The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1 (18 page)

Drapling stood tall. The other Keepers could not sit still, and their pale blue skin flushed red with anger.

“Friends, Descendants of Light, now is the time. The enemy will soon attack. It is our responsibility to cleanse Orbis and revive the true intentions of the Ancients!”

The Keepers let out a screech that rocked the very footing we stood on. Ketheria dropped the large fruit pit that she still clutched in her hand. I watched in horror as the fruit seed rolled over the edge and tumbled toward the Keepers.

“Let’s get out of here,” Max breathed, but before we could move, the pit splashed into the pool of water. Their screeching halted as the Keepers stared at the ripples on the pond in disbelief. Drapling’s heads shot up toward us, but we didn’t hang around to find out if he had seen us.

“Find them!” I heard Drapling shout.

We scurried back into the shadows along the walls and crossed the oval room.

“Why are they chasing us?” Max asked.

“I’m not sticking around to find out.”

I grabbed Ketheria’s hand while Max followed. The room ended with a large maze of walkways over a pitch-black void.

Ketheria stopped in her tracks. She did not want to cross.

“We have to, Ketheria,” I urged her. Ketheria shook her head stubbornly.

“I’m with her on this one,” Max whispered.

The screeching from the Keepers grew closer. “We can’t go back,” I said, and pulled Max and Ketheria onto the walkway.

I did not look down, but it was so dark that I don’t know if I would have seen anything, anyway.
Just keep moving,
I told myself, but the farther I got, the thicker the air became. I found it increasingly hard to breathe. I looked behind me, and I could hear Keepers where we once stood but couldn’t see anything. The Keepers now sounded kilometers away.

It became harder and harder to lift my legs. Ketheria’s hand felt too heavy for me to hold, and it slipped from my grip. At that moment I wondered if our capture would have been a better outcome.

“Ketheria,” I breathed, but the word barely made it out of my mouth. I could not lose her here.

I slowed to a crawl. It felt like a giant gravity cushion from the spaceway was pushing down on my entire body. I tried to call out for Max, but the pressure on my lungs left the words on my lips. Falling down seemed as hard as standing up. After a few more steps, I couldn’t breathe, let alone go back. A small light blinked in front of me, then I blacked out.

I opened my eyes and the next thing I saw was the lid to my sleeper at Weegin’s World. I pushed the lid back and sat up. Switzer was snoring, as usual, and Dalton was asleep below him. My head was pounding.

“Where did you go?” Theodore was awake.

“Where is Ketheria? Is Max back, too?” I whispered to Theodore, getting off my sleeper.

“I don’t know. They brought you back a while ago.” Theodore rubbed his eyes and I went for the door.

“Who brought me here?”

“Security drones. Where are you going?”

“I want to see if Max and Ketheria are all right.”

“Max?” he said. “JT, Max is not here.”

I tapped into the door scan to get my vest.

“JT,” Theodore said, pointing to his implant port, “just search the security controls to see if Ketheria’s in her sleeper.”

“You’re right.” I did just that and slipped into the local network from the door scan. I accessed security, and there was Ketheria. I assumed Max made it home, too.

“Where have you been all this time? Weegin said you were in prison.”

“Why didn’t you come to see me?” I asked him.

“Weegin wouldn’t let me.”

“But Ketheria came,” I said.

“I guess because you’re her brother. He really didn’t seem to care what she did,” Theodore said. “JT, aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”

But I didn’t know where to start. Instead I said, “What’s been happening here?”

Theodore whispered anxiously. “There’s talk of war. Weegin has doubled the work shifts to repair his factory. He says the Keepers are trying to destroy his business. He said you work for the Keepers.”

“I don’t work for anyone. The Keepers and the Citizens have it all wrong. There’s something
in
the central computer that’s doing all of this, but they can’t see that.”

“How do you know?” Theodore asked.

How did I get home? Who brought me here?

“JT?”

I looked at Theodore. “I saw it,” I said. “I saw the virus inside the central computer. It looks like a little girl.” My head hurt. “Let’s go back to sleep,” I said.

“But . . .”

“I’ll tell you in the morning. Everything. I need to sleep,” I said, quickly getting back into my sleeper. I didn’t want to talk and I was deathly tired. Besides, I couldn’t explain it even if I wanted to.

Things seemed different at Weegin’s World now. Switzer was ostracized for snitching on me. Weegin avoided me at every turn and didn’t say a thing about the Science and Research building or why I was back. But none of that measured up to the moment Max walked through the main door.

All the children from Boohral’s group had been dispersed among the remaining Guarantors. Max arrived home to find a screen scroll that told her to report to Weegin’s immediately. It seems Boohral did not make proper arrangements for the placement of the children before his death, so they could not be willed to Boohral’s brood. This was one Keepers’ decree that I certainly agreed with. Where she could have ended up was any alien’s guess.

Weegin, however, now complained that there were three more mouths to feed.

When Max and the others joined everyone in the common room, they bombarded her with questions.

“What was your place like?” someone asked.

“Was it better than here?” said another child.

Max looked around. “No. Maybe a little bigger.” She noticed the garden and pointed. “Wow! Ours only opened onto the Trading Hall.”

“You’ve been to a trading chamber?” Theodore asked.

“Yeah. You don’t have to stay here during your recreation period, you know. Didn’t Weegin tell you?”

Weegin made busy in the corner as if he had never heard Max.

“And he’s supposed to credit your account with the proper amount of chits every four cycles. Isn’t that right, Weegin?” Max said, aware that he was avoiding the discussion by tending to his larva.

“We can leave here? Anytime we want?” Switzer shouted.

“Weegin?” Max pushed the subject.

“Yes,” Weegin said sheepishly.

Almost every child bolted for the door.

