Psion Delta (Psion series #3)

by Jacob Gowans

  “It’s fun,” Al said. “We’ll let you take it out for a spin when you’re the rover. In the meantime, we’ve set up a perimeter of motion detectors around our sector.”

  “That way we spend a lot of time chasing wild animals,” Jerome added.

  “And the sensors form a grid so we know exactly where the activation occurs within a square meter or two. But the grid only covers the routes that are easiest to travel, so we take the buggy out to scour the rest of the terrain while the squatter watches the sensors and video feed. Easy enough.”

  The rain clouds continued to gather in through the night. Jerome left to do the rounds while Al and Sammy stayed in camp. It wasn’t so bad for the first couple hours catching up with Al, but then Marie called and Al talked to her for over an hour. Every five minutes Al would look up and give Sammy a sheepish grin as though it was somehow fun for Sammy to hear them tell each other how much they were missed and loved.

  When Al finally hung up, he smiled guiltily and said, “Sorry, I didn’t know she could talk that much.”

  Sammy waved it off so Al wouldn’t feel bad. Give me a break, man. You’re the one who kept bringing up new stuff to talk about. Any Thirteens within fifty meters of us heard you.

  This became a pattern over the next few days. Whenever Jerome left for roving duty, Al either spoke with Marie over the phone, or engaged Sammy in long, personal discussions. During the phone conversations, Sammy wanted to throw things at Al’s head to make him see what a doofus he was being. Instead, he promised himself he’d never become so mindless.

  Al asked Sammy lots of questions about life at Beta headquarters, especially in regards to how things had changed under Major Tawhiri’s leadership. Several times Sammy considered telling Al about his girl troubles, but worried it would make him look childish.

  The real excitement throughout the day came when the sensors went off. Every time, without fail, a small thrill shot through Sammy when heard the sound: Deet deet deet! Deet deet deet! Deet deet deet! The computer displayed which grid had been infiltrated, and Sammy or Al would go check it out. About two-thirds of the time they’d find the culprit immediately: low-flying ravens and gulls or occasional sheep. One time Sammy thought he saw a wild horse, but it was so much smaller than the horses he had seen in the South African countryside that he could not be sure.

  The rain fell incessantly, and the nights chilled the Alphas. Someone always had to stay up, so Jerome and Al split the watches in half and told Sammy to sleep. Sammy didn’t like that idea, and told them he’d stay up half the night with each to keep them company. Jerome took the watch the first two nights, and Sammy stayed up until 0200. Jerome didn’t talk much, and when he did it was always about food, particularly bacon. The third night Sammy woke up at 0200 to keep Al company. When he crept out of the small tent, Al was stirring a pot of hot cereal.

  “Where’s Jerome?” Sammy asked. “I thought he was asleep.”

  “Anna called in and asked him to take the bug to check something. Hungry?”

  “Sure. That stuff actually smells good.”

  “I added honey and brown sugar. Don’t tell anyone my secret!” He winked and divided up the food, then bowed his head before eating. This wasn’t the first time Sammy had seen Al pray over his meals. Sometimes he watched Al’s lips move to figure out what he was saying. Growing up, Sammy’s mother had sometimes prayed, but when he asked her about it all she’d said was, “You’ll understand if it’s right for you.”

  “What—uh—what do you say when you pray? You don’t have to tell me if it’s personal, but I’ve seen you do it, and—”

  “I tell God thanks for the food.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “But you pray at other times, too, right?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Al seemed slightly uncomfortable discussing the subject, but Sammy was curious and ignored the tone of voice. “I tell him what I’m grateful for, and I ask him for things.”

  “Doesn’t that make you feel like a kid? I mean, asking for stuff and saying ‘thank you?’”

  “That’s the way I look at it. He’s the parent and I’m the child. He watches out for me.”

  “Do you believe it was God who saved you when Wrobel and Katie got us?”

  “Yeah, I do. Not to belittle what you did, but I think God helped you to help me. I hope you don’t take offense to that.”

