Wormhole Pirates on Orbis (6 page)

Charlie was not outside the Illuminate when the spoke finished.

“Where do you think he is?” Theodore asked.

“Maybe he forgot,” Max replied.

“Charlie would not forget,” I told them. But I wasn’t sure. Charlie often disappeared for a phase or more without even a hint of where he went. Except now he was our Guarantor. He couldn’t just leave us, could he?

At the entrance of the Illuminate, the robot sentries remained on guard. A few kids still trickled through the energy field, but most were now gone, finishing their conversations in the plaza or boarding their personal transportation vehicles. One machine, nothing more than a metal wheel with a seat suspended near the center, rolled toward us before lifting off the ground. Max never took her eyes off the thing.
Riis is probably halfway home by now,
I thought.

Max had moved back toward the Illuminate. “Where you going?” Theodore asked her.

“I just want to take a peek at those machines,” Max shouted over her shoulder.

“Can you imagine how freaked Charlie will be when he shows up and we’re not here?” Theodore replied. “I think we should hang around.”

“Then stay there,” Max called.

“Think there’s any left?” I asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“Won’t hurt to look.”

I turned to Ketheria. “Go,” she assured me. “Theodore will wait with me.”

I bolted toward Max and trailed her to the far side of the Illuminate, where we had seen some of the vehicles land. The metal helmets of the school guards swiveled as we rounded the Illuminate. Only two vehicles remained parked behind the school. One was another of those wheels with the cockpit hanging just below its axis. I could see two gyro jets clinging to a metal fender wrapped two-thirds around the tire. It was impressive, but it was the second vehicle that caught my attention.

“Hold up,” I whispered, but Max had seen it, too. We tucked carefully out of sight next to one of the Illuminate’s concrete footings.

A stocky alien heaved a heavy-looking pipe over his head before slamming it into the windshield.
CRACK!
His long arms stretched beyond their sockets as he pummeled the machine with the pipe once more. This time the glass shattered into a million little pieces.

“He’s going to steal it,” I whispered.

“You just figured that out now?” Max teased. “You’d better study for that placement test next cycle.”

“Shhh,” I warned her as the alien glanced in our direction. He turned back to the vehicle and reached through the busted windshield and released the hatch.

The thief was dressed in a black tattered jumpsuit that gathered at the neck but left his long muscular arms exposed.

And that’s when I saw it. That mark on his arm.

I must have been forty meters away, but there was no denying it.

Max saw it too. “How can that be?” she whispered.

Once inside the cockpit of the stilted vehicle, the alien maneuvered the device away from the Illuminate and toward a small forest lining the plaza.

“Max! JT!” Charlie was here.

She looked at me with wide blue eyes. “Should we tell Charlie?”

I peered into the forest, but there was no sign of the alien or the stolen vehicle.

“Maybe we were wrong,” I said.

“Both of us?”

It
was
impossible to deny. That creature was marked with the same symbol I spotted when the wormhole pirates attacked: an alien skull sitting over two crossbones.

“Come on, it’s not our concern. The Citizens are capable of handling their own problems. At least, that’s what they tell everyone,” I said. I’d lived on these rings long enough to know they would never believe a knudnik, not even two of them.

“But you know you saw it. We know the truth, JT.”

“The truth doesn’t matter here,” I said, and headed toward Charlie.

When we rejoined the others, Charlie asked, “What were you guys doing back there?”

“Nothing,” we both said. Without any further discussion, we had decided to ignore what we saw.

Charlie held our gaze as if I were going to add something. Did he see the wormhole pirate?
No,
I thought,
that’s impossible.

“What?” I said to him. I felt the warmth rising in my cheeks as he stared.

Charlie put his hand on my shoulder and led me away from Max and the other kids. I saw Ketheria smiling.

“I know you and Max . . . are close,” he whispered, crouching down while searching for his words. “And there comes a time in a young man’s life . . .” These words came even slower.

“What are you talking about, Charlie?”

