Psion Gamma

by Jacob Gowans

  “Okay. Take your time.”

  A few more minutes passed.

  “I have an idea.”

  The words rang in Sammy’s ears. They weren’t his own, but Toad’s. Sammy, swallowing a lot more than his saliva, asked, “What’s your idea?”

  “We’ll need to do some dumpster-diving.”

  After explaining his plan to Sammy, Toad led them back outside where they looked through the dumpsters on the far west end of the hub near the maintenance equipment and service ways. Sammy counted about eight dumpsters in all. They only had to climb into three. The first two emanated such foul smells that Sammy had trouble joining Toad to look through them. It took about a half hour, but they finally found what Toad wanted: a large red suitcase, no larger than a kitchen cupboard, and in good enough shape to travel. The rubber on one of the wheels had only a few more rotations left to give, and the broken handle twisted when they pulled it. Otherwise, it was all they needed.

  Soon enough they were back in the bathroom, washing themselves as best they could to get rid of their stenches. Then they locked themselves into the larger handicap stall at the end of the line. Sammy didn’t think Toad’s plan was going to work, and had no trouble letting him know it.

  “Trust me,” Toad insisted. “I know I’m right.”

  He unzipped the suitcase and climbed inside, then ordered Sammy to zip him up.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” Sammy asked. “It’s going to be awful.”

  Toad nodded, shaking the whole bag. “Just don’t bump me around too much. And bring me back in here if there are any problems.”

  Like I needed to be told that, Sammy thought. He thinks I’m a moron. But it bothered Sammy that he hadn’t been able to come up with a good plan. He picked up the case by the handle and wheeled it back into the concourse.

  Toad only squirmed and jostled a couple of times during the walk to the information desk. Behind the desk sat a woman who wore heavy makeup, a skewed maroon vest, disheveled curly hair, and a taut face. When she turned her attention to Sammy, he saw her invisible well of impatience brimming over. He’d seen the look before in his mother’s eyes, usually after a particularly long day.

  He forced a smile and said, “Hi.”

  The woman eyed him as if he were an exceptionally nasty piece of manure. Sammy gulped but kept the smile.

  “Long day?” he asked.

  “You’re only making it longer.”

  Sammy dropped the grin. The woman—he saw that her name tag said Danielle—was about to open her mouth and say something else, but he cut her off.

  “I’m sorry, Danielle. I didn’t mean to be insensitive, but I need your help . . .”

  She watched him again, then a small smile raised her lips. “How can I help you?”

  “It’s my ticket. Someone purchased it for me, and I wasn’t able to use it until now—a family emergency—but I desperately need to get up north.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Sammy pulled the ticket out of his pocket and handed it over to her. Under Danielle’s severe scrutiny, he felt a twinge of embarrassment at its condition, and gave her a genuinely embarrassed smile.

  “Forgot you’d bought it?” she asked him knowingly.

  “Yeah,” he weakly laughed. “Sorry, but it’s—it’s all I’ve got.”

  He did not bother to hide the tone of desperation in his voice. If she did not let him through, he was screwed. For the first time, it seemed, she noticed Sammy’s clothes, his hair, his state, and probably his smell. Her eyes traveled up and down, and back to the ticket.

  “Normally you’d have to buy a new one. This one’s two months old. Our policy for ticket use ends at forty-five days. Why are you headed north?”

  Sammy couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Sixty days. Eight weeks. Two months. He’d been kept in that room by Stripe for two months. Flashes of cream tubes and kaleidoscopic swirls of color filled his vision.

  “Hey, are you still with me? Why are you headed up north?”

  Sammy blinked several times and wiped the corner of his right eye. “Um, my family—my dad’s parents are up there.”

  “Just the one bag?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Carry on?”

  “Yes.”

  Danielle typed for a few seconds and then handed Sammy a new ticket. Sammy took it with the same reverence he’d shown the old one.

  “You know you get a free meal here at the hub with your ticket, right?”

  Sammy’s whole face brightened. “Really?”

