Psion Alpha (40 page)

“Is
this the northeast corner?” Sammy asked Nikotai.

“Yep.”

The
left turn took them to another corridor, but here the rooms were more sparse.
None of the doors were ajar, and Sammy wasn’t curious enough to peek into them.
Halfway down this hallway, according to the schematics he had studied, was the
entrance to the next level. Mounted cameras watched the hall from multiple
angles. The only one currently pointed at them was at the far end of the
hallway, too distant to distinguish their forms or faces. In between their
group and the farthest camera were four more. One near them, but pointing in
the opposite direction, and two more covering the area around the entrance to
the second floor, and the last one pointed directly at the door.

Nikotai
removed a scrambler from his pack and set it down. The scrambler was about the
size of a can of soup, stood on three small legs, and could trick a camera or
series of cameras into performing a ten-second loop, allowing someone to pass by
unseen. The caveats, however, were twofold. First, all the cameras in the
vicinity of the scrambler looped at the same time. Second, using the scrambler
multiple times destabilized the circuitry in the cameras and increased the
likelihood of an overload. If any camera overloaded and went on the fritz, Diego
would likely seal off the upper levels of the Hive, and Nikotai would never be
able to get to the servers. They could only risk using the scrambler once.

“You
ready?” Sammy asked.

Nikotai
nodded, his eyes fixed ahead. “Soreness hasn’t gone away, but I’m still one of
the fastest people on the planet.”

Sammy
and Jeffie exchanged a wary look. No matter how fast Nikotai could run, his job
was still the most difficult. Soreness in his legs only made it more
treacherous. In ten seconds’ time, he had to sprint down the hallway to the upper
level entrance, take a photo from the angle of the camera pointed at the door,
and attach a small screen over the lens of that same camera. Once this was
done, all that camera would see was the picture he’d taken, allowing Nikotai
all the time he needed to hack into the door’s security system and enter
undetected.

“Give
me the word and I’ll scramble the cameras,” Sammy whispered.

Nikotai
assumed a sprinter’s stance and jiggled his arms and legs to ready himself.
Sammy noticed a small amount of blood dripping down into Nikotai’s sock. He was
about to mention this when Nikotai said, “Now.”

Nikotai
took off down the hall as Sammy jammed the button on the scrambler. He had never
seen Nikotai run before, he’d only heard him brag about how fast he was.
Nikotai hadn’t lied. He was fast. With the speed of an Olympic sprinter, he cleared
the length of the hall, snapped the picture, and adhered the camera cover over
the lens.

Jeffie
turned to Sammy with her mouth hanging open. “Holy—”

Sammy
put a finger over his lips.

 “In
the system,” Nikotai reported. “Nothing too crazy. Give me ten minutes to get
this door open.”

Sammy
and Jeffie waited with guns out, ready to shoot anyone who ventured near. Sammy
covered the way they’d came, and Jeffie, the better shooter, in Nikotai’s
direction. The pistols in Sammy’s hands shook slightly from the tension in his
arms as he waited for someone to come around the corner. Neither of them made a
sound except for breathing. Small drops of sweat formed on Sammy’s brow, slowly
condensing until one ran down his face. He tried to blow it off, but couldn’t
reach it. It sat perched on his nose, driving him crazy. Another trickle of
sweat ran down his chin, making him itch. In his head, he kept a count of how
much time Nikotai had been working on the door to the upper levels of the Hive.

Almost
five minutes passed.

“Forget
the ten, I’m already in,” Nikotai announced.

From
far down the hall, Sammy heard a door open. He breathed a long sigh of relief
and stuck the gun back into its holster.

“We’re
heading back to the vents,” he told Nikotai. “Stay in touch.”

“This
place is crazy,” Nikotai reported over the com. “So many servers. We’re dealing
with something bigger than a communication hub between the Thirteen cells.”

“You
found an access point yet?” Sammy asked as he and Jeffie packed the equipment
back into their bags.

“Nada.
But don’t worry. It’s here.”

Sammy
and Jeffie returned to the ventilation system via the same closet and crawled
silently through the winding passage. The vents and pumping system were
designed to remove all oxygen from the Hive in under three minutes, preventing
data and tech loss in the case of a fire. The walls of the vents were slick,
the inside dark except for when they came across the odd access point. Both
Betas had their com lights turned on, but this didn’t help much.

