Psion Alpha (32 page)

Gibbons
nodded. “I was saving it for the end. To celebrate. Now this occasion seems
more appropriate.”

As
night drew closer, the jaguars did not leave, but they did become more
difficult to spot in the dimming sunlight. Despite Gibbons’ assurances that he felt
better, Sammy saw how pallid he’d become since the late morning, how he winced
every time he shifted his weight, and how his small smile grew more and more
transparent.

The
moment the sun went down, Gibbons took a long drink from his flask, and spoke.
The wear on his vocal cords was evident by the scratchiness of his voice, which
cracked every few words. “I have a plan. Foolproof. Are you ready to try it?”

“Tell
me first.”

“If
we don’t do anything, we won’t survive the night in a tree. I’m tired and bound
to fall out during the night.”

 “I
suppose I could slip away while their attention is on you.”

Sammy
sniggered mirthlessly at the ludicrousness of his own comment, but the silence filling
the void of the conversation told Sammy that was exactly Wesley’s plan.

“No
way! Are you out of your mind, Wesley?” Sammy turned so quickly that he nearly
fell off his branch. “That’s crazy. You’re in pain. You’ve been drinking.
You’re not thinking straight. We both wait in this tree until help comes.”

“Sammy.…
”

“No.”

“Sammy,”
Gibbons’ voice had a tone Sammy didn’t like, “do you know why Thomas Byron
encouraged you to pick me for your mission?”

“To
be a huge pain in my butt?”

Gibbons
laughed, albeit weakly. “In Glasgow, I often got annoyed by the presence of a
fifteen-year-old kid on our leadership council, so I finally complained to
Thomas. I said to him, ‘No matter how smart he may be or how well-trained he
is, he doesn’t have the wisdom or experience to contribute or lead the
resistance.’ And you know what Thomas said to me?”

Sammy
indicated he did not know.

“He
said, ‘Wesley, if it came down to saving Sammy or saving you, I’d pick Sammy
without a second thought. And if it came down to you saving me or Sammy, I hope
you’d do the same.’ The first time he said it I thought he was pulling my leg.
But then he said it to me again a week later—said it almost the exact same way.
That time it sunk in. I wanted to ignore Thomas’ loyalty to you, especially
when my daughter told me what she’d overheard at your friend’s house. But I
couldn’t. When I heard you were picking teams, I told Thomas to make sure I
went with you. Of course, he asked me why. I said I’d make sure you came home,
no matter what the cost. And his response was he’d do what he could.”

“Wesley.…
”

“I’ve
been thinking about it all day. My ankle, Sammy, it’s trashed. I can’t walk. I
can’t help the team out anymore. I won’t be able to keep up even if we are
rescued. But there’s one thing I can do: I can hobble and distract those
monsters down there long enough for you to get away. I can use my gun to keep
all their attention on me. And then right before they eat me.… ” He tapped his
head. “Bullet number seven. Don’t tell my daughter that part when you return
home. Just tell her—just tell her I died restoring freedom to the country I
love. Tell Cloudy I died for her freedom.”

Sammy
couldn’t bear the thought of another person dying for him. How much blood would
be on his hands? Toad’s, Kobe’s, Kaden’s, and now Wesley’s.
I’m not worth
all these lives. I am one person. One person.
He shook his head. “No.”

“It’s
not up for discussion. I’ve come to respect you more than I thought I could
respect anyone. Yeah, you’re annoying, but that’s because you know everything,
have a beautiful girlfriend who adores you, and have this … natural ability to
command the esteem of people three times your age. Me? I’ve made my living
being Mr. Contrary, the guy playing the devil’s advocate. I’ve never met
someone who led by example as much as you.

“Got
it? You live. I die. So help me get down, and when you hear my first shot, use
your powers and get over that slope. Don’t turn back until you find the team.
Do you understand me?”

Sammy
told Gibbons he understood.

“Good.
Find Sherwood’s radio. He’d want us to use it.”

“Okay.”

“Now
help me down. I don’t want to waste any more time talking.”

