Socket 1 - The Discovery of Socket Greeny (24 page)

A fire grew from the ground, courtesy of
Streeter. Flames crackled off the dry wood, sending up sparks like
glowing bugs, which dissolved in the bitter air. Snow began to fall
again, dusting the frozen mud.

Chute had that look. Her forehead was tight.
Her lips pinched.

“You all right?” I said.

She nodded, rubbed her hands together. We
listened to the water fall. “Are we going to get out of here?” she
finally asked.

“We’ll get out of here.”

She spread her hands out toward the flames.
She silently debated whether to believe me. There was no reason she
should.

“Why do you think he did it?” Chute gestured
at the crater.

I thought hard about Broak, with his perfect
breeding and his perfect smile. He was a perfect specimen of a
human being. But that was the rub: he was still human. He might’ve
had perfect genes, but he’d been raised like a servy. He became
just like a mech, following the rules. He was
supposed
to be
perfect. But he could not
be
perfect. He was human.
Somewhere in his teenage brain he was letting Mom and Dad down. A
mom he never had. A dad that never existed.

How could the Paladins be so short-sighted?
They were a greater race of humans and they couldn’t figure out
they’d raised a monster?

“He was a little messed-up in the head,” I
said. “He was just a kid.”

“I don’t care, he wasn’t good.”

“No.” I pushed a stick into the fire. “He
wasn’t.”

The fire blazed. The heat stayed right there
by the flames, not dispersing into the wintry air. Steam no longer
rose from the crater as it slowly filled with snow. It was cold out
there. I shook the snow off my head and limped toward Broak.

At the edge of the crater, I held my breath
and ignited the evolver. It refused to completely unfold. I
squeezed it harder and it finally fused to my arm, shooting sparks
in protest. I formed a spade and jabbed at the frozen ground, the
blade thumping through it a chunk at a time. Each time I opened the
earth with another swing, I cursed the Paladins for creating Broak.
I cursed them for their ignorance. Cursed them for what they did to
him.

“What’re you doing?” Chute said.

“He should be buried.”

“I don’t think he deserves it. Not after what
he did.”

I turned to breathe clean air, wiped my eyes.
“Maybe.”

I didn’t know what to think. Broak might’ve
been the leader of the dupes, for all I knew. He might’ve
single-handedly led the human race into extinction had Streeter not
roasted him. The Paladins dealt him an impossible life, but where
was he supposed to take responsibility? At what point is it his
fault and not theirs? In the end, he was just a stupid kid,
believed he was the center of the universe, that he was
indestructible like all the rest of us.

I mean, it’s not like we’re born with the
manual on how to live life. No one gives us a clue how this is
supposed to be done so can any of us be blamed when it all goes to
shit? Think about it, we grow up being told there’s a fat man
dressed in red that lives at the North Pole that gives us presents
for free, and if we question the absurdity of it, they tell us we
just have to believe and it’ll be true.
Are you fucking kidding
me?
Reindeer don’t fly and jolly fat men don’t shove presents
down the chimney. But just believe and it’ll be true. NO, IT
WON’T!

Maybe Broak had the manual to life. He just
read it wrong, took it too literal. He wanted life to be perfect
and that wasn’t possible. Life was perfectly imperfect.

I took another chunk of ground from the
shallow grave. No sense deciding on blame. The boy needed a proper
burial. Fair or not. The ground thumped again. Chute pried up
another piece of the ground with her battle stave. We tossed frozen
earth into the crater. The dirt clods were like bricks. We buried
him, along with the crawlers, as best we could, then shoveled snow
on top when we ran out of earth.

We stood at the lip of the crater, our heads
bowed. “God help us all,” I said.

Chute laid her head on my shoulder, wrapped
her arm around my waist. We let the snow pile on our heads and
shoulders until the cold seeped inside.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get back to the
fire.”

* * * * *

We stayed warm in front of the endless fire,
waiting for Streeter to come up with an answer. We didn’t talk
much. I wished there was something to say so that I could stop
thinking about Broak, the way he bubbled in the bottom of the pit.
The way he said my name at the end, almost with an edge of final
regret. It was so complicated, I just wanted to stop thinking about
it, but there wasn’t much to say, either. So we sat in silence
until a dirt clod rolled off the grave.

