Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (58 page)

“No.” She slowly got up and stood next to me
at the railing. She was thousands of miles away, but I sensed her
exhaustion as if she was right next to me. “California is
aggressively pursuing a Paladin-sponsored education/conference
center, but they need funding. It would be a great outreach for our
integration program, but there’s a lot of opposition from the
government. Lots of suspicion.”

“Who can blame them?”

“Yes, well, I need to convince them our
policy of secrecy is a thing of the past and we’re genuinely
interested in sharing our knowledge.”

“They’re not buying it?”

“They haven’t seen what we have to offer.
Our advancements in health care alone will convince them.” She
drank from a water bottle and patted my hand. Her palm was warm and
soft. “By the way, your Orphan program is doing quite well.”

I hated that name, but the
Displaced
Youth Program
wasn’t catching on.

We talked about how many more kids we were
planning to take on, how we could expand the program to the rest of
the training facilities and, of course, get the word to the public
on what a great job we were doing. I hated public relations, that
was Mother’s job. Everything we did, she had to find a way to tell
the public. Television even started carrying the Paladin Network, a
twenty-four hour news station that exclusively covered us. She was
a weekly regular.

“I’m scheduled for my wormhole trip in about
a week.”

“Everyone does it,” she said. “You
nervous?”

“I’m not doing jumping-jacks.” I drummed a
short rhythm on the railing, watching waves crash below.

“I can’t do anything to get you out of it,
if that’s what you’re thinking,” Mother said.

“No, that’s not it at all. I’m just
wondering why I need to go. Clearly there’s a million things here I
can be doing. I can’t imagine why I’d ever be sent off-planet, so
what’s the point?”

“You sound nervous.”

I glanced at her. She was serious. Then I
realized, she was right. I was resisting some nervous tension
inside me. Why was I being like this? It was just a trip, get it
over with and be done with it and move on. Stop being a baby. But
even acknowledging that feeling didn’t make it go away.

“Look, I’m not nervous,” I said, laughing
nervously. “Okay, I’m nervous.”

She laughed, too. I told her what I was
feeling and she listened without responding. Maybe there was a good
reason I was hesitant, I just didn’t understand it yet. My gut
feelings were often on the mark.

“I don’t know.” I spit over the railing and
watched it disappear in the swirling wind. “Maybe it’s as simple as
not wanting to go through that wormhole.”

“It’s not comfortable.”

“It feels like your spleen is getting
squeezed out your ass, I’m told.”

She grunted, pushed her short brown hair
behind her ear. She’d never been off-planet, but she’d heard the
stories. No one enjoyed the ride. No one.

A cruise ship moved from the left, the deck
dotted with brightly dressed vacationers. I wondered if the
party-goers were looking back at the shore.

“I read your report about the vision,” she
said. “About Pike.”

“Not a happy ending, huh.”

“What’s your feeling? Does it have
merit?”

I squeezed the railing. The quality of
visions sometimes indicated their likelihood. When they were hazy,
it was suspect, probably due to unforeseen variables. Even the
weather could alter a vision, make someone stay at home instead of
walk across the street and get hit by a truck. But when they were
fully detailed, well, the odds were good.

“The vision was… solid.” I swallowed hard. I
hated to say that.

“Hmm.” She nodded, thinking. “His security
will be re-examined. Relocation may be considered.”

“And maybe that’s when he escapes.”

The future was tricky. Perhaps if I never
had the vision, he sits in his cell until the end of time. But then
I have a vision and there’s a relocation because of it and that’s
when he escapes. Self-fulfilling prophecy. It was much easier when
I didn’t know these things.

“Have you opened to related visions?” she
asked. “Something that might clarify the event?”

Opening to visions meant trying to have one,
but that never worked. They came on their own. I wasn’t controlling
them. But why did I have them at all? Was there some intelligent
force deciding what to show me?

“There’s nothing,” I answered.

“Report any new visions, no matter how
trivial.” She watched the ship head for deeper waters, her thoughts
coming in all directions.

