Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (34 page)

After that, I went back to training. I went
back to forgetting what happened with Chute, ignoring how I felt,
and I completed my assignments and missions. Pon was busy with
Paladin business, didn’t have a chance to meet with me, to pick my
analysis of training apart. He relayed commands through Spindle.
And I completed them.

In my spare time, what little there was, I
went to the moldable training rooms and built isolated environments
to help forget about home. Sometimes it was a desert, a tundra or
other habitat of equal desolation.

Pon returned weeks later.

I was sitting on top of Mt. Everest. Snow
was piled over my lap like a winter quilt, but the seat carved out
of ice was otherwise comfortable. Clouds were strewn below like a
cotton bedspread. The air was crisp, rustling my hair. I could not
feel the temperature that should’ve been peeling the skin from my
face. It was a balmy breeze, despite the altitude and the deadly
ice storm approaching on the horizon.

Ten feet in front of me, a doorway opened in
space. Spindle walked up the mountainside, buried up to his waist
in snow. A gale force wind cut between us, pushing him sideways. It
whistled in my ears, holding my hair sideways. Spindle’s faceplate
lit up but his words were sheared away. He crawled through the snow
until he was at my feet. “Perhaps you could return the room to
normal, Master Socket?” he shouted.

I flicked my fingers. The clouds and ice
dissolved back into an empty white room.

“Are you feeling well?” Spindle asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Spindle’s face scrambled with colors but he
wasn’t able to formulate a response. He looked in one direction,
then another. Then, as he often did, returned to the task at hand.
“Would you like to consult the evaluation of your training and
status now?”

It wasn’t a question, really.

“I think it will cheer you up immensely.”
His face was brighter. “Let me show you the data.”

Bright colored bars grew several feet from
the floor that rotated, pulsed and spiked. Green, blue, and yellow
lines circled the bars like electrical arcs, jumping from one bar
to the next. All the colors in the spectrum danced around the room,
reflecting in Spindle’s faceplate.

“It is my pleasure to translate the
analysis, Master Socket.” In Spindle’s words I was superior,
magnificent, and grand. My evaluations were on par with fully
realized Paladins. Spindle started with the spiking red bar on his
right that represented my raw instincts, citing specific examples
in training exercises, even calling up replay videos to point out
highlights. Then he moved on to the next bar: timeslicing ability.
The next one was speed and agility, then evolver manipulation,
tacking aptitude, combat readiness, and so on and so forth.

They were all
stupendous
.

Spindle didn’t seem to notice I didn’t give
two shits. It struck me I was sitting in a white room wearing a
one-piece battle garb. I plucked it off my skin, rubbed the silky
texture between my fingers, poked it with my thumb, feeling the
armorcloth threads stiffen to resist impact. It was white, matching
the room. If I walked into the jungle, it would turn green. I swore
a long time ago I wouldn’t wear something like that, but there I
was, listening to an android dance around the room while I sat
there in a stupid onesy.

“There is some concern with this bit of
data,” Spindle announced.

He was behind a translucent pyramidal bar
that dwarfed all the others. Its base was as wide as Spindle’s
shoulders and the tip twinkled near his knees. The surface was
pearly, encasing sparkling lights within.

“It appears to be an undefined hidden
potential that you have just recently begun to express. However, we
do not know what the ability is. It has never been detected
before.” Spindle stepped through the pyramid. “Are you experiencing
anything unusual?”

He was talking about the cold sensation that
washed down my neck, and the garbled voices that came with it; the
weird visions I had with Com.
Was Pon dead?

There was something definitely unusual and
if my raw instincts were as good as the data suggested, I wasn’t
telling him. I needed time to sort through it, but I had a feeling
I already knew what was happening.

Haagloppllls-sssaaaa-sssss-HHHEESGAWTTA
! I heard that
nonsense trickle down my neck when I was waiting in line for the
tagghet game, when the kid gave me an ice cube. And then I heard it
again when Chute said it, just before the gun fired. She was
warning me:
Socket! He’s got a—
Hhheesgawtta…
He’s got
a
…

He’s got a gun.

