Psion Alpha (17 page)

Al?
Li? Brickert? Who will it be?
Anna had told Sammy he could
have Al if he asked, but Sammy knew she wanted him. Same with Brickert.
However, Sammy knew if he called out Al or Brickert’s names, she would adjust
and pick her alternates. Anna always prepared for contingencies. Brickert only
had a small amount of mission experience, but Sammy had trained with him in the
sims for countless hours. Yet Li was the more logical choice of the two. Multiple
Beta missions, smart on his feet, stuck to the plan, and fought well.

And
what about Al?
Sammy asked, scribbling the name down because
it suddenly seemed so obvious. Shifting onto his side, he saw the time on the
clock and cursed at himself. He sprang from his bed, dressed, and ran to
breakfast.

His
friends sat around a table, laughing. Sammy stood in the doorway and watched
them from where they couldn’t see him. He looked at Brickert, not sitting next
to Natalia, but still enjoying himself. Kawai and Strawberry covered their
mouths as they giggled. Jeffie’s face was flushed, her eyes watering from
laughter. Ludwig, Rosa, Miguel, and Parley sat nearby, also chatting happily. The
arrival of Al, Marie, and other Psions from Capitol Island had boosted their
spirits immeasurably. Seeing them so happy again brought a smile to Sammy’s
face. He examined each Beta’s face, reflecting on how much they meant to him.
He read his list once more, still unsure of what to do, then tucked it into his
pocket as he joined them.

“Hiya
stranger,” Jeffie said, kissing him on the cheek. The gesture surprised Sammy.
He’d expected her attitude toward him to be more sullen or cautious.

“Hiya
back.”

“I
got you some oatmeal.” She pushed a breakfast tray his way. “Lots of sugar.”
Her finger covered her lips as though she’d committed a sin by sweetening his
breakfast.

Sammy
leaned in and kissed her hard. He was so lucky to have her. Strawberry let out
a low whistle while Brickert tapped his glass with his spoon.

When
Sammy pulled away, Jeffie smiled at him. “Wow. If that’s the reward I get, I’ll
bring you your oatmeal every day.”

“Will
you?” he asked her.

As
soon as breakfast ended, he and his friends piled into the car. The Psions,
both Alpha and Beta, along with the Elite, Tensais, and Ultras had all been
invited to meet with the leadership committee for the special conference.
Sammy’s mission plans would be discussed in detail, along with the timetables
for preparation and execution of the plans. Most importantly, however, was the
announcement of who was going and who was not.

The
normal meeting room in the air tower could not hold everyone, so arrangements
were made to meet in the gymnasium of the old high school. Thomas and Lara had set
up dozens of seats in rows with a small music stand to act as a podium for the
speakers. Lara began the meeting with Thomas beside her. Thomas explained the
two missions in great detail for those who didn’t normally attend the council.
Then he gave the podium to Sammy.

Sammy
didn’t waste time getting started. “Thank you, everyone, for coming. After
great thought and discussion, I’ve chosen my team members. So has Anna. For
those of you who aren’t going—” he glanced at his friends, “—we still need your
support and encouragement. We all have something to contribute to the cause of
freedom. So, without further delay, here are the names of the people I ask to
go with me on the Coari trek: Maad Rosmir, Levu Enova, Sherwood Frieber, David
and Duncan Hudec, Aaron Lewis, Lorenzo Winters, Wesley Gibbons, Li Cheng Zheng,
Kawai Nujola, Nikotai Wang, and Gefjon Tvedt. Do any of you whose names I just read
wish to abstain from this mission?”

No
hands rose. He looked over at Anna Lukic and saw her scribbling on her paper
before she stood next to him behind the podium. “You suck sometimes, you know
that?” she hissed. “You stole three of my names.”

“You
want to come with me to the Amazon?” he whispered back to her. “Or sleep in
your hotel bed in Colorado Springs?”

“And
now,” Anna said, “for the names of those going to Colorado Springs: Justice
Juraschek, Albert Byron, Marie Byron, Brickert Plack, Ludwig Petrov, Parley von
Pratt, Avni Maru, Martineau
Chartrand, Genevieve Rohacik, Josef
Simmons, Anthony Ciochetto, Rory Tomsu, Daragh Keogh, Ziva Kujath, Akiko
Hashimoto, and Erin Malm
.”

As
he listened to her read the names, Sammy scanned the crowd and found Jeffie.
She locked eyes with him. They stared at each other for several seconds,
neither blinking nor breaking eye contact. Sammy knew she understood the reason
he’d chosen her wasn’t just because he trusted her abilities, but also because
he couldn’t be parted from her again.

CHAPTER
NINE
– Academics

August 2055

BYRON
successfully passed his first semester at the Elite Training Center. More
importantly, however, his goal of achieving golden skulls in aviation and
academics was still a possibility. His vow to win the third skull, the one for
combat, took a backseat to other ambitions. He simply didn’t have enough time
in the day to dedicate to combat training. Rarely did he dedicate more than an
hour a week to practicing his secret abilities in complete privacy. All his
free time went into exam preparations or flight simulations. Although Trapper,
Otto, and Emerald shared Byron’s determination to earn a skull (whereas Xian
was still content to simply pass), Team Oddball supported each other and took
pride in one another’s accomplishments. They continued to study, train,
practice, and play together.

