It hurt to have my hair pulled back in a ponytail, so I let it hang over my face. Forget awareness and the present moment, I just want the pain to go away. Standing at attention was not helping.
Maybe Pon would understand. I was helping someone in need. Okay, so I fucked things up, but I’m still a cadet. We could put the scenario back together; it would give me a chance to analyze it.
I paced around, tried to stay one step ahead of my thoughts but they trailed behind like cans tied to strings. I focused on breathing, let the thoughts rise and drift, but there were so many of them. Thoughts about Streeter and Chute, Pon and this God-forsaken place. The weight of the mountain felt like it was sitting squarely on my chest. I took a deep breath but the pressure wouldn’t let up.
Pon popped out of the floor and startled me. I went back to the center, where I should’ve been. I blew at my hair hanging over my eyes.
He was rigid. His hands were not behind his back but crossed over his chest. And his posture was slightly askew, his shoulders thrown back a few degrees. I expected utter disappointment on his face, perhaps disgust. But he was void of any of that. He was expressionless.
He gazed at my mid-section. Pon rarely looked anywhere but my eyes. They revealed more than any word or movement. His gaze was unfocused, slightly hazy. Deep in thought.
“When I was twelve,” he said, “I watched three boys drown.”
What?
He swung his foot to the side, took three paces, turned, and paced back.
“Perhaps they swam too far out into the ocean or a riptide carried them, it did not matter. Their heads were barely above the water and they were waving for help. I imagine they were calling, but I could not hear their voices over the surf. One second I could see them, the next they would disappear behind a wave and then they were back.”
He stopped at the end of his pacing, bounced the tips of his splayed fingers in front of his chest.
“I calculated how far out they were, the weight of their bodies and the energy I would need to bring them back. I knew I was not capable of saving them and had I gone, I would have drowned as well. So I watched them bob in the ocean, until they did not reappear.”
The pain receded in my focus. Something wasn’t right.
“There was quite a commotion after their deaths. The community was saddened and I felt disgusted with my inaction. But as the days passed, I realized guilt was a useless emotion. I could not save those boys. My death would not have justified their deaths anymore than standing there. And how I felt about it, how anyone felt about it, was pointless.”
“You could’ve tried.”
He stopped mid-stride. “You cannot save everyone, cadet.”
“I’m saving the ones that want to be saved.”
He nodded, but still looking at the floor. He resumed his one-man parade.
“The Paladin Nation has asked that I terminate your training. Your failure to act responsibly and capably was reprehensible. You are not fit to be a Paladin, regardless of your aptitude.”
“Fine.”
“You believe it is that simple, mmm? That you can return to your former life? You would prefer that?”
I didn’t answer.
The room shifted, formed objects and colors and bodies. A long bar took shape to my left and booths on the right. Men and women emerged at elevated tables around us, all frozen in a lifeless moment. The Judgment Day club had been resurrected to the very moment I had entered it with Streeter. Pon stood in front of a woman and touched her face. She was the one that touched my hair.
“This woman identified you as a Paladin cadet and confirmed your identity. A year of training and you could not assess this simple action? You cannot perform a simple task on your own?” He brushed the wrinkles from her shoulders, carefully. “You will not waste any more of my time.”
“Then be done with me.”
“Even now, you react. You let your emotions guide you.”
“Maybe those kids wouldn’t have drowned if you did the same.”
“If I did the same, I wouldn’t be here today to save you.”
“Maybe one of them would.”
He looked at me for a second. His eyes were glassy. He looked away, pacing between the still-formed crowds, the redish light from the bar cast strange color onto his cheeks.
“You cannot act upon what feels good or bad, cadet. Emotions will betray you.”
“I should be a calculator, is that it?” I said. “Add up the numbers and see what lives are worth saving and which ones aren’t. How much is a Paladin life worth, Pon? Ten ordinary people? Twenty? You need to give me that formula so I’ll know when it’s worth swimming out.”
