Psion Delta (5 page)

“That
might have something to do with it.” Dr. Rosmir’s tone told Sammy that his
double anomaly had everything to do with it. “We have a long walk ahead of us.
Relax.”

The
doctor pushed Sammy out the door and farther down the long corridor. They had
just taken a turn down a new hall when the speakers on the ceiling began to
blare:

ATTENTION
ALL STAFF, PATIENTS, AND PERSONNEL. WE HAVE A SECURITY BREACH CODE BLACK. WE
HAVE A SECURITY BREACH CODE BLACK. ALL PERSONS ARE TO LEAVE THE BUILDING
THROUGH THE NEAREST EXIT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. SECURITY BREACH CODE BLACK.
SECURITY BREACH CODE BLACK.

Dr.
Rosmir had stopped pushing Sammy as soon as the announcement had begun. His
face was pale and his eyes darted in all directions.

“What
does that mean?” Sammy asked. “Code black?”

“It
means . . . combative person or persons. It means attack—we’re—we’re under
attack.” His voice was barely audible over the uproar that commenced when the
announcement ended.

Nurses
and doctors and janitors alike scurried from their workstations, heading for
exits. Someone running past knocked into Sammy’s wheelchair and nearly sent him
onto the floor. Whoever it was stumbled, caught his balance, and ran on, never
glancing back. Dr. Rosmir slowly began to step away from Sammy as if Sammy were
a poisonous snake.

“Where
are you going, Doctor?” Sammy asked.

The
doctor didn’t respond to the question. His eyes continued to shift wildly as he
picked up his pace.

“Please,
don’t leave me!”

But
Rosmir turned and bolted for the nearest door.

“WAIT!”
Sammy called after him, but to no avail.
Coward!
Several more people
sped by him, oblivious to his plight. A group of nurses came by leading a train
of children all wearing hospital gowns and bracelets. One of them was the boy
who’d had the bouncing ball. He saw Sammy and waved, showing off a toothy grin.

An
explosion went off in the distance, too far away for Sammy to know from where
it came. The floor shook and rattling sounds mixed with screaming surrounded
him. Sammy forced himself to stay calm. He locked the wheels on his chair and
pushed himself up into a standing position. His injured leg quaked under his
weight, forcing him to favor it almost entirely. All the kids were crying; one
of them lost all control and ran straight into a wall, knocking herself out
cold. Two more ran back toward the children’s wing. The nurses tried to cope
with the bedlam, but there were only three of them helping more than twenty
children.

Sammy
limped over to help as the security alarms went off again. The same
announcement began again until the speakers shut off with a loud
CLICK!
Sammy muttered to himself as he reached the nurse who seemed to be in charge.

“There’s
a staircase down the hall and to the right.” He pointed back the way Rosmir had
brought him. “I’ll help you take them that way!”

The
nurse nodded and helped those children who would still listen to her. “Follow
her,” Sammy told them as he tried to keep up with the group, but his leg
couldn’t do it. The nurse paused for him, but he waved her on.

“Go!
Go! I’m fine.”

Within
minutes, the hallway was deserted save for himself and a few stragglers. Sammy
told them where to go and what to do, and most of them took his advice. He had
barely reached the main lobby of the psych ward when someone met him at the
door.

It
was a woman with long dark hair and large brown eyes. She might have been
gorgeous if not for her taped and purplish nose and the puffiness that rimmed
her eyes and cheeks. The bruising gave the impression that her face had
recently suffered trauma or surgery. She wore a red tunic that melted into her
black pants with a jagged 13 symbol on her breast. No grin crossed her lips as
she recognized Sammy. No witty remark greeted him, either. She pointed her
jigger at him and fired three times. Sammy raised his hands and used a blast to
shield.

He
could feel the darkness within him rising up, wanting to take control. He
wanted to kill her, to watch her slowly die while screaming for mercy. Katie
fired at him again as she moved closer. Again he shielded, then blasted at her
to keep her at bay.

