Psion Gamma (21 page)

Wrobel held an automatic rifle in one hand and a handkerchief in the other to cover his nose. The water he trudged through was murky and thick. Each step seemed to stir up new scents that assaulted his nose, even through the fabric stuffed up his nostrils. The moon above sent only the most fragile rays of illumination down through the storm drains. Lights adorned both Wrobel’s and Claire’s automatic rifles.

 “You’re such a silver spooner,” Claire told him. “Probably the only soldier on earth who walks into a potentially deadly situation with a handkerchief over his nose.”

“That’s what you like about me,” he retorted. “My quirks.”

He flashed her a grin and she laughed at him. They pressed deeper into the sewer for another hundred yards until they heard some small sounds, like paper being rubbed against the wall. Claire put her hand on his chest to stop him. When he looked at her, she tapped her ear and pointed ahead. Wrobel nodded.

“This is a rescue party for a group of refugees seeking political asylum with the NWG!” Wrobel announced. “We are carrying deadly force. Please reveal yourselves!”

He exchanged a glance with Claire, knowing his face looked as worried as hers. Neither Psion had been in battle before, and neither knew exactly what to expect.

Byron buzzed in over the radio. “Move in on three and four’s position for reinforcement.”

A pair of hands appeared around a corner that Wrobel could now just make out with his light. In the distance, maybe thirty yards away, was a small alcove. Wrobel and Claire started forward.

“We’re coming to you!”

As they drew closer, Wrobel saw a small crowd of people, almost thirty in total, hunkered down together, squeezed into a space no larger than a modest bedroom. They were a dirty, haggard, miserable looking bunch. The hands belonged to a man of about twenty-five with fair blond hair. With his unsteady hands, he grasped Wrobel’s shoulders.

“Thank you,” he said. “God bless you. We’ve been down here almost a week. Our food is about gone. The women have gotten most of it. My wife—she’s pregnant. Help us. Can you help us?”

“We’re going to do everything we can,” Claire told him. “We can get all of you out of here today.”

A woman and man in the back started to cry along with exclamations of gratitude from the rest of the bunch. From behind, more of the team came sloshing through the water. Byron and Emily were the first to reach them.

Walter spoke into his radio. “Have you got a fix on our position? Good. What is the closest you can get? Copy that.” Byron shook hands with the same man who’d spoken to Wrobel. “Are you Robert Reynolds?”

The man nodded. “We weren’t sure anyone was coming. I sent that message over a month ago to the embassy.”

“We have got to get moving,” Byron told the team. “Transport cruiser will land one block east behind that closed school. One through four stay here and keep watch. Five, six, and seven escort them up the nearest ladder to the cruiser.”

The voices disappeared as Commander Wrobel relived the rest of that day in the sewer. He punched in the number and waited.

“Hello?” a female voice answered before he’d had a chance to mentally prepare himself for the conversation.

No image appeared on the screen, which meant the Queen chose to block it. His own image wasn’t visible either. Her voice was soft, ageless in quality. She might be twenty, might be fifty, he couldn’t tell. It carried a sweet, sultry undertone that he instantly found attractive.

“Hello, this is—”

“I already know. I hoped you’d call.”

He found himself able to relax. Listening to her voice was like watching his mother knit in her rocking chair in front of the fireplace.

“And you know why I’m calling?”

“I do.” He heard a touch of humor in her voice. “There’s been a lot of talk . . . not about you—not all about you. You are connected to Rio, though, right?”

Wrobel rubbed his lip while his free hand scratched an itch on his thigh. “The Rio incident is complicated. Talk is talk, right?”

“Maybe,” she answered, still with that humor in her voice. “It depends who’s talking.”

“Apparently the fox has put me in charge of this. I need help.”

Not her
, a voice told him.
She’s not the answer to this problem. Why are you doing this, Victor?

He closed his eyes and pictured Claire. Her Psion uniform torn to shreds. Bullet holes in her back. Streams of blood curling and uncurling in swirls of filthy water under the light of his gun. It gave him all the resolve he needed.

“Give me details. I’ve been bored.”

March 5, 2086

S
WEATY AND TIRED
, Jeffie emerged from her sims with a lukewarm shower and dinner on her mind. Anything to get her thoughts off Advanced Combat. As usual, she’d spent an extra half hour in the room before calling it quits. When she turned the corner of the hall, she saw a figure about ten meters away walking with his back to her. He was wearing stylish jeans and a fitted shirt. Jeffie didn’t recognize him, which made her suspicious. No one around here wore street clothes on a Tuesday.

“Hey!” she half-yelled down the hall. “Who are you?”

