“How big is this place?”
“5.2 square miles. It is primarily used for research. Many medical breakthroughs that have been discovered here will soon be made available to the public. Right now, I would like to take you to the entertainment sector.”
Spindle stepped onto a dirt path that went around an enormous banyan tree. The trail beyond the tree was 10 feet wide with a thick layer of leaves. Trees enclosed the humid path. Secondary paths split off now and again, darker and narrower. Things scurried along the undergrowth while small monkeys watched from above. One hung from a thick vine and screeched. Colorful birds teased him.
I’d been in places like that on a much smaller scale. We went on a field trip to a greenhouse conservatory with butterflies and lizards. Plants bloomed all sorts of colors, shapes and sizes, attracted bugs of equal strangeness. None of us said anything but whoooaaaaa for the first five minutes; then, we threw pebbles at turtles chilling on a log. But this was way beyond that.
Spindle stopped along the way, described plants, pointed at animals, and gave me the brief history of things he found interesting. I reminded him I was in high school, not college. But he was having too much fun, his faceplate all sunny and sparkly, so after awhile I let him do his thing.
We hiked for miles before stopping on a ledge and looking into the deepest part of the Preserve. There, surrounded by lush forest, was a large oval field of the greenest grass.
“Here it is.” Spindle swung his arms out as if I’d won the grand prize. “It is a fantastic sport, a test of navigational skills, strength, agility, accuracy and teamwork. I am not one for guarantees, Master Socket, but I would wager it will be more popular than lacrosse, football, and soccer combined.” His face lit with red, yellow and orange. “Tagghet.”
“The game with jetters?”
“Yes. The technology has been in commercial production for a year. Perhaps you have seen it at your school.”
“I’ve heard a thing or two.”
“You have not played?” he asked. I just stared. “Then follow me.”
The path switched back and forth. We dropped fifty feet in elevation before reaching the edge of the field. Spindle knelt on one knee and ran his hand over the grass.
“It is good fortune for a tagger to pause and touch the field before walking on it,” he said.
“It is?”
“It is always good fortune to pause.” He gestured to the spot in front of me.
“I’m no tagger, so I don’t think so.”
Spindle’s feet sank in the lush, dense grass. The blades were narrow, the tips each holding a bead of moisture. Like living shag.
“This is nice,” I said.
“I knew you would like it.” His face sparkled. “The scent is quite grand, is it not?”
“You can smell?”
“I have olfactory sensors equivalent to a Labrador retriever.”
I dropped to one knee and spread my hand over the turf, letting the wet tips tickle my palm. I wanted to lay in it and stare at the clouds like I used to with Chute and Streeter. We used to lay in my back yard, pointing at clouds and naming them, it was just us. Sometimes Streeter would have to go home and Chute stayed. She’d ask if I could read her mind, tell her what she was thinking. You wish you had bigger boobs. She left a red mark on my chest because I was probably right. Back then, there was no one else. No one judging, no one watching. We made up stories, laughed and played, and when we were ready to go home we did. No one was there to tell us, Go here, now here. Make those stupid balls move with your thoughts.
“If you are ready, we can explore the rest of the Preserve,” Spindle said. “There are some magnificent features.”
“Spindle, could I go alone?”
“You do not like my company?”
“That’s not it, no… it’s just… I just need to clear my head. I mean, my whole life changed in a single day and I’m still not sure I’m digging all this. I need to get lost for a while and sort things out. You know what I mean?”
“You want to… go without me?” His face turned dark blue. “I thought we would spend the afternoon together. There are many interesting things to visit. Creatures you have never seen. I was, perhaps, looking forward to showing them to you.”
“Another time, huh? I’m sure I’ll be here a few more weeks.” Or months. Years. Forever.
He held out his hand and helped me up. “Of course. If you need help, I will come.”
He said that like a Paladin angel. If things were just that easy in real life. Is this real life?
