Psion Alpha (57 page)

“You are so brave.”

Jeffie smiled at him,
but it was a teary, frightened smile. She leaned down and kissed him, letting
her tears fall on his face. He felt none of these things. His skin had gone
numb. Then she pulled away suddenly.

“The cruisers are
coming, Sammy! They’re coming! Everything’s going to be fine.”

The cruisers landed on
a small strip of land adjacent to the Hive facility. Dr. Rosmir ordered Sammy and
Nikotai to be taken aboard first. Sammy enjoyed the floating sensation as the
two Elite pilots carried him aboard. Then things began to happen too fast for
him to comprehend. People around him yelled as they loaded the cruisers. The
pilots wasted no time getting back to the air. Sammy heard Dr. Rosmir refusing
any more medical care until Sammy’s condition stabilized. As they hooked the
I.V. line into Sammy’s arm, the sting of the needle seemed awfully distant,
like sympathy pain he might have felt watching someone else get a needle poke. In
fact, he sensed all the aching, even in his shoulder and leg, in a detached
way.

Jeffie’s face popped in
and out of Sammy’s view, hovering over him with a look of grave concern. Dr.
Rosmir’s voice boomed out a stream of instructions. Soon after they settled
Sammy onboard the cruiser, the constant beeping of monitors began reporting
never-ending feedback of his and Nikotai’s vitals.

Rosmir cursed. “This is
bad. Get the other bags ready to go as soon as these empty. Sammy, you hang
on!” Dr. Rosmir’s voice was strained.
Such a worrier.
“Don’t you dare
give up on me! You hear that? Don’t you give up!”

Jeffie said something,
too. It sounded encouraging. The tone of her voice made Sammy grin.
Who’s quitting? I’m not
going anywhere.

The beeping nearest to
Sammy continued to quicken like a defective metronome going faster and faster
and faster and.…

“Stay with me, Sammy!”

Jeffie’s face appeared
in view, scrunched up into a wrinkled, red mess as tears poured down her
cheeks, and she bit her hand to stop herself from sobbing.

Not your best look,
Jeffie
,
Sammy thought.

Li put his arm around
her shoulders to console her, but it didn’t seem to work.

Hey, take your arm off
my girl!

One of the beeps
abruptly changed into one long, continuous, high-pitched blare. As Sammy
finally realized what the sound meant, he opened his mouth to say goodbye to
Jeffie, but his heart stopped beating and everything faded to a beautiful
white.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-
SEVEN
- Senior

Friday, January 3, 2087

Everyone and everything around Sammy faded—not
completely, but just enough that he could sense a surreal change. Sammy thought
his eyes were playing tricks on him. The noises from his and Nikotai’s monitors
stopped, too. In fact, there was no sound at all
, which didn’t make sense considering he
was in an air cruiser. The faint sound of wind rushing around the cruiser’s wings
and hull often made a low humming sound
. Sammy looked around to see what caused the
sudden lack of noise and found himself to be perfectly capable of moving, even
though he’d been strapped down to the gurney.

He felt much better now
than he had moments ago. His energy returned, his leg no longer ached from the
bullet wound, and the stinging in his chest and shoulder had disappeared. He
wondered what miracle drug Dr. Rosmir had given him, but Dr. Rosmir continued
to move around him, focused on something apparently quite urgent. He stared
down at the gurney behind Sammy, an expression of deep worry and sadness etched
into his face. Tears ran down Jeffie’s cheeks in two long streaks. Sammy sat up
and tried to touch them, but his hand went through her as though she were a
hologram.

“How did that—”

He was interrupted by a
bright light appearing in the middle of the cargo space of the cruiser. The
light was unlike anything Sammy had ever witnessed. Nothing compared in beauty
or purity to this singular ball of illumination, which grew until it enveloped
most of the interior of the cruiser in its glow. He looked around and saw that
everything touched by the light had changed from its normal state to something
more refined. Jeffie looked like herself, but also more majestic. How he saw
her in these dual modalities, he didn’t know. He tried to touch her face again,
but still could not. Then she and everyone else in the cruiser gradually
diminished until they were nothing more than whispers of translucent visions in
the background, still moving, breathing, and talking, but soundless as ever.

This is a dream. I’m on
the verge of death and hallucinating
.