The young man turned to face her and smiled sheepishly. “Are you kidding? You don’t know me?”

When she heard his voice, the rest fell into place. “Kobe!” She ran forward and hugged him.

“How are you?” she asked. Already she could see that he looked better than those first weeks back from Rio, particularly in the eyes. That barely-contained rage was gone. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been mentally unglued. It bothered her a little that her chief reason for expressing concern about his well-being was to see if she should ask him about Sammy or not.

His hands stayed in his pockets. “I’m fine. Excited to meet the nukes.”

She stared at him expectantly.

“Really,” he insisted wearily. “I’m fine. Don’t I look fine? How are you?”

“I’m okay.” In reality she was very frustrated. Seeing Kobe helped defuse her emotions a little, but she had just spent several miserable hours having her butt kicked around by Thirteens in the sims. Her growing wrath at her inability to defeat two of them had begun to wear down her optimism. She reached up and wiped a trickle of sweat from her hairline.

“Been working hard?” Kobe asked, watching her hand move.

Jeffie didn’t answer right away. She was wondering why Kobe looked so different. They’d known each other for a year, even dated briefly, but now she saw a whole new side of him she’d never seen before.

“Sims,” she told him.

“Yeah, I kind of figured since you came out of the sim room all sweaty-like.”

She laughed. It was nice to see a bit of his old sarcasm again. “Couldn’t pull one over you. Not that I was trying or anything.” Her hand jerked for a second, rather awkwardly. She almost playfully punched him but realized that would have been border-line flirting. With Kobe, that always came so naturally.

“No, don’t take the credit. I’m just quick.” He gave her a small smile, smaller than the old Kobe’s. “What unit are you working on?”

“In sims?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Two Thirteens.”

“Yikes. How long?”

“Just a week,” she answered with a phony, toothy smile.

“Not going well?”

She shook her head slowly, looking him in the eyes. “It would best be described as a thorough butt-kicking.”

The small glow that had come over him the last two minutes faded away. His eyes became distant and haunted. She decided it would be tactless to push him for information about Sammy right now.

“You okay, Kobe?”

“You already asked me that,” he said. “I’m fine . . . not lying, either,” he added the last part because of the doubtful look on her face. “My head is screwed on just the way it’s supposed to be.” With a small sigh, he added, “But I better get used to answering that question because everyone’s going to be asking me for the next month. Maybe I can get a recorder. Every time someone asks me, I can just push play: ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.’”

A small laugh came from Jeffie before she’d even realized it. She had not expected Kobe to talk about it. Perhaps he wasn’t as embarrassed as she thought. “Um . . . have you seen Kaden yet?” she asked.

“No. I’m on my way down now, but he knows I’m getting back today. It’s not like it’ll be a huge surprise or anything.”

“Well, it’s a surprise to me, at least. A good one.” She closed her eyes with an inward grimace.
What a stupid thing to say.

“Thanks.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and then he spoke up again, this time in a lower voice. “You know . . .” From his tone, Jeffie thought he was going to talk about Sammy. “The doctor I worked with at the hospital, he says I don’t share my feelings enough. I don’t confront awkwardness head on. It got me thinking. I never apologized for what I did back when—you know.” He shrugged his shoulders as if that somehow indicated exactly what he meant.

“What are you talking about?”

“When we were dating.”

“Oh.” The tape of them kissing. She hadn’t thought about that in a while. “Right. You never did.”

“Sorry, Jeffer.”

The word
Jeffer
caught her attention. While they’d dated, Kobe liked to play with her name. He called her all kinds of variations: Jeffanie, Jeffer, and Jeffing were just a few.

“No worries,” she told him with a dismissive hand.

Kobe took her by the arm and pulled her close so he could speak right into her ear. “Look, tell everyone not to treat me all weird or anything just because I went wacko. I’m fine now. I feel good. And I want to live normally again. Can you do that for me?”

“Sure.” It reminded her of when she’d broken her leg and everyone had showered their sympathies on her for the short time she wore a cast. She’d hated it.

He let go of her arm and smiled as they pulled apart. “Are you going down to the cafeteria for dinner?”

“Shower first. Then dinner.”

They walked down the stairs and Kobe stopped just before they reached the cafeteria. “I know you want to talk about Sammy.”

Twice during the first weeks after Rio, she’d tried to talk to him. Both times he would not have it. He changed the subject very abruptly and, after the second time, began avoiding her. She wanted so badly to hear from him what had happened. After all, Kobe had been with Sammy until the end.

Jeffie opened her mouth to protest that she hadn’t thought about it, but Kobe pushed on.