“I suggest you strike out on the path to our right. It will take you to an artificial sinkhole and a breathtaking water feature.”
Spindle stood at the field’s edge and watched me walk across the turf. I waved before entering the dense jungle. He waved back. Now if I could just see the clouds.
D I S C O V E R Y
Batty Man
I was lost. Big time.
I could blame Mom for never putting me in Boy Scouts, but there was no badge for this. I made the mistake of getting off the trail. The trees all looked alike. My arms were scratched bloody. I sat on a rotten log to rest until fire ants stung the hell out of me. My legs were covered with welts. I went a bit further and heard the stream, went barefoot, stepping carefully on mossy stones. The cold water was a relief. I found a dry boulder. Checked for fire ants.
I was in a tropical forest. I couldn’t see the sky, but it was still exactly what I had in mind. The lookits were somewhere and they were watching. At least, for once, it didn’t feel like it. I was as close to alone as it was going to get. I was picking my nose, a full knuckle deep, and feeling pretty good about it. Until someone giggled.
“Who’s there?” I called, oddly wondering if I could convince them I was just scratching my nose.
Something in a tree. Something bright red. A whole crew of things scrambled into the thick canopy, flashes of yellow, blue and purple. They crossed from tree to tree like squirrels. I splashed after them until the stream got deep and I went back on land. Spots of sunlight penetrated the trees ahead. I maneuvered around a tangle of vines and peeked through the leaves. It was a clearing, of sorts. A massive stone slab with patches of moss and snaky cracks. A huge tree was on the far side, its branches as big as tree trunks. The bark was twisted and sinewy, smooth and gray like a well-crafted relic. Quite grand.
The tree was without a single leaf, but alive with color. Thousands of bright colored creatures squabbled along the branches. Some crawled over each other, some wrestled, and others rested quietly. They didn’t have feathers; they looked like bats, but their colors were like poison dart frogs.
Several of them hovered near a guy at the base of the tree. Spindle didn’t warn me about other people in the Preserve. In fact, it was the first normal-looking person I’d seen who wasn’t asking lame ass questions. He didn’t look like he belonged here. His hair was long and his clothes ragged. He held up his hand and the creatures grabbed it. A fluorescent pink one hung by its long sharp tail.
I stayed in the trees and crossed the stream, didn’t bother taking off my shoes. I hustled through the ferns, over rocks to a soft patch of leaves until I was a lot closer. The colored things were still there, but the guy was gone. They had little arms and legs and their tails swished like whips. They had snouts. Caves and dragons. That was not a dream.
I needed to get closer. I turned—he was behind me.
I fell through the branches onto the open slab and crawled backward. He stepped out of the trees. His skin was bronze from the sun, his hair bleached. And he wasn’t a guy, he was more like a kid. Older than me, maybe, just out of high school. College?
“Who are you?” I said.
He flicked his sandy hair out of his eyes. His eyes… they were the eyes of a dead fish. He listened, held out his hand. I didn’t move. He shook his hand, insisting I take it, so I reached up. He squeezed firmly, yanked me close. Jesus, he hasn’t showered in forever.
He would
n’t let go. His pupils were much too large. He pulled me closer. Pressure gripped my entire body. I wanted to shake out of it but his eyes fixed me in place. They were deep holes. He let go. I stumbled, too dizzy to run.
“Are you all right?” someone said on my nojakk.
My nojakk was working. I tapped my cheek several times. “Hello?”
“Pivot would like to know if you are all right.”
The blind guy had his face to the sun. Something moved over me like a thousand dishrags snapping on a clothesline. It was the things from the tree, slapping their leathery wings, stirring the dust at my feet.
“Can you speak?” I heard again.
A golden flying thing was on the guy’s shoulder, its tail curled around his neck.
“You said that?” I asked.
“I did,” the golden thing said without moving its mouth.
“How’d you do that… wait, you talk?”
“I do.”
I stroked my cheek. “How’d you get my number?”