“How do we access our chits?” Dalton asked.

“Just give them your name and they’ll scan your vest,” Max said. “By the way, Weegin, I’ll be needing a new skin.”

“It will be sent shortly . . . pesty one. No one deserves anything, you know. Not with the state my business is in. You’re lucky they don’t ship you through the wormhole.”

I was too happy to care about Weegin’s empty threats.

Ketheria and I followed Max to the Trading Hall. Theodore was just as excited as I was and he joined us, too. During the trip on the spaceway, I told him about what happened to me at the Science and Research building, and Max told him about Boohral’s death. But our conversation quickly turned to the use of money and all the things we had read about life on Earth when we were on the
Renaissance.
I was anxious to see the stores and shopkeepers. I had no idea what to expect, but the chambers in the Trading Hall provided everything I ever dreamed of and more.

Strange, exotic items from all over the galaxy were on display. I saw speaking animals from the Theta system, metallic fabrics spun from the worms of Gia right before my eyes, and the most amazing alien gadgets. Ketheria purchased some small rubber balls called glowglobes. When she dropped one, it would light up and slide across the ground or bounce in some direction that defied all laws of physics. Ketheria chased them endlessly around the Trading Hall.

I breathed in the intoxicating aromas of alien food cooked out in the open, and the girls purchased a couple of pouches of toonbas to munch on. Theodore enjoyed them much more than the food pills we ate, even after I told them what they were made of.

“I like this,” I told Theodore as we walked through the trading chambers.

“Look,” Max said, pointing to several aliens shuffling by dressed in red and white silk robes. Their faces were painted white, with colored spiral markings, and their feet were bound tightly together. The aliens walked very slowly, with their arms extended to the side. “They’re studying to be Nagools.”

“What’s that?” Theodore asked.

“They study OIO. Boohral took it very seriously. It’s from the Ancients. It’s the art and science of cosmic energies,” Max said, shrugging.

It was like that everywhere I turned. I could have stayed at the Trading Hall for a whole rotation and I would have seen something new on every corner. I loved it. All my worries about the central computer were quickly slipping away, and I was happy.

Then I saw Switzer. He was bragging to Dalton and another kid when Max strolled up to him.

“Only two chits and it can open any door I want,” Switzer said, as he held up the crystal, admiring it. “No need to wear this stupid skin anymore.”

“You’ll get caught,” Theodore warned him.

Switzer turned to see us standing there. “If you say anything, split-screen, I’ll clobber you,” he threatened. “You, too,
Dumbwire.
”

Max pulled open Switzer’s vest, then showed him the crystal in her own.

“He swiped your own crystal, you idiot, and sold it back to you. He probably scanned it and saw you couldn’t afford much more than two chits,” she said.

Switzer felt his vest and then grabbed Dalton and checked his. Max was right. There was no crystal in his skin.

“It happened to someone at Boohral’s,” she said to me. “It’s only programmed to open doors you are authorized for, anyway. Did you even try a door you’ve never been able to access before?” Max asked Switzer.

“You bought your own crystal sensor?” Theodore laughed.

Switzer took a step toward Max. He didn’t like to be made fun of by a girl.

“If you weren’t a girl, I would . . .”

“What? I’m not afraid of you,” Max said.

I moved to get between them. “Back off, Switzer.”

“You’re lucky your boyfriend is here.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Max said.

Switzer took a step back, smiling. “It’s pretty convenient, isn’t it?” he said.

“What is?” I asked.

“Boohral kept your little girlfriend away and now he’s dead. I’m sure they’re going to be asking a lot of questions, probably another tribunal. Maybe I should let them know I have a few things to say. Take you away again.”

“Go away, Switzer,” I told him. I was finished with his constant conspiracies. He was only sore because he had just wasted two chits on something he already owned and Max had proved it in front of everyone.

“C’mon, guys,” I said, and led everyone away from Switzer. “Ketheria, show us where you got those toonbas.”

“That guy is such a malf,” Theodore said when he knew he was far enough away that Switzer couldn’t hear.

“He might be right, though,” Max said.

“What? You don’t think I had something to do with Boohral dying?”

“Of course not. I’m just saying, some people might say something. Boohral died from a malfunction of his sleeper. The central computer controlled his sleeper. They like pointing their fingers at each other around here, haven’t you noticed?”

“Well, I don’t think there’s enough of Science and Research left to lock me up there again,” I said, but all my worries came rushing back. How was I going to convince anyone that something was inside their precious computer? It wouldn’t be long before another Citizen pointed a finger at me again. The thought of it made me angry. I had done nothing wrong. And I would not let them lock me up again.

That’s when Ketheria grabbed my vest and pulled me back.

Several Neewalkers had cornered a group of the dusty dirt aliens, the same kind that Max ran into when we first arrived.

“I was standing there!” yelled the little creature, which resembled a grimy accordion. “Rarely am I aboveground, and you must stand there also?”

The Neewalkers laughed and moved their stilts wherever the dirt aliens moved. It only infuriated the dusty creatures more, but that was the goal of the Neewalkers.

“Now you want to be here! Extremely irregular!”

I walked straight toward the Neewalkers. Ketheria tried to stop me, but I got their attention anyway.

“Hey, leave them alone!” I shouted.

The tallest Neewalker turned toward me and drew a sword so fast it looked like it came out of his skin. Every other Neewalker followed his lead. I had succeeded in taking attention away from the dirt-covered aliens, but now every Neewalker was pointing his weapon at me.

“Why are you bothering them?” I demanded. “I’m sure the Trading Council has better things for you to do, like hunting down slopcrawlers.”

“We know of no mission,” breathed the Neewalker. The red markings on his ghastly face twitched, telling me he was lying. He scraped his sword along my chin. “But we are looking for one.”