Socket 1 - The Discovery of Socket Greeny (25 page)

Trees exploded on the far side and crawlers
blasted onto the tundra like galloping creatures from another
planet on twitching legs, their stride distorted by missing limbs.
The pitch of their screeching was perfect. It made the gale force
wind seem like a summer breeze, slamming our nervous systems,
cutting away any strength we had left. We dropped like the
dead.

The sky swirled darkly over us. Lightning
crackled in the clouds but did not come down.

Scccreeeeeeeeeee!

The portal slipped from Chute’s pouch. I took
it and crawled. Chute was next to me, her ragged hair hanging over
her face.

A shadow passed over us.

Snow exploded around my forearm and the
portal rolled out of my hand.

The crawlers stepped over me. I pushed up and
collapsed again. A gash from my elbow to my wrist flapped open,
exposing bones and spilling blood. The snow was sprayed red

This is the Internet. This is not the skin.
THIS IS NOT REAL!

I tried to run but my legs only kicked. Tried
to roll. Tried to scream. It was too much too much. TOO MUCH!

A crawler hovered inches from my face,
stinking of burning circuits and baked clay. Its faceless body
pressed its sticky body against my cheek and quivered like it was
sniffing. Another one wobbled over Chute while a third one bobbed
between us, waiting its turn.

It lifted off me, undulating like a thinking
brain. A hole opened on its belly, black and bottomless. It
screeched, but I didn’t hear it. My eardrums immediately burst. In
silence, I convulsed.

In darkness, I screamed.

* * * * *

My sight returned. The crawler limped away,
swaying in the silent wind towards Chute to have a turn with her.
The third one stooped over me and pressed against my cheek.

My eyes wanted to close but I refused to let
them. Chute was limp. I reached for her. I couldn’t let them kill
her. I could not let this happen. I forced myself to move, but the
crawler corralled my hand, placed it gently on my chest. It pressed
against my severed arm, came up with a splotch of blood on its
belly, absorbing the stain. It turned pale, looked to the others.
Undulated. They abandoned Chute. She remained still.

They gathered around me, lifting me with
their twiggy legs. They spread my arms, held my legs together.
They’d found me. I was the one to pull apart. I was the one they
would decode. They would integrate me into their database and I
would become one of them. They would put me inside the
duplications. I would become the living dead.

Mission accomplished.

Two crawlers held me while the third one,
slightly larger, pressed against me. It wrapped its round body
around me, warm and sticky. My cells began to dissolve, liquefying
as the world faded.

Gray became darkness.

Would I go to the in-between, or would I just
go to sleep, never to wake? Would I awaken as one of them—see the
iron rule of duplicated humans for centuries to come? Would I
experience every cry, every plea, to make them stop? Or would I see
the human race follow them like lemmings?

The time spark beat somewhere inside. It was
the only thing I could feel, thumping in my awareness. There was
little left of me now. If I took the spark, I would empty my body.
The timeslice would suck out the last drop of life.

I clenched my hands and sliced it anyway.

I would slice time to the end.

I slid out of the crawler’s snotty grip and
stared into its maw. What was left of my clothes was covered in
slime. The thick mucus kept me from freezing.

The portal had rolled inside the dome. My
grip on time was already slipping. I didn’t have much left. Life
was fading. I would die in the timeslice and disappear from the
world. I would die so the crawler wouldn’t absorb me. Die before
they could integrate me.

Chute. I couldn’t leave her. I rolled for
her, just to touch her. There had to be something I could do. There
had to be an answer. I held her head firmly against my chest and
wrapped my legs around her waist, trying to crawl to the safety of
the dome. But I didn’t have the strength to even do that.

I need help!
I cried. The words
drifted silently from me. No one would hear my plea. Not even
me.

I convulsed again. The ground trembled.

Time stood still, but the world shook. The
sky tore open, revealing a bright red slice through the dreary
clouds. I felt the ripping in my chest.

