Psion Delta (Psion series #3)

by Jacob Gowans

  I’m older, stronger, quicker.

  Fortunately, it didn’t matter. Brickert’s shoulders sagged as he sat back onto the bench. “I don’t want to fight you,” he muttered. “Kawai likes Sammy, and when they had lunch on Wednesday, she told him. She said they had a moment where they really connected, but he wouldn’t—whatever—because of you. It was—”

  Jeffie leaned forward and pulled her friend into a tight hug. Brickert was hesitant to return the gesture, but finally did. It bewildered Jeffie to think that she’d already been in a fight with Strawberry, and now had nearly picked one with Brickert.

  “I love you, Brickert,” she breathed to him.

  “Uh. . . . ”

  “Not like that, you idiot. I’m sorry.” She breathed in deeply and let the air out of her lungs shakily. “I am screwed up.”

  Brickert pulled away. “We’re all screwed up, I’ll tell you. Look around. How can we not be?”

  Jeffie nodded, ashamed of her actions.

  Brickert tugged at her hand. “Come on, let’s get breakfast.”

  For the remainder of the day, Jeffie kept a low profile. Strawberry didn’t come to their room, and Jeffie hardly left it. When the hour grew near for her date, she prepped herself as best as she could. Her efforts at applying her own makeup did not measure up to what Strawberry could do. Wearing a pink blouse with baby blue dots and seamless jeans, she left the room feeling as though she’d done her best.

  The night was beautiful. The sun hadn’t quite gone down. The air carried a fresh summer scent of pine and a touch of salty air on the breeze. By the time Jeffie hit the narrow trail to go to their spot, she had regained the spring in her step and hummed a song to herself. Worries of her conversations with the Plack siblings were far away. Kobe hadn’t set candles out this time, and Jeffie had a pretty good idea why. Instead there were four electric lights—one green, one blue, one pink, and one white—at each corner of his new picnic blanket, the old one having been burned by Brickert a few months prior.

  As soon as he saw her, Kobe began playing a slow, classical tune on a harmonica. Jeffie giggled when she heard it. Kobe looked like he was barely keeping a straight face, too. When she sat down, he stopped.

  “Didn’t like my music, huh?”

  “Where did you get that?” she asked.

  Kobe played another couple notes. “It’s Kaden’s. I taught myself that one song for tonight.” He winked at her. “It’s a simplified version of Moonlight Sonata.”

  “Mozart, right?”

  Kobe shook his head.

  “Bach?”

  “Keep trying.”

  “Beethoven!”

  “Ding ding ding.”

  “What can I say?” Jeffie replied smugly. “Music is my strongest subject in Instructions.”

  They made plenty of small talk before Kobe unveiled the dishes he had chosen for the evening. It didn’t take long for conversation to turn to Jeffie’s altercation with Strawberry. After she explained her side of the story, Kobe asked, “Why don’t you tell her you’re sorry?”

  Jeffie scowled. “I tried. She wasn’t in the room when I went back.”

  “Oh . . . right. And Beta headquarters is such a huge place it’d be impossible to find her.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Especially with coms and stuff.”

  “It’s like a technological jungle, isn’t it?” She threw a grape at him, but he caught it in his mouth. She rolled her eyes in response. Kobe grabbed a blade of grass and stuck it between his teeth, rubbing them together and making the grass squeak. He lay down until his head was right next to her. Jeffie followed suit and rested her head next to his, her body pointing in the opposite direction.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to make amends. You know I do!”

  “Mm-hmm,” was his response as the squeaking got louder. “Sure you do.”

  “Ugh. You’re mean.” She turned to look at him to see if he wanted to kiss her. “You remind me of my dad sometimes. You know that?”

  Kobe started to laugh, but then his mouth depressed slightly. The lines deepened around his eyes and forehead as though he was thinking seriously about something. Jeffie watched him for several seconds with a smirk, waiting to see if she could actually witness him grasp whatever thought teased his brain. Finally he stopped chewing on the grass and took the blade out of his mouth to examine it.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Um—nothing.”

