Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (31 page)

I hesitated. “I feel prepared.”

It was my standard answer. Look confident.
Sound it, too. But it wasn’t an honest answer.
Prepared for
what?

Com turned his shoulders slightly, sensing
tension ripple around me. “What is your question, cadet?”

No hiding it, now. It was nearly impossible
to hide any thought from a guy like that.
So how’d he miss those
chilly images?

“I would be able to answer your question
with greater confidence,” I said, “if I knew what the Realization
Trial was about. Pon hasn’t given me any objectives. I don’t know
if I’m swimming across an ocean or jumping out of a spaceship. Tell
me what exactly I’m training to do and I believe I can answer you
more truthfully.”

Com laughed, heartily, and the Commander
smiled. The two assassins had yet to blink. “Yes,” Com said, “the
Realization Trial is frustrating. Let’s just say Pon will have you
ready for whatever comes your way, yes?”

I nodded, frustration clenching inside
me.

“Another question?” he said.

I was doing a horrible job of controlling my
thoughts. I minced them quietly, considering if I was pushing too
much. My frustration was too visible. He would only tolerate it so
long.
Enough is enough, control your mind, cadet.
But these
were my thoughts and, to be honest, I already knew the answers. In
fact, the question was ludicrous. I didn’t want to say it out loud,
so I just allowed the thoughts to crystallize for him to see my
doubts.

[Why are we training so hard? We haven’t
seen or heard of a duplicate in a year. They’ve been conquered.
Shouldn’t we be doing something besides preparing for a
non-existent war?]

Like I said, I already knew the answers.
Intelligence suggested that duplicates would have a backup plan,
that they would blend into the population until they were ready to
strike. After all, they were undetectable. One could be standing
right in front of you and you wouldn’t know the difference, even if
you cut its head off.
It’s the predator you don’t see that you
should worry about
.

Thank you, Pon.

Com saw my question. He also saw the answer
in my mind. There was no reason, but instead he said, “Keep your
enemies closer than your allies, cadet. That way you always know
what they’re doing.”

“Yes, sir.”

He stared a bit longer, judging my stance,
my psychic arrangement, my physical conditioning. No need for
conversation when you can look directly at one’s soul. It cuts out
all the words and personal agenda.

“I am anticipating record attendance at your
Realization Trial.” He leaned closer. His breath puffed in my eyes.
“I will be present along with every commander in the Paladin
Nation.”

“I look forward to it.”

“I have commended your Commander for
bringing a prodigy such as you to the great Paladin Nation. It is
efforts like his that will make this world a better place.” A
subtle tension vibrated in the air like electrical currents. He was
hiding something. Perhaps it was bitterness or contempt. After all,
he wasn’t accustomed to travelling outside his facility to see star
pupils. They came to him, not the Commander. This was a first.

But the energy around us felt tight, almost
menacing. I did not adjust my stance, did not want to appear
aggressive or tip them off, but instead took notice of the space
between us, estimated the range of motion and possible responses to
an attack.

“I would argue that you could not find a
better Commander,” I said.

“High praise, indeed.” Half-smile for me.
Half-smile for the Commander. “Very well, then. I will not take up
more of your time. I understand you have been given leave for the
evening and I sense you’re anxious.” He nodded, said in a lower
tone, “We expect great things from you, cadet.”

“Yes, sir.”

My heels were still on the edge; I shifted
my balance to the front of my feet.

Com started for the exit, the Commander
beside him. The escorts turned, their motions fluid. The one on the
left, his eyes were down but they cheated a glance back at me.
Their momentum kept them turning, their arms falling toward their
belts and in tandem they unleashed their evolvers. They spun on
their inside heels, pushing their weapon hand at me. Bluish spikes
shot forth and space crackled as they sliced time.

