Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (59 page)

Streeter looked at her and smiled. He may as
well have batted his eyes.

“What do you mean
virtually
see
them?” a dad asked.

“This gear,” Streeter said, holding up the
half-globe, “will link your mind with, say, your grandmother living
in California. Your eyes will see her in front of you. You’ll see
what she’s doing right this second, like she’s in the room.”

“Let’s see it work,” someone said.

“All right.” Streeter scanned the crowd.
Little kids raised their hands, jumping up and down, shouting
me, me, me.
He swung his finger around like a spinning wheel
to pick the winners. He placed the gear against their foreheads,
one at a time, and asked them to think of a friend or relative. And
when they did, a holographic image of planet Earth materialized
with a glowing dot on it, signifying where the person they were
thinking of was located. And he was right, every time.

“Big deal,” a kid said. “You said we’d see
them.”

Streeter smiled. “Oh, you’re going to see
them. I’m going to pick someone at random and dial up whoever that
person thinks of?” He circled the spinning finger. “You ready? Huh?
Who’s going to be the lucky one?”

Me! Me, me, me!

The finger spun around. Parents were even
raising their hands. The crowd grew larger. Streeter worked them
like a street performer, waving his hand around and around. It
started to come down to pick a winner—

Thunder rumbles through the sand under my
feet. The next flash of lightning illuminates the silhouette of a
figure in front of me. The heavy rain blurs the details, but I
notice the knife in the right hand.

“You there, in the pink shirt.” Streeter was
pointing at me. People were staring. “Yeah, you. I’m talking to
you. Wake up. What’d you say?”

I was still leaning against the wall but
couldn’t feel my legs. I don’t know how I managed to keep from
sliding down to the ground. My entire head was ringing like a bell.
I was moving my mouth but nothing was coming out. Now the kids
watching the holographic battle turned around and looked.

“Hey there, stranger.” Streeter came over.
He laughed nervously, looked back at the crowd and pulled on my
shirt. “That’s a nice shirt. Isn’t that a nice shirt, folks?”

They laughed nervously, too.

I managed a single step and it reverberated
to the top of my skull. It hurt, but it brought me back, flushed
away the heavy dullness.

“What’s your name, stranger?” Streeter
asked.

“Um. Socket.”

“Boy, you nervous or just excited?” The
crowd laughed, went along with the joke.

“Just, um, a little nervous, I guess.”

“Nothing to be nervous about, my friend.” He
held up the gear. “Now I’m going to ask Socket to visualize someone
in his family. That person is going to materialize in front of us.
Now, normally, only Socket would see this person, but I’ve
calibrated the gear to project it for all of us to see. But first,”
he put the gear in my hands, slightly heavier than a paperweight,
“we need the locator to find Socket in time and space. Once it
finds him, standing right here, it’ll seek out his mystery
guest.”

Others joined the crowd to watch the pink
shirt, funny-name kid holding a paperweight. All I could think
about was the thunder and the lightning and the knife, how the
figure felt familiar. And how I’d never had two visions in one day.
Panic began to rise, along with a thought:
Not again.
Something was changing in me and I didn’t understand it. Things
like that made me nervous.

“Close your eyes, Socket,” Streeter said.
“Let the locator connect with your being, much like a virtualmode
transporter pulls you from your skin.”

I took a deep breath and relaxed. I was
already feeling normal again. The last thing I wanted to do was
freak a whole bunch of people out. I closed my eyes and gripped the
locator tightly. I could feel it travelling through my arms like
filaments, searching through my nerve lines for all my organs and
the awareness of my being. It was a good prototype, but now I
understood why Streeter chose me. It wasn’t ready to fully connect
with a normal person. He needed extra-perception, someone like me
to assist its communication. So I fully engaged with the gear,
letting it merge with my awareness.

“There we go,” Streeter said.

I opened my eyes. A hologram of Earth
materialized in front of us, turning on the axis, like it had done
with the others.

