Psion Alpha (58 page)

Sammy’s father took one
step closer until they were almost side by side. Sammy basked in the radiance
of his father’s light, and the love of his father became as tangible as a
security blanket wrapped tightly around him. The comfort made Sammy yearn for
home more than anything else he’d experienced since this encounter had begun.
He would have given anything to embrace his father at that moment, and had he
been permitted to do so it would have clinched his decision to let death take
him. However, the barrier of contact remained. He didn’t have to be told. He
knew it.

“Tell Mom that I miss
her. That I love her. And I can’t wait to see her again, but she needs to wait
a little while. Okay?”

Sammy didn’t know if
his father was capable of crying in whatever state of being he now existed, but
the emotion was visible on Sammy Sr.’s face.

“I love you, my dear
boy.”

“I know, Dad. I love
you, too. I think—I think I’m ready to go back now.”

“Alright. Just lay back
down on the bed. Close your eyes. Go back to sleep. Your mother and I will see
you when you wake.”

No sooner had the words
left his lips, then the brightness began to dim and his father stepped back
into the diminishing circle of light that had once appeared. As the illuminated
orb faded, the cruiser and those aboard it grew less transparent. Sammy was
back on the gurney and saw Jeffie gripping her hair in both hands. “Please,
Sammy!” she yelled. “Hold on! Don’t leave us!”

Dr. Rosmir shouted more
orders to the Elite as he performed thrusts on Sammy’s chest while others
looked on with concern and sorrow. Sounds of all kinds filled Sammy’s ears, but
noticeable above all were the two distinct beeps coming from his and Nikotai’s
monitors.

“He’s back!” Rosmir
announced. He took a deep breath and placed a hand on his chest. Then he
removed his glasses, rubbed his nose, and wiped his forehead. “Thank God. I’m
exhausted. Get the second bag of blood over here now! Sammy, if you can hear
me, don’t even think about doing that again.”

Sammy’s energy was
sapped. Every breath was a laborious chore. Pain racked his entire body from
his leg to his head. As the cruiser rolled ever so slightly in the air, the
light of the sun shined through the window, blinding Sammy for a few moments.
It reminded him of the dream he’d had—the one with his father. The dream faded
quickly until the details were gone, and he remembered mere wisps of it. The
only thing he knew for certain was that he would survive … at least for now.

* * * * *

Back at resistance
headquarters in Glasgow, visits filled Sammy’s next days. He joked with Dr.
Rosmir that a revolving door should be installed in his room at the infirmary.
Many of his visitors were well-wishing friends, some of them people Sammy had
never met. Commander Byron came daily, now walking on his own with the use of a
cane and his bionic limbs. It was not uncommon for him to lament about the
difficulty of getting used to feet that couldn’t blast. They had long
conversations about Byron’s days in the Elite Training Center. Sammy asked
several questions about the real Diego Newblood and Omar Al-Rawi, but Byron
knew very little.

“Omar died in a raid on
a base of insurgents back in the 60s. Diego left the Elite right after
graduation. I heard he died in a plane accident with his parents, so I guess
Trapper’s story backs that up. What amazes me still to this day is how I never
realized my own roommate was the one behind the murders. And what saddens me
more is that I failed to learn from that mistake. I allowed Victor Wrobel to do
the same thing, except with far more disastrous consequences this time. I hope
you will learn from your mistakes better than I, Samuel.”

Something else bugged
Sammy too, and he addressed it before Byron left the room. “Commander, after
knowing what Trapper was capable of—especially with his Anomaly Thirteen—why
did you ever take a chance on me?”

Commander Byron gently
patted Sammy’s bandaged leg. “Amos made that decision for me, Sammy.”

“Amos?” Sammy could
still see Commander Byron dressed in those rags like a homeless man, using a
passable accent to disguise himself. “That feels like it happened decades ago …
don’tcha know
?”

Sammy’s poor
impersonation made the Commander grin. “It does. When we spoke in that chapel
in Johannesburg two years ago, you reminded me nothing of Trapper. I wasn’t
very bright when I was fifteen. Since then I have learned to listen to my gut,
to the impressions I get. Our instincts are almost always right. Too bad we so
often talk ourselves out of the right decisions.”

In the nearby rooms,
Brickert, Natalia, Nikotai, and others recovered from their own wounds.
Brickert had seven broken teeth and two toes from his left foot blown off by
enemy fire. He seemed excited to finally have war stories to share with Sammy,
but there was also a sense of mortality he had developed; a maturity in his
eyes Sammy hadn’t seen before. Brickert was almost fifteen, and he looked it,
but his soul or his spirit—whatever made him who he was—had aged rapidly the
last few weeks.

Nikotai made a full
recovery, though his took longer than Sammy’s. Rosmir said that this was due to
Sammy’s youth and vigor. Natalia’s jaw took a week to repair. When she spoke,
it sounded like mumbling through clenched teeth. Somehow she and Brickert had
patched things up during the mission. She didn’t give any details about how
that had happened, and Sammy didn’t care to know. He was happy to know that
they were happy.

Other Psions came by
regularly to chat with Sammy, including Kawai. He sensed something budding
between her and Li, even though he wasn’t certain either of them knew it yet.
Al and Marie stopped in once. Marie hadn’t started showing a tummy yet, but was
proud to announce that they expected a baby boy.

“We thought about
naming him after you,” Marie teased, “but then we realized there will only ever
be one Sammy.”

Most of all, Sammy
looked forward to his time with Jeffie. She spent hours each day by his
bedside, reading to him, talking with him, and, best of all, making him laugh.
Sammy didn’t know what he would do without her. The mission had changed their
relationship. It had grown deeper and stronger. Relying on her to keep him
alive while she relied on him had forged their bond from tough iron into
impenetrable steel. The horrors they had seen together forced them to lean on
each other for support and empathy.

