Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5) (11 page)

The Queen looked inside and saw it was empty, but
the walls were covered in filth, brown and red.

“That candidate turned into an animal. Chewing on
his fingers till they bled. Playing in his feces. Once they get to that point,
they’re hopeless for moving to the next level. He was immediately released.”

Memories of her solitary prison cell in the Wyoming
Ultramax Facility awoke in the Queen’s brain, followed by revulsion and anger.
She had nearly gone mad, imagining herself to be a goddess—a
phoenix—until the fox rescued her. For a moment, so strong was her
indignation at the torment these children were experiencing, her fingers began
to ache and throb as though she had chewed on them. She wanted to tear down the
H.A.M.M.E.R. facility piece by piece. Hate twisted her stomach like a wrench.

The Queen yearned for her creams to help her control
the pain and emotion.

 
“I’ve seen
enough,” she said in a strained voice. “Take me to the other areas.”

The next area was the testing center. The Queen
asked, “What sort of tests are they given?”

“Obedience,” Judy answered. “Obedience is key. To
graduate from H.A.M.M.E.R. means we are absolutely sure the candidate will
follow orders and be loyal to the CAG. We have a graduation test today for one
of our most promising candidates. Would you care to observe it?”

“I would.”

“Very good.” Judy nodded and adjusted her barrette
as they entered another hallway. “In the meantime, let me walk you through and
familiarize you with the testing process in general. We use a mix of several
schools of psychology to mentally and behaviorally condition our candidates.
Some methods are hundreds of years old, others are far more recent, fine-tuned
by some of the brightest minds in psychology today. For example, here, look …”

The women peered through a window to see a small
room of five youth, none older than fifteen, standing behind desks. Each desk
had several objects on it placed in different locations. A teacher stood at the
front of the room, a whistle in his mouth. He blew it once, no one moved except
one girl, who barely flinched. The teacher walked up to her and touched her
with a black stick. A blue spark shot from the stick, and the girl jumped. Then
the teacher returned to his original position and again blew the whistle once.
This time the girl did not move.

The whistle blew twice, signaling a flurry of
action. Each of the students assembled the pieces with extraordinary precision.
It was like watching an Aegis assemble a firearm from its various parts. One
boy’s hand slipped as he moved to finish his assembly. The plastic piece
dropped from his desk onto the floor, clattering loudly. None of the other
students turned at the incident. They finished the assembly without mistakes.
The teacher calmly walked up to the boy and administered a shock, much longer
than the one the girl received. The boy’s body twitched for almost five
seconds. The Queen’s hand traveled up to her neck as she observed, remembering
perfectly her own shocks delivered via a collar. A strong electric tingle ran
up and down her spine causing the hairs on her neck to rise and her skin to
crawl uncomfortably.

“A simple test,” Judy explained. “All beginners.
Let’s look at a more advanced trial … we should have two going on down the
hall. I believe one is a desensitizing—yes, here we go. Observe this
one.”

This group was larger and composed of older trainees
than the previous one, most candidates were fifteen or sixteen years old. About
ten students stood behind similar desks, scalpels in hand as they worked. Each
wore a white apron and a face shield. On each desk was a clear glass bowl
filled with water, empty otherwise. Next to the bowl were dissection trays, all
with large goldfish laying on them. The fish were in various stages of
dissection, some still twitching even as their organs were removed.

“The goldfish have been in the cells with them for
the past two weeks. The candidates have fed and cared for them as a reward for
good behavior. So far the test looks promising.”

No sooner had she said these words then one of the
girls in the room dropped her scalpel and sobbed into the crook of her arm. The
teacher moved quickly, injecting a syringe into the girl. Five seconds later,
she vomited into a waste bucket. Just as in the other room, none of the other
kids were distracted by the punishment of one.

“They learn quickly to ignore the punishment of
others,” Judy stated as if she read the Queen’s thoughts. “It’s one of the very
first lessons we teach.”

Judy led the Queen around the facility for over two
hours, talking most of the time. After touring most of S.H.I.E.L.D., the
holo-screen on her com popped out. “Oh, look at that. It’s nearly time for a
graduation test. We all have high hopes that this will be a pass. Shall we go
back up and watch?”

