“Trust me.” She had a funny look in her eyes, that Sammy liked, though he wasn’t sure why. “Trust me, Sammy. I won’t—I can’t think differently about you.”
Sammy paused for a moment, deciding where to begin. The chess game.
The words came slowly at first as he described to Jeffie how his mom had become addicted to drugs trying to deal with several miscarriages. How his dad had told him all this in a canoe in the middle of a lake in South Africa.
“My mom didn’t stay in rehab for the whole time,” Sammy said, thinking back to the day his mother came home, how he and his dad had thrown her a small welcome home party with almost burned cake and a way-too-big banner hanging in the dining room above the table. “She did really well while she was there, plus she hated it—being away from her family—well, us.”
Jeffie nodded in an understanding way.
“But she was still—you know—detoxing. Yeah. She’d wake up in the middle of the night in hot sweats, so we kept the house pretty cold at night. So I got the hoodie to wear at night. But my mom—she also got claustrophobic, panicky, so she started taking walks late at night. Dad said the doctors told him those urges would eventually wear off.”
Sammy swallowed hard and shook his head. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, it was so dry. He tried to wet his lips, but it didn’t work. He got up and poured himself a drink of water. From her reflection off the metal of the dispenser, Sammy saw Jeffie watching him carefully.
“My mom took a walk the night she bought me the red hoodie. I watched her sometimes from my window even though she thought I was sleeping. She always walked the same route. But I didn’t watch her that night. She dropped me off at a friend’s house to sleep over. From what they said—”
“From what who said?” Jeffie asked, but Sammy could tell she already knew from the way her face had gone white. Her eyes were wide in shock.
“Shocks—police. Someone must have recognized her—maybe they had seen her walking late at night before—because that person followed her home. I’m sure my mom had no idea. She got to the front door, scanned it open, and whoever was following her attacked her as soon as the door opened. . . .” Sammy’s voice failed and for a second he was not sure if he could continue.
The images were fresh in his mind as if it had all happened moments ago. The countless times he had woken in the middle of the night, sweating, seeing it all over again—they made certain the images stayed fresh. His eyes stared blankly into space and his voice dropped to a rough whisper.
“He—maybe she, I don’t know—slit my mom’s throat and then stabbed my mom over and over again. He found my parents’ bedroom and did the same thing to my dad while he slept. Nothing was stolen. No rape. He just left the house. It was a Saturday. I’d slept over at a friend’s house that night—but I should have been there. I was supposed to be back early to help with chores, you know, around the house. So when they dropped me off and the front door was already open, I didn’t know anything was wrong. The house was so quiet. I called out for my parents, you know, to see where they were. No one answered. And—and—and the first thing I saw was blood. Lots and lots of blood.” He had to really try to keep it together. He could smell the house now: the carpet, the potpourri his mom hung, the river of blood staining the floor. He could smell and see everything perfectly. “I just—I followed it, knowing, until I found my mom. When I saw her, I ran up to their bedroom to get my dad. And—and I lost it. I completely lost it. I just screamed and screamed and screamed. The front door was open still—the neighbors heard me. After that—I don’t know—everything else is a blank until the investigators were talking to me. No one ever got caught. They think that it was someone who my dad had prosecuted a long time ago. They had a few suspects, but some of them they couldn’t find, others had alibis. No one ever got caught, but I get to see my mom and dad’s faces when I dream.”
“Sammy, I’m sorry,” Jeffie said. He could tell she didn’t know what to say. Tears glistened on the lids of her eyes and a stream flowed on each cheek. For a moment, Sammy watched as more drops fell from her chin onto her clothes. “I’m sorry—I understand why you didn’t want to tell me or—or anyone else about this.”
Sammy nodded. He was still in the reverie of horror that fell over him whenever he relived that day: the sights, the sound of his own voice screaming forever in sheer terror, and the smell of all the blood.
