Psion Gamma (22 page)

Halfway down the stairs, she realized that, more than anything, she wanted to talk to her mom. Unfortunately, Jeffie had made it a habit to use her monthly call home on the first day of every month. That way, her parents always knew when she was calling and would be ready for her. That was five days ago. She still had twenty-six days to go.

The next day, Brickert acted as though nothing had changed between them. Jeffie didn’t mention their conversation either, but it stayed on her mind most of the day. What did she have against viewing Sammy’s recordings? As far as she could tell, she had no adverse feelings toward seeing Sammy. Quite the opposite, if she really thought about it. And there was no question that studying him would teach her more than anyone else here could.

So then what’s my deal?
she asked herself more than once.

The answer didn’t come to her. Not that day. Nor did it come the next. After three days of not being able to come up with a good excuse, Jeffie figured maybe there just wasn’t a good reason at all. Now the only problem she had was going back to Brickert and telling him he was right.

“Could you repeat that again for me?” Brickert asked when she apologized over breakfast. “I’m being serious. I don’t know if I heard you quite right.” Then he had to duck before her English muffin hit him in the face.

After a short discussion, they decided to contact Commander Byron and ask for a meeting. Neither of them had ever done such a thing, though Brickert had worked with the commander twice in the sims. Still, asking for a private meeting was another matter entirely, and they had no idea how he might react to their request.

“Should we just . . . call him?” Brickert asked.

Jeffie saw the hesitancy in Brickert’s eyes, the spots threatening to form on his cheeks, and activated her own com. “You mean, should
I
just call him?” She rolled her eyes and told her com to call Byron.

Fifteen minutes later, they were in sim room one sitting down on plush blue holo-chairs. Commander Byron had his arms resting across his chest, probably wondering what on earth two Betas wanted to talk about on a Friday evening while everyone else was downstairs in the rec room playing the sweetest fighting simulator Jeffie had ever seen.

“So tell me what this is about,” he said with congenial interest.

Jeffie looked to Brickert whose face again told her she had the responsibility to make the request. She replied with a scathing glare.

“Well,” she started hesitantly, “we were—we wondered if you would release the holo-recordings of Sammy’s sims for us to study.”

The commander’s face showed no surprise. Jeffie wondered if he’d been waiting for one of the Betas to make this very request.

He read something off his com screen and then put it away. “Neither of you has even reached three Thirteens yet,” he stated. “Might this request be a bit premature?”

Jeffie thought for only a moment before giving her answer. She’d already spent the last three days mulling over the very same question. “No, sir, we don’t. I think the sooner we learn how to win these battles the better. What good is there in waiting?”

Commander Byron observed her for a moment, then his attention shifted to Brickert. Brickert looked everywhere but back at Byron’s eyes.

Byron answered in his unique, measured tone, carefully placing each word as she knew him to do. “Technically, I am not able to do that. The records of a Beta are considered his or her private property and they are also considered classified documents. Only Samuel or General Wu can clear them for you.”

Brickert and Jeffie exchanged a private glance.

“All right,” Brickert added quickly, “but we thought in light of everything that’s happened . . .”

“Plus he’s—well, he’s our—” Jeffie started to say.

“I know,” the commander said with an uncharacteristic interruption. Jeffie thought she’d upset him. If she did, he showed no sign of it. Instead of saying any more on the subject, Commander Byron simply fell silent and looked at them. Perhaps he was waiting to be convinced.

Finally, she spoke up again. “Sir, we realize the ramifications of this, but we also know the importance of what Sammy was—what Sammy
is
.” For a moment she couldn’t believe what she’d just said. “I don’t think anyone, even Al, could teach us to fight like Sammy can.”

“No offense or anything,” Brickert said hastily.

The commander smiled briefly and said, “I agree with both of you. But laws are laws and nothing can be changed. I will have to see if I can have Samuel’s records declassified, maybe on a limited basis. Is that fair?”

“That’d be great,” Brickert assured him.

“Good,” the commander said, standing up. “In the meantime, keep working hard.” In two strides, he had left the room, leaving Brickert and Jeffie looking at each other.

“That was weird,” Jeffie commented. “Wasn’t that weird?”

Brickert didn’t seem to know what to think. The holo-chair he’d been sitting on disappeared and he hit the floor. Jeffie started to laugh and helped him up.

As Brickert rubbed his bottom, he asked, “What do you think he’ll come up with? Anything?”

“I don’t know. Hopefully something useful.”

March 5, 2086

S
AMMY HATED TEXAS
. At least, he hated Texas in early March. Harsh winds relentlessly blew down from the north, chilling them. It was their second day of walking, having spent yesterday’s remaining sunlight walking twenty or so kilometers east from the spot where they’d jumped from the air rail. When exhaustion finally caught up to them, sometime in the middle of the night, they still couldn’t stop to sleep because of the biting cold. Moving was the only thing keeping them warm. By the light of the moon, they searched for shelter. After hours of wandering, Toad spotted a boarded up shack that did little more than shield them from the wind. They huddled together inside, too tired to keep watch. Sleep came in spurts of five or ten minutes before a loud sound or frigid gust of wind woke them. The moment light appeared through the spaces between the boards, they set off northward.