“There’s no formula. As I have trained you for the past year, the present moment contains all existence. Just listen. Learn to listen to the present moment, do not tell it how you feel about it.”
I slammed my fist on a round table, spilling a drink. “I DID WHAT THE MOMENT REQUIRED!”
“Your friend is responsible for his own life.”
“He needed help.”
“You failed,” Pon said, simply.
“I saved a life, isn’t that what we’re trained to do?”
He picked up the fallen glass and gently placed it on the table. “Your friends will forget you.”
“They won’t.”
“You will become a ghost in their memories. They will recall a childhood friend, but they will not remember your face. They will not remember the sound of your voice or the touch of your hand.”
“She won’t forget.”
“You are slipping from the memories of all that knew you, shedding your old life, preparing for a new one. Your loved ones will be the last to hold onto that memory, but even they will forget. In the end, you will be alone.”
Pressure gripped my chest. I forced myself to breathe.
“You cannot have attachments. Would you have saved your friend if you did not know him?”
No, I wouldn’t walk a stranger up to that room. But what if they’re all strangers? What if no one remembers me, who do I save then? How do I decide?
The energy in the room shifted. Pon walked past me with his hands at his sides. His gait changed. The steps became shorter, his balance lowered. Tension rippled up his arms, over his shoulders. I brushed the evolvers on my belt, turned my hips toward him and analyzed the room and the contents for position. Pressure clamped my chest, my breath wheezed in my throat. Is this an exercise?
“Do you know what it feels like to drown?” Pon paused at the bar. “There is panic, at first, when you realize that death is eminent. Thoughts seize the muscles. You fight to stay above the water until exhaustion sets in. You sink a few times and come up for air, perhaps take in water, until you no longer have the strength to stay above the surface.”
He walked along the bar, each step was purposeful, his fingers curved like claws. I turned so he would not see my back.
A man leaped from the booth behind me. I shifted my weight, caught his arm and tossed him across the room.
“You hold your breath, at first, try to make the air in your lungs last, fighting the water that pushes on your lips. But your lungs contract.”
The bartender pulled a gun from below. The evolver unfolded around my arm and a burst of blue energy shot from my open hand, melting barrel and half his arm.
“A fire burns the hungry cells in your lungs.”
I kicked the tables away, cleared space. With both evolvers, I crouched in the center of the room.
“Your head swells painfully.”
All the glassy-eyed patrons with their fingers stuck in the moody bowls attacked. I cut away their knees with a long stroke of a blue saber. Blood splashed the walls.
“Water, the very substance that gives you life, now takes it.”
One man eluded my counterattack, got close enough to bring a glowing dagger down on me. I activated a shield and inserted a knife between his ribs. Why am I slaughtering these people?
“
The useless air is expelled from your lungs and you choke soundlessly. You thrash helplessly. You sink.” Pon walked behind a small group of men in tuxedoes. “Inevitably.”
He did not emerge on the other side. Instead, Streeter appeared. His hands were glowing with evolvers. His eyes were dark and angry. Vengeful.
“Save me, Socket,” he said.
He took a step, then another, and then leapt, hands above his head, a long spear aimed for my chest. My heart thumped inside, ached to be released from the building pressure. It needed space. It wanted out.
I dodged to the left, using an impact pulse to launch Streeter across the room. His frail body cracked into the wall, falling over the back of a booth at a broken angle.
I couldn’t get enough air. My chest squeezed my lungs smaller and tighter. I’m suffocating.
“Sometimes you have to let them drown.” Pon was behind me.
I spun. He was gone, again.
“You have to surrender.”
I screamed, shoving tables and bodies away, blasting them against the walls until I was the only thing standing.
Pon’s bodiless voice spoke. “You have to die!”
I rolled sideways, ignited a shield from my left hand and sprayed bursting projectiles blindly behind me. Pon moved deftly, his motions animal-like, lanky and graceful, blocking my shots and advancing. I jumped onto the booths and swiped at him with a three-headed whip, a sweeping line that he bent his body around. The whips carved through the floorboards.
