Socket 1 - The Discovery of Socket Greeny (7 page)

Weeks passed. Then months. Instead of getting
on a bus for school and falling asleep in front of the TV, I was
somewhere else in the world where they administered tests and I
went to sleep on a weightless bed looking out so called windows
with views of canyons, oceans or whatever scenic view was on tap
for the night. Sometimes I forgot it was just a picture, that few
things I saw were actually real. Then again, I wasn’t trying to
think all that much. If I really thought about what was happening,
I’d unravel. So I did what they told me, went where they wanted me
and shut up for once.

I thought a lot about Pike. Not so much the
part where he tried to rip my mind in half, I tried to forget that
part, but the question he asked:
Who are you
? I think he
meant to find out if I was a spy or something, but I kept hearing
it a different way.
Who am I?
I thought I was some sixteen
year old latchkey kid growing up in a broken home. I figured I’d
end up drilling holes in sheet metal for a living and die in a
retirement home. Not exactly the American dream, but there were
worse fates.

But now
who am I
? Really, who am I?
Does anyone
really
know who they are? Are we just a
collection of behaviors we learned as babies that run us around
like wind-up toys? Or does anyone know why we’re here? Is there a
purpose to any of this besides getting a piece of gold and a boat
and hot wife to put on it? There has to be more to life than just
this.

I sat in my little room sometimes pondering
all that, but I always ended up on that one question:
Who am
I?
Somehow it didn’t feel like it had an answer, but it was a
question that had to be asked. Over and over. If I didn’t ask it, I
felt crazy. And I had to hang onto every shred of sanity I could
because this place made little sense. And everything I thought I
was didn’t exist anymore.
So who am I now?

* * * * *

My testers were never the same person.
Sometimes a man, sometimes a woman. Never Pike. Thank the lord in
heaven. They were never friendly, never rude. They took blood
samples, tissue samples, made me run, walk, do push-ups, asked some
of the goofiest questions I’ve ever heard. “Have you ever noticed
cockroaches following you?”

“What?”

He or she would ask the question again,
almost as if they just wondered if I liked vanilla or chocolate ice
cream.

Sometimes the interviews were more formal. We
would face each other in chairs, they’d ask questions, I’d answer.
Sometimes they would ask if I saw certain colors, or heard a
certain thought. Sometimes, I did. I felt psychic pressure, but
nothing like what Pike did; that was like a grown man trying to
squeeze his fat ass into a baby’s onesy. The testers would ask me
to
open my mind
and asked what came up. The first couple
times I sat there and daydreamed. The third time, I
saw
something. It was like my mind had become a three-dimensional
staging area. A reddish object appeared.

“What did you see?” the tester asked.

“An apple.”

The tester said nothing. Wrote nothing down.
But I was right. He was thinking of an apple and I saw it.

The next day, I knew how to read thoughts.
That’s right, I could look into someone’s mind and see what they
were thinking. I could even shut the thoughts out, if I wanted. It
wasn’t doing me a damn bit of good around the Paladins that had
full control of their thoughts. Opening my mind to them was like
trying to find out what a wall was thinking. But I could read their
thoughts if they let me.

* * * * *

“How do I stop time?” I asked.

The tester sat quietly, hands on his thighs.
“You will have to look deep inside yourself,” he said, calmly,
softly, almost mechanically. “Inside there will be a metaphorical
mechanism, a symbolic trigger, you can use to alter your
metabolism. Some experience this as a spark found in the solar
plexus.”

I closed my eyes, focused on my gut. I
remembered that sparkly feeling I had at the Rime, the first time I
sliced time. I searched this part of my being but felt nothing but
chaotic energy. I imagined I was a traveler, hunting a valuable
gem, flying through inner space. Lights blurred past, curled out of
my grasp like hyper fireflies. I went after them, one direction
then the other, but they were nothing but tiny lights. No
spark.

“You cannot chase it,” the tester said. “You
must allow it space; then, it will appear.”

So I sat there. Minute after minute went by.
Pretty soon I was thinking of lunch because the food in that place
was outstanding. I could order just about—

“Bring your focus back.”

