Wormhole Pirates on Orbis (26 page)

“It’s impossible,” I breathed.

“I knew it,” Ketheria exclaimed.

“Knew what?” Theodore asked.

“Switzer?” Dalton said hesitantly.

I searched for some resemblance. There was none. It couldn’t be possible.

“This guy thinks he’s Switzer?” Max said. “How do you know Switzer?”

Ceesar motioned for the small alien in the corner to come forward. “What’s my name?” he ordered the alien.

The toothless alien cried, “Ceesar!” His jaw hardly moved.

“Now say
Switzer.
”

“Ceesar!”

Ceesar looked back at us and said, “He found me. I was almost dead aboard a ship passing through the wormhole. Fortunately, these souls were robbing the thing and took me hostage. My kind of people. I fit in immediately.”

“But you’re so big,” one kid said.

“Switzer was a child when he died,” Dalton reminded him.

“Time, my friend. It’s not as linear as you would like to think. I’ve traveled with these guys for over twenty Earth years now. Amazing, isn’t it?”

Could it be true? I stared at this creature claiming to be the person who had tormented me for most of my life. I forced myself to look past the scars, his enormous size, and the alien gadgets attached to his body. Could this really be Switzer? I could not connect the two. “I don’t believe you,” I said. “I think it’s a trick.”

“I thought you might say that,” he said, smirking. “Therefore I brought you a souvenir, something that only I could possess — a witness to my true identity.” Ceesar motioned to another pirate lurking in the shadows. “I’ve lugged this thing around for quite some time, but I’m sure it only feels like a rotation to you.”

When the wormhole pirate emerged from the shadows, Ketheria gasped. Max did a double take. “No!” she cried.

The room shrank, shredding everything around me and highlighting what the alien was carrying. My mind reloaded images of the abandoned F.O.R.M. room we had found last rotation, Switzer encased in the blinding light, the screaming, and . . .

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Ceesar gushed as the alien dropped the glass case on the table with a thunk. It was about a meter tall, and Ceesar tapped the rusted metal lid, illuminating the contents.

Floating inside the container was my old arm.

“Held up pretty well, don’t you think?”

I stepped toward the table and peered into the cloudy liquid. The fingers on my hand were still extended, still reaching for Switzer, still pleading for him to stop. The bloated appendage was sliced at the same point I often felt pinches in my new arm. It was mine, all right. I could not deny it.

Ceesar cocked his head and smiled. “No
Welcome home
? No
Good to see you
? No
What have you been up to?
”

“You’ve been up to thieving and murdering and everything else they say wormhole pirates do,” Max spat.

“Rumors. Just rumors,” he replied.

“You can take us away now,” one kid said.

“If you want,” Switzer said, and looked at Dalton.

Is that what he was here for? To take us away? Switzer had returned to rescue us? The concept was not registering.

“I’m not going with him,” Theodore said.

“Don’t worry, you’re not invited, freak,” he growled.

“Why
are
you here?” Ketheria demanded. “I doubt you’re here as a savior.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Switzer stood up, and I stepped back. He was much bigger than me now — that was glaringly obvious. “You see, it all fits,” he said. “The Scion, the Softwire, the being from another world, the special treatment our little boy gets from the Keepers. It’s you, Mr. Turnbull. You’re the Scion. You’re the one they’ve been waiting for.”

His words bounced off my brain.
First Charlie and now this?
I needed to sit. I was still trying to swallow his first revelation. Switzer was dead to me. I would never admit it to anyone, but I had felt safer somehow after I was told he had died. I saw my life slowly becoming better, moving toward the life I always dreamed about. But now the reality of my situation came crashing down upon me, overloading my ability to reason and certainly preventing me from digesting what Switzer was claiming now.

“What?” I mumbled.

“That’s stupid. If you’re right, then why wouldn’t they protect him more?” Max argued.

“Yeah, he’s almost died three times,” Theodore reminded him.

Ceesar waved his arm in the air, dismissing the objection. “I assure you, I’m right. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. Everything adds up. Your little friend is very valuable.”

“It still doesn’t explain why you’re here,” Ketheria said. “You’re still a knudnik to those on the rings.”

“Oh, I’m far worse than that now.” He smiled.