“The thing that never makes sense is when I ask myself why?” Saying these things made him feel like his insides were all exposed to Jeffie, and he wondered what she was thinking while he spoke. “Yeah, my mom was beautiful. Yeah, we were rich, but none of that seems to have mattered. In the end it was nothing more than two random . . . murders. It’s sick.”
“Was it,” Jeffie dropped her voice even lower to the point that Sammy almost couldn’t hear her, “one of them?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Sometimes I pretend it was. It helps me fight better.”
“What happened after that?” Jeffie asked.
“I spent a couple of weeks at a center for trauma victims. That sucked. Just a bunch of people trying to get me talk about how I felt. Then Family Services put me in a surrogate home. They were nice, it was just—I don’t know—too soon. The dad, his name was Calven, he was a cool guy. The mom was okay, too, but it was Calven who really tried to get me to like him. After a month, right when I’d started to get to know him, you know, and we’d warmed up to each other, he had a massive stroke and died.”
Jeffie gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh no, Sammy, that’s—I mean—”
Sammy let out an angry snort. “Bad luck.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t want to wait around for Family Services to find me a new home. So I ran off. That’s when I started stealing.”
He told Jeffie about his life as a runaway: how he was caught and sentenced, how he escaped from the Grinder. Then he talked of his life in the grocery store, and how he first used his psionic abilities.
Jeffie looked amazed. “So this is what you’ve been trying to hide?”
Sammy just nodded.
“You’re ashamed that you were a fugitive?”
Again he nodded.
“Sammy, don’t you realize if you told everyone about how you became a Psion they’d think you were the coolest person ever?” Jeffie said. Her smile turned into a look of shock. “Not about your parents, I mean. But that you were a fugitive or whatever you want to call it. That’s kinda cool. In fact, it’s really cool. It’s something none of us know anything about. Even Kobe would be impressed.”
Sammy chuckled a bit.
“But I understand why you don’t want to tell people. It brings up too many questions. But you don’t need to be ashamed of what happened to you. You could have turned into—no offense—a quack after seeing all that. But you’re not, you’re normal—well, as normal as you can be,” she added with a wink. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say, though?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t want to look at her. He hated the sympathy she was trying to give him. He didn’t want it. He’d rather bury all of his past in a deep hole and forget about it.
“I can’t believe—!” she started to say, but could not finish for laughing too hard.
“What?” he asked. But then, without even knowing why, he began to chuckle, too. Soon Jeffie was snorting through her snickering, which made Sammy chuckle harder. For almost five minutes, they did nothing but laugh at each other.
When the amusement finally died down, and Sammy could wipe the tears of laughter away, he asked: “What did I say that was so funny?”
“I can’t believe you attacked the police!” she cried out, almost falling out of her chair. “I can’t imagine you doing something that crazy.”
“I was desperate.” He threw his arms out as if he were helpless, but he had a grin the size of a half moon on his face. Laughing and smiling felt incredible after airing out all his baggage for Jeffie to see.
“I’m sure you were.” Her smile rivaled his, but it dazzled him.
They looked at each other until Sammy’s mind became fuzzy. He again had that need to say something clever or charming, But what do I say? Jeffie broke eye contact, roses growing on her cheeks, and said, “Actually, I can see you doing something that crazy now that I think about it. You’ve already done some pretty wild things since you’ve been here.”
“I guess so,” he chuckled. “It’s funny what people do when—” he stopped himself short, mortified he had even gone so far.
“When what?” A light appeared in Jeffie’s eyes and a smirk on her lips like she’d caught him right where she wanted him.
“You know, when we’re really . . . really . . . angry,” Sammy finished. The conversation needed to end before it took a nasty turn into super-uncomfortable land.
But Jeffie just sat on her gel chair looking at him in her funny way. The scent of roses was there, as it always was when she was close.
He faked a yawn until it turned into a real one. “Well, I’m getting pretty tired. I think I should go to bed. You?” He got to his feet and offered his hand to help her up.
“Oh, okay,” she said with an undertone of something like disappointment.
