Psion Delta (Psion series #3)

by Jacob Gowans

“What?” Kobe hissed. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m not. He ran back at least one cover point. I’m not sure where he is anymore.”

  Three shots were fired back where Jeffie had come from, two more shots were returned.

  “Here, Brickert.” Kobe thrust his weapon into Brickert’s hands.

  “What are you doing?” Li asked. “You have to stay with us.”

  “What the heck do you think I’m doing?” Kobe said as he leaned around the edge of the farthest dumpster. “I’m going to save my idiot brother.”

  * * * * *

  Sammy stopped thinking about chess while questions buzzed around his brain. “You’re saying I’m—I’m going to—to—”

  “No. You’re not.” The fox’s answer sounded so confident that Sammy was instantly reassured. He didn’t know why he so easily believed the fox, but he did. Turning his attention back to the chessboard, Sammy moved his pawn one square forward, uncovering an attack by his bishop on the fox’s king.

  “Check.”

  The fox spent several seconds staring at the board before moving his knight with a fixed, fierce expression, as though he were a god looking down on a world of his creation with mild displeasure. He left his hand on his knight for several seconds. Sammy watched his opponent while also thinking of his next move.

  “During their comatose state, all Anomaly Twelves suffer life-ending cerebrovascular accidents before their twenty-first year of life. The increased brain activity puts stress on the blood vessels. You, on the other hand, have every reason to expect to live a normal, healthy life.”

  Sammy moved his knight forward and to the right. He sensed that the fox was watching him curiously as he did this, but he kept his attention on the board. “Why am I different?”

  “We would never have known if not for Victor Wrobel. He sent us a copy of your mapped genome and a sample of your DNA as soon as word came down that a ‘dangerous Psion’ was being admitted to your headquarters. We knew right away that you were the key to our problem. There you were, already fourteen years old, and you’d shown signs of Anomaly Eleven and Anomaly Fourteen without becoming comatose. All the other Anomaly Twelves have been the opposite. As far as we know, you are the only one alive who naturally exhibited such a phenomenon. The results of the tests astounded us. A triple.”

  “A triple? No, that’s not right. By—my commander told me that I’m a double.”

  “You were going to say Byron’s name? It’s okay. I am quite aware of him. He lied to you. I don’t know why. To protect you, I think.” The fox paused for another sip of water. “But the truth is you have three anomalies. Four . . . if you count Anomaly Twelve, although I’ve revealed to you that Twelve is not a true anomaly.”

  “What?” Sammy’s tone was challenging. “What is the third anomaly?”

  The fox pushed his own pawn forward. “You already know. You’re very, very smart. Think about it.”

  “Tell me!”

  The fox stared at him, smiling. “Check.”

  13.

  Garage

  Monday September 2, 2086

  Kobe left Li’s group before anyone had a chance to change his mind. Li shook his head in disappointment. “Two Aegis are down, there’s got to be at least ten back there by our car looking for Kaden. We can easily manage the rest. Have faith in your shields. They aren’t any different here than in the sims. We’ll get close to the exit, take out whoever’s down there, and then help Kobe and Kaden get rid of the rest.”

  Between the dumpsters, where Li’s group was hiding, and the ramp back up to the second level of the garage, they had a long stretch of turf to cross with no cover. Making matters worse, the closer they moved to the ramp, the brighter the garage became. Li encouraged everyone to keep low, move quickly, stay close to the wall, and always shield their exposed flank. Always shield. The teams switched a little. Li went in front with Miguel and Parley. Levu went next with Rosa. Brickert went with Natalia. Kawai and Jeffie were at the back.

  Sporadic gunfire told Jeffie that Kobe and Kaden weren’t dead. She felt better knowing that they were together. The two always fought well as a pair. It must be a twin thing, she figured.

  As the garage grew lighter, Jeffie counted nine Aegis near them. Li gathered his team again behind a small sports car and used hand signals to assign targets to each shooter. Jeffie waited for his mark.

  I can do this. I’m an accurate shooter. I can do this.

  3 . . . 2 . . . 1. . . .

