Socket 1 - The Discovery of Socket Greeny (23 page)

“Baaill… bail…” My lips were stiff and numb.
“Code… bailll out code bail.”

“Welcome, dear friends, to your new skin!”
Broak raised his arms. “Sometimes you feel pleasure, sometimes you
feel…
pain
.”

I blacked out.

* * * * *

Chute was rocking me back and forth when I
came to. “What’s going on, Socket?”

Her teeth chattered. That’s when I noticed
her hands wrapped over my chest. They were fleshy. She was
shaking.

“I did not bring you here to murder, dear
Socket.” Broak paced restlessly toward the cave. “I will admit I
tried to end your life in the Graveyard, yes. Forgive me for that,
will you, dear friend? Because since then, I have had an epiphany.
I cannot take credit for this brilliant idea. It was my mentor that
understood your true potential. This was all his idea, yes.”

The portal swelled to twice its size in his
hands. It was screeching.

“If you will excuse me a moment.”

He dug his fingers in and pulled it open. The
remains of the shell twinkled onto his feet. He smiled, at first,
then grunted. His arms bulged as the portal attempted to close,
forcing Broak to one knee for leverage. He stretched it open again
and this time a jointed stick poked through, feeling around.
Another poked out and then another until there were eight. The
jointed sticks helped hold the portal open until it gave birth to a
putty-colored glob.

The crawler fell into the snow, then rose up
like a newborn calf, its body pulsing. Two more plopped next to it,
all three shaking on new legs, growing with each pulsation.

“I will admit, your death seemed to be the
only solution.” Broak tossed the portal aside. “The duplicates
already find Paladins a formidable opponent; they couldn’t have you
making the Nation stronger, faster and smarter. They wanted you
dead. But then my mentor came up with an idea, not just a way to
eliminate you but a way to steal you from them.”

The crawlers were already double their
original size, spiking their legs into the ground. Broak stroked
their backs.

“You see, my friends are going to pull you
apart and integrate your genetic code into our database. Your DNA
will be the blueprint for new and improved duplications. You will
help us, dear Socket. You will become one of us.” He smiled wide
and whispered. “Is that not wonderful?”

Chute tried to lift me, but I screamed at the
effort. She slid me to the water, panting. Her foot plunked into
the pool. The crawlers’ bodies beat like hearts, watching us
struggle with their brightening eyelights. Broak edged closer.

“Don’t fret, dear Socket.” He wiped the water
from my cheek. “You’re going on to a better life.”

Chute slapped his hand. “Don’t touch
him!”

He only smiled and went back to his pets, now
shoulder tall, bobbing and weaving. He rubbed their bodies. They
nuzzled back.

“As you can see, we have everything the
Paladins have. Technology is our specialty.”

“You’re not a duplicate,” I said.

“Not yet.” He held out his arms. “But soon, I
will download into a fabricated body of my choice. I will determine
my fate. I will be the captain of my life.” His energy darkened,
casting a shadow over his face. “Do you think I want to be
victimized by those Paladins any longer? Slave to the human race,
mmm? I am my own god now, dear Socket. I can become whatever I want
in the real world. What’s not real about that, mmm? Why would
humans resist their heart’s desire? They are far too selfish not to
follow. And here’s the big surprise, my dear one. Are you ready for
it?” He stood straight and his expression brightened. “You’re
coming with me.”

Chute whimpered, pulling me deeper into the
water. I was struggling just to keep from screaming. “There’s…
nothing real… about you.”

“Well, if I’m no longer real…” He kicked my
broken knee. The pain radiated like electricity. “Maybe that will
change your mind.”

I could hold the scream in no longer.

* * * * *

“Rejoice!” Broak shouted with his back to us,
his voice echoing into the cave. “Mankind will no longer toil in
incompetence.”

My teeth clattered. Chute’s breath was warm
on my ear.

“Humanity’s suffering will come to an end! We
will put the world in order. The human race will evolve into a
super species of choice and freedom!”

The timeslicing spark flashed inside me.
Brighter. Firmer. I wrapped my mind around it and colors swirled.
Snowflakes staggered. Broak lifted his arms, palms to the sky,
surrounded by a halo of light.