But I was ready. I gripped the metaphorical
time spark I felt in my belly and stopped time along with them,
leaving Com and the Commander standing still in normal time. I
ignited the evolvers around my hands and deftly parried the tips of
their blunt spikes that would knock the wind out of me for a week.
Fortunately, they did not counterattack. I was at a woeful
disadvantage with my back to the ledge. They retracted their
weapons and stood back at attention.

We returned to normal time, where Com and
the Commander took another step and turned. I deactivated the
weapons and placed them on my belt.

“Well done, Commander,” Com said.
Half-smile.
“Yes.”

The assassins followed them through the
exit.

I took a minute to allow my heartbeat to
return to normal before doing the same.

T R A I N I N G

Normal night out

The servys watched me idle the black sedan
across the garage and through the illusion of a solid wall into the
outside world.

The sun was falling below the trees on the
far side of the boulder-strewn field. Behind me, the Garrison’s
rusty cliffs soared hundreds of feet like a sentinel watching over
the world. I stopped the car and let the remains of daylight fall
on my face. The breeze rushed through open windows with scents of
bending grass and fallen leaves.

The wheels thumped on the underside of the
chassis, folding into the wheel wells and the anti-gravity boosters
whined into action, keeping the car afloat. The car bobbed slightly
off the ground. I twisted the steering wheel, then stomped the
accelerator.

The car shot forward and the force threw my
head into the seat. The rocky terrain raced under the car. I tapped
the stereo and selected Bongo Monday’s latest hit,
Parade on
Me.
The bass thumped in my chest. The Garrison cliffs receded
in the rearview screen.

“To review public policy,” the car’s
feminine voice said, “there is no use of anti-gravity boosters off
the Garrison’s premise. There is no—”

I turned the music up until my eardrums
throbbed and turned the wheel until the car tilted on its side,
carving the air in a deep right turn. Lookits, the small silver
balls used world-wide for surveillance, tried to keep up, their
eyelights watching, reporting back to the Garrison. I yanked the
car left and soared to the other side. I’d flown these cars
hundreds of times in the simulated training rooms, but there was
nothing like the real thing. Besides, simulations didn’t have music
systems.

I reached the end of the field and slowed
onto a barren road that entered the dense forest. I tapped the
music down.

“To repeat,” the car said, “you will drive
responsibly while in public. Obey all laws. Do not engage any
automobile functions that are not available to the public. You are
due back by sunrise. It is recommended that you get back to your
house by 2 AM at the very latest.”

“Yessss, ma’am.”

A large wormhole bubble warped the space at
the end of the road, swirling with blue colors. The wheels touched
on the ground and the road bounced below. The first time through a
wormhole was like walking through Niagara Falls. Now it was more
like getting steamrolled. Still not pleasant.

I came out the other side thousands of miles
away from the Garrison. The exit was on a deserted road in the
country. Dusky light filtered through the South Carolina oaks where
the air was humid and the rules changed.

Be normal
.

Chute and I never lost touch when training
started. I went home a lot in the beginning. When I couldn’t go
home, we met in virtualmode. And when that didn’t work, we talked
on the nojakk, sometimes until the sun came up.

But then training got for real and those
opportunities got scarce. After awhile, I barely had time to sleep.
At first, days would go by before I could nojakk her. Then weeks.
Now it had been months. It was my fault, really. I was too
exhausted to return her calls. If I was awake, I was training. I
trained so much that I dreamed I was training. I couldn’t escape
it.

Sometimes, I wasn’t so sure if we’d called
it quits. The whole long-distance relationship thing is hard enough
for two normal people. She had to be having the same thoughts.
Is this worth it? Are we just wasting time?

I was nervous to see her. Nervous that spark
in her eyes would be gone when she saw me. Or maybe I was nervous
of what she saw when she looked at me. Sometimes, I didn’t feel all
that human. I was an outsider. I didn’t want her to see me like
that. I didn’t want to be on the outside while she was inside.

I’m going to puke.

