Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga Read Free

get to us eventually.
    Streeter leaped up and pulled his staff out
of the snow. It was as thick as a tree trunk topped with spikes
with bits of skin and hair and brains. He looked at the sky like he
was studying the weather then bowed in prayer. An electrical field
crackled around the spikes and dark clouds rolled out of the gray
sky like smoke pushing through holes from the other side. I could
feel my hair stand on end. Streeter rammed the staff on the ground
and lightning bolted down, frying every one of the tiny warriors in
their tracks, leaving behind smoldering holes.
    “That’s called a shit storm,” he said.
    “There’s more coming,” I said.
    “Yeah, well I can’t keep pulling lightning
out of my ass, it takes too long to power up.” He jerked his head
at Chute. “Why don’t you do something?”
    “What do you want me to do?” Chute answered.
“I’m a healer.”
    “Oh, yeah. I almost forgot.” He stared at my
dripping chest cavity and rolled his eyes. “You’re doing
great.”
    “That’s it.” She was on her feet reaching
into her sleeve. Streeter held out his hands, not trembling or in
surrender but begging her to rethink. Chute pulled a long, slender
staff from her sleeve, impossibly long to fit inside her cloak, and
spun too quickly for the barbarian to do anything. The pole flexed
under the velocity of her swing and it cracked on the back of his
legs, making a sound like a textbook dropping flat on a desk.
    “Socket!” Streeter dropped on his knee. “You
better stop her!”
    “I’ll show you how much I suck!” Chute
dropped three more quick shots on him, deftly avoiding his
half-hearted attempt to snatch her. She flipped over him and drove
the staff into his back, driving him face first into the snow. “Who
sucks now, douche bag!”
    Streeter could’ve knocked her halfway across
the tundra, if he wanted to. Sometimes he did, but most of the time
he let her get it out of her system. Sometimes I broke it up and
sometimes I watched their spats play out and they always ended with
one of them damaging the other’s sim and then cursing each other
for all the trouble. This time, I didn’t do anything because I was feeling it . I felt Chute’s muscles tense, Streeter’s knees
throb. And this time I stopped them not by stepping between them. I
stopped them with a thought.
    [Stop.]
    Chute was in mid-strike, ready to put a hole
through Streeter’s right lung, when the thought struck her and her
body obeyed as if the thought was her own. She looked around, like
someone had whispered it to her, but I simply willed her to step
off Streeter. Streeter looked up, his scraggly beard powdered with
snow. They could feel something, too. They could feel me inside
them. And then they watched my stomach begin to rebuild itself,
regenerating simulated flesh, filling the holes in my chest until
my body was whole again.
    Streeter got on his knees and looked at
Chute. “I owe you an apology.”
    “I didn’t do anything.” Her mouth barely
moved. “How’d you do that?”
    The shadow walked up behind her and through
her and stood between us, its ghostly form snapping in the wind. I
sat up and looked at my hands, unsure if this was virtualmode or a
dream.
    “Do I know you?” I asked the shadow.
    Streeter and Chute looked at each other.
Streeter said, “I think he’s having a stroke.”
    “Socket, are you all right?” Chute
asked.
    But I didn’t hear her words. I felt them,
understood them like they were my own. I penetrated everything in
this world, felt the tree limbs blowing on the mountaintops and the
squatty warriors emerging in the distance again. I was everything
except the shadow. I got up without much effort, like I levitated
onto my feet.
    [You’ve known me your entire
existence.] The thought was in my head, but it was not mine. It
came from the shadow that had no face.
    “Did you do this to me?” I raised my hand,
rubbing my fingertips. “Are you making this happen?”
    “You’re