Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (37 page)

“Streeter!” I tapped the window. “I need to
talk to you, get up!”

His fingers stopped twitching.

“I see you, I know you’re in there.”

It wasn’t enough.

“I’ll get the key,” I said. “I’ll let myself
in and drag your ass out of bed.”

He still wasn’t moving. Maybe the key wasn’t
there anymore. Slowly, the mound came to life. Streeter sat up.

No way.

He was still short but thirty pounds
lighter. His face was dark. He rubbed his eyes and stretched,
pulled the over-sized transporters from behind his ears. He sat on
the bed, slumped over. Thinking. Maybe I was going to have to get
the key after all. But then he stood. He used to be built like a
hot air balloon. He sprung a leak.

The door was open when I got to the front
porch. Streeter was walking away.

“You all right?” I followed him to his
bedroom.

“I’m not feeling well.”

I touched the lamp on his desk, lighting his
room. Dark energy pulsed around him. His breath was shallow, as if
it didn’t matter whether he stopped breathing all together.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I got the flu or something?”

“Flu? Dude, you’re half gone!”

“Yeah,” was all he said. He wouldn’t look at
me. “I’ve been puking a lot.”

“Have you been to the doctor?”

“It’ll pass.”

“But you’ve lost all that weight.
Something’s not right, you got to get it checked out.”

“Maybe I’m on a diet.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?” I
said. “I haven’t seen you in three months—”

“Look, I’m sick!” He bristled with hot
energy now. “What’d you want me to say?”

I pulled the shade and flooded the room with
light. His color was all wrong. He blinked at the bright light, sat
back down on the bed. I grabbed his face with both hands, forced
him to look directly at me. His pupils were dilated; the rims of
the irises were blurry.

“How long have you been virtualmoding?”

“I’m not gear-addicted.” He knocked my hands
away.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“I know what I look like, I’m not
addicted!”

“Look at the signs, man! Your eyes are the
first to go! You look like a freaking withered up gearhead.”

“Yeah, and what do you know?”

“Face facts! Do you want to feel better or
what?”

“Don’t pull that Paladin shit on me! I know
more about virtualmoding than you’ll ever know!”

“What?”

He struggled to stay still. He pulled the
shade down, sat at his desk shaking his leg. He wanted me out of
there in the worst way, but knew asking wasn’t going to do it. It
wouldn’t be hard to pick a few thoughts from his mind, they were
scattered like fallen leaves. It would be as easy as dragging a net
through a school of minnows. My mind reached around him, gently
applying pressure. I didn’t want to get inside him, just see a
loose thought or two.

“Don’t pull that bullshit on me!” he
said.

“What’re you hiding?”

“I got a life so just stay out! You wouldn’t
know about it. You and Chute.”

“What’re you talking about?”

He sat there drumming his fingers on the
desk, grinding his teeth, finally said, “You’re not around, Socket,
so it doesn’t matter. Neither is Chute. It’s just me. Just me, bro.
So why don’t you leave me the fuck alone.”

“I’m here to see you, not somewhere halfway
around the world, you nut.”

“Where you going to be next week?”

His eyes were larger than ever. He was
sensitive to thoughts, even though he couldn’t control them. That’s
how he felt me looking inside him. And that’s another sign of gear
addiction. He needed help.

“You got to stay off virtualmode, man,” I
said. “It’s killing you.”

“I’ll do what I got to do.”

I looked at the box on his dresser. “I’ll
take your transporters.”

“You don’t think I have backups?”

“Streeter, this isn’t right. I’ll bring
Chute here, if that’s what it takes. She’ll make you do it.”

“Give me a break, she doesn’t have time.” He
held his belly and burped. “I got to puke now. You know the way
out.”

He crossed the hall and slammed the door on
the bathroom.

He was always vigilant about gear addiction.
In fact, he always made sure Chute and I had safeguards on all our
gear before we went virtualmode. He checked records to maintain
proper hours. In fact, the only way to abuse virtualmode was to
disable the safeguards. Virtualmode would shut down if it sensed
addictive symptoms. What was he doing? Better yet,
where
was
he doing it?