One week after his
team’s return to headquarters, funeral services were held to honor the fallen from
Sammy and Anna’s teams. Lara asked Sammy to give a eulogy. He accepted the
opportunity gratefully, but as he meditated on what to say, he could think of
no proper words of his own to offer. Instead, he read a quote.

“‘Greater love hath no
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’” Then he
concluded by telling a story about each person on his team, and thanking them
and their families for their lives.

Once wounds had healed
to a reasonable degree, it was time to return to work. Data waited to be sifted
and studied, weapons had to be catalogued, meetings needed attending, and, of
course, they had new missions to plan. World War Three raged on, and though the
outlook was not as dim for the NWG, it wasn’t bright, either.

Sammy, though not fully
recovered, was able to get around to his duties without much trouble. At his
first leadership committee meeting, Thomas Byron brought the group to order and
insisted on starting this particular meeting with a prayer from Lara, who
expressed her gratitude for two successful missions and the safe return of so
many comrades. Then the meeting began with the usual arguments over who was to
be on which committee and who was more qualified to oversee what. Sammy leaned
back in his chair and smiled to himself throughout all of it.

When it was finished,
he returned to the cafeteria and met Jeffie and his friends for lunch. They
served hamburgers, and Brickert couldn’t have been more excited. They talked as
they ate—the five friends, Strawberry, Hefani, and Li, who sat next to Kawai
(causing Sammy and Jeffie to exchange a knowing look).

At one point in the
meal, Brickert announced through his mouthful of food, “You know, sometimes I
feel like this war is already coming to an end. Things are going well.”

Sammy took a long swig
of his milk and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, Brick. I get the feeling
we’re right at the beginning.”

* * * * *

The fox sat in his
penthouse suite in Orlando staring at his chessboard adorned with gold and
silver pieces. The same chess set he’d played when Sammy beat him. Johann Sebastian
Bach’s
Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor
played softly in the background.
A glass chaser filled with water sat next to the chessboard, half empty. Far
away, he heard the soft padding of Lacy’s paws on the wood floors near her bed.

One hand supported his chin
while the other moved the queen. Then he pressed a button on a round table
supporting the board. The chessboard spun 180 degrees, and the fox played the
opposing side. Since losing his chess match to Sammy Berhane one hundred
twenty-seven days earlier, the fox had played over five hundred matches. He
knew that if, somehow, he lured Sammy back into the suite, he would beat the
boy. He had simply been too distracted with everything else going on that
evening: the garage invasion, the cyber-attack on the NWG defense systems, and
the subsequent military strikes on several key locations in NWG territory.
One’s mind could only do so much. He had overextended himself. A valuable
lesson learned.

Now his mind focused on
new problems, which he attempted to solve while playing the game against
himself. The NWG military had won a surprising victory a little over a week
ago. The coup had breathed new life into their forces, and, more importantly,
steeled the resolve of several territories which he had nearly persuaded to
secede. These events disappointed the fox, but he was not dismayed. He expected
setbacks in the midst of such grand designs. Already he had ordered an increase
in the production of Hybrids to prepare for more strikes.

Other problems occupied
his thoughts, too. One of N Corporation’s chief genetic engineers had gone missing
in Seattle. Clyde Engelman. Foul play suspected. Possible corporate espionage.
If so, it would be the second of such kind in recent years. A day earlier, a
weapons storage facility in Colorado Springs had been hit. Automatic weapons,
expensive tech, and heavy artillery had been stolen. The fox believed the last
remnants of the group known only as the “resistance” were behind it. Multiple
decoy trucks and well-planned subterfuge had made tracking the theft
impossible.

Sammy has rejoined the
group, no doubt. The complexity of the plan bears his mark.

Tomorrow he planned to
contact Katie Carpenter and enlist her aid in investigating these matters.
Things needed to get done, and she never failed to provide results. It seemed
as though the survivors of the attack on Capitol Island had infiltrated CAG
borders. If vestiges of this “resistance” existed, they were sure to be
harboring NWG agents. Perhaps Sammy even led them. The fox knew the boy was
behind it. He felt it. Did Sammy intend to start a war on two fronts against
the CAG? The stolen weapons suggested so.

The garden needs
weeding.

He moved his silver
queen and placed the gold king in checkmate when his intercom buzzed. “Sir,” the
security guard from downstairs said, “you have a guest. Shall I allow her
access to the elevator?”

The fox turned on his
wall screen and called up the lobby camera. A woman strode into the lobby
wearing a dazzling purple evening gown and an alluring expression as she stared
back at the camera, as though she looked directly into his eyes. The fox felt a
stirring for her and ordered his security staff to let her pass. As she stepped
into the elevator, she continued to look into the camera wearing that same
expression. It wasn’t the first time she’d arrived in the city unannounced,
eager for his company, even at such a late hour. What was different was her
energy, her excitement. He hadn’t seen this from her in quite some time. A
simple scan of her dress and purse told him she was unarmed.

When her elevator
reached the top floor, she stepped out into the antechamber and knocked three
times. The fox smiled to himself as he spoke to her over the intercom.

“To what do I owe this
surprise?”

The woman gazed at the
screen, which displayed his favorite graphic of a fox. “I needed to see you
tonight. I would have called first, but there are things we need to discuss in
private.”

The fox buzzed her in.
She entered, and right away the fox could see something was wrong … or
different. His first clue was the change in her demeanor in his presence. The
second was that she did not take off her shoes, something he demanded of anyone
who entered his suite. He whistled a soft, high-pitched tune to call Lacy into
the room. As his pet thylacine trotted near, his hand slipped under the couch
cushion and wrapped around the hilt of a syshée.

“Hello,” he said. “You
look lovely this evening.”