The clamp taught me not to think about that.
I wanted it out. If that meant moving my shit into the mountain and never seeing Streeter and Chute again, I’d do it. This was no way to live. But even when I asked Mom when they would decide, she wouldn’t tell me what was taking so long.
But the whole world was about to find out.
* * * * *
It was the week before finals. There was a pep rally for the inaugural tagghet season at the end of school but no one seemed to care except for the taggers wearing their jerseys to class. There was more talk about football and that was five months away. The tagghet season was only going to be two months long and go through the summer so it wouldn’t interfere with more important sports, like lacrosse, baseball, basketball, football, soccer, tennis and softball. Tagghet seemed to rank just above tetherball for the time being.
It was the period just before the rally. I went to virtualmode studies in the Pit, a steep, circular auditorium with a domed ceiling. Buxbee was down at the center table. I made my way to the front where Streeter was waiting with his transporters in hand. I left the seat empty between us. Chute’s seat. She wasn’t in class very often. She’d been doing the assignments in the evening when she had time. I sat in her seat once before and Streeter insisted I move over. I thought maybe he thought it was gay if we sat too close. Maybe he did, but I think he missed her. He wouldn’t admit it.
Buxbee was a round man with a bald head and a horseshoe of hair around the outside. He tended to plump his bottom lip when he thought. He had a finger in one ear talking on his nojakk, his brows pinched together.
“You promised you’d launch today.” Streeter handed me a pair of transporters.
I had gone virtualmode only once since I got back and it was weird. Just as my awareness was pulled from my skin, there was some back and forth chatter between the transporters and the clamp like they were telling secrets about me. It didn’t get any better once I was in my sim. I started skipping virtualmode lab after that. Headaches, I said. Then I’d go to the nurse and she’d let me lay in a dark room until my migraine settled. Turned out that wasn’t much better because I’d start thinking and end up with a real migraine.
Streeter watched me trace the edges of the transporters. He sighed super loud. Twice. He already had one empty seat next to him. He didn’t want two. He once grumbled that I’d changed, that he wanted it to be like it was before I went on my vacation. Ditto that, brother.
“All right, all right,” I said. “I’m going, like I said.”
Class was running ten minutes late. Buxbee was still chatting on the nojakk with fingers in both ears to hear over the class. We tried to launch into virtualmode, but the transporters weren’t active. Streeter was already being accused of crashing the school’s portal.
“Attention!” Buxbee held up both hands. “I have an announcement. Everyone, I have an announcement.” He walked around the center with his arms up like he was signaling touchdown. After one trip around, he dropped his tired arms. His bottom lip plumped out and tension tightened his forehead. “Virtualmode is down for the day.”
He didn’t bother talking over the moans and groans and Streeter getting blamed for it. This was the last week of school when everyone had a free pass to virtualmode anywhere and the school had one of the best portals in South Carolina. The experience was ten times richer than any home connection or any commercial connection in the tri-county area. Now Buxbee was telling them it was a no go. “Don’t do this to us, Mr. Buxbee,” someone wailed.
When it was quiet enough for someone to ask why things were shut down and it was quiet enough for Buxbee to speak, he explained. “This is not a local blackout,” he said. “Virtualmode has been shutdown globally.”
Another uproar, this time with a trace of curiosity mixed in. People were looking back and forth like they just heard the front end of a juicy rumor. Buxbee held out his hands, calming the class.
“I’ve uploaded the final assignment to your accounts. You can complete it when it’s back up.”
When, why and what happened? All those questions were met by Buxbee’s plumped lip and a shake of the head. When it was clear he didn’t have the answers or wasn’t willing to part with them, everyone broke out the laptops and tablets to look at the Internet on a screen. Buxbee was back on his nojakk with a finger in his ear. Everyone was getting updates and I didn’t want to hear it. The clamp was beginning to throb.
Streeter pulled out a collapsible touchpad and stretched it open on his lap. Three-dimensional images projected on the surface. He activated the sound on our nojakks. A global virtualmode blackout was the same as closing all the airports. It didn’t take but a second to find the news. The reports claimed that a third of users were unable to launch into virtualmode that morning at approximately 6:32. At first, it was a minor inconvenience. Connections were typically re-established within minutes. Typically, a portal facility experienced a small anomaly, something like a sunspot that was easily corrected. But then complaints started coming in from all over the world, threatening transportation and financial trading. At 7:29, the entire virtualmode grid went dark.
“That’s never happened before,” Streeter said.
I was rubbing the ache in my neck. I should’ve looked away. Knowing more wasn’t going to help, it was only going to make the banging between my vertebrae louder. But I couldn’t look away. And I couldn’t help thinking. I let the thoughts come. A third of virtualmode users? Did the Paladins block the world from virtualmode? And if they did, why? It had to have something to do with the dupes. Maybe they were beginning to distinguish the difference between people launching onto virtualmode from the… dupes? But why shut down virtualmode?
The clamp slammed into that thought. I clenched my teeth. But I kept watching.