  “Tell me.” She nudged him with her elbow.

  Kobe ignored her and rolled the blade back and forth along his tongue. Jeffie would not have it. She jerked up and straddled him across his stomach, tickling his ribs and armpits. “Tell me!” she repeated through gritted teeth, unable to stop her own snickering.

  Kobe laughed, not out of mirth, but because of his ticklishness. “Stop! Stop!” he wheezed.

  But she only put her fingers deeper into his sides. “Are you going to tell me?”

  Jeffie already knew what he was going to say. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but didn’t know how to say it. They’d never said those words to one another, and Jeffie wasn’t sure if she could reciprocate it quite yet. That didn’t stop the thought of Kobe saying it from bringing a pleased smile to her lips.

  Kobe’s face was red and though she could tell he was barely breathing. He still wasn’t willing to confide in her.

  Her tickles became more savage until she knew he must be going mad.

  “All right, I’ll tell!” he gasped.

  Jeffie stopped and slipped off to his side again. Kobe sat up, straightening his hair. His face was still very red and he did not look happy. Jeffie thought for a moment that she had gone too far.

  “Are you angry, Kobe? I’m sorry. I was just playing around.”

  “I—no—I don’t know. No.” He put a hand to his forehead. “No. Not at you. I—I realized something, that’s all. Now I’m mad at myself.”

  “Then why do you seem so upset?”

  His eyes were wide and his face still had that troubled expression. Once again, his fingers went up to his hair, straightening it out and flattening it.

  “Kobe, what is it?”

  He chucked the remains of the grass and turned his head away from her.

  Jeffie had the sudden impression he was doing all this to stall. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you don’t have to say it if you don’t want to.” She rubbed him gently on the shoulder and back. “Really. I won’t push it.”

  Kobe pulled her close and kissed her fiercely. The kiss was both hungry and mournful, lasting for several long, emotional seconds. When it ended, she grinned brightly, but his face still hadn’t changed.

  “I need to tickle you more often.” When her comment did not cheer him up, she held her breath for what was coming.

  “I was supposed to tell you something forever ago, but I only remembered just now.” He stared at his shoes and reached blindly for another blade of grass, picking it and putting it into his mouth, only to take it out right away. She put her arms around him, and he let her hold him for a few seconds before pulling away to face her. “It might be a stupid little thing, I don’t know. I was supposed to tell you before—and I really did forget. You have to believe me. You have to.” His eyes searched hers to see if she did believe him.

  “It’s okay. I won’t be mad.”

  “I know,” he said plainly, looking up at the stars. She thought about taking his hand now, but knew he would pull it away. “I don’t know why this is so hard for me to tell you—well, I know why, but I don’t know why it has to be such a big deal.”

  “Kobe, just say it.”

  “Things have been hard on you since Sammy came back. And then left and came back and left—”

  “Yeah, I get the point,” she said, her smile grew a little bigger.

  Kobe grinned for a second, too, but then it was gone, and Jeffie now doubted her theory about what he was going to tell her.

  “Thanks for giv
ing me a chance again, Jeffie. I didn’t deserve it, but you gave me one anyway, and I appreciate it.”

  Jeffie said, “You’re welcome,” but the words came out so quiet that she didn’t think Kobe heard it.

  “When Sammy and I were in Rio—in the bathroom I told you about. . . . Gosh, that seems like it was years ago, but when we were there, we thought—we knew we were going to die. Sammy was freaking out, crying on the floor, and I told him to pull it together and use his brains to help us. I didn’t know if he could really do it or not. I was so scared. He was so scared. The Thirteens were chasing us. They weren’t far behind . . . so many of them, and we were holed up in this disgusting bathroom.”

  Jeffie felt her arms and back tremble despite the warmth of the evening. Neither Sammy nor Kobe had ever told her about this. Why? And why now? What did I say to remind him of this?

