What would I find now? I was almost too afraid to look.
“JT!” Theodore stopped me as I stepped into the corridor outside Ketheria’s chamber. “Where’s Ketheria? Is she dead? Where did she go?”
“She’s fine. The Trust has her.”
“Is that where you went?”
I nodded.
“All those Space Jumpers!” he exclaimed. “Everyone is talking about war. So many people saw how easily they moved about the rings. The Citizens are really going crazy. Queykay arrived with the entire Trading Council. They put all these new laws into place. You can’t even move from ring to ring now. They said it was to protect the Scion, but Hach was furious. They took him with them when they left.”
“Where’s Max?”
“She’s with Grace and that guy — what’s his name?”
I shook my head.
“Come on, I know Max will be glad to see you. They’re having a meeting or something. Max has Grace getting everyone together.”
Theodore tried to guide me in the direction he was going, but I pulled away.
“I can’t,” I told him.
“Why not?”
“There’s something I’ve got to do first.”
“Fine,” he said, turning back in my direction. “We’ll go after that.”
“Alone,” I said.
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I understand. We’ll come by later. Max will want to see you when she finds out that you’re back.”
“I don’t want you to tell her you saw me,” I said.
Theodore just looked at me. “What’s wrong, JT? Let me help you.”
I shook my head. “Not this time. It’s not like that.”
“But —”
“I’m sorry. Really.” I turned and headed toward my room. “Don’t tell her, all right?” I yelled back.
But Theodore did not respond.
Inside my room, I sat at the edge of my sleeper and slipped the disc from my pocket. I ran my finger along the impression that circled the face of the disc. I pushed in and grabbed a random file.
NEXUS ACCESS 12B-532-AFG
TIME POINT: 12:45.2: 227
CONTACT: QUIRIN NE YARNOS
The genetic enhancements on specimen 1325b appear to manifest the desired traits far more rapidly than the original candidate (specimen 334). My fears that I may not be able to procure an alternate now seem unfounded. Cleavage of the Scion zygote coupled with the experimental regermination may prove to have created an exceptional candidate for the Tonat.
If success continues, I will destroy specimen 334 prior to the standard schedule.
Transmission successful.
It’s true!
I pulled out of the storage device. The residual burn of Quirin’s entry still sparkled against the inside of my forehead. It would fade, I knew, but the knowledge would stay with me forever.
Was I specimen 1325b? I had to be. When Theylor admitted that I had been genetically altered, I never once thought it happened on the Renaissance. I assumed it was when they replaced my arm, or when I almost drowned in the cooling tank on Orbis 2.
If this was true, then Switzer must have been specimen 334. What did they do to him? Did Quirin start to turn Switzer into the Tonat and then stop? If Quirin had never touched Switzer, would he be like the other kids from the Renaissance? Out of the two hundred children born on that ship, Switzer was the only one we feared. He was a monster, and they had made him that way. It was not fair.
If success continues, I will destroy specimen 334 prior to the standard schedule.
They had planned to flush everyone on that seed-ship. The thought horrified me. Where were all of our parents? Were they already dead? This didn’t make sense. Quirin said my mother was still on Earth.
“JT?” Vairocina’s voice whispered inside my head.
“Yes,” I replied, welcoming the distraction.
“I was hoping we could talk now.”
“It’s not a good time.”
“But I think it is too important for you to wait any longer. I’ve located the information you requested.”
“What information?” I stood up and paced the room.
Vairocina formed to my left. “You asked me to gain a better understanding of your transfer to the Citizen Hach,” she replied.
“I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I forgot. Did you find anything?”
“Yes. It seems that Charlie had made arrangements for his possessions to be distributed through an advocate.”
“Is that normal?”
“Absolutely. Advocates are usually appointed by the Trading Council to ensure a fair and honest allocation of assets in the event there are no relatives.”
“Like that would ever happen. No wonder I ended up with Hach.”
“No,” Vairocina interrupted. “The unusual aspect is that Charlie had already chosen an advocate well before he died. In fact, the same cycle he became a Citizen and only moments after an enormous sum of chits was transferred to his personal holdings.”
“Who? Who did he assign?”
“Well, it wasn’t a single person really. . . .”
“Who, Vairocina?”
“The Descendants of Light. Drapling signed the transfer. Drapling is also the one who then bequeathed you to Hach.”
“What?”
“The Descendants of Light. The trans —”
“I heard you. I just can’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense. Charlie was no fan of the DOL, especially Drapling. I even heard them fighting once when I was half-conscious. I’m sure it was Charlie and Drapling. This just doesn’t make sense.”
