Socket 3 - The Legend of Socket Greeny (11 page)

The air was cooler and drier. The moon was
still full, but the sky seemed hazy. On the horizon, the ink stain
was still visible. It was deep and dark, blotting out the stars as
it bled further into the night sky.

Below me, a couple hundred yards out, the
grass gave way to rows of fruit trees. Something moved among them.
It was a woman. Her clothes were white, her hair blonde. She was
picking fruit and putting them into a basket.

Finally, a way home
. I screamed
through my hands but she didn’t hear me. I didn’t bother shouting
again, instead I started down the path. Adrenaline filled me with
excitement and burst with renewed energy. I’d catch up to her in
minutes. Maybe I could find home by sunrise. The thought of
sleeping in my office boosted my stride down the slope. I ignored
the thought lurking in my head, the nagging concern that had been
with me ever since I walked out of the water. Something I tried to
reason away because help was finally within reach.

Why does everything still feel so empty?

Still raining, maybe a bit harder.

I wasn’t about to let the woman out of my
sight. I left the winding path and took the grassy hill full speed,
leaping over boulders. I lost sight of her as I dipped into the
valley, cresting the hill to once again see the magnificent
view.

The forest behind me seemed further away than
it should’ve been. I’d only been running a few minutes and it was
hundreds of yards back.

A subtle breeze, the first I could remember
since arriving, caught my attention. It carried the fragrance of
tea olive blossoms and the salty spray of an ocean. And the scent
of a woman, soft and loving. She was there, I could see her on the
next hill in the orchard, still hundreds of yards away. I hadn’t
gotten any closer.

Her white gown fluttered while she stopped to
reach into a tree, pulling fruit from a branch and putting it in
her basket. She was glowing, like a beam of moonlight found its way
through the rain to touch only her. I cupped my hands and shouted
again. “HELLO!”

Still couldn’t hear me.

I started down the next grassy hill into the
orchard. The trees were taller than I thought. My perspective
seemed off. The trunks were gnarly and the muscled branches held
plump apples the size of softballs. I lost sight of the woman as
she walked over the next hill. But I was gaining on her. I dipped
my head, pushed harder. I reached the next hilltop, expecting to
maybe catch her while she went searching in another tree, maybe
only a few yards away. At the very least she’d be within shouting
distance, but then saw her still hundreds of yards out.

I stopped, put my hands on my knees. How did
she get that far out?

My heart pounded. The adrenaline was already
wearing off and I was sweating out precious water that mixed with
the rain dripping down my face, leaving a salty tang on my
lips.

This isn’t logical. Where am I?

When I looked up, as if answering my
questions, the view had somehow changed. Had I not noticed it when
I emerged from the forest? Was it just hidden from my vantage
point? Because now, beyond the rolling hills, was a vast black
ocean. The lines of orchard trees followed the undulating hills,
ending short of a massive house built right on the shore,
surrounded by sand dunes and sea oats.

The woman was gone.

The sterile forest and the perfect
temperature, short of the rain this is paradise. This exists
nowhere in nature. Nowhere on Earth.
I looked at my hands,
turned them over and studied them like the truth was written
somewhere on my skin. I’m not dreaming or virtualmode. I’m here, in
the skin.

I turned back and saw what I expected. The
trees were gone. Nothing but rising and falling mounds as far as I
could see. This entire environment was transforming, manipulating
me toward the house on the beach. Something changed when it started
to rain, like it let me out of the forest. Once again, I opened my
mind to connect with the environment, searching for something
substantial, something real, but everything felt empty. So
beautiful, but so empty.

The house already seemed bigger. More
inviting.

Why does it feel like no matter what
direction I walk, I’ll end up at the house?

The wicker basket was nestled in the grass at
the base of a tree. I picked one of the fruits out. It was deep
red, almost purple. The skin was soft but not fuzzy. I press my
thumb into it, juice squirting out. Saliva filled into my mouth. It
was clear liquid, not milky.

