Psion Gamma (35 page)

Brickert rolled onto his side. “You’re extremely funny, Jeffie. Go away.”

Jeffie grinned at her own joke, glad he would still speak to her. “If you’re mad at me, why’d you go at Kobe?”

 “It’s wrong to hit a girl.” Brickert snorted at his own comment and mumbled, “Come on, you know why.”

When Jeffie had sent the text to Byron, she’d thought she knew what Brickert needed to hear. Now, sitting with her friend, she sensed a wide rift between them, punctuated by her loss for words. She knew it had to do with the same subject that Kaden had just asked her about. Her body tensed, and she hoped Brickert would say more. Finally, he did.

It came in a quiet question—almost a whisper. He still didn’t look at her, preferring to stare straight up at the white ceiling. “Do you still think Sammy’s alive?”

Jeffie couldn’t believe he asked her the same question. However, she was more prepared for it this time. “I used to have dreams about him being alive. I used to think I’d see him in the mornings, and that him being gone was a nightmare. Those have all stopped now.”

Brickert shuffled his body slightly. Even in little movements like that, his body language indicated how upset he was with her.

“I want to, Brickert!” she added quickly and perhaps even less truthfully than she realized. “Part of me wants to never let go. I—I guess part of me also wants to let go. I’m tired of waiting.” Hearing the frustration and resentment and fatigue in own her voice surprised her. Some of this she directed at herself, but some she directed at Sammy, too. In a way—and she’d never voice it to Brickert—she wished she’d never met Sammy because that would mean never going through any of this drama.

“Like it would have been so hard for God to have just let Al and them find—or even see—his dead body so we could know for sure! Right, Brickert? I mean, he—he never even had a real funeral!” She stopped before her emotions ran too high for her to control.

Brickert finally turned over and faced her. His eyes stared hard into hers. Something passed between them, Jeffie did not know what, she would have called it a ball of invisible light if she had to give it a name. The invisible light went deep down inside her soul and warmed her. When Brickert closed his eyes the connection was broken, but something stronger stayed inside of her.

“Just have faith, Jeffie,” he told her softly.

Jeffie put her hand on his arm and he opened his eyes again. In them, Jeffie saw that Brickert did not just believe Sammy was alive. He knew Sammy was alive. Somehow, he knew it.

“What did you say?” she asked.

April 28, 2086

S
AMMY WAS BORED OUT OF HIS MIND
. He’d spent almost a week sitting next to Thomas Byron in one of the towers of the Palace, huddled over a table with a pen in his hand, a piece of paper in front of him, and wearing a pair of earphones. Surrounding him in the cramped room, packing almost every spare centimeter of space, stood more surveillance and recording machines than even Thomas had a name for. Right now Sammy was listening to two women discussing plans for their children’s playgroup.

“I don’t mind if Lissa brings Ethan, but he’s a scratcher,” the woman named Nanette said. Her voice sounded like her nose was pinched, and it grinded on Sammy’s nerves. He’d been listening to her for over ten minutes.

“You’re right, he is a scratcher. Last time he drew blood on Suzette’s cheek!” her friend, Dana, complained. “She’s thirteen months old, for crying out loud! She can’t defend herself. And Lissa doesn’t do anything about it.”

“She thinks it’s just a phase. Lana had the gall to agree with her.”

“Well, at least Kinsie’s not coming,” Dana said. “Do you want to know what Jill and Charlene call her?”

“Let’s hear it.”

“The Kinsanator!”

The two women screeched into the phone so loud Sammy jumped in his chair.

“Everything okay, Sammy?” Thomas asked.

Sammy pulled off his headphones and rubbed his aching ears. “Fine. Just loud.”

Thomas took off his own headphones and looked at his watch. “The others will be back from lunch soon. We’ll go then. You’re used to all the excitement of fighting. Not the boring work. This is where intel comes from.”

“I know,” Sammy grumbled. “Believe me, I’ve been told it before.”