The website was crashing. A crevasse opened
at the far end of the tundra, swallowing snow into a deadly void of
random data. It traveled across the tundra slowly, widening and
inhaling the environment. Snow rushed across the plain. The forest
bordering the wide tundra bent under its force. Sticks, leaves,
rocks, rabbits… all of it was sucked into the rip.

It would reach us and suck us in as it split
the tundra. My evolver belched but unfolded around my good arm. I
summoned a whip that fell short of the dome. I cursed, pulling it
back. I closed my eyes, imagining the longest whip possible then
let it fly. It lashed out, slightly brighter, slightly thinner, and
long enough to wrap around the base of an ancient spruce.

My grip on time slipped before I passed out.
Snowflakes jittered and danced. The wind returned, driving snow
over the tundra that curved like breaking waves under the voracious
appetite of the rip. The tundra had split open, the rip halfway to
us. The horizon was nearly gone. The details of trees and mountains
had dissolved.

The website was going down and nothing would
stop it. In deafness, the destruction was eerily silent. The forest
began to shake as the rip widened. The portal bounced against the
dome, trapped inside its protective barrier. The evolver whip grew
taut as I was drawn toward the approaching chasm. The crawler stood
tall, scanning the environment. It took only seconds to analyze the
situation. Seconds they didn’t have. The rip gained speed, raced
past us and into the trees, sucking up branches and snow. The two
smaller crawlers leaped, but the rip vacuumed them down. They hit
the ground, their spindly legs scratching the frozen ground as they
bounced over the edge. Down they went. Forever.

The third crawler anchored into the ground,
fighting the rip’s force. The first of the large branches bounced
past. The evolver whip stretched. The force was too great. We slid
toward the encroaching abyss.

The crawler slid, too, etching tracks in the
permafrost. I grabbed the lash with my other arm, the wind blowing
the wound open, the skin flapping. The crawler jabbed at me with
one leg, impaling the ground inches from my ribs. It lost its hold,
slid faster, flopping over the edge, desperately hanging on.

I clutched Chute between my legs. I could
feel nothing. The evolver lash stretched thinner. The rip was
closer and the vacuum stronger. My legs fell over the edge. Chute
dangled inside. Below, the void was colorless, depthless, and
dimensionless. She was slipping. I hooked my wounded arm around
her.

The entire horizon was fuzzy gray static. The
data was gone. The ground near us rushed overhead, curling like
carpet on its way to chaos and randomness. My knees had slipped
under Chute’s armpits as we twisted on the end of the line. The
crawler’s red eyelight rolled around its body and focused on me. It
teetered on the very edge.

The lash flickered. The evolver started
unfolding. I grabbed for the slippery ledge, slipping deeper.
Chute’s legs faded in the void’s depth. The evolver fell off my
arm, rolled past me, dissolving below into millions of specks.

We didn’t fall.

Something was latched onto my wrist.

There, bent over the edge, was a shadowy arm,
its fingers locked around my arm. A head and torso looked down at
us. The shadow returned.

Pivot! You came for us!

Another shadowy arm clung to Chute, her body
turning in the wind. He held us there. He didn’t pull us up, he
just held us.

[I have you, Master Socket.]

Spindle?

Trees vaporized in the void’s depth. The
crawler slashed at us one last time, slipped off the ledge and
dissolved into nothingness.

We twisted helplessly as the rip crept
beneath the dome that slid down like electrical gel. The portal
stuck to the side of the wall, oozing like molasses. It picked up
speed, the colors bright and glowing. It broke free, shot down into
the ravenous void.

The explosion was silent. Bright, like that
of a dying star.

The light consumed us.

No cold. No pain.

* * * * *

In-between.

I was in the dark in-between. Bodiless. Pure
awareness.

There was something different, this time.
Another awareness floated with me. A familiar presence.

Spindle?

There was movement.

[Yes, Master Socket.]

Spindle! I thought you were Pivot! I thought
this whole time Pivot was the shadow!

[I am the one that assumed the form of a
shadow. Not Master Pivot.]

It was you… My thoughts rang like words. Am
I… am I dead?