“Sammy
. . . ” came a voice from behind him. It was a familiar voice with a nasal tone
accompanied by a strong scent of cinnamon. “Sammy . . . why?”

Sammy
knew who it was before he looked. If the darkness had been growing inside of
him at the sight of Katie Carpenter, seeing Stripe with her all but consumed
him with a malice so powerful that it filled him with a black energy he hadn’t
experienced since his time with Dr. Vogt. Stripe’s face looked bizarrely slack
and void of contour until all the muscles in his head and neck spasmed
simultaneously. He wore the same black and white hat Sammy had seen dozens of
times in the room with the black door.

The
pain in Sammy’s leg tripled. Forgetting Katie, he sent multiple blasts at
Stripe, sending him flying into a wall. Stripe’s head hit first, leaving a
basketball-sized dent in the sheet rock. Blood oozed from Stripe’s mouth while
from Sammy’s came an incoherent scream of fury. From behind, he heard a click
and felt the muzzle of a jigger pressed against his skull. Only then did Sammy
realize his fatal mistake of forgetting the more powerful of the two foes.

“Goodbye,
Sammy,” Katie said. “You behaved exactly as I thought you would.”

She
pulled the trigger. Sammy heard the gun go off like a bomb in his ear, and
everything went white.

3.
Safe

Tuesday May 7, 2086

On
the cruiser
ride back to headquarters, Jeffie tilted her
head back against her headrest and stretched out her neck muscles until she
felt her joints pop.

“I
can’t believe Sammy has to spend five days in that place,” Brickert muttered
next to her. “I was ready to go after five hours.”

“They
play it safe. You can’t blame them. We represent a significant investment of
the government, don’t we?”

“We
were shot by tranquilizers, not bullets. I’ve hated hospitals ever since I had
to stay in one for a week after getting bit by a rabid hamster. My parents
almost didn’t get me medical attention in time, and I nearly died.”

“A
rabid hamster?”

“I
don’t want to talk about it. And I’ve never eaten coconut pudding since.”

“Well,
Rosmir said we had to stay at least one day because of Beta policy,” Jeffie
reminded her friend. He’d also told her he wanted to be sure Wrobel hadn’t
laced the tranquilizer with a subtle poison or some other nefarious chemical,
but Jeffie wasn’t sure she believed his excuse. She secretly believed that
Rosmir had wanted her and Brickert at the hospital in case Sammy didn’t
cooperate or had some kind of a nervous breakdown. Regardless of whether or not
she was right, seeing Sammy had been wonderful and frustrating. Wonderful
because he seemed much more like his old self again, and frustrating because
she hadn’t gotten what she’d wanted. She’d needed that kiss to know what to do.

“Policy
shmolicy,” Brickert complained. “I waited all that time to see Sammy and then
what happens? You make me leave so you can have your ‘private moment.’”

“Hey,
you agreed to it.”

“What
else can I say when you’re bending my fingers back like that?”

“I’m
sorry, Brick. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll make up a story for Natalia about
how all the nurses at the hospital were hitting on you, but you turned each of
them down.”

“Please
don’t.” Brickert shook his head. Jeffie watched him as he got lost in his own
thoughts for a moment. “You have to admit, though, it was nice to get away from
headquarters for a few days. I bet everyone at headquarters thinks we’re
lucky.”

“Are
we lucky?”

“What
do you mean?”

Jeffie
hugged herself as she spoke. “A crazy person shot us, Brick. He snuck up on me,
got into your bedroom—he could have killed us if he wanted to. I don’t even
know why he didn’t. Neither does Byron. When he visited me, I asked him about
it. All he would say was that Wrobel isn’t a murderer. That’s it. No more
information than that. But Wrobel could have killed any of the Betas anytime he
wished. Are we really safe? How much can Byron protect us from what’s out
there?”

“Of
course we’re—! Byron is watching out for us.”

Jeffie
hugged herself tighter and shook her head. “I don’t know. Think about it:
Commander Wrobel broke in, shot me and you, and took Sammy out of the building.
Martin Trector was killed in Rio. Cala and Kobe almost died. Sammy was
abandoned—”

“All
those are connected to the same person. And Sammy was found.”