It sounded like a dry heave in the bathroom.
How long would he fake that until he thought I was gone? I grabbed
the disc-shaped transporters off his dresser wired to the black
box. It was cheap ass gear. Nothing was wired these days, but
Streeter could make anything work. This was crap he got down at a
gear swap for next to nothing. It was probably easier to disable
safeguards so he could virtualmode endlessly.

I slid the transporters behind my ears, felt
them suck against the skin and search for my nervous system. My
awareness left my skin sitting on the bed, floating through the
bodiless in-between until I landed in a giant sim.

I was ten feet tall in a small white room
with no furniture or monitors. Streeter’s gear didn’t even
recognize I wasn’t him. The enormous body felt sluggish and
powerful. The environment was cartoonish and senseless: no feeling,
no smell.

“Take me to the last destination,” I called
in a deep, gravelly voice.

The walls jiggled, searching the coordinates
for the last place Streeter was at. The walls weakened, then
crumbled. An imposing metal gate appeared before me. It was thirty
feet high with sharp staves on top of the bars, hinged to
ivy-covered brick columns. Beyond was solid darkness. The night sky
was covered with clouds, but a full moon peaked through an opening,
illuminating the weedy path in front of me.

“State your target,” a creepy voice spoke
from the other side.

“Where am I?”

“The Gates of Death.”

“What’s that?”

Pause. “If you need orientation to navigate
this world, please enter the room on the right.” There was a
mausoleum buried in overgrown vines. “Otherwise, state your
target.”

“Just tell me what this place does.”

Another long pause. “Gates of Death is a
database of all those deceased. You may visit celebrities,
historical figures, family or friends.”

Family.
“As long as they’re
dead?”

“State your target.”

This wasn’t Streeter’s style. He was a smash
and bash guy. He went to battleworlds, not historical. He didn’t
look back, he looked forward.

“Take me to my last target.”

The gates opened slowly. The dark beyond
took form. Colors and shapes emerged from the darkness. Water
sloshed in an ocean. Trees sprouted—

click.

The world disappeared.

I was yanked through the in-between like a
fish snagged on a hook and slammed back into my skin. I tumbled off
Streeter’s bed. My stomach churned. Streeter’s dirty socks hung off
the ends of his feet near my face. He held the transporters in his
hand.

“What were you doing?” he said.

“You can’t rip those off like that. My
nervous system—”

“
What were you doing?”

I leaned against his bed, took a moment to
catch my breath. “I saw the gates. Is that what this is all
about?”

“You have no right—”

“I’m your friend, Streeter. I’m not trying
to take anything from you or… or… listen, you’re a goddamn mess,
man! You can’t keep doing this.”

He turned his back on me, faced the corner
like he was in timeout.

And then I knew.

“You’re looking for your parents.”

He twiddled the transporters in his fingers.
“This is none of your business.”

I didn’t budge. Instead, I emitted a
soothing energy, filling the room with a calming, loving, embracing
essence that permeated his radical aura. The energy settled around
him. He started to say something, but the sweetness of the essence
felt too good, penetrating his jagged mind. Calming it. Relaxing.
Opening.

When his posture released the tension, his
shoulders dropped and his fists opened. He fell into the chair at
his desk and slumped over, dropping his face in his hands, rubbing
his tired eyes.

“I was doing research for history class and
stumbled onto the gates,” he said. “I talked to Einstein about the
atomic bomb and his theory of relativity, pretty standard shit. He
didn’t tell me anything new, really, but the details were good. I
was about to leave and just had a thought. I didn’t really think
they’d be there…”

He didn’t finish. Streeter never talked
about his parents, even when we were little. They died when he was
five, about the time my dad died, but he said he didn’t remember
much. Always figured he felt the same way I did about my father,
really. It happened a long time ago, so what’s the point of
bringing up memories? That was then. Now is now.

“That’s all?” I said.

