Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (63 page)

“I thought you were going away for a month?”
Streeter asked.

“Time does not operate that way, Master
Streeter. Since Master Socket will be traveling at the speed of
light for a short period, time will slow down for him. While his
trip may only seem brief, weeks will pass for us.”

Spindle charged into the rest of the visit,
who I would be meeting, what we would be doing and what I could
expect. Now I was getting sleepy.

A distant flutter echoed from one of the
leafless trees. Then a cloud of brightly colored grimmets appeared
to be heading for us. When they were close enough to hear their
wings, my office projected their images around us. They were as
playful as the ones in the Preserve. Maybe the trip wouldn’t be so
bad.

Streeter walked into the mob with his hands
up. It was hard not to join them when they were near, even if it
was just a projection. Spindle gave up. He left the office without
saying another word. I’d apologize later. In the meantime, Streeter
and I would have some fun.

An hour.

I’d been asleep for an hour before waking up
with a cold shiver running down my back. No memory of a vision or a
dream, just the remnants of one. Maybe it knocked me out again,
only this time I was already sleeping. I laid there staring at the
ceiling but couldn’t remember having a vision, but there was no
doubt one had happened.
Now I’m not remembering them?
I was
buzzing with adrenaline.

I had transformed my office to replicate the
tagghet field, again. I hated that I was getting accustomed to the
convenience of it – the sounds and smells were dead-on – because I
much preferred the real thing, but I let myself be lazy. I told
myself there wasn’t time to get out there, but that was bullshit. I
just wanted to sit. Now.

I had been sitting for almost an hour, sweat
running down my face as the room replicated the humidity. Even
though I hadn’t eaten in almost a day, I felt full. The longer I
sat, the fuller I became. Not full, really.
Dense
.

An hour and a half into sitting, the kids
quietly walked in with their cushions and sat with me. A certain
joy vibrated between us without a word. I couldn’t help but smile
as they folded their legs and settled their minds. Soon, our
breathing was synchronized and we blended with the surrounding
sounds and scents.

The silence was shattered by an earthshaking
tremor. Despite the unnatural interruption, none of us broke from
our sitting. We remained motionless, but I could feel the thoughts
of concern rumble through the office. Finally, Spindle stepped
inside. He paused at the entrance and folded his hands in front of
his belly. He waited until I looked his way.

“Your escort has arrived, Master
Socket.”

We sat a few moments longer. The kids didn’t
move until I gave a short bow. I was sluggish to get off the
ground, loosening my joints like my blood had turned to syrup. I
gave the kids encouragement to keep up the schedule, that Spindle
would be taking care of them, and I’d see them soon. The girls gave
me hugs. I held my hand out to shake Ben’s hand, but he pulled me
in for a hug, patting my back.

“Hugging ain’t just for chicks,” he
said.

I had to laugh and hugged the rest of them.
I’d gone on trips before. This felt like a long goodbye. Did they
sense the heaviness weighing inside me, sharing my agitation while
we sat?

“Tagghet when you get back,” Aiesha said.
“Don’t turn rusty on me, old man.”

I was five years older than them, and I was
the old man. I was certainly walking like one. I informed Spindle
to take them to the tagghet field and I’d meet him down at the
launch.

I put on my official space travel outfit. It
was dark blue and fitted with numerous pockets and built-in
communication modules, thermal-conditioning adjustments to keep my
body temperature adequate under extreme conditions, armor-imbedded
material to resist impact. Even had a back door to drop a load. I
doubled-checked the backpack that contained everything needed for
surviving extended periods in the middle of nowhere.

When the office was quiet, I called for the
walls to dim the tagghet field projection so I could rest in the
darkness for a while. There was just enough light to see the desk.
I straightened up some papers, activated messages for anyone
contacting me while I was gone and checked over my schedule one
more time.

It was too dark to see to the other side of
the office. Like my future. I was tempted to call Chute and
Streeter one last time, but I’d already said my goodbyes. Instead,
I called up Chute’s room. Her bed appeared. The covers were thrown
back and the pillow dented. She was already about her day.

I needed to do the same.

L E G E N D

Showtime

Paladins were lined up in the parking
garage. Most just nodded as I passed, some shook my hand, patted me
on the shoulder. Servys were hovering in lines behind them. All
seemed present and accounted for. The floor was vibrating with the
hum of something powerful, pulsing through the bottom of my feet; I
could feel it in my teeth. I stepped through the wall to the other
side where the ship would be waiting in the boulder field.

I stopped immediately. I’d seen images of
these deep space cruisers in my studies, knew what they looked
like, but in person it was just… daunting. It was black, oval and
smooth, like a skipping stone. And it took up the entire field,
almost 300 yards across. There were no windows, none visible at
least. The air around it trembled like it was fiercely hot, but it
seemed to have more to do with the color, a black totally void of
light. The ship seemed to be eating the space around it.

The Commander was standing to the side,
letting me take it all in. He nodded at me as if to say,
take
your time.

The vibrations I felt inside the parking
garage emanated from the ship, quivering through the ground with a
low frequency that penetrated solid granite. They intensified for a
moment, like it sensed I was staring. Like it was saying,
yeah,
this shit’s for real, son.

“I had no idea it would be this…” I trailed
off. I didn’t know what I meant. I just had no idea. Period. “This
is just for me?”

“You’ll be travelling alone,” the Commander
said.

“Seems a bit much. Couldn’t you send
something a little…” Again, I wasn’t sure if smaller was what I was
thinking.
Maybe something a little less bad ass?

“It takes a lot to travel through space,” he
said.

“That thing will fit through the
wormhole?”

He smiled, but instead of answering he
adjusted the straps on my backpack. It weighed over seventy pounds,
but my body felt so dense that the backpack felt like a box of
tissues. The ship contained everything I needed. The pack was just
an insurance policy.