“My parents were never around to explain things to me, either. And don’t misunderstand me; I’m not trying to be your parent. I want to help you, you know, be there for you, the way my parents never could, but . . .” Charlie was sweating. “You kids deserve more. . . . Oh, I’m not very good at this.”

What was he talking about? Did he know I was lying to him? Should I tell him about the wormhole pirate? I stared at my feet, covered in my clumsy oversize boots, looking to them for some solution.
Just tell him,
they yelled at me through the rubber. “Charlie, we went to look at the different vehicles the students use to get to school. You know how Max loves machines. Well . . .”

“You were just looking at the fliers?” Charlie almost seemed excited by that.

“Yes,” I said.

“You two weren’t doing anything?”

“To the fliers?”

“No! Not the fliers. I mean . . . to . . . So you weren’t touching the fliers?”

“No,
we
weren’t.”

Charlie let out a long breath. “Oh,
good,
” he exclaimed, and stood up. The concern on his face washed away; a big smile brightened his eyes. “I’m glad. Yes, they are nice machines.” He laughed. “Whew, come on, let’s go home. I bet Ketheria’s starving.”

And just like that, the conversation was over. It was as if Charlie didn’t even want to know about the wormhole pirate.

That’s when I decided that adults were very strange.

After dinner I planned to concentrate on the placement exam that awaited us at the Illuminate next cycle. Ketheria acted unconcerned about the exam. She enjoyed her reunion with Nugget and spent every moment playing with him in the garden outside or constructing wild stories that left him on the ground laughing. Ketheria was only retelling the entertainment files Mother had shown us on the
Renaissance,
but Nugget found the actions of humans on Earth to be quite hilarious. I shook my head as I watched him rolling around, snorting and giggling. It was hard to believe that this alien was the spawn of Joca Krig Weegin.

Instead of studying, however, Max and I quietly debated the meaning of the wormhole pirate we discovered after school. We were seated outside, hidden by the alien foliage, but Theodore still managed to find us. He was doubtful, however, that the event had ever happened.

“Are you sure?” Theodore questioned me. “You had to be pretty far away.”

“I’m positive,” I told him.

Max ignored Theodore’s doubts. “JT, do you think there’s a connection between the wormhole pirate who stole the transport and the ones who attacked our shuttle?” she said.

“That’s impossible. Even if he was a wormhole pirate, why would there be a connection,” he argued, and stood up. “I’m going to study.”

“Let him go,” Max whispered. “But we should study a little too.”

“Do you think the test matters much, you know, for
us
?”

“What do you mean for
us
? You’re more than just a knudnik, JT. You’re a person, too. What happened to all that talk on the
Renaissance
? You couldn’t wait to get here and start your life. You will be a Citizen one cycle, just like them, so you’d better get over this
us
and
them
thing you have.”

“Things are different now,” I told her.

“Yeah. You’re a softwire. And Charlie’s our Guarantor. Things are great, JT. Let it go.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Uggh!” Max exclaimed, and stomped away.

I went to my sleeper having only glanced at the sample questions Vairocina had found for us from past exams. Max was already in her sleeper when I went to bed.

The next day at the Illuminate, most of the kids were gossiping about the stolen flier, which they called a stridling. It belonged to a young female
Voon
whose father, Riis said, was a very powerful Citizen. Because of the blatant theft, some kids arrived by escort that cycle and an additional robot stood guard, scanning the kids at the entrance. Riis had arrived with helmet in hand, so I assumed she wasn’t worried about anyone stealing her vehicle.

“Did they catch the thief?” Max questioned Riis. We were standing next to our storage lockers watching Riis adjust her hair color to match her outfit. It was mostly blue this cycle, so she picked a paler shade for her hair.

“She’ll deny it, but I’ll wager she left the stridling to be stolen. She wanted her father to purchase a newer one,” Riis said. “I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

“Who would steal it for her?” I asked, interested to hear a Citizen’s theory.

“Her neural-net-deficient friends, who else?”

“What if it wasn’t her? What if it was . . . a wormhole pirate or something? Could it have been a wormhole pirate?”

