Socket 1 - The Discovery of Socket Greeny (27 page)

* * * * *

With the illusion gone, the room was white
and ordinary again and claustrophobia was quickly falling around me
like a straight jacket.

A suit emerged from the wall, hanging on a
hook, plum colored with mustard trim. The pants were loose-fitting,
the overcoat hung nicely, although the shoulders were a bit square.
The shoes were square and clunky. I stripped down, dressed and
waited for the leaper to open, leaving the shoes on the bed.

There was no escort. I tried not to think
where Spindle was. I stepped inside and was transported to the same
room I met the Authority the last time. Mom and Commander Diggs
were on my right. Pike and his minder assistants were in front of
me. Broak, of course, was not there.

The room flowed with unseen currents. It was
thicker than electricity, more like cream.
The mental realm.
Psychic energy emanated from the Commander, shining like an organic
power plant, and Mom, less so. Thoughts and energy beamed in from
around the world, from all those watching this event, peeping in
through unseen lookits embedded in the moldable walls.

The minders, however, did not shine. They
were dark vortices sucking energy back, holding their thoughts at
guard against probing minds. They were impenetrable psychic giants,
the ability to pry a mind in half like a walnut or close theirs
like a 200-cube encrypted vault. They stood motionless, staring
ahead through black wrapped glasses. Their nostrils flared,
smelling me. Their dimness lightened like they were tempted to open
for a look into my mind, although there was nothing new for them to
see.

I walked to a bright spot on the floor. The
circular wall rose fiercely. The figureheads were seated and
staring. New energy swarmed around the large room of subtle pinks,
reds and violets. Each color exuded a different flavor. I let my
mind experience the silky flow of their essence. Some were coarse,
some fine. All of it luminescent, except for the minders. Their
essence was forbidding, dark and gritty. Not like sand paper, but
like a rock in my shoe or something stuck between my teeth.
Something like a pebble they held, a fine grain of sand, solid and
dense. Something they held secret from the rest of us.

“Hearing 24489 of Socket Pablo Greeny,” a
bodiless woman said, “is now in session.”

“Right.” The Authority, with his beefy jowls
and tired eyes, looked down on me. “No need to make this lengthy.
You have been accepted into the Paladin Nation, Socket Greeny.”

Mom released a long-held breath. I was not
surprised. Was anyone? But I surprised myself, and everyone else,
when a question emerged. “What if I don’t want to be one?”

Tense emotions rippled amongst the counsel
and the luminescence dimmed. Had no one ever asked that question?
He wasn’t asking me, he was telling me I was accepted. Now I wasn’t
so sure I wanted in this club. The Authority laughed like a
coughing dog, his cheeks jiggling. The mounting tension broke.

“Every man and woman has a choice, of course!
We are not captors, Socket Greeny. We fight for freedom so that
every person has the opportunity to answer a question like that for
themselves. It is a great opportunity to see what you are, but,
more so, have the courage to be it. There are many people that see
the tremendous potential inside you, but I cannot tell you what
that is. Nor can your mother or anyone else.
You
have to see
it for yourself. Only
you
can become it.”

I could refuse to be one of them, just like
he said. Walk out of that room and leave it all behind. Go back to
the house, call on the television and kick back with a plate full
of nachos. But life couldn’t go back, not like it was before. No
matter what he said, there was no going back no matter how much I
wanted to, no matter how much I tried. I had awakened. There was no
changing that anymore than I could become a baby sucking my thumb.
I had seen my true nature. How could I be anything else?

Sometimes life doesn’t ask for it to happen.
It demands.

The Authority nodded, sensing the resolution
and acceptance of my thoughts. He had my answer. I saw.
I am a
Paladin. He looked down at his notes.

“You are untrained, Socket Greeny,” he said.
“You have recently awakened with little more than instinct to guide
you. I can only imagine what kind of Paladin you will be once fully
developed. The world will be a better place, a safer place, once
you have.”

His big belly pushed out beneath his hanging
robe when he stood. He began to clap his thick hands. The walloping
sound shook the room.

