Psion Alpha (9 page)

Xian
dropped the schedule on the table. “No way am I going to be able to study this
many hours in one week, bro. My brain will turn into porridge and leak out my
ears.” To demonstrate, Xian took a spoonful of his porridge and held it up to
his ear. Then he made a exploding sound, flicked the spoon, and sent the food flying
from his ear onto Emerald’s cheek and nose.

“Really,
Xian?” she complained, scowling, as she wiped it off.

“You
can’t win a golden skull without putting in the time,” Otto reminded Xian.

Xian
grabbed his own face and pulled at the skin, making a grotesque expression. “Oh
no! And then I won’t be paid as much as the person who wins it! No, wait a
minute. That’s right. We all receive the same pay.”

“Actually,
there’s a small stipend—” Trapper began to say, but stopped suddenly. Walter
noticed something bounce off Trapper’s ear. A small piece of cereal rolled
across the floor. Walter followed it and saw a dozen more pieces of cereal all
behind Trapper.

“Don’t
look back, Byron,” Trapper mumbled under his breath. “And don’t say anything.”

By
the expressions on Otto, Xian, and Emerald’s faces, they were aware of what was
happening, too.

“Trapper,
sweetie … ” someone about five meters away called in a sing-song tone and a
mocking lisp. “Trapper, who’s your new girrrlfrrriend? Won’t you introduce us?”

“Who
is that?” Walter asked.

“Omar
Al-Rawi,” Xian explained in a bitter tone. “Six-time-winner of the Annual
Puberty Lottery. Won a lifetime supply of human growth hormone.”

“Also
the biggest douche bag in our class,” Otto chimed in. “And I’m speaking in
terms of both stature and personality.”

“I
used to clobber people like that on a daily basis,” Xian muttered.

“Yeah,
in cyberspace. Wow.” Emerald rubbed her arms and glanced over her shoulder.
“Ignore him, Trap. He’s a piece of garbage.”

“I
am ignoring him,” Trapper said through gritted teeth.

Walter
turned to look at Omar’s table. He had no trouble figuring out which one was
Omar. Xian hadn’t exaggerated. The guy was built like a tank. Surrounding him
was a group of friends, all laughing at Omar’s jokes except one, another young
man of average size sitting directly to the left of Omar. Both boys had dark
hair, but while Omar was pure brute, the second student had lighter hair and
skin with handsome features. Walter had no doubt both guys could back up every
last bit of their smack talk.

“Turn
around,” the one with the lighter hair said to Walter. Walter obeyed without
even thinking about it.

“Diego
Newblood,” Otto whispered to Walter. “The second biggest douche bag in the
class. And that’s purely going by personality.”

 “Hey
wittle boy,” a third student at the table called in a creepy, hissing voice.
Walter realized they were talking to him now. “How much dope did Twapper offer
you to be his wittle fwiend?”

“Good
one, Markorian,” Omar guffawed loudly. “Do you give Twapper special favors,
wittle boy?”

“That’s
it.” Emerald chucked her plate and barely missed Omar’s head.

Omar
jumped in shock, then laughed as the plate sailed across the room. “Hey,
Twapper, Keep a leash on your b—”

“Don’t
you dare!” Emerald yelled as she stood with a venomous expression. She started
toward Omar, who got up to meet her. Trapper grabbed her by the uniform. “Let
go of me!”

Everyone
in the cafeteria turned to watch the scene.

“I
said, let go!”

“Emerald—”
Xian began, but this only fueled her more. She wrenched herself from Trapper’s
grip and darted toward Omar. Walter observed her with a mixture of fascination
and fear, not sure which emotion made his heart pound so fiercely.

A
table filled with Elite students stood in between Emerald and Omar. She ignored
all of them, stepping with her left foot on someone’s leg, and her right foot
on the table. Then she launched herself at Omar, ready to claw or mangle
whatever she touched first. Omar took one step back and hit her with his
breakfast tray like it was a backhanded slap.

Emerald
didn’t have time to block him, taking the force fully in the temple. Her head
jerked around and her body followed until she lay slumped on top of the table.
Food and drink and dishes spilled everywhere. “Oohs” of sympathy pain came from
the student body along with an eruption of laughter.

“Let’s
go,” Omar said looking down at her with disgust. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

Diego
shook his head sadly, almost regretfully, as Omar lifted his cup of juice and
dumped it on Emerald’s head. Markorian and others laughed and did the same.

“Hey!”
Walter cried. “Stop it! That is enough!”

