Socket 2 - The Training of Socket Greeny (21 page)

He stretched out his arms. His nostrils
flared as he drew in the cool, dry air. He paced away with a
familiar hitch in his left leg and gazed at the full moon. I can’t
see his face, but he was studying the craters on its surface. I
suddenly remembered how we were in the backyard and he told me how
the moon rotated around the planet and the same side always faced
us, that we never saw the dark side.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, his
voice scratchy. “Where the hell are we?”

The fire was getting hot. I sat down on a
boulder, suddenly weak. He remained at dark’s edge, breathing like
he missed the simple act of breathing.

“Do you know what happened?” he asked.

It felt like a dream, but if it was a dream
then I was totally awake.
Would that still be a dream?
I
rested my elbows on my knees and recalled for him the sequence of
events, as much for me as for him.

He came back to the fire. “So where are you
now?”

I felt the soft rub of my fingertips and the
desert night on the back of my neck. “This isn’t my skin.”

“That’s right.”

“Your physical body is on the floor of the
arena,” he said. “They forced you into a timeslice and while it
seems like you were buried in that hole for eternity, about an hour
has passed. But the clock is ticking, son.”

He rubbed his whiskers and it sounded like a
steel brush.

“They’ve been watching you journey through
this insanity. They’ve looked inside your mind and observed your
struggle, your resistance. In most cases, the Trial would be over
by now, but Pivot brought you here.”

“But why?”

“You’ve got one last resolve.”

He scratched at the whiskers again and gazed
into the fire, allowing the moment to stretch out. Pivot was still
out in the dark.

“You’re not real,” I said. “You died. I’m
dreaming you like all the rest of this trial. You’re a
hallucination.”

“Correct.”

“Then what’s to resolve?”

He grunted, which was part laugh, part
acknowledgement. The firelight flickered in his eyes.

“Most of what we assume is reality is our own
thoughts, our unresolved emotions, our lack of understanding.
That’s what the Realization Trial is about, purging your depths,
exposing your soul. There can be no preconceived notions about what
it’s about. You cannot prepare for it, you can only be open. You
arrive naked and journey into the mind.”

“Into the night,” I muttered.

“For some, the depth of the soul is very
dark.”

My thoughts became real. I couldn’t escape
them. The more I fought the hole, the deeper I sank, the more I was
lost. I was crushed under my own delusions and forced to
understand. To die.
To be reborn
.

“You see clearly now,” he said. “And it comes
with immense power, strength and fearlessness.”

“I wasn’t afraid to begin with.”

His laughter echoed deep into the canyon.
“Fear has many faces, my son! Anger is just one. The Paladins held
up a mirror for you to see.”

“Is that what you are? A reflection?”

“I’m a bit more than that.”

“Then what?”

He half turned to Pivot. His expression
softened, sadness taking the edges off his wrinkles. “You see,
Pivot absorbed all my memories when I died, I suppose for this very
event to take place. I walk, I talk, I act just like your father,
but basically I’m a program.” He rubbed his thick, callused hands
in front of the fire. “So no, I’m not real. I’m more like a
ghost.”

“You’re data.”

“That’s another way of putting it.”

“You remember Streeter?”

“Your best friend? He was about as tall as a
stump and just as wide.” He chuckled to himself. “How is good ole’
Streeter?”

“Nevermind.” I didn’t want to talk about
Streeter and the virtualmode trip to see his parents. This was
getting way too real for me. Data, or not.

“Before you return to physical reality, you
have one last obstacle to resolve. Not all cadets survive the
Trial, son. Many of us weren’t capable of letting go of our beliefs
and thoughts.” The fire tossed out a streaking ember. “You have one
last attachment.”

The swelling hiccupped in my chest, spreading
outward. “I’ve seen the ugly, rotting images of myself. I faced
them and reclaimed them. There’s nothing left.”

“Ah, yes. There’s still one more.” A smile
and a sparkle told me it was standing in front of me. “Pivot felt
you needed this last one to be special. It’s a tough one.”