He got off the gurney
and took a small step into the ball of light. In its center he glimpsed
something familiar, but had no idea what it was. His heart yearned for it
though, as if it were something or someone he’d known and forgotten, and its
presence stirred memories in his soul long-hidden. A second step took Sammy
fully inside, wrapped in a warmth which heated not his body, but his insides,
spreading through his chest to his arms and legs, then to his feet and hands
until it extended even past the tips of his fingers and toes. The energy and
power he felt was beyond anything he’d ever experienced with blasting.

The cruiser had changed
too. In the place of his team was only one person: a man. His height nearly
matched Sammy’s. His hair was short and of the deepest black Sammy had ever
seen. His skin was also dark, like Sammy’s, and yet it shone white with
illumination, a white that matched his clothing. Sammy could not comprehend how
skin could be both black and white, but the puzzle didn’t matter to him. The
man beamed at Sammy so brightly and so full of love it was like his entire body
smiled.

“Sammy,” the man said.

“Dad.”

It was the only word
Sammy managed to say as emotions overcame him. The man looked every bit like
his father, though perhaps a little younger than Sammy remembered. Despite
knowing this person to be his father, he struggled to believe it. He couldn’t
wrap his mind around such a concept. He got up to run to his father and embrace
him, but his father stayed him with a hand. The gesture was something so
familiar to Sammy even though he hadn’t seen it in almost three years. How many
times had his father calmed him down or asked him to stop what he was doing
with that simple movement of a hand?

“Why can’t I—?”

“We had a choice, your
mother and I. Sarah wants to see you, naturally, but she believed it would be
better if I came. She insisted.”

“Where am I? Am I still
in the cruiser?”

“Yes. Look behind you.”

Sammy turned and saw Dr.
Rosmir still working on someone on the gurney. It was hard to see the doctor,
like trying to read the bottom lines of an eye-exam chart it took great
concentration. The harder Sammy looked the more he began to see. He’d thought
it was Nikotai that Rosmir was trying to save, but that wasn’t the case. The
body belonged to Sammy. Next to him, Jeffie pressed her balled up fists into
her cheeks. Her arms trembled because she held them so tightly. Kawai was
crying, too. Li and Lorenzo couldn’t console the girls. Things began to make
sense to Sammy.

“How are you here, Dad?”
Sammy wiped his face and half-expected his father to be gone. “What’s happening
to me?”

His father smiled
again, this time with moisture in his eyes. “Your body has shut down. You lost
too much blood. I am here to invite you to come home.”

“Home,” Sammy repeated.
Hadn’t he just pondered what that word meant? Now his father was here to take
him to wherever such a place might be. “Where is home?”

“With your mother and
I. With people you love and who love you back.”

“Where is this place?”

Samuel Sr. continued to
show off his beautiful smile.
He must be so happy.

Sammy spoke again, “Will
we win the war?”

“I do not know.”

“Did the mission change
things for us?”

“I do not know that either,
son.”

Sammy looked around at
Jeffie again; she was still sobbing.
She thought nothing could happen to me.
She believed I was invincible. So did I, I guess. Is there no way to say
goodbye?
Sammy had no idea. So many things he didn’t know and needed
answers to.

“This mission was
important, Dad. People died to help us get into the Hive. We had to get that
information. I didn’t know I was one of the fallen. Part of me believed I’d
never die.”

“I know.”

Sammy put his hands on
his head and rubbed his hair in frustration. It was clean, which it hadn’t been
since his trek began weeks ago. After taking a deep breath, he looked back at
his father. “Commander Byron—er, my leader at the Psion—he was my teacher for a
while—”

“I know who he is. What
about him?”

“He believes I am a key
factor in the war. Does this mean I’m done? Did I do what I needed to do?”

“I do not know.”

Sammy’s arms went up in
frustration. “Dad, you’re not being much help. Can you tell me what you do
know? Are you here just to take me home? If so, let’s go and get it done.”

“You seem upset.”

“Yes!”

Despite the warmth in
his body, the beautiful light surrounding him, the presence of his father,
Sammy couldn’t get a handle on what was happening.
It’s a dream. It has to
be.

“Yes, I’m a little
upset,” Sammy continued, “I don’t know what this is! I don’t know what this
means. Is this real? A hologram? Am I dead? Are you alive? I don’t know, and
you can’t seem to give me any real answers! You say I’m in the cruiser, but
then why is everyone else so faded? Why can’t I hear what they’re saying or
doing?”

