Psion Beta (Psion series #1)

by Gowans, Jacob

  After a thorough review, he sat in his Teacher and took the five hundred question exam. Two and a half hours later, he left with a big smile. He had correctly answered four hundred ninety-eight. And he was pretty sure he knew the two he had missed.

  He went downstairs for a quick brunch. Some of the older Betas were already there.

  “What are you doing here, Sammy?” Al asked.

  Sammy took a seat by him. “I sat my first exam today. The instructions said I could leave when I—”

  “You finished your first unit already?” Gregor asked. Al and Marie had similar looks of disbelief on their faces.

  Sammy caught himself before saying anything else. “Er—well . . .” Think up a way to get yourself out of this one. “I was home schooled for—uh—some of my education. My parents didn’t like the curriculum that the school board set for its students. So for history they—my mother—she taught me quite a bit before I got here. I just barely finished up the rest of the work.” He took a large gulp of water from his glass and spilled several drops on his clothes. “I mean—wow-—the test was really, really hard. I’m—I didn’t do very well. But I think I passed.”

  Gregor and Marie seemed to believe his story. But Al didn’t seem convinced. Still—perhaps in respect to Sammy—he said nothing else. Instead he asked, “How do you think the exam went?”

  “You need an eighty percent to pass,” Gregor told him. Sammy hadn’t spoken to Gregor much outside of the Games. It surprised him how much older Gregor looked than the others. Natalia said he was almost twenty. “Did you get at least that?”

  “Uh . . .” Sammy responded, acting as if he was calculating his score in his head. “Yeah—just barely.”

  “Great.”

  “Good job.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

  He searched for a topic to change the conversation, finally resting on the Psion Panels the three Betas had coming soon. Al’s was first, coming up in only three months, then Gregor would retake his two months later, and Marie was only a month or so after that. Apparently the Panels lasted several weeks, so some of their testing would overlap.

  “After you pass the Panel, what happens?”

  “We have a little ceremony here,” Al answered. “I’ll be grafted into an Alpha Squadron, and go to Alpha headquarters.”

  Marie stared at her plate as Al explained about going into Psion Alpha. At that moment it dawned on Sammy that the two were dating.

  “Do your parents come for that?” he asked.

  Marie shot Al a nervous glance.

  “Actually, yeah, parents are allowed to attend the ceremony. The government even flies them here in a private atmo-cruiser. It’s a pretty big deal.”

  “Cool! Are they coming?”

  “Um . . .” Al hesitated, “. . . my dad will definitely be there.”

  Sammy didn’t catch the subtlety in Al’s voice until the words left his mouth: “What about your mother? Isn’t she coming, too?”

  Everyone at the table stirred uncomfortably. Sammy noticed it and wanted to take the words back.

  “My mom passed away when I was really young. But she’ll be there in a way.”

  “Oh.” Sammy wanted to choke himself on his sandwich. “I—I really had no idea.” The words stumbled out of his mouth. Each word was like a glass ball rolling another step down the stairs until the inevitable crash. “You talked about her before—and I just thought—I’m sorry . . .” Before he could stop himself, he asked: “How did she die?”

  Marie and Gregor looked on as if they were watching a car wreck happen right in front of them. And Sammy felt like the victim.

  “She was killed in an accident.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I’m sure she’s proud of me.”

  Al managed a smile the whole time. It made Sammy feel like maybe he hadn’t made such a big fool of himself. Another question popped into his mind, and he let it fly. “How can you think that if she’s dead?”

  “Because I believe our dead family members watch over us. You know, like life after death. What do you believe?”

  “I don’t know,” Sammy answered. “Sounds nice, though.” His mind went somewhere else, thinking about his own mother:

  “Don’t you think it’s just a bit silly?” Mrs. Berhane said. Her laugh never had a trace of malice. Sammy’s dad called it a gentle laugh.

  “You said I could get any outfit I wanted,” Sammy reminded her. “My treat for beating dad at chess.”