I sliced time.

Energy filled me, pouring into every muscle
and every broken bone. In the dead silence, I closed my eyes and
searched out the source of my agony. I traveled through my own
veins, penetrating tissues and nerves. I knew the ways of my body
intimately, and commanded it to heal. Cartilage reconnected in my
knees, bones fused together in my wrist. Pain was arrested.

But the spark slipped like a greased rat,
squirming from my grip. Nerve lines screamed again. A crawler
lifted Broak onto its back. Broak squeezed it between his knees,
his face lifted to the heavens.

“Do that again,” Chute said. “Whatever you
just did, do it again. You felt stronger.”

“I… can’t.” The spark was dim. It was too
soon. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

“Don’t say sorry.” She squeezed tighter.
“Don’t you say that!”

“Flawless.” Broak almost sang the word, the
hard line of his brow darkening his eyes. “That is what we’ll bring
them, dear Socket. Unadulterated perfection.”

His choppy laughter echoed over the trees. I
chased the spark again, squeezed it every direction I could, but it
avoided me.
Rudder! Please, bring it back.

The crawlers reared up on their hind legs
like wild stallions and unleashed a screech, blowing the hair away
from my face. Blood rushed past my throbbing eardrums. Chute
scrambled deeper, dragging me with her. Water crept above my
waist.

“We are saviors.” He raised the portal with
both hands. “Rejoice… for it is at hand, dear Socket… rejoice for I
WILL LEAD THEM TO THE PROMISELAND!!”

The crawlers reared again, their jointed legs
aimed at us. They would pull me apart, study every cell and every
strand of DNA. They would become stronger because of me. They would
become faster because of me. People would suffer. The world, the
real world, would end. It would end because of me. I didn’t want
this. Pivot was wrong. I was no hero, I was a curse. The world
would pay, because of me.

“
LOOK OUT!”
Streeter’s voice vibrated
in my skull.

CccrrraaaaaAAAACCCKKKKKKKKK!

A flash, then blindness. Deafness. The
percussion stopped my heart and the world spun.

Colder. And wetter.

* * * * *

Frigidness stole the feeling from my skin and
the air from my lungs. I opened my mouth and sucked a mouthful of
water. My wet clothes pulled me down. I couldn’t tell which way was
up until I hit the rocky bottom. I tried to kick upward, but my leg
would not work. I heaved myself up, but the surface was too far
away. I wouldn’t get there. My lungs blazed and unconsciousness
settled around me like a warm blanket. My hand slipped and I fell.
I scrambled again, but felt myself drifting.

Something grabbed my wrist and yanked me up.
Once. Twice. Three times, someone pulled at me with frantic
desperation. Darkness had settled on my wide-open eyes.

* * * * *

Something soft and warm pressed on my lips,
blew air into my chest. It happened again. And then I puked warm
water.

“Oh, god,” I blubbered, rolling over.

“Socket.” Chute grabbed my tunic and shook
me. “Oh, thank God you’re all right! I thought you were gone.”

The world was bleached and bleary. Water
dripped off Chute’s chattering chin. Her eyes were red and misty.
Her hair smelled sulfuric. We lay on muddy ground; the snow was
gone.

“What happened?” I asked.

She sat back on her knees. “Lightning.”

I turned my head. A blackened crater sizzled
at the mouth of the cave, smoke rising from the center. The
crawlers’ misshapen bodies were scattered around, their legs
twisted and bent.

Chute helped me stand, our water-soaked
clothes already stiffening in the arctic air, but it kept me numb.
I hobbled with her help to the smoking crater. Broak lay in the
bottom. The left half of his chest was missing, as was his left
arm. His hair and clothes had evaporated to his waist, revealing
skin blistered like tar. Perfect teeth gleamed through holes in his
cheeks. The portal, blue and glittering, lay wedged under his
arm.

“
Holy shit.”
Streeter’s voice echoed
in my skull.
“I just fried those assholes like butter. I’m sorry
it took so long, I don’t have the control panels in this crawl
space and I wanted to build a lightning bolt with enough voltage to
melt them like plastic.”
He chuckled.
“They won’t
virtualmode for months. Not in those sims.”