The Queen motioned for Judy to lead the way. After
taking an elevator, they stopped at the very end of a long hall where a closed
black door waited. Judy took them through a side door to a small observation
room. Several other doctors and teachers joined them in silence. Beyond the
one-way glass that separated the observation and testing rooms, a young man
with jet-black hair sat in a chair with his head down, arms folded. Without
seeing his face, the Queen couldn’t be certain how old he was … perhaps in his
late teens? Next to him was a small table, very similar to a nightstand, with a
gun resting on its side. Under the gun was a slip of paper.

The Queen watched the young man for only a couple of
minutes when the black door opened and two Aegis brought in a girl who couldn’t
be eighteen—couldn’t even be sixteen. Once the Aegis seated her, they
left. The girl wore a plain white outfit, a tight shirt and leggings which put
every curve and detail of her body on intimate display. Judy leaned in and
spoke so softly the Queen strained to hear her.

“Fifteen-year-old female with Anomaly Fifteen … aka
Ultra. Has responded well to all treatments and tests despite recruitment at
age thirteen. The male is a seventeen-year-old facing expulsion from the
H.A.M.M.E.R. program due to notable lack of progression of releasing memories
of family and childhood. The two have copulated over a dozen times in the last
sixty days as part of their positive reinforcement regimen. Our behavioral
psychologists noticed displays of affection beyond standard copulation
techniques. I assure you, this will be an fascinating test—something you
wouldn’t want to miss.”

One of the male teachers in the room with the Queen
and Judy pushed a button on a console adjacent to the window through which the Queen
and everyone else observed the test. “State your name for the record,” he said
into a microphone.

“13F712072-Jane,” said the teenager.

“The alphanumeric sequence is unique,” Judy informed
the Queen. “Thirteen-year-old female when she arrived. Then month, day, and
year of birth. The names are recycled. The next female candidate will be given
the name
Jane
if this one fails. Her
birth name was Vitoria. They called her ‘Vivi.’ How humiliating.”

“The test will commence,” the male teacher said.
“Pick up the paper and follow your orders.”

Jane—or Vivi—stepped forward, ignoring
the young man in the chair. She slid the paper out from under the weapon
without disturbing it. With steady hands, she unfolded the slip, read its
contents, and set it back down on the table. Then she picked up the gun,
checked the magazine, and fired it. The first bullet hit the young man in the
head, the second in the chest, and the third in the navel. When she finished,
she placed the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger. Instead of a
bang
there was only a click. The girl
blinked twice, then placed the gun back where she’d gotten it and put her hands
behind her. Applause and murmurs of satisfaction and congratulation came from
the teachers and doctors. The girl couldn’t hear them. She simply stood in her
spot, her white clothes spattered with the blood of the boy she’d killed.

Judy turned to the Queen, a smile of jubilance
plastered on her face. The Queen, however, felt the beginnings of a sharp
headache coming on, accompanied by an even sharper pain in her sternum.

“I’m glad you were here to see that,” Judy stated.
“Would you like to return downstairs and visit S.H.I.E.L.D. again or might I
interest you in some refreshment?”

* * * * *

Wednesday, March 26, 2053

“I didn’t put up those pictures!” Priyanka shouted in the principal’s
office. “I didn’t do anything!”

Mrs. Simpson’s eyes were fixed on Priyanka Patel,
who did not blink or look away. Katie had to admit, despite loathing her,
Priyanka was an amazing liar. She always had been. Watching her friend get away
with what she’d done made Katie want to shriek. She clutched her tablet stylus
in her hand, imagining herself plunging a dagger into Priyanka’s eyes. The
images were so realistic that it made her break into a sweat.

“Mrs. Simpson, I got a message last night from
Mark—”

“Your boyfriend,” Priyanka cut in to say.

“—that she was going to do this. I can prove
it! The messages are on my tablet. Then the next day it happens. You can’t
believe this was a coincidence.”

“You’re just mad that you can’t walk your way to
prom queen!” Priyanka shouted. “So I was angry at you. Big deal! So I said I
was going to do some stuff. But—but that is disgusting! I would never …”
Shaking her head furiously, Priyanka’s voice broke and she dissolved into a
teary mess.

Oh I will make
you cry, Priyanka. I will make you wail
.

Mrs. Simpson put up her hands and kept her attention
on Priyanka. “I’ve heard enough. What happened to Katie today was beyond vulgar
or obscene. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I hope I never see anything
like it again. What happened today is also illegal, Miss Patel. And you had
better believe that I will do everything in my power to ensure that it never
happens again.
Never
. As soon as you
leave this office, I will be contacting authorities, parents, and the
administration to catch whoever did this. Expulsion is more than a possibility.
Even criminal charges.”

