Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga

by Bertauski, Tony

  He rubbed his whiskers and it sounded like a steel brush.

  “They’ve been watching you journey through this insanity. They’ve looked inside your mind and observed your struggle, your resistance. In most cases, the Trial would be over by now, but Pivot brought you here.”

  “But why?”

  “You’ve got one last resolve.”

  He scratched at the whiskers again and gazed into the fire, allowing the moment to stretch out. Pivot was still out in the dark.

  “You’re not real,” I said. “You died. I’m dreaming you like all the rest of this trial. You’re a hallucination.”

  “Correct.”

  “Then what’s to resolve?”

  He grunted, which was part laugh, part acknowledgement. The firelight flickered in his eyes.

  “Most of what we assume is reality is our own thoughts, our unresolved emotions, our lack of understanding. That’s what the Realization Trial is about, purging your depths, exposing your soul. There can be no preconceived notions about what it’s about. You cannot prepare for it, you can only be open. You arrive naked and journey into the mind.”

  “Into the night,” I muttered.

  “For some, the depth of the soul is very dark.”

  My thoughts became real. I couldn’t escape them. The more I fought the hole, the deeper I sank, the more I was lost. I was crushed under my own delusions and forced to understand. To die. To be reborn.

  “You see clearly now,” he said. “And it comes with immense power, strength and fearlessness.”

  “I wasn’t afraid to begin with.”

  His laughter echoed deep into the canyon. “Fear has many faces, my son! Anger is just one. The Paladins held up a mirror for you to see.”

  “Is that what you are? A reflection?”

  “I’m a bit more than that.”

  “Then what?”

  He half turned to Pivot. His expression softened, sadness taking the edges off his wrinkles. “You see, Pivot absorbed all my memories when I died, I suppose for this very event to take place. I walk, I talk, I act just like your father, but basically I’m a program.” He rubbed his thick, callused hands in front of the fire. “So no, I’m not real. I’m more like a ghost.”

  “You’re data.”

  “That’s another way of putting it.”

  “You remember Streeter?”

  “Your best friend? He was about as tall as a stump and just as wide.” He chuckled to himself. “How is good ole’ Streeter?”

  “Nevermind.” I didn’t want to talk about Streeter and the virtualmode trip to see his parents. This was getting way too real for me. Data, or not.

  “Before you return to physical reality, you have one last obstacle to resolve. Not all cadets survive the Trial, son. Many of us weren’t capable of letting go of our beliefs and thoughts.” The fire tossed out a streaking ember. “You have one last attachment.”

  The swelling hiccupped in my chest, spreading outward. “I’ve seen the ugly, rotting images of myself. I faced them and reclaimed them. There’s nothing left.”

  “Ah, yes. There’s still one more.” A smile and a sparkle told me it was standing in front of me. “Pivot felt you needed this last one to be special. It’s a tough one.”

  “But you’re not real, and you know that. I went through hell back in that hole and, to be honest, I’m not feeling like there’s anything left. I mean, you died and that’s that.”

  He dipped his head. The authenticity of the expression was chilling but my chest was warm. Something was growing. The experience of omnipresence was missing.

  “I’m as real to you as I need to be.”

  “I barely remember you.” Something twisted in my stomach and I resisted letting it in, but the instinct to open to it, to be with it, took over and I felt it ache. The swelling entered my chest.

  My father looked at the stars, searching the constellations. When the right thought hit him, he said, “You still got that scar behind your ear?”

  I touched the raised line behind my right ear.

  “I pushed you too high on a swing set when you were three, cut you open on the chain. You bled like a water hose. I caught ten degrees of hell from your mother for that.”

  The memory crossed my mind. I was telling him to push me higher. Nothing could hurt me. His powerful hands were on my back and sent a fluttering buzz through me each time he shoved. I soared to the peak of the swing set, gripping the chains tight enough to dent my palms and for a second I was weightless. I laughed and screamed, Higher, go higher, Dad. My father would say Oh, higher still, huh? And then I felt it again, his hands on my back and a sudden surge of power.

  The swelling flooded my throat.

  “You want my favorite memory?” He shook his head and looked up. “They had this ride at the fair that shot five hundred feet off the ground. You were too young to go, but you went anyway. You were so scared I thought you were going to squeeze my kidneys out.” He watched the fire, his expression still. “I liked being there for you, son. It wasn’t the ride or the other stuff, it was just being there. That’s my favorite part.”

  Suddenly, I’m losing track of what’s real again. I know I’m in front of a fire and my skin is somewhere on Earth, but now I’m watching my father laugh. I remember his face when I was young. He was always unshaven. Mother liked that about him, always a little rough and unpredictable. So did I.

  I remembered him at the fair. We were eating fried food and my father was holding my mother’s hand like they were teenagers, their hands swinging between them. She was laughing. He was, too. But then the memory transforms into a rainy day and he was lying in a coffin and Paladins were lowering him into the ground. Drizzle beaded on the casket lid.

  All I can muster is a whisper.

  “Why’d you die?”

  The fire was just embers glowing in a ring of stones, just enough light to keep his face out of the dark.

  “I didn’t leave you, son.”