“I better go.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I have a
dinner meeting, tonight.”

“A date?”

“No.” She laughed. Anything personal like
that was funny to her. “All business. Work never ends.”

“It could, you know.”

“And then what?”

Work was just a word, she once told me. What
she did was her life. Why would she attend to anything else?

Her eyes were green. She looked at mine,
like she often did. Like she couldn’t believe how big her boy had
gotten, as if she wanted to tell me to buckle my seat belt and make
sure I looked both ways before I crossed the street. That
mother-essence was strong in her, but sometimes it disappeared and
she felt like a stranger staring at me, just an employee of the
Paladin Nation, like she suddenly remembered something that chased
the mother-essence away and I was all alone in this world. A
stranger to everyone. Just like Pike said. Like he knew.

The ship was small on the horizon.

“I’ll call when I get back from my trip,” I
said. “Tell you how they stuffed my spleen back inside me.”

She smiled and patted my hand. Fatigue
bunched in her shoulders, and then it faded. The details of the
room washed away. I dropped my arms. The darkness of my office was
cold. I hurried to the leaper, urged it to take me to the tagghet
field where I could see real sunlight and breathe real air.

L E G E N D

Pink Shirts

The days went by in a blur of commitments,
but it still felt like my day off would never arrive. I was
counting the minutes and there just always seemed to be more. But,
finally, the week ended. Finally, I’d see Chute.

The parking garage was still a dank,
stalactite-riddled cave. The dampness was in stark contrast to the
rest of the Garrison, where the air was filtered and 85-degrees. A
black car was waiting for me with the door open. I started to get
in—

I hear rain battering the roof. In front of
me there’s an angry ocean, the waves white-capped and the water
black in-between snaps of lightning.

“Everything all right?” Someone grabbed my
elbow.

I was holding onto the car door. My entire
body was quivering with the numbing sensation of a vision that
normally only trickled down my neck. My gums felt dead; I tapped my
teeth together to get the feeling back.

“Yeah,” I said. “Just… I was, uh, just
remembering something.”

It took a second, then I recognized the
someone that grabbed my elbow was a Paladin named Jaret. He helped
me lean against the car. I sensed he was about to call for
assistance, maybe bring a few servys down to check me out. I had
enough strength and sense to convince him I was fine. I stood up,
barely able to keep from swaying. He watched me get in the car. I
waved him off.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Training caught up to
me. I didn’t hydrate enough, that’s all.”

He waited, until I said, “No, seriously. I’m
fine.” I left with a glance back to make sure.

What the hell was that all about? A
vision only a few days after that last one? And during the daytime
with a full-body numb out?
The details were so vivid. I felt
transported to another space and time, like I was standing on a
sandy beach. I should’ve reported it, but that was sure to screw up
the whole evening. I’d do it when I got back. They could lock me up
in the infirmary if they wanted.
Just not before
tonight.

“Are you ready?” The car spoke in a calm,
feminine voice.

I took the wheel. “I’ll drive.”

“Very well. It is currently 60-degrees in
Charleston, South Carolina. The wormhole transport is cleared for
entry. After exiting, you are approximately thirty-four minutes
from your destination. Please obey the laws and drive
carefully.”

An image of the boulder-field materialized
on the dashboard. I eased the car over the slick floor and through
the apparition of the cave wall into the field. The face of
Garrison Mountain went up several hundred feet behind me, like a
wall of resistance that the world needed to respect. It was the
first thing tourists saw when they approached. It let them know we
were big and strong. That they were safe.

I crossed the field and entered the dense
trees on the other side to the swirling mass of the wormhole. I
left Garrison Mountain behind. But the vision of the beach came
along.

Cars were parked along side the road leading
to the high school. Dozens of shuttles picked people up and carted
them to the tagghet stadium. I continued down the road, people
staring.

“There’s no parking up there, dumbass,”
someone shouted.

