Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga

by Bertauski, Tony

  My imbed deciphered the marble as he rolled it up and down his fingers like a magician. What looked like a child’s plaything was actually a complex piece of gear that would allow someone to codebreak encryptions. Mr. Black was not likely to use such a device for the betterment of mankind. And Streeter would know that. Why would he do that?

  “If you’ll allow me just a moment to verify the contents,” Mr. Black said, “I’ll be done before you can lick your lips.”

  He stared a moment longer. I had the feeling he was staring at my eyes and I was suddenly aware of my imbed’s effect on them. Patrick held the marble out to Edward without looking away. Edward took it around to the cab of the truck.

  Patrick’s cologne stung my nostrils but it still wasn’t strong enough to mask the smell of his burning skin that emanated from tiny discs buzzing behind his ears. His stink was worse than any of the other burners because he’d been doing it for so long. A real veteran of gear addiction, he smelled like summer roadkill.

  I turned to Streeter. “You all right?”

  He wouldn’t look directly at me, but I could see his enlarged pupils and the inflamed ring around his irises. He wasn’t in Charleston the other day seeking help. He was with Patrick, but for what? Streeter had everything he needed at home, why would he go to a void merchant? He knew this guy was a new-age heroin dealer, giving his clients free mood discs until they were hooked. Maybe this was more about addiction then his dead parents.

  “Mr. Street is quite a talented codebreaker, would you agree?” Patrick said.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  I didn’t mean here in the parking lot or dealing gear. I wanted to know why he bothered leaving virtualmode to come back to his rotting skin. He knew exactly what I meant, but it didn’t phase his fake smile. Only made it grow.

  “I like to get back to the skin every once in a while,” he said. “Mix it up a bit.”

  More burners were near us, most of them staring at Spindle. They were all teenagers.

  “Why don’t you go somewhere else, recruit your own kind, not these people,” I said. “They’re just kids.”

  “My friend, I don’t need to recruit; they line up for my services. Like children at an ice cream truck. They need what I have.”

  “You’re making them that way.”

  He frowned. “I haven’t done anything. I’ve only extended my hand, they simply take what’s in it.”

  “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

  “Yes, I do. I’m giving them what they want. Tell me, where is the crime in that? How am I responsible?”

  “They don’t know what they want.”

  He gestured to the crowd that seemed to be waiting for us to be done, to have their turn. The smell of smoldering flesh grew stronger.

  “Clearly, they do,” Patrick said.

  Edward came back around and nodded, then fixed his stare on me. Patrick took a red disc from his pocket and held it between his finger and thumb. Streeter reached for it but Patrick snatched it back.

  “We had a deal,” Streeter muttered through thin lips.

  “I’m curious.” He gestured to Spindle. “Tell me about the mech, first.”

  “He’s not for sale,” I said.

  “I see.” He nodded for awhile, studying Spindle while he rolled the disc in his fingers, purposely tempting Streeter until he started to fidget. Patrick pushed off the tailgate and circled around Spindle, tugging at the ridiculous overcoat.

  I scanned the security lookits through my imbed. Normally, they would’ve made a few passes through this area by now but I hadn’t seen one since leaving the stadium. It appeared they had been reprogrammed to avoid Patrick while he did business. No doubt, he had the gear to do that sort of thing so I reset the security paths. One would be around within minutes.

  “Very impressive.” Patrick peeked into Spindle’s hood. “Where do you get one like this?”

  “My parents are rich.”

  “Oh, I’ve got money, my friend. Surely, you have a price. Everyone has a price.”

  “I’ve got everything I need.”

  “Perhaps your friend has a price?” He went to Streeter and looked down on him. “Mr. Street seems to need something?”

  “Listen, there’s a lookit coming this way in another minute,” I said. “We’re done here.”

  Streeter wasn’t about to leave until he got what he came for. And Patrick didn’t seem concerned about the incoming lookit, and even less concerned how I knew it was coming.

  “You promised,” Streeter growled. “I did what you asked, now give it to me.”

  “Of course, my friend, I will give you what you want. First, I need you to give me what I want.”

  “I did.”

  He put his arm around Streeter and stroked his cheek, whispering, “My wants have changed.”

  I closed in on Patrick. Edward met me there and the four of us stood uncomfortably close like we were about to dance. I pulled Streeter to the side. “We’re finished, Mr. Black.”

  Patrick held up the glittering red disc like a valuable jewel. Streeter was visibly shaking.

  “I offer access to dreams,” Patrick said.

  “Not interested,” I said.

  “Mr. Street is terribly interested, I’m afraid to say. You see, he wants what I have, what everyone wants.” He took Streeter’s hand and placed the item in his palm, gently closing his fingers around it. “He wants his heart’s desire.”

  The lookit arrived and did a slow loop overhead, its eyelight pointed at us. Patrick watched it but spoke to me. “You see, I’m doing nothing illegal, my friend. I’m giving people their dreams. Can you do that? Can you make their dreams come true?”