  “That’s not the question. Why did you die?”

  He looked into the fire.

  “Answer the question.” The swelling was heavy; it took my strength and blurred my vision. The glowing embers smudged in streaks of light as my eyes got wet.

  “You left us…”

  The swelling sprang a leak in my throat. Emotion gushed out. But I had more words. I swallowed back the leak.

  “You left Mother… and she never smiled again. How could you do that to her? How could you… just leave us? If you loved us…”

  I sniffed back the snot and blotted my blurry eyes with my sleeve. The swelling was like an overfilled water balloon. It was about to pop, but I just wanted to know…

  “If you loved us…” I’ve always wanted to know. “Why did you have to die?”

  The balloon broke.

  A flood of emotion, warm and deep, coursed through me, releasing the hidden sadness and deep longing lodged somewhere deep. It filled. It gave.

  I shook, holding back the sobs, but they weren’t to be denied. Once again, instinct took over and I opened to the essence coming forth, allowed it to flow within me. I was completely helpless.

  Completely vulnerable.

  The last resolve.

  “You see clearly now, son.” My father’s arm gently draped across my shoulders and pulled me tight. For a moment, just a split second, the essence of my father – his smell and tone – transformed and I sensed Pon sitting next to me. And then it passed in the unfolding of my emotions because I understood Pon had been filling that hole inside me. The hole missing a father.

  The fire was gone but the warmth remained.

  I’m nowhere again. I have no eyes, yet I see. No ears, yet I hear. I bathe in the deep, pervading love that has been inside me my entire life.

  I have no thoughts of returning to my skin withering on the floor of the arena. I could allow it to pass on and those I cared about would mourn. I envision their faces, but one stands out in more detail than the others. Chute. She’d
find happiness after my body died. Eventually.

  All the possible pasts and futures lay before my mind’s eye, once again. I allow one path to choose me. I don’t follow its future to see where it leads, where it would end and how. I don’t ask if Chute is in it or if the world is safe; I only allow it to take me.

  Somewhere in the flow of time, I feel my limp body. My awareness contracts, rushing past pulsars, through galaxies and solar systems, racing with the solar winds. Back to my skin.

  An ocean crashed somewhere.

  Feeling returned to my extremities, vibrating like I’d been sitting on my legs too long. My fingers trembled on the quaking floor. The ocean grew louder as if a wave would soon fall on me.

  You see clearly.

  My eyelids fluttered. The putty floor was below. The arena.

  No salty air blew in from an ocean. No waves crashed. It was applause shaking the foundations of the enormous room.

  I couldn’t lift my head, but I could see the blurry Paladins standing in their seats. They were clapping, shouting my name, roaring with approval. No Paladin had ever sustained a timeslice of that length without life support.

  Be the path.

  Servys blocked my view, their rubbery arms slapping lifepatches to my neck that pierced my arteries and dumped emergency carbohydrates and electrolytes and other life giving components. The sustenance rushed inside like a cool drink, tingling my nervous system. They hovered around me like satellites, tending to my weak pulse, cradling it lightly, bringing it back so that I could reside in the skin once again.

  And the cheers went on.

  The Paladins were congratulating each other, shaking hands and patting backs. The Paladin Nation took a leap in evolution that day. What new skills did I bring back from the brink of annihilation? How many more Socket Greenys could they create and how soon? Oh, the possibilities! It was a time to rejoice, indeed. Long live the Paladin Nation!

  But I brought back so much more than any of them realized. I returned to serve life, not the Paladin Nation. And as my vision cleared and focus returned, I saw the path before me. I saw the light pulsing around some of the Paladins and the dim deadness around the others. It was the same differences I witnessed when the Trial began, but now I saw it so much more clearly.

  And understood what it meant.

  “Spindle.” I managed barely a whisper, but it would be enough. “Protect.”

  Spindle crackled from a timeslice, appeared over my helpless body. With his legs on each side of me, he was poised for battle.

  The most powerful people in the world were gathered in that room celebrating a new era. But they did not see the path. They could not see what was right in front of them.

  I will show them.

  “Come now, Spindle.” The Commander’s voice resonated above the noise. “Let the boy breathe. The battle is over.”

  No, Commander. The battle is just beginning.

  T R A I N I N G

  The turn

  The Paladins came down from the seats still clapping. It was a historic moment. The Commander would forever be known as the one that mentored Socket Greeny. He didn’t notice Spindle still crouched over me; eyelight scanning. When the Commander gave an order, it was followed; especially when it was given to a mech.

  But Spindle overrode the direct command to step away. He was assigned to protect my life and to abort commands when the situation demanded it. Spindle didn’t ask why I gave the protect command. He only heeded.

  The servys had formed a circle around me, like a crime scene, and took turns administering lifepatches wherever they could find an artery.

  I needed strength. Every lifepatch was sucked dry. Servys scrambled to change them, but I drained them faster than they could get them primed and replaced. My blood pressure picked up. I slid my hand across the floor. I’d be able to sit up soon.

  [I’m vulnerable to psychic attack,] I thought to Spindle. [Quietly call the servys into a tighter position and be prepared to erect a psychic shield.]

