The Discovery of Socket Greeny

by

Tony Bertauski

The Great Tech Boom began somewhere around 2018. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it started; all that mattered was by 2020 we figured everything out. Some say we just got infinitely smarter, one of those evolutionary leaps. Others believed it happened when we taught computers how to think for themselves. Either way, we had everything we wanted.

But there was still so much we didn’t know.

Socket Greeny

Shot

“The school year hasn’t even started, Socket.” Akers closed the office door behind him. “And here you are.”

“I missed you,” I said.

Akers was a tall, skinny man with a face easy to forget. He smiled, but not one of those phony emotional counselor smiles. Akers was the real deal. He looked me up and down, then opened the bottom drawer of his giant desk, tossed me a white T-shirt.

“You could use a change,” he said. “You look like you ate an antelope.”

My yellow shirt was splattered with blood. I took it off and held it up. “Think it’ll stain?”

“You want me to wash it for you?”

“You mind?”

“Not at all.” He held up his hand and I tossed the wadded shirt to him. He dropped it in the trash. “On second thought, just wear that one.”

“You’re not sending me home?”

“You want me to?”

“Ummm… no.”

I’d serve forty detentions before going home. Thankfully, the offer on the table (so far) was wearing a white T-shirt. I held up my end of the deal and put it on, waiting for the catch.

The office door opened and the secretary came in with a box of tissues. Akers thanked her. She smiled back but looked at the bloody tissue plugged in my left nostril, then she looked at my long white hair. Hell, who didn’t?

“You just call if you need anything else,” she said.

Did we really need to call? She was watching us through the security lookit: a small silver ball floating over the doorway. Its red eyelight rotated around and watched her leave, then turned its attention back on me.

Akers waited for the door to close then studied my face. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you got in a fight the first day of your freshman year.”

“I didn’t start that one, either.”

“Mmm,” he said, looking me over. “I saw the fight on the lookit video and thought you’d look worse.”

“He only hit me square once.”

He sat in the chair next to me and leaned closer, pushed my hair away to get a good look at the knot. “Let me guess. That was in the head?”

I shook my hair down. “Nothing gets past you, Mr. Akers.”

“I got an IQ of 75, you know.”

I smiled. The closest I’d come to laughing.

Akers’ office was sort of a soft, fuzzy blue. A subtle fragrance floated through the room like suntan lotion and ocean breezes. Perfect for whales. Our chairs faced a huge window that overlooked the lacrosse field below. Orange cones dotted the field and sharply dressed men in gray supervised some event with a hundred students. Some of them looked like they were floating on skimboards. I remember hearing them cheer when Buckshot clocked me in the head. Then I remember looking at the sky.

“How’s your mother?” Akers asked.

“Good, I guess.”

Akers nodded, gave me that long opportunity to respond. I counted how many people floated on those hovering skimboards. The answer was fifteen.

“Is she still working?” he asked.

“I suppose.”

“You don’t know?”

“She goes somewhere during the day, night and weekends. She calls it work.”

“What do you think she’s doing?”

I kept my attention past the window, spoke softly. “I have a place to sleep, there’s food in the kitchen and the lights work. If she wants to call it work, I’m not complaining.”

“You have a right to feel whatever you’re feeling.”

“Yeah?” I said. “Well, thirty minutes ago I felt like tearing off a superstar ’crosser’s head and they sent me here. There some sort of mistake?”

Akers nodded, but blinked hard. Twice. It’s okay to feel what you feel, Socket, but there’s a limit. He went to his desk and tapped it. A screen illuminated on the surface, beamed up information in three-dimension that looked fuzzy from my angle, looked just fine from his. My file was playing for his eyes only. He studied the data, scrolled through it with the tip of his finger. New school year, same data.

“Why do you think you do it, Socket?”

I looked back out the window. “Do what?”

“Fight.” He crossed his arms. Enough chitchat. Let’s get to counseling. “Guys like you aren’t fighters, you’re thinkers. Innovators. But you look for trouble. Why do you think that is?”

“I get bored?”

“Who’d you get in a fight with?”

He knew the answer. I hated counselor games. “Buckshot.”

“You think he’ll want revenge?”

“Revenge?” I said. “You saw the video? The guy on the bottom with the white hair, the one getting pummeled, that was me. What does he want to avenge, me bleeding all over him?”

“I don’t think all that blood on your shirt was yours.”

He was right. I put a couple dents in Buckshot’s head, for sure. But in the end, he was on top and the loser was on bottom.

Akers dialed through my file some more. It seemed more like a habit than real information gathering. It was all there, my whole past. A dead dad. A workaholic mom. An only child. I was his Everest. If he could solve my problems, his career would be complete. Do psychiatrists get trophies?

“Listen, Socket,” he said, tapping the desk and shutting down the file. “I want you to know that you can talk to me anytime you want this year. I’ll arrange for an open pass to my office. All you have to do is say my name to a lookit any time of the day and it’ll bring you here.” He sat in the chair next to me. “I’ll listen to whatever you got to say.”

“What do you want me to say, Mr. Akers? I make trouble to get back at my mom? We talked about that already. We talked about mom and dad and everything in between.” I pointed at the knot on my head. “Still fighting.”

“And if you keep it up, you won’t make it through your sophomore year. Worse, you could get hurt. You’re picking fights you can’t win and I can’t help if you do that.”

“I didn’t ask for help.”

“Oh, you’re asking.”

Akers was laying down heavy psych. I was asking for help by causing trouble. I was crying out for attention. I wanted to be noticed. It was all crap because the truth was some jag poked my friend in the eye and I stood up for him. That was the lean, mean story, start to finish. I was no warrior, but if there were ever a group that needed protecting, it was the cybies. We were Internet junkies who spent more time in virtualmode living than we did in our skin. We knew how to build virtual warriors on the Internet, how to weave magical spells to vanquish evil sorcerers from dark castles, but did any of us know how to do that in the skin?

Maybe that was why I fought: To get back to my skin. Maybe I should be the counselor.

There were about two hundred students on the lacrosse field by now. The supervisors picked people out and lined them up on the discs. On signal, they glided forward.

“It’s a jetter,” Akers said. “A gravitating disc that operates on thought projection. It’s self-balancing. Neuro-responsive. A new company called WideOpen donated several of them to the school, has offered training courses. They’re even willing to fund a new sport called tagghet.”

“Where’s the ’crossers?”

“Cybies are better candidates for thought projecting than lacrosse athletes. You’re accustomed to virtualmode activity. You steer the jetter by visualization, controlling speed and direction. It’s a great opportunity to take skills from the virtualmode experience of the Internet back to the real world. Who knows, maybe you’ll be a world-class tagger.”

“Tagger?”

“Tagghet is the jetter sport. Something like high-tech lacrosse.”

I’d rather dip my head in acid.

The race ended. The supervisors demonstrated the next course. They set up cones and slalomed through it like cutting waves made of air. They turned at the end and soared back. Now the students took turns. They knocked over every single cone, except for the person in the middle, a girl with a red pony tail. Her skin was smooth without a blemish. Her freckles squished between her eyes when she smiled. I couldn’t see any of that, but I knew it. I could tell it was Chute and not just by the ponytail, but the way she walked. The way she shook her hand when she was excited. She leaned forward and blasted ahead, swinging back and forth between the cones. She was the first one to the end, only one cone on its side.

“I get it,” I said.

“What’s to get?”

“It’s just another product. We’re just another customer. Cybies are an unexploited niche. They don’t care about us, we’re just numbers. Tell me, what’s the pitch? We want to help cybies relate their skills to the real world. This product is more for them than it is for us… for only three easy payments.”

“Maybe they don’t want anything from you,” Akers said. “Maybe they just want to give you another opportunity, something you’ve never done before. Maybe they want to help you, ever thought of that?”

“Everybody wants something. The school wants those jetters for free. Teachers want us in class on time. Buckshot wants respect from his teammates. Even you, Mr. Akers, you want me to talk about my feelings so you can feel good about helping me. You want me to tell you how I feel. You want me to punch a pillow, scream about my mom, tell you how I feel better when I leave your office. You want that from me so you feel like you did something. So you feel good.” I looked back at the field, the students hopelessly bowling over cones. “The world takes, Mr. Akers. That’s just the way it is.”

“So you’re taking back, is that why you fight?”

“Sure, why not. I’m no different.”

Akers watched the next round of volunteers flying between the cones. He rested his elbows on the armrests and bounced his fingertips together. “So what is it you want, Socket?”

What do I want? That depended on what day you asked. Used to be I wanted to know the big questions, like the meaning of life. Like why am I here and what does any of this mean? Things adults asked. But now… I just wanted to be left alone. Didn’t want to talk about feelings. Didn’t want to talk about mom and dad. I just wanted to get it all over with. And I’m not really sure what that meant.

Maybe I should talk about that.

Instead, I sat quietly. Akers and I looked out the window in silence until class was about to start. The demonstration was finished. The supervisors gathered the cones. The students started back to the building.

“There’s no conspiracy, Socket,” Akers said. “Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be. There’s no secret agenda. Things just are. Those jetters… they’re just fun. Nothing more, nothing less. They’re not trying to take anything from you.”

When the lacrosse field was empty, Akers opened his door. A lookit drifted in. He stopped me before I left, looked up my nose and pulled out the tissue. The bleeding had stopped.

He slapped by cheek, gently. “Remember, my door is always open.”

I had never come to his office. Voluntarily. He always invited me back like one day I just might. But what good was that going to do me? He was right, Buckshot would come back for round two. All jags like him have something to prove and no matter many trips to Akers’ office, he wasn’t going to be there when Buckshot showed up. I was on my own when Buckshot came back.

If he wants to take, let him try.

Home is just a house

I rode the bus home after school. I found a seat in the back. There were plenty to choose from since half the people that rode bus #22 were on the lacrosse field riding jetters. School was the last place I wanted to be, even if there were flying discs. The bus pulled away, down the long empty road toward the Interstate. I tried not to look back, but couldn’t help it.