“But you’re not real, and you know that. I
went through hell back in that hole and, to be honest, I’m not
feeling like there’s anything left. I mean, you died and that’s
that.”

He dipped his head. The authenticity of the
expression was chilling but my chest was warm. Something was
growing. The experience of omnipresence was missing.

“I’m as real to you as I need to be.”

“I barely remember you.” Something twisted in
my stomach and I resisted letting it in, but the instinct to open
to it, to be with it, took over and I felt it ache. The swelling
entered my chest.

My father looked at the stars, searching the
constellations. When the right thought hit him, he said, “You still
got that scar behind your ear?”

I touched the raised line behind my right
ear.

“I pushed you too high on a swing set when
you were three, cut you open on the chain. You bled like a water
hose. I caught ten degrees of hell from your mother for that.”

The memory crossed my mind. I was telling him
to push me higher. Nothing could hurt me. His powerful hands were
on my back and sent a fluttering buzz through me each time he
shoved. I soared to the peak of the swing set, gripping the chains
tight enough to dent my palms and for a second I was weightless. I
laughed and screamed,
Higher, go higher, Dad
. My father
would say
Oh, higher still, huh?
And then I felt it again,
his hands on my back and a sudden surge of power.

The swelling flooded my throat.

“You want my favorite memory?” He shook his
head and looked up. “They had this ride at the fair that shot five
hundred feet off the ground. You were too young to go, but you went
anyway. You were so scared I thought you were going to squeeze my
kidneys out.” He watched the fire, his expression still. “I liked
being there for you, son. It wasn’t the ride or the other stuff, it
was just being there. That’s my favorite part.”

Suddenly, I’m losing track of what’s real
again. I know I’m in front of a fire and my skin is somewhere on
Earth, but now I’m watching my father laugh. I remember his face
when I was young. He was always unshaven. Mother liked that about
him, always a little rough and unpredictable. So did I.

I remembered him at the fair. We were eating
fried food and my father was holding my mother’s hand like they
were teenagers, their hands swinging between them. She was
laughing. He was, too. But then the memory transforms into a rainy
day and he was lying in a coffin and Paladins were lowering him
into the ground. Drizzle beaded on the casket lid.

All I can muster is a whisper.

“Why’d you die?”

The fire was just embers glowing in a ring of
stones, just enough light to keep his face out of the dark.

“I didn’t leave you, son.”

“That’s not the question.
Why did you
die
?”

He looked into the fire.

“Answer the question.” The swelling was
heavy; it took my strength and blurred my vision. The glowing
embers smudged in streaks of light as my eyes got wet.

“You left us…”

The swelling sprang a leak in my throat.
Emotion gushed out. But I had more words. I swallowed back the
leak.

“You left Mother… and she never smiled again.
How could you do that to her? How could you… just leave us? If you
loved us…”

I sniffed back the snot and blotted my blurry
eyes with my sleeve. The swelling was like an overfilled water
balloon. It was about to pop, but I just wanted to know…

“If you loved us…”
I’ve always wanted to
know.
“Why did you have to die
?”

The balloon broke.

A flood of emotion, warm and deep, coursed
through me, releasing the hidden sadness and deep longing lodged
somewhere deep. It filled. It gave.

I shook, holding back the sobs, but they
weren’t to be denied. Once again, instinct took over and I opened
to the essence coming forth, allowed it to flow within me. I was
completely helpless.

Completely vulnerable.

The last resolve.

“You see clearly now, son.” My father’s arm
gently draped across my shoulders and pulled me tight. For a
moment, just a split second, the essence of my father – his smell
and tone – transformed and I sensed Pon sitting next to me. And
then it passed in the unfolding of my emotions because I understood
Pon had been filling that hole inside me. The hole missing a
father.

The fire was gone but the warmth
remained.

I’m nowhere again. I have no eyes, yet I see.
No ears, yet I hear. I bathe in the deep, pervading love that has
been inside me my entire life.