Jeffie
rolled her eyes. “Only after six months. Look at the state of him now! All
those injuries happened to him
after
he got back.”

“I
still can’t believe he’s really back, I’ll tell you,” Brickert said for the
umpteenth time. His eyes shone with wild giddiness. Jeffie knew exactly how he
felt. “After waiting all this time, it’s so—so . . . what’s the right word?”

“Crazy?
Surreal? Awesome? Mind-blowing?” All the words fit appropriately in Jeffie’s
mind.

“Crazy,
yeah.” Brickert chuckled. “And awesome. And mind-blowing. I don’t know what
surreal means. Think about it: as soon as he’s back, things can go back to the
way they were before he left!”

How
were they before?
Jeffie pictured herself hanging out with Sammy,
talking until late, laughing out loud with ice cream drooling down their chins.
Not too long ago, her only worries at headquarters had been winning each Game
and improving her ranks in the simulation statistics.
How will I handle it
when Sammy has to go on more missions with other Betas when they graduate?
The idea of not freaking out over Sammy’s future assignments and missions
(which would indeed come, she had no doubt) seemed unfathomable.
Can things
really go back to the way they were?

Lately
life was so filled with drama, and she didn’t see things getting better with
Sammy returning to headquarters. Jeffie had wanted to date him for months
before he’d left, and despite waiting for him to come home and hanging on for
any word of his survival, she’d ultimately chosen to move on and renew a
relationship with Kobe. Now her knee-jerk reaction was to cut ties with Kobe
and see where things went with Sammy, but the situation wasn’t so simple. She
enjoyed her time with Kobe and she had developed strong feelings for him since
they’d begun dating again. During her time in the hospital she pondered her
upcoming decision. Stay with Kobe? Go for Sammy? Date neither? She had a pretty
good idea that if she continued a relationship with Kobe, late night talks with
Sammy would be frowned upon. So would most activities that cut into time spent
with her boyfriend. That’s why the kiss had been so important. She needed to
decide. Kissing Sammy in the hospital had seemed safer and less like cheating
than kissing him at headquarters.

“What
are you thinking about?” Brickert asked her. The look in his eyes told her that
he already had a good guess.

“Nothing.”
She answered too quickly and she knew it. “You know . . . wondering how—if—are
we really safe?”

Brickert
jumped and grabbed his eye in pain.

“What
happened?” Jeffie asked.

“Your
nose just poked me in the face!”

Jeffie
smacked his arm. “You are such an idiot. Okay, fine. I was thinking about what
you said—about whether everything is going to change or go back to the way it
was or whatever. Life’s probably going to be weird for a while.”

Brickert
grinned and put his hands behind his head. “Yep, especially weird for you.”

She
tried to hit him again, but he reacted too quickly and jerked his arm out of
reach. “I’m going to poke you in the face for real.”

Brickert
answered with a laugh, which she ignored.

The
more she thought about her dilemma, the more she realized how difficult (and
unfair) it would be to explore a relationship with Sammy while still dating
Kobe.
I have to choose.
But they both seemed like the right choice.
Neither boy was perfect. Kobe was still somewhat conceited, but much less than
before Rio, and often in a silly, charming way. He oozed confidence again,
which Jeffie liked. Both boys had handsome features and strong bodies, which
she appreciated, though if she had to pick, Sammy slightly edged out Kobe in
this regard. On the other hand, Kobe still didn’t get along with Brickert, and
sometimes she felt like she was dating both Kaden and Kobe because the twins
were as inseparable as the two sides of a coin. But Kobe was surprisingly
romantic when he put his mind to it, and every two or three weeks he had some
new way of sweeping her off of her feet.

Sammy,
however, had never displayed an ounce of romance. He had no experience dating a
girl, and probably didn’t know what charm and suave meant. He cared little for
flirting and things of that nature. Yet, at the same time, she could talk to
him for hours in more meaningful and deeper ways than she’d ever experienced
with Kobe. At one point she thought she’d been in love with Sammy. She hadn’t
reached that point with Kobe.