  “Yep.” With one of her long fake fingernails, she showed him a small M on his ticket. He was almost certain there hadn’t been one on his old ticket. She gave him a small wink. “Head on over to security to have your bag inspected.”

  “Thank you, Danielle,” he told her very sincerely.

  “Safe traveling,” she said, her face now cheerful.

  He smiled again and pulled the bag toward security where three lines formed. Sammy chose the middle. Each person had to walk past a team of dogs ready to sniff clothes and bags for traces of bombs or drugs. The dogs were all shepherds—some German, some Belgian. He wondered if any of the chemicals Stripe had used on him would be detected by the dogs. Fortunately, he didn’t have to stew for long. The line moved quickly and though the dogs spent extra time sniffing at his bag, they let him pass.

  The Rio de Janeiro Air Rail Hub had nine rails extending out from the city like the sun’s rays in all different directions except directly south. Sammy wanted rail number three going straight to Panama City. Once he checked in with the rail attendant, he found another bathroom, locked himself in a stall, and unzipped the bag. Toad rolled out of it.

  “Oh, that sucks,” he muttered, and immediately set about stretching his legs.

  “The stupid dogs kept sniffing the bag.”

  Toad’s neck and ears turned red. “Yeah, well, all that running gave me bad gas.”

  “You need anything?” Sammy asked.

  “Do you have any money?”

  “No. But we get a free meal.”

  “Cool! Just let me walk around for a bit.”

  “Boarding is in less than thirty minutes. It takes us all the way to Panama City. No stops in between.”

  “After that?”

  Sammy read off the itinerary on his ticket. “To Guatemala City. Then to Mexico City. From there we stay on the same rail, stopping in San Antonio, Dallas, Oklahoma City, then Topeka. You’re sure you want to do this?”

  Toad rubbed his legs with a frown, avoiding Sammy’s eyes. He didn’t seem sure at all. He’d be leaving his home city, probably forever. “Why to Topeka?”

  Sammy didn’t bother answering. His mind was on the free meal they were about to eat. They boarded after chowing down a slice of pizza each and sharing a soda. Sammy heaved his luggage up into the overhead storage compartment and took a seat by himself, hoping no one would sit next to him.

  The rails in Rio were smaller than the ones Sammy had ridden with his parents in Africa and Europe, but the windows were bigger. Sammy’s dad had once called the rail car an oversized medicine pill, and Sammy still thought the description was accurate. These cars held about forty people, with one engineer sitting up front in a small booth. Most everyone around him was reading or working on their holo-tablets. Two boys, who reminded Sammy bit of Kobe and Kaden, were playing video games. In front of him, a man with a tall spike of hair wearing a skeleton-band t-shirt rocked out to some music.

  Once everyone was situated, the engineer disappeared behind a small thin hatch up front, and the air rail came to life with all the fanfare of a gentle hum. Sammy noticed for the first time that his headache had subsided almost completely. To amuse himself, he tried to contemplate the massive amounts of energy it would take to move the rails at such speeds, but his mind became unusually clouded, and he let the thought go.

  An ominous click sounded when the docking door closed. It was a peculiar click, very similar to the black do
or’s click when Stripe closed it behind Sammy to begin their sessions. Sammy gripped the arms of his chair tightly as a flood of bad memories washed over him. Stripe had brought him through the black door almost every other day. He couldn’t remember many details, but he saw enough in his mind’s eye to make his whole body quake as if he stood naked in a snowstorm. Naked was how he felt. Stripe had done something to him.

  As the rail car was released from its locks and began to levitate on its magnetic rails, an intense feeling of panic and hostility flooded his body, causing him physical pain. His body tensed up and he gritted his teeth. He must have made some kind of an audible noise because, when he opened his eyes, a few people were watching him, shaking their heads or muttering to those next to them.

  The car began to move. The sensation of acceleration was brief. A minute or two later, they reached a constant speed. Sammy stood and went to the restroom in the back, ignoring the glances from a handful of passengers. He shut the door softly behind him and gripped the sink.