Most of the terrain was unused plots of farmland, which provided little cover. He knew they should be traveling at night to help conceal their movements, but at such temperatures, how could they? They crossed plenty of country roads, most in disrepair. Sammy focused only on putting one foot in front of the other. He had no thoughts, no ideas. Deep down, he knew this was a bad omen. The realization that something in his brain had changed, and changed drastically at that, had begun to dawn on him back when they were in the bathroom of the air rail hub in Rio.

But Sammy didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t want to acknowledge that his once stellar, keen mind was about as good as a scrambled egg dumped in his skull. Truth was, Sammy could no longer
see
, and after relying on that wonderful Anomaly Eleven for the last couple years, the possibility that it was gone was like losing a friend.

Other than helping him learn faster than most people and allowing him to
see
solutions to problems, he wasn’t sure what Anomaly Eleven meant to him. What else would it affect?

What if I’m naturally a dumb person?
he wondered as he fell asleep.

The second day was milder, and the winds eased up. They had no clue if they were headed in the right direction other than north, but moving seemed a much better idea than standing still. It also helped them to forget about their growing hunger. About midday they came upon water and drank until their bellies were so full they sloshed at each step. Every few kilometers, they saw a house or large barn, but didn’t dare go near. No cars ever passed them on the roads, and eventually, even the roads became scarcer.

After night fell, they pressed on, making poor progress with very little energy and rougher terrain. Between exhaustion, hunger, and the cold, the boys were absolutely miserable. As they walked farther north, they came across more and more trees until they were in a forest. When they finally had to rest, they could do nothing more than put their backs up to a tree and try to sleep.

Sammy didn’t know how, but he got more rest that night than the one before. He woke to the sound of Toad crying for his parents. His sobs were wet and pitiful, laced with a deep moaning that ached for comfort. Sammy watched Toad with a detached passivity that he’d never before experienced. For one who had gone through something so horrifically similar, Sammy had no desire to provide empathy. Only a sense of duty finally motivated him to speak to the younger boy. He reassured Toad that he, too, had once lived through the same trauma, and in time the pain inside would lessen.

Toad’s crying only got worse. Sammy tried to have patience, but he had so little of it since leaving Rio. His emotions always flew from one extreme to the next.

“Can’t you calm down so we can get going?” he finally asked Toad.

“No . . .” Toad moaned. “I don’t even know where I’m going!”

Sammy reasoned that it was time to tell Toad at least some things. If Toad proved to be untrustworthy (though Sammy had no idea how Toad would tell anyone), Sammy would just kill him.

“Start walking with me, and I’ll tell you where we’re going,” Sammy said. “Sound fair?”

Toad grudgingly agreed. Sammy kept his word and told Toad about his intent to walk to Wichita, not Topeka, and find a place called
Plain Pal
or a person named
Sedgwick C
. Naturally, this only brought up more questions from Toad, questions which Sammy flatly refused to answer. Most of them centered around why they were going to Wichita and how Sammy was able to do the things he did in the N building.

“Okay, what about food?” Toad asked.

“I don’t know,” Sammy answered. “We know they’re onto us. Maybe they know where we were headed, maybe not. But if we steal or do anything to attract attention to ourselves, we’re just helping them find us.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t bring maps,” Toad said as his feet crunched the hard dirt. “That wasn’t very smart.”

“I had maps.” Sammy’s teeth clenched as he spoke. The morning sun was low and its rays shone on them through a canopy of leaves. Sammy hoped for a warmer day than the last. “I wasn’t planning to travel without them.”

“What did they get you for?” Toad asked. “Those guys in the suits.”

Sammy made a sound of annoyance. A switch had flipped in his brain, and all of a sudden he didn’t feel like talking. Every step made him hungrier. He knew he couldn’t keep the pace up all day, maybe not even half the day.

If something doesn’t happen soon
. . . he let the thought hang over him.
I shouldn’t have shared that pizza with Toad.

He enjoyed the silence; nothing but birds singing and air blowing around them. The serenity helped bring things into focus. They walked through patches of forest, then patches of clearing. Sammy preferred the forests because he felt safer under cover, even though traveling was slower.

Toad, on the other hand, didn’t like the quiet. He tolerated it for several minutes at a time, but then came right back to pestering Sammy with more questions or talking about any subject under the sun. The only subject Toad avoided was family. “How did you get your superpowers?” “Where did you learn to use them?” “I can run really fast.” “Do I have powers, too?” It reminded Sammy of his conversation with Feet in Johannesburg while they’d been trying to elude the Shocks.

“You aren’t answering any of my questions,” Toad reminded him.

