“I didn’t leave my room like this,” I said. “Something is wrong. Hurry, we need to find them.”
Outside my room, the walls were marred with charcoal streaks, results of a plasma rifle. I maneuvered around an overturned bench and noticed that a chunk of the wall was completely missing. Switzer stepped over a discarded wall panel and crushed the remains of an uprooted plant.
“What happened here?” I asked. “And where is everyone?”
“Someone was either looking for something or just felt like trashing the place,” Switzer answered.
“I saw it,” Charlie murmured. “It looked like a bit of both.”
“Max’s room is right up here,” I told them.
My stomach flipped once when I said her name and then settled at an uncomfortable angle when I paused outside her room. How would she react when she saw me? How would I react? I was so confident about finding them, but the thought of speaking to Max made me uncertain. Switzer reached past me and thumped on the door. No one answered. I pushed into the door’s control panel and opened it.
“Max! Max, you here?” I called toward the bathroom without entering her room, but there was no sign of her.
Switzer whistled. “Wow, and I thought you were the messy one.”
“Be quiet. It’s obvious someone has trashed the place. Let’s check Theodore’s room.”
“He’s not there, either,” someone said behind me.
I turned to find Queykay, flanked by four armed guards, standing at the top of the corridor. The faceless creatures, protected by long, chrome chest plates, took cautious positions around Queykay, as if ready for a fight. I had no intention of giving them one.
“They’re all gone, including your sister,” he said.
“Where are they?” I demanded to know.
“I was hoping that maybe you knew where they were.”
“Why? Because it doesn’t look good that the Trading Council doesn’t know where the Scion is? Are you afraid of her power?”
“The Trading Council has far more power than you will ever have.”
The four armed guards took a step toward me, their plasma rifles readied in their grips.
“Actually, I do know where one of them is,” he added as an afterthought. “The one you call Theodore has been arrested for treason. I personally stopped his plot to overthrow the Council.”
“That’s not true!” I cried, and the guards raised their weapons at me.
“Then what is true?” he asked.
What had Theodore gotten himself into? Where were the others?
“Do you have something to tell us?” Queykay said.
“I don’t have to tell you anything. You have no authority over me.”
“That’s where you are wrong. Things have changed since you left, Softwire. The Trading Council has invoked certain privileges, and I am here to enforce them. For one, strolling about the ring with a convicted wormhole pirate is definitely grounds for treason charges.” Queykay pointed a long bony finger at Switzer. “Seize them!” he ordered.
“Stop!” Hach cried as he rushed into the corridor just behind the security guards. “What are you doing, Queykay? This is still my house,” he insisted.
“The Trading Council has jurisdiction over it now.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“The Chancellor has suspended all civil rights, but how could you know that, with the time you spend on Ki and Ta tending to your privileged mining rights?” Queykay turned back to us. “Arrest the enemy,” Queykay growled, pointing at me. “He is a Space Jumper. The Council has clearly —”
“The Council does nothing clearly,” Hach interrupted. He pointed at the armed guards. “Who are these men?”
“These are the Trading Council’s Preservation Forces.”
“Preservation Forces? I know nothing of this.”
“The Council has enlisted their services, and I have been given authority to use them. I signed the order myself. If you continue to interfere, then I will have them arrest you as well.”
“I will not abide by this foolish rule!” Hach cried, and reached inside his long jacket.
As Hach stepped back to remove his weapon, the four guards turned their focus on him. “Now!” Switzer hissed, and we both jumped at the same time.
I moved across the room and refocused just behind the guard on the far right of Queykay. I stepped into him, and knocked his rifle away with my strong arm. Switzer struggled with the two guards closest to Queykay, while Charlie lunged for the remaining one. I watched Charlie bend the guard’s gun in half as if it were made of rubber and then fling the guard thirty meters over his head and down the hall. The guard slid along the floor and hit the wall with a thud. He did not move again.
From the corner of my eye, I watched Queykay fling back his thick cloak as he squared off against Hach. Queykay’s brood, the disgusting creatures that fed off his body, launched at Hach the moment the light hit them. The squirrely creatures were at least a foot long now, and more than two dozen of them landed on Hach. He dropped his weapon, clawing at the creatures as they bit into his neck and face.
“No!” I cried.
