Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (32 page)

Why is this happening?

“You want a drink?” the kid asked.

“How about an ice cube?”

The kid popped the lid off and fished out a
handful.

“Thanks,” I said. My hands were shaking.

The crowd dispersed, but only to the parking
lot where they threw more trash at the gates. Security pushed them
further out. Sweeper mechs hovered out of holes in the stadium
walls like mechanical mice, sucking debris into their snouts.

“
Where are you?”
Chute’s voice chimed
on my nojakk.

I got far away from the entrance and
explained the deal.

“
I’m coming out.”

“You should stay,” I said, half-hearted.
“You don’t need to miss the game.”

“
We’ll be out in a few minutes.”

She was coming out. Streeter, too. They
would miss the game for me. That’s what I wanted to hear.

I went over to the grassy park area to the
right of the main entrance and sat at one of the picnic tables,
massaging the cold sensation that lingered in my neck. The cold
fits were getting worse, and now there were voices talking through
a watery veil. It wasn’t like I was picking up thoughts from
by-standers, it was more like energy swelling up inside me.
Something wanted out.

Pon can’t know about this.

Unexplained experiences weren’t good. It
meant instability. The Paladin Nation did not look kindly on the
unpredictable and unreliable. I already had Pon breathing up my
ass, I didn’t need to tell him I was broken
.
It had to be
the tension. The night off would help. Seeing Chute, too.

A cup rattled. The kid was standing next to
me, holding out the cup of ice. I took it.
Thanks.

His father called him over. The kid stood
there, staring at me. I motioned to his father, standing out on the
curb. “You better go.”

The kid ran and took his father’s hand,
looking back as they headed out to the parking lot. He waved and
staggered along, trying to keep up with his father’s long steps,
trying to see what was behind him. The world was so big and fast at
that age, it was hard to see everything. My father always walked
fast, too.

I sucked on the ice. Didn’t care how grubby
that kid’s hands were or how many boogers he had caked under his
fingernails, the cold felt good. I tapped out the last cube stuck
to the bottom, crumpled the empty cup and tossed it to a passing
sweeper. The blinds were drawn on the ticket windows.

I was about to tap my cheek to nojakk Chute
when a gate opened and a group of kids stumbled out. One had a red
ponytail bouncing on her shoulders.
Chute.
The other four
were guys and one of them had his arm across her shoulders. It
wasn’t Streeter.

My stomach didn’t exactly flip with
excitement. It hardened like a fist.

T R A I N I N G

paperboy

I remembered those guys from school, a bunch
of virtualmode addicts. They were still ugly but now they sported
tagghet jerseys and strutted through the gates like big shit.
Jenson had a huge nose, Perry had no chin, and Lee’s eyes were too
close. The fourth one was Sheldon. He had blonde hair. He was the
one with his arm over Chute’s shoulders.

They bookended Chute – two on each side –
and walked close to her. She held a game program and they pretended
to be interested in what she was pointing at but they were
slobbering wolves pretending to be sheep. I didn’t need to see
their thoughts, I could feel their hunger.

My lip was twitching.

Chute ran for me when she saw me. I held out
my arms and caught her leaping, spinning her round and round. I
buried my face on her neck, inhaled her fragrance. Her energy
tingled through my senses.

Her hair was longer.
Were her boobs
bigger?

“Oh, it’s so good to see you,” she said. “It
feels like forever.”

The tension in my chest melted.

She squeezed my shoulders. “You’re like a
machine. What’re they feeding you at that place?”

“The same as you, I guess. Look at those
guns.”

She pulled her short-sleeve back and flexed
her chiseled biceps. We had a laugh and I was lost staring at her,
like I was drinking through my eyes. I’d never forget what she
looked like, but time tends to erode the details. It was the
brightness of her smile and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes
I’d forgotten.

She introduced her teammates. It had only
been a year, but everyone was forgetting me.

“This is Shelly.”

“Shelly?”

He uncrossed his skinny arms. “Sheldon.”