I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t a big
deal. Surprised I even noticed it with the wind howling above the
trees, but when the second one tumbled off, I tensed up. I limped
around the crater’s edge. A jointed stick poked from the fresh
snow, feeling the grave like a blind man’s cane.

“Streeter!” I hobbled back to Chute.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Streeter!” I tapped my cheek. “Streeter! Get
us out of here!”

All the frozen clods rumbled. A seven-legged
crawler stood, legs kinked and wobbly. It fell to one side, tried
to stand again. Its scarred body undulated. The burn wounds and
deep gashes sealed. It was healing.

“The crawlers, Streeter! They survived!”

A second crawler rose up from the grave, its
body pulsing. The evolver unfolded onto my arm, but it was
sputtering. I summoned hot whips, I’d lash the things to pieces,
but a weak flame only flickered in my hand.

“
You guys need to run,”
Streeter
said.

“Are you out of your freaking mind?” I
shouted. “My leg doesn’t work! You need to build us something… a
transporter, a cruiser, anything!”

“
I’m busy with the lightning, I can’t do
it all!”

“If we don’t get out of here, LIGHTNING WON’T
MATTER!”

A third crawler squirmed, running in a circle
like a fly with one wing.

Chute shoved the portal into her pouch and
slid her arm around me. “We have to try.”

We headed past the cave and into the trees.
Each step throbbed with agony, and I was panting after only a few
yards. There was a narrow trail winding uphill. The going was
easier, but the pain worse. Behind us, the crawlers screeched,
weaker than before the lightning strike, but at just the right
pitch to twist my nerves.

“I can’t.” I covered my face. “I can’t… I
can’t do this…”

“STREETER! GET US SOMETHING NOW!” Chute
shouted at him like he was a god looking over a forsaken world.

“Come on, you can do this,” she urged me in a
softer voice.

“I can’t, Chute.” I turned so she wouldn’t
see my face. “It just… it hurts too much.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I’m only going to slow you down.”

“I’m not leaving you here, Socket Greeny!”
She placed both hands on my face and forced me to look at her. “I’m
never leaving you, so if you want to save me, you got to save
yourself.”

Her cheeks flamed red. The
look
was
gone—the worried look—replaced by steely courage. I couldn’t move
and deadly spiders screeched behind us, but all I wanted at that
moment was to kiss her on the lips.

She held out her hand, and hoisted me up, hip
to hip, and together we started up the path. I closed my eyes,
searching for strength to match what I’d seen in her eyes. The
spark grew brighter, the power centers of my awakening whirring
along my spine. If it would work, if I could stop time, I could
save us.

Metal clashed as the space in front of us
twisted and warped. If a crawler was materializing before us, there
was no use running. We watched something assemble from empty space.
Pieces sprang from the air, clinging together as more pieces
emerged, rolling, turning, and clicking into place until a round
platform hovered inches off the ground.

“
It’s all I can do,”
Streeter said.
“Take the jetter and go. They’re on the move.”

“It’s enough,” Chute said. “I can get us
miles away before they get this far.”

She helped me onto the back edge of the
jetter and climbed onto the front. I wrapped my good arm around her
waist and lay my chin on her shoulder. The jetter sagged under our
weight.

“
Go to the tundra,”
Streeter said.
“There’s a power dome that will protect you. It’s
indestructible. Once you’re in, nothing can touch you.”

“Tundra?” I said. “Build it right here,
Streeter, right in front of us! We don’t have time to get to
the—”

“
JUST GET TO THE GODDAMN TUNDRA! I can’t
build it right in front of you. It’s complex code, I don’t have
time to build it from scratch!”

The jetter hummed loudly, lifted and surged
forward. Chute tossed her lookits and followed them. The sharp wind
blurred my sight. My inner ears ached, but Streeter’s voice,
calmer, sounded clear in my head.

“
The power dome is remnant code from an
earlier battle on the tundra, that’s the best I can do.”
Screeches blasted from all around.
“So please… just get to the
tundra.”