Thomas chuckled with his whole body. Sammy glanced up at the transmission signal, which now showed three red lights. Nanette had finally hung up with Dana.

“So, how are you faring, Sammy? We never really spoke about your therapy. Well, Dr. Vogt said I wasn’t supposed to talk about it while it was going on. He never said if I could bring it up now that y’all are done with it.”

Sammy shrugged casually. He had wondered how long it would take to get to this question.

“When you first got here, you seemed, well, out of it.”

“I don’t know. I’m okay. Better than I was.”

“But still not yourself?” Thomas asked.

Sammy shook his head.

“Well, give it time. From what Toad told me, you’ve been through fire and brimstone,” he said with a grandfatherly air. “You must be a real strong boy. I’m sure Walter saw that, too.”

“Um—thanks.” Sammy looked away while trying to think of a new subject to discuss. “So, why aren’t we picking up anything from the Thirteens?”

“It’s like sifting sand for gold,” Thomas frowned at the transmission signal. “You might be sifting in the right place, but it takes time even to find a few small kernels.”

“How does all this stuff work?”

“Well, we recruited this new lady, Darnee—Marnee—yeah, Marnee . . . or something like that. She’s been working in the communications field all her life. When we located a Thirteen cell, we started planting taps on the nearest BSCs.”

He saw Sammy’s puzzled expression and smiled as if he had been trying to confuse him. “Sorry, but you should see your face when you don’t understand something. It’s the funniest thing. I can tell you’re not used to it. When you make a call from a com, it goes to a tower and from there to a big box called a Base Station Controller or BSC. That’s the box that does the thinking for the whole system. Marnee, or whatever her name is, has been putting transmitters in these BSCs and the transmitters send us copies of the signals.”

“That’s a whole lot of calls, right?”

“No, the transmitters are wired in. They listen for a big list of pertinent words. ‘Thirteen’, ‘NWG’, ‘attack’, stuff like that. Even your name is on there now. If something hits, we pick it up and keep the data file.”

Thomas’s excitement was visible even in the dim lighting of the tower.

“And you’re sure we’re looking in the right place?” Sammy asked.

“We’ve known about the Thirteen building in Orlando for while. I’m pretty certain we can intercept their communications.”

“Do you know exactly where they’re—the cell is based?”

“We do now. Using Toad’s information about the building you were kept in, we looked for someone who owned a large office building in both cities. Bada-bing bada-boom! In fact, we’ve managed to locate seven Thirteen cells now. Well . . . seven unconfirmed cells. That’s a pretty big breakthrough, Sammy.”

“What’s the likelihood of us hearing anything?”

“Beats me. But at least we’re doing something useful.”

One of the three red lights turned green, and Sammy hurried to put his headphones back on.

“Hi, is Robbie there?” a girl’s voice asked.

“Just a second,” came an older, male voice.

There was a pause and a “Hello?”

“Hi Robbie, it’s Keira. Have you looked at our homework? Kaylin and I couldn’t figure out number thirteen—”

Sammy sighed and listened on. Minutes later he heard a conversation regarding a delayed order for thirteen hundred dollars worth of gym equipment.

They had another lull in calls. Sammy leaned back in his chair like a seasoned veteran and threw questions at Thomas about the resistance. He listened to a long narrative on the effectiveness of pigeon communication and how Crestan and Henrico were killed.

“So how did you get involved? When did you join?”

The bright and animated look on Thomas’s face that always accompanied his enthusiastic stories for the resistance melted away. Sammy instantly wished he hadn’t asked the question.

“‘For deeds undone rankle and snarl and hunger for their due’,” Thomas muttered solemnly, fiddling with his headset as he spoke. “‘Til there seems naught so despicable as you in all the grin of the sun.’”

Sammy had no idea what Thomas was talking about, and was about to ask him when Thomas put his headset back on and turned away.

“I’m getting something on here,” he said as he tapped on his earphones.

