Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5) (13 page)

Anger gathered in him like a storm, gradually
building up in his chest and gut.
Go away
,
he told the rage
. Leave me alone.
But
it didn’t. It only grew until the bottle looked ever more inviting. He wouldn’t
just smash it over Al’s head, he’d use its jagged edges to cut out his heart.

No!

Sammy went to the kitchen and splashed water on his
face. He saw his reflection in the polished chrome, hideously distorted in the
curved metal.
Like me
. For weeks he’d
pushed everyone away. Now he wanted someone around, a friend, a group of
friends. Anyone. But Sammy knew if someone were to show up, he’d just ask them
to leave.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked his reflection.

On the kitchen counter near the sink was a knife
stand. Sammy removed one of the knives and held it, then turned it over to let
the light catch the metal. He wished he could cut it out of him, the Anomaly
Thirteen. Everything would be all right. With two hands on the grip, he held
it, blade pointed at his gut.

No one will miss
you
.

That’s not true.
Byron told me he thinks of me as a son. Jeffie said she loves me.

A month ago. She
doesn’t feel that way now, not after the way you treated her
.

Sammy rested the tip of the blade on his navel and
pressed until he felt the pressure. A creak came from the corner on the other
side of his small home, and he looked up. There was nothing there but an old
phonograph Thomas Byron had given him weeks ago. The resistance had only two
and the other was in Thomas and Lara’s house. Thomas had loaned Sammy over a
dozen vinyl records. Classics, he called them. Sammy had let both the records
and the machine gather dust.

“Listen to them and tell me what you think,” Thomas
had told him. “Find the ones you like, and I’ll give you more. Music will keep
you sane.”

Sammy hadn’t listened to any of them. The idea was
stupid, but he found himself carrying the phonograph and records into his
bedroom, then thumbing through them one by one. They were old and dusty and
smelled like they’d come from a thrift store, their sleeves stiff and fraying
at the corners. He stopped on one that bore the face of a man with a large nose
and a dark mustache. A crack ran across the paper, traveling through his eyes,
but the man’s smile was so large and genuine that Sammy slid the vinyl out of
its sleeve without another thought.

He stared at the record for a long time wondering
why people needed things like these to play music so long ago. Thomas had never
shown Sammy how to operate the machine, but he worked it out on his own after a
couple minutes of fiddling. When he placed the stylus on the record and the
music began to play, something happened to Sammy. His breath caught in his
throat, and the soft sounds of guitars strumming stirred his soul, a ripple of
waves in time with the music.

A man’s rich voice sang loud and clear,
I’d save every day like a treasure and then
again, I would spend them with you
.

Jeffie, Brickert, Kawai, Natalia, and all of Sammy’s
other friends floated in his mind, their faces happy and free. He remembered
his carefree days as a Beta, training in the Arena, learning to blast, playing
at a water park, arguing over things that didn’t matter. In a way, it was as if
those memories didn’t belong to him, but someone else. And Sammy had only
borrowed them.

But there never
seems to be enough time
, the voice sang,
to do the things you wanna do once you find them.

When the music stopped, Sammy played the song again.
He huddled on his bed and listened to it all the way through. Another person’s
life appeared in his mind, the images a stream flowing along pleasantly. This
person was a boy with parents who took him fishing on lakes, played football in
parks, made ice cream on his birthday, and kissed him on the cheek at bedtime.

The song ended once more, so he played it a third
time and a fourth and fifth. He didn’t even remember getting up and moving the
stylus. Tears flooded his face as he rocked himself, his chest tight as he
sobbed.

I’ve looked
around enough to know that you’re the one I want to go through time with
…

After listening to the song countless times and
feeling lighter than he’d been in weeks, Sammy picked himself off the floor and
went to the infirmary. The drive took him longer than usual. Lemon took two
attempts before she would start up. Sammy had to have one foot on the ground and
one on the accelerator. Then, with his foot out the door, he used strong angled
foot blasts to push.

The infirmary lights were dimmed. The only sound in
the building was a movie playing from the attending nurse’s holo-tablet. She
looked up from the hologram until she saw Sammy’s face in the glow of the
lights above her desk. They exchanged a nod, nothing more, their usual gesture
to each other when Sammy came in the middle of the night to read to his friend.

