Psion Delta (27 page)

“I
did,” she hissed back.

“The
fight lasted less than five minutes.”

“I
tried—it was an accident! What am I supposed to do when you give me someone so
stupid and bullish?”

“You
can start by losing your next fight.”

Katie
let out a string of curse words telling Schuller exactly what he could do with
that idea.

Schuller’s
blue eyes behind thin frames glared back at her angrily.

“No.”
She stopped and faced Schuller. “I’m not going to lose.”

“You’re
going to be a quiet favorite now because you are a novelty. If you don’t lose,
I’ll pull you from the fights.”

Katie
puffed violently through her nose. Schuller said no more to her, and when the
cuffs came off, she kicked her bed and the wall until the rage dissipated.
Things were not going to be as simple as she’d believed.

Her
next fight came four weeks later. During that time, word spread among the
inmates that a female had joined the ranks of the fighters. She spent the
majority of those weeks ignoring the catcalls and taunts of other inmates. It
wasn’t difficult. She was too busy mulling over her own fight with Red Cap and
pondering over what she would do when the next one came.

Win
or lose?

At
breakfast, taped under her plate, she received the name of her opponent:
Hervins. Apparently he’d gotten her name, too. That same hour, she started
hearing a new voice eerily haunting the concourse. “Carrrrpenterrrr!” his voice
sang. “Hey Carpenter! They say you’re a girl, but I bet you’re really just a
fat chump who needs to see how a real man fights. . . and I’m ready for ya. I’m
readeeeee!”

Then
from somewhere farther down the hall came a response: “Hervins, you sore you
lost last time?”

“Guards
said I won fairrrrr and sssssquare!” He laughed like a hyena and all went quiet
for a time. It wasn’t an hour later before the jeering renewed.

By
the time lunch came through her bean slot, Katie had made her decision. Hervins
was going to lose.

The
scene on the grounds hadn’t changed much since her first fight. If anything,
more guards and suits had gathered to watch than the last time. She amused
herself by pretending that they all wanted to see if she’d win again. It wasn’t
Schuller who escorted Katie out this time, and she was grateful to not have to
listen to his constant instructions. She now had a plan and it rested on one
key idea: entertain. Schuller was in the crowd, standing out in his Elite
uniform and massive size. His blue eyes, framed in glasses, locked onto her and
followed her through the yard.

Bet
on me or lose your money.

From
a glimpse, Katie saw Hervins was bigger and stronger than Red Cap. His dark
smirk also told her much about his confidence, but she wasn’t worried. Her
transformation had given her greater strength than what her body would normally
allow. For now, she resumed acting the part of the scared nineteen-year-old
girl who would emerge from her fragile cocoon during the fight and give Hervins
the beating of his life. All eyes were on her as they took their places.
Hervins leered at her, his twisted lips forming a kiss, then rubbed his groin
lewdly.

The
whistle blew. More voices cheered Katie’s name this time than before, but
Hervins seemed to have the lion’s share of the crowd’s support. Hervins sent a
vicious punch to her face, which Katie allowed, knocking her back. She did not
feel the pain, but the swelling was immediately noticeable under her eye.
Oohs
came from the crowd as she hit the ground hard. Hervins rushed to force her
into submission, but she kicked one of his legs out from under him and barely
missed a follow-up kick to his groin.

Hervins
landed on top of her, trying to land blows to her head. Katie pounded away at
his ribs with drum punches, back and forth, back and forth. She knew she could
not show off all her strength without invoking pity for her opponent, so she
allowed him to get in a few blows. He groaned as two of his ribs cracked on
each side, and his blows to her face grew more and more pathetic. She heaved
him off and stood.

Entertain
them. Entertain them.

Her
face was sore and puffy. Blood oozed down her cheek, feeling cold and hot at
the same time. Hervins was much slower to get up. His air of superiority had
vanished. Breaths came in great gasps, each accompanied with strained
expressions of anguish. As she walked toward him, he reacted by circling,
shuffling his feet somewhat clumsily. Katie mused over how long he would hold
out before submitting to a girl.

