Socket 1 - The Discovery of Socket Greeny (26 page)

“Where’s Chute?” My voice echoed in my head.
I had the feeling I was shouting, but I could barely hear it.
“Streeter, where’s Chute?”

“I need a heart regulator,” some guy said.
“Pre-sets will work for now, but activate the nervous relay, we
need to decompress their nervous systems immediately.”

“Where is she?” I tried to shove them out of
the way. “Where’s Chute?”

The lady put my arms down, again. I didn’t
have the strength to break her grip. I looked side-to-side. There
were too many of them. I couldn’t even see Streeter anymore.

“I need that regulator over here, now!” the
guy shouted again, to my left.

I tried to look between their legs. I arched
my back and shouted, “CHUTE! WHERE ARE YOU?”

“Relax, son.” The lady put her hand on my
forehead. “We’re going to get you out of here—”

“No, no, no…” I shook her off. “I’m not
going, not until you show me where she is…”

A thin finger hooked around my finger,
squeezed softly. The woman squatted to my right, wrapping a band
around my elbow. She stood, shouted to others coming into the room,
moved out of the way and revealed Chute’s exhausted face and her
arm reaching out to me. Her finger hooked around mine.

“I’m right here, Socket.” Chute smiled,
weakly. Blinked heavily.

We got out.

Chute didn’t let go, her arm sticking through
a gap between boots. They lifted the stretcher. More shouts. More
commands. A woman’s face hovered over mine. She put something on my
forehead and I was suddenly sleepy. They moved me from the room. I
couldn’t remember letting go of Chute.

I was on a beach. The sand was hot and dry
and pushed between my toes. I dug my feet down to cooler, damper
sand below. The beach appeared to extend for miles in both
directions. A ship sailed on the horizon with shrimp nets hanging
from the sides. The orange sun reflected off the small waves.
Dolphins looped on the surface, blowing showers near the beach
where fiddler crabs raced foamy waves.

In reality, I was in a small room. If I tried
to dip my toes in the water I’d kick the wall. Just another
illusion. Those tricky Paladins.

They put me to sleep after I was evacuated
from the school. They kept me like that for a month. They filled me
with medicine and liquid food. I had the puncture wounds in my arm
to prove it. Their gear decompressed my nervous system so I could
hear again, so I would believe my arm wasn’t actually split open by
an artificial spider on a snowy tundra. They kept me on that cot
and servys tended my injuries while Paladins stood over my comatose
body, tapping their chins, murmuring about my future. Their future.
Humanity’s future. Mostly they thought to each other so I wouldn’t
hear them, but I heard their thoughts when I came close to
waking.

Sometimes I heard them come in and out of the
room. I could smell them. I smelled jasmine most often.
Mom
.
Quite often, she would sit on the edge of my bed and push back my
hair. Then I’d fade again, back to the painless void of sleep.
That’s when the minders would come, penetrating me when I was least
present, picking through my memories like looters, piecing together
the events of the Rime. When they had everything they wanted,
that’s when they let me wake.

They wouldn’t let me out of the room, for
observational purposes. But after a day, it was suffocating, so
they started up the simulated environment scenery. One morning I’d
wake up in the desert, the next I’m at the top of Niagara Falls.
This morning, good ole Charleston, South Carolina. All I could do
was stand there and watch, smell and listen. “What scene would you
like tomorrow?” a servy asked.

“I want out of here.”

“I am sorry, please repeat your request. What
scene would you like?” Like it couldn’t understand why I’d want to
leave the Garrison.

This morning, the third morning, a leaper
shuddered. Mom walked into the room. Her steps landed slowly. She
watched the waves wash ashore. The shrimp boat cast its nets. Her
expression was stoic, but her energy jittered between waves of
hardness and softness. She was not accustomed to feeling what she
was feeling right then. It wasn’t often she experienced the depth
of fear like she had in the past month, not since my father had
died. And nor had she experienced this kind of relief when she saw
me standing there, alive and well. “My son,” she whispered.