Omar
gazed at Walter with widened eyes, then raised his finger to his throat and
drew a line across it. He finished the gesture by pointing at Walter and pretending
to fire at him. Diego didn’t react at all. Everyone at that table got up and
walked away. Emerald hid her face in her hands and curled up in the fetal
position. Walter reached her first.

“You
okay?”

“Don’t
touch me,” she moaned. “Where’s Trapper?”

“I’m
here,” Trapper said next to Walter. “Let us help you up.”

Together
they got Emerald to her feet and walked her to the infirmary. “I’m fine,” she
insisted the whole way, but Trapper wouldn’t hear it.

“You
need to get looked at,” he told her, “as a precaution.”

“I’m
fine.”

“No,
you’re not, bra,” Xian called from behind. “Your face might be broken. If you
don’t get it looked at, you might turn into Quasimodo.”

After
dropping her off, Trapper and Walter headed for their first class of the day:
math, Walter’s least favorite subject.

“Where
were the adults?” he asked Trapper as the four boys took their seats. “No one
stepped in or helped.”

“That’s
one thing about this place you’ll learn quickly. They let us handle things
ourselves. Even our fights. We’re the Elite. Got it, man?”

Walter
shook his head as he tried to wrap his brain around such a concept. “Why did
they throw stuff at you? Do you even know them?”

“I
told you already, they’re in our year. They’ll be in every class with us.”

“But
we have three hundred students in our class. Why you?”

Trapper’s
voice dropped. “They think I’m gay.”

“What?”
Walter almost laughed until he thought about it. Trapper’s lisp while not
profound, was certainly noticeable, and he did have a
very
slightly
feminine way of standing with a hand on his hip. But these things were so
minor. “Well—how—why do they care?”

“People
like that need someone to target. I guess they chose me. Emerald thinks the
same thing. I guess that’s why I’m the only guy she can stand to let touch her
or even sit close to her.”

Walter
fell silent as the rest of the lecture hall began to fill. Diego and Omar sat
in the back row with their friends. When Omar caught Walter’s eye, he nudged Diego
and pointed to them. Then they smiled as though they shared a secret joke.

“‘The
generous spark extinct revive,’” Walter whispered to himself as he stared back
at them, “‘teach me to love and to forgive.’”

“What’d
you just say, Byron?” Trapper asked.

Walter
felt heat in his cheeks. “Uh … nothing.”

“Didn’t
sound like nothing.”

“It
was—it was words of a poem. Thomas Gray. My dad is big into poetry. His name is
Thomas. Thomas Gray Byron.”

“Don’t
let anyone else catch you quoting poetry, okay?”

Walter’s
cheeks burned even hotter. “Sorry.”

“Like
I said when we met, Byron, welcome to hell. A hell for anyone who’s different.”

CHAPTER
FIVE
– Exposed

Thursday, October 10, 2086

BRICKERT
mumbled in his sleep, roused by the noise of the toilet flushing. Sammy, who’d
forgotten to close the door to muffle the sound, quickly rectified his mistake.
The odor of vomit lingered as he washed his face and rinsed out his mouth. He
stood up straight and caught a glimpse of his reflection. His fingers brushed
his skin, feeling for scars. They paused for a moment on his teeth, feeling
their flatness.

No
scars, no pointed ends on my teeth. They keep getting more real.

His
heartbeat still hadn’t slowed to its normal pace. He took a deep breath and let
it out as gradually as he could. This nightmare had been his worst yet. In it,
he killed Ludwig for saying something annoying. The manner of Ludwig’s death
was both brutal and disturbing. Even now, the guilt remained. He glanced at the
clock. 0139.

If
I don’t get some rest, I’ll be worthless in the meetings.

He
climbed back into his bed and pulled the sheets up to his eyes, staring at the
fan spinning lazily on the ceiling.
What would my parents say if they knew
what I was?
They hadn’t been killed by a Thirteen, so far as he knew, but
their deaths had been brutally violent.
So similar to what the Thirteens are
capable of … what I’m capable of
.

For
all of Sammy’s mental gifts, he could not fathom the chaos and senselessness in
the world. People killing each other, preying upon innocent children, often in
horrific ways, and for what? Land? Wealth? Proof that one person’s god was
stronger than another’s? It deeply bothered Sammy, not only the presence of
such evil, but his inability to comprehend it. After teetering back and forth
for the last several months with his questions of God and religion, Sammy had
settled on one conundrum. If some greater being of good existed, why wasn’t
such depravity, suffering, and horror reined in? These thoughts stayed with him
as he fell back into fitful sleep.