Brickert’s room was dark except for the thin strip
of light above his bed which gave just enough illumination to see his face,
nothing more. Sammy took the chair to his friend’s right and rested his hand on
Brickert’s. Part of him hoped Brickert would wake. Part of him didn’t.

“I blew it, Brick.” When Sammy saw that Brickert did
not respond to the sound of his voice, he continued, “I went down there to save
you, but instead I almost killed you. I wanted to control the anomaly—to
use it. Instead I nearly … ” Sammy licked his lips and tasted tears. “I punched
you over and over until you spoke. You—you asked me, ‘Who are you?’”

Sammy squeezed Brickert’s hand, mirroring the
tightness in his chest.

“You didn’t even recognize me … your brother. I’m
sorry.”

Someone moved in the darkness. At first Sammy thought
it was Brickert, but it was another person, a figure in the shadows. For a
moment Sammy feared it might be the shadow person from his nightmare, but it
wasn’t. Brickert’s door cracked open, and Sammy caught a wisp of blonde hair in
the dim light.

“Jeffie!” he called out, getting to his feet.
“Jeffie, wait!”

She did not stop. When Sammy called after her he was
hushed by the attending nurse. He ignored her and called again, but Jeffie
hurried away. In order to catch her, Sammy had to sprint, and by the time he
did, he was nearly out of breath. The moment he touched her arm, Jeffie whirled
around and pushed Sammy against the wall of the stairs leading down to the
tunnels.

“Now you want to talk to me? Now?” There was venom
in her eyes.

“Yes,” he stated firmly, “now I’m ready to talk.”

His response caught Jeffie by surprise. “Well …
that’s too bad because I don’t want to listen.”

Enraged, Sammy spun, pressed Jeffie to the wall with
a hard knock, and held her tightly. He instantly regretted it. For the first
time ever, Jeffie looked at him with fear in her eyes. “You say you love me,
well this is me! You know I’m a Thirteen! You know I’m one of them! Can you not
love that part of me?”

“Don’t give me that. Everyone has things that should
be kept buried—that should never be let out. You don’t get to make
excuses.”

Sammy’s anger deflated and he stepped away from her.
Jeffie caught him and pulled him into a tight hug.

“Are you done?” she asked.

Sammy knew what she meant. She wasn’t asking if he
was done sulking or feeling sorry for himself, but was he done with using
it
. “I don’t know.”

Jeffie looked at him in the eye. “Promise me.”

“No. I can’t.”

“Why not?” she shouted.

“Because I don’t want to break a promise.”

“Then promise me and keep it.”

Sammy shook his head. “If it comes down to watching
you die or using the Anomaly Thirteen, I will choose the anomaly. The choice
won’t even be difficult.”

“I don’t want to be saved by a Thirteen.”

“It’s not—”

Jeffie frowned. “I just heard you tell Brickert that
you beat on him—”

“Yeah, I lost control for a minute, but then I was
fine. He snapped me out of it.”

“What if I can’t snap you out of it? What if you
save me and then kill me?” She kept talking before Sammy could answer. “You are
stronger without it. You are
better
without it.”

“I’m not. I know my limits. If I have to use it to
save you, I will. And that’s all I can say.”

Jeffie smiled sadly. “I want to hit you right now.
You know that?”

“Do it. Trust me. I could use a good slap.”

“And we’re not done talking about this!”

“I’m just glad we’re talking. It’s been—it’s
been hard for me since Detroit.” Sammy’s voice cracked. “Dreams … guilt …
mistakes.” His chest grew tight, but he was determined not to cry in front of
her. “I killed so many people, Jeffie. Now my name is all over the news like
I’m—like I’m a mass murderer.”

“I know,” she whispered. “It’s not right.”

“And I wet the bed this morning,” he admitted.

This statement was met with silence. Sammy suddenly
felt terribly stupid and wished he hadn’t said anything. Then Jeffie giggled.
She crooked a finger under her nose as it turned into a full laugh.

Sammy started chuckling too. “It’s not—” He
jostled her. “Stop it, it’s not—”

The harder she laughed, the harder he did. Finally
they were both holding their stomachs, barely able to breathe. When they
stopped, Sammy had to wipe the tears of mirth from his eyes.

