Psion Alpha (7 page)

“Every
effort will be made, Anna,” Byron told her. “You team leaders did stellar work.
Congratulations. Split up your troops. Half perform triage and tend to the
wounded, the other half execute any remaining CAG forces and prepare those last
three cruisers. We need to move quickly before CAG reinforcements arrive.”

As
soon as he spoke these words, more Elite entered the Military Operations Room
with Dr. Rosmir with them. The doctor wore the same wary expression he often
had when trouble was near. “Escort the commander to the cruisers. Take care not
to tip him.”

“Thank
you, Commander Byron,” the Vice President said, saluting. “We are all indebted
to you. I wish you the best on your journey.”

“Thank
you, Vice President. I will be in touch once we reach our destination to take
the President’s orders. You are sure you want me on that cruiser?”

“We
need your leadership over there, Commander,” the Vice President said. “You
proved that today.”

With
a shake of the hands, it was time to go. Rosmir nodded at Commander Byron and
followed the Elite out of the room. The sensation of being carried up hundreds
of stairs unsettled the commander. The Elite gave no sign of fatigue during the
long march up the tunnel of the main entrance. A truck waited for them outside
the doors. The Elite hauled Byron into the bed and surrounded him, steadying
his gurney. When Rosmir climbed into the cab, the truck bounded toward the
cruisers. The recent battles made the terrain rough and sometimes difficult to
navigate. Fortunately, the ride lasted only minutes. Albert and his wife, Marie,
ran up as soon as the truck came to a halt. Commander Byron relaxed when he saw
them.

“Both
of you are all right?”

“Fine,
Dad.”

“How
many casualties, Albert?”

Albert’s
jaw muscles tightened as he answered. “Twenty-six confirmed. Maybe more.”

“How
many were Psions?”

“Nearly
half.”

So
few left. So few of us.
The thought made him feel like an ancient
relic stuffed in a dusty museum. There was no exact count of how many active
Psion Alphas remained in the field. Estimates ranged from twenty to forty. Most
of the bodies of the Betas had not been recovered from the wreckage of
headquarters.

Two
Alpha squadrons comprised of only Psions had yet to report back to Command
since the attack. One squadron had been on assignment in the tundra of northern
America, the other in Los Angeles. Byron tried not to think too much about them
because whenever he did a terrible pain crept into his stomach. The idea that
everyone he’d trained had died was unbearable. Each Psion represented his life’s
work, but he particularly mourned the loss of Sammy.

“Please
take me aboard the cruiser,” he told the Elite. His eyes moistened as he
pondered his fallen students.

The
Elite carried out Byron’s orders, and others hurried the President and First
Lady onto another cruiser. No one but the Vice President knew where the
President and his wife were headed, but it relieved the commander to know that
the Marnyos were safe. Psions, Tensais, Elite, and Ultras filled the other two
captured cruisers, including Anna Lukic, Justice Juraschek, and Nikotai Wang.
Marie and Albert boarded with Byron. As soon as the technicians cleared the
cruisers for takeoff, all three rose into the air. While the cruiser bearing
the President and First Lady Marnyo headed east, the other two aircrafts turned
toward the west.

Dr.
Rosmir sat with Commander Byron. “You doing okay?”

Byron
wanted to say he was fine, but his nerves were fried from stress, guilt, and
grieving. “No, Maad. It will be a long time before I am fine.”

“Don’t
worry, Walter, I’m going to fix all this.” Rosmir waved a hand at Byron’s legs.

“But
what will fix everything else?”

The
Elite pilot called out from the cockpit. “Commander, sir, we’re ready to put
your coordinates into the auto-nav.”

Commander
Byron closed his eyes and relaxed his body. His hand brushed the data cube in
his pocket holding the cognitive dump he’d been working on in case he didn’t
pull through the surgery. He planned to give it to Albert so he would have a
record of his experiences.

“Glasgow,
CAG territory. Coordinates are as follows.… ”

CHAPTER
FOUR
– Siberia

January 2055

WALTER
scrambled to unhook his safety restraints, but the buckle had jammed.
Where did
they go? Why would they leave?
The altitude meter on the controls in the
cockpit showed the plane dropping steadily.
Come on.
He tugged harder on
his belts as his fingers worked against the release.
Come on! COME ON!
Finally the clasp gave way, and he jumped from his seat.

“Parachute
… parachute … para—
where are you!
” he shouted. Whirling around in place,
he noticed a row of packs with those very words printed on them in faded black
letters. He ripped one from its holder and jerked his arms through the straps.
His heart crashed into the walls of his chest as he made his way to the plane’s
hatch.