“And I will tell you about what happened. I just need time. You know?”

“Yeah, sure. No worries.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“Meanwhile, if you want to do some gaming like we used to, let me know.”

Jeffie froze at his request, knowing he was casually dropping an invitation to formally hang out. Without thinking, she blurted another “sure” and hurried to the showers.

After cleaning up, she went to the cafeteria and ordered a Mexican salad from the Robochef. The large room was quiet, which was nice. Most of the Betas were hanging out in the rec room, probably talking to Kobe. He’d been missed. Kaden, Ludwig, and Miguel had spent the better part of the last several weeks moping around. Hefani sat in the far corner of the room with Antonio eating a pizza. Jeffie tried not to look at Hefani, he still reminded her too much of Sammy.

When she’d almost finished her salad, Brickert came in and sat next to her.

“Hey,” he said breathlessly and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. “Almost. Not kidding. I almost beat that stupid sim today. Once. Then every time after that, I sucked it up. I’ll tell you, if I’d been a mop, the sim room would be spotless.”

Jeffie smiled at the way Brickert could just joke it off, even though she knew his frustration rivaled hers. After talking to several of the older girls, Jeffie had come to the conclusion that everyone got to this point around their one year mark. Advanced combat training. Some arrived a little before, others a little after. Kawai was about as far as Jeffie and Brickert. Natalia, however, had slipped behind their group, and was still struggling with Weapons and Demolition.

“What about you?” Brickert asked. “Anything new happen today?”

Jeffie shook her head as she scraped up her leftover dressing onto some lettuce. “Oh wait, duh, Kobe’s back.”

Brickert didn’t seem to care one way or another. “Did you see him, or did someone tell you?”

“I saw him less than an hour ago. I’m pretty sure the commander brought him.”

Brickert reached passed her and stole her glass of water. After taking a long drink, he set it back. “Thanks.”

Jeffie crinkled her nose. “Gross. Keep it.”

“Double thanks.” After another drink, he wiped his lips. “I want to talk to Byron.”

“About what?”

“Sammy’s recordings.”

She put down her fork and folded her arms. It was something her mother would do, but she didn’t let that stop her. Brickert noticed the gesture and put his hands up in defense.

“You don’t have to come with me. I’ve made up my mind.”

The firm tone in Brickert’s voice took Jeffie by surprise. It also made her angry. She wasn’t used to Brickert standing up to her.

“I know I don’t have to come with you,” she replied, “and I have a reason for it if you’ll just listen to me.”

Red spots appeared on her friend’s cheeks and his attention was on the glass of water sitting in front of him. “No, you don’t,” he blurted.

“Excuse me?”

He still couldn’t look her in the eye. “You don’t have a reason, Jeffie. Not a good one, I’ll tell you. I mean, think about it. What are you going to say? That Sammy wouldn’t want us to learn from his recordings? I know he would. I know him better than anyone.”

“That’s crap, Brickert.”

He glanced up at her and then back to the table. “It’s not. We’ve already talked about this. You said what you wanted to say. It’s not crap.”

“It is!” Jeffie said loud enough that Hefani and Antonio looked over from across the room to see where the commotion was coming from.

“Why do you think Sammy volunteered his time to teach Al in the sims? Why do you think he spent so much time going over his own recordings? He didn’t just want to be the best, he wanted to show everyone what was possible. He told me exactly that!”

Jeffie stood up and looked down at Brickert. “Don’t act like you know what he’d want just because you roomed with him.”

“If he were here now, he’d be going into the sims to help us, I’ll tell you. At first, it was about the competition to him. Being number one in everything. Later on, it was all about the war. He was so excited when he beat the four Thirteen sim because it meant that other people would start believing they stood a better chance against the Thirteens than before. If he could do it, anyone could. But if you’re too afraid to go in there and—”

“Don’t tell me I’m afraid!” Her warning was low and menacing.

Brickert stood up, too. His expression was both fearful and defiant. “You are. Okay? You’re afraid. I can tell.”

Jeffie tried to interrupt him again, but all that came out was an incoherent sound of disbelief.

“I don’t know what your problem is, Jeffie. I thought you’d be in on this with me. You and I promised each other we wouldn’t give up until we beat the four Thirteen sim. Remember? To do that, I need his help.”

Without another word, he took his exit, leaving Jeffie wondering who had just flipped the universe on its head. She pushed her salad away and put her head in her hands. It was then that she noticed the room had gone silent, and when she looked up she saw Antonio and Hefani watching her from across the room. They instantly went back to talking when she saw them, but all this did was infuriate her more, so she got up and left.