  Kobe hesitated before going on. For a moment, Jeffie thought he might not continue.

  “So then Sammy gets this brilliant idea with the mirror. He tells me and we scramble around to make it work, you know, before the Thirteens come and find us. And we’re sitting there. We’re—we’re waiting there behind a desk piled high with broken glass—waiting to die because Sammy’s idea didn’t seem so brilliant as I heard the Thirteens coming down the hallway, banging the doors open one by one trying to find us. And he says, to me—he says,” Kobe paused and took a trembling breath of air, “‘If I die and you don’t . . . tell Jeffie she reminded me of my mother.’ And I promised him I would, but I didn’t. I haven’t even thought about it until now. I don’t know why—I really don’t. I forgot.”

  He looked at Jeffie and stopped speaking. Jeffie realized that she had tears in her eyes. She hadn’t noticed because she’d been seeing Kobe’s story so vividly in her mind’s eye, it was almost as if she had been there with them.

  “I—I—I don’t know if that means something to you or not, but—” Kobe cleared his throat.

  Jeffie wiped her eyes. The smile was back on her face. Kobe seemed relieved. “Yeah, it means something.”

  “What?”

  “It means I have to go.” She leaned forward and kissed Kobe on the cheek. “I’m sorry. I really am, but I have to go now.”

  Without a backward glance, she stood and ran away before she lost control of herself.

  17.

  Fights

  December 2056

  In Ultramax, inmates showered once a week in single-person stalls. Katie looked forward to her showers more than she could put into words and always used her maximum allotted time. More than once a guard had walked in on her while she was still nude, probably to get a peek of her. Katie had no doubt she was the most attractive inmate at Ultramax, but if the guards wanted to perv on her, what could she do about it?

  Her next shower date fell two days after she’d made her offer to the guards to let her join the fights. As usual, they didn’t speak a word to her and gruffly thrust her inside the stall, slamming the door behind her. The stall was about three meters by three meters with stainless steel walls, floors, and ceiling. The water fell from high above, so high that it could not be reached or adjusted; controlling flow or temperature was impossible.

  About twenty minutes into her session, she was interrupted. Normally she showered for forty-five minutes to an hour, so when the door opened early, she reacted as she would any other day.

  “I’m not done!” she called out, shielding herself.

  The door opened anyway, revealing two male inmates. Both of them were much bigger than her; one was tall and muscular with hair like straw sticking out of the top of his head and buzzed off everywhere else, the other wide and beefy, his hair shorn and replaced by tattoos. Both of the men’s tattoos shifted and changed colors as they moved and flexed their muscles.

  “Excuse me!” she shrieked in her most offended voice. “I’m naked! Get out!”

  The men did not respond. She continued to cover herself, her eyes wide, feigning fright.

  The taller man came at her while the larger blocked the door. Katie recognized murder as thick as lust in the tall man’s eyes as he approached. He had no grin, no emotion except that twisted desire to inflict pain on someone else. Katie backed up to the far wall, shivering with anticipation as the hot water continued to pour over her.

  The instant Tall Man crossed within her reach, her foot shot out like a coiled spring, connecting with the side of the man’s knee. A strained grunt reverberated off the shower walls as the man clutched his leg to the ground. Switching feet, she jammed her heel into his forehead and snapped his head backward into the tiled floor. Groveling and groaning and bleeding from his nose and head, the injured inmate scooted himself toward the door. His clumsy efforts made Katie grin. When Tall Man finally reached his destination, he vomited on himself and passed out.

  The second, larger man’s expression turned curious. She knew he was wondering if she had actually moved as fast as he’d seen. Large Man moved forward cautiously. He dragged Tall Man by the clothes until he was upright against the wall, always keeping his eyes on Katie.

  He rolled his sleeves above his elbows, flexing again as if he wanted to box. Then, using the front wall to push off, he charged like a bull at Katie, no doubt determined to bulldoze her against the back wall and crush her. Using her naked, wet skin to her advantage, she pushed herself off the wall and slid across the soapy tile toward the man’s legs. When they connected, she slammed her fist into his left shin, grabbed his right ankle with a vice-like grip, and jerked with everything she had.

