Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5)

by Jacob Gowans

  Sammy leaned toward his friend, his book fell to the floor. “Brickert? Hey can you hear me?” He reached over and pressed the call button next to Brickert’s bed. “Brick? You awake?”

  It had been twelve days since the disastrous attack on the Joswang building in Detroit. Brickert had been unconscious all dozen of them. Sammy, Strawberry, Jeffie, and others had taken turns sitting with him for two or three hours at a time, mostly reading aloud in hopes that he could hear. After going through several books, Sammy was now reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  A minute after he pressed the button, Dr. Maad Rosmir entered with an assistant. “What happened? Is he awake?”

  “He moaned.”

  Dr. Rosmir pried open Brickert’s eyes and examined them. “That’s good news.” He shook Brickert gently. “Brickert, this is Dr. Rosmir. Can you hear me?” After getting no response, the doctor began manipulating various points on Brickert’s body, checking reflexes and automated responses with great care.

  Sammy looked over his friend. Heavy bruising was still evident on Brickert’s face and arms from trauma and the subsequent surgeries to repair the damage done by the Thirteens. Seventeen broken bones fixed (eight ribs), five teeth implanted for regeneration, and repair of both punctured lungs.

  “You saved him, Sammy,” Rosmir had told him after the tower fell.

  I all but killed him, Sammy had wanted to reply.

  As for the rest of Brickert’s team, Strawberry had been treated for minor injuries, while Natalia’s wounds had been far more serious. It was Strawberry who saved Natalia. After the Thirteens dragged Brickert from the room, Strawberry fought the one who remained and killed him, then rushed to unbury Natalia and staunched her bleeding.

  Strawberry had cried in her room for days, unable to get past having killed another human being. Sammy wanted to tell her that Thirteens were hardly even human, but knew it wouldn’t help. He had spoken to her briefly in Brickert’s room at the infirmary, but neither he nor she had kind words for each other. Yet their brief conversation still stuck with Sammy.

  “After this is all over,” she had said, “I’m done being a Psion.”

  Sammy didn’t believe her. “What would you do, Strawberry? Walk away from your fellow Psions?”

  “Fashion. I was given a scholarship, you know. A school in Lyon. I’m going to call them and see if I can still accept their offer. I just—I’m done.”

  “Fashion.” He’d spat the word back out at her. “Why would you give up such an important life for something so shallow and fleeting?”

  Strawberry’s eyes turned cold and her expression stony. “Ask Hefani.”

  Hefani’s body now rested in a graveyard outside Glasgow, a crude tombstone marked the spot. Hefani’s death had hit Sammy hard, mostly because despite being acquainted with him for almost a year, Sammy had never actually taken the time to really get to know Hefani.

  Strawberry had known him best. They’d arrived at Beta headquarters at the same time. During his funeral ceremony, she spoke about how he had liked quiet and solitude and that he preferred to keep things about himself private, much like Sammy. From her description, Sammy decided he would have liked Hefani if he’d made the effort to talk to him. Now it was too late.

  Dr. Rosmir finished his examination of Brickert. “His condition is improving. I’m going to have Janna take him in for testing. Have you met Janna? She’ll be here in a—”

  The faint sounds of two people yelling came through the wall: one male voice and one female.

  “She’ll be here in a minute or two.” Dr. Rosmir acted as though he didn’t hear the shouting, but his eyes glanced at the wall through which the sound came.

  When one of the voices grew louder, Sammy asked, “Is that Janna?”

  “It’s not our business,” Rosmir said.

  No, Sammy realized. It’s Al and Marie.

  The noise continued until Sammy was certain he was right. Then a door slammed shut and the voices stopped. A moment later a pancake thin nurse entered wearing a strained smile, her face red and sweaty. The small bump in her midsection told Sammy that she was likely expecting.

  Dr. Rosmir saw her and asked, “Is everything all right?”

  The nurse glanced at Sammy and nodded. “Hi, Sammy. I’m Janna Scoble.” She tried to give him a better smile, and was mildly successful.

  “Janna’s a nurse. Recently joined us from … where was it?”