Riis stared at me before laughing in my face. “Here? A wormhole pirate? Impossible. How could they ever land on 3 without being detected?”

Her words stung. I had hoped Riis was different, but I could tell she still looked at us as knudniks. And knudniks didn’t know anything.

“I’ve seen stranger things on the Rings of Orbis,” I said in my defense.

“So I’ve heard, Softwire. But there is no way a wormhole pirate stole the Voon’s stridling. That’s just ridiculous.”

I shrugged it off and turned my back to her. I swiped the empty locker closed and reminded myself to bring something to put in these useless things. Anything.

“Really, it’s ridiculous,” she repeated.

“Aren’t we taking the placement test now?” I asked, changing the subject and turning back toward her.

Riis looked at me. “Are you nervous?”

“Does it mean anything?” Max asked. “You know, how well we do, does it mean anything?”

“To some around here, the exam means everything. Their covetous parents reward them with stupid gifts if they place well. Most Guarantors follow the rankings when placing Citizens in cushy jobs, although I would never call them
jobs.
Yes, I guess it does mean
something.
”

“What about you?” I said.

“What
about
me?”

“The test?”

“I couldn’t care less. But I’ll please my parents and do the best I can.”

I glanced at her helmet in the locker. She saw me looking.

“I bought that myself,” she sneered. “I’m not like these other kids, you know. I don’t think this universe
owes
me.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“It’s the way you’re looking at me. Who are you to judge me?”

“No, I meant us,” Max said, jumping in. “The test. We’re not Citizens. What does the test mean for us?”

“That all depends on how you do.”

We followed Riis in silence. We stopped in front of four sliding doors on the inner side of a curved hallway.

“Split up,” Riis called out. “We take the placement test in the same theater where we have our classes. When the doors open, take the first pod, but only two at a time. The next two must wait for another pod.”

The doors opened immediately. Ketheria was standing near the other door.

“Take Max,” I told Ketheria, and she did, slipping into the pod and out of sight.

I waited for my turn with Theodore. When the doors opened, I caught a faint medicinal smell as a bright blue light illuminated two narrow seats. I stepped in and sat next to Theodore. The floor tilted slightly, and we pulled our feet back in response. Then the pod closed and the blue light blinked out, encasing us in complete darkness. When the pod shifted to my left, I felt myself pinned to the seat, unable to sit up.

“Hey!” Something tried to connect with the neural port that I did not have. “Theodore, did you just link up?” I asked him.

“Didn’t have a choice.” His words seemed dampened by the darkness. “I’m not creeped out, though. Kinda reminds me of the nurture pods on the
Renaissance.
”

He was right. From the time we were born, until maybe four or five years old, we slept in pods that cleaned us, fed us, and even stimulated our brains, replicating everything any parent could ever hope to give to their new child.

“Do you think they knew about these pods when they designed the
Renaissance
?” he asked.

“What for?”

“So we would be used to this.”

“That’s ridiculous!” I said, doing a very good impersonation of Riis.

We both laughed out loud in the dark, unafraid of what was coming. We were used to it on Orbis now. Behind every corner was something new, something strange, or something different. I began to expect the unexpected, and it kept me alert. Light soon filled our pod from some unknown source on my left. My mind told me:
Get ready.
Friend or foe, something was around the bend.

At first I was disoriented. I reached out to grab a hold of something,
anything.
What I thought was a door enclosing my pod only reached my knees. The front of the pod remained open, providing me with an unobstructed view of nothingness. I looked up and saw white. I looked to my left and I saw more shiny white nothingness. I looked down, I looked right, and saw nothing but an enormous glowing O-dat that encompassed my entire field of view.

“Awesome!” Theodore said. I saw a thin clear cable attached behind his left ear.

“What do you see?” I said.

“Everything.”

I scanned the pod for a computer device located near the linkup behind my head. Once I pushed in, I located the link file addressed with my name and an encrypted access code of twenty-five digits. I didn’t know what to do. The access code would not let me into the source of the stream.

“Vairocina!” I shouted out in my mind.