Our shields clashed and our weapon hands locked together. I had the advantage from above, careful not to overcompensate that he might shift and toss me. He was stuck in the corner. Maybe it was the weight of my chest or the adrenaline or his exhaustion, but I overpowered him. I forced him into a compromised position. His neck was prone.
I would best him.
Spit shot from his lips and he pulled me closer, the tip of my weapon closing in on his neck. He wanted me to win. I smelled his breath and looked into his eyes.
His eyes.
The depth, the steel, was gone. This was not the man that had trained me. There was something else in his eyes, someone familiar. From another time. It was the eyes of another man. An enemy I once knew. That was not Pon inside.
It felt like… impossible.
I pressed the tip of my weapon closer, touching the throbbing artery on his neck. His eyes were wide open, as if begging me to look inside.
Pon is the greatest trainer of all time.
He leaned forward, my dagger sizzling on his skin with no regard for life or death. He wanted me to see.
My mentor.
The smell of burnt flesh wafted up. I pulled the dagger back. Leaned closer.
Closer to see.
It wasn’t Pon inside. It was a predator. A deceiver. I saw inside… PIKE.
Pon is a pawn!
Pon/Pike hooked his leg around mine, twisted his hips and turned me on my back. I was flung hard into the wall.
White light exploded on the back of my already thumping head. I squeezed the shield to full strength with both hands.
Pon’s face was inches from mine but Pike’s eyes bore down. The tip of a dagger pushed through my shield and touched my throat. Now it was my jugular throbbing against a deadly edge. His eyes were tunnels that reached deep into a shell of a man that guided me through my training, that had been with me through my development, the man that prodded me to grow, to realize. At the very ends was a vengeful puppeteer. A master of psychic manipulation. Pike had defeated Pon. Through him, he would defeat me.
“No.” I shifted my weight, squeezed the shield tighter, pushed the dagger back, but he found renewed strength to force the weapon closer to my neck. His lips pulled back over his teeth. I could not stop him.
“NO!” My chest resisted the pressure inside. There was nowhere to go. Nothing I could do to stop him.
“Your father was a pig.” His voice was hardly recognizable, beaten and hoarse. “Pigs do not go to battle. Pigs go to slaughter.”
I expected the killing blow to be cold and quick like a shank that would slice through my throat. But instead, there was an explosion from deep in my chest. My heart had been set free, destroying the steel cage that imprisoned it. I heard nothing. Saw nothing.
And there was great relief.
Tremendous freedom.
I fell onto the floor, exhausted. Full surrender. Complete liberation.
Everything was broken. Across the room, slumped against the wall, was the body of Pon, buried into a depression like he’d been driven into it. It was limp and lifeless. It didn’t match the vision that I had when I was with Com, but the details were irrelevant.
That is not Pon.
Newfound life crackled through me, fueled by bitterness and hatred. I snapped open my hands, blue flames flickered in my palms. I would smite this traitor from the world, take this unholy affliction from the face of the earth. No more people would drown because of him. No more death. NO MORE!
I pushed off the wall, soaring across the room. Hands together, above my head. Long, broad swords emerged to impale the heart of evil. Anger shook my body, thirsting for the salty tang of his blood. The death this world deserved.
I was hit with a detainment wire. Another line wrapped around my mid-section like a thin snake and another around my arms and legs. I crashed into the manufactured bodies piled against the wall and carelessly cut the lashes from my skin with the evolver, searing deep wounds in my calves and elbows.
“NO!” I cried.
My evolvers yelped with power, drawing from the depths of my rage. Fireballs melted the first spidery crawler guard that appeared. I destroyed a second one preparing to fire another detainment line, but more entered the room. I slashed and burned them, but they overwhelmed me with numbers. The cool, silky lines encased me.
“Master Socket.” Spindle knelt next to me.
“He’s a traitor, Spindle! That’s not Pon, that’s Pike! Look in his eyes! PIKE IS CONTROLLING HIM! KILL HIM NOW!”