Energy spiked off him. “THAT’S
ALL
?
”

“No, I just mean—”

“Imagine your dead fucking dad walking into
the room, right now. You think you’d be a little freaked out? You
think you’d be like, oh, hey pop, how’s it hanging? YOU THINK
THAT’S HOW IT’D GO?”

“What I mean is the gates is just a game
world, it’s not real. Those weren’t your parents, it was just an
image. You’re talking to data.”

He twisted in the chair and stared a long
time. “You think you’re better than me, is that it? Or do you just
not have feelings anymore? Which is it, Socket? Huh? Are you just a
robot programmed to save the world now, is that it?”

He shoved me against the bed.

“I’m no superhero, Socket, I can’t control
my thoughts and feelings or, or… stop time or any of that
horseshit. I’m like everyone else, just trying to get by. So, yeah,
it’s just game, I’m sorry. I can’t handle my feelings, boo hoo. But
I didn’t ask you to come in here. I didn’t ask you to give a fuck.
I GET IT!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I just thought…”

“You thought it shouldn’t matter, seeing my
parents? You don’t understand, that virtualmode world is as close
to being real as this right here.” He thumped his chest. “I thought
you might get it, but clearly you’re not human anymore. It matters
to me, superboy. It matters to me.”

The front door opened. Bags rattled
somewhere in the house.

“You need to leave,” Streeter said.

“Hang on a second—”

“Granny?” Streeter called.

His grandma looked into the room. “Are you
feeling all right, darling— oh, you have a friend. Good.”

“He was just leaving.”

“Hi, Granny,” I said.

“Hello, darling.” She looked confused, held
out her frail hand. “What’s your name?”

I’d been coming over to the house all my
life and she’d forgotten me after a year with the Paladins. I shook
her hand gently.

“I’m not feeling good,” Streeter said.
“Could you take him to the door?”

“Certainly, sweetheart.”

He stood in the corner and watched me leave.
His grandpa was in the kitchen putting away the groceries. He waved
as I passed. What else do you do to a stranger but wave?

Granny stopped on the porch. “Please come
back,” she said. “He needs company.”

I should’ve told her to unplug the
transporters, but Streeter would find a way to fire them back up.
We spent many nights in virtualmode without them knowing. And what
was I going to tell her? Your grandson is visiting your dead
daughter? Oh, and I think he’s gear addicted.

I should’ve.

T R A I N I N G

The fade

I pulled the glass dish from the stove. The
baked salmon flaked apart with a fork, just like the directions
said it would. It seemed like if I was going to screw up dinner, it
shouldn’t be fish, but the guy at the market recommended it, said
all I needed to do was throw some butter and brown sugar on it and
bake. Even a dope can’t mess that up, he said.

I turned the stove off, slid the dish back
in to keep it warm. What was I going to tell Chute about Streeter?
I couldn’t lie, but she’d want to know. She’d been calling him,
even knocking on his door. She just wasn’t willing to peek through
his window like I was. He was lucky she didn’t see him; she
would’ve dragged his ass to the hospital, no mercy.

So, if I tell her the truth – how he looked,
the thing with his parents – she wasn’t going to stay for baked
salmon no matter how it tasted.

I’d tell her after dinner.

A car door slammed.

I checked the sweet potatoes, made myself
look busy. I didn’t want to look like I’d been looking out the
window for the last forty-five minutes. My heart thumped when she
knocked.
Get a hold of yourself, man!

“Come in!”

I was bent over the stove pulling the dish
out when she came in. Then I stood there like I forgot where I was,
staring at her. She didn’t need to dress up or do the make-up
thing. Just the way she was, right then, it was perfect.

“I came right from practice.” Her braids
were frayed like she came over on a motorcycle. “I’m sorry, but
Coach worked in some new plays.”

I was still standing. Still staring.

“I’ll go clean up,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Use my mother’s
bathroom. I’ve got a few things left to do. Um, it’s over…”

“There.” She pointed. “Yeah, I’ve been here
before.”

I arranged each filet on a plate, then
spritzed them with lemon. I split two sweet potatoes and hit them
with butter and reached for the spinach salad, hit that with cherry
tomatoes, sunflower seeds and parmesan cheese.