  They opened fire on the Aegis. Jeffie had two targets, one on each side of a door with a large STAIRS sign posted next to it. Two shots took down the first. The second dropped, rolled into a crouch, and returned fire. She double-tapped again, missing on the first shot and clipping him on the second. She turned to check on Brickert’s targets. He’d hit one in the leg, but the other was under solid cover. Jeffie put the injured one out of his misery with a clean headshot.

  By her count, they’d taken down five of the nine Aegis and suffered one casualty, Antonio. In return, they’d given away their position. More gunfire erupted from the dark end of the garage. Aegis came running from that direction. Two of them were mowed down from behind. Screams were heard from the twins’ direction. Two young men’s screams.

  Jeffie’s heart skipped a beat. Oh no. They’re dead.

  Then she heard a familiar voice yell, “Die, you sons of—”

  Kaden and Kobe were running down the garage shielding themselves as they ran. Aegis turned to fire at them, one emerging from cover. The twins dove behind a lone car while Jeffie took aim. The Aegis went down. The others fell back, slinking into the shadows, disappearing through doors.

  “We did it, Brickert!” Jeffie cried. “We won!”

  Kobe and Kaden raised their fists and cheered with her. Levu and Natalia joined in.

  Around the garage, more doors opened. An elevator dinged. From the door Jeffie had just cleared, a woman emerged wearing the telltale red-melting-into-black uniform, the jagged number 13 emblazoned on her chest. She was tall with long raven hair, and stunningly gorgeous. Jeffie thought she belonged on a magazine cover, not in a dank garage like this. Then she remembered Sammy talking about a beautiful Thirteen—one that scared him. How many people could possibly fit that description? With her came more Thirteens. Ten from the stairs, more from the elevator, even more from down at the dark end of the garage. Jeffie heard their boots hitting the pavement before she saw them come.

  “Get back in the shadows!” Li told them. “Get back!”

  Jeffie aimed at the nearest Thirteen and fired. Her aim was true, she knew it as soon as she’d pulled the trigger. But the Thirteen raised his bare hand and blasted the bullets away.

  * * * * *

  It took all of Sammy’s self-control to stay calm. Control your emotions, Samuel. His fingers gripped the arms of his chair until they ached for release. “I’m not a Thirteen. I know that. So enough of your mind games.”

  The fox’s expression was no longer a smile. “I am not asserting that you’re some sociopathic, cannibalistic murderer. I don’t think you’re going to rush out and mar your face and dye your eyes. The potential is in you. The leaders of Psion Command, as Victor Wrobel informed us, feared they might make a monster out of you—turn you into their own worst nightmare. Fortunately for you, someone constantly spoke on your behalf to keep you there.”

  “You could be making all this up. I have no way of knowing.”

  The fox moved his queen forward three spaces. “Computer, access and display video file from Rio de Janeiro, camera twenty-six, cross-linked with Samuel Harris Berhane, Jr. Date November 19, 2085.”

  The wall to the left blinked to life, displaying footage of the battle that had raged on in the bowels of the Rio factory ten months ago. The Thirteens had closed around Sammy and Kobe, who had already taken a bullet to the arm. There was no sound, but Sammy watched for several minutes as a captivated audience. It boggled his mind how rarely he thought of this now.<
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  “Here it comes.” The fox sounded as if he was pointing out his favorite scene in a film he had watched dozens of times. “Right . . . now.”

  On the screen, Sammy defended himself and Kobe, who’d just been shot a second time and fell. Sammy remembered now how clearly he had seen in that moment. It had been one of those instances, rare and beautiful, where his body had responded to his mind with perfect, fluid-like obedience.

  That’s all it was, he told himself, a moment of pure clarity. Yet even as he thought this, he saw what the fox saw, and it was hard to believe how fast he moved on the tape.

  “Have you ever seen how fast you move?” Brickert had once said to him during their training sessions. “I can’t do all that. I can’t fight like you.”

  “You’re speeding up the film,” Sammy realized.

  “I’m not. You know that I’m not.”

  “Maybe I have Fifteen! Huh? Maybe I’m an Ultra!”