“We’re good with technology.” The golden thing shrugged. “I did a simple scan, decoded your nojakk. You really should upgrade your passcodes.”
“Scanned it with what?”
“It’s a mental scan. You wouldn’t understand.”
I’m reading thoughts and stopping time. Now there’s talking… things. Sure, why not. “What are you?” I said. “Like a dragon or something?”
“Phhsssh.” Its lips flopped around, exposing rows of sharp teeth. “We’re grimmets, hailing from the edge of the Milky Way. My name is Sighter.”
Grimmets. Hmmmm. Tiny dragons speaking on nojakks, apparently with their mind. We missed that species in biology class. And from the Milky Way? We missed that in astronomy. Of course, we never covered timeslicing in physics. I reached for Sighter, wanted to poke him, make sure he was real. He snapped my finger with his tail, like a wet towel.
“CHRIST!” A red line swelled across my knuckles. I put it to my lips. “Why’d you do that?”
“We’re not pets.”
“Well, tell him that, you’re sitting on his shoulder.”
“I like him.” He wrapped his tail around the blind guy’s neck again. “But Pivot doesn’t own me, boy.”
“My name is Socket.”
“I know.”
“Then why’d you call me boy?”
“I just met you.” He rolled his bulging eyes. “Do I have to explain everything?”
“Listen, three or four months ago I was living a normal life, now I’m reading thoughts and stopping time and you look like a golden dragon that did some sort of…” I waved my hands over my head, frantically, “mental scan to steal my passcodes and now you’re talking to me, without moving your lips.” We stared at each other, deadpan, until I said, “So, yeah, explain everything.”
Pivot’s eyes remained unfocused, but his lips moved. Sighter nodded.
“Fair enough, boy,” Sighter said. “Follow us.”
We went to the tree. It wasn’t growing in the stone slab, after all, but against it. The slab dropped off and below, maybe fifteen feet, was a pond. The tree was rooted in that. Pivot sat against the tree and Sighter climbed to the top of his head. Hundreds of grimmets peeked out of hiding places along the branches, their eyes glowing.
“We came to help awaken the human race.”
“This gets better every day,” I muttered.
“You don’t think Earth is the first planet in the universe to make a mess out of their evolution, now do you?”
“I didn’t even know there was life on other planets.”
Sighter shook his head. “You have so much to learn, boy.”
“I just got here. Remember?”
The grimmets fluttered around Pivot like needy butterflies, fighting to be the next to swing on his fingers. Sighter stood on his shoulder monitoring the fracas, waving them off when they got too pushy.
“So who are you?” I asked the blind kid. “Your name is Pivot, right?”
No answer. Then all the grimmets looked up. Their eyes grew wider. Brighter. They scattered like bugs, found stones to sit on, branches to hang from. Sighter crossed his arms. They weren’t looking at me. They looked over my shoulder.
Someone strode across the stone slab. He was about my age. Each one of his steps landed softly and purposefully. His hair was black, properly cut. His one-piece suit was loose fitting, green and beige. It may have been the colors of the jungle, but it was too clean to belong in the Preserve.
“Salutations,” he said. “I see they have finally let you out of the box.”
I was still taking in the camouflaged onesy and the strange way he walked. It was almost like he did it perfectly. Whatever that means. Guess he figured I was confused. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off me. “The Garrison. They finally let you out. It can get quite stuffy in there, no?”
Not a single grimmet stirred. Pivot sat quietly, unnoticed. My gut sparked like a fire alarm just went off.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I believe it is high time we met.” He extended his hand. “I’m Broak.”
I shook it. He squeezed my hand tightly, then quickly let go and rubbed it on his thigh.
“Your name is Broak?”
“Indeed, it is,” he said, tipping his head. “I named myself. Didn’t care for the name I was given, decided I needed something more regal and fitting. It is a combination of two of the greatest Paladin warriors ever to live: Braiden Alexander Faber and Stoak Glacial Ginshen. Braiden and Stoak.” He pronounced each word crisply. “I am Broak.”