I leaned my head against the window and tapped my cheek to activate the imbedded nojakk communicator. “Call Chute,” I said. Cli-i-i-i-i-ick. I tapped again, got the same sound. Score another one for Buckshot. That right hook did it.

When the bus made its last stop, the houses were small and crowded. The side yards long and narrow. The bus stopped in front of a brown one. The windows shaded dark. I waved my key at the front door, dropped my book bag on a pile of shoes in the foyer. The lights came up. The front door split the large room in half. Kitchen on my right. TV room on the left. The refrigerator hummed. The sink dripped. Nothing but screaming silence.

“TV on,” I called.

A large rectangle on the wall to the far left flickered. Images sharpened within the square until it looked like a three dimensional box set inside the wall with people marching down a street. No wall separated the kitchen from the TV room. I stepped on the bright white kitchen floor while people marched inside the TV.

I emptied cups of apple juice and milk and stacked them onto last night’s plate, and the night’s before, pushing everything into the sink to clear a space on the counter. I toasted a bagel, smeared it with cream cheese and went to a couch. I pushed magazines, empty cups and stacks of mail off the coffee table with my feet and laid the snack on my chest. Where were the housebots the last president promised? A housebot in every home to pick up your crap! If you have a billion dollars.

“Supporters of the cyber-terrorist organization called Orphan demonstrated in the nation’s capital this afternoon as the government passed another bill forbidding the development of artificial intelligence,” a woman reporter said in the TV square.

Demonstrators waved homemade signs and chanted, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”

“The government has no right to limit the advancement of artificial intelligence,” some guy shouted. His frizzy hair looked like it barely survived electrocution and his enlarged pupils were clearly over-stimulated by some sort of endorphin-inducing gear. “Men were made in the image of God and we therefore have the right to create machines in our own likeness! In the Lord’s likeness! It is our birthright! The Orphan organization will grant the world our creative rights, by force if they have to!”

Freaks. There were too many people in the world already and they wanted to build more? What would a guy like that do with one? I think we all know.

I finished off the bagel, licked my fingers clean. What to eat next? I needed to draw up the grocery delivery and get some food sent over. Instead, I grabbed a small packaged cake off the refrigerator and ate it before I got to the couch. I grabbed two more.

“The president continues to support his decision based on the Bayou tragedy,” the woman reporter said, “where androids infused with self-aware software were sent to help victims of hurricane flooding. Viral code caused the androids to reboot and take over New Orleans, slaughtering thousands of people. Self-aware intelligence has been illegal ever since. In the past five years, anti-AI squads have dismantled seventeen AI factories. Last week authorities found an AI lab in a Baltimore car lot where Orphan technicians infused AI into new cars. The AI autos were attempting to jump into buyers’ homes and overtake house controls. If not for anonymous tips, authorities may not have discovered the lab until it was too late.”

I licked icing off my lips and watched police form a line along side the demonstration. I was about to call out another channel when one of the demonstrators attacked the police, tear gas was released, chaos commenced. A cop stuck the blunt end of his club right in one the demonstrator’s forehead. Blood gushed. It was that frizzy head.

“The rally ended in violence. Hundreds were arrested. Police interrogated the demonstrators but none had direct association with the Orphans. An expert on cyber-terrorism is with us today—”

The package cakes landed full force in my stomach. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

The front door sounded.

The lights were dim. The TV rambled on about a volatile day at the stock market. I couldn’t decide if it was morning. The front door sounded again. Someone was there.

I knocked the empty cake package off my belly and brushed the crumbs on the floor. “Time,” I called to my nojakk, but all I got was a broken cl-i-i-i-ick. I looked above the TV. 8:05 PM.

Someone knocked this time. I shuffled over, put my hand against the door, it turned transparent. It was Chute. Standing next to her, arms folded squarely over his chest, was Streeter. All four foot of him. Tapping his foot like he was looking for trouble.

“Open.”

“Explain yourself,” Streeter said, stomping inside. “Where were you after school?”

“I was tired.”

I started to fall on the couch but Streeter beat me to it. I sat on the other couch opposite the coffee table, began to put my feet up but Streeter yanked it closer and plunked his feet down.

“Don’t be a pig, Streeter,” Chute said.

“Hey, when in Rome.”

Chute sat next to me, not before wiping crumbs off the cushion. “Everyone was jetter training. Except you.”

“Someone had to make a stand.”

“Against what?”

“Conformity.”

“Well, you win,” she said. “You got the hair. You got the fights. Now you can stay at home.” She elbowed me. “Soon you won’t have to leave the house.”

“That’s my plan.”

Streeter nervously twiddled his fingers like his hand was trying to run away. “Seriously, you said you’d meet us out there. Why’d you change your mind?”

What was I supposed to say? I didn’t want to stand in those lines? I didn’t want to be around when one of the ’crossers cut in one of those lines and the cybies looked at me to do something? Or maybe I wasn’t in the mood for one of the supervisors to shove a jetter at me and say Your turn, Whitey.

“What’s wrong, Socket?” Chute said.

I grabbed a magazine, flipped a few pages. Something about the last couple days didn’t sit right, like a block of ice in my gut. It’s always seemed like something was wrong with me; couldn’t say exactly what, I just didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. Some days I could ignore it; other days it was right on the surface. And lately it was worse. Sure, my dad is dead but both of Streeter’s parents died when he was little and Chute lost her mom about the same time, so what was my excuse? Chute could tell when I felt frozen. And she could always see inside of me, melt that ice a degree or two.

“I don’t know.” I dropped the magazine. “I haven’t been sleeping the last few nights. Maybe it’s school. It makes me edgy, you know. I’ll get used to it. I’ll be all right.”

Streeter jumped in, told me I missed the awesome power of the jetter. Sounded like the company line. While Streeter went through the detail of every turn, skid and stop, Chute just watched. Her gaze churned inside me. Always looking. I finally looked back. She crinkled the freckles on her nose. I smiled with one side of my mouth. She smacked me in the shoulder and went to the kitchen. The dishes rattled. I told her to stop picking up.

“Chute outscored them all,” Streeter finally said. “Lacrosse players included, Socket. She’s a natural.”

“Way to go,” I said.

She leaned against the sink and raised a cup. I fumbled with an empty cup on the table and raised it back.

“It’s not too late,” she said. “There’s another session tomorrow—”

“Socket?” Mom’s head appeared inside the TV. “I’ve been calling your nojakk all day. Why aren’t you answering?”

“It’s not working.”

She pushed her short, brown hair behind her ear. Took a deep breath.

“Hi, Ms. Greeny,” Chute said.

“Hi.” She turned back to me. “I got a report you were in a fight.”

I nodded, waited for more. There was nothing I could say that would soften her. I’d tried it all. It was better to clam up and take it like a man. She looked tired, but I’d fallen for that one before.

“Already, Socket? School just started.”

“Well, what do you want me to do? I’m not going to stand around while some jag smacks Streeter around.”

“Socket actually won the fight, Ms. Greeny,” Streeter said. He started to add to it but Chute hushed him up.

“You’ll end up expelled,” she said. “Then what?” I never planned more than five minutes of my life in advance, so I had no answer for that, either. “And now your nojakk is broken.” Her hair fell off her ear. She pushed it back. “You know I don’t like being out of touch with you.”

I couldn’t look at her when she said things like that. Things that didn’t make sense. If you asked me, her whole life about being out of touch.

“I can fix his nojakk, Ms. Greeny!” Streeter opened his book bag, pulled out something with a handle and a barrel. “I can reseed another nojakk, have it working before you hang up.”

She let out a long sigh, looked down at her lap. Weariness pulled at her cheeks. “Something really important has come up. I won’t be home tonight. It looks like you found something to eat.” She looked around the room, eyes stopping on the piles, the trash, the dirty dishes. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t have to. “I’ll be monitoring you through home surveillance to make sure you’re all right.”

“Okay.”

“How’s everything?”

“Fine.”

She leaned closer, nearly popped out of the TV trying to get a better look. I shook my head, made sure my hair fell over the knot.

“I’ll make it up to you tomorrow night,” she said.

And then the news report was back. Mom was back to doing whatever she did. Wherever she did it. We sat quietly. Streeter held his pistol tool, pointed at the ceiling. Orphan supporters shouted about the end of the world and the supremacy of artificial intelligence.

Inside, the ice was colder. Harder.

“Your mom doesn’t look so good,” Streeter said.

“She probably hasn’t slept in three nights,” I said.

“Are you kidding me? What’s she been doing for three nights?”

“Work.” That’s all I could say. Work. Mom wouldn’t tell me anymore than that. Once she was real aggravated and told me she helped keep the world safe and that was all I needed to know. Where’d she hide her silver bullets and cape?

“You going to be all right?” Chute squeezed my shoulder.

“Yeah.”

“I can spend the night,” Streeter said. “Seriously, my grandparents don’t care.”

Streeter called them. He didn’t have to say much since he slept over once a week. Sometimes more.

Chute cooked popcorn. We changed the channels, but we didn’t listen much to the TV. Instead, we talked about jetters. Later that week they were going to play tagghet. Chute made me swear I’d go to training. I swore I would, but I crossed my fingers in my mind, just in case.

After Chute left, Streeter and I dozed off and the TV blared. I drifted into a soft cushy dream when my cheek went numb, followed by a dull piercing sensation. I opened my eyes. Streeter stood over me with his nojakk pistol tool. There was a small knot where he injected a new nojakk. His fat lips spread out, grinning, squishing his nose flatter than it already was. Making him look more like a frog.

“It’s better if you don’t know its coming,” he said. “Your old nojakk seed will dissolve. The new one should be working already.”

I was still too dazed.

He tapped his cheek. “Call Socket. Can you hear me now?”

The newly implanted nojakk ticked in my cheek. Streeter’s voice resonated inside my head. “It works,” I said.