We shook hands like arm wrestlers, squeezing
a little too tight. A little too long. “What kind of name is
Socket? You related to Craftsman?”

The others snorted and sort of hid their
smarmy grins.

“Shelly!” Chute said, shoving him.

“What? That was funny, come on. You ever
heard of anyone named Socket?”

“He’s my best friend, so be nice,” Chute
interrupted before blondie had a chance to say something else. Or
maybe he did say something and I didn’t hear it. I was still
reeling.
Friend?

We were just friends? And who the hell is
Shelly? My mouth hung open and twitched. I hated giving away
emotions.

“Where’s Streeter?” I asked.

“He’s busy, couldn’t make it tonight.”

“Busy? I get one night off and he’s
busy
?”

“You need to call him.”

“I will.” I reached for my cheek. “I’ll call
him right now.”

“Hey, man. If you got somewhere to go,”
Shelly said, “we can take Chute off your hands. We got some tagghet
business to talk about anyway, so you go call your
little
friend and we got this.”

Little friend.
That was a crack on
Streeter’s height. He wanted me to know he and Chute were tight,
that they were hanging out and talking when Streeter and I weren’t
around. He wanted me to think they might even be doing things.

“No,” I said. “It’s good, I got
it
.
”

I tapped my cheek and activated the nojakk,
mumbling Streeter’s name. The call ticked along, trying to connect.
Meanwhile, Shelly put a piece of gum in his mouth and stared at me
like he was some badass. Christ, tagghet was making him delusional.
The other morons were busy with Chute and her program, but Shelly
was itching for trouble. Why couldn’t he just play nice? Was he
trying to be big dick in charge and I was on his turf?

I could play nice if they didn’t come off
like possessive jocks. And they weren’t even jocks, they were
goddamn computer dorks wearing uniforms. The only reason they
tagged was because jetters required thought-projection and
virtualmoders were prime candidates. Most of them had horrible
coordination.

He dropped the wrapper on the ground. “You
ever tag?”

“Huh?”

“Tag. You know,
tagghet.
The game we
were watching until you couldn’t get a ticket.”

“Uh, yeah.” My call went to Streeter’s
voicemail. I didn’t leave a message. I considered calling
again.

“So where do you go to school?”

“Uh, nowhere. I’m homeschooled.”

“Homeschooled? You got a homeschool team, is
that it? What do you call yourselves, the Homeschool Hippies?” He
hit Lee in the chest and the three of them laughed on command.
“Homeschool Hippos?”

He smacked the shit out of that gum while he
laughed with his mouth wide open. Chute scolded him for being an
asshole. But he had the other three rolling.

“You’re lucky you don’t play us,” he said,
catching his breath. “I’d beat your ass so wicked your goddamn hair
would turn white.”

They let loose, this time; half-turned, fell
over each other. There was no stopping him, laughing right in my
face. He was taking me out of the picture. Chute drilled him in the
shoulder, this time. Called him a jerk off.

“Oh, come on, now that was funny.” He
regained his balance. “He’s already got white hair, get it? I’m so
good that his hair is already white. Before I even play him, his
hair is white. Get it? That shit’s funny. Come on, now.”

“What position you play?” I asked.

“Second lance.” He shadow-boxed at me and
shuffled his feet, throwing an awkward right hook. “The best you’ll
ever see.”

“Lancer, huh?” I picked up the gum wrapper.
“You must be quick.”

“Dude, I’ll make you dizzy.”

I was still nodding, thoughtfully. He juked
around his boys, play-faking moves. When he was done
pretend-scoring, he held his hands up like a heavyweight and
bounced on his toes.

I folded the wrapper and held it between two
fingers. “You dropped this.”

He smiled at his boys and swiped at the
wrapper without looking but came up empty. He swatted again and
missed. I’d barely moved my fingers and he’d whiffed twice.

He stopped torturing the innocent stick of
gum and finally looked at me. I turned my hand over, palm up, and
the balled-up wrapper rolled into my hand.

“I learned that in homeschool.”

