Psion Delta (16 page)

“No—I—it’s
not that. . . . ” Jeffie huffed and ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t
care—I don’t mind you asking me stuff. I don’t know what I’m trying to say!
Gosh, Sammy, I was asking about you leaving early!”

Sammy
looked at Jeffie until she looked back at him. Her green eyes reflected the
bright lights of the room. As he watched them, he thought they looked a shade
paler than normal. “I’m trying to decide if I should leave early. I—I keep
going back and forth depending on the day or sometimes the hour.” He forced a
laugh, and so did Jeffie, which he appreciated.

“If
you think it’s the right thing, you know, you should—you should definitely do
it.”

“You
think so?”

“Yeah,
it’d be a great opportunity. I’d be really happy for you.”

Sammy
wanted to believe her—it would make things much easier—but he couldn’t help
noticing how her nostrils had flared a little when she’d said those last words.
And he’d never forgotten what that meant. “Thanks. I’ll take that into
consideration.”

Jeffie
opened her mouth to say something and stopped, then started again. “When do you
have to decide by?”

For
whatever reason, Sammy didn’t want to tell Jeffie about Tawhiri’s proposal of
winning or losing the Game as honcho, or that he had only one week left of the
six Tawhiri had given him, so he simply shrugged. “I’ve got lots of time.”

“Oh.
That’s good. Definitely be sure you’re making the right decision. You know,
once you do it, it’d be hard to undo.”

“Yeah,
I’ll be sure.” Silence fell between them again, and it seemed heavier this
time. Sammy grasped for something to say until his thoughts settled on a topic.
“Hey, I heard the Hurricanes are doing really well this year! Champions or
something?”

Jeffie
rolled her eyes. “Al’s a Hurricanes fan, Sammy. Not me. They’re in Helsinki.
I’m an Oslo Otters fan. I have been all my life. But . . . I also cheer for the
Beirut Bengals. Sometimes, when the Otters are having a bad year, I cheer for
both of them. I’m one of those people who think it’s okay to cheer for two
teams at once.”

Sammy
noted a strange tone in Jeffie’s voice, but didn’t understand its meaning.
“Yeah, the Otters are cool. Are they good this year?”

Jeffie
pursed her lips and shook her head. “Not at the moment. I think I’m leaning
Bengals right now, but—you know—I’ll always like the Otters. I figure they’ll
be good again someday. Right?”

“Uh
. . . yeah. I guess.”

“Listen,
Sammy, I have—” Right then an alarm sounded in the walls of the room, startling
both of them.

“What
time is it?” Sammy asked.

Jeffie
checked her com. “It’s midnight. I hate this!”

“Already?”

“That
stupid sword game took forever!”

“No,
it’s okay. My team won the Game this weekend: I can stay up until 0100.”

“Sammy,
I wasn’t on your team last Saturday.”

“Oh,
yeah.”

The
alarm grew louder until they opened the door and the sim room alarm turned off.
Immediately, alarms in the hallway began clamoring just as loudly. They ran
through the halls and down the stairs until they reached Jeffie’s dorm floor.
Only then did the sounds finally stop.

“I’ll
talk to you some more another time, okay?”

Sammy
told her goodnight and went to bed frustrated and disappointed. He fell asleep
thinking about all the other nights during his time at headquarters when he’d
gone to bed with similar feelings, always because of Jeffie.

The
Betas spent most of Saturday afternoon playing Tawhiri’s latest Game.
Ultimately, the team Sammy was playing on won, as it had every week since he’d
returned. He wanted to finish his conversation with Jeffie, but with Kobe
hovering around her, and Strawberry’s Sammy-radar being on overdrive, it was
impossible. Sunday was no better.