She accepted his hand, and he let go as soon as she reached her feet. They walked down the stairs together in silence. Stopping in front of the girls’ dormitory, Jeffie opened the door and leaned against it, looking at Sammy with the same funny look. What is she trying to do? Read my mind?
“Well . . . good night,” he said lamely, wondering what he else was supposed to say.
Jeffie smiled mysteriously, “Good night, Sammy.”
He was puzzled. The “good night” part of their late night talks had never been this awkward. Was it because he had told her so much about himself, and now she thought he was weird or had too much baggage? He shifted his weight uncomfortably, thinking he should leave now.
“Okay, well . . .” he said, trying to make his exit. Is she trying to make this harder for me?
“And thanks.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. Everything,” she said, then ducked behind the door, disappearing from his sight.
He stood alone on the landing of the second floor watching the door close. When it finally did, he thought, I will never understand girls.
Q q q
As the weeks of summer dwindled, Sammy found himself pulled in several directions: Jeffie seemed to want more and more attention from him, Brickert asked Sammy multiple times for help in some of the combat trials in the sims, Betas tried every night to get him to game with them—but the strongest pull of all was the Thirteens.
The extra effort in his morning exercises had started paying off, and he propelled through the two- and three-Thirteen sim units. As the difficulty increased, so did his interest. Even Saturday’s weekly Games seemed insignificant compared to the challenges he found in the four walls of his sim room. So what if he didn’t hang out with Jeffie every single Friday or Saturday night? So what if Brickert had to figure some things out on his own?
Then Sammy hit the wall that every Beta before him had met: the insurmountable four-Thirteen sim trial. This wasn’t like the earlier units when the Aegis tripped over each other. Even on the first trial, the Thirteens worked too well together. If Sammy gave too much attention to any one Thirteen, the other three’s combined efforts quickly forced the sim trial to shutdown to protect Sammy.
The first time he had fought three Thirteens, the Byron hologram introduced the skip option. In effort to prevent Betas from becoming too frustrated with one trial, it became possible to pass on a subunit after twenty failed attempts. Sammy’s skip option for four Thirteens had long been available, but he’d set his mind to beat the unit. He wanted to do something no one had ever done before.
Day after day he fought, planned, observed, and fought again, but he didn’t seem to be getting any closer to victory. He mentioned to Brickert and Jeffie his struggles, but what did they know? They weren’t there yet and wouldn’t be for months or, perhaps, years. He needed to talk to an older Beta—someone who could relate. Knowing his mechanics examination was coming up soon, he waited until the day of the test when he could have lunch with the older Betas. Li Cheng Zheng was the only Beta eating when Sammy finished the exam.
“Hey, Li,” Sammy said, carrying his plate of food. “Mind if I sit with you?”
“Sure.” Li pointed to the chair on his left.
Sammy took the seat and ate several bites before starting the conversation he meant to have. “Hey, I have a question that’s been bugging me.”
“Shoot.”
“What’s your opinion on the four-Thirteen sim?” Sammy tried to sound as casual as possible.
Li’s eyes narrowed whenever he became serious, which was more often than not. He’d grown up in a very traditionalist Chinese home and wasn’t exactly known for having a strong sense of humor like Kobe or Miguel. “It depends who you ask. Some of the older Betas think it’s intentionally setup to be impossible to teach us how to know when to retreat. But others—Al, Marie, a couple more—they think it’s beatable.”
“And you?”
“I don’t know. It was a nightmare when I was in it,” Li said. “I must have attempted it about fifty, sixty times.”
“Wow. Did you ever get close to beating it?”
“No. I don’t know anyone who’s even killed two of the four. Al’s probably closest. I think it took him about five hundred tries to finally give up. No exaggerating. And I think he still gives it a go about once a week.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Sammy said grinning. “Can anyone do it? Byron? Other members of Command?”
“No one’s ever beaten a four-Thirteen sim, Sammy,” Li told him, shaking his head. “It’s just not possible.”