I heard her warn me an hour before it
happened. The future was coming to me as a cold, paralyzing
sensation, speaking through a thick barrier of time. And I wasn’t
controlling it.

I looked Spindle square in his eyelight.

“No, nothing unusual.”

Spindle waited for me to elaborate, or to
perhaps finish my thoughts. I didn’t.

He waved his arms and the colored bars,
spikes and lines vanished. “Let us move to the training room to
prepare for the pre-Trial, shall we?”

“Pre-Trial? That’s not scheduled for two
weeks.”

“There has been a change in the schedule.
Pon will soon be temporarily reassigned to assist in Pike’s
relocation.”

“Pike is being relocated? Again?”

“There is evidence he has contacted someone
outside his imprisonment. His location is crucial to his isolation.
Only trusted Paladins can relocate him.”

Pike, the greatest Paladin traitor of all
time, had been secretly imprisoned for an entire year, ever since I
exposed him. He carried more knowledge about the duplicate
population than everyone thought, but it came with a price. Pike
was already a superior minder, a Paladin with exceptional psychic
skills including the ability to read thoughts, to see without eyes
and to heal minds. Or destroy them.

But his abilities were appearing to grow
when they should have been diminishing under the pressure of
Paladin minders. In fact, he recently gained control of a minder,
drained his personality and will and turned him into his own
personal puppet. The minder turned on his companions, killing one
and injuring two more. He was stopped, but was a zombie by
then.

“Trainer Pon would like for you to complete
the pre-Trial exercise this morning,” Spindle said. “This is the
second of three pre-Trial exercises required to be completed before
the Realization Trial. According to the data, you are ready.”

Off to training we went. I was one of the
best Paladins of the future.
Why don’t I feel like one of
them?

T R A I N I N G

riddled

I was alone in the training room. Fresh air
filtered through microscopic pores in the walls, carrying a subtle
undercurrent of purification.

It was early in the morning, not that there
was a clock. Spindle left at 5:55 AM, as he did every morning, and
let me stand ready in the center of the room, hands behind my back.
Pon would arrive precisely five minutes later. He was never late.
Never early.

I never knew where he was going to enter the
room. It was always a surprise. He could enter anywhere along the
walls or through a trapdoor. Once he dropped from the ceiling.
Sometimes he strolled into the room. Sometimes he attacked.
Always be ready.

And he always pointed out something I fucked
up. Just once, it’d be cool if he walked in, clapped his hands,
said “Oh, you’ve outdone yourself this time, Socket! That’s my boy!
MY MAIN MAN!”

Instead, he’ll drop from the ceiling because
he knows secrets. He claimed to know every secret tunnel in the
Garrison. Claimed he knew them better than the Commander himself.
Maybe he dug those tunnels himself because he was
sooo
goddamn important—

“Control your thoughts, cadet.” Pon emerged
from a solid wall.

I tightened my mind.

He pursed his lips, took a moment to
observe. Then, with his hands behind his back, paced around me. His
footsteps fell like a predator. I mindfully followed his presence
without turning as he walked out of eyeshot. I followed his energy,
followed his movements and searched his intentions. He stopped
directly behind me and took a balanced stance. His mind reached
around, searching for weakness. If I was not vigilant, he would
squeeze me unconscious. He’d done it before. That sort of thing is
not easy to forget, especially when you piss your pants.

“Tell me, cadet, that I haven’t wasted a
year training you?”

He probed my mind some more, gave me an
opportunity to respond. I wasn’t answering that.

He circled around, looking thoughtfully at
the ground. The psychic pressure intensified, threatened to push
through my barriers and creep inside. If he got in, I would suffer
major brain freeze and, politely put
, go night-night
.

I closed my eyes to steel my mind, whittled
my focus down to a tiny point. Weak minds were clay in Pon’s hands.
He was an artisan who could mold the mind’s fabric or squish it
between his fingers.