I sat down on my sleeper and hoped the room would stop spinning.
“Is there anything else I can find for you, JT?”
“No,” I said, “but there is something you can do.”
“Certainly.”
“Can you tell Drapling I need to meet him? It’s an emergency.”
“I’ll do it now.”
I pushed back into the storage device. This time I discovered a small interface along with the hidden data. Only a softwire would find this interface, I thought. The interface displayed a projection mode, which I initiated, then pulled out of the device and sat the metal disc on the lid of my sleeper. Using my softwire, I interacted with the display projected on the wall in the same manner I would with an ordinary O-dat. I opened another file at random.
NEXUS ACCESS 6F-448-MGH
TIME POINT: 14:40.9: 814
CONTACT: QUIRIN NE YARNOS
Long-range subspace tracers have detected a distress signal in the Dorvum system. Ion Signatures identify craft as a Zinovian class 4 cruiser: nonmilitary issue.
Threat: none.
Current systems are stable. Recommend jump interaction. Please advise.
Transmission successful.
Zinovian class? Was that Madame Lee? Did she trick him? I opened another file.
NEXUS ACCESS 11C-102-MKL
TIME POINT: 03:03.1: 019
CONTACT: QUIRIN NE YARNOS
AI programming was initiated as per instructions. Earthlike histories for all specimens now loaded. Scion and Tonat entered as siblings. The AI has been time-stamped to display death of parents, children, and crew upon arrival. Birth sequence initiated for Scion and Tonat and scheduled to arrive on the Rings of Orbis near their thirteenth Earth year.
Transmission successful.
Ketheria and I were supposed to arrive on the rings as the same age. I tried to think of Ketheria as seventeen, just like me. It was too weird. What would she look like? I retrieved the first file I had opened. What did the words zygote and cleavage mean? Were Ketheria and I twins? Impossible!
“JT?” Vairocina whispered inside my head.
“Did you find Drapling?”
“He will meet you at the Center for Relief and Assistance.”
“When?”
“Whenever you are ready.”
“I’m ready now.”
“I want to see Switzer,” I told Drapling. We were seated in the same room underneath the Center for Relief and Assistance.
Both of Drapling’s heads converged on me. “I’m sorry, but that is impossible,” he stated.
“I’m learning quickly that nothing is impossible. I want to see him, Drapling. He shouldn’t be there. What happened to Switzer is not his fault. In fact, it is more the Rings of Orbis’s fault than his.”
“Your friend is a criminal, a wormhole pirate. He will never see the surface of the ring for as long as he lives. Your request is denied.”
I stood up, marched over to Drapling, and leaned in close. Any other person would have shrunk back into their seat, but Drapling remained indifferent. “Listen carefully,” I whispered. “This is not a request. I don’t need your answers anymore. I know. Do you understand me? I met with Quirin. He gave me the missing files. As far as I can figure, you guys sent him to snatch a bunch of embryos from Earth and grew your own Scion. Except your plan didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, and now you have all of us. Switzer isn’t just a friend; he’s my brother.”
“Technically, I believe you would call him a half brother. You share only the genetic coding of Quirin. You and the Scion share a common human egg.”
“Shut up! No matter how you spin it, the life Switzer now has is directly the result of your actions.”
“This means nothing. You feel this way only because you have been adjusted to exhibit a greater care for your sibling. For Ketheria, not for Randall Switzer.”
I pulled back and stepped around Drapling. It took eight strides across the shiny floor to reach the door. I pushed into the control panel and locked it. My old feelings for Switzer were gone. Now I wished that I had helped him steal the Renaissance when we first arrived. Now I wished I had let him escape on Orbis 3. I had to make it up to him before I did anything else. It was not right for him to be forgotten and left to rot away in some cell. I wanted to apologize to him. I wanted to apologize for everything.
I turned toward Drapling. He hadn’t moved a muscle. “I know about the Descendants of Light,” I told him. “I know that you helped Charlie become a Citizen. Yet I was wondering if Theylor and the other Keepers know everything. If I remember correctly, when Theylor came to greet us on the Renaissance, he was expecting to find a ship filled with adults. Or was that a ruse as well?”
Drapling did not respond. Instead he looked toward the glasses at the far side of the room.
“Is something wrong, Drapling? Was that information restricted? I don’t know what it means yet, but I think I can use it.”
“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.”
The Softwire: Awakening on Orbis 4 Page 10