Their eyes met. Jeffie’s gaze turned fierce. “I do
love you, Samuel Berhane.”

“You still want to hit me?”

“Yeah.” She smiled and leaned toward him. Sammy’s
stomach did a flop and his heartbeat quickened. His arms went numb and tingly,
and the rest of his body was jittery and trembling.

 
Rather
than hitting him, Jeffie kissed him. They hadn’t kissed in weeks, and Sammy
responded to it by wrapping his arms around her and lifting her up until she
could wrap her legs around his waist. Her mouth opened wider, so did his. Their
breath mingled hot and tangy in the cold tunnel air. All of Sammy’s worries
about Jeffie, Brickert, his anomaly, and Detroit vanished for a few moments. Jeffie’s
affection and tenderness wrapped him in a warm blanket, comforting his soul and
mind. He wasn’t in an underground tunnel; he wasn’t in Glasgow. He was home.

When they stopped to breathe, Jeffie grinned, her
lips red and raw. “Dang. I’ve needed that for about a month.”

Then she kissed him again.

Monday, June 30, 2087

YOU HAVE TO
make a choice,
Sammy
, said the voice of the shadow.
You
can’t walk the fence forever
.

Sammy studied the shadow. Whenever he held up a
hand, the shadow mirrored him. If he stepped closer, so did the shadow. The
closer Sammy came to the shadow, the more the energy of it pulsed and pulled.
“What will happen if I touch you?”

What will happen
if you touch me?

Sammy punched at the shadow, stopping millimeters
away from the shadow’s copying fist. Then Sammy opened his fingers and let his
palm show. Like invisible rubber bands connecting them, the shadow pulled at
Sammy in time with Sammy’s heartbeat. Bored of going through the same thing
night after night and curious to see what would happen if he gave into the
pull, Sammy finally connected their palms and fingers. The shadow brightened
and shrunk until it disappeared, and Sammy was left with nothing but a key in hand.

Sammy woke gripping the wooden rail on the side of
his bed. He’d wet himself again. Cursing, he got up and stripped the bed of its
sheets and his body of his clothes.
I’m
sixteen years old … not six … stupid dreams
.

By the time he finished cleaning up, it was a little
after 0400. Sammy couldn’t go back to sleep so he dug up his holo-tablet and
resumed his efforts to teach himself programming code.

For the last two weeks he had tried to convince the
leadership committee that he should go to the Hive and talk to Trapper, but no
one else consented. Even Anna no longer supported him, mostly because she was
annoyed that he kept asking. Without any support, Sammy turned his attention to
the kill switch code. With all future bombings of cloning sites put on hold, it
was the only trail of crumbs the resistance had to follow for the time being.
Sammy’s hope was that by teaching himself coding languages, he could figure out
some way to exploit the code Khani Nguyen had discovered in the data stolen
from the Hive.

Through the wall of his house, he heard a news
report. Al often fell asleep watching CBN and left the holo-vision on all
night.

“The White House announced yesterday evening,” said
the news reporter for CBN, “that four major military operations were conducted
successfully during the past week, all targeting NWG military sites and
terrorist centers. The first target was an atmospheric cruiser construction
site in the deep African desert outside of Agadez. The second at coastal
shipyards in Quanzhou. A new terrorist training facility had been built in
Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai. According to reports this attack led to the most
casualties for the NWG at well over two hundred, though very few were
civilians. And finally, CAG forces destroyed an arms manufacturing plant in
Nagercoil near the Tamil Nadu coast. Minimal CAG forces were lost in these
strikes, and many experts are calling this the opening act to the close of the
war. To bring us more details on these operations, we’ve brought in our special
wartime correspon—”

Sammy chuckled as he left his bed, turned off the
holo-vision, and returned to his bedroom. Commander Havelbert, Director of
Military Operations for the NWG, had already informed Byron of the assaults.
Only one of the attacks had been unforeseen: Quanzhou, and it was the only real
blow to the war effort. The new training facility in Norilsk was a fake. New
Beta trainees were being sent to Geneva, and there certainly weren’t two
hundred of them yet. Fortunately, the false information had led to the discovery
of a mole in the upper circles of the NWG ranks.

