Socket 3 - The Legend of Socket Greeny (6 page)

He gazed into the globe like there was
something inside, oblivious to the ruckus on the other side of the
kitchen. His eyes glassed up. Mr. Thomas was not the type to get
misty, but the water in his eyes reflected the kitchen light. He
held the globe close to his nose. His breath was choppy.

Angela leaped up when she saw the award,
leaned over her father, hands on his shoulders, looking into it
much the same way. Chute sat next to them. Suddenly, the house was
very still. Mr. Thomas’s lips started to move, but they didn’t say
anything. Angela felt him quiver, hooked her arm around his
neck.

“Mom would be so proud, Chute,” she said.

Mr. Thomas took Chute’s hand. She laid her
head on his shoulder. Angela wrapped her arms around them. Their
energy intermingled, merging with deep sweet hues, connecting at a
very real, essential level. All barriers stripped away.

Angela nodded at me. I hesitated. Mr. Thomas
cleared his throat. “Get over here, boy.”

Chute held out her hand. I took it, joined
them at the table, felt the family essence weave into my being,
their hearts beating through my arm next to my own pulse. I was
five the last time I felt something like that, just before my
father died.

We gripped each other tightly, staring at the
globe. But it wasn’t the award we were looking at. We weren’t
admiring its beauty or fame. It was a symbol of Mr. Thomas’s
family, represented how grown up they were. There was a time he was
convinced he would never live to see it, but there he was. There
they all were, wrapped tightly at the table.

Chute was a young woman. And here was
something to hold, something to prove it.

Something her mother would be proud of.

“Don’t close the door!” Angela shouted. “Dad
said he’d get his bat.”

Chute fell back on her bed, arms out. “Listen
to her,” she said. “She used to sneak out of the house all the
time, and now she’s telling me when I can close my door.”

“You sneak out all the time,” I said.

She rolled on her side, buried her face in
the pillow, said something about the greatest day of her life. She
used to have posters of celebrities and bands on her wall. They
were replaced by a shelf full of trophies. She’d have to clear some
space for the globe.

The only thing that remained the same was the
picture over her headboard of the three of us. We were on the curb
in front of Streeter’s house. It was our first day taking the
school bus. We were seven, had our bookbags strapped on our
shoulders. Chute was in the middle, arms around us.

“I can’t sleep,” she said into the pillow.
“Will you stay the night?”

“Right.”

“You can sleep on the couch.”

“I told you your father had a bat. If he
finds me on the couch in the morning, he’ll use it.”

She lifted her head. “You can hide, then
knock on the door like you came over for breakfast.”

She’s serious.
“Look, I’d love to see
you all day and night, but I can’t. Not tonight.”

“The world can wait.”
Still
serious.

“I’ve got some things to do, and there’s a
trip.”

“Where are you going?”

I grabbed a tagghet puck from her dresser,
inspected the scuff marks. “Somewhere far away, but it won’t take
long.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to get used to you
being on the road, once I’m Mrs. Greeny.” Her laughter muffled into
the pillow. “It’s not easy being the wife of a superhero, you
know.”

“I’ll bring you to the Preserve when I get
back. I’ve got some kids that would love you to teach them some
tagghet moves.”

“Really, really?”

“Promise, promise.”

She rolled over, closed her eyes and hummed.
Her sleepy imagination flashed with images of trees and grimmets.
“Could you do that energy thing?” She tapped her forehead. “I’m not
tired.”

I sat on the bed and touched her forehead. My
essence mingled with hers and our experiences merged. A closeness.
Oneness. Something that reminded us we were never alone.

She was softly snoring within a minute. I
stopped at her doorway and glanced at the picture of the three of
us again. It seemed like just the other day. I leaned closer. The
details were smudged in the background, like there was a figure
using back-reflecting gear to appear invisible. Then again, it
could just be the printer smudging up.

I had a gut feeling that wasn’t it.

The roads were empty and slick from a light
rain, reflecting the street lights. I turned the music off and
cruised down the Interstate. I didn’t miss leaving South Carolina,
but I hated leaving Chute. Someday, I could bring her with me. But
then what? Are we going to play house inside Garrison Mountain? I
was still so torn about my two lives. Somehow they were going to
merge. Maybe one day I could retire and find peace and quiet and a
normal life when the world was saved.

I took my exit after crossing the Cooper
River bridge, the blinker flashing—

The figure steps forward, reveals the
strands of wet hair over her face. Red hair. Chute lifts the knife,
her face twisted with anger. Then she leaps, swinging the weapon
down at me, lightning flashing off its edge.

“Auto-pilot engaged,” the car reported.

The tires hit the gravel on the shoulder as
the wheels turned the car back onto the pavement.

I was slumped in the seat. My lips were fat
and rubbery. The moon passed between branches. The car found its
way to the secure location of the wormhole while I tried to get the
feeling back. Only when we entered the blue swirl could I take the
wheel. I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I knew enough that these
weren’t normal visions. If they got any stronger, I’d be dead. I
had to get some answers.

I flew across the boulder-field toward the
vertical wall of the Garrison. The Commander would get my reports
soon enough, but not before I made one last stop. Call it
compulsion or gut-instinct. Or insanity.

If I have anymore visions, Pike said.
As
if he knew I would.

I called ahead to my office. When I arrived,
Pike waited with his legs folded beneath him. A string of spit
jiggled from his mouth. The minders appeared behind him.

“Wha’ dewyew wan?” Pike lifted his heavy
head, his dark glasses askew, revealing the white eyeballs filled
with rooty veins. “So soon?” He smacked his lips and sat up. “To
what do I owe the pleasure of—”

“What do you know?”

“I know, I know… what do I know? What do
you
know?”

“You know something, Pike. Something about
the things I’m seeing. You tell me WHAT YOU KNOW!”

His mind was scrambled, thoughts floating
like weeds in the ocean. Perhaps that was the idea, make things
chaotic, hide the secrets in plain sight. Like a shredded document
thrown into the wind. It would take centuries to put it back
together. And the minders just kept blowing.

“Play a game with me, wonderboy, shall we?”
Pike smiled.

“You think this is a game, Pike? You’ve lost
your mind.”

“Quite right, you are. But if you want me to
tell you things, ole Pike will tell you things. Let’s play a
game.”

I snatched his neck; the knobby Adam’s apple
pumping up and down in my palm. “You tell what you’re hiding, you
filthy traitor. You know something about these… these
visions.”

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.”