I
have to choose
, she repeated to herself, now with more force.
Sammy or Kobe or neither.
Sammy? Kobe? Neither?

“You
can talk to me about it, Jeff,” Brickert said quietly.

“Really?
Let me ask you one question.”

“What?”

“The
last time you spoke to Kobe, how many times did you punch him in the face?”

Brickert’s
cheeks went red, and he fell silent, leaving Jeffie to her thoughts.
I need
a grown-up’s advice
, she realized, and then she remembered that she hadn’t
called her family in over five weeks. Byron allowed each Beta just one phone
call home per month, and Jeffie hadn’t used hers yet. The prospect of getting
counsel from her mother set her mind at ease.
Tomorrow
, she thought.
I’ll
call home tomorrow
.

By
the time she and Brickert arrived at headquarters, it was still morning. Jeffie
planned to go straight to her room and change into her Beta jumpsuit. As they passed
the cafeteria, the door opened and Kobe appeared, smiling.

“Hey
Jeff,” he said. “Hey Brick. Welcome back.”

Brickert
gave Kobe a curt half-nod, and then told Jeffie he’d see her at lunch. Once
Kobe and Jeffie were alone, Kobe pulled her into a warm hug, kissing her cheek
softly as he did so. His arms made her feel comfortable and safe.

“I
was so worried about you,” Kobe told her. “These last couple of days have
dragged. I’m glad you’re back and okay.”

“Please,
Kobe,” she responded in her most serious tone of voice, “get a grip. You act
like I’ve never been shot before.” She kept her face straight as long she could
until she cracked into a smile.

His
chest rose and fell against hers as he laughed. “That’s one more thing we have
in common.” He released her from the embrace so they could speak, but she
pulled him in for longer, still enjoying the security she felt. He spoke to her
softly. “Let’s hang out. Just me and you. What do you think?”

“Right
now?” she teased. “And skip all our classes?”

“I
meant more like this weekend. Friday or Saturday? Which would you prefer?”

The
momentary peace she had found during their romantic moment vanished, replaced
by the same confusion she’d wrestled with in the cruiser.
What do I do?
she asked herself.
Sammy? Kobe? Neither?

Kobe
made a static sound like something from an old radio. “Moon colony to Jeffie.
Do you copy, Jeffie?”

“Yeah,
I was actually trying to decide.”

By
his raised eyebrows and cynical grin he wore, she knew he didn’t believe her.
He gently separated her from him by pushing her shoulders until they were at
arms’ length from one another.

She
looked him in the eye. “Friday is good for me.”

“Okay.
I think it’ll give us time to talk about . . . stuff.” There was no bitterness
in his voice, and Jeffie was grateful. Some of his confidence was missing,
which she noted. She gave him a smile, and he returned it with one of his own.

“Sure.
Stuff definitely needs to be discussed.”

“Cool.
Hey, where’d you get shot? Was it bad?”

“It
was a tranq. Hit me right next to my sternum.”

“Oh,
good heavens!” His voice was full of mock concern. “You want me to take a look
at that? Purely medical interest, of course.”

“In
your dreams, blondie.”

Kobe
laughed and put his arm around her waist as they walked down the hall. When
they reached the door to the girls’ dormitory on the second floor, he hugged
her again. She knew he wanted to kiss her, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted
it. He had an intense look in his eyes, which made her even more uncertain. She
rubbed his shoulder awkwardly and finally went on her tiptoes to give him a
kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll
see you later,” she said sweetly.

She
eye-scanned herself into her room and changed her clothes before hurrying to
her instruction room. She stayed there through lunch and was late getting to
sims. In order to get her full simulation time, she had to miss dinner, too.
Not feeling hungry and not in the mood to eat alone, she slunk down to her room
and crawled into bed. Sleep came quickly, but bad dreams woke her several
times. To make matters worse, well before the morning alarm rang, Strawberry
roused her with a scream.