While I watched Hach writhing under the sickening creatures, Queykay thrust a Zinovian Talon into Hach’s ribs. I grabbed Queykay’s arm, but when he pulled back, I saw the empty cartridge from the talon dangling from Queykay’s hand. His brood must have tasted the poison now running through Hach’s veins; they scurried back to their father like maggots scrambling over rotten meat. I ran to Hach’s side.
“Don’t fight it,” Queykay whispered to Hach. “It will be over quickly. There is no room on the rings for sympathizers. The Keepers have broken their agreement, and they must be punished. Their time on the Rings of Orbis is finished, with or without the Scion.”
I held Hach’s head as Queykay casually reloaded his talon.
“I’m sorry,” Hach breathed. “I thought I was doing good. I thought you and the Scion would be safe here. I failed.”
“Do you know where they are?” I whispered.
“They disappeared after Theodore was taken. I think Ketheria knew. They are nowhere to be found. I should have been here.” Hach’s voice was almost a whisper.
“What did Ketheria know? Hach!” His eyes began to roll back into his head. I turned to Queykay. “Help him!” I cried, but he only smiled.
“Your Guarantor was given lucrative mining rights to new fields on the crystal moons in exchange to protect you. He made this deal with the Keepers. I have no intention of helping him.”
I looked at Hach, his face and neck a bloody mess. “Is this true?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
Hach swallowed hard but did not reply.
“That’s a question for the Keepers,” Queykay hissed. “They have broken the treaty, and now we will take what is ours.”
Switzer stepped toward Queykay as he removed a small communication device from his robe and raised it to his mouth. “I have the Tonat,” he said into the device.
“Wow, for a Trading Council member, you are one dumb alien!” Switzer cried. Then he jumped across the room and refocused next to Charlie. “We’re Space Jumpers!”
As if on cue, I jumped at the same time Switzer did. I couldn’t look at Hach. I knew he was dying. I didn’t want to think about the deal he had made with the Keepers. I liked Hach and wanted to leave it that way, whether he was dead or alive.
I knew where Switzer was going. He only had the coordinates for one place on Orbis 4, and I jumped there. I wished it was a little farther away from Queykay, but it would have to do. I refocused back in my room, with Switzer and Charlie at my side.
“They made some pretty good improvements to you,” Switzer said to Charlie, lifting his right arm and inspecting it like part of a ship’s engine.
Charlie pulled his arm away. “I wish I could remember you,” he said.
“No, you don’t,” Switzer replied.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“I don’t know; this is your plan.”
“We need to get out of here, but you can’t jump without coordinates. We have to walk out.”
“That’s not going to happen without some firepower.”
“Well, whatever we do, we have to do it quickly. Vairocina?”
“JT? You’re back!” her voice rang inside my head. “I’m so pleased to hear your voice.”
“Well, it’s not a scheduled visit, that’s for sure, but listen, I’m in trouble. I need some help with burak coordinates for Orbis 4. Is there any way to uplink them from my room?”
“Why don’t you —?”
“It’s not for me. It’s for Switzer.”
“Oh.”
“Vairocina?”
“Hurry up,” Switzer urged.
“The only O-dat I see working near you is located inside Ketheria’s chambers,” she replied.
“It’s not far,” I told Switzer.
“JT, someone has placed a query on your whereabouts within the central computer. They are commencing a trace at this very moment,” she informed me.
I remembered what they did to Ganook before I left. I assumed they had placed a trace on him and then sent some sort of explosive to finish him off. Would Queykay try to kill me?
“Can you do anything to slow them down?” I asked her.
“It will not be permanent.”
“Do what you can,” I told her. “And get ready with the coordinates for Switzer.” I turned to Switzer and Charlie. “We have to move now. If I start turning blue, move away from me quickly.”
“What does that mean?” Switzer asked.
“Just do it.”
Ketheria’s room was not far away, but I had no idea where Queykay and his goons had gone. I was certain that he had initiated the trace, but I was also sure he didn’t think I would still be in the building. I knew that once he discovered I was still there, I would have very little time to get the coordinates into Switzer’s belt. I took the lead and slipped through the debris, careful not to attract attention. Inside the main chamber, I headed straight to Ketheria’s room.
“I don’t remember her being the tidy one,” Switzer said as all three of us filled her room. Charlie went to a table near Ketheria’s bed, where some of her personal things were still arranged neatly, as if she would be right back. Charlie picked up a hairbrush and cradled it in his clumsy hands.
“You miss her, don’t you?” I whispered, and he only smiled.
“Can we get on with this?” Switzer grunted.