Priyanka crossed her arms. “I’m not worried because
I didn’t do it!”

“I hope so. But someone did. Do you know who it
was?”

“I don’t.”

Liar.
Katie shook so
hard that she needed to act, pounce, do something, but Mrs. Simpson turned her
attention to her.

“Miss Carpenter, I know you’re furious. I know
you’re hurting. And I will help you, but you need to remember that retribution
… retaliation … any negative response to this will hurt your cause. Try to
brush it off.”

“Brush it—”

Simpson’s hand went up again. Four rings adorned her
fingers. One of them caught the light and blinded Katie. “I know it sounds
impossible. I hurt for you, and am going to do everything I can. So work with
me. Help me. Don’t be stupid. I’ll be in touch with both your parents about the
matter. Priyanka, go back to class. Katie, would you rather go home for the
day?”

“No,” she answered right away. “It’ll just make me
look worse.”

Mrs. Simpson smiled as though to say she was proud
of Katie’s decision. Both girls left. When they reached the hallway, Katie
turned to Priyanka and grabbed her by the shirt. Priyanka smacked her hands
away. “Don’t touch me, slut.”

“They’re gonna catch you, Pri. I’ll be waving
goodbye when you’re expelled.”

Priyanka’s smirk unnerved Katie. “They’ll never pin
it on me. My mom paid a pro to make and print those posters. You tried to make
me go to my junior prom with a
retard
.
You’ve lost your mind.”

“I’ll make sure they get you. I don’t care what I
have to do.”

Priyanka giggled. “Oh sweetie, you’re so used to
being on top, you can’t stand the view from the bottom.” She stopped giggling
and stared Katie down. “Your reign is over. Mess with me and I will burn you.”

Friday, June 13, 2087

SAMMY LAY IN bed with the sheets pulled over his head to block out
the bad dreams. Rapid gunfire coming from the left flank.
In the trees. They’re in the trees
. The forest was dark, too dark
to see far. He repeated his orders to the Psions on that area of the
battlefield to shield, but gunfire still got through, peppering holes in the
Ultras and Elite. Dozens of men and women—soldiers all of them—fell
to the earth, but the gunfire continued. The faces of the Thirteens could be
seen from afar, red eyes glowing. All of them looked like him. All the fallen
were Brickert.

“Sammy!” a voice called
out—Jeffie’s—urgent and desperate. “Sammy, can you hear me? Answer
me!”

He searched the forest floor for her face among the
wet leaves and dirt, but didn’t see her.
Is
she one of the fallen?
A horrible emptiness filled his stomach. The
pounding gunfire grew louder, more rapid.
Artillery.
He ordered his soldiers to take cover, full shields. Explosions came from
far away, growing closer too rapidly.

“Sammy!” Jeffie cried again. “Open the door.”

Everyone else faded until Sammy was the only one in
the forest. It was unnaturally dark and the air raised goosebumps on his arms.
From a distance he saw a black shadow facing him, along with the distinct
impression it was watching him.
Shadows
can’t watch things. They’re just shadows.
But before he could get a closer
look it faded into oblivion with a haze of color and a melting of sound. His
sheets were soaked with sweat. But the sweat reeked of … Sammy sniffed,
realized what the wetness really was, and cursed.

His nightmares had started after Detroit, growing
worse each week.
And now I’m wetting the
bed?

“Sammy!” Jeffie yelled again.

“Just a second,” he called out to her.

“Hurry up.”

Sammy tore off his shirt and pants, and changed into
dry clothes before answering. Jeffie frowned at him when he finally opened the
bedroom door. “What took you so long?”

Frowning at her and hoping she didn’t notice the
smell of urine, he said, “What do you want?”

“The baby. Marie gave birth.”

A smile appeared on Sammy’s face—a rare thing
of late. “You serious?”

“Yes. And I thought you would want to know right
away. I’ll take you there if you don’t mind my company.”

“You know I—”

“I don’t want to get into it, Sammy.” She sighed and
played with the doorknob, glancing at him as she did so. “Do you want to come
now? I have your car already running in the tunnels.”

Sammy pulled at his shirt, noticing for the first
time that it was a dirty one. “I need to—”

“I know. Put on some cologne, too. It smells
terrible in here. Is that because of Al?”

Sammy hesitated, then nodded. Al had moved in with
Sammy three weeks ago following a fight with Marie that got so bad Commander
Byron forcibly ejected him from the house. Since Brickert was still in serious
condition the decision was made to put Al with Sammy for the time being.