  “No, I don’t,” Sammy was quick to say, even though he wasn’t sure it was true. After all, Sammy had saved Al. Not anyone else. Another question tickled the back of his mind, but he didn’t say the exact words he wanted to ask. “How do you know if something good is from God or if it’s from coincidence or someone’s generosity or—or . . . luck?”

  “Or when something bad happens?” Al answered right back. Somehow, he knew exactly what Sammy had been getting at.

  Sammy closed his eyes. The image of Stripe appeared very fresh in his mind and he could hear the Aegis’ voice going on about the wonders of pain. For a small moment, the dull ache of a crocodile’s biting jaws returned to his leg. His heart went from calm to pounding in an instant. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “If God is there, why would he let me suffer like that for two months?”

  “I don’t know, Sammy. I just say thanks whenever something good happens no matter what. Bad stuff happens to everyone. I lost my mom, you lost both your parents, but none of that even compares to what happened to you in Rio. You have a lot of reason to wonder if anyone is watching out for you.”

  Sammy still didn’t want to open his eyes. He wondered why his parents hadn’t given him answers to these questions.

  Al continued speaking, his voice unusually gentle. “You could also ask yourself how you got that knife in your hands—the one that enabled you to break out of the torture room. Or how did you survive Baikonur with a gun pressed to your head? I hope that doesn’t sound trite because I don’t know the answers. I don’t know if there’s a God. I believe it and feel it sometimes. I think all the bad stuff is a product of the world we’ve created for ourselves. Some people see all the negative and ask ‘How could God let this happen?’ Others see the good stuff and say, ‘How can people not see God in this?’ A person has to decide which type they are. Once you decide—”

  Deet deet deet! Deet deet deet! Deet – Deet deet deet!

  “Is that two alarms?” Sammy asked, getting to his feet.

  “Yeah. This could be serious. We’ve got one going off in grid one-delta, another in one-kilo.” As he spoke he touched his com. “Anna, we’ve got two signals on our grid. Yazzie is still out on the bug. Berhane and I are checking them out. Can you send over air support?”

  Anna’s tired voice came over the radio. “No problem, Kolomiyets is sleeping and Dinsmore is fueling up. Shouldn’t be but a few minutes. Keep me posted.”

  “I’ll take the one in delta,” Sammy said, checking his weapon and putting in night vision contact lenses from his pack.

  “Keep the com line open,” Al reminded him. “Whisper. No lights.”

  “Okay,” Sammy said. And thank you for saying that every time I check on the sensors, he thought as he grabbed his gear, slung his assault syshée over his shoulder, and activated his night vision. He loved the contact lenses. Everything was as clear as day, only slightly greener. He also enjoyed being the hunter and not the hunted.

  The rain pounded down and filled the air with an endless rattling sound. Each step was followed by a sucking noise as he pulled his boot from the muck that grew sloppier every minute. Sammy couldn’t believe that after two days of this crummy weather, the rainfall was actually getting worse.

  The walk to sector delta one was long and arduous. He wasn’t as familiar with the delta sector as he was with the nearer ones. As he grew closer, the terrain became rocky and slick, and the elevation increased steadily.

  “Sammy,” Al’s voice said over the com, “you okay?”

  “Al, I’m not your little brother,” Sammy answered in a whisper as h
e crouched to the ground, “and I’m not going to announce my position. If I need help or I see something, I’ll let you know.”

  “Sorry. I’m sorry. You’re right, that was stupid.”

  Sammy shook his head. “It’s a good thing I’m not Marie or you’d be checking up on me every five seconds.”

  Al snickered. “Roger that.”

  Sammy climbed upward. The map on his com told him he was now in sector four-echo. The ground leveled off at the top of a steep hill, but there was almost no cover. He kept low to the ground as he walked. In his peripheral vision, something caught his eye. He headed toward it.

  A shoe.

  Yay, he said to himself, a shoe. He picked it up by the sole, but it was much heavier than he’d suspected. When he turned it over, he realized why.