Planning
an offensive strategy with the resistance was neither as glamorous nor fun as
Sammy had imagined. For over a month, he spent four to six hours a day in
closed meetings with the leadership of the resistance—hours filled in cramped
rooms with maps, satellite feeds, and analysis reports. Data, data, data. Then,
once a subcommittee had made a choice, every idea, every guess, every plan had
to be approved by the entire leadership council. It was a painstaking process,
and Sammy loathed it. Listening to them debate and argue and second-guess each
other was torturous. Why couldn’t they trust his decisions? None of them had his
Anomaly Eleven.

After
meetings ended, Sammy usually joined his friends in the surveillance center or
helped them analyze data. Often they pestered him for information they knew he
couldn’t divulge. Worst of all was Jeffie. He could tell she hated not knowing
what Sammy knew, and tried every trick to get him to spill his guts. Some of
the information, however, was widely known throughout the resistance. Primarily,
everyone knew the committee was planning some kind of mission. The where, how,
who, and when were questions to which they all wanted answers.

“So,
Sammy,” Brickert said, on Thursday evening at dinner, “if I were to say that I
will be on a team heading into an enemy base to hijack several cruisers armed
to the teeth, your response would be … what?”

“I
can’t answer that.”

“Okay,
Sammy,” Kawai offered next, “I’ve heard rumors that I will be on a
reconnaissance mission with other Psions going back to NWG territory. Are they
true?”

“I
can’t answer that.”

“Oh,
come on!” she said with a pout.

“Will
someone please pass me the salt?” Natalia asked.

“Sammy
can’t answer that.” Brickert nudged Jeffie’s ribs as they shared a laugh.

Sammy
rolled his eyes and slid the salt shaker down the table with a hand blast.
Kawai deftly redirected it with her own blast, causing the salt to knock into
Natalia’s tray.

“Dude,
at least tell us if we’re being considered for any missions,” Brickert said.

“Look,
guys,” Sammy finally told them, “we are the best soldiers the resistance has to
use. What do you think?”

“So
all of us?” Kawai asked.

“I
can’t make any promises to anyone,” he answered.

Brickert
and Natalia pounded fists. Jeffie and Kawai beamed. For the rest of the meal,
the conversation turned to lighter topics. Following dinner, Jeffie and Natalia
went over to Sammy and Brickert’s house to hang out and play board games.
Jeffie insisted on playing a luck-based game so she, Natalia, or Brickert had a
fair chance to win. It still didn’t matter, Sammy won.

They
chatted throughout the evening, though Sammy steered any conversation about
leadership council business toward other topics. After the game Natalia started
to yawn, and announced she was leaving for bed.

“I’ll
walk you home,” Brickert said, putting an arm around his girlfriend’s waist.

Sammy
smirked at them. “If by walk, you mean ‘make out with,’ and by home, you mean ‘in
the darkest corner of the tunnels you can find,’ then I’ll see you in an hour
or so.”

“That’s
not what—”

“Don’t
bother,” Natalia said as she pulled a blushing Brickert out the door. “They’re
just jealous.” Jeffie waved goodbye, crossing her arms and pulling her jacket
tight around her as the cool air rose up from the entrance to the tunnels.

“You
want to play again?” Sammy asked.

“No
thanks. I think I just want to talk.”

“About
what?”

Jeffie
shrugged. “Whatever.” She ran her fingers through Sammy’s hair, which was now
shorter than it had been in several months. “You look handsome.”

Her
comment made Sammy’s chest burn. “Thanks. You do, too. In a non-manly way.” He
got up from the table and poured himself a glass of water. “Thirsty?”

“I’m
fine.”

“So…
what do you want to talk about?”

She
reached across the table and took his hand. “I know this isn’t what you want to
hear, but I need you to use the clout you have with the resistance leadership
to get me on your team.”

“Why
do you ‘need’ me to do that?”

Jeffie
frowned at his response. “It’s something I’ve put a lot of thought into the
last few weeks. Putting the reasons into words makes it sound weird and stupid.
How about I just say that it’s important to me?”

The
light tone in her voice sounded phony to Sammy, and he got the impression that
she had meticulously practiced this conversation several times. If so, he
didn’t know what to make of that. “A while ago, you said you were scared. You weren’t
sure you were ready for combat.”

“I
am scared, Sammy. Everyone here is. It’s been a rough month for us.”

“I
know.”

