Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (61 page)

He slid his glasses back up his nose with a
single finger and waggled his eyebrows. I threw him against the
seat and paced to the back of the room. This just didn’t make
sense, these experiences were unlike any others, but now they were
bringing images of nonsense. In what universe would Chute attack
me?

I crossed my arms, staring at the back wall.
Had I made a mistake coming here? No, Pike knew something. He was
very specific about
if I had anymore visions.
He knew.

Eh-hem.
He tapped his foot.

I looked over my shoulder. “This is all just
a game to you.”

“It wouldn’t be any fun if it wasn’t.
Indulge me.” He waved his arms and the floor shifted between us. A
checkerboard formed with globular shapes, each taking a space. “And
I’ll tell you everything.”

The globular shapes were black and white,
each of equal number. Outwardly, each piece looked exactly the
same, but each was as unique from each other as a dog is from a
cat. Another checkerboard formed several inches above that one,
this one smaller with fewer squares. And above that, another
smaller one and another, until there was a total of seven boards
forming a pyramid, the top level a single square at eye-level.

Reign.
He wanted to play Reign, where
the rules and moves were beyond the comprehension of ordinary
people. The object: get the king piece to the top. First, one had
to see the king piece, but not with your eyes. It required opening
your mind, to see the pieces differently, to feel them, sense them
with extrasensory perception.

I sat down in a chair forming below me.

“Ill-advised, Paladin Greeny.” The middle
minder stepped forth. “Opening your mind to a convicted—”

“THERE IS NO THREAT!” The walls shook. The
minders felt the infinite power of my mind peel through their
advanced minds. They faltered, then resumed their dutiful focus. My
outrage would be reported to the Commander. Hell, I was surprised
the room didn’t just shut down. But it didn’t.

Pike looked over his shoulder. “You’re
talking to wonderboy here, Mo. Better watch yo’ self before you
wreck yo’ self.” He threw his head back and howled.

What was becoming of me? I didn’t like the
mystery. Why did it seem the answer was right in front of me? It
just countered any logic, but still, there was something here. I
was losing control of the visions, why were they changing?

I scratched my chin and considered the
multi-layered game and innocuous pieces. Pike waited patiently. And
then I opened. He sat up, tasting the availability of my mind, its
essence wafting toward him. His feeble mind crept forward like
arthritic fingers. Pike clapped.
Pitter-patter
. “You-you go
first, my guest. Guests go first.”

I allowed my awareness to penetrate the
game. The generic pieces exposed their true shapes as my psychic
vision opened, forming rooks, animals, weapons and warriors. Pike’s
pieces flickered, changing identities as he integrated with them.
This was a game of deception. Of hiding. And exposing. It required
strategy and trickery, the ability to hide deception within
deception within deception. To lay traps within traps.

Pike’s mind entered my space. It was ragged
and frayed, but still capable. It observed how I moved, how I
planned. How I reacted. In turn, I reached out for his mind, to see
what he was planning. Looking into your opponent’s intentions was
the equivalent of looking at one’s cards in a game of poker. But
Reign was psychic deception.

Sometimes you wanted them to look.

“I see, I see,” he said. “You have
dreams.”

My pieces flickered back to ordinary shapes,
away from the powerful warriors that defended my regal king piece.
His gallant knight pieces crossed the bottom board to trap me.

“Not exactly dreams,” I said.

“Who do you think gets the rose?”

“The what?” Pike’s monkey-beast pieces
advanced to the second board, pulling his king piece with it while
his knights kept the majority of my pieces trapped. He was talking
about the vision where Chute places the rose on the stump. “I’m not
talking about that one.”

“Because you like it, do you?”

“Because it makes sense! None of the
others…” I stopped short. He didn’t need to know anything else, but
it left me wondering how he knew about the rose and the stump.

“Who says that is you?” His laughter was
almost a growl. “In the vision, it looks like you, but who says
that-that is you with her, huh?”

“What?”

“Your dream.” He coughed. “You think that is
you in your dream, in your vision. You… with your…” He coughed,
again. “You think that’s you with your wife?”

