Socket 3 - The Legend of Socket Greeny (22 page)

The Garrison!

I returned to my body. “I’ll be right
there.”

“Don’t dally.”

“
YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO COME OUT WITH
YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!”

“And one more thing,” Pike said.

“
WE WILL FIRE. I REPEAT, WE WILL
FIRE.”

Canisters of tear gas shot beneath the tarps
and rattled over the floor, releasing noxious clouds.

“
TEN SECONDS.”

Pike pursed his lips. Drew a deep breath.

“
FIVE, FOUR…”

Before I could reach out to protect the
thousands of innocent minds, darkness settled over downtown like a
blanket. The canvas walls shredded. Cars flipped and bodies tumbled
through the streets. Windows shattered. Screams.

There was a bright light. I didn’t hear the
explosion, but I felt the ground lurch. I was spinning above the
market. I felt the city cry. I felt their panic in my chest. And
before I landed somewhere far away, I heard Pike’s final
thought.

[God will be dead.]

She was old. Maybe seventy. I didn’t know her
name or her exact age. I could barely open my eyes. Her brown
wrinkled face was soft. She smelled like roses.

“Just relax, honey,” she spoke, quietly.
“Help is on the way.”

I was on the wide concrete steps leading up
to the Customs House, almost two blocks from the market. My body
was twisted at an odd angle. As my senses returned, the smell of
smoke and crushed concrete overshadowed the woman’s scent. The
streetlights were dead, but the dark sky flickered orange from fire
somewhere in the market. I looked around but the woman put her hand
on my forehead, shooshing me to relax.

“Nowhere to go, right now, honey.”

The perfume on her wrist was strong. She
patted my cheek, making sure the only thing I could see was her
face. Her eyes involuntarily flicked down to something she didn’t
want me to see. Gravel and debris were scattered on the steps,
along with charred boards and metal.

Sirens were interspersed with cries for help
and military orders. Blue and red lights ran across the walls and
the old woman patted my face, singing a hymnal song without the
words, humming lovely tones in her throat. Pain began to vibrate
along my back and I was finally able to take a physical inventory
of my condition. My pelvis was shattered and there were deep
contusions along my ribs and liver and kidney. If that wasn’t
enough, my left lung was completely deflated. I tried to move but
felt nailed to the steps. A rusty iron rod was driven through my
back and poked out between my ribs.

My strength was returning quickly, but I
wasn’t sure how. I brought my nervous system under control,
quelling the sensations of pain. I was stronger, but still not
enough to see with my mind, so I looked left and right, the streets
filled with ambulances and fire trucks. EMTs ran with orange boxes.
How long had I been on the steps?

“Help is coming,” she said, mistaking my eye
movement as panic. “Don’t you worry.”

A surge of strength emanated from her,
filling my body, quickly healing broken bones. I shifted my legs to
reconnect my pelvis, moving just enough to straighten out, even as
she tried to keep me still. I reattached crucial arteries and
repaired damaged organs. All that was left was the metal rod.

A pair of emergency workers in white shirts
jogged past with keys jangling.

“Excuse me, excuse me!” the woman shouted.
“This boy needs some help, please.”

“We’ll be right there, ma’am,” one shouted
back.

“Okay, okay,” she said, putting her hands
back on my face and starting her song again. “They’ll be right
here, honey.”

“Please, no,” I said, spitting out the words
with only one working lung. “Others… need help.”

“Shoo-shoo-shoooo.” She touched my lips. “No
talking, help is coming.”

I could feel her mind, now. Her name was
Anna. She was seventy-four years old. She’d lived downtown all her
life. She had four children and twelve grandchildren. She went to
church on Sundays and rarely uttered a bad word. And she called
most people honey. And it was her strength that was filling. Not so
much her strength, but her love and genuine caring for me, lying on
the steps of the Custom’s House with a fatal wound bubbling from my
chest. She stopped to help me die, if she was honest. She stopped
so the last thing I would see was a caring face. So I would not die
alone.