  “They are much faster and more accurate.”

  “I’m not a Thirteen,” he told the fox. He heard the desperate edge in his own voice. “I feel fear and pain. Lots of pain.”

  “Your Anomaly Eleven counteracts the pain-reducing effects of Thirteen.”

  “I don’t kill for pleasure. I’m not a—”

  “You are, Sammy. You are. The world is not as black and white as you think it is. It’s a lesson we all learn one day. It’s a lesson I had to learn. More than once.” The fox’s eyes left Sammy’s and returned to the chessboard. “That’s why my chessboard is gold and silver. Because there are only choices and better choices.” His left hand held his water while his right hand rested near the board ready to move. “Just because you have their anomaly does not mean you are like them.”

  Sammy looked down at his hands resting on the table by the chessboard. He remembered the darkness inside him that he’d felt multiple times, the fits of rage he’d experienced where he had struggled to control himself, the decision he’d made to kill Thirteens even after subduing them in Akureyri. He thought of his overwhelming desire to kill Katie Carpenter and Stripe, how it—not the rescue of his parents—had influenced him to fly to Orlando tonight.

  The idea that he had anything in common with her. . . . It polluted him. Everything that he’d accomplished as a Psion was because of anomalies. Tainted. Not of his own merit. The biggest concern on his mind remained unanswered. Why didn’t someone tell me about this? Not Byron, not Rosmir, not Tawhiri, not anyone.

  Control your emotions, Byron had urged him.

  Is this why that was your last advice to me, Byron? Have you known all along?

  His eyes stung, but he would not become emotional. I’m tired. That’s all it is. He glanced around the room. Where are you, Ludwig? Jeffie? He hoped again that he hadn’t led his friends to their deaths chasing stupid holograms.

  “What do you want?” he finally asked the fox. “Did you really do all this because you wanted to play a couple games of chess?”

  The fox looked up from the chessboard and his eyes flashed dangerously. The intelligence in his eyes made Sammy wonder what this man was capable of, and since he really had no idea, he thought it best to let go of his anger for now.

  “Yes. To play chess with you. I see a lot of potential in you, Sammy.”

  “You tried to kill me. The Rio sabotage was for me. You sent Katie after me. Do you—do you have a hobby of killing off potential?”

  “Check,” the fox said. His mouth made a weird grin where his lips pursed and his cheeks puffed out slightly. An eerily soft tone crept into his voice. “I am not prone to mistakes. Neither are you.”

  Sammy squirmed in his seat as he moved his king out of check. He noticed that the fox now only glanced at the board before each move.

  “Wrobel helped us set up Rio just for you. Just to kill you. You are a threat to what we’re building here. Our grand project. Naturally, I wanted you removed, but you didn’t die in our trap. We unknowingly captured you in my building in Rio. We tortured you for two months, still not knowing it was you, but you didn’t die then, either. Wrobel was supposed to kill you the instant you were back in your—your little headquarters place, but he went nuts and kidnapped you instead because of a personal vendetta. And even then—tied up and beaten and facing my best soldier—you didn’t die. That was when I knew we had to meet.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to show you what I am doing here. I want you to understand how I am changing the world. Your move.”

  * * * * *

  Jeffie was on the verge of panicking like Antonio when she watched Li reach into his pocket and pull something out. It blinked red. His lips moved without speaking. He was counting down. Then he swung his arm as if he’d thrown a baseball.

  “Get down!”

  An explosion torched the air and caused the car they were hiding behind to rock on its wheels. Several Thirteens shrieked. Jeffie peered out and saw several bodies on the ground and the elevator doors blown inward. The Thirteens were in disarray. A dark, smoky haze filled their section of the garage.

  “Go for the ramp,” Li ordered. “Go now!”

  “Wait—” Jeffie said, but it was too late. Her team had taken off. Kobe and Kaden hurried to catch up. Jeffie had no choice but to follow. The ramp was still over twenty meters away and the Thirteens were quick to regroup. Shrieks followed the Psions as they ran along the east wall at a full sprint. Jeffie looked back to spot the female Thirteen—the one Sammy had said he was afraid of—but couldn’t find her. Whether that was a good or bad omen, she didn’t know.