Sammy Sr. took a step
toward his son, and the glow inside Sammy increased. He wanted to hug his dad
and exercised considerable effort to restrain himself.

“I cannot tell you
everything you want to know, and I am sorry. I do not know everything, either.
But I have watched over you. So has your mother. I cannot state through words
how proud we are of you. We were with you through your struggles after our
deaths, even when some of your choices did not reflect your true character. We
knew you could be better, and at times we thought it had not been right to be
taken from you at such an age. But as we watched you change and develop—as we
saw you transform, we have acknowledged that who you are is more than we could
have shaped you into ourselves. You are selfless, strong, resilient, and I
stand in awe of your sacrifices.”

A sniff came from Sammy
as he wiped his nose and eyes. “Thanks, Dad, but I don’t think the things I’ve
done are any different than what you or Mom would have done in the same
circumstances. I just try to do the right thing.”

“We can never have too
many people just trying to do the right thing. You know what I really wish I
could have brought with me?”

“A chess set?”

Sammy Sr. laughed. Such
a small thing brought back so many memories. It embarrassed Sammy how rarely he
thought of his parents these days.

“A chess set. It feels
like such a long time since we last played. There are so many things I have
missed with you. Time is shorter here, but also longer. I have a hard time
explaining it. It will make more sense when you experience it for yourself.
Speaking of which, we are very excited to welcome you back. Are you ready to
come home?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You do.” Sammy Sr.
folded his hands together and his expression turned blank. “Right now your body
lies in the cruiser, clinically dead. Your friend, Maad Rosmir, is trying to
resuscitate you. His skill is remarkable, but even so, your decision to let
Nikotai Wang have the first bag of artificial blood was devastating to your
body. Even Doctor Rosmir knows he has a slim chance of reviving you. As it
happens, you get to choose the outcome. This is something rare and special. You
know you are very special, Samuel.”

Sammy began to cry. His
shoulders quaked with each sob. His emotions were a pot of water under which
the heat steadily increased. Now that he had reached the boiling point,
everything was coming apart. “I’m not special, Dad. Do you know how sick I am
of hearing those words? I’m a freak.”

“You are not a freak.”

“I AM! How could this
happen to me? If you live somewhere up there with—with … God or whoever, ask
him or her why they let the Anomaly Thirteen happen? Why do people have to
suffer with it? It’s this terrible, constant struggle. The fight is exhausting
me. How long can someone rein in the darkness?”

“It is the very same
Anomaly Thirteen, in combination with Anomaly Eleven and Fourteen, that enables
your body to return to life now. They give you a spark of life that is almost
impossible to extinguish. The spirit and the mind are remarkable things, especially
in those with Anomaly Thirteen. But a Thirteen, as you call them, would have
died by now. Not you. Not with all three gifts you have. Still … if the fight
is too much for you to bear, your mother is waiting to see you again. It would
be a joy to have you home.”

Sammy looked behind him
again. Whether time passed as normal around him or not, he didn’t know. But
Rosmir still fought to keep him alive. By the look on his face, he might never
give up.
My parents want me to come home; Dr. Rosmir fights to keep me
alive. The war, my friends, Byron … everyone wants me with them!

“What do you want me to
say, Dad? I don’t know! I don’t know! I have no idea what to do! I’m tired. I’m
so exhausted and scared all the time. I can’t take any more deaths. You don’t
know what it was like to find you and mom the way you were. And ever since then
… so much death. I don’t want that anymore, and if I go back, I know it’s
waiting for me.”

“Death is not so bad.”

“Yeah, well, watching
people die really sucks, especially when there’s a lot of blood involved. And I
can’t say I’ll stay sane if I go through much more of it. And there’s the war.
It isn’t like the movies we used to watch. It’s nothing like those at all.
Sometimes I am so filled with terror, and it’s like I’m this tiny person
surrounded by giants.”

“Then let all of it go
and come with me.”

Now Sammy cried even
harder. “I can’t. I—I promised. I said I would give my life and I haven’t, not
if I have it still to give. And Jeffie … I can’t do that to her. She’s great,
Dad. She’s my best friend.”

Sammy Sr. placed his
hands on his own chest. “Your mother is my best friend, too. I understand how
you feel, and I respect that you want to honor the oath you made to your country.
If you choose to return there, you will live to fulfill that oath. You will
give your life for the cause of liberty, and, as you already realize, you will
see more death. Some of them will be people whom you love.”