  They stood next to a clothes rack inside the Snow Gears department store at the Johannesburg mall. Being in the middle of summer, the store was nearly dead, but a group of five kids with long hair were checking out helmets. Sammy guessed they were hardcore boarders or skiers who knew the summer was the best time to get new gear for cheap.

  “I’m just surprised you want winter clothes in the middle of summer,” she answered. “What if you outgrow them before it gets cold?”

  “We can buy them extra big, plus I’ll wear the hoodie around the house, it gets so cold sometimes.”

  Her smile flickered for a second. Sammy noticed it, but said nothing. He had not meant to say that. He knew why the house was kept so cold, but he’d been sworn to secrecy.

  “Well, I like the red one the best,” she said, pulling it off the clothes rack and holding it up to him.

  “But Mom,” Sammy whispered, his eyes wide with fear, “red is the bad color.”

  His mom pursed her lips to keep from laughing again. Sammy Sr.’s favorite rugby team, the Springboks, wore green and gold, their rivals, red.

  “You look so good in red. You need more in your wardrobe.”

  Sammy rolled his eyes so his mother could see. “Fine.” He knew better than to argue with his mom about wardrobes. He was just glad she wasn’t dwelling on his comment about the house being cold.

  The rest of Sammy’s lunch passed in relative silence. His thoughts lingered on what Al had mentioned about death.

  “Well,” Al said as he got up from the table, “if you’re going to be threatening my other spots at number one, I’ve got to put in a little extra time in the sims.”

  “I didn’t know you had—”

  Al snickered at Sammy’s embarrassment. “Kidding. It’s cool you’ve got a special talent for this stuff.” Then Al was more serious than Sammy had ever seen him. “The real enemies are the Thirteens, not other betas. Remember that if someone comes along and dethrones you.”

  As Sammy nodded, Al patted him on the back and walked out. Sammy wolfed down his sandwich, then decided to skip exercises to take a shower. He went downstairs and got clean clothes. Resting his com on top of the stack, he climbed into the wash unit and turned on the water.

  “GAH—!” he cried out, jumping out of the streams of water coming from all directions. The water was set to 1ºC. People (particularly Kobe) thought it was funny to change the settings. His body shivered as goose bumps formed up his legs and arms. It brought back fresh memories of what he’d been thinking about during his conversation with Al. He turned the water up as high as he could tolerate, sat down in the stall, and cried until he felt normal again. Mom never knew that Dad once told me why it was always so cold in the house.

  As he dressed for simulations, his com light blinked. Brickert often texted him funny thoughts or a question about simulations while they were in separate rooms. He rarely received messages from anyone else. He hurried to finish, then picked up his com and fitted it around his ear. The message was indeed from Brickert:

  How did it go?

  The test. He spoke into his com with a grin. The computer converted his speech into text:

  Nearly aced it.

  He didn’t have to wait long for Brickert’s reply:

  Knew you would!

  Laughing at this, Sammy ran upstairs and entered the sim room, just ahead of schedule.

  A couple weeks earlier, Sammy had finished the combat unit and started weapons training. The weapons unit started with simple thing
s like hand guns. Sammy struggled to develop good accuracy. When he mastered the basics, Byron moved him to automatics, then assault rifles. Sammy liked these weapons more. After rifles, nastier things came along. Things like shrapnel spreaders, flesh jiggers, and explosives like the syshée he was using now. It was by far the most difficult unit he had done—even more than the tricky disarming units in combat.

  The large black syshée was so real and warm in his hands. It never ceased to amaze Sammy what technology could do with holograms. The large human-shaped target loomed ten meters ahead of him. His finger rested gently on the trigger. He remembered the techniques the program gave him for aiming a weapon: Relax the fingers, comfortably support the weapon, visualize the most precise target possible, take a full breath and exhale, momentarily hold the breath while firing.

  Holding as still as possible, he pulled the trigger.

  The syshée made a hissing noise that sounded like someone in the room wanted to get Sammy’s attention: Psst!