“I wouldn’t have hurt her,” Al had told Sammy a
hundred times, both sober and drunk. “Never.”

Al drank every night until he fell asleep, and the
house often carried the scent of vomit and booze.

After changing his clothes and splashing on some
cologne, Sammy followed Jeffie out the door. They hadn’t been alone together in
over a month—not since he’d left after she told him she loved him. When
they ate together or hung out, it was always in a group, usually with Kawai,
Li, Natalia, and Strawberry.

While Sammy and Jeffie hadn’t officially broken up,
they weren’t a couple either. Sammy didn’t know what they were. Sometimes they
held hands around their friends, sometimes they didn’t. They spoke cordially to
each other. They hugged occasionally. But it wasn’t the same as it’d been. It
was as though an unspoken agreement existed that Jeffie would give him his
space for now, but when they were around others, they could still act like a
couple and catch up.

It worked for Sammy. He still liked Jeffie, and
thought she was as beautiful as the first day he saw her. In fact, she was more
beautiful, her curves more feminine after two years of aging and developing.
Her green eyes still brightened when she found his face in a room or when he
made a comment that only she would find funny. Holding her hand still gave him
a feeling of pride in his chest.

The problem wasn’t with Jeffie. It was him, and he
knew it.
Why did I freak out when she
told me she loved me?
Sammy wondered while Jeffie tried to restart the car.
Even now, a month later, the question still bothered him.

The car gave a whine instead of whirring to life.

“I hate your stupid car.”

“Lemon?” he asked her. “Why are you picking on
Lemon?” Sammy patted the dash. “She doesn’t mean that.”

“You’re the most important person here, and they
assign you the worst car. Tell me how that makes sense.”

“You’re the best, Lemon. Don’t listen to Jeffie.
She’s jealous she doesn’t have a car of her own.”

“Seriously, why do you get this piece of junk?”

Sammy shrugged. “Thomas said I’m a teenager, so I
get the teenager car.”

Natalia had named the car Lemon because of its
bright yellow color and because it usually took more than one try to get it
started.

“It was supposed to get fixed last week, but the
mechanics are still repairing the cruisers. Are you going to be a gentlewoman
and push or do I have to get out and do it?”

Jeffie glared at Sammy.

Sammy got out, mildly annoyed, and flashed Jeffie a
mocking grin that stretched his cheeks. The tunnels were cold, even in the
summer, and he shivered. The only way to be sure the car would start was by
giving it a push. After using a strong hand blast on the car’s bumper to shove
it forward, the car started and Sammy climbed back in the passenger seat. He
rolled his window down so the air would blow on his face and help dilute his
stench. Despite the cold, his skin was clammy from the night sweats.

“You okay?” Jeffie asked.

“Yeah. Fine. You?”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“I heard you saw Croz the other day for something,”
Jeffie mentioned, her voice only louder than a whisper. “Is that true?”

Sammy stirred in his seat. “That’s not your
business.”

Two weeks ago, Commander Byron and Dr. Rosmir had
approached Sammy and suggested he visit Croz, the resistance’s chief
psychologist, about getting a better handle on his Anomaly Thirteen. Sammy
insisted that he already had a handle on it, but went anyway. The visit had
been short, polite, and interesting, but Sammy hadn’t felt the need to set up
another session, despite Croz’s multiple invitations.

Jeffie drove in silence for two or three minutes,
but Sammy knew her too well. She wanted to talk, and was figuring out a way to
bring up her desired subject without offending him. The only way to prevent
this was by starting a new conversation before she did and keep the topic away
from what she wanted to address.

“So—”

“When did you hear about the baby?” Sammy asked,
barely voicing his question in time to cut her off. “Who told you?”

Jeffie gave him an annoyed side-glance that told him
she knew exactly what he was doing. “Twenty minutes ago. Natalia’s been
assisting in the infirmary to keep an eye on Brickert. Rosmir told her and she
told me right after.”

“Is Natalia the one who told you about my
appointment with Croz?”

Jeffie’s lack of response confirmed Sammy’s
suspicion. “It slipped. Her mind’s been on Brickert, not worrying about you.”

“Has Brickert been awake more lately?” The last time
Sammy visited his friend, three days ago, all Brickert did was sleep and
mumble.

“He’s awake a little more every day. That’s all I
know. Are you going to keep asking questions so that I have no time to bring up
a different subject?”