More
cheers for her decorated the air, filling it like confetti at a carnival. She
darted in, and Hervins jerked back, then countered. Katie sidestepped the
punch, grabbed his wrist, and spun him around. Once he was in her clutches, she
wrapped her left arm around his neck to steady his head and dodged two
missile-like drum punches—the last of Hervins’ ammunition. Then she began to
hammer at his face with her free fist.

The
crowd of men, supposedly her superiors, reached a feverous roar as they watched
her strike over and over again at the helpless man. Even after the bones in her
hand broke she continued to punch until finally the whistle blew and she let go
of Hervins so he could fall to the ground, a bruised mess. For the coup de
grace she turned to the nearest suit, showed him her best nineteen-year-old
smile, and winked. The men went crazy, and Katie knew she would be back,
probably even sooner next time.

She
was wrong.

That
night, she visited the infirmary where a doctor put her hand in a cast while
four guards watched over her. When she returned to her cell, Schuller was
inside sitting on her cot, waiting. Leaving her arms and legs shackled, the
other guards left and closed the cell door behind them. Katie kept her eyes
trained on Schuller, blinking as little as possible. She wanted him to know
that she did not fear him.

“I
like you on your knees. It’s where you belong.”
The agony that hit her
was nothing short of hell. Schuller seemed determined to let her know how much
pain could flow from her collar. Indeterminable time and unquantifiable pain
was all she knew. When it was over, Schuller got down onto the floor beside
her. The cloth of his pants over his knees soaked up her urine as he whispered,
“I will never forget this.”

Katie
watched him leave.
Neither will I.

It
took six weeks for her bones to fully heal after defeating Hervins. Two weeks
after the doctors gave her approval to fight, Katie fought again and won. A few
weeks later, she won a fourth time. The fights continued to come as she
cemented her reputation as an attractive and entertaining combatant. She
measured time now by the length of days and weeks between fights. In this way
the months and years went by.

Gradually,
the world of prison fighting unfolded itself to her. As Schuller had predicted,
Katie did not use her wins for pleasurable company. For her first three wins
she asked for larger portions of food for the week. They came. Then she got
more creative, gradually asking for better favors. For the fourth and fifth
wins she asked for a manicure and a makeover. The guards teased her, but they
complied. She knew it was only a matter of time before she could ask for
something that would give her an opportunity at freedom. So long as she stayed
watchful, vigilant, and remembered that it wasn’t about the fights, but the escape,
her chance would arise.

After
her twelfth win, talk began of arranging a title bout. For her twelfth victory,
she was granted a shave of her legs and armpits by one of the nurses in the
infirmary. Katie decided she would ask for shaves after every couple of fights
so she could be near a razor blade regularly. Katie looked forward to the
fights more than anything she had ever known. The thrill of a crowd’s voice and
hands making noise in support of her, no matter how small the crowd, compared
to nothing. They worshipped her, even if for only a few moments—that was the
ultimate euphoria. Even blood bursting from skin and bones yielding to her will
did not bring her the same satisfaction that the crowd did.

A
little over two years after the day she arrived at the Ultramax prison, Katie
got her shot at the prison’s top dog. From what she picked up from guards and
other inmates, she’d beaten roughly a third of the pool of fighters. In only
two of them had she been seriously challenged. Yet no one seemed to think she
had a chance at beating the champion. All they said was, “You deserve a shot.”

Leviathan.

That
was what they called him. Levi Nathan Buckner was his real name. He rarely
fought now because he had never been contested since his incarceration at
Ultramax. It did not matter to Katie. She wanted a chance—she needed to beat
him. In her mind she associated winning the title with the perfect chance to
escape because somehow the two euphoric moments were intertwined. She did not
delude herself into thinking that they would let her walk if she won, but
somehow . . . if one happened, so would the other.

Even
in an isolated prison cell, she sensed the excitement growing among inmates and
guards. A battle between two supposedly unbeatable forces billowed on the horizon
like a pair of massive thunderstorms vying for one location. Eating became a
chore that she did solely to maintain her strength. She slept fitfully and
dreamt about nothing but the fight.

Mental
images of Leviathan metamorphosed in her mind, starting as a colossal man and
evolving into a monstrous beast that towered over her like an ancient mountain.
She reminded herself that no one could be so impossibly large, so he
transformed again, this time into a beastlike creature covered in fur and
claws.