  Spindle didn’t reply or ask for clarification. His eyelight brightened with acknowledgment.

  [Lock the arena down on my signal. Allow crawler guards entry, but no exits. No one in this room is allowed to leave. Also, give the order to lockdown timeslicing so that nothing is allowed outside the standard procession of time. Everything inside has to remain in regular time—]

  “Spindle!” The Commander’s expression was mildly agitated. “Step down from the cadet.”

  He would’ve come across the room, but another contingent of Paladins approached with hands to shake and backs to pat. The Commander glanced at me and doubt crept over his face. Why is Spindle on protective alert?

  He wouldn’t figure it out. He couldn’t see, not yet. He couldn’t see what I was seeing. He could see the energy around the Paladins, of course, but not the variations between these subtle differences in energy, how some vibrated in waves and others were dim imitations.

  The Commander couldn’t see that he was surrounded by the enemy.

  Perhaps the Commander sensed something was wrong — Spindle’s unexplained behavior and the insatiable rate at which I was consuming lifepatches — but he was distracted. Even if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t see what was coming. And I couldn’t warn him.

  The vision would be revealed to all of them soon enough, just a few more lifepatches, a bit more sustenance, enough that I could survive the revelation. After that, my life was in Spindle’s hands. Will that be enough?

  The servys blinked with confusion and began to send out the warning that I was overconsuming the lifepatches. The ground was littered with them. Something was wrong. Spindle overrode their calls and ordered them to continue and maintain tighter formation.

  A curious energy buzzed in the room. Paladins were beginning to notice the servys’ agitation. They had witnessed hundreds of Realization Trials and probably stood around while the cadet recovered until he or she could stand and be congratulated. They knew how long it took, they were aware of what it was like to recover, and they were becoming aware something was abnormal.

  They looked more often, their glances lingering. But it wasn’t the Paladins’ stares I sensed. The enemy’s True Nature was about to be revealed and, somehow, they felt it coming. Perhaps they sensed the room locked down. Their minds quietly scanned for possible escapes, preparing for the worst. They could handle betrayal, but not in this setting. They were sheep disguised as lions.

  Footsteps pounded. “This is unacceptable, Spindle,” the Commander said. “Step down before you are forcibly removed.”

  Just another minute. I just need a little extra to survive.

  “Is this understood?” the Commander spoke his last warning deeply.

  Paladins now gathered. Spindle’s eyelight spun around his head, calculating position. His body posture readjusted as they surrounded us. The enemy, however, broke away unnoticed and gathered in small groups. Something’s coming.

  “What’s the meaning of this, Commander?” a Paladin spoke. “Your servant mech is taking an aggressive stance. I suggest immediate powerdown before—”

  “Thank you, Captain Dushawn,” the Commander snapped.

  Just a bit more.

  The Commander’s lips curled, about to utter his last order when Spindle’s eyelight focused on him. “You must prepare, Commander.”

  The Commander’s hand moved near his evolver. He sensed it now. The room rippled with tension. The enemies had fully positioned themselves in one large group. The Paladins sensed the tension without knowing where an attack was coming.

  Or who.

  I needed more lifeforce, but there was no time. I couldn’t let them strike first. It had to be—

  SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSDDOOOOOOOOHPPBM.

  The sub-sonic wave detonated from my core, rattling the floor. It went through them like gamma rays, stripping away their subtle delusions, revealing the enemy’s true nature. The telekinetic wave imparted a sixth sense for all to see that the enemies among them
hummed with duplicated tissues and blood and organs. They thought with processors. Followed programming. They were imitations of life.

  A third of the Paladins are duplicated humans.

  The last thing I heard was the sizzle of weapons.

  How could this happen? The greatest race of humans infiltrated by the very falseness they sought to extinguish. A third of them were duplicated. Were we too busy looking to save the weaker human race, so consumed by protecting what we perceived as the less worthy, that we didn’t see what was in our own house?

  Half the servys were gone when I awoke covered in lifepatches. We were overshadowed by the long legs of crawler guards, their legs anchored around us like a prison cell. Outside the circle the war raged on.

  It was a slur of bodies and weapons. I blinked away the moisture building in my eyes just enough to see a dismembered arm beyond the crawler legs, the fingers still twitching like it was trying to grasp the evolver club just out of reach.

  I blinked again.

  More bodies were piled up and there were fewer servys. I was covered in sticky fluid that tasted a bit like clay. And there was one less crawler. I felt pressure trying to pierce the psychic shield the crawlers had erected. Where were they finding the strength to still attack? And where’s Spindle?

  Another blink.

  The servys were gone.

  One crawler remained. And the pressure felt like someone standing on my skull. The bodies were stacked higher. The arm was joined by a boot with a bone sticking from the top.

  The crawlers had joined the battle, spearing men with their legs or swiping them in half. My eyes were heavy, ready for another blink. The crawlers were battling each other like titans, behemoths piercing each other with deadly legs.

  Why would they be battling each other?

  One man moved swiftly through the mob, his weapon blazing as he cut, pounded and bullied his way in my direction, unconcerned with the battle around him, only where he was going.