During
the next week, between busy schedules, early bedtimes, and other people
demanding their attention, Jeffie and Sammy didn’t get a chance to say more
than a passing greeting. Starting Monday, all Sammy could think about was the
Game and what kind of set up the major would throw at him as honcho. He often
caught himself imagining different tricks or tactics he might see in the Arena.
Nowadays, he relied not on his intellect or problem solving to win, but on his
superior combat abilities. He still didn’t
see
the way he used to, but
he fought as well as ever. He spent hour after hour in the sims re-teaching
himself tactical strategies, mission planning, and advanced combat. His left
leg continued to hurt as much as ever whenever he fought a multiple-Thirteen
fighting sim. While his brain wasn’t the sponge it used to be, he moved through
the lessons quickly because he’d been through the sim units once already.

Saturday
was the big day: the day of Sammy’s decision. From the moment he woke, he
couldn’t relax. It was as though someone had put a million tiny needles into
his skin. Sitting still made him want to go crazy, but he was too distracted to
do anything meaningful. Morning went by with no Game. After lunch, when he
could stand being around other Betas no longer, he went down to his dormitory
to read
War of the Worlds
while he waited for the call. By the time 2100
rolled around, everyone thought Major Tawhiri had forgotten about this week’s
Game—everyone, that is, except Sammy. The only questions in his mind were when
and how. He got his answers at 2115.

Team
1: 1st floor

Berhane,
Samuel(*)

Plack,
Strawberry

Team
2: 3rd floor

Alanazi,
Cala

Covas,
Miguel

Enova,
Levu

Ivanovich,
Natalia

Petrov,
Ludwig

Plack,
Brickert

Reynolds,
Kaden(*)

Yoshiharu,
Asaki

Team
3: 5th floor

Covas,
Rosa

Morel,
Brillianté

Ndumi,
Hefani

Nujola,
Kawai

Otravelli,
Antonio

von
Pratt, Parley

Reynolds,
Kobe

Tvedt,
Gefjon(*)

Zheng,
Li Cheng

Victory:
1 win

Maximum
Game Length: No Limit

Start
time: 2130

*See
Special Rules*

Strawberry
couldn’t have been more excited if she’d downed a liter of caffeine and snorted
pure sugar. She glued herself to Sammy and talked and talked, stopping only
when someone came by and asked what Sammy thought of the teams. He tried to
tune everyone out, including Strawberry, but he may as well have tried to stop
time itself. He wanted to think about what he was going to do. It seemed
illogical that Major Tawhiri would set him with an impossible task, but it
certainly appeared that way.

Do
I win this or not? Can I even win with just me and Strawberry?

He
tried to focus back to the task at hand. He heard Byron’s words urging him to
rein in his emotions. He closed his eyes and put a hand over his face, noticing
for the first time that he was shaking ever so slightly. Only then did it dawn
on him how badly he wanted to win this Game.

I
want to graduate.
That’s my answer.

The
announcement came to go to their places. Kawai touched Sammy tenderly on the
arm and winked at him. “Good luck.”

Jeffie
joined him in line to leave the cafeteria. “Sammy,” she said, “I heard
something strange. Is it true that Tawhiri told you if you win—?”

“Let’s
move in front!” Parley called out, drowning the rest of Jeffie’s question.

“Mush!
Mush!” someone else said. Probably Antonio.

“Uh
. . . ” Sammy replied. “Who told you that? Brickert?”

“Does
it matter?”

Fortunately,
he didn’t have to answer. Jeffie had to head for her team’s entrance while he
and Strawberry went to the stairs.

“I
guess this will be an easy Game for me!” she chirped at him as he walked away.

Strawberry
held Sammy’s upper arm as they walked into the Arena from inside the boys’ dorm
on the first floor. It made Sammy feel like he was her escort to a dance or a
fancy meal. He noticed his hands were still trembling so he locked his fingers
together to make it stop.

If
you lose . . . I’ll take that as a sign that you’re not capable of being an
Alpha
, Tawhiri had said.
But I am capable
, Sammy told
himself.
I have to win this game.

