Psion Beta (4 page)

The chapel pews split into three groups, the widest of the three in the middle. Amos pointed to the far left wall, though he had been sleeping in the middle aisle. Just as Amos said, some of the pews were cushioned, while others were bare wood. Sammy imagined the worshippers arriving early each Sunday morning to make sure they got a cushioned seat.

“
Thanks, Amos,” they both said.

“
Much obliged, much obliged,” he muttered in reply, “Very much obliged.”

Feet and Sammy walked over to the far side of the chapel and chose two different pews, one behind the other, directly underneath a magnificent stained glass window of Jesus being baptized by his cousin John with the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove. Sammy stretched his body over the cushioned pew and spread out as much as the space would allow. As though a floodgate had been opened into his body, all the fatigue from the hours of running caught up to him, his mind clouded over, and the last thing he heard was Feet’s soft breathing.

He had barely fallen asleep when sounds of heavy stomping woke him. At first he thought it was the Shocks. Then he realized the old man ––
what was his name? Amos?
––must be sleepwalking. He wasn’t sure because the chapel had grown much darker, all but a few of the candles now extinguished. But he could hear the old man walking away from his pew and muttering quietly. Amos’ voice didn’t sound so crazy now. A shrinking sliver of moonlight through the space between the chapel doors told Sammy that Amos had just left. Hearing the old man brought back the events of the rest of the evening, and a strong sense of danger settled on Sammy.

The door closed with a gentle thud. The remaining candle flames flickered from the movement and the shadows on the walls jumped. Then the chapel was deathly still. Feet’s steady breathing was the only sound. It was deeper now than when Sammy had fallen asleep. Through the lobby doors, Sammy heard the sound of heavy boots coming up the stairs.

Sammy’s eyes widened as he remembered that Amos had hobbled out of the room wearing old shoes. Amos’ hobbling sounded nothing like the heavy footsteps coming now. A loud electronic hum echoed through the sanctuary as the lobby doors flew open.

“
Wake up,” he hissed at his friend. “Wake up.” But Feet still slumbered.

Sammy ducked under Feet’s pew just as the doors slammed into the stone wall. His eyes squeezed shut as he waited for Feet to wake up and make some kind of noise, but Feet still slept. He knew he had to choose: run or wake Feet?

As he tried to decide, he recalled a memory from eight years ago: He had been shopping at the mall with his mother for school clothes. There had been a bomb threat, and people all around him were saying the word “leet.” He and his mom went into the parking lot and saw several large armored vans parked outside. The same electronic hums were at the mall that day. Sammy craned his head around to find the source, but his mom pulled him quickly to the car. It was one of the only times in his life he had seen her genuinely afraid. Later that night, his dad had tried to explain what had been going on . . . and what “leet” meant.

There was no mistaking the humming sound. Elite were in the cathedral.

Sammy felt real terror now. What had he done to bring on himself the wrath of the Elite? Even falling from the ceiling in a grocery store did not compare to the fright he felt now. The fear felt like icicles grinding into his heart and brain. He wanted to wake up Feet. The Elite were here for
them
. He knew it.
Sammy made a decision. If Feet woke now, neither of them had a chance.

He slipped back under the pews and crawled frantically toward the front of the chapel. The shockers weighed heavy in his pockets, and he struggled to keep his breathing quiet. At the front of the chapel was a large stage with a pulpit and seating for clergy and a choir.

Five small stairs connected the floor of the chapel and stage. Sammy paused at the foot of them, keeping his body as low as possible and hoping that somewhere on the stage he could get out of the chapel undetected. Cautiously, he put some of his weight on the first stair.

Please don’t let it creak
, he begged an unseen power as he started forward.
Please don’t let it creak. Please . . .

They did not creak. The slow, heavy footsteps stopped near where Feet slept. Low voices muttered.

“
It’s not him,” he heard one say, a voice mean and guttural. “Candles are messing up my night vision.”

“
So blow em out.”

Another hum and Sammy felt the air all around him move like he was in a wind tunnel. Then the chapel went completely black.

He could not see more than a half meter ahead of him. He crept around the stage, his stomach nearly dragging on the carpet, straining his eyes for some exit. He could just make out the outline of chairs and an altar now. Off to the side of the stage, Sammy saw a door.

He headed toward it, but halfway there, he stopped. It would be impossible for him to open anything without giving himself away. If the Elite were using night vision, any movement he made in their line of sight would be detected. He crawled around to the other side of the stage, growing more desperate as the sounds drew closer. On his left was a row of seats and on his right was a small wooden railing. As he put his hand down to support his weight, the carpet––no, the floor itself––disappeared, and he nearly fell through a hole almost a meter square.

Had his situation not been so dire, Sammy might have laughed out loud. A staircase went straight up to the stage from the level below. Going down head first, he used his hands for support as he half-crawled and half-slid down the stairs. As soon as his hands touched the cold concrete of the floor below, he stood up and peered around the tiny room.

By searching and feeling his way around the room, he guessed that he was in the winery. He found a door and cracked it open to listen. The dim light shining through momentarily blinded him.

When he felt safe enough to leave the room, he pulled out his shockers and pointed them in front of himself. The shockers felt heavy and awkward in his hands; his inexperience at weapon-handling was painfully obvious. He saw himself as he was: a stupid kid delaying the inevitable. It was the Elite looking for him, not his friends, not the Shocks. He navigated through the hall, passing doors both marked and unmarked.
Where is an exit?
Behind him a door opened and closed, and he broke into a half run.

