Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (36 page)

It didn’t exist. Not anymore.

Mother cruised out of the garage into the
boulder-strewn field. I rolled my head against the seat to catch
the breeze. The air was dry but non-filtered, carrying the scent of
nature emerging from the ground. Of growth and decay.
Do not
fear death, for it brings rebirth.

Garrison Mountain was in the rearview
mirror, casting a long shadow over the field. It sped into the
distance, further into the past. We drove out of the shadow, into
the sun. The windows darkened against the glare. I would be back in
a week.

The wheels unfolded beneath the car as we
approached the tree line, touching the uneven ground, jostling me
in the seat. We pulled into the shade of the canopies. The wormhole
glittered ahead. We passed through the compressed space and came
out the other side where the air was humid and thick, laced with
the fetid aroma of pluff mud and the siren-song of tree frogs. I
closed my eyes and let South Carolina in. Mother’s instinct was
right, I needed to be home.

Or at least a place I could call home, for
just a little while.

V

For now we see through a glass, darkly.

Bible, 1 Corinthians xiii

Without pawns, there can be no king.

Pon

T R A I N I N G

Crossroads

They weren’t far behind.

I squeezed through a narrow tunnel barely
wide enough for my hips. It was pitch black, but the shift in air
pressure indicated I’d stumbled into a cavern. I flicked open my
evolver-wrapped hand, ignited an infrared flame and adjusted my
goggles. It was a mineral rich cavern. Water trickled down the
walls, pooling in the center. In infrared, it looked like
blood.

I cupped a cold handful of water to my
mouth. There were seven openings in the cavern that led in
different directions. I needed one to get me to the surface before
the enemy found my trail.

My arm was red. That wasn’t infrared water;
that was blood. I only had about ten minutes before they zeroed in
on it. If I moved quickly, I could buy a few more minutes.

I waded into the icy pool and washed my arm,
the blood clouding the clear water. The temperature penetrated like
death. I came up, pushed my hair away. Six caves were near the
ceiling. Most were small. They had a slight glow. Could’ve been
florescent algae, or maybe sunlight. The seventh one was behind me.
It slanted downward and went deeper. It was dark. Water trickled
across the sandy floor, finding its way into the bottomless depths
of the dark cave. If I wanted to get to the surface, that was a
loser
.

I closed my eyes, allowed the moment to
unfold, listened to what it had to say. My frigid skin felt
shrink-wrapped. I took a deep breath, let it out. The enemy was
still far away, but their movements echoed distantly, like rodents
scratching their way toward food.

Another deep breath.

The air was moving. It wasn’t a breeze, just
a gentle sway, not enough to even nudge grass seeds on lofty
stalks. My breath was shallow, my chest hardly moved. I followed
the slightest motion, let my awareness drift with it like
vapor.

Go deeper.

I had to trust my instincts and follow my
assessment. I eased out of the pool and dropped to my knees, felt
along the gritty opening, then plunged into the darkness of the
cave behind—

“No training!” Mother’s voice echoed
throughout the network of caves.

I slammed my head on the ceiling, cut my
scalp wide open. Blood streamed down my cheek like sweat, dripping
off my chin. The enemy was scrambling toward me.

An hour, wasted.

“Log off, Socket. I need to see you.”

I closed my eyes and let my awareness drift
out of my sim, through the bodiless in-between, until I felt the
flesh and blood of my body. Back in my skin.

I looked around my bedroom while my
awareness returned from virtualmode. The posters were curling at
the corners, a signpost of life before the Paladins. I couldn’t
care less about Nine Inch Nails or Dysmal anymore. A Jackson
Pollack print, the only non-musical poster, was pinned above the
bed. Now that I could still dig. His work was a free slinging
montage of paint splatters, unstructured and just
I-don’t-give-two-shits what you think. I felt something different
every time I looked at it. Some considered Pollack a genius, but he
was just as fucked up as the rest of us.