I curled up against the couch, pulled a blanket over my shoulder. Sleep was coming fast, again. The TV lulled me back into a comfortable place where people really cared and nobody took and nobody wanted. I tapped my cheek to activate the nojakk. “Call Chute.”

The nojakk tick, tick, ticked for several seconds before her sleepy voice spoke inside my head. “Yeah?”

“Uh, just seeing if the nojakk was working.”

“It’s working,” she said. “Go to sleep.”

“Right.”

Streeter and I made eggs the next morning and caught the bus wearing the same clothes we slept in. They were sort of clean, definitely wrinkled. Buckshot wasn’t on the bus. It was a good start. I had no reason to think this day would be any different than all the rest, except the block of ice was still there, harder and colder.

A gut feeling said things were going to change.

No rime or reason

Third period study hall was in the Pit: a circular auditorium that seated three hundred.

Pre-class chatter echoed off the domed ceiling. Mr. Buxbee monitored this class, but that morning a substitute was seated at the round dais in the sunken center. He didn’t look much older than me, must’ve been right out of college and still only shaving every other day. Lookits floated overhead, their beady red eyelights searching for spitwads and errant notes, armed to send anyone to the office if they weren’t in their seat when the bell sounded.

I walked the perimeter, looking down the descending isles that pointed at the substitute teacher. Most the seats were filled. Cybies were reclined in their seats with eyes closed, small discs attached behind their ears. The ’crossers, queens, rats, burners and anyone else that couldn’t thought-project into virtualmode did homework on laptops, looking at a screen and typing. Only homework was allowed in study hall. Internet surfing was illegal in school.

Streeter and Chute were third row from the center dais. I ran to the seat between them—a lookit following and watching and timing—and fell in it just as the bell sounded.

Chute leaned back, looked me up and down, tugged on my sleeve. “Didn’t you wear this yesterday?”

“Maybe.”

The lookit hovered in front of us, its red eyelight glowing. Quiet. I put my finger to my lips and nodded. It moved away, the eyelight still watching. The substitute didn’t bother with us. He was watching a music video on his laptop; the Pink Muffins were singing Crown my King.  Surfing was illegal, substitutes excluded.

Streeter handed me two white discs, silently mouthed the words, we’re going virtualmode.

Chute was already reclined. Eyes closed. Discs attached. Pony tail hanging over the seat. I stuck the discs behind my ears. They sucked at the soft skin under my earlobes like fleshy lips. My skin prickled. A spot quivered in my head like a tuning fork. The numbing took over.

There were no lights in the darkness behind my eyelids. No colors. A deadening sensation oozed down my neck and consumed me. The outside world drifted away. Sound faded. Temperature non-existent. I left my body. My skin. My awareness, me—whoever I was, was drawn into the Internet. Into virtualmode. For the moment, I drifted in darkness with the falling sensation. This was the place where most people failed to enter virtualmode Internet. They couldn’t handle the drifting. No skin. Just awareness. Just falling. It was like those old 3D posters that looked like fuzz unless you learned how to focus your eyes just right and the three-dimensional picture jumped out. Cybies knew how to ride the in-between like a wave, all the way into virtualmode Internet. Artificial intelligence couldn’t pass through the in-between, either. Safety precautions. The word was that if AI got virtualmode, everyone connected would end with jelly brains.

Darkness took form. First, there was an empty room with lumpy, colorless furniture. The gray walls turned into wood paneling with frosty windows. Cheap sofas, frayed rugs covered the floor and monstrous deer heads looked down from mounts, their glassy eyes reflecting the fire in the hearth. Above the fireplace was an enormous moose head, its antlers spreading the width of the mantel. Its fake eyes were empty and sad.

Virtualmode Internet: an alternate reality where there is no pain. No consequences. No fear. A place that is numb and safe. Not cold, but empty. I entered my virtualmode body—my avatar—that looked pretty much like I did in the skin, except for the hair. I liked my avatar bald, as in shining.

The flames flickered over the dry wood, occasionally licking the old stone around it. The top of the mantel unfolded and a tiny woman, blond hair and sweeping curves, stepped out and crossed her perfectly smooth legs.

“Can’t feel the heat?” she said. “Upgrade your virtualmode gear with Dr. Feelers tactile attachments. Dr. Feelers puts you in control of the nervous system inputs, you can feel as little or as much as you like. Fire too hot? Turn it down by…”

“Off,” Chute said, even though she was rubbing her hands in front of the fire like she could feel it. Her avatar was taller than her skin body. Darker and more defined. Lean and dangerous. A giant barbarian came out of the next room with a wooden chair that looked tiny in his hand. Streeter’s avatar was ten feet tall, muscles bulging off his neck and rippling down his arms with a bloody axe dangling from his hip. I always thought Streeter should just wear a loincloth to complete the whole savage look. We all knew he was compensating for his real skin, so go the whole mile and be bigger than life.

He kicked the sofa away to make room and sat in the chair that groaned and splintered but somehow held him. Control panels emerged from the floor and wrapped around him like mission control.

 “What’re we doing here?” I said.

“Hawk and Hound battle,” Streeter said. “We’re going to get our kill on.”

“I just got pardoned for fighting yesterday. If I get caught virtualmoding during class, I may as well stamp my own suspension.”

“Don’t worry, Buxbee’s out of town.” Streeter’s rich voice vibrated on the walls. “That substitute has no idea where we’re going. I set up a false scenario for the lookits to scan. As far as anyone’s concerned, we’re reliving Desert Storm for history class.”

I looked Chute. “Did you know we were doing this?”

“He didn’t tell me. If you were there on time, he wouldn’t have told you, either.” She turned her head, the pony tail whipping around. “That’s the way he does it.”

Her avatar’s features look just like her. The eyes are blue. The freckles just right. If my avatar had olfactory senses, she’d probably smell like lotion. Streeter did a great job. Building a strong, fast, and powerful avatar isn’t easy. And to get it that detailed, that accurate… no one carves graphics like Streeter.

“All right,” he sang to himself, then looked up. “We’re at a website called the Rime. It’s a bunch of twelve-year olds with rich parents. I say we vaporize their asses down to bare data and harvest all their experience points. They aren’t worth much, but every bit counts.”

“Twelve-year olds?” I said. “Seriously?”

“Points are points and we ain’t got time for a real battle. Let’s eat ‘em up and spit ‘em out on the way back to class.”

The monitors lit up. Streeter scanned them, mumbling to himself as he surveyed the environment outside the cabin. Chute was already sitting on the couch checking her emails, so I figured I’d check mine. I faced the fireplace. “Open email.”

A list of emails hovered in front of me with muted video streaming next to them. I pushed the list with my finger. 120 unread. I hadn’t checked email in days. School announcements. Sports reports. Ads. Something about a new jetter club. The one on top was from Mom, a video message sent twenty minutes ago. I reached for it and stopped. I couldn’t open it. Not now. She’d apologize, or maybe tell me she already knew she wasn’t coming home again. But it wasn’t so much that as I didn’t want to see the exhaustion on her face. The hollow look in her eyes. I’d open it when I got home.

“You all right?” Chute said.

“Just junk mail.”

“Junk mail’s got you all glummy?”

My gut was still frozen and heavy. I wasn’t sick. I just felt like it. Is there medicine for an empty house? “I need more sleep.”

“Stop sleeping in front of the TV.”

She shoved me off balance. I pushed back and nearly put her in the fireplace. She came back with a right hook that nearly knocked my arm off. Glad I can’t feel anything.

“Got it!” Streeter found what he was searching for with that giant toothy grin, big square teeth stuck in his mouth. “They don’t realize Mother Nature is the best weapon.”

An image appeared on the console to his right. It was an enormous eagle’s nest with three people. Streeter ran his fat fingers over the controls, muttered commands. The sky darkened over the nest. They looked up. Black clouds roiled and rumbled. They ran for it, leaping over the edge, but not before a blue bolt flashed. After that, it was burnt feathers and a wisp of smoke. One of them survived, black and crispy and crawling at the edge. He pulled himself up and threw his leg over. Streeter touched the panel and one more flash, one more lightning bolt, sizzled down. The survivor fell in a heap of ashes.

“We don’t have much time, so I’ll sit here and blast them out of the trees while you guys run them down on foot. I’ll let you know when its time to bail.”

“What about the garb?” Chute pointed at our clothes. “We can’t go like this.”

Streeter spoke to his control panels. Our clothes shifted and changed, turned white, speckled with browns and blacks and hung like rags. A battle staff appeared in Chute’s hands. Weapons materialized on my belts, simple handles that looked less threatening than Chute’s pole but, once activated, were more dangerous than anything that existed in the skin. Streeter leaned back, the chair protested. His blocky teeth poked through a crooked smile. “Go get them.”

A clean-cut kid appeared at the door. “Are your weapons weak? When you need to destroy and do it fast, think the Canonizer.” He held up a pistol with an oversized barrel. “It’s rapid, compact, and requires a fraction of the code—”

Chute walked through the advertising apparition and out the door.

“Good luck!” Streeter waved. “Bring home as many heads as you can find, kids.”

I followed her through the advertisement swinging the Canonizer around. The boards on the front porch were gray and cracked. The cabin was buried in a dense forest, the trees thick and nearly impenetrable. A narrow path a few feet wide carved through the forest starting at the bottom of the steps. Snow gusted down the path in swirly patterns. My breath came out in long clouds.

I could feel all the way back to my skin. It was colder.

Moving Shadows

Chute pulled a red lookit from her bag and tossed it out of sight. The lookit’s view illuminated her palm. It zoomed between the branches, the view a distorted fisheye, bobbing and zipping up and down. It passed avatar warriors dressed in black, hiding behind trees. They saw it, tried to hide. The lookit continued past and onto a tundra.

“There’s tundra in that direction where the action is,” she said. “We can engage, like”—she counted silently—“eight teams. We can harvest about 2,800 battle points.”

A black cloud drifted over us. Lightning rumbled deep in its belly, hunting twelve-year olds, unaffected by the wind blowing in the opposite direction. Streeter could win the entire war before class was over.