“Congratulations.” A tiny smile broke across
his droopy face. “And bravo.”

One after another, the members stood at the
top of the wall and clapped like thunder. Not all of them, though.
Several remained seated, their hands planted firmly on their laps.
The minders didn’t move. They didn’t frown, scowl or glare. And the
annoying pebble was more noticeable.

I opened my mind to the room, absorbed all
the energy, all the thoughts, colors and essence. I opened to the
happiness and bitterness and the full range of emotions. I had
nothing to hide; they could look into my mind all they wanted. I
was fully open, fully aware and fully present. My awareness washed
over everything, including the pebble. It took shape. I experienced
its size, texture and hardness. It was a distinct object, a
substantial container of thoughts. It contained information. And it
had a location. The minders weren’t holding the pebble. It was
Pike.

The Authority held his arms out and silenced
the applause. The ones standing remained standing. He paused,
allowing silence to settle. The Authority tipped his head. “Your
duty is to serve, Socket Greeny,” he said, “to your utmost.”

I have to be quick for all to see.

The walls trembled and began to sink. The
images of the Authority and his cohorts shriveled. Their essence
became chaotic, drawing back through their projected, shrinking
images as their awareness sought to return to their skin somewhere
in the world.

I summoned all my psychic energy and gathered
it like an arrow with an indestructible tip. I pulled back the
string, filled the arrow with tension and fired it, with every
thought, every bit of strength I had. All my essence drained into
that shot. I was depleted, fell on my knees, and almost passed out.
It took the minders by surprise, bored through their mental walls
before they could throw themselves against it. The arrow spiked
Pike’s mind like an icy sliver. Pierced the hidden pebble.

Penetrated it.

It burst with a million colors. Endless
thoughts sprang from the pebble and filled the room for all to see.
The thoughts he hid from his assistant minders. The thoughts he
carefully tucked inside the pebble to make himself forget so that
none would know he was hiding them. The thoughts he couldn’t dare
let anyone know. The ones that would break his mission. Crush his
existence.

He had sabotaged Broak’s lessons, exposed his
human pain; convinced him there was a better way. The Paladins
could not be trusted, look what they were doing to him. They were
dirty. Imperfect. Mortal. There was a better way, Broak. One you
were meant for. Join me. To make a better world. A perfect
world.

Pike was still human but he was a spy.
He
was Broak’s mentor.

A second did not pass in normal time. I
barely raised my head to see the wall spit back out of the floor.
The Authority and his minions’ eyes bulged with surprise. They
heard the hidden thoughts. They understood. A SPY? IN OUR
SANCTUARY?

The assistant minders comprehended
immediately. They turned on Pike and corralled his poisonous
thoughts before he counterattacked with a psychic arrow of his own,
one that would turn my brain into grits. They saved me from his
mind, but could not hold him. It took a tenth of a second for Pike
to disappear into a timeslice, like slipping through a fissure in
the fabric of space-time.

He reappeared, in that same instance, a step
in front of me, his lethal fingers aimed for my windpipe. His
strike—centimeters from my neck—was stopped short by three crawler
guards. They popped out of a timeslice and loomed over us, their
jointed legs anchored like steel bars. Silky strands wrapped around
his legs and arms. They were watching, slicing time when Pike
sliced. This time, the spiders saved me.

The room sizzled with essence. Warnings flew.
Alerts commanded. The crawlers wrapped Pike tighter. The minders
strained to control his mind. His thoughts seeped through their
containment like fibrous roots, crackling after me. He pried
through my weakened psychic defense. I leaned back, but space was
no match for the cold tips of his sharp mind that squeezed inside.
He slithered behind my eyeballs. I couldn’t stop him.

More minders entered the room. They circled
him like blind men, gave support to the struggling assistants. The
icy tentacles slowly pulled out of me. They sealed him inside their
psychic prison. Pike struggled, spit bubbling on his lips. He
cursed, tossing his head around to break the containment.