I wiggled my fingers and toes, ran my tongue
over my gums. The transporter imbedded in the back of my neck
tingled. It allowed me to transfer my awareness into virtualmode
Internet no matter where I was, and in full sensory perception. It
just took a little longer reconnecting to skin than usual.

My scalp hurt. There was no cut or blood. It
was just a memory. I opened the door. Mother was at the kitchen
table dumping things into her briefcase.

“How’d you know I was training?” I asked,
rubbing my head.

“Your imbed was active.”

“I had a silencer running. Didn’t you think
I was sleeping?”

“There’s only one reason to run a
silencer.”

“Maybe I was hooking up with someone. You
know, in a social world or something.”

She paused to sip her coffee and flicked her
eyes in my direction.
Please.

“You’re going back to the Garrison?” I
asked.

“There’re some urgent meetings.”

“When aren’t they urgent?”

She grunted, tilting her head in
agreement.

“When can I go back?”

“You’ve only been home two days, Socket.
Besides, Pon is still on assignment. There’s no point so just
relax.”

It felt like two years. The weakness I left
the Garrison with was already gone. Well, mostly gone, but I’d been
through worse. Sitting around the house wasn’t as glamorous as I
imagined. The normal world went about their daily lives while I sat
around scratching my balls.

I shuffled to the refrigerator and grabbed
some orange juice, then fell in a chair at the table. My frizzy
hair fell in the cup.

“Why don’t you do something today, like get
together with Chute and Streeter?” Mom asked.

“Chute’s coming over tonight.”

“Well, there you go. Get out and enjoy your
time off. Go watch one of her games or hang out with Streeter. I’m
sure he’d love to have you in virtualmode lab.”

“If I could find him.”

She mumbled about forgetting something,
rushed to her bedroom. “That reminds me,” she called. “He left a
message.”

Why didn’t he just call my nojakk?

“Yes?” Mother said, apparently answering a
call. “Yes, I’ll be there within a half hour. Make sure the
ambassador has a projection pad…” She closed the door.

I finished the juice, spilled some on my
shirt next to a jelly stain. “Play messages,” I called.

The television square lit on the wall in the
adjoining family room. Streeter appeared inside it. Well, it wasn’t
exactly
him,
it was his animated sim. The details were so
good that someone might think it was a real person; that is, if
they believed a blood-stained barbarian lived in this world.

“Socket, hey.” His bushy mustache shook over
his lips. “Just returning your message.”

Which one?

“I’ve been, uh, kind of busy, you know.
Things have been weird… not that you’d know.” He looked like he
wanted to spit.
What’s that all about?
“Anyway, I, uh, I’ll
get back to you later on, you know. Maybe I’ll see you at Chute’s
game tomorrow night.”

Message over. No goodbye, no later on, no
see you some other time. Just out. He wanted me to see him make
that face, see that something was on his mind.
But why the
sim?

“What’s wrong?” Mother stood at her bedroom
door, fixing her collar.

“Something’s up with Streeter.”

“What?”

“Don’t know. I called him half a dozen times
yesterday and then he just sends a message instead of calling
back.”

“That doesn’t sound like him.” She checked
her face in the mirror next to the front door, then finished her
coffee in one gulp. “I’ll be back tonight.”

“Something going on?”

“Some complications with Pike’s relocation.”
She tipped her cup again, even though it was empty. “There was a
slip up in the preliminary move. Pike overwhelmed another minder
and nearly escaped.”

“You call that a
slip up?
Is he all
right?”

“No.”

Minders weren’t child’s play; they were
masters of the psychic realm. They could strip a human of all his
memories, erase his mind like a hard drive, spin his consciousness
around until he vomited. They could will a man’s heart to stop with
a single thought. They were the most valued of all Paladins. The
most trusted. Still, none of them could compare to Pike. In the
past, two of them could subdue him. Now he broke them like
toys.

“Pon was only supposed to be secondary
support,” she said. “He’s in charge of the move, now. I doubt he’ll
be back to the Garrison until next week, so, you see, there’s no
point in you coming back. Your trainer’s busy.”