If it really was Switzer, there was only one reason he would come back. “Greed,” I said. “It has to do with money.”

Ceesar held one finger to his nose and pointed at me with the other. “Exactly. They’ve been saving up for you, Dumbwire. They’ve built you a nest egg. Why do you think the Ancients did all this work with the crystal mines and building this place? Why did the Keepers defend it so hard? The Ancients’ Treasure.”

“What?” I said.

“An unfathomable amount of money,” Ceesar exclaimed.

“Over a decillion moonstones,” Cala added.

The other pirates stirred in anticipation.

“Decillion?” Max said.

“A one with thirty-three zeros,” Theodore said. “That’s a lot of money.”

“Precisely,” Ceesar added. “And I plan to take it. I figure I had to go through far worse than you. I deserve that money.”

“Then take it. I don’t want the money,” I told him.

Ceesar clasped his thick hands behind his neck and strolled over to the window looking into the garden where Charlie was attacked. He shook his head and said, “That was my plan, but once again you messed that up. You’ve always messed things up for me, split-screen, but now you’re going to fix it. Now,
you
are going to help
me.
”

“How did I mess things up?”

“Buzz.”

“Buzz?”

“You see, the treasure is at the center of Tromaine,” he informed us.

“You can’t go in there,” Theodore protested. “Citizens only.”

“Except during the Chancellor’s Challenge,” I said, realizing where this was headed.

Switzer turned. “You’ve gotten smarter since I left.”

“
You
haven’t,” Max said. “Even if you wanted to play, a Citizen has to sponsor you, and no one is going to let a wormhole pirate inside their precious city.”

“Athooyi will,” I said. “That’s what you’re planning.”

“Right again! What have they been feeding you here?” Switzer joked, but I wasn’t laughing.

“You see, Buzz and I were so good at that foolish little game that I convinced Athooyi we could win, but now that Buzz has been locked away, thanks to you, I need a new team.”

“Absolutely not,” I told him.

“Never,” Ketheria hissed.

“Oh, you will. The Citizens display the treasure at the Champion’s Ceremony. The Chancellor loves to show it off, but I plan to take it before the buffoon ever gets the chance,” he said, and motioned to the wormhole pirate closest to me. He reached forward and clamped his steel hands on my arms.

“Watch out for the right one,” Ceesar snickered.

“What are you doing, Switzer?” Max yelled at him, but Ceesar — or rather, Switzer — only cocked his head, smiling at her in a peculiar way as if he was contemplating something.

Switzer stood up and pointed at Ketheria, Max, and Theodore. “If you three don’t play on my team for the Chancellor’s Challenge, then he dies,” Switzer cried and then pointed at me. “No theatrics. Just a quick death. Right here, right now.”

“We’ll play,” Max said without hesitation.

“I thought so,” he replied.

“Why all three of them, Switzer? You only need one. Take me,” I yelled.

Switzer turned toward me. “You still are rather stupid, or maybe just ill informed. The Challenge requires
four
players. One bait, one tracker, and two substitutes. More blood for their money. Keeps the matches going longer.”

I thought of the Citizen registering her four knudniks with Tinker. He was right. She had used the word
team
and had dragged four players up to Tinker’s counter. My body flushed with rage. There was no way I would let him do this. This was a death sentence for my friends and my sister.

“Why, Switzer? I’m the better player; let me play,” I begged.

Switzer shook his head dramatically. “Oh, I know you are. You might even have a chance in there, but I want a little payback.
None
of this would have happened to me if you had done what I said on the
Renaissance.
All you had to do was talk to Mother and help me take that ship away from here. We’d probably being living fat on some nice little oxygen-pumping planet right now, but no, you had to do it your way. You had to drag us to this corrupt, maggot-infested Ferris wheel.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I hissed.

“So you’ve told me. Well, you don’t have a choice now, either. You’re gonna watch your friends die. That’s
your
punishment for
your
decision. They die, and you get to live with it.”

“If you remember, we already had to watch one of our friends die,” Dalton spoke up, his voice low and rough. Switzer stared at him but said nothing, then awkwardly turned back to me.

“Switzer, don’t,” I pleaded with him. “You can win this thing if you use me. Let
me
play.”