The cruiser construction site in Agadez had been
abandoned a month earlier as part of their plans to rotate sites every eight
weeks. And Nagercoil was one of three recently converted small arms manufacturing
plants, and fortunately the smallest of them. From the way Commander Byron made
it sound—or perhaps the way Havelbert made it sound—the CAG had
taken such severe casualties at Norilsk and Agadez that the NWG was the real
victor of this round.

Deet! Deet!
Deet!

Sammy glanced at his com laying across the room on
the table. The holo-screen said
UNKNOWN CALLER
. Sammy frowned
at this.
Who would be unknown?
By the
time he reached the com and answered with a harried, “Hello?” the line was
dead.

Sammy ate breakfast with his friends. Brickert would
soon be released from the infirmary, so planning a party for him was the topic
of the meal. Not far from them sat Marie, baby bundled up in a sling against
her breast. Al had stopped taking his meals in the cafeteria weeks ago. Sammy
watched Marie sadly, wondering if he should say something or if he could do
anything for her. Natalia must have taken note of the expression on his face
because she put a hand on his.

“Don’t,” she said, “there’s nothing you can do. Rosa
told me Al and Marie are done. Al told her last week.”

Jeffie shook her head. “All because Marie got
herself pregnant without his permission. Al makes me sick.”

“He wanted kids,” Li said with half of a banana in
his mouth. “I heard him talking about it to Martin and some other Betas about
three or four years ago.”

“You remember something Al said three years ago?”
Kawai asked.

Li shrugged. “I’d remember any conversation where a
man says he wants seven kids. And that was Al.”

“He hardly talks to his dad, either,” Sammy said.
“Not outside of the committee. Comes home, turns on the holo-vision, and
drinks.”

“Intoxication isn’t allowed,” Natalia said.

“That’s why he does it on our couch,” Sammy said.
“I’m not gonna tell on him.”

“Does Byron know?” Li asked. “Thomas and Lara?”

Kawai arched an eyebrow. “It’s not Sammy’s business
to snitch. You know Al’s upbringing as well as I do. The Byron
family—they’re all—”

“It’s my business as his friend,” Sammy said. “I
know I should talk to him about it, but I don’t know what to say.”

Li put up a hand. “Nah, when you were going through
your thing, we let you have your space until you were ready to deal. Al needs
his space, not you reminding him of his beliefs about drinking.”

Underneath the table, Jeffie squeezed Sammy’s thigh
and smirked at him. He put his hand on hers, and they locked fingers. “How’s
your oatmeal?” she asked.

“Oaty,” he answered.

“Are you sleeping better?”

“Like a baby.”
Not
a total lie. Babies wet themselves at night
. Though Sammy had told Jeffie
about peeing himself that first night, he hadn’t mentioned that it was now a
recurring event. Nor had he said anything about his shadow dreams. After seeing
the fear in her eyes when he’d almost hit her, the last thing he wanted to do
was scare her.

Meetings were scheduled after breakfast. When the
leadership committee convened, Sammy told himself more than once that he
wouldn’t bring up his request again. But as the meeting wore on with more
debates about ill-conceived ideas and plots that would ultimately amount to
nothing, Sammy couldn’t stop himself.

He raised his hand. Lara saw it and sighed, but
changed topics instead of calling on him. Each time Lara glanced at him, Sammy
met her with a pleasant smile. After five minutes of this, she sighed again.
After ten, Sammy’s raised hand was all anyone could think about, wondering when
or if Lara would recognize him to speak. When she finally did, his arm dropped
to the table, aching and tingling from lack of blood. He’d held his hand high
for fifteen minutes.

“All right, Sammy, the chair recognizes that you
wish to speak … even though we all know what it is you want to talk about.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ve been put in charge of
all operations, right? Which means if there’s an operation to be done, I get
the final say.”

Commander Byron cocked an eyebrow at his father and
mother, silently asking them for their opinion. Thomas Byron shook his head.

“You are in charge of the subcommittee of
operations, yes,” Lara admitted, “under the supervision of the leadership
committee. And no one on the committee thinks your idea is wise.”

“I agree,” Thomas said.

“We have nothing else to go on,” Sammy argued.
“We’ve been stalled since Detroit. Six weeks of nothing but talking. I know you
hate this inaction, Thomas. So do I. Let’s do something.”

“It is too risky,” Commander Byron stated as though
it was the final word.