At 9:55 that morning, there were reports of federal testing of employees at a portal facility. Agents would not comment on what they were testing for since drug and euphoria-gear tests were made public. The testing was not met kindly by the employees and arrests were made at an independent portal facility where riot police were called. They charged through the doors into a warehouse of glowing portals.
The scientists and laborers didn’t look surprised. In fact, they looked ready for them. They had weapons. Forty-two police were killed. There were a lot of dead workers, too, but the footage was censored even though police were required to fully disclose all public news footage. However, the report claimed all lookits stopped operating in the warehouse like they’d been shut off.
I was holding the back of my neck with both hands. I needed to get some air, needed to get out and clear out the thoughts, but the last scene caught my attention. I had to grit my teeth just a little longer. I had to make sure what I saw was right.
“Rewind that,” I said.
Streeter wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I turned the view on his lap and expanded a close-up on a white-coated scientist at the very back of the facility when the riot police made their entrance, before the bullets started flying. We both leaned closer to make sure what we were seeing. It was low resolution and pixilated. But I was right.
“That’s impossible,” Streeter said. “That’s instant death.”
Yeah, it was impossible. For real humans.
The scientist had his sleeves rolled up. His arms were plunged up to the elbows inside an open portal. That amount of energy was enough to vaporize flesh from a human being, but that wasn’t a human doing it. The dupe in the white coat was glowing blue. What the hell is going on?
I ran up the steps. I don’t remember getting to the doors. Everything was blotted out by the bright light of pain.
Vacation
I was leaning against the wall, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts. They needed to be assembled first before I could forget them. I needed to make some sense out of what had come up at the Paladin Nation, what kept Mom from coming home, what kept the Authority’s decision in limbo while I held my neck with both hands to k
eep it from exploding.
The Paladins were raiding portal facilities to test for duplicates. The Paladin Nation must’ve made police forces around the world that something was up, somehow tricked them to help flush out the enemy without them knowing what they were really looking for. But why did that guy in the warehouse have his arms plugging into the portal? Did the dupes need access to virtualmode to survive?
“Socket?” Streeter said. “Are you all right?”
I must’ve slid down the wall. I was sitting on the floor with my knees against my chest. I held out my hand, told him to give me a minute. I managed to turn the mind-scrambling pain into a dull reminder with several deep breaths. The thoughts clamored for attention but I didn’t give them a place in my mind to cling and felt them dissolve.
I ran my hand through my hair. Streeter helped me up. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “I’ve been helping Buxbee install security updates on the school’s virtualmode portal. Let’s go down to his lab.”
The empty hall was much less stuffy. A slight breeze cooled my sweaty face. I concentrated on walking, breathing and holding the clamp down.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
I muttered something and kept moving. I was seeing spots but things were clearer. I couldn’t manage a conversation. But Streeter filled the awkward silence with a question that started the avalanche all over.
“What’d you think they’re testing for?”
The clamp thumped a warning. Don’t go there. “I can’t talk about it,” I spit out.
“Can’t talk about what?”
“Never mind,” I said. “I can’t talk about it.”
“But why can’t you—”
“Goddamnit!” I grabbed the back of my neck. “Just stop, will you?”
“All right, all right,” he said. A teacher looked up from his desk as we passed his class. A lookit showed up a minute later. Streeter flashed a pass to Buxbee’s lab and it buzzed away. We went down the hall quietly.
“So what’s wrong with your neck?”
“Stop asking questions!”
“What the hell is wrong with you, man? I’m sick of you snapping at me all the time. Ever since you got back from your vacation you hardly talk and you never do a goddamn thing. You half-baked on some euphoria gear or something?”
“Do I look like I’m having a good time?”
“You look sick. In the head.”
“I’m going home.”
“That’s great.” Streeter stopped in the middle of the hall. “Go home then, forget about me.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what?”
I couldn’t let go of my neck. The lookits returned and told us to shut up or we were going to the office instead of Buxbee’s lab.
“Just forget it,” Streeter finally said. “Go home and do whatever you do. Clearly, you got more important things to do.”
“I can’t talk about some things, but that’s just the way it is, Streeter. There are things you just can’t know about.” Jesus Christ, who does that sound like?
He looked at my neck. I still hadn’t let go. He tapped his teeth together; the question he’d been holding back for weeks filled his mouth. He could hold it no longer.
“Where’d you go on vacation, Socket?”
“Streeter… don’t.”
The floor sloshed up and down like a one-winged airplane. I started toward the exit, pulling my head down to steady the bucking clamp.
“Your mom told us to let you work it out on your own, but all I see you do is go home.” He stopped me before I reached the exit. “Where’d you go, Socket?”
My brain was going to hemorrhage. Bump, bump, bump. “I can’t do this.”
He called after me. Said he was sorry, I think. He didn’t mean it.
* * * * *
I got on a bus and lay in the back seat. It wasn’t the right bus, but it went toward town. I got off downtown, caught a taxi home, lay down in that seat, too.
The pain shot down my spine with each thump. It wasn’t letting up this time. I pushed too far. Something was wrong. The cabby adjusted the rear view mirror; his eyes flickered from the road to me. You okay, kid? Somehow, I convinced him I was.