As
he staggered to the door, he felt around for a pull cord on the parachute pack,
and found it secured to the right side. He jerked on the door’s lever four
times before getting it to budge. When he threw his weight against it the final
time, it flew open with a bang. His momentum carried him headfirst out the door
without even a chance to consider jumping. The distance between himself and the
plummeting aircraft grew rapidly. Byron wailed like a baby as he hit the
shockingly frigid air of Siberia in January. His cheeks numbed in seconds as he
continued to scream. Then the instinct to survive took over, and without
thinking, his hand reached for the cord and yanked on it.

A
loud
whoosh
, accompanied a sharp jerk that threatened to rip off his
arms at the shoulder, told him the chute had opened properly. He looked up at
the piece of canvas that had saved his life. A giant yellow smiley face grinned
back at him. Walter stared at it and began to giggle. His giggling grew into a
laugh that shook him so hard his eyes watered. The teardrops froze almost
immediately. His hysteria lasted until he reached the ground with a thump
muffled by the deep snow.

Something
inside the parachute pack whirred to life, drawing the parachute back inside,
repacking it. Byron shrugged it off his shoulders to see what useful items it
possessed. Surrounding him was a vast blanket of white ice broken up by small
clumps of nearby bushes and a long line of evergreens in the far distance. The
land was flat, but on the faint horizon, Walter believed he saw hills or
mountains. It was hard to tell because every part of his body trembled. His
breaths came in ragged gasps as he dug through the pack, looking for anything
to warm him. His light-blue fingers ached each time they touched something.
Rather than searching through the contents, he dumped everything onto the snow.

“Come
on … ” he whispered, “… please. Please.
Please
.”

Then
he saw:
HEAT
JACKET
.

Walter
grabbed this and tore it open, barely able to control his fingers enough to
grip the packaging. Inside was a jacket made of some cross between tin foil and
nylon. He pulled it over him, waving his arms about like an octopus until it fit
snugly. He slipped the hood over his head and tightened the drawstring until
his eyes saw through little more than slits. The sleeves ended in gloves, which
he jammed his numb fingers into until they hit bottom.

A
moan of relief escaped him as he felt some small measure of warmth. This bit of
repose from the full power of the cold let his thoughts move to the next
problem.
Now what?
A dozen different ideas and horrors crossed his mind.
Should he build himself an igloo? He didn’t know how. Would he need to drink
his own urine to survive? The idea repulsed him. Should he keep walking to keep
up his body heat or stay put to conserve energy? Would he be safer near the
wreckage of the aircraft?

He
squinted his eyes and noted the plume of smoke two or three kilometers ahead
where the plane had crashed. It made the most sense to be near it, so he
repacked his bag of supplies and started walking. He hadn’t gone very far when
he realized something was wrong with his legs. They seemed both stiff and
wobbly, like thick cotton soaked in jelly. He jerked and stumbled forward,
trying to get his blood flowing. His chest and arms, on the other hand, radiated
warmth. Slowly, he made progress across the frozen wasteland.

Each
time he peered through the makeshift mask at the site of the wreckage, it seemed
no closer than before.
Something is wrong with me
, he thought.
Am I
dying?
This notion got his adrenaline pumping which helped him move faster.
The air leaving his lungs fogged his vision while his snot froze inside his
nostrils, driving him mad. He rubbed his nose and tripped, catching himself on
the ground. Small chunks of ice ripped the thin material of his gloves and
warmth seeped out the ends of the sleeves until he tucked them under his armpits.
He nearly started to cry but knew his tears might freeze his eyes shut.

He
pressed onward, searching for anything, anyone, something in the white void
surrounding him, but saw nothing except snow, ice, and more snow. He forced
himself to keep his eyes on the wreckage. He believed that if he made it there,
he would live. If not.…

I
can do it. I can do it. I can do it.

He
repeated this dozens of times, both thinking and whispering the words. It kept
his mind steady. It also helped him ignore the growing strangeness happening in
his legs and feet at an alarming rate. He was at least a kilometer away from
the crash site when his legs crumpled beneath him, and his pack slipped to the
ice, spilling its contents out into the snow. The impact of his knees on ice
drove home the realization that he would not make it to the wreckage, and thus,
would not live to see the next hour.

“I
did my best,” he said, “I need some help now.”

He
looked at the ground and saw a smaller pack with the word
FLARES
printed on its front and back.

How
did I miss that?

He
rushed to open it before his fingers became too numb to function. Inside, he
found five flares and set one off. Then he huddled down and futilely tried to
seal in the heat leaking from the rips in the jacket. As the minutes passed,
the warmth surrounding him gradually dissipated, leaving him shivering and
certain of his death. His thoughts grew darker until he was nearly asleep in a
warm, comfortable, imaginary bath.

This
is not so bad.…

Rumbling
sounds echoed across the vast white landscape. Far ahead, where the tree line broke
the endless expanse of ice like a thick slash of a permanent marker on white
paper, a large vehicle approached, splashing snow and ice in its wake. The
massive automobile looked like a cross between a tank and a minivan—all black
except for giant red flaming skulls painted on its sides. It wasn’t headed toward
the wreckage, but him.