She
refused to open her bean hole that day. Several of the inmates she’d beaten
kept up a steady stream of vulgar threats about what Leviathan would do to her
body once he killed her. Sometimes the inmates whose cells were too far away
telephoned their taunts and messages across the prison via other inmates. No
word nor message came from Leviathan. Perhaps he wasn’t near enough to taunt
her directly. She didn’t know why, but she found it very curious.

Kosco
and Meacham escorted her to the grounds. The other inmates knew what was
happening and showed their enthusiasm by banging on their cell doors with
dinner spoons. As the guards led her down the concourse, the sound of tapping
and shouting filled the air. When she reached the yard, Schuller stood at the
gate waiting for her. Displaying a cold grin, he grabbed her shoulders and
stared at her, then held her chin between his finger and thumb to examine her
face.

“I
want to remember exactly how you looked before you fought Leviathan. You’re
twenty-one now, right?”

Katie
didn’t answer.
You know exactly how old I am.

“I
imagine no one ever told you that the guy waiting out there is an anomaly like
you. Only instead of being a psychotic freak, he’s a genius. Remember that when
he’s stomping your face into the ground.”

Then
the guards pushed her onward.

Her
heart beat faster with each step she took through the gates. Was it fear?
Nervousness? Anxiety? She wasn’t certain which emotion she felt, but the
foreign sensation was delicious to her brain that so rarely produced anything
other than anger and bloodlust. She hadn’t felt so alive in years. Every
movement she made reverberated through her body, compounding the energy
building within her. When the guards opened the doors to the grounds, she was
ready to explode.

The
yard was teeming with people. Katie wondered how such activities could be
witnessed by so many people, but never reported. Some of the guards and suits
were filming the fight, aided by the large spotlights on the guard towers. At
least thirty inmates had been brought out to witness the fight, probably using
their reward to attend. Each one was shackled and accompanied by an armed
guard. She stared into dozens of faces as the sea of people parted to allow her
passage.

But
all of these details became quite insignificant when she saw Leviathan.

18.
Akureyri

Wednesday July 24, 2086

After
almost a
week of training with Charlie Squadron, Sammy felt more
assured that he’d made the right decision to graduate to Alpha. Everything he
did, besides eating and sleeping, prepared him for the upcoming mission. No one
in Charlie fought about who was a better gamer. No one cared about who was
dating whom. Everyone around him was mature. The last time he’d prepped for a
mission, he’d worried half the time why Jeffie was acting so strangely around
him or whether Kobe would have his back if push came to shove. Now he didn’t
have those distractions and he loved it.

One
trick he’d already learned at Alpha headquarters was how to use a gun ring. The
gun ring was a small metal loop attached to the grip of a Psion’s guns that the
middle finger slipped into like a second trigger ring. This second ring allowed
the wielder of the gun to switch from shooting to blasting without having to
holster a weapon. Anna had made him practice over and over, firing with his
finger in the ring, then immediately going into hand blasts with the gun
hanging over the backside of his hand, then flipping the gun back into firing
mode. It was a delicate maneuver, but essential for a Psion who wanted to
master hand-to-gun combat.

The
morning of departure, Al knocked on the door to Sammy’s unit. Sammy had
finished dressing and packing his clothes. As instructed, he also brought an
empty duffle bag for his gear.

“Ready?”
Al asked. “We gotta go now to keep schedule.”

Sammy
jumped down the steps and followed. “Where is it we’re going again?”

“Outfitting,”
Al said, leading Sammy across one of the courtyards in the housing center.

“Yeah,
I know that, but where’s outfitting?”

“Downstairs.”

Sammy
thought Al was joking with him, so he played along. “Right. I guess I must have
missed it on the way up.”

Al
laughed. “You didn’t miss it, Sammy. When I say downstairs, I mean way,” he
pointed to the ground they walked on, “way, way downstairs.” They stopped in
the middle of the courtyard where a simple shed stood. Sammy had always thought
this was a storage facility for the grounds keepers.

“Open,”
Al said, and the door obeyed. Inside was a riding lawn mower. It took up the
space of half the shed. On the other half was a small cement staircase that
went up about four steps to a flat platform of steel flooring. Al stood on the
steel platform and put his hand on a small panel attached to the wall. The
panel lit up and scanned Al’s hand.