  Gunfire erupted as they ran.

  “Blast shields!” Li cried.

  The ramp grew closer. Shielding their exposed left flanks, Kobe and Kaden caught up. When the group reached the steep slope, Li gave new orders. “Walk up the slope backwards. If you don’t have a gun, shield for those who do. Those with guns use sporadic fire to hold them back. Parley, run up ahead and keep a lookout.”

  The journey up the ramp was slow and awkward. The tarmac was slick, and Jeffie had to be extra careful about her footing. Brickert was in front and doing a great job, perfectly spacing his hands for maximum protection. As Jeffie moved, she watched the Thirteens cautiously push forward using their own blasts as a defense. The better she could see them, the more disturbed she became.

  They all looked like Sammy.

  What was more, they weren’t quite as coordinated as she had expected them to be. One of them stopped blasting and switched to his gun, then switched back to blasting, but the transition wasn’t smooth at all. It was as if they weren’t experienced in combat.

  “How can this be?” she asked. “How can I be shooting at an army that looks like Sammy?”

  “I don’t know,” Brickert said. “Shoot them anyway.”

  “Something’s going on above us, guys!” Parley called down. “I think I see movement in between some of the parked cars above us on the first level.”

  Everyone picked up their pace. The worst thing that could happen would be getting trapped on a ramp. They were near the top. Jeffie sped up until she was jogging backwards. Brickert tried to keep up. Only a few paces away, he slipped. A Thirteen saw this and fired. Jeffie tried to shield for Brickert, but something hit her leg like a hammer. She screamed as she fell, grabbing right below the spot where her thigh met her hip.

  “Help!” Brickert called out, shielding once more. Parley ran down to help, so did Kobe. With Brickert providing the coverage, they got Jeffie back to her feet. The pain was horrible. She could hardly move the leg.

  “Thirteens on the top level moving down the ramp!” Kawai announced. “They’re trying to box us in.”

  With Kobe and Parley’s help, Jeffie reached the top of the ramp.

  “Thanks,” she told them through gritted teeth.

  “You okay?” Kobe asked.

  Jeffie grabbed her leg, groaning loudly. “I don’t know. Oh, it kills, Kobe! It really, really hurts!”

  “How bad is the bleeding?”<
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  “Head for the next ramp!” Li called. “Go! Go! Go!”

  “Not good!” she answered Kobe. “But we have to keep moving.”

  The team took off. Jeffie hurried the best she could, but the pain grew to the point that putting any pressure on her leg was nearly unbearable. She’d never experienced anything like it, and soon her gait slowed to the speed of someone casually walking. Tears stung her eyes as her fear compounded. How could she hope to survive? Her team needed to run while she could do nothing but crawl.

  The Thirteens from the third level ran up the ramp and met her on the middle floor. Jeffie turned so she could shield their attacks, keeping her back to the wall. These Thirteens moved in closer as she scooted away. Her friends had nearly reached the opposite end of the second level. They didn’t even know they’d left her behind. To make matters worse, another group of Thirteens had reached the other ramp and cut her friends off from the top level of the garage. She was left with (eight . . . nine . . .) ten of them to deal with.

  Even as she opened fire, Jeffie knew the game was over. She’d lost.

  * * * * *

  Sammy stared at the chessboard, not because he didn’t know where to place his piece, but because he wanted out of this room. He glanced out the window to his left. The sky was black with faint clouds. No moonlight shone through the window. Finally he moved his piece.

  “Your DNA let us create Hybrids of Thirteens and Fourteens,” the fox said. “It unlocked the problems we couldn’t solve on our own. Now, if we wanted to, we could create Fourteens and Elevens or whatever other combinations of the anomalies you possess. Because of you, we’ve been able to create clones. Clones are the answer, Sammy! We can’t organize a standing army. The people would revolt. But a clone army? With your DNA in the mix? That was the answer. It was the key to everything.”

  “You wanted to kill me because you were afraid that with my DNA the NWG would create their own clones?”