“I know,” Sammy said dully.

“How did you—?”

Toad stopped walking, but better yet, he stopped talking. It wasn’t because they had just come to the edge of the woods or because the sun had finally found their faces again, it was because the end of the woods marked a large community, a town stretching on for . . . Sammy couldn’t tell exactly how long.

He watched Toad’s face as it turned from hopeful to confused.

“Do you feel that?” asked Toad. His breath condensed in the air, dying centimeters from his lips.

Sammy didn’t notice anything at first except the pains in his stomach and shins. When he took a moment to really pay attention, he understood what Toad meant. The panorama before him was so static it could have hung on a wall. It was obviously an older town; the materials of the homes were quite outdated. The lawns were overgrown, the tall trees breached the borders of the houses, growing over roofs and into windows, and yet Sammy could still have believed the town was inhabited had it not been for the perfect stillness captured like a picture.

Toad stood next to him and gave a loud sniff. “Ghost town. They’re all over, I think.”

Sammy had seen them before in Europe when he’d gone with his family. According to Sammy’s history instruction, the worldwide average of fatality was over fifty percent during the Scourge. In South Africa, the casualties had stayed close to twenty-five percent. But in places as densely populated as China, India, and the United States, much higher percentages were seen, even reaching ninety in heavily urbanized areas. After things began to settle, mass mobilization resulted, with people moving back into the more urban areas. In the end, the small and mid-size towns took the greatest hit.

The effect was eerie. No artificial light streaming from windows or street lamps. No cars humming down the street or even standing parked in driveways. No joggers on the sidewalks or dogs barking behind fenced yards. Perfect quietness prevailed.

“This is great,” Sammy said, intruding on the pervading quiet. “Let’s see what we can find.”

They went to the nearest house. The front door was unlocked, so they let themselves in. Sammy couldn’t help his nervousness when they went inside. After all, they were entering a house uninvited.

The rooms were bare of furniture, the walls of any decorations. Drab curtains still covered a few of the back windows. A thick layer of dust coated the carpet and any other horizontal surface. Sammy’s mind instantly went to food, and it seemed that Toad’s did as well, because they both tore into the kitchen in a frenzy. With bangs and crashes, they systematically opened each kitchen cabinet, the fridge, freezer, and searched frantically for a pantry. It didn’t matter. There was no food to eat.

“Are you kidding me?” Toad shouted as he slammed the pantry door shut.

Sammy swallowed his own disappointment. “Look for blankets and clothes.”

They combed every room and closet in the house and found nothing.

“I’m taking those,” Toad said, pointing at the curtains. He ripped them off the windows and wrapped them around himself as blankets, then they moved onto the next house. And then the next house, and then the next house . . .

As the sun set that night, Sammy and Toad walked down County Road clutching the thickest curtains they’d found around their shoulders. Toad pulled a badly rusted red wagon behind him. The wagon contained all their treasures: a sealed bag of rolled oats, three cans of corn, one can of chicken, and a few odds and ends they’d picked up. They passed a sign dangling upside down, hanging on by one nail. The next bad windstorm would tear it completely off the post.

“Welcome to Cedar Mills. Great Fishing. Great People,” Sammy read aloud while craning his neck. “I hope the sign’s right about the fish.”

“I’m depressed,” Toad mumbled.

“What’d you expect?” Sammy asked, “A banquet?”

“No.” Toad sniffed a couple times and rubbed his nose. “But I didn’t think they’d be totally cleaned out. He kicked a rock and watched it roll end over end down the road. “Now what?”

“I wish I could cook,” Sammy grumbled.

“Can we just eat?”

Sammy shook his head. They caught up to the rock Toad had kicked, and Sammy gave it another good boot. It rolled out of sight. “Let’s pick a house to sleep in. We’ll eat there. Maybe tomorrow we can find some more food. If not, we’ll keep going north.”

Toad picked the closest house, an older looking two-level on the corner. It felt good to rest. Sammy noticed how tired his legs had grown from all the walking.

They started a fire in a metal pail with some matches Toad had found earlier in a jar under a broken bedspring. Looking at their food, they had to decide which to eat. Corn was the obvious choice, as they had three cans. Sammy picked the meat to go with it. He used his knife to open the cans.

“Okay, what about water?” Toad asked suddenly.

“What about it?”

“I need some. I haven’t had any in hours.”

Sammy licked his own dry lips, almost annoyed that he was now noticing how thirsty he was, too. “Neither have I. We’ll split what’s in the corn can and get some more tomorrow.”

They ate slowly, savoring each morsel. Sammy stared blankly into the flames as he ate. A dark mood passed over him as the tongues of fire danced, forming shapes that mostly resembled Stripe’s face. He became so lost in his own thoughts, it took a minute to notice that, across the room, Toad was crying. It started with that annoying sniff, then more sniffles, and finally Toad shook as he covered his eyes and bawled.