Together
they worked their way down the tree. Wesley’s ankle made it an arduous ordeal.
He broke off a long branch to help him stand once he reached the ground. The
jaguars weren’t waiting at the base of the tree, but Sammy sensed they weren’t
far off. Perhaps they were hidden, observing them, waiting. He didn’t like to
think of the animals as such smart, deliberate creatures, but he knew so little
about these monstrosities the fox had created.

When
Wesley’s good foot touched earth, he whispered to Sammy to flee. Sammy didn’t
dawdle. Using a blast, he jumped from the branches and landed several meters
away. The first shot went off. Movement came from foliage in the distance. Paws
and growls filled the air. Sammy ran and blasted his way up the slope, slipping
occasionally but fighting the mud and wetness. Two more shots cracked the air.
Howls of pain answered. Then a shout.

“I
love you, Cloudy!”

Three
more shots and grunts. Sammy cleared the slope and charged through the jungle
toward the river. More light came through the canopy, allowing him to see a
little better than before. The seventh and final shot filled the air louder
than the others.

Sammy
pressed onward, away from more carnage in the long line of bloody events he’d
had to witness. His vision blurred. He hoped the final bullet had found its
mark.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
- Warehouse

Saturday, December 28, 2086

BINOCULARS
in
hand, Brickert observed five Aegis unload the last of numerous crates off the back
of a large truck and wheel them into the weapons base. “Judging by the size of
the crates, I’d guess those are the rocket launchers.”

“Got
a box stamp for me?” Al asked.

“Yeah.”
Brickert searched for the black lettering on the box. “Here … RCT-382A as in
alpha. Box measures 1.25 meters by .75 meters by .65 meters.”

“Double
check the box stamp.”

“Okay.”
Brickert moved the binoculars back and forth until he found the stamping again.
“RCT-382 … F as in foxtrot. Not A. Sorry.”

Al
patted Brickert on the back. “No big deal.”

“Is
that the last of them?”

“Yep,
let’s head back to HQ and give this stuff to Anna.”

Under
the cover of the night, Brickert and Al stowed away their spy equipment and
climbed into their small car. Brickert leaned his seat back, sighing audibly.
Six
weeks of surveillance. I envy you, Sammy. You get to actually DO something.

After
being chosen by Anna to go on the mission, Brickert had been thrilled at the
chance to get more experience in combat. But the mission had nothing to do with
combat. All they did was watch boxes coming in and going out of the storage
facility, day after day. They marked down what supplies were brought in and
taken out, marking them off on spreadsheets on the holo-tablets.

Meanwhile,
Anna Lukic, Genevieve Rohacik, Rory Tomsu, Ziva Kujath, Akiko Hashimoto, and
Erin Malm all hit the town nightly in their skimpy outfits to gather
information at bars and other clubs where known employees of the storage
facilities spent their time. It was via these fact-finding excursions that the
team had learned most of their intel about how the storage facility was run and
how best to infiltrate it.

“Bored,
huh?” Al glanced at Brickert with a smirk.

Brickert
sighed again. “Is this what Alphas did all the time? Just sit around and look
at stuff? How did you survive the monotony?”

“Sure,
lots of surveillance. Lots of observation. The more information we have, the
safer we’ll be when it’s time to act. That’s what I was taught.”

“I
believe it. It’s just hard to think that Sammy and Jeffie and Kawai are in the
jungle doing crazy-awesome stuff while I’m sitting around with night-vision
binoculars, I tell you.”

“Maybe
it’s because I have a kid coming, but I’d rather be sitting around with a pair
of scopes than bitten by mosquitoes or, worse, getting shot at in the jungle.
And I know a thing or two about being shot at.”

“That’s
crazy,” Brickert told Al. “I still can’t believe you’re having a baby—well,
Marie’s having a baby. You’re twenty-one?”

“Twenty.”

Brickert
whistled. “I can’t imagine having a kid that young.”

Al
chuckled, but his smile faltered. “Neither can I.”

Brickert
sat up. “Wait. Was it—was it an
accident
?”

Al
rolled down both side windows of the small car. The winter air of Colorado
Springs rushed in, chilling Brickert through his heavy winter clothing. He
looked over at Al, who stared straight ahead with a stony expression.