“Sammy,”
Jeffie hissed, “turn your light this way.”

The
duct was too narrow to allow him to turn, so Sammy took off his light and shone
it behind him.

“Lower,
please.”

He
tried to adjust the light to her liking.

“There’s
blood in here. Can you tell where it’s coming from?”

Sammy
shined the light in front of him, but saw nothing. “Is it coming from me?”

“I—I
think so.”

He
swore as he put his light back on his com. “Let’s just keep moving. I’ll deal
with that later.”

“But—”

“We
don’t have time. Let’s get this done and worry after.”

They
crawled in silence. Sammy could tell by the way she breathed that Jeffie wasn’t
happy about his response. Soon, they came to a vertical bend in the vents. They
had to use jump blasts to clear the distance up to the second level. After several
more minutes of crawling, they had to blast-jump again. At this point, Sammy
knew they were in ceiling space above the top floor. Now it was only a matter
of finding Diego and getting near enough to use the brain scanner.

They
crept along, pausing at each grate to check for Diego with their flexiscopes.
Eventually they passed what they believed to be his apartment. They spent
several minutes watching and listening for him. His quarters were pristine when
compared to the squalor Sammy had seen on the lower floor. As they waited,
Nikotai’s voice cut through the com.

“Found
an access point to log into the servers. Like you guessed, Sammy, security is
too tight to hack through without detection. I’ll need the code. Let me know
when you’re getting close, and I’ll set up.”

A
sudden wave of fatigue hit Sammy causing his elbows to buckle. His chest hit
the floor of the duct causing a muffled
THUMP
! He swore at himself and
picked himself up. Adrenaline kicked in, sweeping the weariness away.

“You
okay?” Jeffie asked.

“Fine.”

They
crawled forward. Sammy knew they were close. About fifteen meters ahead, he
heard a voice coming from underneath them. He signaled to Jeffie to stop,
they’d come to the place. He took the flexiscope out once more and slipped it
through a crack in the grating.

He
saw a room filled with screens, all of which showed dotted maps, line graphs, and
news channels. Some of the news channels were from CAG stations, others from
NWG. These screens held Diego’s rapt attention. All Sammy could see of his
target was the back of his bald head and his clothing. Diego wore a black
sweater, the collar of which nearly reached his chin, and gray pants that
looked like something a lawyer might wear. A beep came from somewhere at the
same time a red dot on one of the maps turned blue. Diego turned to this
screen. Sammy recoiled when he saw Diego’s face.

An
enormous red line ran up from his chin, twisting apart his upper and lower lip
into segments, crossing over to his missing left nostril, back across the
bridge of his nose, and stopping somewhere above the empty socket of his right
eye. Several other smaller scars decorated his skin, but not in the bizarre,
pattern-like style most Thirteens preferred. They told a story of a terrible
injury. His head had no hair, but web-like scars that reminded Sammy of burns.
He spoke softly into his com, but all Sammy could hear were the rasping,
high-pitched squeaks. Whether this was the same Diego from Commander Byron’s
memories or not, Sammy couldn’t tell. The face was so badly damaged, any chance
at facial recognition was impossible.

After
calculating the distance between himself and Diego, Sammy crawled a few more
meters so he was as close as possible to his target. “Nearly ready to transmit,
Nikotai,” he whispered as he prepped the brain scanner. “Stand by for data.”

The
brain scanner asked questions of the target encoded in high-pitched sounds
barely audible to the human ear. The scanner interpreted the target’s brain
wave patterns from minimal distances, such as Sammy’s current range of less
than three meters.

Jeffie
stayed by the grate to keep an eye on Diego in case he moved or reacted to the
high-pitched noises. Sammy gave her the go signal, and she returned it. The
device was shaped like a miniature hairdryer. The trigger had to be held down
to transmit the signal. On the top rear of the device was a display, currently
blank. With a small gulp, he flipped on the device, typed in the question, “
What
is the passcode to the Hive security system?
” and pulled the trigger. As
expected, a tiny, but audible high-pitched tone reverberated through the
ventilation system.

“He’s
wiggling his finger in his ears,” Jeffie whispered. “Now he’s stopped.”

Sammy
watched the display readout on the scanner as the first part of the answer
appeared:

1

“It’s
annoying him. He’s messing with his ears again.”

