. “How the heck am I supposed to beat up people twice as big as me? They don’t even flinch when I punch them.”
“So blast them in the face,” Sammy answered as if it was a no-brainer, only to get a kick under the table from Brickert.
This launched the four of them into a discussion on some of the finer points of combat. Kawai and Natalia were arguing over targeting the groin or the face when Kobe came bursting into the room. Jeffie came in only a few seconds later.
“You!” Kobe said, pointing dramatically at Sammy.
Everyone in the room stopped talking and eating to watch.
“Yeah?” Sammy asked.
“What’s your rank in timeliness?” Kobe demanded.
Brickert pushed past Kobe with his second tray of food and asked, “What do you care?”
“Shut up, uber-noob. This is my business.”
Brickert’s cheeks went bright red, and he sat back down next to Sammy. Noob was a rude name to call someone, but uber-noob was downright offensive.
“It’s not your business, Kobe,” Sammy said without giving Kobe the courtesy of even a look, “so leave me alone.”
“I’ve heard stuff,” Kobe continued. “Li told me about the moves you could do in your very first Game. Like a perfect landing blast. You were the first one in your group to pass the primary units. You lied to me . . . and everyone else.” His eyes flickered to Jeffie.
Now Sammy’s face turned red.
“But I also know that someone has been rising quickly through the ranks since then. So I’ll ask you again, what’s your rank?”
The cafeteria became deathly quiet as everyone waited for Sammy to answer. Furious and embarrassed at being put in the spotlight, he was tempted to show Kobe two of his fingers (the middle and the thumb), but instead answered, “Twenty,” and returned to his meal.
Brickert burst out in laughter, then stopped at a look from Kobe. It was Brickert, not Sammy, who held the number twenty ranking, but Sammy knew Brickert didn’t mind.
“Liar,” Kobe spat, reaching over the table
at Sammy, trying to grab Sammy’s com. Sammy jumped up from his seat and leaned away from Kobe’s reach. “What have you got to hide?”
“Get away from me!” Sammy got up and shoved Kobe backwards.
“Keep your dirty hands off me!” Kobe shouted back, now in Sammy’s face.
Everyone now was either yelling or rushing toward them to stop a fight. Brickert got in the middle first simply by standing up—unfortunately it was just as Kobe aimed a blow at Sammy—and got punched right in the eye. When Brickert fell backwards holding his face, Sammy tried to knock Kobe down with a quick sweep, but Kobe jumped over it and aimed another punch at Sammy, connecting with the side of his head.
Suddenly, Sammy wasn’t at headquarters anymore, he was back at the Grinder where fights started every day if a bigger kid wanted someone else’s dinner roll. He blasted Kobe in the chest, propelling Kobe toward the wall. Kobe neatly stopped himself using a backward blast off the wall, then blast-jumped over Sammy, grabbed the com off Sammy’s head, and landed on the other side of the room. Sammy would have gone after him, but Martin Trector and Li Cheng Zheng tried to stop the fight by grabbing Sammy.
Before Sammy could get free, Kobe manually accessed his per-stats. With a grim face, he threw the com back at Sammy. “I knew it.”
“Kobe, you are way out of line!” Kaden stood in the doorway of the room with Al, both breathing like they’d heard the news and come running.
“I’m out of line?” Kobe asked. “Why is he lying to everyone? I bust my butt in that room everyday so I can be the best, and he just sits back and wins everything! How is that fair? He’s top in almost everything. It’s a bunch of bullsh—”
“Shut your mouth!” Kaden interrupted. “It’s not your business. Al just told me he’s dropped a ranking, too, but he’s not mad about it. You don’t know how hard he works. You don’t know anything.”
“That’s crap—”
“All you care about is winning. You’ve never taken time to get to know Sammy. Just get out.”
Kobe opened his mouth to argue.
“I said GET OUT!”
If anyone else had said that, Kobe would have either laughed or gotten angrier. Kaden, however, possessed a certain influence over his brother. When Kaden spoke, people listened—even his twin. Kobe gestured rudely to Sammy and stomped out of the room.
Kaden awkwardly muttered something that Sammy didn’t hear, then followed his brother. Sammy appreciated Kaden’s interjection, but he was concerned now with the looks everyone else was giving him. Some stared at him curiously, others jealously, and Brickert with a swollen eye full of pity. It was Jeffie’s hard glare that made his heart sink. She had the distinct look of someone who felt betrayed, and—as he began to notice— so did Kawai. Natalia just seemed fascinated by the whole event.
“Jeffie—Kawai—I—” he started to say, wanting to explain why he had kept up the act for so long, but not able to grab the words.
With one last look of disgust, Jeffie shook her head and walked out with Kawai in step. Sammy stared stupidly at the door.
“It’s so stupid!” he vented to Brickert as they hurried down the stairs. “Man, I hate Kobe. I freaking hate him. Why can’t he just grow up?”
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” Brickert said, struggling not to say anything more. Sammy noticed his hesitation and turned on him.
“What? What are you thinking?”
“Let’s get in the room first.”
When the door had closed behind them, Sammy asked again. “All right, what?”
“Listen, everyone knows there’s something different about you. You never lose in—in Star Racers. And everyone is beginning to see how good you are when we play the Game. If you don’t believe me, ask Natalia. She knows everyone’s opinion about everything, I’ll tell you.”
Sammy didn’t want to admit it, but Brickert’s words rang true. Ever since Marie told everyone about the impressive moves he performed and how he single-handedly held off four opponents in that room, he was much more involved in the Game. And for the last few weeks, the honcho whose team he played on consistently earned the victory.