  “Star Valley.” Her smile turned sad.

  “Yes,” Rosmir said, “wherever that is. You hungry, Sammy?”

  Again Sammy shook his head even though his stomach gurgled in protest. His thoughts were on Al and Marie. He knew their marriage had been struggling since Marie had revealed her pregnancy to her husband. He knew Al felt betrayed that she’d intentionally let herself conceive to prevent them from being selected to go on missions. But what he’d just overheard was a major row. Marie was due soon to deliver their baby, and apparently its impending birth hadn’t fixed their problems.

  “Okay,” Dr. Rosmir said. “Well, Commander Byron’s been looking for you. He wants you to meet him in the cafeteria. Or do you plan to continue avoiding him?”

  “I haven’t been avoiding him,” Sammy lied.

  “He said you pretended to be asleep every time he visited you in the infirmary.”

  Sammy couldn’t hide his reddening face. “I—I didn’t feel like talking to him.”

  Dr. Rosmir put a hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “When have you known him to have anything but your best interest—”

  “I know he does. I also know what he wants to talk to me about, and I don’t need to hear it. Between the leadership committee and Brickert and—and … everything else, I have a lot on my mind. Getting lectured isn’t a priority at the moment.”

  “From what I hear you can’t even be bothered to go to your committee meetings.”

  Sammy fixed Rosmir with a cold stare. “The commander should worry more about Al and Marie than me.”

  “I’m just asking, Sammy. Just asking.”

  Sammy had no response for Rosmir. He knew Commander Byron wanted to discuss how Sammy had managed to save Brickert. He knew Byron had suspicions … and rightfully so. After a long pause, he sighed and gave Dr. Rosmir half a smile.

  “Whatever. I’ll go find him.”

  “I’ll let you know what Brickert’s tests show soon. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Sammy stood up slowly and limped toward the door.

  “And Sammy?”

  Sammy paused but did not look back. “What?”

  “You need to rest. You look like—well, like nothing good.”

  Biting back a rude retort, Sammy left the infirmary. His com beeped, informing him that he had a message from Jeffie. That made a total of twenty-two she had sent him, all of which remained unread. He turned off his com in case she tried to call again. In his mind it was easier to justify ignoring her calls if he never heard the com ring.

  Everybody on the Detroit mission had seen what Sammy did in the Thirteen den to the enemy. It’d been broadcast to every com on the network. They’d seen his brutality and efficiency. Fortunately the camera had been bumped before Sammy turned on Brickert, or they would have seen that too.

  Since returning to Glasgow, he’d ignored the resistance’s leadership committee members and their summons, he ignored his friends, and he ignored Commander Byron. Sammy woke up, spent time with Brickert, and went home. Most of his friends and colleagues had given up trying to talk to him when he was at the infirmary. And when they did, Sammy refused to respond.

  I’m a killer. A murderer of hundreds. And they all know it.

  During the first week after Detroit, Sammy had locked himself in his room and studied the mission plans and detonation schematics until he figured out what went wrong. The part involving Brickert’s team was easy enough to unravel. Hefani had messed up the code, and Strawberry took her eyes off the screens watching the lobby at the same moment the Thirtee
ns chose to strike the security offices. A dumb decision combined with bad luck.

  As for the errant destruction of the Joswang Tower, that was a different matter entirely. Sammy and fellow Tensai, Justice Juraschek, along with three resistance members with experience in demolition, had planned the placement of the explosive devices using building schematics stolen from the Hive five months ago.

  Sammy, being one of the highest ranking members of the leadership committee, had overruled Justice, Lorenzo Winters, and Dave Hudec’s advice regarding placement of the bombs. Sammy and Duncan, Dave’s brother, had both believed a more aggressive strategy was well within the realm of safety.

  It was Sammy’s error that had caused the tower to fall. My mistake. My pride.

  Even now, as he drove through the underground tunnels that connected the buildings of the resistance, Sammy couldn’t shake the thought. It was a stake driven deep into his brain, ever present. He’d once fantasized of being thought of as a hero, someone who history would look favorably upon for his role in the Silent War. Instead he had become a villain. A mass murderer.