Walter
brandished his flare drunkenly and continued to wave as the vehicle reached him
and stopped a meter away. Even as Elite jumped out the doors with blankets
Walter shook his flare back and forth until one of them jerked it from his grip
and forced him into the car.

Warmth.…
Not a
thought or idea, but reality. Life had gone from black and gray to orange and
yellow. Feeling was real again. Walter shivered like mad as his body tried to
shake off the cold as a dog would rid his fur of water.

“Are
you alive, Byron?” Commander Wu asked while opening what looked like an
emergency pack of his own.

The
commander sat in a bucket seat eying Walter with an expression of detached
interest through his narrow eyes that missed nothing. Walter’s only response was
chattering teeth. The abnormally bluish color in Walter’s skin faded slowly thanks
to the heat of the vehicle’s interior.

“Just
a kid … ” one of the Elite muttered to the soldier sitting next to him.

“No
way he meets age requirements,” the other whispered back. “I told you, younger
every year.”

“Here,”
Commander Wu said, pressing a bottle to Walter’s lips, “drink.”

Walter
didn’t even look at it before parting his lips and swallowing. Whatever it was
it burned like acid.

“That’s
enough!” Wu hissed as he took away the drink. “Do you want to die?”

Walter
gasped as though he’d come up for air after a long underwater submersion. His
mind suddenly worked properly, though his body still trembled. “What—what—what
happened to the p—p—pilots?” he asked through lips not working properly. “One m—m—minute
they were th—there, next they were gone. I—I woke up and they were g—gone.”

“They
were never there to begin with,” Wu answered. “Holograms. The cold air froze the
computer’s circuits and it stopped working. Power malfunction on old planes
aren’t uncommon.”

“I
could have d—d—died.”

“No
one with brains would have died. That being said, I’m glad you didn’t. I would
have lost my job.”

“Why
not have real Elite fly me? Why holograms?”

Wu
waved a hand toward the two Elite who’d pulled Walter into the car. “Do they
look like taxi drivers to you?”

“No.”

“Bus
drivers?”

Walter
didn’t answer.

“Computers
fly planes. Holograms make you feel safe.”

Newsflash,
Wu, I was not safe.

“Relax,
Walter. You show no signs of permanent hypothermia damage. Now we need to talk
about things before we arrive at training center.” He held up four wrinkled
fingers and ticked them down one by one. “First, you are now Elite. Act like
it. You are younger than everyone else. Don’t act like it. Second, don’t tell
anyone your age. You are seventeen. Not fifteen. Understand?” He did not wait
for Walter to say whether or not he understood. “Third, if you use your …
skills
in front of anyone, you are expelled. No questions asked. That fast. Fourth,
have fun. Don’t take yourself too seriously.”

Walter
didn’t know if Wu was joking about the last piece of advice, but he didn’t ask.
They soon reached a paved road cutting through the tundra and traveled in
silence the rest of the way. He stared out the window and ignored the tingling
all over his body as his limbs and skin gradually recovered from the shocking
cold. Up ahead, a tall building broke the horizon, lonely and majestic in the
vast frozen wasteland. Actually, it wasn’t
a
building, but four
buildings set in a square pattern and so white they blended into the snow with
ease. The four buildings of the Elite Training Center were giant cubes, each
connected to its neighbors by one upper and one lower bridge covered in glass.
As they drove up, Walter could see people inside them. All wore the same black
outfits as the Elite, but with no red skulls, no flames.

As
they drew closer, Walter doubted he would ever feel at home in stoic, angular
buildings such as these.
Did I make a mistake?
he asked himself. Just then
he heard the sound that changed his mind: jet engines. All his worries
vanished.

I
am going to fly.

The
road merged with the runway, which ran east to west and stopped right at the entrance
of the southeast building. To the north of the main buildings stood the hangars.
Beyond the hangars, a towering forest acted as sentinel over the grounds,
wrapping around the northern, western, and southern sides of the campus. The
car came to a stop at the doors of the southeast building. Commander Wu looked
at his watch.

“It’s
Sunday morning, plenty of time for you to get ready for classes tomorrow. You
missed first week, so work hard to catch up. Don’t sleep until tonight. Your
body can get acclimated faster. Any questions?”

“Uh,
where do I go? And my bag, all my stuff, it was in the wreckage. Can someone go
see if my stuff … survived?”

Commander
Wu gave the orders to his Elite with a glance. One of them rolled his eyes as
soon as his superior looked away. Wu opened the door for Walter to exit. “Northwest
building. Room 26M. Your roommate will be waiting. He has spare key. Don’t
worry about your bags.”

The
conversation ended. Walter awkwardly climbed out of the car, and his boots
crunched snow. His body reacted to the cold, quaking violently before he even
felt a chill. The car drove off, leaving him to hurry out of the falling snow
and swirling winds into the refuge of his new home.