She didn’t hug me or weep, but the energy
around her was soaked with salty flavors. Her hands were quivering.
[Allow me a moment of weakness,]
she thought to me or
whoever was tuning in.

She dropped her head and walked closer to the
water. The crabs scattered like she might step on them. We watched
the sun get closer to the horizon and the shrimp boats sailed out
of view. When she was composed, she said, “When your father died,
they wanted me to quit.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear.

“They said it would be too difficult for me
to stay and watch you awaken. It would be too difficult to make
sound decisions instead of emotional ones. They said I would only
interfere and, in the end, I would harm you. I had to choose.” Her
voice faltered. “To be a mother or a leader.”

She wiped her nose, folded her arms. No
moody, this time.

“The best way to help you, to be whatever
mother I could be, was to stay. To be here when you awakened. I
knew you would hate me for it, but life demanded it.”

Her emotions flailed around her. It took all
her strength to allow them to thrash without overwhelming her into
another moment of weakness. But she was losing that battle.

“It has been harder… to watch you suffer…
then I ever could’ve imagined.”

My heart thumped in time with hers. I stepped
next to her. Like a magnet grabbing a metal rod, she put her arms
around me. When was the last time she’d hugged me? It had been too
long.

“Forgive me,” she said.

Her eyes were wet, but not a single tear
fell. My senses heightened. I smelled her fragrance, heard the
leapers creep above and below us, felt the minders in nearby rooms
watching our thoughts. I had awakened. Somehow, her embrace
awakened me even further and her saltiness seeped into my
awareness. It settled in my throat and swelled behind my eyes. All
that anger I reserved for her had vanished.

“Your father…”

“Would be proud,” I said.

She smiled, half laughed. She was
shaking.

“Thank you,” I said.

She pressed the back of my hands to her eyes
and let go. She stepped back and calmed her breathing. Her
emotions, once white-capped waves, settled glassy and calm. Her
Paladin nature was back in control, although I could now see Mother
there, too.

“As you may have guessed,” she said, “the
Paladin Nation is no longer covert. The past month has forced us
into the public eye. The world now knows of our existence.”

“So the world survived?” I said.

“The war is over. The duplication population
has been eliminated.”

“What about Streeter and Chute?”

“Their parents are with them, here in the
Garrison.”

“When can I see them?”

“They’re still recovering.”

“Still recovering?” I fidgeted. “What’s that
mean?”

“It’s nothing to worry about. Streeter is
undergoing precautionary mental decompression. Chute sustained more
serious injuries.”

“She’s going to be all right.” My chest
fluttered. “Right?”

“She going to be fine, it’s just taking
longer than anticipated. The doctors don’t want to rush her
recovery; they’re allowing her nervous system time to reconnect to
her body. The awareness transference she experienced was quite
traumatic. Her physical brain activity had stopped for over an
hour.”

“I recovered just fine.”

She squeezed my forearm. “You’re not like
her.”

Not anymore
.

“Is Broak dead?” I asked.

“You’re not responsible for his death.
Neither is Streeter. Broak had been corrupted.”

Like a computer
. “The Paladins are
just as much at fault,” I said. “They manufactured him like a
weapon.”

“Broak was responsible for his own actions.
He chose to betray the Paladin Nation. To betray the human
race.”

“They raised him like a machine. No wonder he
went to them.”

Her upper lip tightened. “Broak will not
receive my pity.”

She was not taking anymore questions on that
topic. That was that. Broak was dead. Life is such.

“What about Pivot?” I asked.

“It was time for him to go missing. The
Paladins were going to take him inside and set every minder in the
Nation on him, although I’m not convinced that would’ve worked. But
I don’t think that’s why he left. He watched out for you while you
were here. Somehow, I think that was his mission.”

“Tell me what it means when he’s
missing?”

“He has the ability to make others… not see
him. He could be right in front of you, yet convince you not to see
him. His powers are beyond comprehension. I don’t think I need to
convince you of that.”