  Streeter pushed through the crowd and ran through the parking lot. Patrick pulled his glasses down his nose. His enlarged pupils had nearly swallowed the whites of his eyes, reflecting the headlights behind me. If I could take this guy out, there would just be another one to take his place. How could I argue with him? What people wanted was to fulfill their emotional and physical desires, to get happy and get rid of weakness. To not be afraid. There would always be someone like him to sell that to them, even if the price was steeper than they could ever imagine.

  “Maybe we’ll meet again, my friend.” He flicked his hand at me, as if he’d given me permission to leave.

  Spindle and I left the crowd without incident. The scent of charred skin faded behind us. The only way I’d see that cockroach again was if Streeter came back. And I intended to put a stop to that.

  T R A I N I N G

  The key

  Holographic fireworks exploded above the stadium followed by the announcer shouting above the roar of the crowd.

  CHHHUUUUUUUUTTE!

  “Wait, Streeter.” I caught up to him just as he was leaving the parking lot.

  “Go away.”

  “What’re you doing? This isn’t like you.” I stepped in front of him but he cut around. “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  His lips were tight, and there were too many lines around his eyes. He was lying.

  I caught up, again. Spindle was trailing behind. “I want to know where you think you’re going.”

  “You deaf? I’m going home.”

  “No bullshit, Streeter,” I said, flatly. “Where you going?”

  He shut down, marching toward the front of the school with a distant stare.

  “What’d Mr. Black give you?”

  “Candy. Chocolate covered candy. Now, can I go home and eat it, or do you want me to share?”

  He was squeezing the object in his hand like he was hanging on for his life. I chopped his hand as his arm swung back and the disc dropped in the grass. I picked it up. The center was ruby red, glittering with depth. My imbed read the contents, drawing its data inside and deciphering the code. It was an access key to a moody den in downtown Charleston.

  “Give it back.”

  “Just tell me what’s going on.” I tossed it b
ack. “I want to help.”

  “You want to help? Then get out of my way.”

  “Seriously, just tell me why you’re going there.” I put my hand on his chest and he finally stopped. “That’s all I want to know.”

  He rubbed the ruby center with his thumb and sighed, looking off in the distance. Maybe it was my touch, or just someone finally caring about where he was at and what he was going through.

  “It’s just a gear booster, that’s all,” he said. Lie. “My home gear is junking, I need more dataflow to, you know, go to that one… place.”

  “Back to the gates?”

  He nodded.

  “I thought you were going to get help?”

  “I will,” he said. “After.”

  “I don’t think you should go.”

  “Yeah, well it’s my life.”

  “That’s a key, Streeter. It’s not a gear booster.”

  “Then why’d you ask? Look, if you want to stop me, fine; go ahead and stop me. I don’t give a fuck because in another week you’ll be gone and I’ll go get another one.” He threw the thing at me. “Keep that for a souvenir.”

  “How can you do this? That guy’s a void merchant. You’ll be hooked.”

  “I’ll take the chance.”

  “You want to be one of them?”

  He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I got to do what I got to do.”

  I dropped my hand and he didn’t run. He just stared down.

  “You don’t know what that’s like,” he said. “I got to see my parents and I’ll do whatever I got to do.”

  The key twinkled, like it agreed.

  “Your parents are gone, Streeter. You’re still alive, don’t do this to yourself. You got to let it go.”

  He looked off to the side and sort of laughed. “Man, I at least thought you’d understand.”

  “My old man is gone, Streeter. I know that. I don’t need to spend time on a memory. You got to face the facts, you’re addicted to gear. Don’t let a memory ruin your life.”

  He was nodding and, for a moment, looked like he was considering what I said. He was trying to go somewhere that didn’t exist anymore. He was trying to go back home, back to a time when he was a little boy and his mom and dad were still around. But that was a memory and he was here and now. He couldn’t throw his life away for something that didn’t exist.

  “Give me the key, I’ll use it now or I’ll get one for later. Either way, I’m going and you can’t stop me. It’s my life. Go live your own.”

  “Forget it.” I clenched my fist. “I’ll assign a Paladin sentry wherever that key leads. I’ll send doctors to your house, if that’s what it takes. I’m not letting you do it.”

  I couldn’t do any of those things. He knew it.

  His energy swirled darkly around him with waves of blue and violet, saturated with grief. His chest heaved.

  “I don’t have anyone,” he whispered. “You know that? I’m all alone. I just got some things to say to my folks, that’s all. I know that doesn’t make sense to you, you don’t have to feel, but I… I do. I just think, maybe, things will be easier if I see them one last time. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “This is wrong, you need help. I know it stinks, but sometimes the right thing smells like shit.”

  “If it smells like shit,” he said, “it’s shit, Socket.”

  Halftime had arrived and it seemed like half the crowd was walking past us, laughing and having a good time, but whispering after they passed. They recognized Streeter, the school’s virtualmode king, the number one codebreaker, slumped over on the front steps with some white-haired stranger and a goofy trench coat man. Stranger. Is that what I’d become? A cold-blooded asshole?

  He wiped his nose and eyes.

  The facts were this: He was going. Now or later. I’d rather be with him if he was going to do this. I could protect him if I was there, but if he went alone there was no telling what would happen.

  “Promise you’ll get help after this?” I held up the key.

