Socket 2 - The Training of Socket Greeny (3 page)

“Ah, there he is.” Commander Diggs, a
hard-faced man with short-clipped gray hair, stepped onto the
platform.

I turned at attention. Another high ranking
official walked with the Commander, along with two escorts. They
wore similar uniforms with a horizontal red stripe above the right
breast that signified their training facility. I hated all the
military bullshit, the saluting and ranking and arrogance that
sometimes came with it, but I went with the flow. To run a society
this powerful, there had to be order.

The Commander squeezed my shoulder, his smile
creasing his leathery complexion. “Cadet Socket,” he said, gruffly,
“this is Chief Commander.”

“Chief Com,” I said.

He nodded slowly, as if to say
at ease
but not really. His hair was short and his nose flat. His eyes were
especially relaxed. His mind tingled around me, feeling my psychic
structure like a dog sniffing another dog’s ass. I tensed, but
remained open. Closing down to someone of his status was considered
an insult. But to remain fully open wasn’t good, either.
Always
be ready.

Chief Com stepped slowly forward while the
others remained still. His escorts looked more like assassins,
their eyes barely slits and their mouths equally grim. Chief Com
closed in on my personal space. My heels caught the edge of the
platform and a magnetic field pushed back.

“How are you, cadet?” His voice was hypnotic,
pleasantly reverberant.

“Doing well, Chief Com.”

“You may address me as Com.”

“Com.” I nodded, respectfully.

“Are you familiar with me?”

Com, overseer of the Paladin Nation’s most
successful training facility. More cadets graduated under his
tutelage than all the other facilities combined. If the math was
done right, he was responsible for nearly a third of the Paladins
in population today. Without Com, duplicated humans would be
crawling all over the planet like cockroaches.

He stayed close to me and applied a bit more
psychic pressure. I stiffened this time. He was testing me now,
seeing how I’d react to standing at the edge of the platform while
being prodded. He’d heard about me, now he just wanted a taste of
what I was made of. A cold chill that poured down my neck during
training started again.
Shit!

This time I saw things. Images appeared.

I saw weapons flash.

Pon’s sweaty face, bruised and bloody. His
body lying still.

A drip of sweat ran down my cheek. I clenched
my fists, fingernails digging into my palms, and beat back the
chilly sensation and the images it brought. And then it was
gone.

Com didn’t seem to notice I checked out for a
second. He stepped back, satisfied, and cupped his hands behind his
back. “Your preliminary training scores are exceptional, cadet. I
was touring your facilities and, while I haven’t had a chance to
speak with your trainer, you appear more than ready for your
Realization Trial.”

I hesitated. “I feel prepared.”

It was my standard answer. Look confident.
Sound it, too. But it wasn’t an honest answer.
Prepared for
what?

Com turned his shoulders slightly, sensing
tension ripple around me. “What is your question, cadet?”

No hiding it, now. It was nearly impossible
to hide any thought from a guy like that.
So how’d he miss those
chilly images?

“I would be able to answer your question with
greater confidence,” I said, “if I knew what the Realization Trial
was about. Pon hasn’t given me any objectives. I don’t know if I’m
swimming across an ocean or jumping out of a spaceship. Tell me
what exactly I’m training to do and I believe I can answer you more
truthfully.”

Com laughed, heartily, and the Commander
smiled. The two assassins had yet to blink. “Yes,” Com said, “the
Realization Trial is frustrating. Let’s just say Pon will have you
ready for whatever comes your way, yes?”

I nodded, frustration clenching inside
me.

“Another question?” he said.

I was doing a horrible job of controlling my
thoughts. I minced them quietly, considering if I was pushing too
much. My frustration was too visible. He would only tolerate it so
long.
Enough is enough, control your mind, cadet.
But these
were my thoughts and, to be honest, I already knew the answers. In
fact, the question was ludicrous. I didn’t want to say it out loud,
so I just allowed the thoughts to crystallize for him to see my
doubts.