  When Sammy reached the old high school, he parked his car and went inside. Since the destruction of Psion Beta and Alpha headquarters and the start of the war, Sammy and his friends had lived in Glasgow. Eight months. It felt like eight years. Over those eight months, constant renovations had turned the decrepit school into something resembling a bustling community center. It now boasted a functional exercise facility, dozens of classrooms, and a large mess hall—all of which made it a place for the community to gather.

  Holo-visions in the mess hall blared the news, which the resistance had been watching non-stop since the Joswang Tower toppled. Even now, whenever they showed the footage of the building collapsing, Sammy couldn’t look away. Every night came the same nightmare of the building, steel screaming like a dying animal. And when the dust cleared, Sammy stood alone, bodies piled around him. All of them bore the same face.

  Brickert’s.

  My idea, my strategy, my team. My fault. My mistake. My pride.

  Each time he saw the footage of the tower crumbling, a heavy, lumpy sickness filled his stomach and his heart turned into lead.

  “… breaking news coming in as we speak,” one news reporter said to a politician being interviewed, “Two weeks since the catastrophic attack in Detroit, and we finally have a name to the man behind the attacks. Reports show that the mastermind is Samuel Harris Berhane Jr., a NWG terrorist encamped with a group of insurgents calling themselves only ‘the resistance.’”

  An image of Sammy showed on the screen. It had been enhanced to make him appear about ten years older. It also gave him long dirty facial hair and a buzzed haircut. But it’s me. Sammy gripped his stomach and looked for the nearest garbage can. He spotted one next to a water fountain. As he vomited, tears leaked from his eyes. Head in his hands, he sat on the floor and listened to the reporter continue.

  “Joining me now is President Newberry’s Chief of Staff, Julia Navarre. Ms. Navarre, how are terrorists like this allowed to roam free? How are NWG terrorists arming and aiding insurgents?”

  “You are right to demand answers to those questions,” the Chief of Staff answered. “What America needs to remember is that the President and his staff are doing everything in their power to win the war, minimize casualties, and keep America safe. These are the kind of horrific events that we went to war to stop. The President never said these attacks would end immediately, he only—”

  “But this is a targeted attack on civilians. Tens of millions of dollars in damage to the downtown area. Hundreds of lives lost. People are asking themselves, ‘How safe are we?’ How does President Newberry answer that?”

  “We press harder on the throats of the NWG and any domestic rebels like this Samuel Berhane. We squeeze until they give up.”

  “So that’s it? You squeeze? You get more aggressive?”

  “No, no, no. Our strategies are more detailed, but I can’t discuss them.”

  “For obvious reasons,” the reporter added in a plain, matter-of-fact tone.

  “Of course. But we will respond with aggression, be sure. Our focus and intent has never been greater. We aim to win this war decisively, to not only provide the American people with freedom from fear, but also to liberate the territories of the NWG who wish to join our union.”

  “What message do you have—or does the president have—for the American people? If he could speak to them right now, what would he say?”

  “Have hope. Put your trust in us. We will take care of you. We care about your safety. And a message, if I may, for Samuel Berhane and those insurgents who committed this despicable act. You will answer for your crimes. We will hunt you down and exact justice. You have the blood of hundreds of lives on your hands. That spilled blood will never be forgotten.”

  Sammy’s heart boomed in his chest when he finally turned away from the screen as the reporter thanked the politician for her time. Then he threw up again. When the first reports had come out regarding the death toll of the bombing, he hadn’t believed them. He thought surely the CAG was sensationalizing the story. But a resistance member who’d performed search and rescue at the scene had confirmed that the reports were true. Between the building itself and the collateral damage of the collapse, over six hundred people had died.

  As the leader of the failed mission, Sammy offered his resignation to Thomas and Lara Byron with the explanation that he was not fit to be in command. When they refused to accept his resignation, he stated that he did not want it anymore. He was stepping down to let someone more capable lead the teams.