  A black projectile no larger than the marbles he had used in the grocery store flew from the business end of his syshée and struck the target right in the heart. A small flash and bang erupted from the impact with just enough force to burst through the rib cage and inject the enemy’s heart with microscopic, lethal barbs. If hit square over the left breast, the barbs would embed themselves in the coronary arteries and veins, maybe even in the aortic crest; the enemy would bleed to death in seconds.

  Not bad aim. I’m definitely getting better.

  When Sammy first began the weapons and demolitions unit, he was anxious to blow through it so he could move on to bigger and more important things like Advanced Enemy Training. But overlooking the importance of doing well in weapons hurt him in the stats, causing him to fall a few ranks. He sobered up after falling as low as fifth in accuracy and fourth in timeliness. As his attitude and performance improved, he bounced from fifth to second in the accuracy rating, and fourth to first in timeliness.

  Though the weapons sims were not as aerobically demanding as earlier units, his skin glistened with a sheen of sweat from the intensity he exerted in order to excel. He prepared to fire the syshée again. Two consecutive shots this time . . .

  Psst! Psst!

  Two perfect hits.

  The rest of Friday’s simulation went well. Between almost acing his exam and having the weekend in front of him, Sammy’s spirits soared. He drank deeply from his water bottle and dried his face and hands on a hand towel. When the screen on his com flipped out, it almost startled him. He had another message, this time not from Brickert.

  From Jeffie!

  Sammy, I want to talk to you in private when you finish your sims. Meet me in sim room 3.

  His heart leapt to his throat and he tripped as he hurried to the door. She wants to say she’s sorry. he thought as he ran down the hallway and turned the corner. He was so excited to mend the tear in their friendship, he overlooked that Jeffie’s message should have appeared as “From Gefjon,” just as the messages he sent to Brickert always appeared as “From Samuel.”

  He eye-scanned the door and went inside. The room was empty and a little cold. Jeffie probably hadn’t finished her own sim yet. He looked for something to distract him from the mounting anxiety and began absentmindedly toying with his sock, pulling on the threads and releasing them so the elastic would snap back against his ankle. His heart thumped harder inside his chest.

  Any minute now.

  A thread came loose in his sock, and his hands began to work it around his index finger. He wondered why she wanted to meet in a sim room of all places. Perhaps she didn’t want Kobe to know they were meeting.

  The string seemed to have no end and was soon wrapped around his first two fingers.

  He thought about the last time she’d apologized to him. They’d been alone in the cafeteria and he had wanted to kiss her.

  Maybe she decided she likes me and wants to ditch Kobe.

  Three—six—ten minutes passed with Sammy impatiently waiting for her. The top of his sock was a frayed bundle of loose threads, but he didn’t notice. Auditioning in his head were the different things he could say after she confessed her sorrow for the way she’d treated him.

  I shouldn’t play too hard to get, she might get mad again. But if I appear too willing to forgive maybe she’ll think I’m a push over.

  As the strings wrapped around a third finger, he played several different daydreams in his mind, each one ending in a waterfall of tears from Jeffie. Just as his imaginary scenarios reached the pinnacle of emotion and passion, they were abruptly cut off with a flicker of light in the room.

  Appearing from thin air, Kobe and Jeffie were suddenly sitting in the middle of the sim room, on a park bench surrounded by green shrubbery, bound in a very romantic kiss. Sammy swallowed hard.

  Someone must have fabricated it. Kobe must have . . .

  But a second voice spoke reason to him: A fake holo-recording? Kobe doesn’t have access to that kind of equipment.

  It felt like a boulder had been dropped into his stomach, but despite his disgust he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scene. She wouldn’t kiss him.

  She IS kissing him!

  Why would she show this to me? What kind of a sick person does that?

  In the background of the recording, he heard Ludwig’s voice. “Why does he even want us to record this anyway?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.” The second voice was Miguel’s. “Just hold the camera steady.”

  “Kobe is one weird dude. Does she know we’re recording this?”

  “You don’t honestly think she’d let him, do you?”

  “Does it record sound?”