Spindle took my head with both hands but I thrashed him away. He took my head again and again until the healing vibrations from his palms sank deeply. I strained against the constraints, hissing through my teeth. Several crawlers huddled around.
I let myself fall limp. Breathing came easier. The traitor was only five feet away. I could do nothing. But when I looked between the crawlers’ spindly legs, there was only an indention.
Pon’s body was missing.
“He’s gone,” I muttered. “You let him get away.”
“Pon has been transported to an infirmary. The impact has caused him great harm.”
Impact?
The Commander’s voice resonated inside the room. Others were with him. Spindle had both hands on my chest sending healing warmth inside me. My body was so empty and depleted. The colors on his faceplate ran wild. I grabbed his wrist, unable to squeeze, suddenly aware of the complete exhaustion. Barely able to whisper, I asked, “What happened?”
“Master Socket,” he said, his eyelight looking at me, “you are telekinetic.”
T R A I N I N G
The Edge
They subdued me after the attack. I slept for days. I woke with my legs bandaged where I tried to cut away the crawler guards’ detainment lines. When they released me from the infirmary, it wasn’t without a fight. I rebelled by trashing the room, demanding to see Pon, or Pike, or whoever the fuck he was. I blamed the meds they gave me for that freak out, some stuff that was supposed to keep me calm and relaxed and open to understanding. I understood, all right. Understood I wanted to wreck something and everything in that room was the winner.
I didn’t see a live person that day, only servys. The next day, I settled down. Minders came in to do some tests, penetrate my mind and body, see how I was holding up. They did their job like usual, with confidence that bordered on arrogance, but they were hiding a quiver of fear. They saw what happened to Pon/Pike. If I could do that to him… so they tread lightly, like a
bomb squad.
Spindle was the only one acting normal. He refused to talk about the incident, citing the Commander’s orders. This went on for days and it only pissed me off. I think I trashed the room again. But then it was clear they were going to keep me until I got a hold of myself. It took some effort and a couple of days of meditation, but I disengaged from the frantic emotions and returned to the present moment.
That’s when the Commander finally showed up, told me the details of what had happened and what I was becoming. He gave me another day in the infirmary and when he was satisfied, he allowed me free range of the Garrison. Get out, stretch your legs, son.
I requested the leaper to go to the highest point in the Garrison. I didn’t want illusions anymore, I wanted something real. I wanted to feel the wind and sun.
No more tricks. Please.
I stood in an alcove five hundred feet up the Garrison’s cliff. I had never seen it from that vantage point. Bitter wind circled into the opening. I put my toe over the edge. No rail up here, just me and the elements and five hundred feet to the ground. I was cold and alone.
Pretty much how it was on the inside.
If I took a five hundred foot step off the ledge and somehow survived, maybe I could run to the wormhole, get as far away from the Garrison as possible. But even if I could survive such a fall, even if I could outrun the long leash of the Paladin Nation, there was nothing on the other side. No home out there. A butterfly cannot transform back into a caterpillar anymore than I could become normal again.
There was no stopping growth. If it would bring back Pon, I would gladly lay my Paladin membership down. They needed him more than me. It was a great loss to the Paladin Nation. A great loss to the world. But there was no bringing him back. Would he even want me to?
He said they were going to terminate my training, send me home. That was a lie. They were never going to terminate my training, never let me return, because I was special. Even among Paladins, I was one of a kind.
I am telekinetic.
I wasn’t unstable after all. It was all part of the development, and that was the big mystery. I was hearing future events, too. The cold wash preceded the insights. The precognition was enough to make me special, to send me to the top of the Paladins’ power list, but it was the telekinesis that put me over the top. No Paladin had ever moved objects with his or her mind. I not only moved them, I blew them across the room. I crushed their bodies. That’s what happened in the pre-Trial exercise. Stress levels built up and I exploded. Spindle was destroyed. They weren’t expecting it. Spindle had me beat, and then he went flying. It was like fishing for trout and hooking a goddamn pot of gold.
Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga Page 33