  The foot was still inside it.

  Sammy gasped as he tossed it.

  Just then a loud CAW-CAW to the south startled him as several annoyed birds took flight. He watched them until they were only inky dots on a dark blackish-green background. Carrion crow. He didn’t know how he recognized the species, but he knew he was correct. His focus left the skies and turned to the spot where the crows had taken flight. As he walked south toward it, he retrieved the shoe.

  Not a shoe, he realized as he gave it a second look, it’s a boot—an Elite boot.

  The birds had taken off from a spot about thirty paces away. He pushed on toward it. The rain still poured. The terrain was now downhill and steep. The mud grew slicker and soupier as the rain hammered the earth harder than ever. Waterproof though his clothes were, it didn’t stop the water from getting under the suit, irritating him each time a few drops ran down his back. Not far from where he guessed the birds had been, he found a leg. What disturbed him most was that birds weren’t the only animal that had eaten chunks out of it. Some of the bites looked like human teeth marks.

  “Anna,” he said over his com, “I’ve found . . . remains. It’s an Elite boot and leg and it’s been cannibalized.”

  Buh-ROOOOOM!

  The entire world exploded in light as lightning rent the air and shook the ground. Blinded, Sammy grabbed at his face as the sky belched an ugly roar. Forgetting himself, he stumbled as he rubbed his eyes. The mud under his boots gave way, and he slipped and slid down the hillside. He tried to grab something, digging his palms and heels into the earth, but even blasting wouldn’t slow him down. The mud—and everything in it—was sliding with him.

  “I’m in trouble!” he yelled into his com. His vision was still blurry from the lightning, but getting better. The base of the steep hill rushed up at him. Mud covered his body, covered his legs. Only his head and neck were free.

  “What’s going on, Sammy?” Anna asked.

  “I’m caught in a mudslide!”

  “Use your—”

  “I can’t use my blasts!” he yelled. “They aren’t helping.”

  The mud washed Sammy into a small cave under the rock in a deep valley, probably near or along one of the more commonly explored trails through the area, but he couldn’t be sure. His guns were gone, but his com had stayed on his head. The fissure in the rock, now rapidly filling up with mud from the slide, was low and went at least four meters deep into the earth.

  His hand reached for the ground to push himself up. What it found instead was another human leg. Sammy looked back.

  “LIGHTS!” he cried. The light on his com burst to life, automatically deactivating his night vision contacts. Four dead bodies occupied the shallow space with him—a woman, a man, and two kids. The mud continued to pour into the cramped cave. These bodies’ faces would soon be covered.

  If this family was killed by our targets, we’ll need pictures. He glanced back again at the opening. I don’t have enough time!

  For all he knew, it could take days to uncover the bodies with all the mud coming in. His team didn’t have that kind of time. But if he didn’t get out immediately, he’d be buried with them.

  Mission or mud, Sammy? he asked himself. He took a deep breath and made his choice. “Camera!” he shouted, activating the feature on his com. “You guys better find me or I’m dead!” he said to his team.

  “Got a solid read on your position,” Anna told him. “Help is coming!”

  He took four pictures, one of each face. Satisfied he’d gotten what his team needed, he turned and tried to plow his way out. The ceiling of the cave was too low to stand straight up. Blast jumps were out of the question. He tried using light foot blasts to get his feet moving, but the torrent of muck was powerful. His legs buckled under the force, knocking him to a sitting position. The onslaught of rain made it worse as water swirled around in puddles on top of the sloshing mud.

  It took great effort to get back to his feet, only to be defeated once more as the weight of more mud slammed into his chest. Sammy swore into his com as he stood a third time on exhausted, shaky legs. “Where are you guys?”

  The mud nearly reached his neck and still it gushed into the cave. Drowning had always seemed a terrible way to die, but drowning in mud? He couldn’t think of anything worse.

  “Almost there, Sammy!” Dinsmore yelled. “You hang on!”

