Psion Beta

1.
Brains

The street lights
of downtown Johannesburg cast long shadows through the dirty front windows of an abandoned grocery store. Sammy stayed in the shadows as he darted from one hiding place to another. The air around him felt cool, but sweat rolled down his forehead to the end of his stubby brown nose. He crouched behind the customer service desk at the front of the store and listened for signs of someone approaching.

As he listened, he blew the perspiration off the end of his nose with a puff. It was quiet enough to hear the tiny splash as it hit the floor. Not far away, where the shopping carts stood, someone’s shoe scuffed the floor. Sammy jerked his head in that direction, banged his cheek on the corner of the desk, and bit his tongue. The taste of blood reminded him how long it had been since his last meal.

I need to go some place they won’t think of
, he decided. He thought of the stock room behind him. He paused to listen again, fingering the weapon stowed in his pocket. An ambulance siren wailed as it passed the store. Sammy took advantage of the moment and eased open the stock room door just enough to worm his long body through the crack.

The room became almost pitch black when the door closed. Sammy walked with his hands outstretched, waiting to bump into the ladder he already knew was attached to the back wall. When he reached the ladder, he smiled.

No way they’ll look for me up here
, he thought as he climbed.

At the top, he steadied himself with one hand and used the other to push on the foam tile above him. The square gave way, but a shower of dust fell on him––his first shower in weeks. Struggling not to cough, he poked his head into the ceiling space. It was much brighter than in the room below him. Cracks in the ceiling tiles allowed dim shafts of light to stream in. It was enough illumination for Sammy to see a service walkway suspended from the roof.

He pulled himself all the way up, slowly putting his weight on the walkway. It held firm without creaking. Once he stood at his full height, he gave the platform a test bounce.

“
Good,” Sammy whispered, “I don’t want to die.”

Using the cracks in the ceiling as spy holes into the main store, he went on the hunt. In less than a minute, he spotted someone creeping around in one of the aisles. The person below was tall and wore faded fatigues; his left forearm sported over a dozen watches, each face reflecting a tiny point of light. In his right hand, he held a weapon similar to Sammy’s. Sammy knelt down on the walkway and lifted the nearest tile. His eyes never left the target as he took the weapon out of his pocket, put it in his mouth, and blew.

The only sound was a tiny whistle as the projectile flew out of the end of the tube followed by a dull thump as it connected with its target. The camouflaged shoulders arched backward as it struck right between his shoulder blades. Sammy noted with satisfaction his good aim. With his enemy motionless on the floor, he replaced the tile and moved on.

The next two targets he found together, working in sync, systematically moving from aisle to aisle at opposite ends. They probably hoped they could trap Sammy inside one of them. Reloading his tube as he walked down the platform, Sammy positioned himself at the end of the next aisle and waited for the one directly beneath him to leave his partner’s line of sight.

This shot was even easier than the last. Sammy hit him on the side of the neck and dropped him. The third target, however, got spooked when his partner did not appear, and took cover in one of the broken freezers at the end of an aisle.

The target seemed to have no intention of coming out of hiding. Sammy tried to get a decent shot while still standing on the platform, but could not do it. In a bold move, he lay across the platform and a foam square, keeping as much of his weight on the walkway as possible. His hands shook more than before as he imagined himself falling through the brittle squares onto the metal shelves below him. With one hand holding up the tile, and the other steadying the weapon in his mouth, he took careful aim. He leaned . . . leaned . . . fired.

He heard a thump.

A perfect shot to the ribs! Sammy shook his hand in a fist of triumph.
One left
.

At that same instant, movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Sammy tried to adjust his body to face the source, but it was too late. A sharp pain stabbed his chest just below his collar bone, and the foam crumpled beneath him. His fingers scrambled to find something to clutch on to, anything to slow the fall, but they tore through the foam as his legs slipped off the walkway.

He screamed as he tumbled headfirst toward the shelves. His mind whirled in the panic of certain death as his arms and legs flailed uselessly around him. Then, just before he hit the metal shelf, something happened: for a fraction of a second, he slowed in mid-air. He felt it, though only barely––like hitting a thick pocket of warm air and bouncing off it. As he slowed, the weight of his legs flipped him over just in time, and he landed on his back instead of his head.

With a thundering crash, his body slammed into the top shelf. The impact forced the air out of his lungs. A second smaller crash rang out as his shelf collapsed into the one below. He stopped there, motionless and eyes closed. “I’m alive,” he said, swallowing air in an attempt to regain his wind.
I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m really alive.

Sammy heard the sound of his shooter running toward him, swearing under his breath.

“
Brains!” Sammy’s friend, Feet, hollered as he ran. Feet was breathing almost as hard as Sammy. “Brains, you all right?”

Sammy opened his eyes and saw his friend’s pale shocked face. “Yeah––yeah, I’m fine. My back’s going to be bruised, but I’m fine.”

“
I had no idea,” Feet gasped for air, “you’d fall like that.”

Sammy accepted his friend’s hand and let himself be pulled off the shelf. “Did you see what happened?”

“
Yeah, man. Scary!” He stared at the wreckage of the shelves. “Sure you’re okay?”

“
No––yes. I slowed down in mid-air!” Sammy said. His voice cracked with excitement. “I slowed down!”

Feet grinned, then laughed. “Whatever.”