As
he took his first step into the Arena, his left leg gave one dull throb. He
ignored it. They stood at the bottom of a giant maze. From what little Sammy
could see at his vantage point, the design was extremely complex, far more
byzantine than anything Byron had thrown at them with narrow hallways, lots of
dead ends, and a dizzyingly difficult design that no one would be able to
master in one Game. No stairs, only holes in the floors to ascend or descend.
According to the special rules, each time someone was deactivated, five percent
of the walls would come down, making the maze less impossible to navigate and
more treacherous for Sammy and Strawberry.

“Stick
together,” a voice said.

“Did
you hear that?” Sammy asked Strawberry.

She
shook her head. “What?”

Sammy
looked around them. No one could be near them. The two other teams had started
on different levels.

“Stay
with me,” a second voice said. This time he recognized it as Jeffie’s.
The
first voice was Kaden’s. Tawhiri’s letting me hear them.
Did that mean the
other honchos could hear him?

Sammy
whispered orders into Strawberry’s ear, and they started into the maze at a
run. Their first priority was to gain the highest ground. Since the Game
wouldn’t end until two teams were completely deactivated, Sammy had to put them
in the best position to win. They quickly found one of the holes in the
ceiling. Sammy had Strawberry go up first.

“Coast
is clear!” she hissed at him.

Sammy
blast-jumped to the ledge and pulled himself through. In his com, he heard Kaden
sending half his team up to the fourth floor while the other half stayed on the
third covering the holes. Jeffie ordered her team to stay on the fifth floor
and make everyone come to them—both solid strategies.
I haven’t lost a Game
since coming back. They’re going to be more worried about me than each other.

Before
jumping to the third floor, they waited at one of the holes for several
minutes, watching for any sign that someone might be guarding that particular
portal. He could hear Kaden and Jeffie speaking to their teams, but had no way
of knowing the exact positions of Kaden’s players. Finally, an idea came to
him.

He
lifted Strawberry into his arms and held her as if she were a bazooka. He
supported the bulk of her weight with his left hand on her sternum, and used
his other hand to grip her by the soles of her shoes. Then, as best as he
could, he aimed her head at the hole in the ceiling.

“It’s
a good thing you’re the smallest person at headquarters,” he grunted through
the pain blooming up and down his thigh. “Remember: don’t stop moving.”

“Three
. . . ” Strawberry said, “two . . . one. . . . ”

In
unison, Strawberry fired foot blasts and Sammy blasted with his right hand. The
result was that Strawberry shot off like a rocket into the next level. Looking
on from below, Sammy saw her stop herself with hand blasts before crashing into
the ceiling of the upper level. Something near the hole moved.

“Behind
you!” Sammy told her.

“They’re
on the third floor!” Natalia said. Sammy saw her fire multiple blasts at
Strawberry, who whirled around mid-air and counterattacked. Sammy hurried to
join the fray. Within seconds, however, Strawberry had deactivated Natalia
without Sammy’s help.

“Very
impressive, Berry.”

She
beamed at him as she gave him a high-five. “Thanks! I learned that move
watching you and Brick.”

About
five meters, away a wall dissolved into nothing. Sammy assumed the same thing
was happening all over the Arena.

Through
his com he heard Jeffie give more orders. Apparently, two of Kaden’s team had attacked
two of hers. Meanwhile, Kaden was reacting to Natalia’s report that Sammy and
Strawberry had made it to the third floor. The reports made Sammy optimistic as
he and Strawberry picked their way through the maze using what he guessed was
an excessive amount of caution. On the third floor, they encountered one more
of Kaden’s team: Asaki. Sammy ordered Strawberry to stay behind while he dealt
with her.

He
ran at her, knowing she would shield and give up ground. Before he reached her
range, he threw himself down and slid at her, using a shield of his own to
protect his helmet while his other hand’s blasts propelled him across the
floor. As Asaki retreated, she stumbled into a dead end. Sammy shot her in the
ankle, causing her to lose her footing. Then he aimed a blast at her knee,
forcing it to buckle. His third blast hit her square in the helmet, slamming
her head into the wall.