“In case you’re wondering, I don’t
personally see every Paladin off on their first trip.” The
Commander smacked my back like he was sending off a horse. “But
your mother insisted.”

“I appreciate that, sir.”

He grabbed both shoulders. “This is a
routine trip, son. No need to be nervous. You’ve been through
things plenty worse than this.” He winked.

He sensed my nervousness. Is that what it
was, nervousness? I was feeling as rigid as a flagpole and heavy as
a tank. I trusted my gut feelings and this one was saying stay
right here, this was not the trip I wanted to take. But something
also told me this trip was inevitable. It was now or later. But why
did something so routine feel so imminent?

The ship’s humming intensified again. A
doorway was glowing on the black surface. The Commander patted me
again, one more wink. “Godspeed, son.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I started the slow march toward the doorway,
the wind whistling in my ears. Each step was heavy, vibrating every
time the bottom of my foot touched the ground like it was a
vibratory plate, compacting my insides. The air was becoming dense,
like the ship was pushing back the closer I got. Each step took
more and more effort.

I thought about turning around and asking
the Commander what he thought, but it wasn’t the ship pushing
against me. It was me; like rigor mortis setting in. Maybe it was
those vibrations just whacking me out, getting me ready for the
super-squeeze of the wormhole. Like Spindle said, we were going to
the other side of the galaxy, not Charleston. Was this prepping me
for the ride?

I could feel the cold wave emanating from
the ship’s surface like it was sucking the energy out of the
atmosphere. I had to push my last step through the doorway. First,
it was bright and so cold it squeezed out my last breath. But then
I was through and the ship was gone. Gone, as in gone-gone.

I was standing in the boulder-field. No ship
around me. Everything, completely silent.

There was a table in front of me, round and
black like the ship. The surface was smooth. The field silent. The
trees moved, but the wind didn’t gust in my ears. Birds flew over,
their beaks jerking open while their heads searched below. But no
caw. I scratched my face and heard my fingertips rub against my
skin.

The Commander was still where I left him,
hands clasped behind his back. I started to walk back but an
invisible force pushed back. I must be inside the ship, the walls
projecting the view from the outside so they appeared invisible to
me. The Commander would still be seeing the black ship.
Spindle
must’ve missed this detail. Or maybe I wasn’t listening.

I expanded my mind, felt the smooth surface
of the invisible walls and the circuitry within them. I merged with
the ship’s intelligence, sensing its directive to serve. It felt
cold and alien. And massive. I opened to the ship’s database,
allowed it to connect with me and read my intentions. The
experience of its artificial intelligence stung with a slight
metallic ring. Soon, we were intertwined with a single goal in
mind.
The Grimmet Outpost.

The trees shook violently, whipping leaves
into the sky, the grass jerking back and forth. The ground slowly
dropped away beneath my feet. I lifted magically into the air.
Vertigo swirled in my stomach.

Higher and faster I went. And closer to the
cliff. I soared over the top to see tree-covered mountains far in
the distance and drifted near a great chasm that was filled with
the Preserve. Nothing stirred as I cruised over it, the jungle
separated from me by its invisible forcefield. In the middle of the
trees was a dark green oval dotted with six children and a silver
humanoid, looking up. They were waving.

I drifted further until they blended with
the scenery. A lightning bolt, absent of thunder, licked the sky. I
was moving near the center of an electrical storm that swirled
ahead. It began to open, the center black, swallowing the bands of
lightning like it was hungry for our world, growing larger and
wider. I felt like plankton being inhaled by a whale. I gripped the
table, cold and smooth and solid. Maybe that’s why it was there, to
keep me from falling over.

The black opening suddenly ripped open,
exposing a blue throat. I was swallowed with no time to brace for
impact. No time to scream. It was like being sucked through a
straw. But just as sudden as my body felt steamrolled, there was no
sense of motion. There was no sight or smell. For a long moment, I
was bodiless. There was no pressure. No pain. There was
nothing.

Getting past the first part was nothing
short of being blown to bits. After that, it was the greatest peace
I’d ever known. No body, no thoughts. No sense of going anywhere.
Maybe this was what death felt like.

But I was moving. Towards destiny.

There was no stopping that. We all arrive
where we’re going. And as my body began to exit the other end of
the wormhole, preceded by the siren scream of my nervous system
reminding me that it was working again, I had the nagging thought
my destiny was near.

Showtime
.

VIII

Serving life is not always beautiful.

Pivot

A perfect trap is one the prey readily
accepts,

even when he already knows the outcome.

Pike

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free.

John 8:32

L E G E N D

Outpost

The exit was as quick as the entrance. For a
second, I sensed my body had already arrived at the destination
before I did. But I was catching up, arriving in time to feel the
wormhole shit me out the other end of that intergalactic straw.

My extremities were cold and my fingers
tingling. I blinked several times to focus the blurry details of
men, more than one, somewhere in front of me. There was a hollow
pain burning inside my chest. I wasn’t breathing.

I pulled in my first breath like I was
drowning, gasping for air. I bent over and, with my hands on my
knees, was ready to puke. It passed, but when I stood up my mouth
was filling with spit. I blinked away the tears. Now I could see
three men. Maybe they were smiling.

I walked toward them, each step tentative. I
couldn’t feel the ship’s walls anymore, but then again I couldn’t
feel much of anything. Five feet away from them, I passed through
the ship’s cold doorway and was bombarded with an earthy smell and
the sound of the ship’s hissing. And that’s when my stomach
revolted.

I blew chunks all over. It was mostly green
liquid, but I was hands on my knees again, wrenching until it was
all over my shoes, the floor and whatever else was below.