I sort of half-laughed, half-coughed, and looked away with a loud eh-hem.
“What?” she asked.
“Have you seen yourself, lately?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just mean, duh, they’re guys.”
“And I’m a girl, so what? That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
“No. But they’re guys. They don’t know how to be friends with a girl, especially one that looks like you. Unless they’re gay. Are they gay? Because, you know, I was getting a vibe from Lee and I wasn’t sure—”
“Listen, we’re just friends.”
Friends. Okay. But a friend can mean anything. Could be someone you call to get something off your chest. Someone that shares notes in class or loans you money. Could be a friend with benefits. I started to ask the question, to get a little clarification, but I didn’t. I had to stop reacting. Besides, the night would go up in flames if I asked something like that. Call it a hunch. I’m not sure I wanted the answer to that, anyway.
We waited for traffic before running across the street. My car was another four blocks up, all alone beneath a street light. We walked in step, the old houses crowded against the sidewalk. Even shared a laugh. After a couple of blocks, she reached over and hooked her finger around mine and just like that it felt like I’d left just yesterday. Our hands were sweaty, but I wasn’t letting go. And Chute was still squeezing.
“Do you want to go downtown?” I asked.
“It’s late.”
“We can sit at the market café and make fun of tourists, what do you say? Just like old times.”
She had a curfew, but a quick call would push it back, especially when her older sister knew she was with me. She tapped her cheek and talked with her dad. It took a little conversation, but when she tapped off, she turned and smiled. “I’ve got until midnight.”
“Who says I’m taking you home?”
She socked me in the arm. Not hard, but directly on the triceps wound. It startled me, felt like she put a blow torch in my arm. The pain shot across my back and through my other arm. I had to put my hands on my knees for a breather.
“Oh, are you all right?” She bent over, rubbing my back. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize training had turned you into such a wuss.”
“Oh, you’re going to get it.”
She attempted to outrun me. I caught her four houses down, hoisted her on my hip and carried her like luggage. She laughed and screamed. There was no one around to hear her fake cries for help.
“Oh, you’ve got such big Paladin muscles,” she said, giggling. “Are you taking me to headquarters?”
“Yeah, I am. Then it’s right to the dungeon for some old fashioned torture.”
“I’m calling the police!”
“They won’t get here in time, but what I’m about to do to you could be considered a crime. My car’s right up there.”
“I thought maybe you parked in Myrtle Beach. You should’ve picked me up at the stadium.”
“And leave you with Shelly?” I set her down. “Not without Streeter.”
She didn’t laugh so much at that. It felt like something just happened between us. She was quiet, then said, “When’s the last time you talked to him?”
“Last time I saw Streeter? It was like three and half months ago. Actually, I didn’t see him, we met virtualmode. He took me to this new world he’s been working on—”
“I think he’s in trouble.” She looked at the sidewalk, followed the cracks with her eyes. “He’s been avoiding me. I call him all the time and he never answers. He’s hardly at school anymore. I’m a little worried.” She looked up. “You know, that’s not like him.”
Two people came out the front door a few houses ahead. I followed behind Chute to let them pass and tried to think of anything Streeter might’ve said or done that seemed out of character. He’d said something about a state-wide award he won for codebreaking. What if he went codebreaking somewhere he shouldn’t have, like national security? Or worse, a Paladin database? They don’t have a sense of humor about that shit.
The two men approached. They weren’t well dressed, but they had a bunch of gold chains and bathed in cologne. I accidentally bumped the stocky one.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said, over my shoulder. “Chute, did Streeter say anything about—”
Warning.
The men were turning.
No vehicles on the road. Twelve houses have lights on, only nine have a view of us. No visible residents.
Their muscles tightened. I smelled adrenaline surging through them.
Two men. One short, stocky, visible scars. The other is muscular with tattoos. Both twenty years of age. Cologne masking smell of perspiration.
I shifted my weight.
Chute is 4.2 feet away. The curb is 3.5 feet. Sidewalk uneven from a live oak growing 5.1 feet behind me. House is 2.8 feet to the right.
The stocky one was driving his fist at the back of my head. He was fully committed to the swing. I easily moved out of the way and rammed my finger and thumb under his chin, lifted him onto his toes. The jolt to his jugular lit him up. His eyes rolled and, before he became dead weight, I tossed him at the other guy.
I grabbed Chute’s arm and started around the live oak. The car was only a half block away. If the taller one gave chase, I’d knock him out, too.
“SOCKET!” Chute screamed. “HE’S GOT A—”
Flash.
The night lit up.
There was no choice.
I triggered a timeslice.
My metabolism went through warp speed, dumping enzymes and adrenaline into my system. Synapses twittered at light speed and I saw, thought and moved at a velocity unknown to ordinary humans. For me, time stopped.
The 9mm bullet was out of the barrel, suspended in space. I shook my head. The night is over.
Why would they do it? Was it money? Is that what they wanted? If they asked, I would’ve given them everything just to keep this from happening. But now this? The Garrison wouldn’t understand. There would be no forgiveness. I should’ve assessed the environment, known I was putting us at risk in this neighborhood at night. There was no excuse. Battles are won or lost before they begin.