Chute shivered. “Let’s go before I start feeling cold.”

We leaped over the railing, down the path and through the canyon of trees, knocking snow off heavy branches. Chute consulted the mapgear imbedded in her glove, turned off the path and scurried between the tight-growing trees. She moved faster than I could. Her garb blended with the trees. She was hard to see ten steps away. I slid a dark visor over my eyes. Data scrolled over the lens, estimating two warriors up ahead in the trees. I leaned behind a tree while Chute circled around. There was a clearing on the other side of the tree. The snow was untouched.

I checked my weapons. I’d been in thousands of battles and still got nervous when it came to face-to-face combat. Don’t know why. I’d destroyed warriors and warlocks, monsters, vampires, mutants, and dinosaurs. Torn them apart, sliced them in half and blown them to pieces. And they’d done the same to me. It wasn’t real, just data. Still, I don’t like dying. Simulated or not.

The Parents for Civilized Gaming Association didn’t like it much, either. They claim, real or not, our developing minds are twisted by cruel acts in virtualmode. Evidently when I chopped the head off a dragon I was mentally scarred. They said we were more likely to become sociopaths when the line between reality and virtual got blurred. Listen, I killed vampires and warlocks. Not people. I knew the difference. Besides, the Gaming Industry did plenty of research to prove a ’crosser was just as likely to go crazy as a cybie, so why weren’t they boycotting lacrosse games?

“Pssst.” The tree bark formed into lips and whispered. “Do you need better camouflage gear? Consider upgrading to Winder gear. The only add-on attachments that don’t break your bank. They’ll make you invisible to—”

“Just shut up.” I mashed the lips flat.

Two figures dropped from the trees and crouched like ninjas. Their garb changed colors from green and brown to dirty white to match the snow. I walked to the center of the clearing looking for Chute. Where was she? I was hoping she would’ve speared these clowns already and we could be on our way to the tundra where the real points were. The ninjas spread out, one on my left and the other on my right.

“Where’s your weapons?” the dirty white ninja on my left said.

“What?”

“Your weapons,” he said. “We’ve never had a Level V at the Rime. What do you use?”

I planned on showing them my weapons when I pulled their hearts out. Suppose it was only right I show them what I was going to use. I pulled the thick clubs from beneath my garb.

“Evolvers?” he said. “You’re allowed two weapons and you bring evolvers?” They chuckled, at first. Then they laughed. The one on the right fell to one knee laughing so hard. I didn’t get the joke, seeing as their avatars were about to be spilled all over the trees.

“Oh, man, this is good.” The one on the left wiped tears from his eyes. “We’ll harvest major experience points for this. So long, Level V.”

They raised hand-held weapons. Red tipped torpedoes flumped from the muzzles.

I squeezed the evolver handles. They melted, reformed and wrapped around my hands and forearms like living gloves, penetrating my avatar’s skin. I narrowed my focus, envisioned a protective shield. The evolvers responded to my thought-command and a bluish bubble exploded from my left hand and engulfed me. The torpedoes pierced the shield, stuck halfway through, the tips opening and closing like teeth. I focused more intensely. The torpedoes were cut in half like they were caught in a guillotine.

They shot another ten rounds. Same results. The ground was littered with severed torpedoes, flopping like dying fish, teeth gnawing at my boots. Confidence drained from the ninjas. They scrambled up the trees. I flicked my wrists. Long, liquid whips snaked out of my palms, wrapped around their ankles. I yanked one of them down. He bounced off the ground in a cloud of snow and screamed like a girl. Maybe it was a girl. Chute is a girl, she doesn’t scream like that.

The other one slipped from my grip, got into the treetops. The whips slithered back to my hand. I wrapped them around the girl-ninja’s body, binding her arms.

“Where’s your buddy?” I said.

Something moved in the branches. A pair of bodies crashed in a powdery white explosion. When the puff settled, Chute was on top the other ninja, his hands bound behind his back.

“What took you so long?” I said.

“While you were tromping around, I was deactivating traps.”

“Traps?”

“Ten of them. Lucky you didn’t step in any. What would you do without me?”

Step in traps, I guess.

Chute pinned her prisoner against the tree. “Surrender bonus points.”

They both giggled, looked at each other. Giggled some more. They both must be girls. Honestly, with a website that rich in graphics I figured they’d take the battle more seriously. Stupid twelve-year-olds.

“Get rid of them,” I said. “We don’t have time.”

Chute put her hand over his chest to knock him out of the game. We’d get the points, spare his avatar. They were only twelve. I hated it when older warriors vaporized our avatars and made us build them from scratch. Then again, that’s what made us so good. “On second thought, dust them,” I said.

That was when the first boom shook the trees.

“What was that?” she said.

I looked around but there was nothing. The ninjas laughed harder. I shook the one on the ground. “You know what that is?”

“There’s another Level V,” she said. “He doesn’t like you.”

Boom. Snowflakes trickled.

“What do you mean another Level V?” I said. “How does he know us?”

She shrugged. Giggled. Boom.

“What’s going on over there?” Streeter’s voice was in our heads.

Chute explained what was happening. I stalked the perimeter of the clearing. The ground shook with each boom, but echoed all around.

“Another Level V?” Streeter said. “Let me scan the game log and find out who it is.”

Boom. The trees shivered. Boom. Cold leached from my gut into my arms and legs.

Chute pushed her hand through the ninja’s chest. The avatar evaporated radiantly. Chute’s arm absorbed the light and the experience points it contained. She turned. “Maybe we should turn back and—”

Branches snapped.

The Level V stepped into the clearing carrying a staff the size of a tree trunk. He was bigger than Streeter. Black torn leather. Long, knotted hair. His teeth pointed and sharky.

“Coach told me not to lay a hand on you.” Gravel rattled in his throat. He plodded closer, towering fifteen feet. “I can’t risk getting suspended.”

Buckshot? What’s he doing in virtualmode?

For a monster that size, he was quick as a bird’s beak. He caught me under the throat—his hand engulfing my neck, half my head—lifted me to his face. “But I never wanted to be a cybie.” His cold breath was foggy, tinted green. “Real men live in the skin.”

He spat. The snotwad melted the snow with steaming black tendrils of smoke.

 “Since I can’t break your face, I’ll settle for wrecking your avatar. When I’m done with you, it’ll take a year to rebuild. And then I’ll hunt you down and wreck it again. And since you’re no good in the skin, what good will you be without an avatar? I’ll tell you what.” He pulled me closer. “Nothing.”

I envisioned sabers. They grew from my evolver-wrapped hands. I rammed them between his ribs. He roared, flung me across the opening. I smashed against a tree. The light went out. The world shook. For a moment, I drifted back to my skin in study hall. I kept my eyes shut, willed myself back through the in-between and back into my avatar. I was half-buried in snow.

Buckshot was on his knees, holding his wounds. He spent good money on that avatar, clearly a professional build. I was betting he bought it.

A lash slid from my evolver hand. I whipped it over my head, crackling with power, and brought it down on him to sear him in half. He caught it. It had enough energy to cut through his hand, his body and down into the ground. But he caught it like a string. The whip snapped around his fingers and he yanked the evolver off my arm. I spun around, sliding across the ground. I shook the snow off my face in time to see his fat bare foot coming down. I didn’t have time to roll. All I could do was watch it come to crush my head.

The ground shook.

A giant soared over me, crashing into Buckshot before he flattened my skull. Streeter. Two titan avatars locked in a super heavyweight battle. Streeter pulled his heavy battle axe off his belt and, with both hands, chopped with enough force to fell twenty trees. Buckshot batted the stroke away with his mighty staff, kicked Streeter in the chest. Streeter rolled, head over feet, into the dense forest. He came out roaring, axe held high.

Buckshot jammed the staff into the frozen earth; it vibrated, groaned inside like it was deep and ancient. The top burst open and bat-faced demons spewed out like a fountain, black as tar. They stained the snow, slithering across the ground. Streeter and Chute pulled them off, chopped them, speared them, slammed them and ripped them in half, but the demon stick continued to pour.

Buckshot grabbed my only evolver-hand before I could create another saber. I heard the arm break off at the elbow like a dead branch. He dangled my severed arm like fresh kill. The evolver fell off. I’d lost limbs in battle before but I’d never had one ripped off. The meat inside looked like putty.

He snatched me by the throat, reared back and threw me like a stone. I soared out of the clearing and over the forest.

Trees.

Limbs.

Sky.

I spun in the clouds. Air whistled. I lost grip on my avatar again, fading back to my skin. I focused to return. When the world stopped spinning, I was in the dark, but not in the in-between. I was buried in a snow drift. It was difficult climbing out with half an arm. The drift was five feet deep. I reached the surface of the frozen tundra. The wind blasted across the land like a white desert, scouring the surface into crusty drifts.

“Just log off!” Chute’s voice rang in my head. “His avatar is too much. We can regroup. We can get him later! Log off, Socket!”

My insides were as cold as the sleet pelting my face.

Guys like Buckshot always won. Now matter how ugly or how rotten, they came out on top. Just like a ’crosser. And now he was in our world chasing us back to the skin…taking whatever he wanted. Everyone takes.

Something quivered inside.

The snow crunched behind me. I was pulled up by the neck. Buckshot turned me around. His ratty hair flapped off his grimy face. He laughed but I couldn’t hear it through the wind. His lips moved, saying something about it was over. All I had to do was close my eyes and focus on my skin: I’d log off in seconds. If that didn’t work, I could shout bail out and return. My avatar would be intact. We could stalk him in another world, at another time, and beat him. I just couldn’t get myself to do it. I couldn’t turn away. I wouldn’t run.

“LOG OFF!” Chute’s voice cried.

Chute was running across the tundra, throwing fireballs with her melter glove, but they dissolved in the bitter wind. She was too far away.