I ran in the house and went through breathing exercises. I concentrated on each breath and cleared my mind. No thoughts. Just this moment. But the clamp still rattled. The thoughts still came.
They’re torturing me.
I tapped my cheek. “Mom.”
The nojakk ticked. She wasn’t answering.
“Mom,” I said again, tapping my cheek. “Mom. Mom. MOM!”
“Socket,” she said. “I’m in a meeting.”
“I can’t do this. This thing in my neck has gone off. It’s killing me. You got to get it out, I can’t take it.”
I sniffed back tears. There was a long silence. I thought we lost connection. Maybe she was leaving the meeting.
“There’s nothing I can do, Socket,” she said. “Go through some breathing—”
“WHAT GOOD ARE YOU?” The pain took control. “You let them do this to me then tell me to just do some breathing exercises! What kind of mom does that, huh? What kind of mom leaves their son like that? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?”
The room looked blurry; I couldn’t wipe the tears fast enough. Snot was dripping.
“Why don’t you get the moody out of my top drawer, it’ll take off the emotional edge.”
“I don’t want a goddamn moody! I want this… this thing out of me. I want all of this to go away. I don’t want to be one of you people! Let Broak… the rest of those… freaks… let them save the world. I want out. I want to be normal, AND THIS ISN’T NORMAL!”
The words jumbled together in a muddy string of confusion. I collapsed on the couch, muttering into the cushion. I thought we had lost connection again. I figured I was alone. Again.
“I know this is hard.” Her voice was soft, but firm enough to make me listen. “It takes a strong person to do it, Socket. You are that person. I know you want to quit, but sometimes life doesn’t ask for your permission to act. Life demands. And when that demand falls on you, it does so for a reason.”
I bit on my lip.
“I can’t say any more than that, Socket, because quite honestly I don’t know any more. I only know the world is lucky to have you. I see so much strength in you. I know you can’t see it, but I can. You have to trust me. Trust what I see in you. One day, you will see it, too.”
She didn’t sound like she was on a mission this time. She sounded more like someone helping me with an impossible task the only way she could. Like a mother.
“Get some rest. The clamp will be out soon. I promise.”
Somehow, the pain receded. It still hurt, but it was washed in sorrow. I fell asleep on the couch. The clamp thumped in the distance, kept me from dreaming. I went in and out of sleep, fighting to stay under. I pulled a blanket over me, hid my head, took my sweat-soaked shirt off. I managed to sleep until a hand gently touched my shoulder.
“Have you eaten?” Mom asked.
My eyes were puffy. “No.”
“Go take a shower. I’ll make dinner.”
The pots and pans rattled in the kitchen. The hot water washed down my neck, the heat seeping through, dissolving the pressure. By the time I dressed, food was on the table. Mom sat across from me. We didn’t talk much, but we ate together. She cleaned up. By the end of the night, the clamp’s presence was a whisper.
* * * * *
Mom stayed home the next day. It was weird, seeing her play mother. She was probably good at it once upon a time. It took her a while to find the utensils and food. She made eggs for breakfast. By mid-morning, she did breathing exercises with me. She talked me through them, helped me focus. She talked a lot about the present moment and one breath at a time. The clamp became tolerable.
I slept through the afternoon. Mom took a meeting in her bedroom by projection. The house looked orderly. That night she mad
e dinner. We ate quietly, then cleaned up together. She washed dishes by hand. I dried and put them away.
“How’d you become one of them?” I asked.
“Your father and I studied genetic engineering in college. We took jobs with an engineering firm that turned out to be a recruiting agency for the Paladin Nation.” She rinsed a plate and handed it to me. “If I knew what I was getting into…”
I flinched, excepting the clamp to react to the word Paladin, but it lay quiet. We washed some more, then I chanced a reply. “You wouldn’t do it?”
She mulled that question over. She started cleaning the sink and left the question alone. She didn’t know the answer.
“How’d Dad become one of them if he wasn’t in the breeding program?”
“Your father was a genetic engineer. He worked on splicing Paladin abilities into adults.”
“He did it on himself?”
She pinched her lips together on the bitter memory. She nodded, then said, “The method didn’t work, though. The ability wouldn’t fully awaken and after a while the powers faded. His program showed great potential but was discontinued until further notice.”
“And that’s why I’m like this?”
“We think so.”
“So it worked.”
She started wiping the refrigerator. Decided not to answer that one, too.
After clean up, the clamp reminded me it was there, again. Maybe it realized, in retrospect, that the conversation about my dad was really about the Paladins.
Mom sat with me. We breathed in.
Breathed out.
I made it through another night. By morning, she was gone. There is an urgent meeting, her message said. I’ll call you later.
Life resumed, a little less painfully.
A little less empty.
Watchdogs
The sun was setting at the first ever South Carolina game of tagghet. I wore a dark hoodie because the weather was cooler than usual. Everyone at that game would remember what they were wearing. Small details, like what you’re wearing and where you were, are easy to remember at life-altering events.
Socket 1 - The Discovery of Socket Greeny Page 13