[Why are we training so hard? We haven’t
seen or heard of a duplicate in a year. They’ve been conquered.
Shouldn’t we be doing something besides preparing for a
non-existent war?]

Like I said, I already knew the answers.
Intelligence suggested that duplicates would have a backup plan,
that they would blend into the population until they were ready to
strike. After all, they were undetectable. One could be standing
right in front of you and you wouldn’t know the difference, even if
you cut its head off.
It’s the predator you don’t see that you
should worry about
.

Thank you, Pon.

Com saw my question. He also saw the answer
in my mind. There was no reason, but instead he said, “Keep your
enemies closer than your allies, cadet. That way you always know
what they’re doing.”

“Yes, sir.”

He stared a bit longer, judging my stance, my
psychic arrangement, my physical conditioning. No need for
conversation when you can look directly at one’s soul. It cuts out
all the words and personal agenda.

“I am anticipating record attendance at your
Realization Trial.” He leaned closer. His breath puffed in my eyes.
“I will be present along with every commander in the Paladin
Nation.”

“I look forward to it.”

“I have commended your Commander for bringing
a prodigy such as you to the great Paladin Nation. It is efforts
like his that will make this world a better place.” A subtle
tension vibrated in the air like electrical currents. He was hiding
something. Perhaps it was bitterness or contempt. After all, he
wasn’t accustomed to travelling outside his facility to see star
pupils. They came to him, not the Commander. This was a first.

But the energy around us felt tight, almost
menacing. I did not adjust my stance, did not want to appear
aggressive or tip them off, but instead took notice of the space
between us, estimated the range of motion and possible responses to
an attack.

“I would argue that you could not find a
better Commander,” I said.

“High praise, indeed.” Half-smile for me.
Half-smile for the Commander. “Very well, then. I will not take up
more of your time. I understand you have been given leave for the
evening and I sense you’re anxious.” He nodded, said in a lower
tone, “We expect great things from you, cadet.”

“Yes, sir.”

My heels were still on the edge; I shifted my
balance to the front of my feet.

Com started for the exit, the Commander
beside him. The escorts turned, their motions fluid. The one on the
left, his eyes were down but they cheated a glance back at me.
Their momentum kept them turning, their arms falling toward their
belts and in tandem they unleashed their evolvers. They spun on
their inside heels, pushing their weapon hand at me. Bluish spikes
shot forth and space crackled as they sliced time.

But I was ready. I gripped the metaphorical
time spark I felt in my belly and stopped time along with them,
leaving Com and the Commander standing still in normal time. I
ignited the evolvers around my hands and deftly parried the tips of
their blunt spikes that would knock the wind out of me for a week.
Fortunately, they did not counterattack. I was at a woeful
disadvantage with my back to the ledge. They retracted their
weapons and stood back at attention.

We returned to normal time, where Com and the
Commander took another step and turned. I deactivated the weapons
and placed them on my belt.

“Well done, Commander,” Com said.
Half-smile.
“Yes.”

The assassins followed them through the
exit.

I took a minute to allow my heartbeat to
return to normal before doing the same.

The servys watched me idle the black sedan
across the garage and through the illusion of a solid wall into the
outside world.

The sun was falling below the trees on the
far side of the boulder-strewn field. Behind me, the Garrison’s
rusty cliffs soared hundreds of feet like a sentinel watching over
the world. I stopped the car and let the remains of daylight fall
on my face. The breeze rushed through open windows with scents of
bending grass and fallen leaves.

The wheels thumped on the underside of the
chassis, folding into the wheel wells and the anti-gravity boosters
whined into action, keeping the car afloat. The car bobbed slightly
off the ground. I twisted the steering wheel, then stomped the
accelerator.

The car shot forward and the force threw my
head into the seat. The rocky terrain raced under the car. I tapped
the stereo and selected Bongo Monday’s latest hit,
Parade on
Me.
The bass thumped in my chest. The Garrison cliffs receded
in the rearview screen.