“So the locator is finding Socket, it’ll
show us where he is, and then we’ll ask him to…”

The crowd began laughing. A dot was glowing
in the United States, but not in Charleston, South Carolina. It was
in the middle of Illinois.

“You’re only off by 800 hundred miles, kid,”
someone said.

Several people walked off, someone tossing
in, “Good luck in Washington. Loser.”

“No, just a second.” Streeter took it from
me. “I forgot to reset the… it’ll still work…”

But he lost them. They were heading for
their seats. The ceremony was going to begin in ten minutes
anyway.

“Man, why’d you have to go and do that?” He
scowled.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

“Because I made fun of your pink shirt?” He
stared at it. “Why are you wearing a pink shirt?”

I showed him Chute’s face on the back.

“They have those in other colors, you
know.”

“I didn’t buy it for the color.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t work on you. And
what’s with the look of shock? You knew I was going to call you and
then you looked like you were going to start drooling. You having a
seizure?”

“Yeah, well, I just was… thinking of
something. You caught me by surprise.”

“More like I kicked you in the balls.”

“Hi, Socket.” Janette bobbed on her toes,
holding Streeter’s hand.

Janette and I talked while Streeter went
over to the display. She liked my shirt and asked how I was doing
and how excited she was for Chute. “Are you two going inside?” I
asked.

“We got to break down the display,” Streeter
said. “And recalibrate this, apparently.”

“You’re close, Streeter. The code was
correct and most of the internal structure. It must be holding some
data from previous reads.”

“We could take it back to the lab,” Janette
said, “run another test drive to realign the synapse relays.”

“I suppose.” He had that look again, as if
she was speaking the language of love and only he could hear it.
Then she blushed.

“I’m going to leave you two alone,” I
said.

“Well, come by later.” He grabbed me before
I could get away. “And don’t tell Chute we’re not in there. We’ll
watch it on relay, but I can’t get in there to see it live.”

“So you want me to lie?”

“No, just tell her you saw me and that I saw
her, that’s not a lie. If she gets suspicious, just run. That’s
what I do.”

He looked at Janette for support, but she
didn’t know Chute all that well, yet. Chute wouldn’t miss something
like this for either of us and she expected the same in return.

“When are you bringing me out to the
Garrison? You’ve had Chute out there like twelve times. Me? I’ve
been there once.” He put one finger in my face to make his point.
“You like her better than me or something?”

“Infinitely.”

“My feelings are hurt.”

I pushed his hand away. “Every time I ask
you to come out you got something planned.” I stared at Janette for
a long second. “Who’s fault is that?”

She nodded in agreement. Streeter said, “All
right, well, I got a life. Sue me.”

“Maybe I could schedule you to come out in a
few days, before I leave on a trip.”

“Two days?” He rubbed his chin and glanced
at Janette. “Yeaaaaah, I can’t do that.”

“You’re hilarious, you know that?”

“How about this? I project into your office
through virtualmode, you can show how the whole molding technology
works. You don’t need permission for that.”

“I’ll see.”

Virtualmode club members grabbed Streeter
and Janette followed. He pointed at me as if to say
do it.
I
nodded but they were already discussing the next meeting, taking
down the banner and boxing up the gear while the kids screamed for
more action from the monsters. By the time I reached an entrance to
the stadium, the corridor was mostly empty. Two minutes before the
ceremony began.

L E G E N D

Raining Roses

Eight-thousand seats in that stadium. All
filled.

Lightners floated above the stadium
spotlighting the crowd that cheered when their images appeared over
the field in three-dimensional detail. Holographic fireworks
streaked harmlessly from one side to the other, like a battle of
green, blue and red fizzling missiles. Hundreds of shiny lookit
orbs hovered around, their red eyelights circling their shiny
softball-sized bodies, scanning and directing the crowd. I made my
way near the front, stood along the railing just above the
field.

Security guards were along the perimeter.
There were some real important people on the stage in center field,
including the governor, mayor and all the members of the county
school board. The rest of the stage was occupied by coaches and
parents. There in front, sitting with a blanket over his lap in a
wheelchair, was Chute’s father, Mr. Thomas, who was paralyzed in
the car accident that took his wife’s life. Behind him was Chute’s
older sister, Angela, her hands on his shoulders.

