Awakening on Orbis (14 page)

“You cannot comprehend the magnitude of the situation,” Drapling declared.

“Let me see him.”

Drapling spun toward me.

“Why can’t you just accept it? You
are
the Tonat. This is your destiny!”

“Let me see him!”

Drapling just stared at me from across the room. Then, without speaking, he stood up and strode toward the door.

“Please unlock the door,” he said. “And follow me.”

Drapling led me from the room, across the floor of tombs, and past the light chute we used to descend from the Center for Relief and Assistance. He stopped at the end of the corridor in front of another chute.

“Can this take us off the ring?” I asked. “Switzer’s at the Center for Science and Research on Orbis 1, isn’t he?”

“No,” Drapling replied. “I am afraid you underestimate your adversary.”

“
I
could never escape from the Center,” I reminded him.

“You never tried.”

Had Switzer tried to escape? I doubted he was the easiest prisoner for the Keepers to deal with.

“Please understand that if Quirin had failed with your enhancements, Switzer would have been the Tonat. All that remained for Quirin to do was to initiate the proper gene activation sequence and Switzer, too, would have been a softwire.”

“I thought softwires were rare. If it’s so easy to cook one up in a test tube, then why don’t you just make an army of them?”

Drapling was about to punch the code into the panel next to the purplish light chute when his right head turned and said, “Believe me when I tell you that we have tried, but it is not as simple as you suggest. You must appreciate how fortunate Quirin was to have two workable specimens at his disposal. I only wonder if Quirin may have made the wrong choice, as Switzer certainly exhibits the ruthlessness required for the job.”

“It sounds to me like you built a monster that you cannot control and now you’re going to imprison him for the rest of his life to avoid dealing with your own mistake.”

“What do you suggest? That we kill him?”

“No! Let him go. You made him this way.”

“We also made you.”

The edge in Drapling’s voice and the sneer rubbed across his face reminded me of the Keeper I first encountered when I had arrived on the Rings of Orbis. Any niceties he had recently shown were gone. I watched him over my shoulder as I stepped into the chute.

When I exited the light chute, the first thing I felt was cold. In fact, it was freezing. I moved away from the chute and into a gray, lifeless corridor. Drapling was behind me in the next instant.

“Where are we?” I asked. I could see my breath in front of me.

“Deep within Orbis 4,” Drapling replied, stepping past me.

He walked beneath a single bluish light source embedded in the ceiling of the concrete corridor, and I followed, avoiding his purplish robe, which dragged behind him. I glanced at my surroundings and noticed frost gathering in places where the walls met the ceiling. I could only assume Switzer was somewhere behind one of these walls.

A green electrical field blocked us from continuing down the corridor. I watched as Drapling turned and placed his hand inside a device mounted on the right wall. The green force field appeared to drop away and run along Drapling’s arm before scanning his entire body. He removed his hand and ordered me to follow him.

Once we passed through this entry point, I saw a series of thick chrome doors along the wall every three meters or so. Each door flashed an LED symbol embedded right at the Keeper’s eye level.

“What is this place?” I asked Drapling.

“It does not have a name.”

“What do
you
call it?”

“Terminus,” he mumbled.

“Why is it so cold?”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Drapling stopped in front of the second door. I waited as he reached inside his left sleeve and a small bench slid out from the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. He sat but motioned me toward the metal door.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Drapling reached under his sleeve again, and this time the door disappeared. A paler version of the electrical field I saw earlier remained in its a place.

On the other side, I saw Switzer lying on the floor.

“Switzer!” I cried.

His body only jerked in response. I turned to Drapling. “Open it!”

Drapling reached under his sleeve, and the field fell away. I raced in and knelt next to Switzer. He was balled up in a fetal position, clutching his stomach and moaning. Someone had removed the piece of screen over his eye but had left the wires sticking out of his face.

“Switzer!”

He cracked open his eyes and stared at me through the pus that had crusted around his lids.

“Switzer, it’s me, JT!”

Switzer didn’t respond. Instead, his body convulsed as if he was trying to throw up, but nothing came out. I looked around the room. By the looks of the mess near the toilet I didn’t think he had much left to throw up, anyway. I turned to Drapling. He had replaced the barrier to the room.

“Does he have the same thing as me, the sickness when Ketheria is too far away?” Drapling nodded. “How could you leave him like this?” I screamed at him. “Do you have any idea what that feels like?”

“You appear to be doing fine,” he reminded me.

“That’s because —”

I thrust my hand into my pocket. I had the medicine that Tic had given me. I pulled it out and chewed off the lid as I propped Switzer’s head up.

“Drink this. It will help. I know what you’re going through. I would be just like you if it wasn’t for this stuff.”

I expected Switzer to resist, but he raised his chin a little and parted his lips. They were dried and cracked. Scabs had grown over the smallest crevices, but thick, bleeding sores were visible at the corners of his mouth. I poured the liquid over his lips. He pawed at my hand, forcing me to pour more liquid into his mouth.

He pulled his head away and fell back onto the floor, his arms flung out. Then he bellowed with laughter and cried, “Sweet golden universe! Where was that stuff when I needed it?”

I sat back, relieved to see the liquid working so quickly. “I’ll bring you more. You won’t have to feel that way again.”

“You can’t even imagine what I felt,” he mumbled, and tried to sit up.

“Yes, I can,” I replied.

Switzer looked at me and then looked out at Drapling. “What’s he doing here?”

“Forget him. We need to talk.”

“About what? You want to rub it in my face a little? You want to tell me how you were right all along?”

“No, Switzer.
You
were right. You were right about everything. They did this to you. They made you this way. They messed with your genetic code, trying to create a security force for Ketheria. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?”

“For everything. I should have listened to you. I should have helped you get out of here.” I leaned toward him. “I should have left with you. It’s my fault you are in here.”