  “Hang on to what?” He had to keep his chin up so the mud stayed out of his mouth. The flow pushed him toward the back of the cave where the bodies of the four victims were now completely covered. He sealed his lips tightly shut as the mud covered his mouth, tickling at the base of his nose. Crying out for help was impossible unless he craned his head back and pressed his face against the ceiling of the cave.

  With nothing else to do, he said a prayer. Please not like this. Not in a muddy cave with other dead people. Let me die in combat, not like this.

  “Grab hold of the line!” Dinsmore’s voice shouted into his ear. “If you can hear us, you have to grab hold of that line!”

  “Where’s the line?” he tried to say, but it came out like a wet splatter. He waved his arms back and forth through the thick muck while trying to keep his nose above it. His legs could hardly move despite how desperately he needed them to.

  Several voices yelled his name and instructions over the com. He heard Al, Justice, Anna, and Dinsmore. Each of them urged him onward. Finally he felt something, but it was impossible to know exactly what. He pulled on it several times and it didn’t give. He wrapped it around his hands as best he could and felt a powerful force yank him through the filthy swamp of the cave. Sammy held his breath as his head went under, now realizing how horribly cold he was. His movement came in jerks. His lungs burned for air.

  I HAVE TO BREATHE! he screamed in his mind. His legs kicked and kicked but nothing happened. And then as every thought started to seem far away and quiet, his brain forced him to breathe, and he sucked down pure mud.

  19.

  Birth

  Monday July 29, 2086

  The Queen waited in line at the information desk in the Johannesburg Hall of Records. In front of her stood three geriatric women who smelled like perfume and body powder. Behind her were two police officers armed with their electric guns. The Queen smirked at the NWG’s stupidity with its naïve anti-gun laws. Even after all these years, they still hadn’t repealed them.

  The old women wanted access to a set of volumes for their genealogical research. “We came here last week,” one of them explained in a high, breaking voice, “but you gave us volume twenty-E. We asked for twenty-F.”

  “Do you have the required paperwork?” The middle-aged lady behind the counter peered over her spectacles at the three elderly women, unimpressed by their age and plight. “You need to submit forms three-four-six M and Z thirty-nine.”

  “We submitted those last time!” the middle elderly lady answered. “You gave us the wrong volume.”

  “I didn’t!” the employee replied indignantly. “Perhaps someone else did, but you still need to follow the policies.”

  The three women heatedly discussed the situation amongst themselves and then requested the forms to complete. N
one of them looked happy as they marched off muttering about their woes.

  The lady behind the counter next turned her attention to the Queen. “And how may I help you, Miss?”

  “Treze. I’m Kathy Treze.” The Queen smiled prettily. “I have a request for the personal effects and belongings of Samuel Berhane, Jr. They are currently being held in the city archives until his release from incarceration.”

  “And what is your relation to Samuel?”

  “Legal counsel holding power of attorney,” the Queen answered. She slid a folder of forms over the desk. The packet represented several days’ work and expensive forgery.

  The lady looked over the packet. “These forms will have to be examined and verified by our notary public. We will contact you once that’s been completed.”

  The Queen quelled her anger by imagining digging out this woman’s eyes with the shards from her hideous glasses. “Very well. It’s taken me two weeks to compile all this for you. What’s a few more days?”

  The lady at the desk scratched her temple absentmindedly, as though she wasn’t sure if the Queen meant that as a sign of patience or sarcasm.

  She turned to leave, but one of the officers stopped her. “Did you say Samuel Berhane?”

  The Queen gave the officer a cold expression. “It’s none of your business if I did.”

  “That little prick shot me with my own gun a year and a half ago. Keep him locked up as long as you can.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Officer.”

  “Yeah, you do that.”

  She memorized the name on his badge as she walked past him to the doors. Someone else was coming inside. A huge man with swirling and dancing tattoos running up his arms in a colorful sleeve. They even went up his neck and circled his cauliflower ears. He nodded at her with a leering grin as he held the door for her, but the Queen didn’t see him anymore. She remembered Leviathan.