I tossed it on the ground. First, I needed to
find the woman. She was in the house.

The house grew as I approached, building onto
itself, forming walls and floors and windows until it was a
monstrosity blocking out the ocean. Wide steps led to thick double
doors, both open and waiting. Sand ground beneath my boots as I
crossed over the marble threshold and passed through the doors.

It was one enormous room filled with
credenzas, sofas and antique furniture. The walls were covered with
art from various eras, from Victorian to modern, realistic to
abstract. Expensive vases, candelabras, and sculptures were set
about. All in all, a stunning display, but nothing compared to the
back wall made entirely of glass, offering a full view of the
scenic ocean and the darkening sky. A single fruit tree grew behind
the house, its limbs heavy with fruit.

Multi-folding doors were pushed all the way
open, leaving wide open access to the beach. I stopped, just short
of the beach that extended right up to the house. The breeze came
off the water moist and ragged, blowing my hair off my shoulders.
I’ve seen this place.

Sand. Rain.

A blackened sky.

The realization rang inside me like I’d been
struck by a two-handed mallet. It’s where I saw Chute attack,
slashing down with a knife.
The vision is taking shape.

I went outside. The rain was colder, pelting
my cheeks. I tensed, looking in both directions for Chute and her
knife, but it was empty. I walked further out until the foamy water
wrapped around my ankles. And then I saw the woman, far down on my
left.

She was standing with her feet in the water,
a faint figure blurred by the rain. Her arms were crossed and she
was staring out to sea like she was waiting. I could feel her
yearning. It was the first thing I’d felt since arriving. Just to
experience something real, a quiver of reality, jolted me with
excitement.

I started after her but, with each step, she
got no closer. The ground moved under my feet, but the back of the
house was still exactly where I exited, like the beach was a
treadmill.

Thunder clapped without any sign of
lightning. The woman was still there, yearning for what was out on
the empty water where waves were beginning to swell. Or maybe her
gaze was settled on the ink-stained sky.

I walked in the other direction and watched
the house. Same thing: it didn’t move even though my tracks
continued far behind me.

Enough. I’m not entertainment.

Understand your environment, one of the first
lessons I learned as a Paladin. Without understanding your Self or
your surroundings, you are a ship sailing without a compass.

I tracked puddles into the house. The pillows
on the nearest couch were soft velvet, but firm. I centered the
largest one near the opening on the back wall and folded my
legs.

My breathing quickly became rhythmic while I
settled into the present moment. Soon, thoughts faded away. I was
aware of the objects around me, the emptiness of the house and
angry sea. Occasionally, the sky cracked with thunder.

I would sit in the moment until something, or
someone, revealed the truth.

Where am I?

Hours went by.

There was nothing but the steady rhythm of
the rain, the rise and fall of my chest and the occasional bump of
the tree banging its fruit-laden branch against the glass wall. The
waves had taken on a foamy white crest. I had no expectations, made
no effort to escape where I was. I just remained open.

And the world remained empty and
mysterious.

I sensed a faint presence of another being
somewhere in this world, likely the woman, but I couldn’t feel
exactly where she was. It was like she was everywhere. And out
there, somewhere, was somebody besides the woman. It was a man, his
presence somewhere on the horizon.

My back ached and my legs became numb. Thirst
burned my throat. I considered finding water, but there would be
none. The fruit hung tantalizingly.

I sat. The rain continued.

And the fruit continued to knock on the glass
like a stranger, wanting to come inside. The metaphor was all too
obvious.

Paradise.

The Tree of Knowledge.

Thump. Thump-thump.
The fruit said
yes.

The splinter of glass woke me.

I’d fallen off the cushion. My tongue was
like a piece of meat stuck in my mouth. I tried to swallow. I
couldn’t remember passing out.