  He nodded.

  “I mean real help. Like a family counselor and gear addiction therapy. I mean it, I’ll tell my mother to send the best doctors.”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding, looking up. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

  I sent Spindle to fetch the car.

  Streeter sat on the step, deflating with relief. I stood in front of him, warding off stares of curiosity, until the black sedan pulled up.

  T R A I N I N G

  Judgment day

  There wasn’t a lot of talking.

  Streeter sat in the passenger seat. His fingers twittered on his leg like his hand was trying to run away. In the window’s reflection, his eyes didn’t look at anything in particular.

  It was stop-and-go traffic until we reached downtown’s historic marketplace, a long narrow building that extended for blocks, where vendors peddled t-shirts, fragrance and sweetgrass baskets to cash-heavy tourists. I found parking halfway down the market in front of an outdoor café, the exact one Chute and I were destined for a week earlier. Streeter sat quietly. Fingers running.

  “You sure you want to do this?” I asked.

  He nodded, got out.

  “Stay here.” I turned to Spindle in the back seat. “Pull the hood tight and don’t move. Stay vigilant. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, Master Socket.”

  I locked the car. Streeter was fidgeting on the curb. “You know where we’re going?”

  “There’s a moody club around the corner. The virtualmode den is in the back.”

  “We’re not old enough.”

  He held the disc between his fingers. “We are now.”

  Streeter led the way. We worked our way around tourists gawking through windows and licking gigantic ice cream cones. We got to the end of the market and turned the corner where bars and restaurants lined the street, the doors open to the sidewalk.

  A five-star hotel was on the corner. Nothing but suits and dresses sat in the first floor restaurant with padded menus that didn’t have prices. Next door, techno music thumped where singles got their freak on. Sandwiched in-between the five-star restaurant and techno bar was a door with peeling red paint. A barrel-shaped man sat on a stool in front of this door.

  Streeter held out the disc. It took the man a moment to even see him. He scrunched his face like he was about to tell him to beat it until he saw the disc. He looked twice, thought about smacking Streeter for the hell of it, then pressed the disc into the palm of his glove. He handed it back and simply nodded.

  Above the red door, in small, old-school neon lights, was a sign. Judgment Day. Behind the door was a flight of stairs. Streeter took a hesitant step inside and I followed. The door slammed behind us, sealing out the traffic and music like a tomb. The stairwell smelled like 500 years of mold, made my head light as if memories of the building tried to get inside me. A single light bulb hung at the top of the steps. Someone had gouged Stairway to Heaven into the first step.

  The walls were smeared with graffiti. Most were names immortalized with the tip of a knife or a Sharpie, or just statements of who loved who forever and ever. Then there was one that hit me. Paladins Feed on the World. And if that wasn’t clear enough, Paladins Suck Ass.

  I wanted to put my fist through the wall. Without the Paladin Nation, the world would be dead. And they embrace the enemy? Pon’s voice echoed from somewhere deep in my brain.

  We don’t ask for permission to serve.

  At the top of the steps, another man on another stool. Not as round, but just as big. He stared at us all the way to the top. Streeter held out the disc. He pressed it to his glove without taking his eyes off Streeter.

  He nodded, then held the disc up like a communion wafer. Streeter, unsure, plucked it from his fingers. The guy didn’t move. The door behind him was old and peeling, too, but this one had a crystal doorknob. Streeter put his hand on it, turned slowly. Heaven’s inside.

  The room inside was
reddish, long and narrow. A bar was along the left wall. A bartender leaned on the polished surface; another guy was on a barstool. His tie was loose. He had no drink.

  Booths were along the right, filled with people. Most were young, some were locals. They had their fingers dipped in a black saucer in the center of each table. Some had their heads back, some slumped over, their eyes glassy and aimless. Moody bowls. Unlike the moody discs Patrick was dealing, moody bowls were legal mood enhancers. The body’s natural opiate. Make life feel better, dip into a moody bowl today.

  The government ruled years ago that moodies were no more dangerous or addictive than a cup of coffee. “It’s just a little escape,” the woman in the commercial used to say, with her frizzy hair and crying baby. “Who doesn’t need a vacation now and then?” She looks back at the baby, then puts her thumb in a small moody bowl. Her eyes close. “I know I do.”

  The booths had teenagers and adults, some with clothes that needed washed, and others looked like lawyers or doctors. They could’ve been my next door neighbors. Escape had them mesmerized, escaping whatever they were running from. They tricked the brain to boot out good feelings, that the world was all right, just like it was when they were kids watching their favorite show. I love you, you love me…

  The crowd in the middle of the room was more sophisticated. They belonged in the five-star restaurant instead of the moody den. They sat at elevated tables or stood in groups swaying to the soft notes of a piano playing somewhere in the back. They smiled and laughed, spoke in hushed tones. They all looked around every few seconds, like they were waiting for something.

  We politely worked our way around the tables and between the well-to-do people that ignored us like kitchen help. One lady grabbed my hair and let it fall between her fingers. “Nice hair,” she said. Her pupils were enlarged, but she still had irises. Not yet a void, but on her way.