Sammy knew Thomas was lying, but he didn’t call him on it.
What did I say that was so offensive?

Before he could dwell on it too long, he got another call. Their relief came soon after to spell them for a lunch break. Thomas didn’t say anything as he left the room, and during lunch he seemed sullen, even to his wife. Lara gave Sammy an inquisitive glance when her husband was short with her, but Sammy just shrugged. Lunch went by too fast and Sammy was back upstairs in the tower wearing headphones again.

The day dragged on: a housewife complaining about a defective vacuum, her language so coarse it embarrassed even Sammy. An emergency call from a boy in college asking his dad for money to fix his car. Several boring business calls.

He let a long sigh go quietly. He did not want Thomas to think he was uninterested.

Why won’t he talk to me?
Sammy wondered.
Maybe I should just apologize.

His light turned green again.

“Go ahead,” a very deep male voice said. There was a sense of authority that Sammy had heard before. It reminded him of some of the workers at the Grinder, the ones that really got off on ordering people around.

The second voice had an edge to it, like he was a little nervous. “We crunched the numbers. Three times. We simulated them on multiple programs and reached the same conclusions. You need more people in the operation.”

Sammy’s ears pricked up at these words.

“How many do we already have?” the deep voice asked.

“Sixty at my last count.”

“What’s the breakdown?”

“Forty-five Aegis and fifteen Brothers,” came the answer slowly, as if the nervous man had read the numbers from a list. Sammy sat up straight in his chair and gripped the arms tightly. He’d gone from sheer boredom to high alert with one word. Thomas, not looking in Sammy’s direction, did not notice this change.

“Who thinks we need more?” the authority-voice asked.

“The entire tactical team.”

“How many more?”

“Ten more Brothers. We calculate seventy people in that ratio is the most efficient number to best guarantee success.”

“What’s the difference?” the voice growled.

“Based on all our data we see the likelihood rising from seventy-two to ninety-one percent likelihood of success.”

The deeper voice grumbled in the background. “I’d gamble on that.”

“With a liberal appraisal we expect thirty Elite and two squadrons of Fourteens.”

“All on site?”

“Either at the launch or in the Baikonur control tower.”

The deep male voice barked, “Have the team run the numbers again and call me.”

Then the line went blank.

Sammy took a deep breath. His hands still gripped the arms of his chair. The tips of his fingers had turned bone white. He put the headphones down on the table and tapped Thomas lightly on the shoulder.

“I think I heard something you might want to hear.”

Messages were sent out immediately. Days later, a meeting was held. Something about seeing hundreds of people assemble at the Palace helped Sammy understand just how large and well-organized the resistance really was.

“Won’t having all these people here run the risk of being discovered?” Sammy had asked Thomas as he sent out messages.

Thomas, who had regained all his optimism and energy the instant he had listened to Sammy’s call, wasn’t worried. “I’ve told you already, this city is tunneled for just such things. Everyone knows to use extreme caution. People still travel through Wichita going all directions.”

“And you’re still not going to let me in?”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Thomas said with genuine regret. “Members only.”

Sammy was beyond annoyed that he couldn’t go to the meeting. But when he saw that Thomas was firm in his decision, he didn’t argue.

He and Toad decided to use the time to work on Toad’s anomaly. The Palace had a large exercise room, so they went there. Toad was eager to show Sammy some of the stuff he’d been practicing. He had Sammy blast baseballs at him while he deflected them by throwing his own baseballs. While they messed around, they discussed the intercepted transmission and hypothesized what would be done about it.

Just when Toad was about to show off his shooting skills, Thomas came into the room.

“Sammy,” he called out from the doorway, “we need you in here.”

“What about me?” Toad cried out in unmasked jealousy.

Sammy looked back at his friend apologetically, but was eager to be involved with the meetings. He followed Thomas up to the fourth floor where a large meeting hall was packed with people; men and women of different ages, races, and statures. Many of them were turned facing each other in conversation—so many, in fact, that the sound from the room was a low roar.