Brickert
stopped talking about the baby. His thoughts flitted to the same place they
always went when he had nothing else to think about: Natalia. He remembered
when they’d first started dating, how excited he’d been to have a girlfriend,
to hold her hand. He’d actually kissed a girl before Sammy. It’d been a source
of pride to have actually beaten Sammy at something, no matter how silly it
seemed. Now he and Natalia couldn’t stand to look at one another, meanwhile
Sammy and Jeffie’s relationship thrived. He laughed bitterly at himself for all
the times he’d told Sammy to get over Jeffie, and move on. Apparently Sammy had
understood something all along which Brickert didn’t.

“Can
you keep a secret, Brick?” Al asked over the sound of air rushing into the car.

“Well
… yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to tell me one.”

Al
smiled and drummed hard on the steering wheel as he rolled up the windows, for
which Brickert’s freezing cheeks and nose were grateful. “You’ve been having
problems with Natalia, so I hear, right? Well, I guess I’ve been having issues,
too.”

“With
Natalia?”

“Ha.
No. With Marie. She and I had a fight before I left. I didn’t want to leave with
her thinking I was angry, so I tried to act like everything was fine. But it’s
not. It’s not fine. We didn’t plan on having a baby. I wanted to wait two or
three years. I didn’t feel ready. I still don’t. Marie always said she was on
the same page. But then everything turned crazy—the whole world went nuts. We
were stuck in the War Offices, my dad was crippled, and we were talking about
breaking out. She thought her siblings were all dead. It was rough on her. On
everyone.

“Anyway,
Marie intentionally let herself get pregnant because she thought it would keep
us both out of danger. That if we were expecting, everyone would pass us over
for dangerous assignments. The plan worked for her, not for me. I hit the roof
when she finally confessed.”

Brickert’s
eyes grew wide. Suddenly Natalia’s gossiping didn’t seem so bad. “You’re
not—uh—asking me for advice, are you?”

Al
barked out a laugh. “No, but I needed to tell someone. I needed to get it off
my chest. It’s between her and me; I get that. Marie is really incredible,
Brick. She’s the person I always wanted to marry. That’s why I felt comfortable
jumping into it at nineteen. Everyone told me I was cuckoo, and maybe I am … a
little. It’s—it’s strange how a person you love so much can do something that
makes you forget everything else you see in them, and focus on one thing that
drives you up the wall.”

Brickert
pondered on those words. Did Al’s situation apply to himself and Natalia? Had
he even actually
loved
Natalia?

“How’d
you know you wanted to, uh, marry her?” Brickert asked Al.

The
question must have caught Al off-guard because he didn’t answer right away. He
hemmed and hawed until he turned to Brickert with a sheepish grin. “I don’t
know. We started talking about it when we were seventeen. We’d been a … couple
or whatever for almost a year. She mentioned it first. Totally caught me by
surprise.”

“Really?”
Brickert asked. “I guess I figured you were the one who pushed the marriage
thing. Marie was always so shy.”

“Yeah,
I see your point,” Al said with a light laugh. “I grew up with my dad telling
me about my mom since I never knew her. I think all his stories taught me what
love really was. That way, when it happened to me, I recognized it pretty
quickly.”

“What’s
that?”

“What?”

“Love?”
Brickert repeated. “What is it?”

“Well,
what do you think it is?”

Brickert
shrugged. “I dunno. When you’re both ready to … you know.… ” He cleared his
throat to elaborate on his meaning, but Al didn’t seem to get it. “The only
relationship advice I ever got was from my dad. He told me, ‘Don’t have sex
unless you love her.’”

Al
burst out laughing. “Sorry! Sorry! I’m not laughing at you. That’s just so
different from what my dad taught me.”

“Well,
yeah,” Brickert responded, his feelings a little hurt. He hadn’t realized his
answer was so lame. “I can’t imagine Commander Byron saying that, especially
with the strict relationship rules we had to live by at Beta headquarters.”