Switzer pushed himself up to his sleeper and then struggled to stand. He walked over to the door and stared at Drapling. “Don’t take the blame for everything, split-screen. These two-headed space monkeys aren’t telling you the whole story. I’m sure of it.”

“I don’t need them now. I know all the answers now. I found the files from the
Renaissance.
”

Switzer turned to me. “And?”

“On the
Renaissance,
they messed with your genetics to create a Space Jumper who would be the Tonat. Then they made me. You were supposed to be . . . well, let’s say that when the ship was attacked, they didn’t have time to finish with their experiments and you were born. They made you who you are and they should be responsible for you. You should be out there learning to be a Space Jumper. Enjoying your life. Preparing for great things.”

“But somehow I’m stuck in here, regretting my every waking moment.” Switzer turned and looked at me. “And don’t think that an apology is enough, Dumbwire.”

He was right. Words weren’t going to change anything. I stood up and marched toward the door.

“Drapling. You have to let him out. Let Switzer study with the Space Jumpers. Let him go with the Trust.

“I will not let Switzer roam free,” he insisted.

“The Trust will take him away from the Rings of Orbis. He won’t stay here. He’ll leave Orbis. I know he will.” I turned to Switzer. “Won’t you?”

“Forget it. He’s not going to do it,” Switzer mumbled.

“Drapling, Switzer’s wanted to leave here ever since he knew about the Rings of Orbis. He has the same genetic enhancements I have, so let him fulfill his role as a Space Jumper. You owe that to him, Drapling. It’s the right thing to do. He deserves at least
that,
not a life like this.”

Drapling stood up and walked toward the force field.

“Fine,” he said. “But with one condition.”

“Anything,” I replied.

“You go with him.”

I returned to my room and found Max kneeling in front of my sleeper with half a dozen tools scattered about the room. She had the front panel of my sleeper on her lap and was picking through a fistful of knotted wires.

“I don’t know why that makes me nervous,” I said.

“Should you be?” she asked without looking up, and then placed the ball of wire between her teeth. With her hands free, she snapped the plastic panel back into place and snatched a laser drill off the floor to secure her handiwork. She looked satisfied and stood up, tossed the wires onto the sleeper, and turned to me.

“Don’t I need those?” I asked.

“You could have let me know you were back,” she said.

I walked toward her and took her hand.

“I’m sorry, Max. I really am.”

“What happened?”

What was I going to say? I knew
too
much now. Should I tell Max that her entire existence was a mistake? Should I tell her that the Trust had messed up and she was never meant to be alive? The life that she and the others had suffered on Orbis was all because of Ketheria and me. What about the others, who I hadn’t seen since we arrived? What were they suffering?

“I went to see Switzer,” I told her.

“What?”

“He shouldn’t be there, Max.”

Max pulled away, but it felt like someone had chopped my hand off. “What caused this turn of events, JT? You’ve hated him ever since you were born. He tried to kill you. He was directly involved in Charlie’s death and who knows what else? Trust me: he’s supposed to be wherever he is.”

“It’s not his fault, Max.”

“What do you mean? I can’t believe you can even say that. It’s certainly not
your
fault. I don’t get this, JT. You went to see Switzer instead of coming to see me? Ketheria I could understand, but him?”

“Max, you
don’t
understand.”

“Apparently I don’t. I had no idea what happened to you. First you start going crazy, then someone tries to assassinate Ketheria, and then,
bang,
you’re gone, too! I was going crazy wondering what happened to you. If it wasn’t for Theodore telling me you were all right, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Theodore told you I was here?”

“Don’t get mad at him. He was just being a good friend.”

“Some friend,” I mumbled.

“You could take a few lessons from him, Johnny Turnbull.”

Max turned and walked out of my room. I didn’t try to stop her. Maybe it was the best thing, anyway. I didn’t have a clue how to tell her that I was leaving.

Ketheria returned the next cycle along with an army of Space Jumpers and a half dozen Nagool masters.

“This isn’t good,” Theodore said as we watched Ketheria’s entourage pile into the antechamber of her room. I caught Queykay watching from down the corridor. He did not look happy.

“What do you mean?” I asked Theodore.

“All those Space Jumpers, JT. The Council is having a fit. They’re saying that the Keepers have broken the treaty.” Theodore glanced toward Queykay. “Look at him. I would stay out of his way if I were you.”

“But I thought most of the people on the rings loved this OIO stuff. Isn’t Ketheria their leader now or something?”

“Not really. The OIO philosophy is basically a set of tools to aid in enlightenment. The Scion acts as a seed. Her purpose is to awaken the Universe and help it protect itself against the Knull. I can understand why the Council is nervous. Who’s going to listen to them now?”

I turned toward Theodore. “Where did you learn this stuff?” I asked him.

Theodore grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from the crowd. He stopped when it appeared no one could hear him. “From Grace and Diablo.”

“Diablo?”

“That’s what he’s calling himself now.”

“And you know this because?”

“I have joined their group. Max started it, actually.”

“What group?”

“Shhh!” Theodore pulled me farther down the corridor, but I didn’t think anyone could hear us anyway.

“We call ourselves Knudnik Nation. We’re convinced that if the Citizens go to war against the Keepers again and we, the knudniks, work behind the scenes to undermine the Citizens’ efforts, then we can sway the outcome of the war. Do you know how much business on these rings is dependent upon knudniks? Just by collectively refusing to work, we could bring the Citizens’ cycle-to-cycle activity to a halt. We have so much power! We simply need to unite. Our biggest hurdle is to get the word out. The taps have helped. Max has hacked into them and we’ve begun leaving little messages after the original propaganda. They’re only viewed once and then the tap is destroyed. There’s no way it can come back to us.”