He made a complete circle and stopped in
front of me. I remained resolute. Knees flexed, ready to timeslice
if he attacked… for the purposes of training, of course
.

“You can never go home, cadet. It does not
exist for you anymore.”

“It was just a visit.”

“That life has passed.”

“They’re friends, like family. I’m not
turning my back on them.”

“Understand the conflict, cadet. Understand
what you wanted your trip to be. You want a girlfriend to hold your
hand. You want to do things ordinary people do. You want to be what
you once were.” He tapped his head. “Those are your thoughts, and
therein lay your suffering.”

I’ll tell you what suffering is. It’s
training non-stop. Suffering is going a week without sleep. It’s
breaking bones and gashing skin. It’s getting your brain squeezed
like a fucking lemon.

“This present moment is vital, cadet. This
moment is all there is. The present moment does not care what you
think or how you feel, it exists regardless. You exist in it, not
separate from it. The present moment is the beginning and the end.”
He made a circle with his finger and thumb. “Your feelings about it
are irrelevant.”

What if I don’t care?

His eyes were light blue. A psychic storm
rushed through his small, sharp pupils and absorbed my thoughts and
emotions. I let him see the doubt rumbling inside.

“It feels suffocating, mmm?” he asked.
“Emptiness? Uselessness? Is that how you feel?”

“How about uncertainty.”

“I see,” he said. “And these feelings of
apathy suck the life from your focus, mmm?”

“Something like that.”

He stood still. Only the room seemed to
breathe.

“Cadet, we serve this world, that is our
purpose. Our sole directive. Do you think your loneliness is a fair
price for that service, mmm? We save the world from itself, not
because we
feel
like it. Because it is our duty.”

“Not all of them want to be saved.”

“They are lost. We are their shepherds.”

“And they still don’t give a shit.”

“We don’t ask for gratitude.” He lowered his
eyebrows. “When the universe cries, cadet, you answer. Do you think
life will understand your failure because you don’t
feel
like serving?” The words imprinted on my mind, burning like a hot
iron. “Growth is difficult, cadet, that is a fact.”

He moved very close. His breath streamed
through his nostrils. I did not look away. I reached out to him
with my mind and pushed back. The room crackled with our energy. My
backbone vibrated. His eyes were open and empty. There was never
anything to see inside Pon, but I always looked for a hint of
weakness, a clue of motivation. But there was never anyone inside,
he was seamless. Pure, like water.

I was rooted to the floor, ready to strike.
I was in the room.
In the moment
.

He stepped back. Satisfied. “The Realization
Trial is in twenty-two days. If it was today, you would fail.”

“I still don’t know the objective.”

“The objective is simple: You must see.”

“I see just fine.”

“Says the blind man. The urgency to see
clearly, to act directly, is upon you. It is now, cadet. Your
preparation is not just physical and mental, it is your entire
being. You prepare to be everyone. And to be no one.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Precisely. The true enemy is within you.
But first you must see the enemy. Do you see him, blind man? Do you
see the enemy, mmm?”

My body tightened.

Precisely.

Pon stepped backwards. The room transformed
with each step. The putty walls turned brown and tan. The floor
became sandy and the ceiling an endless blue sky. Boulders grew
around me, tall, sharp and dusty. By the time Pon reached where the
wall had been, it looked as if the Sonora Desert ran for miles
beyond.

“This is a pre-Trial exercise,” Pon said.
“Defeat your enemy, cadet.”

The sun was high above, stinging my cheeks.
Spindle looked down from one of the boulders. He was not wearing
his plum-colored overcoat. Steam rose from his silver body, the
scalding heat bending the air around him.

“That’s an image,” I said. “That’s not
actually Spindle, right?”

“Do not hesitate to do what life requires.
When you know the truth, action is immediate, decisive and
complete.”

“I can’t destroy Spindle, Pon.”

A smile touched his lips. “Spindle is not
his body.”

“But that’s not right.”

“Do not fear death, cadet. Embrace it.” Pon
took one last step, vanishing through the invisible wall space. His
voice remained. “For in death, there is rebirth.”