Come
on, Diego, give it up. Come on.
Seconds ticked by and two
more pieces of the code popped up:

1*R

That’s
it. Come on.

“He
glanced up toward the ceiling. Just for a second. Not sure if he suspects
any—he’s getting up. Wait, he’s pressing his ear to one of his computers. He’s
trying to find the source.”

1*RA

“You
getting this, Nikotai?”

Nikotai
answered, “One, asterisk, letter R as in Romeo, letter A as in Alpha.”

“Roger.”

“You
want me to initiate the log in?”

“Not
yet.”

1*MRA9

“Okay,
six digits. Fire it up and punch that in,” Sammy told Nikotai.

“He’s
still trying to figure out where the sound is coming from,” Jeffie said.

“It’s
okay,” Sammy told her. “Almost done, if not already.”

The
scanner had only been on for three minutes, but Sammy was getting nervous.
Somewhere below them, Nikotai was entering the code into the computer system on
the second level. He had two minutes upon launch to enter in the correct code
before the system went into safe mode and locked itself down for one hour.

“It
didn’t work!” Nikotai said.

1*MRAD9

“Try
that.”

After
a brief pause, Nikotai responded. “No. Ninety seconds.”

Sammy
grimaced.
Come on, Diego. What is that passcode?

“Sammy,
I think it’s the noise. It’s really distracting him.”

“I
can’t do anything about that, Jeffie.”

“I
know, I’m just saying.… ”

Sammy
turned the dial up to the next highest decibel. The sound grew louder, but the
question became more pressing to Diego’s mind.

1*MERAD39

“That’s
got to be it. It has to be.”

He
waited three seconds for a response from Nikotai. “It’s not working.”

Sammy
pounded the side of his head. “How much time left?”

“Forty
seconds until lockdown.”

Sammy’s
gaze bored into the display, willing the machine to work. As he stared into the
screen on the back of the scanner, his vision began to blur.
No!
He was
no longer in an air duct in Coari, but at the ETC. Jeffie wasn’t near him, but
Emerald. Before he could warn his friends about what was happening, his mind
blanked and he dropped the scanner. The last thing he heard before he
completely submerged into Byron’s memories was the loud, echoing sound of the
scanner as it hit the floor of the vent.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-
ONE
– Trust

January 2056

As the last of the three busses pulled away
from the doors of the ETC, Trapper’s hands went to his face. Byron’s stomach
sank. Otto made a noise with his lips.

“You serious, Emerald?”
Otto asked.

Then the third bus’
brake lights went on, and the vehicle stopped with a jolt. The doors opened
again. A girl pulling a large suitcase lighted from the steps. It wasn’t
Emerald. It couldn’t be. Her face resembled Emerald’s a little, but she looked
different. Slimmer, prettier, and more refined. Her hair was done up like a
prom queen’s, her makeup expertly applied. She carried herself differently as
she walked toward the entrance. She saw Byron, Otto, and Trapper, and waved,
smiling.

All three boys waved
back as though they weren’t sure who they were staring at.

“Is that—?” Trapper
began.

“I think—” Otto cut in.

“It is,” Byron
finished.

“WOW.” Otto whistled
low and long. “You go, Trapper.”

Trapper ran out to meet
her. She greeted him with a long hug. Then she came in and said hello to Otto
and Byron. She tried to hug Byron, but he couldn’t do it. He took a step back
and shook her hand. Her smile, that beautiful smile she’d worn since stepping
off the bus, fell with the weight of an anvil. Watching her frown twisted
Byron’s guts inside, but as he shook her hand, all he could see was her and
Trapper locked in an amorous embrace. It made his stomach turn, and he let go
quickly.

“Hi,” she said tensely.

“Hey,” Byron answered
with a catch in his voice.

Trapper stepped in
between them. “Maybe we should talk in private. Just you and me. I can help you
unpack or something.”

Emerald glanced over at
Byron as Trapper took her arm. “Okay,” she said. “But does it have to be right
now, though?”

Trapper nodded. “Yeah.
Sorry. I need to catch you up on everything.” As he led her away, Emerald
looked over her shoulder at Byron with an expression of sadness on her face.

Otto clicked his tongue
multiple times as he and Byron watched their friends walk away. “That burns
you, doesn’t it, dude?”

“What?”