Shuttle drivers directed me to turn around
but I eased down the road until I reached the turnabout that looped
in front of the massive high school steps leading to the front
doors. I gave the car instructions to park somewhere far away; I’d
call for it when I was ready. She said, “Certainly.”

No one stared at me once I was out of the
car. It wasn’t like they couldn’t see me. I wasn’t invisible. It
was a simple mind trick, that’s all. I convinced people that the
space I occupied was not interesting. They saw me. They just didn’t
care.

The car waited while I stared at my
reflection in the window. My hair, still white, was long again, but
not like a few years back. I’d gotten in the habit of pushing it
straight back over my head, but it didn’t stay there long, much
like Mother’s behind-the-ear habit. Most of all, I noticed what
Chute called
the serious look.
My eyes were piercing; my jaw
muscles flexed and my lips were a thin line.

“Smile a little,” Chute would say, and
squeeze my cheeks.

So I practiced in the driver side window. It
looked like something from school pictures. Third grade. I tried
again and it just got worse. “Go,” I said, waving the car off.

I’ll wing it.

I followed the crowd toward the tagghet
stadium, one of the most expensive venues ever constructed at a
high school, all funded by the Paladin Nation as an apology for the
duplicates’ deadly assault a few years earlier. The team went
undefeated in the inaugural season, became nationally ranked, and
had South Carolina’s MVP
.
A girl with red hair.

The extravagant entrance was crowded. Little
kids dipped their hands in the rectangular pond and high school
teachers handed out brochures about the evening’s events. A fox
mascot tickled kids with oversized cushy hands.

The concession stand was inside the main
gate selling popcorn and drinks and souvenirs to a packed crowd.
Three girls passed by with green and tan shirts,
33 – 0
plastered on the front. On the back was Chute’s face, a game photo
of her holding her helmet with one hand and the curved tagghet
stick in the other.

Most Valuable Player
.

A vendor pushed through the crowd, holding
up hats and towels. “You got any shirts?” I shouted.

He looked around, noticed I was standing
right next to him. He reached in the box strapped over his
shoulders. “I got three kinds, which one you want?” I nodded at the
girls. “You want the girl shirt? All I got left are pink. You want
the pink?”

“I’ll take it.”

He sold it to me and moved on. I pulled it
over my head. Pink. No one saw me anyway.

I walked past the pedestrian ramp that led
to the upper deck. The corridor was filled with displays hosted by
student clubs and local charities. The awards night was as much for
civic awareness as it was for jocks. I remained unnoticed until I
saw the crowded display ahead.

It was the Student Virtualmode Club. They
were future programmers that built elaborate virtual worlds and
constructed complex gear to transport a person’s mind out of their
skin and into a sim where they could experience the Internet in
virtualmode. Holographic monsters walked across the top of their
banner. A hulking rock monster thumped its chest and an armored
knight broke his sword over its head. The kids laughed, then
watched a dragon waddle over and incinerate the rock monster.

The virtualmode students were talking to
adults, explaining what the club did, extravagant membership fees
and field trips. They touted the highest graduation rate among the
student body and the highest grade point average. And scholarships,
too. There were more scholarships available in virtualmode world
building than any career field out there.

The bulk of the crowd was gathered in front
of a short, plump kid explaining a gadget in his right hand. I
leaned against the wall, near enough that I could hear what
Streeter was saying.

“It will revolutionize the way we
communicate,” he said. “Our minds are as unique as our
fingerprints. We can find anyone after we meet them by using this
to capture their
mindprint.
You’ll never lose track of
family, friends or even pets. We can call them, link up with their
mind, and then virtually
see
them as if they’re in front of
us. Virtually touch them. Space will become irrelevant.”

“Not only that, once calibrated with your
mind,” Janette said, “it will record every thought and emotion you
experience. It will record your
entire
life.” Janette was by
Streeter’s side. She was short, too. “The government has already
asked for a demonstration. He’s flying to Washington next week.
NASA wants to buy the rights.”