A bone-rattling explosion shook the seats,
and then the sky lit up. Fog oozed from the tunnel at the end of
the field, smoky tendrils crawling over the grass. Synthesized
music hammered out a beat. The head coach emerged from the thick
cloud and the crowd erupted.

He reached center stage and shook hands. And
then the first player stepped from the smoke, hands in the air,
dancing in a circle, whooping the crowd to another level of
fanatical frenzy. Another tagger emerged, hopping up and down,
swinging his arms. The announcer’s voice barely registered above
the excitement. The third player out broke rank and raced for the
wall where fans leaned over with outstretched hands. The next one
out followed until several of them were running along the perimeter
shaking hands and signing shirts and programs. The crowd rushed
down the aisles to get a piece of the action.

Two students pushed by me, booing. They
threw poppers at the players, laughing with the squeal of
gear-induced euphoria. Their energy tasted sulfuric, their synapses
burning from the small patches they hid behind their ears that kept
the dopamine production on high. They started to throw another
round of poppers.

“Turn yourselves into security.” I barely
spoke above the noise, but they didn’t need to hear the words. They
felt them. “Report you are using illegal gear and need help.”

Their complexions became pasty. They were
frozen in mid-throw, absorbing what I just imprinted on their
minds. They accepted my thoughts as their own, felt the compulsion
to turn themselves over to the authorities. The command wouldn’t
last long, soon it would fade and they would resume control of
their being, but it would last long enough to get them out of the
way.

“AND, FINALLY!” the announcer shouted,
“SOUTH CAROLINA’S MOST VALUABLE PLAYER…”

The crowd drowned his final word out,
shouting a name that had been called hundreds of times during the
tagghet season.

CHHHHUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTE!

Chute stepped out of the tunnel. My chest
melted, seeing her step into the spotlight. The crowd began
throwing stuff onto the field. My instinct was to stop them, but
then I realized… roses. They were throwing roses. Some had stems,
others threw just the flowers that perished in a flutter of petals
that looked like a pink cloud falling onto the green grass. She
raised her hands to catch them.

We would be together, for the rest of our
lives, that much I knew because, from time to time, I had a vision.
We’re old. My hair is thin, but still white. Streeter is short,
round and bald. Wrinkles soften Chute’s face and her red hair is
more of a rust color and sprayed with strands of gray. I’m holding
her right hand. In her left, she holds a rose. We’re in a wasteland
of dead trees, their silvery-gray branches barren. Weeds brush
against our knees until we reach an enormous stump worn and
chiseled by the weather. Chute kneels and places the rose on the
stump. We stand in silence. She lays her head on my shoulder.

It feels like we’re paying tribute to
someone, but I don’t know who. All I know is that it’s a solid
vision. As solid as they get.

We’ll be together, to the end.

Chute reached the steps leading up to the
stage and the coach handed her a long stemmed rose. It was the
students that started the rose ritual, throwing them like hockey
fans threw hats on the ice after a hat trick. It started with any
old flower, but when Chute was quoted on the news that roses were
her favorite, it was roses the rest of the season. Whenever she
scored, it rained red.

Her teammates pulled her onstage. Together,
the whole team raised their arms. The crowd went berserk. It was
several minutes before there was any control. In fact, no one could
hear what the coach was saying. When he was finished, he turned it
over to the other very special people. They handed out awards to
various players. They each got to say something, shouting out to
their friends and families and pretty much whatever came to mind. I
could barely hear them.

Chute was the last up, blushing as the crowd
ramped up again, tossing more roses, turning the field more red
than green. She held her father’s hand and tried to speak but
choked on her emotions, which only riled up the crowd more. When
she finally spoke, and the crowd settled, she sincerely thanked
everyone for coming, it meant so much. She held up the MVP award –
a glittering globe – and the crowd responded.