I went back to my mid-section and let the
fireflies do their dance. They stopped running away and began
circling around me. Faster and faster they went, streaking inner
space with curves brilliant and lasting. There was a twinge. My
ears pricked with excitement. A bright light sparked. It was small
and intense, like a quasar glowing somewhere inside. I brought all
my awareness to this tiny flare.

“There.” The tester barely spoke. “Wrap
yourself arounddd…”

My hands involuntarily clenched. The spark
grew brighter. Brighter, still. And then it happened. The spark
ignited, engulfing me in a psychic blast. When I opened my eyes,
the tester was still, his mouth partially open, caught in
mid-sentence. I looked around the room for more proof, but I turned
cold. And hungry.

“You are not strong enough to sustain a
timeslice.” The tester was standing over me with the hint of a
grin. “But you found it. Nicely done.”

* * * * *

No one would tell me what they were looking
for when they tested. Told me nothing, in fact. Not who the
Paladins were or what they were trying to protect the world from.
Mom was the least helpful. I saw her more in those months than I
had the previous year, but she had only one answer for every
question: “I can’t tell you anything right now, Socket.”

I thought about Streeter and Chute a lot.
We’d been friends forever, like family. Chute and I were, as
Streeter put it, a girlfriend-boyfriend thing. I missed them both.
Maybe I should’ve missed her more. I tried to call them, but the
nojakk no longer worked. The Paladins shut it down. Standard
procedure. Maybe they were afraid I’d call and say
You’ll never
guess where I’m at! I can stop freaking time!
I probably
would’ve.

I wondered if they were worried. Not so much
Streeter, but Chute. What was she going to think when she heard I
was a freak? Who was I kidding? She was never going to find out.
She might never see me again, even if Mom said I would see her
soon.
Soon
. That was as specific as she got. That could mean
never
.

In between tests, Spindle and I played games.
We played chess with holographic pieces and ping-pong on a table
that materialized from the floor, complete with paddles and ball.
He taught me a game called Reign. The animated pieces moved around
seven levels of chess boards and chopped each other to pieces.
Blood would squirt and the pieces would die moaning. Very cool.

I was restricted to the transforming rooms,
leapers and corridors. No matter what shape or form they became or
what illusory views I could see through the windows, it was stuffy.
It beat school, yeah. And it beat sleeping in front of the TV on
empty pizza boxes. But no matter how big the room, I was still
inside a mountain. I hadn’t seen the sun in a long time. Pictures
of it, sure, but not the
real
thing.

* * * * *

“You have been cleared to enter the
Preserve,” Spindle announced in the third month, I think. For all I
knew, we weren’t even on a twenty-four hour schedule anymore. He
waited for me outside a testing room where a man had asked if I
could move a set of round objects with my mind (he gave me ten
minutes but all I did was stare at them and wonder what he did for
fun). Stupid.

I stepped quickly to keep up with Spindle,
his gait so smooth and effortless. “Recreation is important,” he
said. “I think you will enjoy this very much.”

We stepped inside a leaper.

I didn’t know what a Preserve was, but it had
to be better than staring at balls that wouldn’t move. “No more
tests?”

“You have no more tests today.” The colors
formed a rough smile on Spindle’s face.

The leaper opened. I expected another white
room, maybe a view (real or not) of the hills. At the very least,
I’d hoped we might go out to the field Mom drove (or flew) across
when she brought me to the Garrison. At least it was wide open. I
just wanted to feel the wind on my face. We didn’t go there; we
went someplace so much better. We stepped outside where the sun was
bright, the air humid and earthy. We were in the outside world, but
one where I’d never been. One I never thought possible.

No illusion this time.

We emerged from the side of a cliff. From our
vantage point, the tropical forest had been carved out of the
mountain like a stone bowl. Trees, birds, palms… the whole
deal.

“The Preserve is a man-made, enclosed
environment supporting the growth of over ten thousand botanical
species.” Spindle spoke louder to clear the screeching call of a
toucan or howler monkey or something else wild. “In addition, there
are numerous exotic species of birds, mammals and aquatic
creatures.”