Buckshot opened his mouth. The jaws unhinged and stretched wide like a python. He held me over his mouth, losing his balance in the wind, grabbing me with both hands. I was going in.

I tasted cold. The sensation of loss slid down my neck and into my stomach. Emptiness, as colorless as the sky, consumed me.

As I dangled over Buckshot, someone was out on the tundra, unaffected by the gale. He was solid black, sort of see-through, walking calmly in the brightness of winter’s fury. It looked more like a three-dimensional shadow than it did an avatar. Ghost avatars are nearly impossible to build and can never be sustained in a virtual environment like the tundra; there is just too much dataflow to master one. But there it was, undisturbed by weather that pushed us around.

Buckshot didn’t notice the ghost. Every time a gust of wind blew him back, he had to stretch his mouth open again. He finally set his feet and pushed me in his mouth. I grabbed at his dagger teeth, but with only one arm I wasn’t going to last.

The shadow avatar stepped closer, reached up and touched my chest. The icy emotional block that resides in my stomach suddenly ruptured like an overripe zit. Fire spewed into my veins, my tissues, muscles, skin, and heart. Heat filled every bit of my body. It filled my mind. Light burst from my fingertips, blinding me.

I burned in the dark space in-between avatar and skin.

I was the space.

Everywhere.

Everything.

“The time has come to know your true nature.” The strange voice was powerful yet soft, vibrating somewhere deep inside, from parts of my being I did not know existed.

“Who are you?” I said, in the dark.

“Your guardian.”

“Guardian?”

I felt movement. I drifted toward something.

“Hello?” I said. “You still there?”

Something moved away. In the receding distance, the voice said, “The time has come to awaken.”

I returned to my avatar, opened my eyes. There was no sound. No wind. No movement, motion or life. Everything was as still as a picture. I lay in the snow, staring at a bright, swirling sky streaked with a myriad of violets and blues and reds and oranges. So calm. So magical.

Snowflakes hung in the air like twinkling stars. They didn’t move, they were stuck, each an original design. One melted on the tip of my finger. I pushed them away like suspended beads. There was Buckshot poised with his jaw unhinged and an empty hand over his mouth like he tried to force something invisible into his gaping mouth. I walked in front of him. He didn’t move, remained still. Didn’t even blink. Green fog hung over his mouth.

Chute was twenty feet away, stuck in mid-air, legs poised like a sprinting hurdler. A fireball was inches from her outstretched hand. The flames did not flicker. Panic etched on her face.

“Chute?” My voice echoed off the distant trees. “You all right?”

Nothing.

But stillness.

She was unmoving, eyes fixed on Buckshot’s hand where once I dangled. Where once he was stuffing me into his jaws. Before the shadow ghost touched me.

“Hello?” I turned in a circle. “What’s going on here?”

I focused on returning to the skin but felt locked into the avatar. That had never happened before. “Code bail out,” I called.

Still here.

“Code bail out! Bail out! CODE BAIL OUT!”

Nothing. A different sort of shiver tore through me. What if I was stuck on the Internet? People had been known to lose their mind in virtualmode; what if I lost contact with my skin? Would I wander the Rime’s forever?

Something ripped.

A sound. The first sound I heard. Nothing moved, but something ripped like thunder. It rumbled under my feet. Snow-capped mountains pierced the clouds beyond the flat horizon where the ground cracked open, the snow falling in. A chasm rumbled over the tundra, tearing the ground open as it went. The ripping grew louder.

Heat balled up in my belly. Run.

I scooped up Chute with half an arm—I wasn’t going to leave her—and drudged through the snow. I turned to see Buckshot teeter on the shaking ground and fall over. His jaw snapped off. The jagged rip snaked next to him. He rattled away from it, his arms and legs breaking off and dancing on the vibrating ground, shattering his avatar to pieces.

The trees were twenty steps away. I pumped through the drifts. Ten steps. Five. The rip became a roar, shaking my insides. I was in the shade of the branches when the sound overwhelmed me. The ground opened. I tossed Chute and fell into the dark abyss.

Down.

Down, down, down.

I opened my mouth to scream, but I had no mouth.

I had no hands, feet or body. No eyes to see. It was grainy, like the static on a dead television show.

Socket.

It hurt.

Socket.

It pulled my insides, wherever my insides were. I was suffocating. I was growing, shrinking, stretching. Coming apart. Disintegrating.

SOCKET!

I sat up in my seat. In study hall. I was back in my skin, sweat soaked through my shirt. Three lookits hovered over me. One of them said the inimaginable.

“You are to report to the principal’s office,” it said. “Your mother is coming for you.”

She had never come to school.

In the moody

The room spun. I gripped the armrests to settle down. I panted like I’d run a mile.

“Come with me, Mr. Socket,” the lookit said.

My legs wobbled. Chute took my arm. The study hall felt like a sinking ship. The substitute teacher looked over his laptop. Hell, the entire class looked.

“We’re going with you,” Chute said.

“Only Mr. Socket.”

There was a scuffle on the other side of the room. Buckshot pushed his way down the isle, heading past the stunned substitute still hunkered over his laptop. His teammates held his arms. Buckshot fought them, his face burning red, but they held him. The lookits soared over to record the disturbance, warned him to return to his seat before he was reported.

“I don’t know how you did it,” Streeter said, “but you destroyed Buckshot’s avatar. I mean flat out obliterated it. Evaporated. Gone. Not a shred of data is left. He’ll have to start from scratch. It’s going to cost him… a lot.” Streeter shrank in his seat. “He’s pissed.”

Buckshot ignored the glowing lookits but couldn’t throw off his teammates. If he got through that blockade, I was done. I could barely lift my arms.

“Did you unlock a secret weapon?” Streeter asked.

Weapon? “I, uh… I’m not sure what happened.” I told them about the shadow. The rip.

“The dataflow in and out of that website overloaded,” Streeter said. “The website shut down before it crashed; you were lucky you got out before you fell all the way in that rip. The dissolution of your avatar could’ve hurt you.” He thumped his head. “By hurt, I mean crazy.”

The lookit flashed its eyelight. “Please come with me, Mr. Socket.”

I left study hall. Chute touched her cheek, mouthing call me.

The lookit took me past the lunchroom on the way to the office. The smell of food was thick and tempting. My mouth watered. I drifted closer to the lunch window where trays of food were passed out to waiting students. I was famished, like I hadn’t eaten in days. The lookit steered me back on course.

The cafeteria felt busier than usual. Like there were more people moving faster, talking louder. Felt, that’s what it was. It felt louder. Their voices vibrated in my chest. Someone dropped a spoon on the other side of the room. Three people moved behind us, two boys and a girl. She was blond. I turned and two boys and a girl were looking back at me. How’d I know that?

TV monitors inset all around the room played news reports. No one took notice of the burning building beside a reporter. Her voice carried over the lunchroom chatter.

“Breaking news. The central hub for Internet Traffic was attacked today. Projectiles were fired into the roof only thirty minutes ago. This building facilitates all virtualmode Internet traffic in the Northern Hemisphere. If not for the reinforced construction, the infrastructure would be completely destroyed. The cyber-terrorist organization, Orphan, is already claiming responsibility for the attack.”

The room was alive with energy that vibrated in my bones. Each person was a presence moving through a liquidy force, surrounded by pulsing power, each a different color, the energy mingling when they talked, passed each other, bumped into each other or even thought about each other. Their thoughts pulsated like sound waves, landing on each other without recognition.

“An Orphan representative released a statement,” the reporter said.

A gaunt man appeared. His eyes contained perfect circles of blue iris. “Artificial Intelligence is born today, people. As we speak, it will penetrate the virtualmode Internet and find a way into our lives and there is nothing government can do to stop it. People will soon realize the full potential of AI. The world will be governed by AI, not people. It will rule without corruption. Logically. Reasonably. Unmoved by profit and lobbyists. Government officials will no longer be needed. Capitalists will lose billions. AI androids will cook for us, drive us, care for the sick and elderly, explore space, and create everything we need. There will be no billionaires. We will all be wealthy. The future is now, people. Perfection is coming.”

The reporter returned with the smoking building behind her. “According to officials, the statement is false. The attack was indeed thwarted and artificially intelligent code, or AI, did not infect the Internet. Officials have urged us not panic. The Internet is safe.”

[Socket’s going to the office again. Imagine that.]

That voice spoke clearly above the lunchroom chatter inside my head. Not on my nojakk, like a thought. I looked at the girls behind me. “What’d you say?”

They sneered, laughed behind their hands and walked away. The lookit hovered at eye level, reminded me to keep walking. The girls sat at a table with friends. Now they were all looking at me.

[He’s a freak.]

[Just look at his hair. Who has white hair?]

[I’ll tell you who… freaks.]

I walked faster, tapping the nojakk in my cheek, muttering, “Off, off, off, off, off.”

The nojakk clearly malfunctioned. Streeter used cheap materials, or maybe it was homemade. He built his own gear all the time, and it frizzed now and then. Or maybe Buckshot did nerve damage.

Or maybe I stopped time.

“Authorities are still investigating the attack,” the reporter said. “There are conflicting reports on just how, or who, stopped the Orphans from overtaking the Internet Traffic Tower. Officials are just happy they were stopped.”

I rushed out of the cafeteria, the lookit buzzing to keep up. I ran away from the reporter. Away from the chaos. Away from the voices.

I stood at the curb. A lookit hovered over me, an ever-watchful eye making sure I didn’t leave before my mom arrived.

Dark clouds rolled in, leaving a slice of blue sky. The road in front of the school was empty but for an occasional car. Across the street, trees were being cleared. More buildings were going up. Laborers were erecting frames with a new material called spiderbond. It’s light, strong and cheap. No more wood. No more steel.

Everything was changing so fast.

School was always the last place I wanted to be, but now I just wished I could go back inside and everything go back to normal. I wouldn’t fight anymore. I’d do my homework. Do my chores. Whatever it took, I just wanted things familiar again. It just didn’t feel like the ground was under me. I didn’t like falling.