Byron’s
tutoring sessions with Emerald had paid off. She had performed well in the
semester’s last two exams and no longer feared expulsion from the program. She
wasn’t, however, in the running for the aviation skull. No one on Team Oddball
stood much chance to win it except Byron. Out of the three hundred plus
students in the class, only Byron, Diego, and two other students appeared
likely to win it due to their consistent exceptional marks. Meanwhile, the
academic skull was very much up for grabs. Unlike aviation, all of Team Oddball
except Xian had a shot at it, driving them to work studiously night after
night.

On
the 19
^th
of August, a month and a half into their second semester,
Team Oddball sat around a table in one of the study rooms, quizzing each other
on psychology questions likely to come up in their next test. Spread out around
them were notes and copies of old exams from their professor. On the marker
screens they had written several key points and principles of the field of
biopsychology. Occasionally Xian got up and erased one of the words on the
screen to make it more difficult for them.

“This
sucks,” Otto moaned.

“That
is the fourth time you have said that tonight,” Byron reminded him, instantly
regretting the testy tone in his voice. He checked the time and sighed.

“Fifth,
actually,” Emerald reminded them.

“This
sucks, this sucks, this sucks.” Otto gave everyone a fake grin.

“If
you hit ten, we’re dismissing you from the room,” Trapper said. His lisp was
more pronounced because he had a fat lip. To match it, he had a shiner around
his left eye and a bruised nose. Nicoletta Clardonsky had paired Trapper up
with Omar during the sparring session of their combat class, and Omar had given
Trapper a good beating while she had her back turned.

“You
sure you want no ice for your face, bro?” Xian asked. “You look like you got
hit by a tank.”

“He
did get hit by a tank,” Otto commented.

“I
don’t need ice,” Trapper said. “Stop worrying about me. Sheesh, I don’t even have
it as bad as some of you.”

“False,”
Xian said. “None of us have bruises like that.”

“Really?”
Trapper snorted. “Emerald? Otto? You guys don’t think you have it worse than
me?”

Emerald
shrugged and looked away.

Trapper
pointed at Otto. “I know you do, man.”

“Uh,
I don’t know, dude. Do I?”

“How
many letters has your dad sent you telling you to pull up your grades even
though you’re in the top ten?”

Otto’s
eyes pointed at the ceiling while he counted. “Eleven.”

“That’s
like two a month!” Xian exclaimed. “How come I’m you’re roommate and you never
tell me this stuff, bro?”

Otto
shrugged. Byron remembered when Otto had come to his and Trapper’s room to show
Trapper the letters. While Byron pretended to sleep, Otto and Trapper talked
for almost two hours about all the pressure Otto was under from his parents to
be number one in the class.

“Elite
medical doctors can make crazy money,” Otto had told Trapper in a hushed voice.
“And that’s what they want me to become. And I can’t even beat the kid in Crisis
Management who looks like he’s not old enough to drive!”

Byron
squinted and saw Otto gesturing over at him.

“I
just feel like I’m going insane, dude,” Otto continued. “It doesn’t help that
Xian always wants to play games and goof off. If I did stuff like that—pulled
the grades he gets—the trust fund my dad set up for me would be gone faster
than you could recite the Elite mantra.”

While
his relationship with his dad was still strained, Byron had felt gratitude that
night that his parents weren’t as bad as Otto’s. The next day, he’d written a
heartfelt message to them, thanking them for their support and positive
influence.

“Kkksssh,
this is Elite Flight Tower,” Xian said in a mock-radio voice, “Officer Byron,
do you copy? Are you ready to return to Earth and study for your psychology
exam?”

Byron
stared blankly at his notes when Xian finally pulled him out of his thoughts.

“And
now back to our scheduled programming,” Trapper said, smirking at Byron, “on
enhancing neural function and activity. Five methods. Your turn, Emerald.”

“Electrical
stimulation—” Emerald began.

Xian
snickered.

“Get
a grip, pervert.” Emerald threw her tablet’s stylus at Xian, who caught it and
slid it back to her.

“Who’s
the man? I’m like a ninja. ”

“Electrical
stimulation
,” she began again, glaring at Xian, “biological and
artificial lesions, transcranial magnetic manipulation, optogenetic excitation,
and—and—”

“Come
on, you can do it,” Trapper said.

Emerald
tapped her ten fingers on her forehead. “I can’t remember it.”

“Otto?”

“Psychopharmacological
stimulation,” Otto answered, but Emerald repeated the last three syllables of
the answer simultaneously.

“Actually,
I count a sixth,” Byron mentioned. “Professor Gantt mentioned something about
recent discoveries in oligodendrocyte mutations which enhance brain activity.
It could be on the test.”

“True,”
Trapper said. He and Otto exchanged a private look. “Good point.”