I have no thoughts of returning to my skin
withering on the floor of the arena. I could allow it to pass on
and those I cared about would mourn. I envision their faces, but
one stands out in more detail than the others.
Chute.
She’d
find happiness after my body died. Eventually.

All the possible pasts and futures lay before
my mind’s eye, once again. I allow one path to choose me. I don’t
follow its future to see where it leads, where it would end and
how. I don’t ask if Chute is in it or if the world is safe; I only
allow it to take me.

Somewhere in the flow of time, I feel my limp
body. My awareness contracts, rushing past pulsars, through
galaxies and solar systems, racing with the solar winds. Back to my
skin.

An ocean crashed somewhere.

Feeling returned to my extremities, vibrating
like I’d been sitting on my legs too long. My fingers trembled on
the quaking floor. The ocean grew louder as if a wave would soon
fall on me.

You see clearly.

My eyelids fluttered. The putty floor was
below. The arena.

No salty air blew in from an ocean. No waves
crashed. It was applause shaking the foundations of the enormous
room.

I couldn’t lift my head, but I could see the
blurry Paladins standing in their seats. They were clapping,
shouting my name, roaring with approval. No Paladin had ever
sustained a timeslice of that length without life support.

Be the path.

Servys blocked my view, their rubbery arms
slapping lifepatches to my neck that pierced my arteries and dumped
emergency carbohydrates and electrolytes and other life giving
components. The sustenance rushed inside like a cool drink,
tingling my nervous system. They hovered around me like satellites,
tending to my weak pulse, cradling it lightly, bringing it back so
that I could reside in the skin once again.

And the cheers went on.

The Paladins were congratulating each other,
shaking hands and patting backs. The Paladin Nation took a leap in
evolution that day. What new skills did I bring back from the brink
of annihilation? How many more Socket Greenys could they create and
how soon? Oh, the possibilities! It was a time to rejoice, indeed.
Long live the Paladin Nation!

But I brought back so much more than any of
them realized. I returned to serve life, not the Paladin Nation.
And as my vision cleared and focus returned, I saw the path before
me. I saw the light pulsing around some of the Paladins and the dim
deadness around the others. It was the same differences I witnessed
when the Trial began, but now I saw it so much more clearly.

And understood what it meant.

“Spindle.” I managed barely a whisper, but it
would be enough. “
Protect
.”

Spindle crackled from a timeslice, appeared
over my helpless body. With his legs on each side of me, he was
poised for battle.

The most powerful people in the world were
gathered in that room celebrating a new era. But they did not see
the path. They could not see what was right in front of them.

I will show them.

“Come now, Spindle.” The Commander’s voice
resonated above the noise. “Let the boy breathe. The battle is
over.”

No, Commander. The battle is just
beginning.

The Paladins came down from the seats still
clapping. It was a historic moment. The Commander would forever be
known as the one that mentored Socket Greeny. He didn’t notice
Spindle still crouched over me; eyelight scanning. When the
Commander gave an order, it was followed; especially when it was
given to a mech.

But Spindle overrode the direct command to
step away. He was assigned to protect my life and to abort commands
when the situation demanded it. Spindle didn’t ask why I gave the
protect command. He only heeded.

The servys had formed a circle around me,
like a crime scene, and took turns administering lifepatches
wherever they could find an artery.

I needed strength. Every lifepatch was sucked
dry. Servys scrambled to change them, but I drained them faster
than they could get them primed and replaced. My blood pressure
picked up. I slid my hand across the floor. I’d be able to sit up
soon.

[I’m vulnerable to psychic attack,]
I
thought to Spindle.
[Quietly call the servys into a tighter
position and be prepared to erect a psychic shield.]

Spindle didn’t reply or ask for
clarification. His eyelight brightened with acknowledgment.

[Lock the arena down on my signal. Allow
crawler guards entry, but no exits. No one in this room is allowed
to leave. Also, give the order to lockdown timeslicing so that
nothing is allowed outside the standard procession of time.
Everything inside has to remain in regular time—]