“State
your name and purpose,” a female voice requested from the panel.

“Albert
Hayman Byron. Outfitting for mission one-three-five-three-one.”

“Access
granted.”

The
panel went dead and the steel flooring dropped down in halves. Sammy stared
down below and saw nothing.

Al
saluted Sammy with a dramatic sincerity. “Cheers.” Then he jumped into the
abyss and disappeared out of sight.

Sammy
watched in mild shock. Then, with a gulp, he followed.

He
fell down a dark shaft. He fell longer than he’d ever fallen. In the blackness,
his body quickly became disoriented. A powerful blast of air rushed up at him,
slowing him at first, then cushioning him until he’d stopped completely.

Al
waited for him. “Fun, huh? Those are actually cheaper and safer than elevators.
This way.
You’re not going to believe all the cool stuff they’ve got
down here
.”

They
walked into a huge underground warehouse of stone walls and concrete floor.
Dozens of long shelves filled one section of the warehouse. On the shelves were
hundreds of clear, plastic containers, each containing a different weapon or
piece of equipment. Farther down the warehouse was a shooting range.

Al
pointed to the shelves. “Find whatever weapons you want to try. Your thumbprint
unlocks the casings. Go to the desk to request ammo, clothes, explosives, gear,
all that stuff. You can try anything out at the range, even the explosives if
you have the demolitionist with you. But you don’t need to worry about
explosives right now. Wait until you have some more field experience. Usually
all I carry is small concealable weapons, but for this mission, since we’re
going hunting, we can take the good stuff.”

Sammy
grinned mischievously.

“So
what do you want to try?”

Sammy
walked down two aisles of guns, laughing to himself. Seeing all the weapons of
destruction stirred up a bit of the darker part of him. The part Stripe had
awakened.
So many guns
. The choice wasn’t easy. He’d killed more enemies
with knives and nail guns than any real hardware. Perhaps Al sensed that his
friend was overwhelmed because he put a hand on Sammy’s shoulder.

“Let
me show you all the weapons you’ve already trained with at headquarters. Do you
remember which ones you liked better?”

“Not
really. No one said I had to decide on a favorite.”

“That’s
okay. I’ll offer suggestions.”

They
spent the next half hour looking at guns while other members of Charlie
Squadron came in and out, grabbing what they needed. Sammy would have spent all
day in the warehouse if Anna hadn’t started following them around, hinting that
they needed to leave shortly. He ended up choosing a hunting knife, an assault
syshée, and a handgun with tranquilizer darts. At the ammo desk, an old man
with a twitchy gray moustache shot Sammy several skeptical glances before
jotting down the orders and returning with magazines and rounds.

“You
know how to load those?” he asked. “You even know what they’re called? How old
are you, boy?”

Al
helped Sammy load his large, Alpha-emblazoned gear bag. “Relax, Josephus.
You’re looking at a wunderkind here!”

The
second Sammy had finished packing his gear, Anna announced, “Charlie Squadron,
head to the hangar. Move it!”

“Outfitting
is connected to the hangar via that tunnel,” Al said, pointing to a large metal
gate slowly raising itself to reveal a well-lit passage of more concrete and
steel.

The
squadron flew in two cruisers, each piloted by one of the Elite. Anna told
Sammy that this was because Elite were the best trained pilots. Sammy sat
between Justice Juraschek and Anna. Justice was one of the two Tensais.

“So
you’ve got Eleven, too, eh?” Justice asked. “Pretty crazy. I haven’t heard of
anyone besides you with a double Anomaly. Have you?”

Sammy
shook his head.

“How
old were you when you first
saw
?”

Sammy
blinked and looked at Justice properly for the first time. “What did you say?
What did you call it?”

Justice
smiled and adjusted the glasses perched on his nose. He wore thick round frames
of solid blue that didn’t match his Alpha suit and pointed dark reddish-brown
hair. Sammy guessed Justice couldn’t be past his early twenties, one of the
youngest members of the crew.

“That’s
what most Tensais call it . . . seeing.”

“That’s
what I call it, too!”

