Read Psion Gamma for Free Online

target over the left side of the breast where the heart would be. Then she quickly reset her position and fired again. And again. Three hits.
    That’s three less Thirteens , she thought with a satisfactory nod.
    She left the sim room two hours later. Brickert was just coming through the stair door. He’d been letting his brown hair grow a little long recently, almost shaggy. It brought out the blue in his eyes and made him look older, although he was still shorter than everyone else.
    He called out to her.
    “Hey, Brickert. What’s up?”
    “Staying late again?” he asked. His eyes told her he knew exactly what she was doing.
    “Yeah, just trying to do some more weapons training . . . I’m finally done with the stupid Fletchers. What about you?”
    “I left my com in the sim room. Took it off during one of my trials. I think I need a new one. This one digs into my ear.”
    “Oh.”
    “Are you all right? You don’t look so good.”
    Jeffie rolled her eyes. “Nice, Brick. Very smooth. Didn’t your mom ever teach you how to talk to a girl?”
    Brickert’s cheeks grew red spots. “Uh . . . no—sorry. Have you seen Al?”
    “No. Why?”
    Brickert shrugged. “Marie’s looking for him.”
    “Why doesn’t she just com him?”
    “She tried. I think Al’s locked himself in the sim room hunting for more mission data.”
    Jeffie saw how nervously Brickert was watching her, which wasn’t like him. In fact, they’d grown a lot more comfortable around each other over the last month. They’d needed to in order to stay sane, she believed. Now she wondered what he was going to say next.
    “Al—he’s borderline obsessed about the mission, I’ll tell you.”
    “Wouldn’t you be?” Her tone came across more forceful than she meant it to be.
    “I don’t—I guess so.” Brickert’s cheeks were now bright red, and he looked like he wanted to turn around and leave. “I’m not saying Al shouldn’t try. But there’s a point when you have to acknowledge that—that you’ve done everything you can do, and let other people handle it from there.”
    “It’s what he should be doing, Brick! Not waiting around for—for whatever . . .”
    The words flew out of her mouth before she even had time to think about what she was saying. Heat rose to her head and flushed her face. For the last month, she and Brickert had carefully stayed away from this subject based on some unspoken agreement. She hadn’t discussed Sammy with the other Beta girls, she’d declined an invitation from Commander Byron to talk about him, and she’d told the woman from crisis therapy that she wasn’t interested in sitting down with her, either. As the weeks had passed, she’d assumed Brickert shared her feelings about not discussing the topic of Sammy.
    “He was my friend, too. The best friend I’ve ever had, I’ll tell you!” Jeffie couldn’t ignore the look of pain in Brickert’s face. It was as if he were finally saying things he’d wanted to, but hadn’t let himself. “I miss him. Sometimes I think of a funny thing to say and I turn to say it to him, but he’s not there. I got so used to having him around. I—I lost a brother, Jeffie. I lost a brother!”
    “I know, Brick.” Jeffie took a step closer to Brickert. She thought about hugging him, but couldn’t see herself doing it.
    “And now Al’s tearing himself up about this! Marie’s beside herself because he’s so withdrawn from her. They’ve got plansto get—you know—plans for the future. Now every time she brings it up, he just runs to the sim room. At some point, people have to let go. Right?”
    All the sympathy Jeffie had felt for Brickert vanished with that question. She stepped away as if he was contaminated. “No! Al can’t stop looking! It’s too soon!” She didn’t know why she was yelling at Brickert. None of this had anything to do with him.
    “Why not?” Brickert asked quietly with his gaze fixed on the floor. “Because it means Sammy is