“Come on, Byron. I’m no
dummy. Before your big fight, you and Emerald were getting pretty tight.”

“I told Trap at least
four times that I do not have any feelings for her. And every time I told the
truth.”

Otto put his arm around
Byron’s shoulders. “Up until about three minutes ago, I didn’t have any
feelings for her, either. Now I’m not so sure. She looked—”

“Amazing, yeah. I know.
She looked skinnier, right?”

Otto smacked Byron on
the back. “Dude, she looked skinnier like four months ago. You just never
noticed.”

“Her weight never
mattered to me. She was my friend.”

“
Was?
” Otto
repeated.

“I keep thinking about
her and Trapper. Why does it make me so ill?”

Otto snickered, but
wouldn’t answer the question. Byron didn’t stick around to dwell on his
thoughts. He returned to the dojo and beat up on a bag until his fists and
elbows stung. The room wasn’t crowded. Most of the other students were resting
up for classes the next day. The only person he recognized was Diego. Right as
Byron decided to leave, Diego approached him, carrying the top half of his
karategi over the crook of his arm.

“You want to spar?”

Byron grabbed the
swinging bag and stopped it. “Not really. Not with you.”

Diego smiled and put
his hands on his bare chest. What unnerved Byron more than anything was the
friendliness of his expression. His smile was warm, his eyes kind and sincere.
Byron thought of his first day, when Omar poured his drink on Emerald while
Diego looked on with that cold stare.

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“I should tell you,
I’ve gained some new perspective with what’s been happening recently in the
news.”

“You mean the deaths?”

Diego nodded, his
expression solemn. “What do you make of that? They’re calling it the Second
Scourge.”

Byron shrugged. “I hate
seeing people die.”

Diego’s gaze was far
away. “So do I. My interest in making enemies is gone. Can’t we bury the
hatchet?”

“You want me to trust
you? Not sure I can do that. And you know why.”

“I’m serious, Byron, I
don’t want to make enemies.” He watched Byron, waiting for a response, but
Byron had nothing more to say. “It’d be fun to spar, I think. I heard you spend
a lot of time with Clardonsky lately. Why has she taken such a liking to you?”

Byron shrugged. “Guess
she thinks I have talent.”

Diego chuckled, again
full of cheer. It made Byron wonder if everything he knew about Diego was
wrong. “Well, I don’t want to force you to do anything. I thought it’d be
interesting to see how I match up against someone of your talent. Pulled
punches to the face?”

Flattery.
Byron knew what Diego
was doing, but his curiosity got the better of him. “Fine. I will spar with
you.”

This pleased Diego.
“You want to spar like they did back in ancient times? Naked?”

“
What?
”

“Kidding.” Diego
laughed as he put the top of his karategi back on. As he did so, Byron caught a
glimpse of a very large tattoo covering his back. He couldn’t tell what it was,
but he did make out a pair of reddish or purplish eyes.

“What is your tattoo?”
he asked.

“Private.” Diego
grinned in such a way that Byron couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking. Or
perhaps he’d made a joke out of something serious. “The last piece of evidence
of the foibles of my youth. It will be gone soon after I graduate.”

The way Diego spoke so
grown up struck Byron as odd. Regardless, he assumed his sparring stance. Diego
did the same. They both put in their mouth guards and nodded to each other.
Diego stepped first. His movements were meticulously calculated, yet still
smooth and polished. Byron spun, leading with his elbow. Diego blocked and
countered with an elbow of his own, moving too fast for Byron to cover. The blow
to Byron’s temple connected. Byron saw stars, but shook it off and backed up,
giving himself a bit more space. Diego was no bigger than Byron, and not nearly
as muscular as Omar. It was his quickness and precision that kept Byron off
balance. Diego continuously punished Byron with his speed. Byron got in quite a
few blocks and counters, but couldn’t do anything to gain an upper hand in the
fight. It only took Diego about four minutes to knock Byron down and air punch
Byron in the face.

“Yield!”

For a moment, Byron
thought Diego didn’t want to. He had a predatory gleam in his eyes, but he
stopped and helped Byron to his feet.

“Not bad,” he told
Byron. “Especially for someone your age.”

“What does that mean?”
Byron asked, rubbing a spot on his ribs that still hurt.
Great. Probably
bruised.