Chute’s mouth was open, halfway through warning me that he had a gun. I brushed the hair from her face and touched her freckled cheek. My only night and I blew it. When would be the next? Never.
I held her hand, gently moved her out of harm’s way. My steps echoed in the silent slice of time. No insects. No wind. Just dead silence. The glittering street light reflected off the bullet’s metal casing. I slapped it into the road; it tinkled down the storm sewer.
I took the gun from his hands, careful not to touch the flaming barrel, and placed it on the sidewalk where the police would find it. The bruised spots behind his ears were fresh. I pulled the scumbag down and looked into his dark eyes. The pupils were abnormally dilated, the beginning stages of gear addiction. Gear junkies like him forced high levels of endorphins from their bodies with emotional gear manipulators. It was a natural high, but there was nothing natural about it. They turned their bodies into poppy fields, producing their own narcotics.
His breath stunk and slimy pockets of spit stuck in the corners of his mouth. Just touching him made the back of my throat tight. I held my breath, penetrating his mind. His foul energy clung to him like smoke. His mind was corrupt like a scratched hard drive, the nervous system twitching beyond his control. His thoughts intermingled with delusions and childhood memories and sour thoughts of crimes he’d committed, some very recent. He was human, but seemed more like a duplication of a human. A copy. A program that followed the orders of his addictions and warped egotism. I was tempted to look inside him with a direct touch just to see how similar he was to a duplicate, but that would be too dangerous, could suck the life out of him. Even if he deserved it.
I let go of time, felt my body tingle back to the ordinary march of the world. Dist
ant cars honked.
“An unauthorized expression of abilities has been recorded,” a voice called on my nojakk. “Return to the Garrison immediately.”
His eyes darted back and forth. His senses tried to reconnect, unsure if he was dreaming or just high. Then he lost it, slapping at me like a kid trying to escape his father’s clutches. I squeezed his mind, overloading his consciousness and his body surrendered, falling weightless. I laid him on the sidewalk next to his partner, folded their arms over their stomachs. I made a call, gave my coordinates. The police would be here soon.
“What happened?” Chute said.
I took her down the sidewalk, but couldn’t get her to look away. I held her close. Her breathing was quick and shallow. She was trying to assimilate the impossible. There was a gun. A bullet. And then what?
Chute knew what I was. She knew what I could do. Still, her mind was ordinary. Those were the sort of things that happened in movies. I hated that she was trembling.
A black car pulled up to the curb. It was from the Garrison, slicing time the moment I broke the rules and coming for us. The driver got out and opened the back door. I helped Chute inside. She was still looking at the bodies, wondering if they were dead. She looked back to me, struggling.
“Where am I going? Are you in trouble? Are they…” She looked at the gun. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. And so are you. The driver will take you home, now. You’re safe. We’re all safe.”
She was sorting it out now, grabbing my hand. “You’re going back?”
I hooked my finger around hers. I didn’t have the words to tell her what I was feeling. She didn’t need me to say it, but it would’ve been nice. The driver fidgeted. Chute’s lips quivered, but the words wouldn’t form.
The sirens were near.
I watched the black car drive away. Everything I wanted was in the back seat.
I walked down the middle of the road. Blue lights turned the corner a few blocks back and the sirens wailed. People parted the curtains and looked out their windows, but no one came outside. None would remember seeing black cars. None would remember seeing the boy with white hair drive away.
Pets
“Report to the debriefing room,” was the message I got when I arrived at the Garrison.
I went to the Preserve, instead. The order repeated on my nojakk and I marched through the heart of the jungle. The order finally stopped. Someone would come get me. Eventually.
A few miles later, I stepped out of the trees onto a wide open stone slab with an ancient, barren tree at the far end. The grimmets’ vivid colors squabbled along the limbs. They stared at me approaching, their golden eyes blinking. Their somber mood reflected what they sensed inside me.
They knew me so well.
The slab dropped off like a small cliff into a pond below where the tree was rooted. I sat on its ledge and stared at the sparkling water. A red grimmet came over, wrapped his long tail around my neck.
“It was a disaster, Rudder,” I said. “A freaking disaster.”
I lay back. Rudder reclined on my chest and imitated my posture with his hands behind his head. The moon was nearly full, casting the tree’s shadow over me, but the sky was beginning to lighten where the sun was close to rising in this part of the world. The universe was so vast that light travelled 2,500 years just to reach the nearest galaxy. There were a billion galaxies beyond that with billions of stars in each one. It was all so limitless.
Why do I feel so trapped?
I had the power to do things normal people wished for. I knew more about the mind than psychological experts, but I was the one wearing a leash.
Steps quietly shuffled up behind me. Spindle’s eyelight softly turned the tree trunk red. He waited quietly while I counted stars, following the Big Dipper to Orion’s Belt. Was there someone out there staring back, wondering why life was so unfair, too?
“We must report for debriefing, Master Socket,” Spindle said, softly.
The grimmets stirred, their golden eyes sparkling like the stars beyond. “Do you know why the grimmets are here?” I asked.