“How about that,” I stated.
Broak locked his gaze on me. I felt pressure surround me, push against my head. I set my feet, prepared for what might come next, but the probing was exploratory, not penetrating. It ran over my skin, under my chin, through my scalp.
“You have an unusual name, as well,” he said. “Dear Socket.”
“There’s no dear. Just Socket.”
“I see.” Broak was humming to himself. Waiting.
“I don’t think the name comes from anything,” I said. “My parents liked tools.”
People usually laughed at that. Not Broak. Maybe I should’ve made something up about a great warrior named Craftsman. He still wouldn’t have laughed.
“You are creating quite a stir, you know.” He narrowed his eyes. “The whole Paladin Nation is a buzz about the new find. I had to see you with my own eyes.”
I filled an awkward silence with a laugh. He talked funny. “What’s the big stir?”
“Well, for one, you are sixteen years old and timeslicing, my dear friend. That is quite abnormal. And so far your preliminary evaluations are soaring. Only one cadet has ever had higher scores than you.” He smiled. Teeth perfect.
“And that would beeee… you.” I gave him a chance to fill in the blank – he was obviously proud – but he let me do it.
“Do not feel disappointed. I am a product of genetic engineering. New and improved, one might say.”
“You timeslice?”
“Oh, no. I will begin timeslicing when I’m twenty, that’s the normal progression. You see, the body isn’t prepared for such stress while it is still developing. At twenty, you are adept physically as well as mentally. You realize you are lucky to have survived your accidental timeslice.” He smiled, again. A little too big. “Premature timeslicing can drain the life from you, starve you to the end. It is a good thing you are here for us to guide you.”
“I’m thrilled,” I said, thinking of my first day.
He opened his mouth wide and laughed. It sounded unnatural. Like he practiced laughing.
“Pike got a little aggressive in your preliminary, yes, I heard. You handled it quite well, though. Most cadets leave something like that unconscious. You, on the other hand, actually spoke. Quite impressive, indeed.”
He looked me up and down, again; walked around. Grimmets scurried out of his way. He made a full circle, nearly stepping on Pivot. “C
ould you tell me something?” Broak held my hair, let it fall off his fingers. “Why is your hair so unkempt and lacking of color?”
This guy was way into my personal space. And he was holding my hair. That was… unnatural. My stomach tightened and sparked. Broak put his hands up like he felt a warning. I surrender. He rubbed both hands on his pants.
“Pigmentation disorder.” I took a step back.
“I have never heard of such a thing. You are not albino, how is that possible?”
“I live in South Carolina but I’m standing in a jungle somewhere in the world where there’s mountains. How’s that possible?”
Suddenly, saying I lived in South Carolina didn’t feel right. Do I live here now?
He stopped observing and narrowed his eyes. “You are intriguing, dear Socket. Take any other sixteen-year-old, drive him through a wormhole and introduce him to a brutal minder like Pike and, well, he’d be crying for mommy. You, on the other hand, behave as if this happens every day. You are quite extraordinary.”
“Not like I had a choice.”
“No. You didn’t.” His smile faded from his smooth face. No sign of whiskers.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Same as you. Do you find that odd?”
“You seem pretty okay with all this yourself.”
“That’s because I was born here. I’m a Paladin breed. I was made to do this. You are a genetic mutation and that’s why so many Paladins are all enthusiastic about you. They love mutations. They have this false hope that nature will provide the right combination of DNA to improve our race. But if you want to know the truth, you are just an abnormality, a random chance. If you think about it, it’s like squirting paint on a canvas hoping it will become the Mona Lisa.” He twitched. “Do you understand?”
Did I just get insulted?
Broak clasped his hands behind his back and looked into the pond below. He sniffed the air and sneered, then brushed a bit of dust from his chest. The grimmets rustled nervously, never taking their eyes off him.
Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga Page 6