A dome-shaped car turned onto the lonely road. Solar panels gleamed on the roof. It eased to a stop at the curb, an electro-magnet humming beneath the hood. The passenger door slid open.

Mom gripped the steering wheel with both hands. I got in. We turned off the frontage road for the Interstate. She twisted the wheel. She didn’t have the mad look, but I wasn’t convinced.

“Here.” She passed me two breakfast bars in generic wrappers. “Eat these.”

I tore the wrapper with my teeth and devoured the first one, barely chewing. It was dense and grainy, but satisfied the empty pain in my stomach. I chewed the second one.

“How’d you know I was hungry?”

She checked the rearview screen, looked out her side window and changed lanes.

“Where we going?” I said.

“You’re coming with me.”

“To work?”

She tucked her short brown hair behind her ear. Blood vessels filled the white parts of her eyes. There were colors around her body, shifting from dark to light. I shook my head, rubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes. The colors were gone.

“Where’s work?”

She minced her thoughts before speaking, deciding which ones to tell. I always thought I wanted to know her secrets. Now I wasn’t so sure.

[This shouldn’t be happening. Not now.]

That was her voice in my head. It was not coming through the nojakk.

“What’s wrong with me?”

She hiccupped on the next breath, held her hand to her mouth. She held something heavy inside, didn’t want to let it out. When she settled, she touched my hand and offered a smile too fragile to speak.

She patted me once, twice and then went back to driving. “There’s nothing wrong, Socket.”

“It doesn’t feel like nothing.”

“I know you’re going through some… changes. It seems very confusing right now, but things will make sense soon.”

“Changes? Hairy armpits are changes! This is something way past that! Something happened in virtualmode.” I tapped my head, my hand shaking. “It’s not making sense. I’m hearing voices, Mom. And you’re taking me to... to … work?”

She held the steering wheel so tight with the other hand the skin lost color. She turned onto the Interstate and locked in the auto-pilot. She dropped her hands but stared straight ahead. The mad look surfaced. I knew it was there, lurking beneath tired eyes. I sometimes wondered who she was mad at. Dad for dying? Or the lousy kid he left her with? I could’ve asked, but that wasn’t our way. It was more like, you take care of yourself and I’ll take care of myself. That’s the Greeny way.

She touched the dashboard and a compartment revealed a black cube the size of billiards chalk. She stuck her thumb in it. The black cube turned gooey, sucked tightly to her skin. She let out a deep sigh and closed her eyes. Natural endorphins surged into her blood stream.

“I thought you quit using a moody,” I said.

“I don’t smoke, drink, or drug.” Her lips already seemed drier. “But sometimes… I just need to feel better.”

“Moody cubes force endorphin release, not much different than cocaine.”

“It’s more like drinking coffee.”

She put the moody back, her thumb red and swollen. She licked her lips, reached for a bottle of water in the door panel and took a long drink. The colors around her returned and swirled wildly. Coffee? Mom took it out of auto-pilot and turned off the Interstate.

“What shouldn’t be happening?” I said.

She let her eyes dart to me then back to the road. She wasn’t surprised by the question. It was her thought I heard, after all.

“You’ll be safe, Socket. I can’t tell you anything more than that.”

I feel better already.

The mad look disappeared, followed by the dead zone. Her empty stare. It was where she went when she sat at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee for hours. Her thoughts haunted her like a game of hide-and-seek. It was usually at night. She didn’t know I noticed. She was somewhere else, entirely. “Give me the strength to see clearly,” she would sometimes say in the dead zone.

In the morning, she would be impeccably dressed, ready for work. It was hard to see her like that, so I had my own dead zone. An empty space in the back of my head. I watched the trees pass. We sat only a few feet apart and a million miles away.

Half an hour later, we turned onto a deserted logging road. The road was blocked by fallen trees and overgrowth. We stopped at the first tree. Mom looked out her window. A red light flashed over her face from a hole on a nearby oak. Shortly after, the fallen trees disappeared. The road beyond, lined with mighty oaks, was real. We started ahead, the fallen trees reappearing behind us.

The barren road switched back and forth in the dense forest. The overhead branches eventually thinned and the sun shone through here and there. Every once in a while a round lookit zipped through the branches. They were dull colors, brown and gray, almost invisible. Even the eyelights were only dim spots of light.

There were numerous forks in the road. Mom knew the way and with each turn the road got narrower. Branches scratched the car. Overgrown grass and volunteer trees brushed underneath. Something knocked on the tires. I looked in the side view mirror and saw the rear wheel folding beneath the car.

We’re flying.

But anti-gravity floaters were only for light-weight applications. The technology to float cars was still decades away. They were just too heavy. I looked at Mom but she was dead zone city.

The narrow road dead-ended at a live oak, the massive branches so heavy they lay on the ground. The bark on the trunk shimmered blue as we approached. As we sped up.

“Mom?”

The speedometer registered 100 miles per hour. It didn’t feel like we were going much more than 30. We closed on the tree before I could get an explanation. I threw up my hands, expecting a quick, painless death. She had lost her mind. She was taking us from dead zone to just plain dead.

There was no crash. No final blackness. Just the silky motion of a car flying over the ground. The forest and live oaks were gone. We cruised in a spacious clearing. Scrubby grass nodded in the wind. No sign of civilization.

“That was a transportation wormhole on the oak,” she said.

“Wormhole?”

“We’re not in South Carolina anymore.”

We burst over the weedy patch of land, heading for rocky cliffs. No, we weren’t in South Carolina. Lookits were right out in the open like tiny fairies. They reflected the colors around them, appearing like warped bubbles of space, only their dim eyelights giving them away.

The rusty cliff wall was closer. It went straight up, the sun casting shadows on the narrow ledges that creased its face. There were no doors at the base. No apparent caves. Without wheels to slow us, we soared smoothly over the field. Mom was unfazed, looking at a spot on the wall and thinking of something else.

“Another wormhole?” I said.

“My office.”

She let go of the wheel. We were flying 300 mph. I gripped the armrests and pushed back into the seat, puckering every part of my body.

We hit the side of the mountain. Like the oak, there was no collision. We simply passed through the rock into an enormous cavern and slowed quickly. Mom touched a few buttons on the console and the car gently sank to the ground.

The cavern was dome-shaped, complete with authentic dripping stalactites. I still had a death grip on the seat. Mom pushed the steering wheel up and locked it out of the way. She gathered items from the console. I still hadn’t let go. I had just taken my first ride in a flying car, hit a transportation wormhole, and now I was parked inside a mountain somewhere in the world that had mountains.

“We’re on earth, right?” I said.

“Yes.”

I didn’t bother asking where.

A large, gray sphere emerged from the wall. Several more appeared, floating inches above the ground like supersized lookits. They took position around the car, waiting.

I pointed.

“Servant mechs,” Mom said. “Technology is… a bit more advanced here. You’re going to see some things that don’t exist in the outside world yet.” She had her thumb buried in the moody, again. A look of eerie relief on her face.

“I wish you’d stop that.”

She closed her eyes, pushed her thumb in deeper. “There’s so much to do, Socket. I just need to catch my breath.”

“You don’t have to save the world.”

A tiny smile, one more natural, warmed her face. She tucked her hair behind her ear with her free hand. “Sometimes the world needs you and you have to be there. You’ll understand one day. And I hope you find more strength than your mother.”

I gently pulled her thumb from the moody, red and swollen. “You’re plenty strong.”

“Let’s hope so.”

She opened her door and stepped out. I turned to mine—a silver man was at the window. He had no face.

Holy crap.

Faceless

His egg-shaped head was featureless. No eyes or nose, mouth, ears or chin. Just a smooth, egg-shaped head with an eyelight pointed at me.

“Welcome to the Garrison, Master Socket.” He waved a silver hand. “Do you need help exiting?”

If I didn’t see the colors move on his face, I would’ve sworn a real person said it. He looked like he was from a movie, standing six feet tall on two legs: A humanoid mech. The arms and legs were sinewy like an Olympic athlete. And to top things off, he wore a loose plum-colored overcoat, sleeveless, cinched at the waist.

Mom was out of the car, explained something to him. The servant mechs repositioned themselves around her. One went to the back of the car, returned with her briefcase firmly gripped by an arm that had grown from its spherical body. The silver mech pointed at me. Mom waved at me. I reluctantly opened the door and got out.

I’ve been here before.

It was the smell. Pleasantly musty and wet. Ancient. I was here long, long ago. Maybe my parents brought me here during take-your-kid-to-work day before I was old enough to remember. I’m sure I cried the whole time.

“Socket,” Mom said. “This is Spindle.” The silver mech placed his hand on his belly and gestured with a small bow. “He’s my NexusMind assistant. He’ll be your guide for the day.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I have to attend an urgent meeting. Afterward, we’ll meet in my office.”

“For what? Where are we?”

Her left eye ticked. “We’ll discuss it later. In the meantime, Spindle will escort you to security assignment. You’ll be safe with him.”

Mom wasn’t prone to signs of affection. It didn’t happen often, so I was caught by surprise when she gently placed her hand on my cheek. “I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

[It’ll be all right]

That’s what she was thinking. Instead of telling me where I was and why, she just wanted me to know it was all going to be all right. The last time she said that, she took me to the doctor for shots. While I waited, the nurse told me we were waiting on a little stick, then rammed a long needle in my ass. I would’ve preferred a better explanation, then and now, but her touch and smile seemed to be enough for the moment.

Mom was off to the only door in the cavern. The door slid open and closed behind her, leaving me with the android butler.

“Do you have any questions?” Spindle asked.

His posture was friendly, his face bubbly yellow and orange. He was completely unaware I had just been driven through a tree, into a cliff and dropped off in a foreign land.

“Ummm… where I am?” I said. “For starters.”

“You are in the Garrison. It is one of many global training grounds of the Guardian Nation.”

“Right. The Guardian Nation.” I glanced around the cave. “What’s that?”

“It is the global security alliance.”