  He had been too preoccupied to look closely at his reflection in the hub, but he did so now. His face was very thin, his skin an unhealthy pale color. His hair was long and matted. His eyes had a haunted look, which freaked him out the most.

  Thoughts of eating mush and drinking bad water came back to him. What had been in the mush? He had no idea, but thinking about it made him nauseous. He remembered being sprayed down with a hose once or twice while the Aegis complained about his smell. He gripped the sides of the sink tighter, fighting back the urge to cry. His head felt like the mush had been shoved inside of it, pushing out his brains and poisoning him. Splashing his face with water helped calm him.

  He sat on the toilet to relieve himself, but found that nothing would come from either end. What is wrong with me? he wondered. When someone knocked on the door, he hurried to get up and take a couple more drinks from the sink.

  Back in his seat, he tried to think of other things, like Jeffie or Brickert, but they always had Stripe’s face. Instead, he stared out the window and picked nervously at a thread hanging off his dirty shirt, waiting silently until the rail came to a stop in Panama City. He was the first to his feet, grabbing Toad from the shelf and beating the queue off the rail car.

  Once in the hub, he went to the bathroom and let Toad out in one of the stalls.

  “Oh man . . .” Toad moaned, “This really, really sucks.”

  “Do you want to switch?” Sammy asked testily. “Just ignore my legs hanging out of the bag. Maybe tell the other passengers you couldn’t afford a coffin.”

  The layover was only fifteen minutes and the change in passengers was relatively small. The ride to Guatemala was short. Toad spent as much time as possible stretching his body out on the floor before they headed to Mexico City. Sammy badly wanted to sleep on this leg of the journey, but couldn’t relax enough to doze off. The only thing keeping his mind off Stripe was focusing on Wichita.

  If I can find the resistance, I can get home.

  Toad complained a lot in Mexico City about his legs cramping. Sammy had little patience for it. He almost had to force Toad back in the suitcase so they wouldn’t be late for the departure.

  One stop in San Antonio. One stop in Dallas. Then Oklahoma City. Then we’re there. He told himself this over and over as the rail car filled up to capacity and then moved off. Looking forward to Topeka, he started trying to think of ways to get from Topeka to Wichita without having to walk the whole distance. By the time they left Dallas, he still didn’t have a clue. The problem was that he couldn’t seem to hold a steady thought in his head for very long unless it involved Stripe or memories of horrific pain.

  They hadn’t been moving for more than two minutes out of Dallas when the engineer’s voice came over the speaker system.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, North-to-South Air Rails regrets to inform you of an unscheduled delay in the Oklahoma City hub due to small maintenance troubles. All passengers will be required to exit the rail car and allow our escorts to take you to a designated waiting area until the problem is resolved. A qualified technician will be at the hub on arrival. We expect only a twenty to thirty minute delay.”

  Maintenance troubles, my eye, he thought, sitting stiffly in his chair. They’ve found me.

  Amidst the grumbles and empty complaints of the other passengers, he stood up, grabbed the suitcase out of the compartment, and set it on the floor. When he opened the luggage, Toad looked aghast at being exposed in his hiding place.

  “Get out,” Sammy told him. “Did you hear it?”

  Several people in the rail car stared at them, some in shock or interest, others in amusement, as Toad emerged from the suitcase.

  “Hear what?”

  Sammy told him about the announcement. “We can’t leave this to chance.”

  Toad nodded his little head with a sniff. “Okay—okay—okay—I think I know what to do.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “From my dad. Um . . . can you do one of those special jumps like you did earlier? You know, back in that building?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay—okay. I think we can get out.”

  Sammy followed Toad to the back of the car. Everyone aboard was watching now. On the ceiling was an emergency hatch about the size of a sewer cover. Toad pulled a red lever and several warning lights began blinking in the car. At least a dozen people cried out in anger.