Sounds from somewhere ahead told him to hide. He spotted a niche in the wall for a drinking fountain. He slipped into the niche to the left of the fountain and pressed himself against the wall. Then he ducked his knees beneath the fountain to lower his body and prayed he would not be seen by whoever was about to pass. Though he held his breath, his chest heaved and his heart pounded.

In almost unnatural silence, a dark figure passed Sammy, giving him enough time to see the high black combat boots and black pants with red skull markings. Sammy’s father had told him how those red skulls put despair in the minds of terrorists during the earliest days of the New World Government.

The Elite, the NWG’s most feared operatives, had earned their distinction with merciless efficiency. The presence of the symbol of the red flaming skull, not only worn on their suits, but burned into their vehicles and weapons, was usually more than enough to end negotiations or hostage crises. The Elite were the very best. And everyone knew it.

Without warning, the Elite turned and with a gloved hand, snatched Sammy by his hair, yanking on him so brutally that his scalp burned. Sammy tried to reach up and dislodge the man’s grip, but he had shockers in both hands. One of them fired and caught the exposed wrist of the Elite. The Elite swore at Sammy in a stammering grunt and fell back hard. The shockers in Sammy’s hands trembled as he watched the Elite soldier hit the wall and slide to the floor. He wanted to just scream and scream, but forced himself to let out a long slow breath. It had a slightly calming effect.

I can find a way out
, he told himself several times to regain his composure. He squeezed out of the niche and went the opposite direction of the Elite until he found a flight of stairs. Like a heavenly message, the green, glowing letters of an exit sign hovered above a door.

The door opened with hardly a noise, and he looked out onto the east grounds of the cathedral. As his shoes touched the grass, hope kindled inside his chest. He could hide in a tree until the Elite left. Since they hadn’t seemed to be looking for Feet, maybe they would leave him there. It was a good plan; the best he had at the moment.

He was not more than a few meters onto the grass when the door slammed open behind him. Sammy turned to see two Elite coming out of the church. “Target in sight,” one of them said with an annoyed scowl.

“
Don’t move, you little bastard,” the other called out.

Sammy stopped running. His heart thundered in his chest and his stomach sank. Tears formed in his eyes. He did not dare try to run yet. The Elite had their boomguns trained on him as they walked carefully down the stairs. Their eyes never left him.

Nothing made sense to him.
Why would the Elite make all this effort to come after me?

Then one of them glanced down to check his footing on the last stair, and Sammy took his last chance. It was a stupid thing to do, but he had no options left. He raised his shockers and fired one jolt at each of them. Then he ran. From one Elite, he heard, “Target is running on the east side of the cathedral.”

“
Set to disable!” yelled a third, older voice within earshot, but this one carried a tone of concern.

“
Firing booms on disable.”

Two electric hums followed the words as the boomguns fired. An incredible force hit Sammy from behind, lifting him off his feet before he even realized he had been hit. And somewhere between the terrifying realization that he had been shot and the unforgiving impact with the cold dirt, everything went very black.

“
Target is down.”

3.
Conversations

Sammy awoke
feeling very cold. He did not have the energy to open his eyes, but the hairs on his arms and legs stood straight up. Over time he became aware that his naked backside rested on something hard and flat, but also just as frigid as the air. A sound very similar to a mosquito buzzed in his ear. The buzzing noise gradually transformed into voices. Every so often, the room lurched and shook, jostling Sammy on the table.

At first, while he was still groggy, he thought the voices belonged to his parents.

“
Nasty storm to fly through,” a deep male voice commented. “He smells better.”

“
One of the nurses washed him before putting him on the cruiser,” a younger male voice replied, this one with a slight Indian accent. “I wouldn’t want to put up with a stench like that for the whole trip, would you? You should have seen what he had in his hair … disgusting.” He cleared his throat. “Regardless, we got confirmation with both DNA genotyping and a high-res CAT scan. He meets all the NWG anomaly qualifications.”

“
Probably why he gave us so much trouble.”

“
I am lucky to have gotten there before he did . . . and before the Elite.”

“
How did you know he’d go to the church?”

“
Middle of the night. Only place offering refuge for several kilos in the direction they were last seen. What would you do?”

“
Brave kid firing on the Elite like that,” the second man said. “But you didn’t have to dress up like the crazy old man, did you?”

“
For now he needs to believe Amos was real.”

“
We love our anonymity, don’t we?”

“
His name and age?” the deeper voice asked.

“
That just came through the system,” the voice with the accent informed the first man. “Samuel Harris Berhane, Junior. He’s fourteen years, three months, two days.”

Sammy’s blurry mind stirred at the mention of his name.
They’re talking about me?

“
Very funny, Maad.”

“
Just being thorough.”

“
Kid looks more like sixteen. Date of birth is what? November eighteenth?”

“
In the year of our Lord twenty-seventy.”

“
You are on a roll today. Is today the seventeenth?”

Sammy did not hear the younger man’s reply.

“
That sounds right,” the deeper voice said. “And his history?”

For a moment Sammy could only hear muffled voices as one person shuffled through paper. “ . . . but his record says he was caught stealing six weeks after running away from . . . sent to a juvenile reform center for nine months––escaped after six––then spent the last three months living in an abandoned supermarket.”

The older man whistled appreciatively. “Rough. No extended family?”

“
None discovered. Grandparents died in the Scourge. Parents have no siblings.”

“
Good,” the older man said, indicating he was finished.

Sammy shifted on his back so he could hear better. There was more movement nearby him.

“
I put a tube into his stomach––somewhat malnourished. Probably eating nothing but junk for months.”