I wouldn’t have died without her, but I
would’ve lain helpless unless I stole essence from those around me
to recover. Right now, they needed all the strength they could
get.

“Okay, ma’am.” An EMT took a knee next to me,
opening his box near my head. “Let me take a—” He choked after
spotting the metal rod, even jerked back. He looked at the other
EMT on the other side, both knowing their only recourse was to make
me comfortable in my last few minutes.

Anna sat near my head. She took my hand and
patted it while her song trickled between our palms. My awareness
began to expand outward, penetrating the EMTs and the pedestrians
standing back. They all held the same thoughts:
Terrorism.
Somebody blew the downtown up, but for what? Religion? Politics? Or
had the duplicates finally returned?

AI is back, baby.

Some of the pedestrians were filming us and
my fatal wound would be uploaded to the Internet. “How’s that dude
still alive?”

Stella, the female EMT, prepared a sedative
patch to administer to my neck while Jake, the other EMT, took my
wrist. He moved his fingers around then pressed on my neck. “He
doesn’t have a pulse.”

“Well, he’s alive,” Stella said.

“Yeah, I got that, but I can’t find his
pulse.”

Stella tried and failed, too, then figured it
was too weak to find and slapped the sedative patches on my neck
anyway. They were wasting their time, other people needed help. But
they gave their time selflessly. Their concern for others, like
Anna, seeped inside me. In fact, the more I expanded, the more I
felt the selfless acts of courage. Of firemen rushing into burning
buildings. Emergency workers risking their lives. Of the police,
protecting the innocent. The courageous acts of love beamed from
them like an excess fountain of essence, filling the atmosphere,
searching for a place to give. And it filled me until I had the
strength to influence the people around me, the ones attempting to
save me, a dying boy that didn’t stand a chance.

[Thank you,]
I thought to them.
[Please go, help others.]

It took a moment for the thought to register,
and then the EMTs loaded their boxes, answered a call and rushed
toward the market to help a SWAT member injured in the explosion.
The pedestrians watched them leave, then turned the recorder off,
wandered away, out of the area. All that was left was Anna, humming
with her eyes closed, shaking her head as she did. Hoping for a
miracle.

My hands were charred black from the
explosion. I sat up, felt the ribbed metal rod pull from my chest,
things popping as it slurped out the back. It took a few moments to
repair my lung and close the wound. My shoes were missing, having
been blown off, charring my feet as black as my hands.

I took her hand and soothed her thoughts,
convinced her that she had saved a dying boy simply by stopping and
being present with him. In fact, she might’ve saved the world.

I removed the memory of my fatal condition,
left no trace of the broken body she found impaled on the
steps.

“Thank you, Anna.”

She opened her eyes. “You’re welcome,
honey.”

And when she was ready, I helped her stand
and guided her down the steps, watched her walk away from the
market, watched until she turned the corner and was safely out of
sight.

There was so much to do in the market, but I
was needed elsewhere, a place where the entire world needed me. If
Pike wasn’t stopped, there could be war zones like this everywhere.
I didn’t have the strength to dissolve and gather across
space-time, could not waste it on slicing time. But there was still
a way to get there.

I pulled a motorcycle from the rubble and
touched the ignition, feeling the engine whir into life. Quietly, I
raced from the scene, speeding between traffic, the sirens drifting
off behind me. I plunged into a darkened city, a helpless city, a
reeling human race. I headed for a wormhole that would take me to
the Garrison.

Across the field, the tall cold wall of
Garrison Mountain appeared. It was daylight, but the sky was cast
with gray clouds, casting pale light across a shadowless field. A
cool breeze scoured my cheeks, watering my eyes. The mountain grew
as I sped down the path winding through the boulders, looming with
the gray sky over its shoulder, bearing down on me. I locked the
back tire, sliding to a stop at the base of the mountain. I took a
moment to expand my awareness, to sense what was inside. I was
breathing hard, anxiety constricting my muscles.

I hardly had the range, the energy, to feel
what was inside. The air carried tones of stillness and caution,
but inside was a mystery. There was no more waiting. I stepped
through the wall and its cold illusion, and into the dank
garage.