“Enclosed environment?” Blue sky was peaking
between the clouds. “You mean that’s not real?” My heart sank.

“Do you see those?” Spindle pointed to a
barren limb on top of a large tree. “Those are magnashield
generators disguised as part of the tree. There is one every five
hundred square feet. They power an overhead force field that
encloses the Preserve. Nothing can get in. Nothing can get
out.”

“How big is this place?”

“5.2 square miles. It is primarily used for
research. Many medical breakthroughs that have been discovered here
will soon be made available to the public. Right now, I would like
to take you to the entertainment sector.”

Spindle stepped onto a dirt path that went
around an enormous banyan tree. The trail beyond the tree was 10
feet wide with a thick layer of leaves. Trees enclosed the humid
path. Secondary paths split off now and again, darker and narrower.
Things scurried along the undergrowth while small monkeys watched
from above. One hung from a thick vine and screeched. Colorful
birds teased him.

I’d been in places like that on a much
smaller scale. We went on a field trip to a greenhouse conservatory
with butterflies and lizards. Plants bloomed all sorts of colors,
shapes and sizes, attracted bugs of equal strangeness. None of us
said anything but whoooaaaaa for the first five minutes; then, we
threw pebbles at turtles chilling on a log. But this was way beyond
that.

Spindle stopped along the way, described
plants, pointed at animals, and gave me the brief history of things
he found interesting. I reminded him I was in high school, not
college. But he was having too much fun, his faceplate all sunny
and sparkly, so after awhile I let him do his thing.

We hiked for miles before stopping on a ledge
and looking into the deepest part of the Preserve. There,
surrounded by lush forest, was a large oval field of the greenest
grass.

“Here it is.” Spindle swung his arms out as
if I’d won the grand prize. “It is a fantastic sport, a test of
navigational skills, strength, agility, accuracy and teamwork. I am
not one for guarantees, Master Socket, but I would wager it will be
more popular than lacrosse, football, and soccer combined.” His
face lit with red, yellow and orange. “Tagghet.”

“The game with jetters?”

“Yes. The technology has been in commercial
production for a year. Perhaps you have seen it at your
school.”

“I’ve heard a thing or two.”

“You have not played?” he asked. I just
stared. “Then follow me.”

The path switched back and forth. We dropped
fifty feet in elevation before reaching the edge of the field.
Spindle knelt on one knee and ran his hand over the grass.

“It is good fortune for a tagger to pause and
touch the field before walking on it,” he said.

“It is?”

“It is always good fortune to pause.” He
gestured to the spot in front of me.

“I’m no tagger, so I don’t think so.”

Spindle’s feet sank in the lush, dense grass.
The blades were narrow, the tips each holding a bead of moisture.
Like living shag.

“This is nice,” I said.

“I knew you would like it.” His face
sparkled. “The scent is quite grand, is it not?”

“You can smell?”

“I have olfactory sensors equivalent to a
Labrador retriever.”

I dropped to one knee and spread my hand over
the turf, letting the wet tips tickle my palm. I wanted to lay in
it and stare at the clouds like I used to with Chute and Streeter.
We used to lay in my back yard, pointing at clouds and naming them,
it was just us. Sometimes Streeter would have to go home and Chute
stayed. She’d ask if I could read her mind, tell her what she was
thinking.
You wish you had bigger boobs.
She left a red mark
on my chest because I was probably right. Back then, there was no
one else. No one judging, no one watching. We made up stories,
laughed and played, and when we were ready to go home we did. No
one was there to tell us, Go here, now here. Make those stupid
balls move with your thoughts.

“If you are ready, we can explore the rest of
the Preserve,” Spindle said. “There are some magnificent
features.”

“Spindle, could I go alone?”

“You do not like my company?”

“That’s not it, no… it’s just… I just need to
clear my head. I mean, my whole life changed in a single day and
I’m still not sure I’m digging all this. I need to get lost for a
while and sort things out. You know what I mean?”