* * * * *

Chute leaned forward and pushed the jetter at
top speed. How could she see? Her hair whipped my face and I clung
to her tightly. We reached the top of the ridge and followed a
sloping path to the left, gently slaloming left and right.

A lookit returned. “We’re going into the
trees,” she shouted back. “It’s the quickest way!”

The forest was dark and dense. The going got
slow. We painfully bumped trees, stumps and logs. I squeezed
tighter. The forest rumbled. Tremors traveled deep underground.

They were coming.

I didn’t need to say it. She heard it, too.
Go faster
. If we hit a tree and damaged the jetter, it was
over. Streeter didn’t have time to build another.
But still, go
faster.

Up ahead, the shadows gave way. Light poked
through the impenetrable forest. “We’re almost there!” she
shouted.

We leaned into a tight turn and ducked
beneath a low branch. The crude path widened beyond the last turn.
Chute took the corner tight, caught a twisting vine hidden in a
snow drift. The jetter turned a full circle, tipped back, and
couldn’t right itself.

A bell rang.

It was ringing in the darkness.

Something picked me up. Shook me.

“Get up, Socket!” a voice said. “Don’t quit
on me! It’s right there… It’s—”

It wasn’t so bad, where I was. I didn’t know
where that was, but it wasn’t so bad. Maybe a little chilly. I
couldn’t see in the pitch black, but at least it didn’t hurt.

Where am I? Wasn’t I supposed to be doing
something? We were trying to get… something… or somewhere.
We?

A light twittered, like a lighthouse beacon
going round and round. It was sparkly. I urged myself closer to it.
It was curious and bright. It wanted something. The next time it
came around it glared like the sun. I tried to look away before it
burned out my eyes, but it was impossible. I had no eyelids. The
light was everywhere. I wanted to run and hide, to sleep. The light
refused to let me.

It rushed into me. Filled me.

Power centers burst to life and energy
surged. I had a body but I wasn’t in it. It was broken. I saw my
shattered knee and, with a thought, healed it. The bones and
cartilage fused together as good as new. The wrist was damaged,
too. I commanded it to reassemble. Nerves repaired. Muscles
healed.

I am awake.

In a single thought, I returned to my renewed
body. Cold tightened my skin and took my breath. Time was not
moving. Motionless snowflakes glittered like diamonds in the air.
The waning sun cast an iridescent shine on the snowdrifts, like
ocean waves in moonlight. Chute was crouched over me—stuck in
time—her face turned to the sky, mouth open, about to cry for help
or curse our fate. Jagged energy enveloped her.

A yellow dome, like a vibrant igloo, squatted
amidst the snowdrifts on the far side of the tundra a thousand feet
away. I wouldn’t be able to timeslice forever; weakness had already
entered my legs as the timeslicing metabolism devoured me. I had to
get to the power dome, had to squeeze every second out of the spark
that I could. The crawlers weren’t far behind.

I picked up Chute and started over the white
desert, carving through the waist-deep drifts, hopping when the
snow was over my knees. Snowflakes bounced off my face. Snot ran
over my lips. Chute got heavier.

Halfway there, I began to quiver. How far
could I push it before my body was sucked dry?
As far as I
could.
I plowed onward, going around the deepest drifts.
Exhausted and numb, Chute slipped. I tumbled over her.

The dying sun brightened. Snowflakes jolted
sideways. A breeze washed over me.

The dome was fifty yards away. I could do it.
I picked her up and started up the deepest drift yet. My breath
streamed out in a long cloud. I blinked several times to focus. The
drift ended abruptly and we went down again. So numb, my legs were
nothing. Gravity intensified. I tried to lift her, but couldn’t get
her past my knees. The world quaked.

Can’t do it
.

The timeslicing spark slipped from my grip.
The wind sheared the feeling from my face. Snowflakes struck like
rocks. Chute sat up, dazed. I took her hand and tried to lift her.
“The dome… we’re almost there.”

She understood and helped me up. I pretended
to run but could barely throw one leg in front of the other. We
fell again. She shouted, but the wind blasted her words away. I
started to crawl. She tried to pick me up.