Read Online Psion Beta by Jacob Gowans - Free Book Online Page A

the CAG. They weed out CAG citizens who are still loyal to NWG. Watch this example of their brutality.”
    The screen changed from a world map half red and a half blue to amateur film footage of a man and woman—presumably a couple—ragged and thin, taken into a bunker wearing thick magnet cuffs. The camera followed them down a dilapidated gray-yellow hallway and into a room where two men sat in chairs laughing as if one of them had just told the funniest joke in the world. One man was skinny in a wiry way with thick black hair on his head and the rest of his body covered in tattoos. The other man was burly and had a bald head covered in dark scabs. Sammy wondered if someone (maybe the Thirteen himself) had ripped out all the hair from his scalp. Both men wore matching uniforms: blood red tunics that melted into black pants. Above the left breast was a jagged black thirteen emblazoned onto the tunic.
    The mirth ended when the couple was forced into the room. When Sammy glimpsed the men’s eyes, he saw more red. They had dyed their sclera to the color of blood. The soulless red eyes combined with the multiple scars on their faces and arms made them a terrifying sight. They stood and smiled at the couple. The smiles had no warmth. A tangible jolt of fear went from Sammy’s head to the small of his back. He did not know these men. He could not comprehend them. Men without feeling or remorse. The couple must have sensed something similar because when the woman saw their smiles she screamed and fell helplessly to her knees. The man sat on the floor silent and defiant. The Thirteens laughed again; their laughter made Sammy sick.
    The bald, scabby Thirteen made a small jerk with his head, almost as if he had a spasm. The tattooed Thirteen saw this, walked out of sight of the camera, and came back with a weapon that Sammy recognized from the old movie Moby Dick . A rusted harpoon gun. The woman saw it and shrieked louder, begging for mercy. She groveled on her hands and tried to tug on the tattooed man’s pants when he kicked her with the steel toe of his boot in the face. She fell back and recoiled to the wall like a wounded dog, hands covering her face. The screaming stopped, and she simply collapsed into the corner bawling hysterically. Blood oozed out between her fingers.
    The tattooed Thirteen aimed the harpoon gun at the man’s leg and shot the harpoon clean through it. Sammy closed his eyes as the man’s screams filled the air. He did not want to see this. He already understood what these people were capable of. More shots were fired and more screams of pain, but he did not look at the screen.
    The sounds ended, and the screen on the wall disappeared. Natalia had tears in her eyes. Jeffie’s face was flushed. Brickert and Kawai’s eyes were still closed. Sammy’s thought a large rock had been dropped in his stomach, and his mouth had gone dry.
    “ This is what we face,” Byron said. “I will not water it down or make our work sound glamorous because it is not. They are deadly. Even our trained Alphas never survive when alone with more than three of them. No one in the history of our training simulators has beaten four of them. They epitomize the words ferocious and merciless. Thirteens have never taken a Psion prisoner. They are always heavily armed. Unlike normal people who have visceral centers in the brain to tell them when they are fatigued or pushing their muscles past capacity, Thirteens have none, allowing them to fight longer, harder, and faster than normal people.”
    “ How many Psions have died, Commander?” Brickert asked in a hoarse whisper.
    “ Fifteen.” Sammy noticed the commander clench his hands hard while answering. “We have lost fifteen of our soldiers to these people. That may not seem like many, but there have only been eighty-nine Psions, including each of you. There are forty-eight Psions in the Alpha group, five more in Alpha Command, twenty in the Beta group including all of you, and