“I don’t need to win! Haven’t you figured that out by now? I just need a team that Athooyi
thinks
will win to get me through those gates. Once I’m inside, no one can stop me from snatching the Ancients’ Treasure. I’ll be gone by the time your little friends are diced up and boiled in this cosmic soup they love to talk so much about.”

“You think you’re just going to walk away from Athooyi?” I shouted. “If he’s financing all of this, don’t you think he expects you to win? I’ve seen him get upset over losing a bet on a student’s match. What do you think he’s going to do at the Chancellor’s Challenge when he discovers you’re not there to win? Those creatures that protect him will hunt you down for the rest of your life. I’m
sure
of it.”

Switzer paused. The other wormhole pirates began muttering in the shadows.

“Silence! He knows nothing!” Switzer bellowed.

“I can win, Switzer. Take me,” I begged.

“Obviously you’ve never seen a Challenge before. It doesn’t matter what combination you put in there; you will lose.”

“But I can cheat,” I said.

“What?”

“I am a softwire. I can slip into their computer and influence the game. I will make sure we win.”

“You’re lying,” he scoffed.

“No, I’m not. I do it every time. How do you think I win? You need me. I can win the match for you, and you can get the Ancients’ Treasure. Athooyi will be happy, and you can leave a free man — well, as free as a wormhole pirate can be.”

Switzer’s henchmen were getting noisier. Switzer rubbed his bald head, pondering what I had just told him.

“If you’re lying . . .”

“I’m not,” I insisted.

“Fine, then, who are you going to replace?” he asked me.

I looked at Max. She was shaking her head. Of course she wanted to play, but
I
didn’t want her to play. What would I do if she died? Just thinking about it was like getting punched in the stomach. But then, I couldn’t let Ketheria play either. My mind simply would not allow it. She was my flesh and blood, my sister. I couldn’t risk either of them. If we were going to win this, Theodore was the obvious choice. He was the weakest. But if I failed, I was sentencing the others to death.

“Do it, JT. Replace me!” he shouted. “I’m the worst player here. You can’t win with me. You know that.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t spent so much time sucking on that scope, you wouldn’t be such a failure to your friends now, would you?” Switzer said, sneering.

“Shut up!” Theodore yelled at him.

I was surprised. Switzer sat back as if slapped, his face awash in amazement. It was the first time Theodore had ever stood up to Switzer in his entire life. But Switzer only laughed at Theodore’s expense before turning back to me.

“Tough, isn’t he?” he said with a smirk. “No matter who you pick, you know the others are going to die. So whom do you let live, Dumbwire? Huh? Your sister, your best friend, or your girlfriend? Please be quick, won’t you? I’m getting bored.”

I couldn’t make that choice. My mind had locked up. Somewhere inside me, something was screaming at me to pick Ketheria, to get her out of harm’s way even if it meant the rest of us dying, but I wanted her close to me. That was the safest place for her, and I knew I could win with Max. I just knew I could. Switzer was right; Theodore was a liability, and we would all die if I didn’t make him sit out the match.

“JT, pick me,” Theodore pleaded.

“Okay, I’ll play instead of Theodore,” I said.

“I figured you would say that,” Ceesar said, and he removed a small crystal device from his belt and pointed it at Max.

“No!” I screamed.

“Be quiet. I’m not going to kill her. Yet,” he said.

The air behind Max rippled as if it had turned into water, and two cloaked figures surfaced from somewhere. They clamped their hands around Max. The other pirates, anticipating my response, surrounded her.

“So predictable,” Ceesar sighed.

“I said Theodore!”

“Love is the best motivator in the universe,” Switzer said, and pushed Theodore aside. He stood close and glared down upon me. “You don’t help me, Softwire, you try and think up some stupid little plan to get out of this, and she dies!” He shouted the last words while thrusting his fist toward her. “Something very painful, too.” He turned to Cala, smiling. “That just sounds good, doesn’t it?”

“You won’t do it,” Ketheria scoffed.

Switzer turned on Ketheria. “You think I won’t kill one little girl? I let them have my entire crew! Look at your Guarantor. We’re talking about the Ancients’ Treasure here. Don’t underestimate me, freak.”