Silence.

Danger pricked my awareness.

Several rotund servys, the size of exercise
balls, lay still in the center, leaning against each other. No
eyelights glowing. No movement as I approached. They had been
deactivated. And beyond, near the leaper, was the body of a
Paladin. Dressed in formal uniform, he was on his back, as if he’d
just fallen asleep. There was no blood mixed with his red hair, but
a sizeable knot where he hit the floor. His skin was cold.

Tingles the tongue.

I touched his neck, his chest and forehead,
searching for traces of memory that might tell me what happened,
but his entire life had been absorbed. No human would withstand the
loss of essence. Paladins, even the most highly trained, wouldn’t
stand a chance against Pike. All this time, he had been biding his
time, enduring years of suffering, playing possum, until now. And
all this time, he had been held captive in the catacombs of the
Garrison, deep below ground. Pike had everything he needed, he was
just waiting.
For what?

I shut the Paladin’s eyelids.

He must’ve been entering the garage from the
leaper, had to be caught by surprise, his weapon still firmly
attached to his belt, his hand not even near it. I approached the
leaper, commanded a destination with a thought but it did not
respond, as lifeless as the servys. I penetrated its circuitry,
reactivated its processor, and the walls were glowing again. I
repeated my destination. I had a feeling Pike would not be hard to
find.

I would start with the Preserve.

If Chute was here, the rest of the world
would have to wait.

Something was wrong.

I knew it before the leaper arrived at the
entrance, before I stepped into the Preserve. Something beyond what
I saw in the garage, on a much more massive scale. I couldn’t feel
the Preserve vibrate inside me, the raw energy of a thousand
species of animals and insects. Even before I stepped through the
leaper wall, I sensed the silence.

The soundlessness of death.

While the leaves were green and the scent of
the forest was rich and earthy, not a single bird, mammal or insect
scratched the trees, sang out or barked. The air hung thick and
motionless.

I ran for the tagghet field, through
shortcuts of undergrowth. And the deeper I got into the jungle, the
heavier it felt. The quieter it became. Only the sounds of my
breathing and quickened steps as I jerked vines away. The images of
Chute and the kids, lying motionless on the green grass drove me
faster and harder. If only I could expand my awareness and see
ahead, I could know, just know they were safe.

At the stone ledge, looking down in a shallow
canyon, I stopped, panting, looking upon the oval field of the lush
tagghet field. One body. Only one. A silver body, a plum-colored
coat, sprawled with its legs bent outward. The head lying near the
shoulders.

Spindle.

I ignored the winding path that led down to
the field, leaping and sliding down the steep banks, bouncing off
rocky outcrops and tearing my skin on sharp edges, until I hit the
bottom, sprinting over the field.

His knees had been shattered. His head had
been torn from his body, the circuits dangling like a mess of
noodles. The grass was stained with fluid. I touched the head,
smooth on top, and brushed my fingers across the coarse faceplate.
It was dull and dark. Lifeless. Yet it contained the last moments
of activity, recorded through his all-seeing eyelight, imprinted on
his processor to be retrieved like his other “memories.”

I closed my eyes, let the data soak through
my fingertips and integrate into my consciousness until I
experienced them.

Spindle is playing tagghet with the children.
He is on the boys’ team, because the girls have Chute. And the
girls are crushing them. Spindle is playing at a level equivalent
to Chute’s, but the girls are so much better with her, learning
from her creativity and teamwork. The boys are frustrated, snapping
at each other and passing around the blame.

Spindle is at mid-field, watching the
children fight for a loose tag. His body tenses. Alarms are ringing
inside. He turns around to see a small man emerge from the trees.
He is bald. His eyes covered with black glasses. Smiling.

Spindle steps off the jetter, drops the
tagghet stick. Silently, he sends messages to the Commander and all
Paladins. An intruder is in the Preserve. “Ben, lead the others to
Ms. Greeny’s office.” Spindle’s eyelight circles to the back of his
head. “Immediately.”