Socket 1 - The Discovery of Socket Greeny Read Online Free PDF Page A

Blackout .
    The story began in a virtualmode network hub
inside a warehouse with a single isle going between lines of blue,
pulsing orbs, five feet in diameter, encased in clear boxes with
lab technicians wearing white coats and hardhats inspecting them.
I’d seen portals before, the school had one in a basement below the
Pit. It was the powercell that transported a user’s awareness into
virtualmode. I’d heard physicists explain how the intense power and
density of portals allowed them to transcend time and space and
interact simultaneously. Trippy shit. But no one cared how they
worked, just that they worked.
    “Sometime around 10:43, eastern standard,
virtualmode experienced its first blackout,” a reporter’s voice
announced as the lab technicians observed the portals. I turned the
music down and sat up. “According to sources, a surge from
somewhere in the world caused an international crash of all
virtualmode worlds. Authorities say the balance of power has been
restored and that normal activity has resumed, although there seems
to be some confusion as to where the surge originated.”
    That’s when the rip occurred. Did I make the
whole thing crash? Impossible. Those portals were like a thousand
nuclear reactors doing some sort of cold fusion. How in the
hell—
    Zzzzzsthhhp.
    The iHolo image scattered for a second then
returned to normal.
    I shut down the music; felt the floor
shutter. It came from the door. I was remembering the blue light
again when the door opened and Mom was followed by a man. She stood
to the side and let him pass. I jumped up.
    The man walked fluidly. He was a bit older
than Mom. His hair streaked with gray and his face clean-shaven,
what most women would call a handsome man with a smoldering
attraction. He stopped only a few feet away, but the room was so
small he couldn’t get much farther away. I wondered if I should
bolt for the stairwell just in case a mugging was about to go
down.
    But then I tasted a taste, an essence.
It was deep and sort of minty. Potent. I’d experienced that before.
Maybe seen this guy before. Behind the door?
    I looked at Mom. Christ, no one was saying
anything. This was beyond awkward. The man was looking through me,
studying me, like a doctor without the stethoscope and white coat.
If he asked me to take my shirt off it was going to be stairway
city.
    “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Socket.” He
extended his hand. I shook it. “Now that you’re grown up.”
    I nodded, wondering why it felt like I was
meeting the President.
    “My name is Walter Diggs.”
    “Nice to meet you.”
    “It’s been awhile since I saw you last, but
I’m sure you don’t remember. You were only that big.” He put his
hand down, the universal sign of a short person.
    I was struggling with the memory of going
through the door when I was that big and linking it to the minty
essence, but the memory ended up in the caves and jungles. Then I
remembered colored bats coming out of the trees. A real fucked up
dream.
    “I knew your father,” Walter said. “He was a
fine man, he was. I was damn proud to have known him. No one could
replace someone like Trey Greeny.”
    Oh, shit. Is this the stepfather talk? I’m
not trying to replace your father, Socket, no one could. But I’m in
love with your mother and you’re going to have a new baby brother.
Now go clean your room, asshole.
    Walter started laughing. He looked over at
Mom who returned his laughter with just barely a flicker of the
corner of her mouth. He looked back at me. It was getting
weird.
    “What I’m trying to say is if you’re half the
person your father was, you’ll have a lot to offer the world. But I
suspect you’re twice that.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Diggs, but I’m not sure what
any of this means.”
    “Things are a little sketchy, I know. But
it’ll make sense real soon. Your mother is going to take you to
meet some people in our facilities.”
    “I don’t even know what you do.” I shuffled
back