[You are not dead. You will return to your
body when it is ready.]

Which body?

[Your skin, of course. The portal was
destroyed, releasing you from the sim.]

The darkness moved again. It hummed. I felt
it at my core.

You saved me, Spindle.

[Your father saved you.]

My father?

[He imbedded a secret code in my processor.
When the time was right, I came to you as the shadow and activated
your powers. And when you needed me, I came to your aid.]

He told me on the day I first arrived at the
Garrison that he was programmed to assist me. And that’s why the
shadow felt so familiar, why he felt like my father. Even in death,
my father was there.

Why did you wait so long?

[Despite what you believe, you did not need
me.]

The darkness hummed stronger and deeper. I
was moving.

The Paladins will know what you did, Spindle.
They’ll shut you down completely this time. I won’t see you when I
return, will I?

[Master Pivot seems to think they will not
shut me down.]

Pivot came back?

[He never left.]

But… the Paladins will imprison him this
time. They can’t see the future, they’ll never let him leave
again.

[The Paladins could never stop Master Pivot
from leaving. They have always known that. He stayed in the
Preserve of his own volition. After taking you to awaken, he
decided it was time to leave.]

Where did he go?

[Missing, Master Socket. He went missing.
They will not find him. But he can always be found if you need
him.]

The darkness swirled this time. The hum was
closer. It hurt nowhere specific. It just hurt.

Pivot loved my father.

[Indeed, he did. Without him, I could not
have come
for you.]

Pain lanced through me, up and down and
side-to-side. Something thumped in rhythm. Pain focalized in
several spots throughout the darkness.

I was returning.

Chute and Streeter. I almost forgot!
Are
they all right?

I moved faster. Noise was coming.

Spindle! Where are you? Tell me, are they all
right? ARE THEY ALL RIGHT?

The pain returned in full force.

* * * * *

Muffled sounds. Chairs and tables were turned
over and shoved aside. Muted voices shouted.

“Three kids, two boys and one girl. About
sixteen years old.”

“Sir, this one’s the Greeny boy. Alert the
Commander.”

“Get the EMT here immediately. Set up a
secure perimeter. I don’t want to see lookits within a hundred
yards. Clear the room!”

There were tables. A ceiling. It was a room.
A
real
one.

“I need three reconstitution IVs on the
Greeny kid immediately,” a woman shouted. Her fingers pressed on my
neck. “Weak pulse.”

“How’s he alive?” someone else muttered.

I was on my back. The lights were dim. People
were now everywhere, looking down at me. Three of them were dressed
in black. The Paladins. They were right there in plain sight of
everyone.

“The girl’s in shock,” the woman said.

“Get the minders in here to stabilize her.”
One of the Paladins squatted next to me. The emergency worker
stared at him.

“Who the hell are you?” she said.

The Paladin didn’t acknowledge her. He put
his hand over my head and a healing warmth oozed through me. He
slapped a patch on my neck and strength leached into my body.

“What did you just do to him?” The emergency
worker was about to call for assistance, but then the Paladin
looked at her,
thought
at her, and she stopped.

More EMTs burst into the room, called more
orders and hovered over me. A warm, soft presence crawled from the
back of my neck and slithered down the back of my shirt. Rudder hid
inside my sweatshirt from the EMTs’ poking and prodding. I could
feel his purring against my stomach and how it radiated through
me.

“You did it, Socket.” Streeter grabbed my
shoulder; his voice seemed so far away.

His face was slack, but he was smiling. My
arm was skinny, like the muscle had been sucked out. My cheeks
hung. Big hands pulled Streeter away, rolled him onto his back, but
he was still smiling. His mouth moved.
You did it.

There must’ve been ten people over me. I
could barely see the ceiling anymore. They strapped gear around my
arms, attached things to my neck and chest, holding up bags,
squeezing fluid into my veins. The Paladin put another patch on the
other side of my neck. I couldn’t feel my left arm, but it was
there. No bone, no blood. I wiggled my fingers. A woman shoved my
arm back down.