  “There are better people,” he’d insisted. “Your son, your grandson, Anna Lukic, Justice Juraschek, Nikotai … all of them have more experience.”

  Thomas still wouldn’t hear it. “We knew when we planned these missions that the collapse of a building was a real possibility. You and everyone else did everything you could to prevent it.”

  “The casualties—”

  “Are a part of war, Sammy,” Thomas said.

  “I can’t accept that!”

  “Neither can we,” Lara said. “Which is why we trust you’ll figure out what went wrong, and improve.” She smiled tenderly at him before pulling him into a hug. “I—I have wept for my part in those deaths, Sammy. I know you have, too. So has Thomas. And while I wept, I reaffirmed my commitment to freedom so that those deaths will not have been in vain.”

  “‘How can I forget that stillness prevailing over the city of three hundred thousand?’” Thomas’s eyes had that faraway look they got whenever he quoted poetry. “‘Amidst that calm, how can I forget the entreaties of the departed wife and child through their orbs of eyes cutting through our minds and souls?’”

  “I appreciate your advice and sympathy,” Sammy told them, “but I’ve made up my mind. I won’t lead another mission.”

  That conversation took place a week ago, and Sammy’s mind hadn’t budged. He wondered if this was what Commander Byron wanted to speak to him about. Behind him, Jeffie, Natalia, and Strawberry came into the cafeteria for lunch. As Sammy had spent a great deal of energy avoiding his friends, his first instinct was to move away quickly before they spotted him. He hunched his shoulders, ducked his head, and headed for the nearest door. Unfortunately Commander Byron was entering through that door at the same moment.

  They nearly bumped into each other. “Whoa, Samuel,” Byron said. “I was looking for you. Nice of you to come to me instead.”

  “Commander, I was just heading to a meeting,” Sammy lied.

  “Oh, is that right?” The commander’s tone told Sammy that he didn’t believe him. “May I walk with you? I have been wanting to have a word.”

  “Yeah … I know.”

  The commander’s bright blue eyes shined even as Byron smiled sadly at Sammy. “Samuel, you need to face the facts of what happened in Detroit.”

  “I have faced them,” Sammy said, still heading toward the stairs to t
he tunnels, pretending as though he had a meeting. “That’s why I told your parents I’m done leading teams. I’m done with the leadership council.”

  “Then what meetings could you possibly have if you are quitting all those things? Have you joined the janitorial crew?”

  “Don’t make fun of me!” Sammy shouted.

  The expression on Byron’s face told Sammy he regretted making a joke. “Sorry.” The commander put an arm around Sammy’s shoulders and steered him into an old, non-renovated classroom where dozens of old desks had been stacked in piles. Byron used his sleeve to wipe away the dust off the large teacher’s desk so they could sit on it.

  Sammy slumped down, his elbows resting on his thighs, and his face in his hands. The commander sat next to him. “Six hundred seventeen,” he said, “that is the latest count I heard. I bet you can imagine them. I have no doubt the growing number has been on your mind for the last twelve days. You know how I know?”

  Sammy made no effort to respond.

  “Because I have also killed innocent people.”

  5. Blame

  Friday, May 9, 2087

  “OCTOBER 31st, 2065,” said Commander Byron. His brow furrowed and his gaze grew distant. “Do you know what happened that day?”

  “The Battle of Quebec.”

  It did not surprise him that Samuel remembered his history lessons well. He remembered everything well.

  “Every account I’ve read of that battle said only the Elite were involved.”

  The commander nodded, even more impressed now. “Officially the Psion Corps was not involved in that battle. On the books it was Elite only. However, unofficially, it was all Psions in Elite uniforms. Militant rebel forces had captured several government buildings with hundreds of captives, some high-ranking. Reports at the time were unclear if it was a military operation or a civilian coup.”

  Byron and his father had fought over this very point a month later and not spoken to each other again for almost twenty years.

  “Everything about the situation was messy with public support in Quebec already wavering for the NWG. Most of the former country of Canada had already seceded and joined the CAG. We were sent to figure out what was going on and help in any non-combative way we could. Orders were clear to avoid engaging in combat unless authorized by the president.