“When are they going to just kill Pike?”

“That’s not Paladin policy.”

“How many people have to die to change it?
Three minders are dead, you know; and they wouldn’t be if we just
got rid of him. Three lives for one, the math doesn’t work.”

She rinsed the cup, placed it upside down in
the sink. She stared out the window. “Sometimes it’s hard to know
the right thing.”

“Yeah, well the right thing is to get rid of
his ass. It might stink, but that doesn’t make it wrong.”

She dried her hands, then pushed my hair off
my face and looked at me. She’d been doing that more often, lately.
Like she knew something. If she did, she didn’t let on. Or maybe
that was what happiness looked like on her.

“You’ll be home for dinner?” I asked.

“I’ll be later than that. Why don’t you make
dinner for Chute?”

“Believe it not, I was kind of thinking
that. But, you know.”

“You know what? Don’t be wishy-washy, make
some food. She’s not going to care what it tastes like. I’m leaving
the car, so go to the store.”

I walked her to the door. A black sedan
stopped at the curb. The driver’s door opened. There was no one
inside, having driven from the Garrison on auto-pilot. She dropped
her briefcase in and waved goodbye.

I went to the front porch and propped my
feet on the banister. Fragrant tea olives were in early bloom. I
noticed things like that now, like the density of humidity, the
clarity of the sky, the taste of fresh juice. Since training began,
my senses continued to open. New experiences presented themselves
everywhere; even the simple things like subtle scents or textures
were exciting. It seemed lame to say it like that, but the world
was everywhere. I just needed to see.

A school bus squealed around the corner. The
passengers stared through the dirty windows like zombies. Some days
I wished I could be sitting on a school bus again, mindlessly
carted off to school where I could whittle the day away. At least
boredom didn’t kill you. But then again, sometimes it felt like
it.

Streeter wasn’t on the bus. Maybe I didn’t
see him, or maybe he drove his grandparents’ car. I had a feeling
it was none of the above.

“Locate Streeter,” I said, touching my
cheek. My nojakk linked up with Streeter’s and calculated his
location.

“
Streeter is currently at 724 West
Market, Charleston, South Carolina
.
”

A house call was in order.

T R A I N I N G

Gates of the dead

The white house was thirty feet from the
road. The shades were drawn. The driveway was empty. Streeter’s
grandparents never parked in the garage because there wasn’t room.
It was strictly storage. They never threw anything away and I’d dug
through that mess with Streeter a thousand times looking for a
plate or lamp his grandmother just knew she’d put in there.

I stepped onto the front porch, past the
wicker chairs and potted ficus trees, stopped at the door and
listened. Nothing stirred inside. Maybe my nojakk was wrong and he
wasn’t there, or maybe he was just late for school and missed the
bus. Maybe his grandparents took him.
So why am I
tip-toeing?
Because the energy around the house was foreboding,
like a ghost was in the attic.

I knocked. It echoed inside. Knocked,
again.

There was a key under the ficus. It had been
there since I was five. I could use it, but it would be hard to
explain if his grandma came home and, on the chance Streeter wasn’t
home, I’d be wandering around inside.

The small surveillance eye, about the size
of a marble, was still above the door. The surface swirled. It was
still working. Something wasn’t right. The house just felt…
dark.

I hopped the privacy fence and crept up to
the first window. The shade was drawn on Streeter’s room. I cupped
my hands against the window and peered through a gap below the
shade. The desk and dresser were covered with clothes and the floor
wasn’t visible under books, papers and Internet gear. Nothing had
changed.

The bed was in the corner with a mess of
covers. I thought about going around back and looking through the
kitchen window when the bed twitched. A hand was sticking out,
fingers twiddling on the mattress. A cable stuck out from under the
pillow.

Virtualmoding.

He was on the Internet, virtualmoding in his
giant sim. He knew I was at the front door, that surveillance eye
would’ve reported the view to him. In fact, there was another eye
somewhere outside his window, watching me watching him.