“Never heard of it.”

“There are many things you have not heard of.” He gestured to the servant mechs still bobbing around us. “Nano-plastine technology, for instance. These servant mechs are composed of cellular-sized nanomechs that make up a generic round body, much like cells of your body. A processor is located at the core and can shift the cellular nanomechs into whatever form is necessary. Very useful. Humanity has not been granted access to this technology yet.”

“Why not?”

“Many discoveries are still considered too dangerous. When the circumstances are right, they will be released.”

“These Guardians,” I said, “they’re human?”

“That is correct.”

“What gives them the right to horde all this stuff?”

“The Guardian Nation is a much more evolved race of humans. The general public cannot be trusted with such power. It would be like giving a gun to a two–year-old child. In the hands of a responsible adult, a gun can be used safely. However, a two-year-old child would likely harm himself.” He pushed his shoulders back and tilted his head. “Does that make sense?”

“But adults still shoot each other, so I’m not sure the gun analogy works.”

“That is why it is a perfect analogy. Even guns are used irresponsibly. Can you imagine what the same people would do with some of these magnificent advancements?”

Spindle waited for my response. His facial colors were muted yellow, fading back to silver. He turned to the servant mechs. His face jumped with dark blues but he said nothing out loud. The servant mechs drifted back to the walls and merged through them as if the openings were all there, just masked with the illusion of rocky walls.

“If you have no more questions, we can proceed to security assignment,” he said. “We can begin our journey with a friendly gesture.” He held up his hand, fingers spread. “Stick it, Master Socket.”

“What?”

“Stick it.” He shook his hand. “It is a friendly handshake that kids do. You stick it.”

I held up my hand like his, expecting something like a high-five.

“No, no, you stick your fist in the palm of my hand.”

I did like he said. He wrapped his soft, fleshy fingers around my fist and shook. “Do you see?” he said. “You stick it.”

I took back my hand. “Kids are doing this?”

“Kids do this, yes. I hope I did it right. It is a friendly gesture. Did I do it too soon? Should we be better acquainted before such customs?”

“Ummm, no, that’s not it. I just never heard of it.”

“You have not?” His head looked yellow again, splattered with specks of black. “My data says this is very popular.”

“Where did you get the data?”

“The data originated from a teenage website named Pops. It is rated the number one virtualmode website for teenagers in your age bracket.”

“Pops is for little teeny girls and boys wanting to meet their favorite boy bands and movie stars. About as stupid as it gets.”

“Is that true?” The colors changed. “I will have to rewrite my database.”

“Good idea. And don’t ever do that handshake again.”

“Thank you for your advisement, Master Socket.” He stepped aside and gestured to the door. “Let us proceed to security assignment.”

Spindle stood motionless with his arm extended until I moved. I stepped lightly, no hurry. Spindle walked by my side, his bare feet, each with five toes, landed without sound. The door slid open, revealed a tiny room. More like an empty closet.

“This is a leaper,” Spindle said. “It will take us to any part of the Garrison in a matter of seconds. It can move as fast as 200 miles per hour.”

“200? We’ll be pancakes.”

“Not to worry. Anti-gravity floaters offset the velocity in the opposite direction. You will not feel motion.” Spindle stepped inside. “This is the main mode of transportation within the Garrison.”

I went inside and the door slid shut. “I take it this thing wouldn’t go anywhere without clearance.”

“You would not be here if you did not have clearance.” He refrained from laughing at something so stupid. “Spindle, access code 0452B. Security assignment room, level 1. Prepare for new arrival.”

There was a sharp pang in my stomach, and then it was gone. The door opened to a short, sterile hallway. It did not have doors and dead-ended 100 feet from the leaper.

Spindle started down the useless corridor and stopped halfway. “Here we are.”

“Where?”

“Doors are composed of plasmic particulates creating the illusion of a solid surface.” He pushed his hand through the white wall in front of us. “Much like the cliff you drove through.”

I knocked on a solid wall. “It’s not working.”

“That is because you are touching the wall.” His face lit with sunny yellows, shaped a little like a smile.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Laughing? I do not experience emotions, Master Socket. However, it does appear odd you are trying to push through a wall when the doorway is right next to you.”

“I don’t see a doorway.”

“Not yet.” He walked through the wall, poked his head out several seconds later. “Are you coming?”

“I’m not used to walking through walls.”

“Here.” He extended his hand. “I am programmed to guide you.”

An odd color lit his face. He lightly pulled me through—like a sheet of frigid air—into a large room. It was empty and sterile. Guardians didn’t care much for fluff, living in a mountain with white rooms. How exciting.

“This is the security assignment room. I will assign you level one access. If you will have a seat, I will start the process very soon.”

“You mean, on the floor?”

Spindle crossed the room in five steps. As he did, it reshaped. A chair emerged from the wall. End tables popped out of the floor. The white walls turned dark green with burnt orange trim. Pictures formed on the walls with views of oceans and deserts. A window appeared with the view of scenic mountains, a flock of birds passing by.

I sat on the chair, felt it reform to fit my body, left me weightless. “This room… it’s made from the same stuff as those servant mechs?”

“Yes.” He was busy with a control panel on the wall. “Our rooms can suit any purpose. I hope you are comfortable. We will begin in a minute.”

A vase emerged from a table with flowers. I took a white daisy and sniffed. It smelled like a flower. The room was a regular room in any house across the world, and yet it wasn’t. It was buried in a mountain made up of tiny cell-sized robots that made a flower smell like a flower and a window overlook a mountain. Maybe I misjudged these Guardians.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“You may ask me a question at anytime, Master Socket.”

“What does my mom do?”

“She is the Commander’s administrative assistant.”

“She’s—” I swallowed. “She’s a Guardian?”

The eyelight circled to the back of his head and focused on me while his hands continued to work. “No, Master Socket. She is a civilian. Has she not told you these things?”

“We don’t talk a whole lot.”

“But she is your mother.” He stopped working. “Your caregiver.”

“She’s been a little busy. Since Dad died.”

His face sparkled. “I knew your father.”

“You did?”

“Yes.” His eyelight drifted upward, thinking. “Your father was a remarkable man. He was head of mech design and maintenance. Your father was involved in my prototype design and personally worked on my bodyshell.”

“He was a Guardian?”

“He expressed Guardian traits, but never fully realized them. He worked in the Garrison and was not often involved in missions. The Guardian Nation has been watching to see if you would inherit his traits. I believe you caught them by surprise.”

“What’s that mean?”

“All the details will be revealed to you soon.”

My dad was saving the world and died and no one ever told me. He was just a regular dad and now he was some superhero? And I might be like him? I buried my face in my hands and took a deep breath. Just too much.

“Was he a good father to you?” Spindle asked.

To me? As in, was he a good father to me, too? I shook my head, my voice echoing through my hands. “I suppose. I don’t remember much.”

“I remember your father quite well, from the very first day he ignited my awareness panel.” His eyelight drifted up, again. He was lost in thought for several seconds while colors flashed on his face, then the eyelight returned to me. “We spent every day together in the beginning. Perhaps the entire first year of my existence. He worked on my programming to perfect my learning impulse. After that, I saw him once a week. That is unusual, you realize, for a creator to remain after programming is complete. Your father did that.”

He had that drifting look again. “You miss him?” I said.

“Miss him?” Spindle said. “I am not sure what you mean.”

It feels like there’s something missing, that’s what. It’s longing. Sadness. It’s all of the above. But I simply said, “It feels… empty.”

“Empty?” He contemplated that, feeling his belly with his hand. His face brightened in a got it moment. “There is something missing. A… hole in my awareness. Not a hole, but an…” His eyelight focused on me. “Emptiness. Yes, I do sense that. I do miss him, Master Socket. Thank you for teaching me.”

The colors on his face ran through the full spectrum, brighter and brighter. I didn’t consider emptiness as something he needed to thank me for. For me, it ached. But for Spindle, it was obviously something exciting.

He turned back to the control panel. Beaming. Then said, “If you hold still, a body print is being scanned and a security access level assigned.”

Tiny shockwaves started at my feet and ended at the top of my head.

The control panel folded back into the wall. The pictures, vase and flowers dissolved. I stood and the chair disappeared. The room was empty, once again.

“You have been assigned level one access.” Spindle walked through a dim arching outline on the wall. I could see the doorway now. Maybe that was why he laughed. I followed him into the hall.

“You should be able to see doorways to rooms you have clearance to enter,” Spindle said. “Do you see them?”

There was a similar outline that simulated a doorway at each end of the hall. I nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Agent Pike is waiting.”

“Agent Pike? Who’s that?”

“He will be conducting your preliminary evaluation.”

“Whoa, I thought we were going to Mom’s office. I don’t know anyone named Pike.”

“All cadets are evaluated for potential traits upon arrival. It is the first assignment after security clearance.”

“I’m a cadet? When did that happen? I didn’t sign up for anything.”

Spindle remained absolutely still, assessing the conversation. “Why do you think you are here, Master Socket?”

“No clue.”

Long pause, again. “It will all be explained to you after the preliminary evaluation. However, it is imperative that we remain on schedule. You need to report to Agent Pike immediately.”

I grabbed him as he turned. “Wait, I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going to happen at this… evaluation.”

“Agent Pike is a minder; he has extraordinary psychic ability. He will assess your potential.”

“I’m a Guardian?”

Pause. “That is up to Agent Pike to decide.” He stepped quickly before I could grab again. I was trapped in a short hallway under a billion tons of rock about to meet a man named Pike. It’s just a little stick, Socket.

We walked into a leaper at the other end of the hall. “We will be traveling at 189 mph in a northwest direction exactly 33 degrees above ground level, covering 5,133 feet. Are you are ready?”

No. A falling sensation twisted my gut.

“We have arrived.”

It was another short hallway, a gray archway at the far end. Spindle walked with his shoulders square, his head held high. My knees were cold and unreliable, but I forced myself to follow. I wanted to hold his arm, but that would be stupid.