There were shouts. ORDER! ORDER! More
crawlers entered, poking their legs between us, hovering over us,
their eyelights ominously directed at Pike. The Commander directed
traffic. Doors opened along the walls. Mom rushed me to an open
leaper. The crawlers had Pike cocooned, knocking his glasses from
his face. His white eyeballs looked in my direction. Blood vessels
branched like lightning across them in one last effort. Minders
stepped between us.

The leaper closed.

I would’ve crumpled on the floor had Mom not
held me. “They continue to underestimate you,” she said.

The Garrison was structured and suffocating.
A tomb. They sent Pike to a remote prison for debriefing somewhere
in the world where few people knew. It might’ve been a thousand
feet below ground, might’ve been in space. No one was going to get
to him and he wasn’t getting to anyone. A team of minders were
assigned to him around the clock, scouring his mind for every
memory, every thought, that would expose every instance of
deception. He was not a duplicate, he was human.
But is the
battle really over?

What did I get in return for exposing the
world’s most dangerous spy? Tests, that’s what I got. No reward. No
vacation. I got tests. Five days later, they sent a guy to my room.
“Would you like to go to the Preserve?”

Um. Yes.

* * * * *

Long-necked birds glided over the treetops,
finding bare branches to rest. I stood inside the entrance and
breathed deep the flow of Mother Earth. Weeds sprouted along the
trail leading to the banyan tree. Swards of grass and tropical
palms lined the shrinking path. Great big leaves hung in the way,
dripping condensation. Banana spiders built intricate, dewy webs
across the path and perched in the center waiting the next victim.
I wandered down the slope and knelt in front of the first web. The
enormous spider, white and yellow, walked in circles and dropped
her abdomen on each strand to repair holes from an earlier kill.
Her long legs navigated the deathtrap with ease, pulling the web
tighter and deadlier. Only she could walk the web without getting
tangled.

I scooped up a handful of soil, let it
trickle between my fingers. I could stay in the Preserve as long as
I liked, the guy said. Just let us know when you’re ready to come
back inside. But that would never happen and they knew that. They
wanted another Pivot. They were betting on me.

A zebra butterfly hit the outside of the web.
The spider stopped, felt the vibrations. I plucked the butterfly
from the web. It perched on my finger, wagged its
black-and-white-striped wings and lifted off in a safer
direction.

The leaper vibrated back at the entrance. I
sifted another handful of soil. Footsteps softly approached from
behind. Bare feet stopped next to my pile of dirt. Mechanical
tendons stretched under the supple, silver skin. I looked up at the
wavering plum overcoat and the faceplate that reflected the forest
greens and orange sunrise.

Spindle. He’s alive.

I held my excitement in check, not wanting to
spoil the moment. He was there, giving pause to the morning. I
smiled to myself, knocking the dirt off my hands. “Where have you
been?”

“They have been testing me, Master Socket,”
he said. “Much like you.”

“What’d they find?”

“They discovered your father’s programming.
They looked for more but did not find any.”

His chest expanded as if he took a deep
breath. I squeezed his bulging bicep, smacked his back. I wanted to
hug him, but that would’ve been stupid, hugging an android.
Right?

“I’m really glad to see you, Spindle.”

“And I am happy to see you, Master Socket.”
He bowed, slightly. “You have been a joy to serve.”

“Happy? Joy? You’re feeling now?”

He cocked his head, the colors tangled on his
face. “I do not know if they are emotions, but when I interact with
you my tactile sensors are more… excitable.”

“You saved my life.”

“I was merely following your father’s
orders.”

“Those weren’t orders. You
wanted
to
save me.”

He stood taller, his face muddier.
“Wanted?”

Spindle was more than an android assistant.
He was artificially intelligent, just like the duplicates. But the
Paladins rationalized his existence, said he was closely monitored
and encoded to never think freely. That was the difference, they
said. Duplicates, they were like viruses, spreading throughout the
world for their own purposes. Their number one priority was to
survive.
They
were self-centered, not Spindle. He existed to
serve us. That, they said, was the difference.