“That was my plan.”

Jeffie snorted a laugh, but there was no mirth in
her eyes. “It’s been a month.”

“So?”

“I want to go back to the way things were. How much
longer are you going to punish me?”

Sammy watched the lights of another car pass them as
they drove slowly through the tunnel to the infirmary parking area. He should
have known better than to think he could have ducked the conversation. “I
haven’t been punishing you.”

“It feels like it.”

“I’m busy.” When he heard her sigh, he added,
“Really, I am. I get home from meetings and I still have to read over reports
from other subcommittees and analyze data to plan our strategies. You think I
like doing it?”

“You don’t have to be as busy as you make yourself.
Why can’t you talk to me about what happened? We were getting better about
talking things through, now you act like I’m diseased—”

“No, I don’t.”

“You do!” She fixed her eyes on him, and he could
feel her trying to get him to look back at her. But he didn’t give in. “Geez,
Sammy, I said I love you. I didn’t ask you to marry me or something.”

“Stop saying that!” he shouted so loudly that she
flinched.

“It’s true!”

“It’s insane. We’re sixteen and in the middle of a
war. We’re screwed up.”

“Do not tell me what I feel!”

“I’m not.”

“Kawai and Li are planning to get married when the
war’s over. People can still fall in love and plan for the future.”

Sammy hissed a short, cruel laugh. “Kawai is what?
Barely seventeen? She’s gonna marry Li at eighteen? That’s ridiculous.”

“She’s eighteen, and she’ll be nineteen. What’s
really going on in your head?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

A spark of rage turned into a roaring flame, and
Sammy kicked the dash, cracking the plastic in three places. Jeffie shot him an
angry, disapproving look.

He closed his eyes, breathed, and leaned back in his
chair. “Fine. I have problems, but I don’t want to talk—”

“You have ducked everything and everyone lately.
Your responsibilities to the leadership committee. Your friends. Showering too,
apparently. And you’ve been like this since Detroit.”

“I’m sorry to give you another thing to worry
about.”

Jeffie ran her fingers through her hair. “You know what?
Yeah, I worry about the war, about my family, about Brickert, but I
like
worrying about you. If I had
nothing to do but worry about you, that’d be the best life I could hope for.
And I’m never going to stop because—”

Sammy couldn’t listen to her anymore. He couldn’t
sit in the car and hear her say affectionate words while he only wanted to say
or do hurtful things back to her. He opened the door, jumped out, and used his
blasts to prevent an injury. Jeffie slammed on the brakes. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH
YOU?”

“I don’t know,” he lied as he picked himself up and
dusted off his pants.

“You’ve been saying that for weeks.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Liar!” Jeffie smashed her palm into the steering
wheel. “You think I didn’t see what you did in Detroit to those Thirteens? Or
that I don’t know everyone’s suspicions? Or that I possibly made a connection
between that and you meeting with Croz? I’m not stupid, and I want to help.”

Sammy couldn’t answer. He wanted to tell Jeffie
everything, about the spurts of rage he was feeling ever since Detroit, the
dreams, the bedwetting. But he
needed
her to leave him alone. When he didn’t answer her, she said, “When you’re
ready, okay?” Then she stepped on the accelerator and left him behind.

He was both glad and annoyed to be by himself.
How am I supposed to think with her around?
The war had to be his focus. He needed to
see
the end, needed a new idea. Something the committee would agree on.

Think about the
war.
That’s what matters
.

Why’d she have
to go and tell me she loves me?

Sammy tried to put the last question out of his
mind, but it wouldn’t go. It kept snapping back like a rubber band. His pace
quickened until he ran at full speed to the tunnel entrance to the infirmary.
Cologne or no, his body odor was ripe by the time he reached Marie’s room.

Lara Byron sat on one side of the bed flanked by Al,
Thomas, and Commander Byron. Jeffie sat on Marie’s other side and tried to
smile when she saw Sammy. Dr. Rosmir was at the foot of the bed with his
tablet, checking off diagnostic boxes while his nurse, Janna Scoble, fussed
with Marie’s monitors.

When Sammy came in, everyone stared. Dr. Rosmir
reached him first and offered a hand to shake, in his other he held a small
device that blinked the words ANALYZING DATA. Both Lara and Thomas hugged
Sammy; they didn’t seem to care that he smelled like a giant latrine. Marie
cradled her little baby who slept, a peaceful expression adorned its face. All
eyes flickered between the baby and the device Dr. Rosmir held.