“Everything we do is risky. I’ll go alone.”

“Like hell you will,” Anna said. “You take a stealth
cruiser to the Hive and chances are you don’t come back. Now maybe you don’t
consider a stealth cruiser a luxury, but the rest of us do. I can’t pull them
out of my butt. Can you? Because if you can, take the one from your butt, and
leave the other one for us to use because your cruiser is gonna get blown to
smithereens.”

“Look, we have a kill code or part of one on our
hands,” Sammy said. “Doesn’t anyone think this might be the answer—”

“We’re not sure what it is until we use it and
actually kill someone!”

“What else could it be?” Sammy yelled. He was
suddenly so angry that his hands shook, and he wanted to hurt Anna. “I watched
our CAG prisoners blow up with my own eyes after we captured them! They
imploded from the inside. Remember Akureyri, Anna? Al saw it too.”

Al looked up from where he’d been sitting or
sleeping. It was hard to tell which because his eyes were so blurry and
bloodshot. “Huh? Oh yeah. I saw it too.”

For about ten seconds no one in the room said
anything. Then Khani stood up and said, “Technically an implosion is an
external force causing an object to collapse inward on itself due to a
difference in external and internal pressures. What you described, Sammy,
sounds more like a textbook
ex
plosion.”
Then she straightened her glasses and sat back down.

“Let’s break into subcommittees,” Lara announced
abruptly.

As Sammy left the air control tower, he noted a
faint stench of something stale and sour. He turned around to see Al, his eyes
half open, his face pale and sporting pressure marks on it.

“Didn’t get much sleep again?” Sammy asked with a
half-hearted chuckle.

“Hey Sammy,” Al mumbled in a hoarse voice. “No,
haven’t been sleeping well.”

“I finally got to hold your baby,” Sammy said. “It’s
a, uh, cute little thing. You have a name picked out yet?”

Al shook his head. The rumor was every time Al and
Marie tried to settle on a name, they ended up screaming at each other. Despite
having heard them through the walls, Sammy couldn’t imagine it. They were two
of the most agreeable people he knew. And now they hated each other.

“You want to do something tonight, Al?” Sammy asked
him. “Play a game? Blastketball? I’m bored and Jeffie’s got a late shift at the
data center.”

“Nah, I’m not feeling great, Sammy. Raincheck,
okay?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

“In fact, I’m going to skip the subcommittee
meeting. Tell the others I’ll try and make it tomorrow … if I’m feeling
better.”

Sammy had the distinct impression that Al would not
be feeling better tomorrow. His thoughts wandered during the subcommittee
session from Jeffie to Al to the new baby to how long it had been since he’d
eaten pizza. Nothing new was discussed, and when the meetings finally ended,
Sammy felt more tired than he did after his regular exercise sessions with the
other Psions.

Instead of heading home as he normally did, Sammy
went to the cafeteria and made a pizza. He had to call in a few favors with the
men and women in charge of the kitchens to do it, but when it was done it
smelled just right. The cooks put it in a box and he drove it back to his
house. Sammy knocked before letting himself inside. He found Al sitting in boxer
shorts and an old t-shirt with four green aliens on it. One of the aliens was
eating a slice of pizza. Sammy smiled at that.

Al’s face was redder and puffier than before. His
eyes were watery with a tinge of red. He was either drunk or crying. Or both.
It wasn’t until he spoke that Sammy knew.

“Hey,” he slurred, “how was the meeting?”

“I brought pizza.”

Al stared at the box for a long time. “I just wanna
be alone, man.”

“Well, I don’t really want to go away. And, frankly,
it’s my house. You can’t make me. But you
can
eat half of this pizza …”

Al’s teeth clenched together so hard they squeaked,
and his hands balled into fists. Sammy thought things might get a little rowdy
until Al’s hands relaxed. His whole body sagged. “I don’t want you seeing me like
this, man. Can’t you just …” His voice cracked. “Can’t you go away?”

“I could. I probably should. But I keep thinking
about when your dad made me honcho for the first time in the Arena. You
remember that?”

“Not really,” Al mumbled.

Al’s answer deflated Sammy’s spirits. “Really? It
was a first-to-three-victory match. I was against Marie and Kobe … you accused
me of having a crush on Marie.”