“You will have to enter alone,” Spindle said. “I will wait here.”

I brushed my fingertips across the chilly gray archway. “So you’re saying he’s just going to ask questions, nothing else?”

“Yes,” Spindle said. “And assess you.”

Assess me. Don’t like the way that sounds. “Where’s Mom?”

“She is sorry.” His fluid voice faltered, just a bit. “She is very aware of you.”

 Was that supposed to calm me down? Don’t tell me the truth or I’ll freak out. I was turning numb and couldn’t stop nodding.

“Agent Pike.” Spindle patted my shoulder. “He is waiting.”

The weakness in my knees was now in my chest. If I waited any longer, I was going to crumble. As I saw it, there was no choice. Nowhere to run. I put my foot through the archway, felt Spindle’s hand slip off my shoulder, and plunged to the other side.

Piked

Pressure.

It wrapped around my body. My skin dimpled like a golf ball, then faded back to normal. Something scanned me.

A frail man sat on a wooden chair, his hands on his thighs. His face was lean, the jaw line very square. Stubble outlined the hairline on his head. His narrow sunglasses partially wrapped around his head. The lenses were convex and black.

“Have a seat.” His voice was clipped, cold and dry.

A similar chair emerged from the floor in front of him. I pulled it away. We didn’t need to be sitting that close. His pointed chin ground back and forth. Tiny cracks appeared around his mouth.

More pressure.

[Agent Pike has mental pressure at level one. The subject is feeling discomfort, but seems to be controlling his nerve response unconsciously.]

The voice was in my head. It came from outside the room. Someone was watching and not just the gecko-looking guy in front of me.

Agent Pike twitched. Nothing noticeable. His eyebrows lifted a few microns. How did I notice that? Gecko. There, it happened again. He heard me. Is that right, Mr. Gecko?

“I am Agent Pike,” he said, no warmer than his greeting.

A servant mech emerged from the wall. Three arms grew from the middle of its body. I pulled my arm away. It stopped, turned its eyelight to Agent Pike.

“The mech simply needs to monitor your vital signs and take a few samples. It will be painless.”

The eyelight returned to me. I could’ve fought the thing, but they were going to get samples one way or another. One of its arms wrapped around my elbow, turning it numb. The other two arms touched various parts of my back, neck, and chest.

“You performed an unauthorized timeslice today at 11:25 a.m.,” Agent Pike said.

“Timeslice?”

“Timeslicing is a stoppage of relative time. Since this incident, you have seen energy patterns and heard random thoughts. Has this not happened to you?”

I don’t like this guy

“We know this to be true, but your cooperation will make this transaction easier.”

He didn’t need me to answer. He wanted me to answer. So I nodded. Fine.

The servant mech pulled its rubbery arms off, merged back into the wall. Three spots of blood beaded on my arm. Blood, skin, tissue, muscle. Did they want to take a chunk of my brain as well?

Agent Pike eyebrows shifted again.

More pressure.

The dimpling sensation was deeper, more intense. I grabbed the bottom of the chair. A line of sweat popped up on my lip.

“Only Guardians have the ability to cease relative time,” he said. “It is not magic. When the human genome was decoded at the turn of this century, humanity unlocked many secrets, one of which was the ability to alter metabolism to move and think infinitely faster than the ordinary human, to experience time stopping. The ability can be performed only in short bursts before the body consumes all its energy. You were very hungry after timeslicing, were you not?”

He paused. We know this to be true.

“Your timeslicing ability was activated by an unknown presence that approached in the form of a shadow. This person was traced to the Garrison, but we do not know the identity.” His nostrils flared, blowing hot air. “Tell me who the shadow was.”

I barely remembered what happened; how would I know who the shadow was?

My eardrums popped. The air thickened.

“You are fifteen years old.” Agent Pike’s voice was now unusually loud, slightly echoing. “Guardian cadets do not timeslice until they are twenty. Your activation is an anomaly.” His lips moved softly, no more than a whisper, but the words rang. “WHO ARE YOU, SOCKET GREENY?”

[Agent Pike, back down the mental pressure.]

His stare locked me in the chair. I could not move.

[Agent Pike! You are ordered to back off! The subject is unstable; you must stop the pressure immediately!]

A black tunnel collapsed around me. My head split. No, not my head. My mind. Pike went looking for answers. Psychic fingers pushed inside like cold spikes. I let out a howl that died in the dense air. Memories hurtled out of the blackness, falling at random. Things I’d forgotten played like movies.

Two years old. Dad pulled me from the car and Mom came around. The room was large and dank. Musty. The parking cave. Dad carried me and his footsteps echoed. A man greeted him. Shook his hand.

“He’s showing signs,” Dad said.

The man ruffled my hair. His breath minty. I hid my face in Dad’s shoulder. “We’ll keep an eye on him,” the man said.

Icy pain cut me. Pike dug deeper.

I was four, holding Dad’s hand. The carnival lights illuminated the night that smelled like straw and sugar. I ate something fried on a stick. Dad tore off a piece, popped it in his mouth. “You want to go on that one, Socket?” he said.

A capsule ride shot straight up, disappeared above the lights.

“Trey,” Mom said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’ll get scared.”

I held his rough hand and we climbed inside the capsule. It smelled like puke. We strapped into the seat and I was thinking Mom was right. I grabbed Dad’s arm when we blasted off, buried my face in his coat.

“It’s all right, Socket,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”

Mom waited for us when it was over. She was wringing her hands but she was smiling.

Pike plunged deeper. Memories popped like bubbles, overlapping each other. Confusing one with the other. I was spinning. Faces passed. Days went by. The memory wheel stopped.

I was five. The colorless sky was cold.

Men were dressed in dark uniforms with white gloves, standing in line. They lowered a casket into the ground, draped a flag over it. Dirt thudded on the lid. A few people cried, but most were expressionless, like soldiers that knew the line of duty. Mom was dressed in black. Her face was sallow. Eyes sunk in the dead zone.

A man rustled my hair. “Your father was a good man.”

His breath was minty. My stomach was hard. Cold.

Memories fell faster, each one stacking on top of the next. Pike flipped through them like playing cards, each one ripped from somewhere dark and quiet. The catalogue of my life reeled in front of me.

I was tearing.

He was coming in. I couldn’t keep him out. I wasn’t big enough to contain him.

The memory of the Rime appeared, fast forwarded to the shadow. The view was fading. Pike grappled with the memory, trying to bring it into focus. His mental fingers grew colder. Sharper. The memory was fading.

WHO IS THE SHADOW?

It just hurt.

Too much.

“You are not authorized to enter this room!” Pike slithered out of my mind.

I was back in my skin, slumped in the chair. Empty and violated. Several people entered the room, emerging from the seemingly solid walls. Their hair was short. Their uniforms tight and black. Two of them wore black glasses. They stepped on each side of Pike like bookends. Pike jumped up, his chair falling back and dissolving into the floor. Spindle wrapped his arms around me and kept me from falling.

“You were ordered to back down twice!” Mom shouted. “YOU WILL NOT BREAK HIM!”

“I am in charge of this preliminary!” Pike retorted with equal venom. “You have no right to be in here!”

“He is my son!” Mom shot back. “And this is a psychic lynching! You were not authorized to probe deeply!”

“There is a traitor in the Garrison. I will use whatever methods necessary.”

“This preliminary is over. You will be removed from this assignment.”

His face reddened. “I am primary minder. I decide methodology. I assess traits, determine acceptance and my decisions are final. Understand, civilian, I will not go.”

“I may be a civilian but I got more brass than any civilian you’ve ever seen. And I have the right ear of Commander Diggs. You can have this conversation with the Commander, if you like, but either way, we are finished here today.”

Pike turned, the glasses slipped, revealing white eyeballs. No iris. No pupil. The pressure spiked. He fixed his glasses and stared at Mom, but she didn’t flinch. She stood in front of me, her hands clenched. Veins pulsed in Pike’s neck. Tension hissed.

“Try it.” Mom stepped closer to Pike, her nose almost touching his. “Go on, get inside me and try it.”

The room charged with static. Her hair floated out.

“If you dare to penetrate my mind, you will not see the outside of a prison cell for a long time, I will see to that, personally, Agent Pike. If you do not contain yourself in the next few moments and leave this room, I will bring in a team of minders that will lock you down for years to come. If you don’t believe me, then try it.” Her lips were very thin. “Back. Down.”

The vein throbbed. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. He calmly adjusted his black glasses. He sucked air between his teeth, took his time turning and glided through the wall. The two black glasses-wearing men followed him as did three black suits. Two men stayed in the room, hands behind their backs. At attention.

My mind was still cleaning up the memories Pike uncorked, trying to put them in their rightful places. They swirled like papers finding their way back to the ground.

“Get him to the infirmary,” Mom said to Spindle and the men. “I want a medical minder to begin decompression wave therapy immediately. Have the medical mechs monitor his vitals and administer sedatives but do not put him to sleep. Once normal brain activity resumes, I want him asleep for twenty-four hours. All activity is to be sent to my office, keep me updated of every second, Spindle. And I mean every second.”

A stretcher floated inside the room. Servant mechs laid me on it, guided it down the short hall to the leaper. The two men led the way. Mom and Spindle walked along side.

“I will be updating Commander Diggs with what just happened,” she said. “Contact all my appointments for the rest of the day and reschedule for tomorrow.”

“But you have an appointment with the Director of—”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I need some time with the Commander.”

I took her hand. It was hot. Wet.

She pushed her hair back. The rigid muscles loosened along her jaws and around her eyes. She stopped the stretcher before it went inside the leaper, squeezed my hand and pushed the hair off my forehead.

“You were there,” I croaked. “You stopped him.”

She nodded, stroking my cheek. Feeling my forehead. She whispered, “Get some rest.” She stood back. “I’ll be with you soon.”

We moved onto the leaper. She watched from the hallway while the door slid shut. She would not rest. Not tonight.

There was too much to do.