I glimpsed the woman standing in front of me,
holding out the fruit. I blinked and she wasn’t there. I was
hallucinating, but now my mouth was full of saliva. I could smell
the fruit, its tangy citrus scent penetrating the humid breeze
blowing off the storm-ridden coast.

My head was on the floor, pain pulsing
through my ear. I scratched at the floorboards. Waves were
punishing the beach, pushing closer to the house. The window was
cracked where the tree branches smacked the house, swinging the
heavy fruit like a wrecking ball.

She wants me to eat the fruit. I’ll die
right here on the floor like a dog, shrivel up like a salted slug,
before I eat it.

But I didn’t die.

I kept on living.

The agony wiped out any thoughts of home. Of
Chute, the kids, my mother. I was just writhing on the floor,
doubled over as dehydration cramps pull me into a fetal position.
Sometimes I heard the rain and thunder and the constant banging. I
could feel the hardness of the floor.

I could also hear voices. The woman was
calling. I sensed the man out there, too. He was just watching.

And I imagined the taste of the fruit.

This seemed to go on forever.

And then it was there, on the floor in front
of me. The fruit was as red as a shined apple. I was dreaming of
reaching for it. I didn’t have that kind of strength, the kind to
even slide my hand across the floor, but then I felt it in my palm
and sensed the promise of life inside it. I punctured the skin with
my fingertips, watched the sweet juice dribble onto the
floorboards. My throat contracted.

I touched my tongue to the fleshy skin of the
fruit, the sweetness ignited the taste buds in my mouth. Inside me,
rapture exploded.

I devoured it like a starving beast, juice
flowing down my chin, the meaty pulp sliding down my throat,
filling me, scintillating my nerves. I sucked at my fingers and
licked the drippings off the floor. I could smell the ocean wafting
into the house along with a loving presence. I heard soft
laughter.

It was no dream.

She tricked me. I couldn’t resist it any
longer. In the end, I willfully took it. But now I was thinking
clearly. I knew where I was because eating the fruit had connected
me with this world. It was no longer empty. It was real. It made
sense.

This isn’t Earth.

The truth
.

I was pulled from the wormhole just before
arriving home, redirected to another part of the universe and
absorbed into an alien world. I didn’t know how or why it happened,
but I knew this much:
this world is artificial
.

The entire planet was composed of cellular
nanomechs that formed everything I saw and touched, heard and
tasted. That wasn’t the sky above. Not sand or water or rain. Not
even a tree. It was just the generic stuff made to look like those
things. It was my office on a global scale. How this was even
possible I did not understand. All I knew was that I was somewhere
inside it.

I knew these things because I had eaten the
fruit, partaken of this world, and now I was merging with it.
That’s how I knew these things. My being –my essence,
my
soul
– was interweaving with this artificial world. I was
becoming one with it.

This was no ordinary automated world, either.
It was not like my office that only responded to my commands. There
was an intelligence that was inseparable from it, a feminine being
fused into every single nanomech, as if she was this world. It was
her will that formed the ocean, and grew the trees, her will that
sent the moon across the sky. She was everywhere.

That feminine energy was in the room. The
woman in white was standing just inside the house, facing the
torrential storm. Her arms were crossed, her fingers drumming her
biceps.

“Manumit is making quite a mess,” she said,
without turning.

Manumit. I knew who she was talking about.
There was another presence in this world that was separate from
her. He was the reason the sky was black. Why it was raining in
paradise. She called him Manumit, but now I recognized this
presence. I’d known him all my life.
Pivot.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“You know who I am.”

I knew this world, how it worked, that it was
artificial. But I didn’t know her. Didn’t know her thoughts, where
she came from. Why she was part of it.

“You don’t know everything?” She smirked.

She knew my thoughts, taunting me with her
secret. I didn’t even know her name.

“Fetter,” she said. “Manumit called me
Fetter. And he calls you Socket. You call him Pivot.” She looked at
me over her shoulder. Her eyes were blue like the deep part of the
ocean. “Aren’t we one big happy family?”