“He’s got to come back.”

I almost said
I need him
. It’s what I
meant. Mom thought for a moment, softly touched my cheek. She let
her Paladin mode slip to show me the sadness that rested in her
soul, the sadness of my father’s death and how she carried that
with her every day. She let me know that I, too, carried that
sadness, whether I knew it or not. My father is gone. So is
Pivot.

Life is such.

A door appeared to open in mid-air between
two swaying palm trees. She was done. No more about Pivot, or my
father or Broak. She was leaving. But I wanted more. I wrapped my
mind around her to uncover her thoughts, to spill what she knew
against her will.

“Stop.” Her mind tightened, guarding her
thoughts that, seconds earlier, she allowed me to see. She didn’t
have the strength to hold me out, but bristled like a cat that
wouldn’t go down without a fight. “Don’t look inside me, Socket.
Stealing thoughts is not something you can do whenever you
want.”

I pulled back. She smoothed non-existent
wrinkles on her jacket. “You have a lot to learn about the mental
realm.”

She left the room. Her fragrance lingered.
Another shrimp boat sailed in from the right.

I was still kept in the room, promised that
it would be soon when they let me get out. I spent a lot of time
contemplating what had happened, and what would happen, but I was
getting tired of thinking. And I was tired of shrimpers throwing
their nets into the sea.

I called for news reports in the Charleston
area. A holographic man and woman appeared at a desk with sea foam
swirling around their feet.

“More information is being released about the
Paladin Nation,” the woman said with a reporter’s dramatic flare.
“A representative is scheduled to speak to the public. How long
have they been in existence? How are they funded? Why are they
secret? These are just some of the questions global leaders want
answered.”

“It’s the classic movie
Men in Black
,”
the man said.

“It certainly is.” She smiled at him. “And
the public is responding.”

The reporters disappeared, replaced by an
angry mob, smaller in scale. Hundreds waved signs, shouting things
like
Justice
and
Freedom of Information
. Several
spoke to an interviewer.

“The Paladins need to be accountable.” A
balding man stood before me with his arms stiffly at his sides.
“They are not above the law. The secrecy is an outrage. I don’t
care if they’re fighting aliens, man-eating tigers or the wicked
witch—we demand full disclosure!” He pounded his fist into his
other hand. “A society that keeps secrets has something to
hide!”

“While the initial reaction is mostly
outrage,” the woman spoke as protesters continued to march,
“Paladins are reluctant to disclose much. The question everyone is
asking is whether we would know anything at all if multiple attacks
had not taken place around the world, one of which occurred at a
local high school.”

“That’s right,” the male reporter chipped in.
“Little information has been released since it was left in
ruins.”

An aerial view of the school appeared. The
dome roof of the Pit was gone, so were the seats and the floor. The
tagghet field was littered with the bleachers.

“We’re not even sure who or what attacked,”
the man said. “There appears to be some sort of machinery that
emerged from an explosion and local authorities want to know who is
responsible. It is thought the attackers were targeting the
school’s virtualmode portal, one of the most powerful in the state
that also lacked sufficient security, but what they would do with
it is unknown.”

The grainy footage hovered around the parking
lot but the thick smoke obscured much of the view. Occasionally,
jointed legs poked out as the Paladins’ weapons flared blue from
the ground, leaving remains of the crawlers twitching on the
asphalt.

“What you may not know is that some believe
children had something to do with stopping the attack. Emergency
workers reported three teenagers were found in a remote virtualmode
lab. They were in very poor condition but they were not able to
explain why since the Paladins on site quickly took them away.”

The view switched to Buxbee’s lab. The
Paladins hustled three stretchers into a large black vehicle. The
emergency workers are swarming around them but not able to do
anything about it.

“However, the Paladins refuse to identify the
youths or reveal what they were doing during the attack.”

The images dissolved into the sand. “The
Authority requests your presence,” the room said. “Formal attire is
required. A leaper will arrive in five minutes.”