“Nothing is impossible,” Sammy replied, masking his frustration. “Nothing.”
Now Li’s eyes were like slits. Sammy could tell the subject bugged Li. Failing at the four-Thirteen sim still bugged many of the older Betas. “Yeah, well, tell that to the dozens of Betas who’ve passed through here, faced the same sims we have, and all failed.”
“Just cuz no one’s beaten it doesn’t mean it can’t be done,” Sammy mumbled.
“Ask anyone,” Li insisted. “That’s why they put in the quit option. Some Betas got more obsessed than Al did. Not many, mind you, but a few. I think at some point everyone thinks they can do it. I remember the first time I killed three of them. I thought I could take on a whole army. Then I faced four and got the beat down of my life. Over and over and over again.” Li looked Sammy dead in the eyes. Sammy saw the same look of grim acceptance he’d seen in every other Beta he had mentioned the four-Thirteen sim to. “It’s just not possible.”
Sammy nodded his head. He remembered the feeling Li was describing. Beating three was an amazing experience.
“I’d love to stay and debate some more,” Li said, getting up, “but I’ve got to go. I’m late for my instructions.”
Sammy watched Li leave the cafeteria. That wasn’t much help . . . Then Jeffie slid in Li’s chair and bumped his arm
“Hiya,” she said, flashing her beautiful smile at him.
He almost jumped. “Hiya back.”
“You have a look. What’s on your mind?” Jeffie was wearing Sammy’s favorite uniform, the white and pink with blue stripes that matched the blue on his uniform. He liked to believe that she wore this one more often for him.
“Nothing . . . the same stuff.”
“Same old stuff.”
He nodded glumly and offered her his food. His appetite was gone.
“Feeling down on yourself?”
“No . . . I don’t know. I just—”
“You have to do this,” she finished for him.
Sammy nodded again. He’d said those exact words to her two dozen times in two dozen different conversations. That she understood the way he felt meant a gr
eat deal to him.
“I know you think that. But at the same time, you’ve done so much so soon. Don’t feel bad if you get stuck, just remember how much you’ve accomplished. And . . .” Her hair fell over her half her face, concealing a toothy grin. “. . . remember all the time you could be spending with me and the others if you weren’t so fanatical about it.”
“What’s the point in just getting the same things done but in a faster time? No one thinks this can be done, Jeffie. Doesn’t that bother you? I don’t want to believe that.”
“That’s good. You’re doing the right thing by not giving up easily. But don’t think of yourself as a failure if you—”
“Fail?”
“No. If you don’t succeed.”
“Sounds the same to me.”
“Someone who doesn’t succeed isn’t a failure. He’s just . . . someone who gives all he has without the results he expected.”
Her efforts to cheer him were generous, but he couldn’t explain the need to beat the sim. She wasn’t there yet and she didn’t understand. It wasn’t her fault. Maybe I am obsessed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll give it until the end of the month.” As soon as he said this, he knew it wasn’t true.
“Sounds good,” she said, giving a playful wink. “If anyone can do it, though, it’s you.”
Their conversation turned to other things as they were joined by Brickert and the others, but Sammy’s thoughts kept turning to the faceless Thirteens that stalked him in his nightmares. He tightly clenched his fork in his hand and ground it into his leg until the pain jerked him out of his reverie. The fork had poked through the cloth and left four deep bruises on his leg.
I will kill all of them.
As soon as lunch was over, he headed upstairs to the sims with the other four recruits, determined not to leave until he succeeded. It was late in the night when Sammy no longer had the energy to fight, and had to call it quits.
Instructions became increasingly difficult over the following days. Thoughts about the four Thirteen trial consumed him. He often stayed in the sim room until 2100 or later, sometimes with only enough energy to stumble to bed. That weekend, when he wasn’t in the Arena, he spent more time in the sims, avoiding Brickert and Jeffie intentionally so he wouldn’t feel guilty about ignoring them.
Psion Beta (Psion series #1) Page 21