“
No, I’m serious.”

The grin stayed on Feet’s face. The giddiness of getting away with doing something very, very stupid was settling into Sammy, too. “Well, at least you’re not dead. Sure you didn’t just land right?”

Sammy replayed the fall in his mind from beginning to end. “I’m sure. I felt it.”

But Feet just shrugged his shoulders. “You saying you flew? That’s nutty, man.”

Sammy tried very hard not to sound as crazy as Feet thought he was. “I didn’t fly. I slowed
down.”

“
Then you landed right,” Feet insisted.

Sammy considered arguing again, but decided against it.

“
I think we should make the ceiling off limits,” Feet continued, “just to be safe.”

Sammy nodded, but was still thinking about the fall.
I didn’t imagine it
, he told himself. Feet gave him a playful shove, driving those thoughts temporarily out of his mind.

“
Hear me, Brains?”

The others were approaching now.

“
No, I didn’t.”

“
I said you should’ve been quicker.”

“
I can’t believe you were behind those pallets.” His face now mirrored the wicked grin his friend wore. “I looked everywhere for you.”

“
Obviously not everywhere,” Feet shot back, “or you’d have seen me. Nice thinking, though––going up in the ceiling.”

“
That was the whole point. Catch you off guard.”

“
How’d you do it? Fly?”

“
Ha ha,” Sammy answered and returned Feet’s shove. “There’s a ladder in one of the storage rooms in the front of the store.”

“
Yeah . . . never thought of that.”

“
Three months here and you’ve never thought about doing that?”

“
Who lost? Who lost?” said short and plump Chuckles from behind Sammy, poking him in the back repeatedly. “Brains lost! Brains lost!”

Sammy made a rude gesture to Chuckles. “Shove it up your hole. I took you out. You didn’t even come close to touching me.”

“
You still lost.”

“
That puts me––uh––three wins in the lead, Brains?” Feet asked. He had an innocent expression on his face that Sammy saw right through.

He pushed Feet again. “Don’t give me that crap. Like you really lost track of your wins.”

“
Maybe if you stopped trying to be a one-man show you’d win more games,” Chuckles said. “Right, Feet?”

“
What do you mean?” Sammy asked.

Fro-yo’s voice came from several aisles over, swearing repeatedly. “Who’s got my peashooter?”

“
Crap,” Chuckles muttered, looking at the peashooter in his pudgy hand. “I’m pretty sure this one’s mine, but I don’t really know ‘cuz I dropped mine after you hit me. Stupid thing must have rolled halfway across the store.”

Chuckles wandered off in the direction of Fro-yo’s voice.

“
That a welt?” Feet asked, pointing to the spot where his marble had hit Sammy.

Sammy pulled down the neck of his hoodie and showed his friend. Feet grimaced when he saw the large bruise forming on Sammy’s chest. “And,” Sammy reminded him, “I’ll probably have more just like that all over my back.”

“
What hurts more?” Feet asked. “The bruises or me being three games up on you?” He snickered at his own joke.

“
Oh please, just shut it.” Then Sammy lowered his voice as he asked, “What was Chuck talking about? Does everyone think that about me? That I’m a one-man show? ”

Feet’s answer did not come immediately. “No, Brains. But . . . you should probably start relying on your team, you know, maybe a little more.”

“
What’s that supposed to mean?”

“
Nothing.” Feet’s answer came too quickly.

“
No, what did you mean?”

Feet kicked at one of the bottom shelves still intact and shrugged. “C’mon, man, you know what I mean.”

Sammy responded with a grunt and vigorously rubbed the spot on his shoulder where he had been hit. He liked Chuckles the least anyway. Who cared what he thought? He cursed again as he looked at the spot on his chest. The thick hoodie had done little to cushion the shot. He would indeed have a full-blown welt within the hour.

“
That’s got to hurt nasty,” Feet said as he inspected the bruise closer.

“
I’ll just add it to my collection. Remember the one on my butt? That only just went away.”

Just then, Watch showed up, complaining about a large purple and blue bump on his back and how three of his watches were no longer ticking the time. Sammy had to admit to himself that maybe he’d gotten off lucky––but it was Feet who had won. That always burned.

That’s all right
, Sammy told himself,
I’ll get him in the next game
.

Feet was Sammy’s greatest adversary and best friend. They looked absolutely nothing alike but had everything in common. Sammy was tall with chalky brown skin and a powerful build for his age; Feet stood a good ten centimeters shorter, pale skinned with jet black hair and blue eyes that shined with much more intelligence than he let on. Because they were acknowledged by the gang as the best army players out of the seven, they were never allowed to play on the same team. The rule only fueled their competition.

Watch piped up, “So what’s next on the evening’s agenda?”

“
Where’s Honk and Gunner?” Sammy asked.

“
Oh, good question. Where’s Honk and Gunner?”

Gunner called out far down the aisle, another tall kid but paler and with thick glasses that always seemed on the verge of slipping from his nose. He and Honk carried about a dozen pizzas between the two of them.

Feet turned to Sammy with a raised eyebrow, silently asking what he was thinking.

“
Where did the food come from?” Sammy asked them.

Honk and Gunner exchanged smirks. “Pizza Pop’s down the street– like you needed to ask. Ain’t eaten nothing since yesterday morning. My stomach’s been screaming like a son of a––”