He pecked at the silver ball to catch me
off-guard, but I bumped the wrapper off his wrist and caught it low
with my other hand. He swung with his left just trying to knock it
away and I batted the wrapper back to my right. Now he was swinging
wild while the wrapper went back and forth between his hands. His
cheeks were flush but he was chasing the bouncing ball like it was
a phantom housefly.

Finally, I popped it high above our heads.
He watched it come down but before he could grab it I flicked it
like a pebble shot out of slingshot; hit him right between the
eyes. His head snapped back in surprise.

It took a second for him to get his wits
back. A red dot was glowing between his eyebrows. I had my empty
hands up and parted my lips, the silver ball between my teeth.

Shelly tried to smile, but I’d crossed that
friendly line. His boys weren’t smiling, either. He thought about
taking it to another level, but he couldn’t fight. He wished he
could fight, but he was over his head. All bark, no bite.

Instead of taking a swing, he wrapped his
arms around Chute, interlocked his fingers over her stomach,
pulling her against him tight. Smiling, sort of. “Let’s get out of
here, guys.”

He thought he had the upper hand, that
teammates meant more than friendship, that Chute would choose them
over me and that was the best way to strike back, but Chute was
about a half second from planting an elbow in his left ear. He
crossed her line.

I should’ve let her do it, but when he
touched her like that I didn’t respond. I reacted.

I reached my mind around him like a net and
dragged through him like fingernails. Pon had put the brain-freeze
on me a hundred times. It was the quickest way to confuse an
opponent.

Shelly turned pale and wobbled backwards.
She helped him along with a stiff shove. Shelly’s knees gave out
and his boys caught him before he faceplanted in the grass.

Chute stomped off, cursing at all of us. Me,
included. Shelly might’ve been a jerk off, but I was a bully. She
knew I did something. I was quickly after her. Shelly, he was
drooling.

Maybe she was right.

T R A I N I N G

A slice of time

I was braced for a nojakk call from the
Garrison to return for an unauthorized
mind read,
but I
didn’t read his thoughts. It was a bare minimum movement of the
mind that could be considered an assessment of a situation, nothing
they’d censure me for doing.

“I’m sorry, Chute. I just kind of, you know,
lost my mind when he—”

“They don’t usually act like that.”

Maybe she’s not mad at me.
“They’re
jealous, that’s all.”

“They’re just friends. They don’t have
anything to be jealous about.”

I sort of half-laughed, half-coughed, and
looked away with a loud
eh-hem.

“What?” she asked.

“Have you seen yourself, lately?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I just mean, duh, they’re guys.”

“And I’m a girl, so what? That doesn’t mean
we can’t be friends.”

“No. But they’re
guys.
They don’t
know how to be friends with a girl, especially one that looks like
you. Unless they’re gay. Are they gay? Because, you know, I was
getting a vibe from Lee and I wasn’t sure—”

“Listen, we’re just
friends
.”

Friends. Okay. But a friend can mean
anything. Could be someone you call to get something off your
chest. Someone that shares notes in class or loans you money. Could
be a friend with benefits. I started to ask the question, to get a
little clarification, but I didn’t. I had to stop reacting.
Besides, the night would go up in flames if I asked something like
that. Call it a hunch. I’m not sure I wanted the answer to that,
anyway.

We waited for traffic before running across
the street. My car was another four blocks up, all alone beneath a
street light. We walked in step, the old houses crowded against the
sidewalk. Even shared a laugh. After a couple of blocks, she
reached over and hooked her finger around mine and just like that
it felt like I’d left just yesterday. Our hands were sweaty, but I
wasn’t letting go. And Chute was still squeezing.

“Do you want to go downtown?” I asked.

“It’s late.”

“We can sit at the market café and make fun
of tourists, what do you say? Just like old times.”

She had a curfew, but a quick call would
push it back, especially when her older sister knew she was with
me. She tapped her cheek and talked with her dad. It took a little
conversation, but when she tapped off, she turned and smiled. “I’ve
got until midnight.”

“Who says I’m taking you home?”