“No,
he just had those rules because he didn’t want anyone getting pregnant. And the
less physically involved with each other people are, the less caught up in
their feelings they get. No, the day I realized I was in love with Marie was
when I discovered what my dad was teaching me through years of telling me
stories about him and my mom. Love isn’t the way you feel about somebody. If it
is, then I’ve been in love with at least fifty girls. I think love is the way
you treat somebody.”

 Al’s
advice stayed on Brickert’s mind the rest of the way back to the hotel. At
0130, they pulled into the hotel’s underground garage. The place always brought
back bad memories of the garage in Orlando. Sometimes Brickert even heard Antonio’s
screams for mercy while the Aegis shot him to death. By the time he reached the
elevators to the hotel lobby, Brickert’s forehead bore a sheen of sweat and his
breathing felt a little more labored.

Anna’s
team occupied five hotel rooms. They operated under the guise of a firm working
on location in Colorado Springs for several weeks on a long-term business
project. Anna had designated her room as the “team room.” It was here that
Brickert and Al headed to return the surveillance equipment. Most of the team waited
inside for them. Natalia’s eyes locked on Brickert’s when he came in, but he
quickly looked away. Anna, dressed in a shiny, low-cut, silver blouse and a
tight, short, black skirt, was all business despite her heavy makeup and
well-styled hair and fingernails.

“What
do you have for us, Byron?” she asked without looking up from her work.

“The
whole shipment arrived today.” He tossed his tablet onto Anna’s bed. “We
accounted for all of it. How was your foray into the seedy nightlife of Colorado
Springs?”

“Degrading
and productive,” Anna took a long drink of water, and turned to Brickert. “Are
you and Ivanovich ready to earn your pay?”

“We’re
getting paid for this?” Brickert asked with a smirk that concealed his fears.

“Your
jokes are as lame as Justice’s.” She made a face at Justice, who pointed his
finger at her and grinned jovially. “According to my intel, you have to go in
tomorrow or we wait for the next shipment. You and Natalia. We’re going with
the skater scheme.”

A
quiet fell over the room as an anxious thrill ran through Brickert’s body. He
felt Natalia’s eyes on him again, but was determined not to return her gaze. In
their last team meeting, Anna had voiced her desire to use the skater scheme
and received opposition from several team members.

“Are
you sure that’s the best way to go?” Al asked. “I know I voiced my concerns a
week ago, but I still—”

“No
discussion tonight. Plack and Ivanovich know the risks. They both agreed. Maru
and Pratt will take care of the disguises in the morning. Byron, I’ll look over
your spreadsheets before I turn in. Everyone else get some sleep.”

Brickert
left the room with Ludwig and Parley, with whom he shared a room. Ludwig put a
hand on Brickert’s shoulder as they entered their room. “Sucks, man. Doesn’t seem
right to send you in like that.”

Parley
agreed with Ludwig, but Brickert was used to this by now. Ludwig had spent much
of the last six weeks complaining about assignments, and Parley readily agreed.
Brickert held his tongue. He’d known Parley and Ludwig for almost two years,
competing with them, against them, and admiring their skill in the Arena. They
had both been pals with Kobe and Kaden, often sharing in Kobe’s antics and
humor. Not anymore.

War
is hell on everyone
, Brickert reminded himself as he fell asleep.

Avni
woke him at 1115. As usual, his and Natalia’s makeup took almost four hours to
apply. Brickert’s hair was dyed red with black stripes. He hated it. Red was
his least favorite color. Natalia, whose hair had been her natural color now
for over two months, received half-green and half-blue dyes. Seeing her this
way always reminded Brickert of the rainbow of colors she’d displayed since
he’d known her.

Dyeing
the hair didn’t take as long as the tattoos. Parley had drawn up the designs
weeks ago. He applied them to Brickert’s arms and legs, making them noticeable
but not overly gaudy. The inks could be easily removed by applying a certain
chemical to wash it off, but the tattoos otherwise looked real. Avni, who had
designed Natalia’s more feminine tattoos, painted them to Natalia’s back, ribs,
and hands. Several piercings put the finishing touches on their disguises. Anna
had insisted the piercings be real, and though Brickert had worn them several
times, he still hadn’t gotten used to them.