  “Yeah, but it’s on mute . . . oh, crap. It’s not.”

  The large stone in Sammy’s stomach burned white hot and then spread into fire throughout his whole body. He shot a blast through the hologram. It blew through Kobe’s head like air through a window screen.

  Kaden was down the fifth floor hall with his head in another sim room. When Sammy’s door shut, Kaden pulled out and ran toward him. He looked frantic.

  “There you are.”

  Sammy didn’t stop. He didn’t even acknowledge Kaden’s presence.

  “Sammy, wait!”

  “Don’t,” he snarled at Kaden with a wild gleam in his eyes.

  He leapt down the stairs using small blasts to cushion the landings and blew like a tornado into the cafeteria. Kobe sat on the far side of the room eating a large bowl of ice cream with Jeffie, Ludwig, and Kawai.

  Sammy barely noticed the look of terror on Brickert’s face when he came into the room. Bristling with raw energy ready to be used, he aimed for his target. Kobe only just had time to look up before the first blast hit him. The ice cream flew off the table and splattered his target with a confection of colors. Impotent background voices, however urgent, did not have time to register in his mind, it focused on only one thing:

  Destruction.

  Kobe was merely a target, startled—perhaps even stunned—at the sudden shower of ice cream, watching stupidly as Sammy blasted away chairs and tables between them. It gave Sammy sadistic pleasure to see the shock on Kobe’s face. Jeffie, eyes wide in fear, screamed for Sammy to stop, but he hardly heard her. Ludwig pulled Kawai and Jeffie out of the way just before Sammy reached their table. Some of the Betas yelled for Sammy to stop, others shouted or ran for help, but they all seemed so far away.

  Kobe aimed two quick blasts at Sammy’s chest, but he dodged the first one and parried the second, advancing closer. Kobe sent one more worthless blast and then blast-jumped over the table in a vain attempt to escape. Sammy met him in the air and knocked him into the ceiling with his own jump. Kobe grunted in pain. They fell down together in a twisting ball of fists emitting howls of rage at each other. Sammy used every punch from physical combat he knew as Kobe tried to block his attacks.

  Strong hands grabbed Sammy around his chest and head, pulling him off of Kobe. He
squirmed and writhed to fight free, but Byron’s voice shouted in his ear: “Enough.”

  11. Friends

  Sammy stopped struggling. Commander Byron’s voice boomed out again, “Kobe, get off that table and follow me.”

  Byron set Sammy down on the floor and ushered him out of the room by his collar. Sammy had to assume Kobe was following because he did not dare look behind. The commander marched them down the hall, then abruptly stopped and said, “Open one and two.”

  Two doors opened in the hall to reveal identical, brilliant white rooms. The doors blended in so perfectly with the wall that Sammy had not even known they were there. He recognized the room on the left as the one he’d woken up in on his first day at headquarters.

  “Solitary—both of you,” Byron said, pointing each of them into different rooms. “Kobe in there. Samuel in there.”

  The door closed, leaving Sammy to sit and shake from the rage that still pounded in his veins. He wanted out of the room. He wanted out now so he could pound Kobe’s face some more.

  The best thing he could say about solitary was that at least he was not restrained like the first time. A few minutes after Byron left him, one of the walls turned into a screen and a movie began playing. Sammy cringed when he saw the title: Psion Training Protocol Session 4: Conflict Management. After watching the film twice, Sammy’s rage had run its course. Then Byron’s more effective punishment took effect: leaving Sammy alone to suffer through the guilt and embarrassment of what he had done.

  What would Dad say? he asked himself over and over again. All those talks about stepping up and being a man were wasted on me.

  It was tradition in the Berhane household that once every three months, father and son went on an overnight fishing trip. His dad had four great loves in his life: Sarah, Sammy, chess, and fishing. While Sammy never loved fishing as much as his dad did, he enjoyed their trips. It gave them time to talk, and talking with Sammy Sr. was fun. When Sammy was still twelve, his father proposed a trip only a month after their most recent outing, but Sammy assumed his dad just had the urge to fish again.