“Who else would it be?”

“Well-well, now. Looks can be a tangled web
we weave, if we seek to deceive.” He gazed back at the battle. “Or
something like that.”

My pieces transformed into nimble swordsmen
slashing his pathetic soldiers into pieces before advancing to the
second level. Only a strong ring of rooks formed around his king
piece kept me from destroying everything.

“Who is sending these… vi-vi-visions to
you?” he sang.

“No one
sends
them.”

“Oh? So you, you think them up, huh? You
think up the future, wonderboy? Is that how it works?”

“Insights are an extension of my being, a
connection with presence. The moment contains all past, present and
future.”

“Oh, you are such a treat, wonderboy.” He
laid his head back savoring the moment like it was melting on his
tongue, then spoke softly. “If they are an ex-extension of you,
then why don’t you stop them, huh?”

“They have something to show me.”

“You? You have something to… to show
you?”

My pieces transformed into brutes with
oversized axes and began chopping at the protective rooks, bricks
and mortar scattered across the second level, trickling to the
bottom board. My king advanced to the third level while his cowered
behind the crumbling walls.

“Don’t patronize me.”

“NOR ME, WONDERBOY
.”

A force of a once-great minder punched the
unguarded fabric of my mind, but it was mild, nothing more than a
slap, and I took advantage of the distraction by wiping out the
entire second level. His king piece leaped to the fourth level, but
without protection it was doomed.

“
Who
is sending you visions is
irrelevant.” He looked over the game while his king drew a sword.
“A better question is
why
he is sending them.”

“Why is it a he?”

“He, she… whatever. God is a he, no?
Yes?”

My three warrior pieces, the only remaining
besides my king, surrounded his king piece. I would walk to
victory.

He laughed
at
me. “Where is someone
taking you, wonderboy, huh? Steering you like a ship to where, huh?
That is the question you should investigate. That question you
should be asking and answering. Wrong questions beget wrong
answers.”

My warrior pieces transformed into enormous
serpents with impenetrable scales and dagger teeth. My king piece
slowly moved up behind them.

“I control my own destiny. I am responsible
for my own actions. Are you having difficulty accepting your own
fate, Pike?
You
betrayed us. No one else is at fault for
that.”

“Don’t lecture me.” He spat on his lap. “I
despise this flesh and everyone like it. You like it there in your
skin, wonderboy?”

I took a moment to gather my composure. Pike
was controlling the conversation. He could plant suggestions in a
victim’s mind with a seemingly innocent conversation. Great minds
did not need to overwhelm victims to beat them. Victims of great
minds never even know they’re beat. They never even hear the
swooshing of the guillotine; only feel the pinch of its blade.

Pike sang a song while my king piece climbed
to the sixth level. “Why do you come to see me?” he asked,
unconcerned he would lose.

“I come,” I said, slowly, “because I cannot
accept a world where you live.”

“Oh, that.” He raised a finger and cleared
his throat. His king piece spiked the long sword, its only weapon,
into the board, clearly giving up with no options past the vicious
serpents. “I particularly enjoy that vision, wonderboy. It gives me
reason to live, if you want to know the absolute truth. That one
day, I may be free to murder and pillage and raze this planet,
that-that-that gives me hope there is a god.” He raised his arms up
and gave thanks to the ceiling. “There must be a god, don’t you
think?”

“No god would allow you life.”

“The world needs the devil.”

“Love is the reason the world exists.”

“And evil is its soul-mate.”

“I could end you, Pike.” He felt the power
of my mind slither coldly inside him. With a thought, I could will
his heart to stop. My king paused.

“That would be… suicide.” He struggled to
breathe. “Death to me… there-there would be no reason for you.”

“It would be justice.”

“Are you God?”

“No,” I said. “I’m the judge and jury.”

“Then I want a new trial.”

I removed my mind from him. He only got
pleasure from it, anyway. Any feeling was better than the numb
imprisonment he endlessly experienced. I had all I needed from him.
The game was over, there was no need to finish. Sometimes gut
feelings led to dead-ends. The details of the room began to shrink
as I got up.