“What
was that look for?” Byron asked. He looked at Emerald, wondering if she’d seen
it, too. She stared at him for about three seconds, her expression unreadable.
Then she returned to tapping her stylus on her tablet as she jotted down the
sixth point. Byron noted how her cheek bones were more pronounced than usual,
and wondered if she had lost more weight. Her hair, however, was as ratty as
ever.

“What
look?” Otto asked.

“Come
on, I saw it!”

Emerald
set her stylus back down. “They think you have a photographic memory.”

Byron
laughed. “No way! Really? Well, sorry to disappoint. I may have a good memory,
but if it is photographic, God must have forgotten to load the film. Then
again, there are definitely some photographs of me I want to forget.”

Emerald
snickered at this comment, as they both knew he was referring to the one Omar
took of them in the aviation simulator.

“Whatever,
dude. I still think you do.” Otto yawned loudly, and Trapper touched his lip to
see if it had started bleeding again.

“Don’t
you guys wish you were like me?” Xian asked. “You all care so much about that lame
golden skull. But at least three of the four of you are going to be
disappointed on graduation day.”

“Hey,”
Otto answered, “I’m just glad the aviation class isn’t part of the score for the
academic skull. Byron has that one all but locked up.”

Byron
glanced at the clock with a frown.
Only two hours left
, he said to
himself.
What are my parents doing right at this moment? Sleeping?
A
small ache grew in his chest, so he spoke to take his mind off his folks.
“Nothing is locked up yet. We still have almost eighteen months of school.” He
looked at the clock one more time.

“All
right, bros,” Xian said, “and bra.” He smirked at Emerald, who answered him
with a rude hand gesture. “I hear my pillow calling softly to me. I must heed
her sweet tones.”

“Yeah,
I’m out, too,” Otto said, packing up his stuff. “I can study this stuff more
tomorrow when I’m not beat.”

“Fortunately,
you’re not as beat as Trapper’s face,” Xian said.

“Goodnight,
Xian,” Trapper said. “Don’t let the door hit you.”

Once
Otto and Xian were gone, Trapper stood up. “Okay, my face really does hurt. I’m
going to get some ice. Either of you want anything from the cafeteria?”

“Caffeine,”
Byron and Emerald both said.

“Be
right back.” The door clicked behind Trapper when he exited. Byron checked the
time, frowning.

“You’re
quieter than normal today, Byron,” Emerald commented. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh,
nothing,” he said. “Psychology on the brain is all.”

“Liar,
liar, pants on fire,” she responded in a sing-song tone. “Tell me. I won’t
blab.”

Byron
rubbed his nose several times, and finally decided to tell her. “Today is my
birthday. I guess I feel a little homesick.”

“Happy
birthday,
Walter
.” She said it without much gusto, but plenty of
sincerity. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

Emerald
raised an eyebrow as she rolled her eyes. “Byron, get a clue. We all know
you’re younger than us.”

Byron
looked at his tablet screen. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Don’t
worry. Like I said, I won’t blab. I don’t turn seventeen for another eight
months.”

“What?
You mean you are sixteen right now?”

Emerald
nodded. “Yep. Only you and Trapper know that.”

“
Don’t
worry, I won’t blab
,” he repeated with a smirk. They shared a laugh. “How
did you start so early?”

Her
finger went to her lips. “Falsified government documents. Lied about my age.”

“Why
not wait the extra year? You could get in trouble.”

“I
could, you’re right. But I had to get out of my home. Now tell me how old you
are.”

“Sixteen.
Sixteen today. Instead of getting my driver’s license, I get to work toward a
pilot’s license. Decent trade off, right?”

She
nodded, giggling. “Glad I didn’t take Trapper’s bet back in January. He guessed
you were fifteen when you got here, but I’d have put my money on sixteen.”

For
some reason, he found the knowledge oddly bolstering that, like him, Emerald
was younger than everyone else. “You ever get homesick?” he asked, knowing if
he pushed her too hard for information about her home, she’d clam up.

She
shook her head emphatically.

“Really?
Never?” He didn’t understand that. His parents entered his thoughts at some
point every day. His father, especially. “‘
Deserted is my own good hall,
its hearth is desolate. Wild weeds are gathering on the wall; my dog howls at
the gate.’”

“Stop.”
Emerald’s eyes flashed angrily. “I don’t want to hear any stupid poetry.”

She
may as well have slapped Byron. “I—sorry—I never knew you hated it.”

“It’s
not that I hate poetry. My—my dad was a poetry professor at Rutgers University.
He used to read me poetry at night after he got drunk. Then he’d smack around
my mom. I heard them from my room. Whenever I hear poetry.… ” Emerald
shuddered. “I just don’t like it.”

Byron
nodded, remembering the photograph of Emerald and her father at a party just
before she flew to Elite training. In the picture, he hadn’t seemed like the kind
of man who beat his family. “I thought you said he was a pilot.”

“A
pilot—yes, but not professionally.” She pulled up her sleeve to itch her arms.
This exposed several centimeters of her tattoo sleeve. Byron so rarely saw the
art that he couldn’t help but look. Her skin was so colorful, so decorative,
but he had no idea what was in the pictures. She caught him staring and
hurriedly covered herself up. He felt stupid for staring at them.