“They aid the Paladin Nation.”
“I’ve been here a year and I don’t see them aiding the Paladins. They don’t go anywhere, they’re not involved in training or explorations. So how, exactly, do they aid them, Spindle?”
“Grimmets are masters of psychic technology. They aid cadet awakenings. You have seen them do these things, Master Socket…”
I nodded while he read me the information in his database. He was a company man. Rudder walked to my hand and curled up, closing his eyes, gently purring. I held my evolver up, the one that was damaged during the exercise. It only took a series of thoughts and the grimmets somehow read the technological problems inside and told it to repair itself. It warmed in my hand and I replaced it on my belt. It was fixed. I never had to check their work.
“I have a theory,” I interrupted Spindle’s spiel. “When the Paladin Nation punched a wormhole throughout the Milky Way, they found a habitable planet on the far side of the galaxy with these intelligent creatures.” I held Rudder up by the tail. “And they said, ‘Hey, let’s take them home and add them to our collection.’”
“But, my data suggests—”
“They brought them against their will, Spindle. Dragged them light years from their home into this manufactured forest carved out of a mountain and said here’s your new home, boys and girls. Enjoy. They brought them here to serve. Not to aid, but to serve. Against their will.” I stood up and punched each word with emphasis. “Now, do you think that’s fair, Spindle?”
“I am afraid your hypothesis is incorrect.”
“Yeah? Well, where do you get your information?”
“I am kept up to date with all Paladin records. They are current and accurate.”
“You get your information from the Paladins. They tell you what they want you to know. You don’t know.”
Truth was, I didn’t know, either. I knew what Spindle told me was the standard answer, but I always had a feeling there was another one. The grimmets never told me anything, but I sensed the flock was restless, like they were waiting for something. It was how I felt, too: like something was supposed to happen and we were just waiting until it did.
Only that something never came.
“You ever get the feeling you’re a pet, Spindle?” I pondered the sky. “That you’re just some specimen in a collection?”
“I do not understand, Master Socket. The grimmets are a valuable asset to the Paladin Nation. As are you.”
Valuable asset. My point exactly.
The grimmets were wise. They accepted their imprisonment. Here they were, trapped millions of miles from home and they still found peace and happiness. They still found comfort on a distant planet in a dead tree. I was too stubborn or stupid to do the same.
“We must report for debriefing,” Spindle said.
I placed Rudder in a hole in the trunk. I could see his glowing eyes watch us as we entered the trees.
The Dance of Colors
Paladins took notes on my side of the story. I opened my mind to show them the event recorded through my senses, as I experienced it. I did these things because I was a good soldier. I didn’t like it, but I put those feelings aside. Good boy.
After that, I went back to training. I went back to forgetting what happened with Chute, ignoring how I felt, and I completed my assignments and missions. Pon was busy with Paladin business, didn’t have a chance to meet with me, to pick my analysis of training apart. He relayed commands through Spindle. And I completed them.
In my spare time, what little there was, I went to the moldable training rooms and built isolated environments to help forget about home. Sometimes it was a desert, a tundra or other habitat of equal desolation.
Pon returned weeks later.
I was sitting on top of Mt. Everest. Snow was piled over my lap like a winter quilt, but the seat carved out of ice was otherwise comfortable.
Clouds were strewn below like a cotton bedspread. The air was crisp, rustling my hair. I could not feel the temperature that should’ve been peeling the skin from my face. It was a balmy breeze, despite the altitude and the deadly ice storm approaching on the horizon.
Ten feet in front of me, a doorway opened in space. Spindle walked up the mountainside, buried up to his waist in snow. A gale force wind cut between us, pushing him sideways. It whistled in my ears, holding my hair sideways. Spindle’s faceplate lit up but his words were sheared away. He crawled through the snow until he was at my feet. “Perhaps you could return the room to normal, Master Socket?” he shouted.
I flicked my fingers. The clouds and ice dissolved back into an empty white room.
“Are you feeling well?” Spindle asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Spindle’s face scrambled with colors but he wasn’t able to formulate a response. He looked in one direction, then another. Then, as he often did, returned to the task at hand. “Would you like to consult the evaluation of your training and status now?”
It wasn’t a question, really.
“I think it will cheer you up immensely.” His face was brighter. “Let me show you the data.”
Bright colored bars grew several feet from the floor that rotated, pulsed and spiked. Green, blue, and yellow lines circled the bars like electrical arcs, jumping from one bar to the next. All the colors in the spectrum danced around the room, reflecting in Spindle’s faceplate.
“It is my pleasure to translate the analysis, Master Socket.” In Spindle’s words I was superior, magnificent, and grand. My evaluations were on par with fully realized Paladins. Spindle started with the spiking red bar on his right that represented my raw instincts, citing specific examples in training exercises, even calling up replay videos to point out highlights. Then he moved on to the next bar: timeslicing ability. The next one was speed and agility, then evolver manipulation, tacking aptitude, combat readiness, and so on and so forth.
They were all stupendous.
Socket 2 - The Training of Socket Greeny Page 4