“Is
there any other way to describe it?” Justice adjusted his glasses again. “I
read a psychological report on optical nerve transplant patients. Wild stuff.
The way they described seeing for the first time is exactly how I felt when my
anomaly began.”

“I
was playing chess when it happened to me,” Sammy told him.

“Really?
Wild. I was taking a chemistry exam. You might call me a late bloomer. I was
sixteen and hadn’t studied a lick for the test. So there I was, sitting at my
desk staring at a stoichiometry problem set—stoichiometry—can you believe that?
Of all the things. . . . My teacher had to nudge me awake because I’d been up all
night chatting with Veruka Mable. Beautiful girl. Very,
very
—anyway—I
looked down at the paper and jotted down the answer without even thinking. Then
the next one and the next one and the next. Before I knew it, I’d finished the
test. It hadn’t even hit me what I’d done! My teacher handed me back the test
and asked me to show how I reached my solutions. I shoved it back at him and
said, ‘If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate!’”
Justice waited for Sammy to laugh, but Sammy didn’t get the joke. “Yeah, well,
I got detention for that, but by the end of the semester, my chemistry teacher
was asking me to proofread his exams!”

Sammy
did laugh at that.

“But
I hate chemistry. Boring. Thankfully, there’s lots of Tensais who love filling
up chalkboards and notebooks with equations. They love telling nerd jokes. Um .
. . let me think here. Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by
police. The police says, ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ Heisenberg
replies, ‘No, but I know where I am.’”

Justice
held out his hands at the punch line, waiting for Sammy’s response. When Sammy
didn’t even smile, the Tensai said, “Yeah, I don’t see how that’s funny,
either. They do. Me, putting bullets and fists into Thirteens. That’s what I
do.”

Justice
talked to Sammy the entire way to Akureyri. Al glanced back occasionally with a
knowing grin. It wasn’t a long ride, but it felt a little longer as Justice
kept telling chemistry jokes even though he claimed to hate the subject. Sammy
tried to laugh, but wasn’t always able to muster up the mirth with his thoughts
lingering on the mission.

Dinsmore
and Kolomiyets, two of the Elite squadron members, dropped the teams off at
their designated points. The ground teams had far more gear than the other teams,
but that made sense to Sammy. They had to cover their territory while living in
the outdoors until the mission was accomplished or aborted. Sammy, Justice, and
Nikotai were the last to be deployed. Their station to watch over the harbor
was on the roof of a hotel that overlooked the bay. However, the government had
booked them the penthouse suite on the top floor for easy access.

Justice
let out a cheer when he saw their suite. “Isn’t this wild? I love working for
the government!”

Large
bay windows made up the northeast wall that gave them a great view of the
harbor. The furnishings were all of the highest quality, and a fire had already
been built in the fireplace to welcome them.

“Sammy,
you don’t have to join Al and the other teams. Just stay here and enjoy your
mission!” Justice joked.

It
took over two hours to set up and test all the equipment that Justice and Wang
had brought with them. Telescopes, computers, radios, long-range sensors, and a
chess set were some of the items Sammy noticed while he helped by running wires
out the window and up the side of the building to where Nikotai waited on the
roof station. They tuned three radios to the same frequencies as their coms.
This way, they need not wear their coms at all times to hear what other squad members
were saying.

Nikotai
kept mostly to himself. He spoke softly, said what needed saying, and then went
silent again. Sammy found this a little odd because Toad, who had also been an
Ultra, hadn’t been able to keep quiet. When Sammy and Justice finished setting
up their station, Nikotai took first watch while the other two played a game of
chess. Sammy hadn’t played in months and was anxious to see how he’d do against
another Tensai.

As
Justice moved his first pawn, Sammy noticed that the skin on the Tensai’s right
arm shined abnormally. “Is that bionic?”

“Yeah,
you like that?” Justice held up the arm with a wink.

“What
happened?”

“Thirteens,
what else? I was on a reconnaissance mission in L.A. with my former squadron.
Thirteens caught us and did what they do best. But don’t you worry. The other
guy lost more than his arm. So, anyway, back to the chess match. What do you
see when you look at the board?”

Sammy
wasn’t sure what Justice meant, so he ignored the question and focused on his
next move. Knight to C3.