  The attacker’s soles could not grip the soapy, wet steel, and his face slammed into the floor with a cracking sound. Large Man grunted in pain and turned over. Katie got to her feet and faced him once more, allowing him time to get up.

  Now you fear me, don’t you? She grinned at him until his fear grew more visible. That’s right. I own you.

  His emotion fed her more than any prison food could. She took a step toward Large Man. He tenderly stepped backward. Then she launched herself at him, chopping his windpipe and then slugging his gut. Struggling to breathe, the man doubled over and hit the tile face-first a second time. He coughed twice and the rivulets of water swirling around his head turned pinkish. She stood over him, pondering over how she would kill him.

  I can’t, she finally decided. The guards must see I have self-control.

  When the guards came in less than a minute later, Katie faced them defiantly in spite of their guns. They could not kill her in the shower or anywhere else inside the walls, that much she knew. Instead they activated her collar. The effect in the water brought her to her knees in agonizing screams. As she passed out, she hoped that by handling these thugs they would let her fight.

  For the next three days, Katie received no walks in the prison yard and no food. She tried to speak to the guards when they brought her water, but they would not respond. At the end of the third day, with no warning or reason, her collar shocked her again. She slipped off of her bed onto the floor and through the haze of torture saw Schuller in his Elite uniform come into the cell and cuff her wrists and ankles together.

  He carried a bowl of stew and put it on the ground near Katie’s face. Katie lurched until she was able to get her face into the bowl. Famished beyond the point of caring about her appearance, she sucked in mouthfuls of potatoes, carrots, meat, and onion. Even her mother had not made better-tasting food.

  “You still want to fight?” Schuller asked.

  Katie nodded, her head in her bowl, broth soaking into her hair and ears as she continued to eat as fast as she could.

  “We give the winner a whore for an hour,” the guard continued. “I’m guessing that probably wouldn’t be a reward for you unless you’re—”

  Katie shook her head furiously, focused only on her food.

  “Then think of something you want if you win. That won’t be a problem, will it? You’ll make me a lot of money the first couple of fights. I’ll be very grateful if you win them by a narro
w margin. We don’t do points, so you’ll have to pull some of your punches.”

  Katie continued to slurp her stew as she took in every word Schuller said.

  “A couple of warnings. You tell anyone about what’s going on, we will kill you. If you kill anyone in a fight, you’re done. Cut off.”

  Katie nodded again. The stew was now almost gone, but she continued to lick the bowl’s sides.

  “Your first fight is tomorrow. From now on you’ll get a notice taped under your plate or bowl.”

  He took the bowl away. Katie sat up, breathing hard. She spotted a small quantity of soup dribbling down the side of the bowl and would have given a small toe to be able to lick it up.

  “Can I have some more food?” She used her most innocent voice.

  “Sure you can,” Schuller answered as he activated her collar again, sending her to the floor in seizures. “At breakfast.” Then he shocked her a third time so he could take off her cuffs.

  Katie did not sleep well that night. Despite the pangs in her stomach, she couldn’t help but glory in her plan thus far. The thought of her first fight made her giddy. I’ll be very grateful if you win by a narrow margin. It would take all her self-control to prevent herself from killing her opponent, but if doing so led to her eventual escape, she could rein in the bloodlust. Everything else bent to the one goal.

  One goal, always.

  As promised, breakfast came. After eating, Katie began feeling like herself again despite her portion of food still seeming too small. Perhaps that was something she could ask for in reward for winning: larger food portions. Yes, I should request that for starters.

  When the guards came to get her that night, she complied without any acts or hints of aggression. Her opponent was already in the hall. He was a man with an average build, red hair, and a smile that hung crooked on his face revealing mostly chipped teeth. His upper incisor was chipped so badly it had turned a grayish-green.