Cooper River Bridge was gridlocked and the
game had already started. All the major sports were taking a back
seat to tagghet. Paladin-sponsored manufacturers rolled out the
flying jetter discs to anyone who wanted one. People were learning
thought-projection skills at unheard of rates. Virtualmode Internet
accounts reached new levels every day. The technology wave was
turning into a tsunami. Clearly, the Charleston roads weren’t
prepared for the madness of a semi-professional tagghet team.

Chute called while I looked for every
possible route around the bridge. She promised to save me a seat.
I can’t wait to see you,
she said. That was a good start,
but then traffic completely stopped and that took care of the good
feelings. Now I was about to rip the steering wheel out of the
dashboard.

I considered leaving the car in auto-pilot
and abandoning it, but unattended auto-pilot was against the law.
The car would rat me out. They’d call my ass back across the world
if I tried.

There was nothing to do but watch the ships
pass and smell the low tide. The car slogged along and I counted my
breath. In and out. I settled into the present moment and the
tension inside me, recognizing all the expectations attached to it.
They were stupid thoughts like: Would she really be happy to see
me?

That was pretty much it.

“Left turn in 100 yards,” the car finally
said.

I came off the bridge and took the shoulder
to catch my turn. I hit the back roads, hugging corners between
abandoned warehouses.

“Obey the speed limit,” the car said.

“I’ve been driving 2 miles per hour for the
last hour! This will average out!”

The shortcut didn’t last long. The stadium
was still four blocks away when I hit traffic again. I wasn’t
waiting this one out. I yanked the car to the side of the road and
parked in front of a row of broken houses. I sprinted down the
sidewalk and turned the corner and there, two blocks straight
ahead, was Blackbaud Stadium.

I hardly recognized it. The last time I was
at Blackbaud was for a soccer game just two years earlier. They’d
added on, since. It was twice as tall. I couldn’t see past the
imposing wall at the main entrance, but could hear the crowd
roaring inside. Lightners floated high above the stadium,
illuminating the field and surrounding area.

The parking lot was stuffed. People were
hanging around grills and tailgates, raising their drinks when I
passed. A red discus tag whizzed over my head, hovering to the
other end of the lot where a kid ran it down and caught it with the
curved end of a long stick. He slung it back a few hundred yards to
someone on the other side. A bumper sticker read,
Just like
lacrosse. Only better
.

I stopped outside the main entrance. The
line was out to the curb. My nojakk cheek vibrated. Chute’s voice
bubbled inside my head.

“
Where are you?”

I told her where and what I was looking at:
a long, unmoving line. The crowd erupted inside the stadium.

“
Well, just hurry up!”

A guy pushed out of the line, throwing his
tickets over his head like confetti. A three-dimensional hologram
glittered on the stub, a picture of a storm flashing over the
ocean. The seats were good ones, center pitch, third row. A kid in
front of me sucked Coke from a straw, wearing a plastic tagghet
helmet with retractable yellow-tinted visor. The Charleston Squall
logo flashed on the sides. He held the cup with both hands, staring
at me.

“What’s going on?” I asked the kid.

He yanked his dad’s sleeve. His father
continued shouting obscenities through his hands. The kid yanked
again. The father finally looked down. The kid pointed at me.

“They oversold the goddamn game,” the father
said.

“But you got tickets.”

“There’s a bunch of counterfeit tickets
floating around. The fire marshal closed the gates. Guess who got
screwed?”

“But they’re your seats, just have them
check the stubs.”

“What the hell you think I’m trying to do
here, kid?”

He turned back to shouting. People started
throwing things. Soda cans bounced off the wall over the gates. Not
long after that, the metal gates clanged shut. More trash went
flying. A cold sensation drained down my neck, followed by garbled
sounds, voices that didn’t make sense. It quickly turned into a
brain-freeze. Suddenly, I was cold again.

Haagloppllls-sssaaaa-sssss-HHHEESGAWTTA!

“You all right?” The little kid slurped his
drink.

I was on my knee, head cradled in my hands.
The sensation went from cold to hot. And I couldn’t remember
stepping back and getting on one knee.