“To review public policy,” the car’s feminine
voice said, “there is no use of anti-gravity boosters off the
Garrison’s premise. There is no—”

I turned the music up until my eardrums
throbbed and turned the wheel until the car tilted on its side,
carving the air in a deep right turn. Lookits, the small silver
balls used world-wide for surveillance, tried to keep up, their
eyelights watching, reporting back to the Garrison. I yanked the
car left and soared to the other side. I’d flown these cars
hundreds of times in the simulated training rooms, but there was
nothing like the real thing. Besides, simulations didn’t have music
systems.

I reached the end of the field and slowed
onto a barren road that entered the dense forest. I tapped the
music down.

“To repeat,” the car said, “you will drive
responsibly while in public. Obey all laws. Do not engage any
automobile functions that are not available to the public. You are
due back by sunrise. It is recommended that you get back to your
house by 2 AM at the very latest.”

“Yessss, ma’am.”

A large wormhole bubble warped the space at
the end of the road, swirling with blue colors. The wheels touched
on the ground and the road bounced below. The first time through a
wormhole was like walking through Niagara Falls. Now it was more
like getting steamrolled. Still not pleasant.

I came out the other side thousands of miles
away from the Garrison. The exit was on a deserted road in the
country. Dusky light filtered through the South Carolina oaks where
the air was humid and the rules changed.

Be normal
.

Chute and I never lost touch when training
started. I went home a lot in the beginning. When I couldn’t go
home, we met in virtualmode. And when that didn’t work, we talked
on the nojakk, sometimes until the sun came up.

But then training got for real and those
opportunities got scarce. After awhile, I barely had time to sleep.
At first, days would go by before I could nojakk her. Then weeks.
Now it had been months. It was my fault, really. I was too
exhausted to return her calls. If I was awake, I was training. I
trained so much that I dreamed I was training. I couldn’t escape
it.

Sometimes, I wasn’t so sure if we’d called it
quits. The whole long-distance relationship thing is hard enough
for two normal people. She had to be having the same thoughts.
Is this worth it? Are we just wasting time?

I was nervous to see her. Nervous that spark
in her eyes would be gone when she saw me. Or maybe I was nervous
of what she saw when she looked at me. Sometimes, I didn’t feel all
that human. I was an outsider. I didn’t want her to see me like
that. I didn’t want to be on the outside while she was inside.

I’m going to puke.

Cooper River Bridge was gridlocked and the
game had already started. All the major sports were taking a back
seat to tagghet. Paladin-sponsored manufacturers rolled out the
flying jetter discs to anyone who wanted one. People were learning
thought-projection skills at unheard of rates. Virtualmode Internet
accounts reached new levels every day. The technology wave was
turning into a tsunami. Clearly, the Charleston roads weren’t
prepared for the madness of a semi-professional tagghet team.

Chute called while I looked for every
possible route around the bridge. She promised to save me a seat.
I can’t wait to see you,
she said. That was a good start,
but then traffic completely stopped and that took care of the good
feelings. Now I was about to rip the steering wheel out of the
dashboard.

I considered leaving the car in auto-pilot
and abandoning it, but unattended auto-pilot was against the law.
The car would rat me out. They’d call my ass back across the world
if I tried.

There was nothing to do but watch the ships
pass and smell the low tide. The car slogged along and I counted my
breath. In and out. I settled into the present moment and the
tension inside me, recognizing all the expectations attached to it.
They were stupid thoughts like: Would she really be happy to see
me?

That was pretty much it.

“Left turn in 100 yards,” the car finally
said.

I came off the bridge and took the shoulder
to catch my turn. I hit the back roads, hugging corners between
abandoned warehouses.

“Obey the speed limit,” the car said.

“I’ve been driving 2 miles per hour for the
last hour! This will average out!”

The shortcut didn’t last long. The stadium
was still four blocks away when I hit traffic again. I wasn’t
waiting this one out. I yanked the car to the side of the road and
parked in front of a row of broken houses. I sprinted down the
sidewalk and turned the corner and there, two blocks straight
ahead, was Blackbaud Stadium.