“Have a safe trip,” Pike said.

I stopped. The room remained in full detail.
I recalled my last interaction with Pike, found no reason that he
should know about the trip. When I turned, he smiled mischievously,
like a child that sprang a secret.

“How do you know about that?” I penetrated
his mind again, but there were only random thoughts. Pike offered
no resistance to the invasion, relishing the uncomfortable
sensations of his stretching mind. “Tell me, Pike. How do you know
anything?”

“You think-think old Pike is useless, huh?
There are things that… leak in the air, you know.” He waved his
hands like a magician pulling something from space. “Perhaps I know
you better than you know you, wonderboy?”

You never even hear the swooshing of the
guillotine.

“You know, it’s funny,” he said. “If you
think about it, we don’t control anything, really. The universe
tosses us about like an ocean of water. Really, we’re just
driftwood. If you think about it, really. That-that-that’s what I
think.”

“You’re a plague.”

“We remember pain, wonderboy.
Remember
that.
Pain makes us feel
human.
Do you understand? It is
not love that reminds us of who we are, it is pain, it is loss,
it is death.
Humans relish suffering, holding it close to
their heart. They define themselves by the hurt, do you understand,
wonderboy? Do you? We are vulnerable. Pain reminds us of that, that
we exist. It is not love that we remember.”

He lifted his chin, as if to offer his neck.
Pike was repulsed by his own flesh, yet he craved the satisfaction
of his being, his own essence. To feel. To be. He wanted to escape
the misery of his ghostly existence, the separation of his own
self, divided into psychotic elements. He did not see clearly. And
for that, he would always suffer.

“Remembering is not a prerequisite to
humanity,” I said. “It is our presence.”

“But it helps. Otherwise, you are a
goldfish.”

“Without presence, we are computers.”

“Oooo, touché. Memories and presence. Like
milk and cookies, would you say?”

His king had taken a knee with hands folded
atop the jeweled hilt of the long sword. My king reached for the
top square and the serpents opened their daggered mouths to devour
his king. And as they bit down, as my king neared the top, a long
steel tip slid from the top square through my king’s head, impaling
him moments from victory. Somehow, Pike’s king stood victorious at
the top, the serpents left squirming on the ground.

You only feel the pinch of its blade.

“You come with questions,” he said. “I give
you answers.”

He was no longer smiling like the insane,
but for once appeared quite lucid.

“You give me nothing.”

We stared for several moments until a smile
finally broke his face. I called the room to break the connection
and flopped into my chair, no clearer than I was before this
senseless meeting.

“If you see papa Pivot, pass along a message
for me,” Pike said, as the details of his image began to shrink. I
heard him shout one last word from a long ways away, could feel him
smiling when he said, “SHOWTIME!”

Perhaps the Commander was right. He was not
one to toy with.

L E G E N D

Knotted

My office was filled, once again, with the
intricate web of wormholes that infiltrated the universe,
illuminating the blank walls with an electric blue haze. It was a
map to the universe’s roadway system and I was supposed to know it
by now. I sat with my feet propped on the desk.

I just couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t ever
remember how many hours had passed since I left Pike and that was
the first time I could remember ever losing track of time. I always
knew everything, down to the very second, like my mind was a
ticking clock. Now I felt like some insomniac consumed with
work.

Sound familiar?

Back in my old life, before I was aware of
my Paladin-nature, I spent countless nights waiting for my mother
to come home, only to answer her calls that something came up, she
was stuck at work. Sometimes I’d stare at her image when she
video-called, notice the dark rings under her eyes, wondering when
the last time she’d slept. Now it was me.

It wasn’t some trivial distraction that had
me wide awake. I wasn’t even thinking of the wormhole trip or the
strange visions. It was Pike. The guy was a mental master and here
I went and underestimated him. Even in his decrepit state, he knew
how to hit me. He had me so consumed with him, I couldn’t think
straight. Or sleep.