Diego shot him a
knowing glance. “See you tomorrow in class.” As he walked away, Byron got the
impression that the whole thing had just been a test. Diego had wanted—maybe
even needed—to know if he could best Byron. Or, perhaps, he’d wanted to show
Byron that he was the superior fighter. Either way, Byron regretted accepting
the offer, and wondered vaguely why he had at all.

Though his break hadn’t
been much of a break in the literal sense because of his studies and training,
Byron still wished for an extension of another week. Classes hit him with all
the force of an air rail, and by the time the first day was over, he found
himself buried under a mountain of work. Aviation and combat were again the
mainstay courses, but now they had leadership, physics, health science,
emergency medicine/survival, and, the wicked stepmother of them all,
physiology/anatomy. Seven courses, seven hours a day.

Life was different
without Xian around. Byron had expected things to become awkward when Emerald
and Trapper began dating, but such a relationship never happened. If anything,
Emerald behaved coldly toward Trapper at first, though her attitude thawed
quickly once classes took their toll. More than once, Trapper lamented his bad
luck with relationships to Byron in private, and each time Byron had to quell
the urge to punch his roommate in the jaw.

Things between Byron
and Emerald never went back to the way they’d been before their big fight. They
no longer practiced together in the aviation sims, and had lost a lot of their
friendly bantering. Byron missed it, but still felt a strange resentment toward
her. She was a beautiful girl, but all he saw when he looked at her was that
image of Trapper kissing her, holding her, caressing her.… He couldn’t get past
it.

They all missed the
levity Xian had brought to Team Oddball, especially the way he could take
Trapper’s intensity down a notch. Byron tried not to think about it too much.
Life was so busy he didn’t have time or energy to grieve. He threw himself into
his studies and training, determined more than ever to win the three golden
skulls, though he knew to win the academic skull would take perfect scores in
addition to some slip-ups from Diego and the two other students ranked above
him.

During one of the group
study sessions, Trapper seemed visibly agitated and unable to focus on their
anatomy review. Bryon didn’t mention anything because he thought Trapper was
upset about Emerald again. However, as Otto was explaining in detail the
branches of the brachial plexus, Trapper stood abruptly, knocking his chair to
the floor. It startled Byron and Emerald. Otto, on the other hand, took it in
stride.

“Do you need to use the
restroom, Mr. Jones?” he asked.

“Guys, I need to get my
knife back. I’m willing to break into Omar’s room if I have to.”

“You serious?” Otto
asked. “We don’t even know for sure that’s the weapon.”

“My gut tells me it is.
And the idea that they have it, that they might use it again, it’s driving me
nuts. Commander Wu still hasn’t told me I’m no longer a suspect, so I have to
get the knife back and destroy it.”

“Have you told the
commander about the knife?” Emerald asked.

“Are you kidding?”
Trapper said. “He suspects me! If I tell him the murder weapon might be mine.…
”

“I don’t know, Trap,”
Otto said, “he’s not the most unreasonable man. Maybe you should go to him.
Tell him someone might be trying to frame you.”

“If Diego and Omar have
the knife, it’d look bad for them,” Emerald agreed. “That’d mean they held onto
it for the last two weeks.”

“And that they picked
it up from the scene of the crime,” Byron added.

“What are you all
trying to say?” Trapper asked. Byron hadn’t seen his friend so on edge. He
couldn’t imagine what Trapper was going through, being bullied by Omar, then
beaten by him, and now possibly framed for a crime he hadn’t committed. Where
was justice in the world? How had Trapper managed to stay sane for even a year?

“We’re not saying
anything,” Emerald insisted. “But things need to add up, and they aren’t. It’s
weird. If they wanted to frame you, they’d put it
back
in your room and
tell Wu. Right?”

“Is that Diego’s
style?” Byron asked. “I think he enjoys the mind games … making Trapper wonder
what is going on … what the next move is.”

“It seems dangerous,
dudes” Otto said. “Maybe Diego wants us to do this.”

“If you guys aren’t
willing to help me—” Trapper said.

“Of course we are,”
Byron finished. “Right?”

Emerald and Otto
nodded.

“Absolutely,” Otto
said. “Anything to make sure those jackholes don’t get away with this.
Especially after what they did to Xian.”

“Shouldn’t you have to
pay Byron a dollar every time you say that word?” Emerald asked.

Otto sniggered at
Byron.