Chute couldn’t look away. She began to shake,
pushing me away and staring at the bottom of the crater. She tried
to speak. I held her close but she pushed again. “This isn’t
happening… this isn’t…”

I turned her from the scene, held her closer.
Tensed and shaking, she tried to fight me off. I held her until she
went limp. She laid her head on my shoulder and wept. We stayed
that way, swaying back and forth while she cried.

“
Socket?”
Streeter said.
“Chute?
Can you hear me?”

I told Streeter what happened. I told him
about the awareness transference, and how our sims had become skin.
We couldn’t log off. We could smell things. We could
feel
.

“
Impossible.”

“The portal, Streeter… there’s something
about the portal being a transporter. When I touched it, our sims
became skin. We’re here, Streeter. We’re not back in the lab, we’re
actually here.”

He babbled on, argued and shouted.
“I told
you not to touch—”

“Listen!” I cut him off. “None of that’s
important. It’s done! Now, how do we get out of here? There has to
be a way to get back to our skin.”

“
The portal. If you destroy the portal
it’ll send you back. It pulled you out of your skin, you should
return if it’s destroyed.”

“Can you redress us?” Chute let go, her teeth
clicking together. “We need dry clothes, Streeter. Warm, dry
ones.”

“
Yeah, yeah… I can do that.”

The hard frozen clothes faded, simultaneously
replaced with identical garb and a hot, soft coat. Cold still
penetrated my bones. I went back to the crater. The portal was
there. Steam hissed from cracks along Broak’s blackened body.

“
I didn’t mean to kill him, Socket,”
Streeter said, softly.
“I thought… I didn’t know he was
real.”

“I know.”

“
Maybe he’s not dead. Maybe he bolted back
to his skin and I fried his sim. That’s all I was trying to do, you
know.”

But Broak didn’t return to his skin. He was
at the bottom of a burned-out hole. The look on his face said he
hadn’t even seen it coming. I doubt he felt a thing.

“
I’m sorry,”
Streeter said.
“I
didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t kill him, did I? I’m not—”

“He probably escaped, Streeter,” I lied. “Now
tell me, how do I destroy that thing?”

There was a long pause.
“Use your
evolver,”
he said, uneasily.
“Just cut the thing in
half.”

Chute stood next to me, wrinkling her nose.
The unmistakable smell of fried skin wafted up from the pit,
clinging to the back of my throat. I breathed through my mouth
without pinching my nose and sat on the crater’s edge. I slid down
the side a few feet and avoided touching the body. I fumbled for
the portal, coaxing it with my fingertips. It was stuck. I slid
closer, hooked my hand around it. It broke away with a wet snap.
Chute stepped into the crater and held out her hand. Something
yanked me back.

“Socket!” Chute screamed.

Broak had my arm. Bones protruded from his
crispy fingertips. His head turned and crackled, and flakes of
blackened skin fell away. His eye sockets were empty, and his
tongue darted out, licking what remained of his lips. He pulled me
closer.

“Dear Socket…”

His hand trembled. The tongue fell back into
his mouth.

No. Broak did not make it back to the
skin.

We lay the portal on the ground. I pulled the
evolver from my waist and let it unfold around my arm, piercing my
nerve lines. Never before had I felt an evolver tap into my nervous
system. I imagined a weapon: A long, arching saber emerged from my
hand. I curled my damaged hand against my chest and raised the
weapon with my other arm. Heat radiated from the blade. Chute
stepped back.

The blade sunk in. The portal swelled. It
turned purple. Red. Blue-green-violet-yelloworangeblue. The saber
spat back, blasting the evolver from my arm. I landed hard on the
frozen ground, jolting the loose bones in my leg. It took several
tries to breathe again. The evolver half-folded back into a handle,
coughing electrical arcs.

Chute helped me sit up. When I was breathing
normally, she asked, “What now?”

Long pause.
“I can, uh, well… I can build
another lightning bolt with twice the voltage. The portal won’t
survive that, but the website might crash.”

“If you crash this website,” I said, “won’t
that release us?”

“
Not necessarily. If for some reason it
doesn’t destroy the portal and crashes the website, you could end
up in-between.”
Another long pause
. “I need to think about
this.”