“But so what? Why do people even care?”
“So what?” Brickert cried, throwing his head down into his hands. “No one understands you. You’re so . . . frustratingly secretive about everything. Everything, I tell you! It’s like you don’t trust anyone.”
“I do—”
“Including me. Don’t you realize you’ve never told me anything about your life before you came here? You know me like—like—I don’t know . . . but you know me really well.”
Sammy forced a laugh. “That’s because you talk so much.”
Brickert laughed, too. “When I’m around you, I do. But for all I know you could’ve been raised by Martians—plus, you’ve got to understand the way everyone else feels. You’re better than all of us in almost everything, or you will be soon. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Sammy answered. Then, seeing the look of skepticism on Brickert’s face, he added, “I’m being serious! It comes easily to me. Things have for a while now. Ever since . . .”
His voice trailed off as embarrassment overcame him.
“See what I mean?” Brickert told him. “You’re doing it again.”
“I’m sorry, but there are things in my past, things I’ve done, that I don’t want people to know. Everyone loves to tell the story of how they found out they were Psions. Not me. Mine wasn’t good.”
“Like I said, you don’t trust anyone.”
“I trust you. You’re my best friend. I just don’t want . . . people to know about the things I’ve done.”
“Why?”
Sammy blasted a piece of paper hanging from the ceiling by a paper clip and made it twirl. The spinning cleared his thoughts. “Because they won’t like me. They’ll think I’m a freak. Or they’ll pity me.”
Brickert blasted the piece from his side and made the spinning stop. “Right. Trust issues. You don’t trust us to accept you or your past.”
Sammy was about to disagree, but didn’t. Brickert was right, even if Sammy wouldn’t admit it. He took off his clothes, hung up his com, and went to bed. He lay silent for a long while thinking about everything that had just happened. When he heard Brickert starting to snore, he said, “Hey, Brick, you’d better put ice on your eye.”
Q q q
Saturday’s Game went well. Gregor was honcho again, but Kobe was also on the team, and only referred to Sammy as “hot shot.” After winning, Sammy repaid his debt to Gregor, who led the team to victory in four Games of five over Ludwig. He’d hoped that by following Gregor’s orders exactly he would be relieved of his guilt.
He wasn’t.
Jeffie was assigned to Ludwig’s team. After the Game, she congratulated Kobe with an unnecessarily long hug, then walked past Sammy with her hand outstretched to compliment Gregor. Natalia and Kawai spoke to him, but he could tell they still held a grudge. At lunch, the three girls sat at a separate table with their roommates. It made Sammy feel weird.
“How long do they stay mad?” he asked.
“It’s only been a day,” Brickert explained. “Girls need more time than guys.”
“Well, then they’re stupid,” Sammy commented while trying to stab a tomato with his fork. “Salads are stupid, too. Why did I even order this?”
“One time I mixed peroxide into my sisters’ shampoo—you know, as an April Fool’s prank. Only two of them used it before they realized what I did. I’ll tell you, I honestly thought they were going to kill me—all because of a stupid joke. I mean, it’s not like it’s so hard to just dye it back to the way it was. No sense of humor at all—worse than the time I hid their make-up. . . .”
Sammy was flabbergasted by Jeffie’s behavior. He assumed things would go like the last time she’d been mad at him: if he just stayed calm, remained friendly, and waited for her to come to her senses, things would turn out fine. However, rather than shooting him scathing looks like befo
re, her behavior was dramatically different.
She had always been good friends with Kobe, especially since Kobe was considered one of the “older Betas.” And it wasn’t uncommon for them to flirt as they sparred in a game of Star Racers. But that Saturday she spent the whole day attached to Kobe’s side, laughing at everything he did and said. She giggled especially hard when Kobe used the term “hot shot” with his friends. Kobe clearly did not mind the extra attention.
This new behavior went on into Sunday. With the weather unseasonably warm, many of the Betas headed to a park for a game of Frisbee. In no mood for socializing, Sammy went to the library and chose a book. Very few books in the library were fiction, but he found a dusty old copy of The Count of Monte Cristo and decided to try it. While the others divided into teams, he parked himself under a nice big tree and started reading. Brickert and Kaden tried to get him to join, but they saw he had no interest. Brickert, of course, was chosen last. From where Sammy sat, Brickert didn’t mind. Sammy envied the way his friend didn’t let things bother him.
He left this train of thought as the tale of Edmond Dantès unfolded. A sailor with a promising future who falls in with a band of smugglers, an incredible transformation into a fabulously wealthy and mysterious count—Sammy saw parallels of his own life as he lost himself in the book.
The game lasted over two hours. During one of their breaks, Kaden jogged over to where Sammy sat in the shade.
“Hey, you all right?” he puffed.
“Yeah, fine,” Sammy said in an absent-minded, leave-me-alone tone. “I’d just rather read than play.”
“When did you start that?” he asked.
“Huh?” Sammy snapped out of his trance. “Oh, uh, just today. Why? Have you read it?”
“Yeah. It’s awesome. Are you really already that far into it?”
Sammy looked at the book. He hadn’t realized it, but he had finished well over half the book. And the book was fourteen hundred pages.
“No! Uh—no . . . I know it drives people crazy, but I just like to skip around.”
Why am I still lying?
“Are you cool about yesterday?” Kaden asked him.
Psion Beta (Psion series #1) Page 13