  A soft alarm beeped and the engineer came out from the front to investigate. He was a fat little man with thinning hair. When he saw them at the hatch, he started running to them.

  “Get in your seats! You have no business being back here!”

  They ignored him.

  “You two are breaking the law, and I am ordering you to sit down!”

  Sammy helped Toad climb out the hatch.

  “You stay right there or I’ll shoot you, kid!” the man said.

  Sammy saw that he was holding a small concealable handgun. It was laughable.

  “You’re not going to fire that in a car full of people,” he told the man.

  The engineer cocked his gun, but Sammy blast-jumped, grabbed onto the ledge of the exit, and pulled himself up and out. Beneath him, he heard the angry yells of the engineer and the murmurs of astonishment from the passengers.

  Toad closed the hatch under them, sealing them off in the tube on top the rail car. Air howled around them, whipping their hair and clothes with dangerous force. From his crouched position, Sammy looked and saw that every couple kilometers was a bright colored circle. Toad pointed at them.

  “These holes let the air out of the tube. We have to jump through one of them!”

  Sammy shook his head. “No way! It’s too fast. I can’t time it right!”

  “I can. Trust me!”

  “I don’t trust you!”

  A banging sound came from below them as the engineer knocked on the hatch. Sammy looked at Toad, who seemed scared but also surprisingly confident.

  “Fine. But you better not kill us!”

  Sammy watched the circles fly by at regular intervals. Toad ticked off each beat with a finger perfectly. They had only a few centimeters clearance above their heads, even crouching as they were. It was terribly cold, and Sammy’s eyes were now watering from the constant wind.

  Toad gave a thumbs-up, then began ticking down each circle.

  Five . . . Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . ONE!

  Sammy launched himself and Toad from the top of the rail car and they sailed up through the top of the tube. Some type of thin metal screen covered the hole, but they broke through it cleanly. Sammy scrambled to grab onto the ledge of the giant tube and almost lost his grip, but Toad let go and snagged on with perfect timing. With two hands free, Sammy used his other arm to secure his grip and pull himself up.

  It was colder here than Rio, and the sun was setting over the tops of the trees of a wooded area that stretched as far as Sammy could see from the top of the tube. From what his jumbled brain c
ould remember about geography and the maps he had studied, he guessed they were in the northern part of the Territory of Texas. Not too far from the Dallas hub.

  Yee-haw.

  He used his blasts to help them get safely onto solid ground.

  “Okay, now what do we do?” Toad was already shivering and stamping his feet.

  Sammy didn’t answer right away. The only thing he knew for sure at the moment was that they had to go north. “We run and hide.”

  14. Sewers

  March 5, 2086

  COMMANDER WROBEL SAT BEHIND HIS DESK filling out the ridiculous forms that never stopped coming. He paused from his work to crack his knuckles and rub his temples.

  Despite being a member of Psion Command since its inception over ten years ago, Wrobel had the worst job of any Psion. He was the Beta-Alpha liaison. Commander Wrobel had something to do with anything that connected Betas or Alphas to each other or the outside world. When Psion Betas were deemed ready to graduate, he organized the Panel, the mission, and the ceremony. He selected which Alpha squadron a Beta should go into. If the Beta had excellent tactical skills, he sent them where a tactician was needed. If the Beta was good at weapons and demolitions, he found a place for that one, too. When Alphas needed new arms or ammunition, Wrobel signed off on the orders. When the food shipments came to Beta or Alpha headquarters, he signed those forms.

  Forms. Forms. Forms.

  He glanced at the art piece hanging on his wall—an oil painting of Sisyphus rolling his giant stone up a hill. He’d had that commissioned over six years ago during a particularly dark season of his life, and he’d paid handsomely for it. Claire had been a fan of Greek and Roman mythology. In fact, she’d learned Greek and Latin in her spare time. He doubted Walter remembered that little fact.

  He dragged a finger angrily over his screen and enlarged several more files to review so he wouldn’t have to squint to see them. The next order of business for the day was reading over contract offers for explosive providers for the next fiscal year.