“Do
you?” she asked quietly. “I feel like you’re so battle-hardened and the rest of
us are trying to come to terms with stuff you’ve long since learned to accept.
Me and some of our friends—we lost people we care about for the first time.
It’s going to take time for us to get over those losses. Remember that, okay?”

“Okay.
But what does this have to do with the mission?”

“I—nothing—but
I do think I’m ready for combat. Or maybe this won’t even be a combat mission.
Who knows, right?”

Sammy
noted the slight flaring of Jeffie’s nostrils: a sign that she was lying. For
all his mental capabilities, he couldn’t fathom why she would lie or what the
point of all this was. “Are you sure you’re ready? I mean, saying you are ready
when you’re not … that can cost lives. And not just yours.”

“I
had more training than you at Beta headquarters.” Her face flushed as her tone
of voice steadily rose. “And I was one of the top ranked Betas before you got
back. That counts for something, I think!”

“Hey,
settle down. Why are you getting upset?”

“Who’s
upset?” she practically yelled. “I’m not!”

Not
knowing what to say, Sammy started putting away the board game. How could he
tell Jeffie that he had no intention of putting her on his team? Despite the
fact it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with him didn’t matter.
She’d likely blow up and avoid speaking to him for weeks or months. Like she’d
done in the past … three times.

“More
than one mission is going to happen,” he finally told her as he hunted down the
game’s cards and stowed them away. “I’m sure you’ll be on one of the teams.”

“But
not yours?”

“I
didn’t say that.”

“You
didn’t have to.”

Sammy
stopped what he was doing so he could look at her. “What does it matter right
now? Nothing is happening yet. Stop worrying.”

“Aren’t
you listening? I
can’t
stop worrying!”

“Why?”
His frustrations mounted. He started slamming chairs back into place at the table,
feeling the darkness inside him rising. “How can I put you on a team when I
don’t even know what the teams are for yet? That’s what I keep trying to tell
you guys!”

Jeffie
quieted him by resting her hand on his. The anger inside him dissipated.

“Hey.”

He
looked at her, expecting to see his tough, fierce girlfriend, but instead finding
a lost, scared teenage girl.

“I
want to be on your team. Not Thomas’ or Gibbons’ or anyone else’s.”

“We’ve
never even been on a mission together, Jeffie. Rio, Omaha, Akureyri … even in
Orlando, I was in the building while you fought in the garage. What if we don’t
work well—?”

 “I
can’t do it again! I can’t be separated from you. Maybe it comes across as
being needy or clingy, but fine! I’m needy right now. I’m clingy. When I think
about being apart from you for more than a day, I start shaking and freaking
out. I would rather follow you into hell itself than be stuck here waiting to
find out if you’ve survived another mission. Okay? I’m through with that crap
for good.”

Sammy
took a long sip of water to stall for time while he tried to think of an
answer. “I—I can’t promise anything, Jeffie. I don’t know what—”

“Bullcrap.”

“It’s
not.”

“Who
is the smartest person in this camp?” Jeffie leaned in close and tapped the
table with her finger. “You. Who is Thomas Byron going to listen to above
anyone else?” She tapped the table again. “You. If you want me to go with you
on the mission, who can make it happen?” She tapped a third time.

“You
don’t know that.” He said this even though he knew she was right. Worse,
she
knew she was right.

Her
frown deepened, her forehead lined with wrinkles. “I—I get the feeling you
don’t want me on your team. Or maybe you’re blocking me. I don’t know why I
think it, but I do.”

Sammy
noted her nostrils flaring again. She did know why he didn’t want her on the
team. Or at least she believed she did. “Wouldn’t you rather be here where it’s
safe? Why do you and the others have this need to rush into battle? Haven’t you
experienced enough? Because I have!”

“Did
you listen to what I just said?”

“Yes—”

“I
don’t want to be apart from you! I don’t care if it puts me in danger. You’re
all I have! You’re what I care about.” She glanced down at the table. Her face
and neck reddened. “Is this—is this because I got shot when no one else did?
Back in the garage in Orlando?”

“What?”

“It
is, isn’t it? You don’t think I can handle myself.”

“Jeffie,
of course I trust you. I’ve been shot far more times than you. Heck, I’ve been
shot in almost every battle I’ve been in. Maybe you shouldn’t trust me!”

Despite
his little joke, Jeffie’s expression stayed utterly serious. “Then what is it?
Why am I getting this feeling that you don’t want me on your team?”

“I
don’t know,” Sammy said, but immediately Jeffie looked him in the eye,
challenging him. “I’m—it isn’t about trust. Believe me.”