“Vairocina, you ready?”
“Almost,” she replied. “There is an O-dat in her room. Have Switzer interface with the device.”
“Over there,” I told Switzer, pointing to the O-dat screen on the table.
“Tell him that in the system’s local memory, there is a file marked charts. It’s big, but I just grabbed everything I had.”
“Look for something called charts,” I called out to him.
“Got it!” he replied.
Charlie returned the brush to its original place and looked around the room. “No one would hurt Ketheria,” he said.
“That’s where you are wrong,” Queykay said, stepping into the room, the Talon already drawn.
“Switzer?”
“Not yet,” he croaked, and I nudged Charlie to move toward him.
“It was simple. You did not want to be the Tonat. With you out of the way, the Council could control the Scion. We were in charge. Everyone feared she was not safe; we proved that. The Council would protect her, for their Citizens. Everything would have run smoothly, but you just couldn’t play along, could you?”
“You staged her assassination attempt, didn’t you? She read your mind. That’s why she’s not here. You can’t be trusted.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Queykay continued, slinking into Ketheria’s room. I could see the Preservation Forces moving in the shadows of the other room and Queykay’s army of assassins rippling at the collar of his cloak. “You help me find her, and I’ll spare your life.”
“What about her life?” I said.
“The Scion will be very useful to the new Council. Of course we would protect her.”
“Don’t believe him,” Switzer groaned. His voice was strange. I looked over and saw that he was swaying slightly.
“Switzer?”
His knees buckled, and Queykay raised his talon. I jumped across the room and refocused right under the weapon. I sprang straight up and knocked the weapon from Queykay’s grip as it discharged, the poison spear now safely lodged in the ceiling.
“You stupid —”
But before he could finish the insult, I landed on Queykay and delivered a thunderclap to his neck.
“You really are dumb,” I said as Queykay crumpled underneath me. I saw the Preservation Forces scrambling in the other room, so I pushed into Ketheria’s door and jammed the energy field, preventing the others from entering. Two of Queykay’s brood had escaped and sunk their teeth into my robotic arm. I already had the pain turned off. I felt nothing, but more were crawling toward my feet.
“Wrong arm, kids,” I said, and flicked them off. They screamed as they splattered against the wall. The others hesitated between their father and me before choosing to retreat. They were not very brave now that he was unconscious.
“Switzer!” I turned and saw him slipping to his knees as Charlie pulled on his right arm.
“Vairocina, what did you give him?”
“I told you it was a lot of information. I didn’t know what exactly to leave out or if you would have another chance to do this again. He will be fine in a moment.”
“We don’t have a moment!”
“Switzer! Switzer!” I yelled. I turned and saw the guards hacking their way through the wall, bypassing the energy field all together. A chunk of the wall landed on the floor. They were almost through.
“Uh . . . too much . . .” he groaned, his eyes rolling back in his head. I remembered when this happened to Theodore; he was out for a whole cycle.
“Switzer. Do you have it all? Come on. We have to go!”
Charlie helped me get Switzer to his feet. He was barely conscious. There was no way he could jump, let alone take Charlie with him.
The forces were almost through the wall.
“Take his belt,” Charlie said.
“What?”
“Take his belt and jump with all three of us.”
“But I’ve never used a belt,” I told him. “I don’t know —”
“The belt is only there to create the pathway for me and him. You do not even need it.”
“But what if it doesn’t work. What if I —”
“You’ll do fine. You’re a Space Jumper.”
I unclipped the belt from Switzer’s waist. It was warm. I slipped it around my own and let it hang down over my right thigh. There was no time to adjust it. I held up the other side with my left arm.
“Grab him and get close to me,” I told Charlie. “And if this doesn’t work, I’m sorry.”
I pictured the city of Murat in my head and interfaced with the belt. I activated the only button on the belt that I had ever seen before — the button that I thought had once killed Switzer, back on Orbis 2. It felt like forever before the smell of stinky feet invaded my senses.
I half expected to find Max waiting for me. I half expected to find Charlie in little pieces at my feet and Switzer lost in some corner of the universe, but none of that came true, especially the Max part. Before I jumped, I had pictured the concert area she had shown me on Murat, recalling my amazement that she had remembered my interest in music and thinking it was one of the finest moments of my life. Standing on the stone steps with only Charlie and Switzer at my side, I looked up as the ring unrolled its shadow across the city.
“Where are you, Max?” I whispered.
“We’ll find her,” Charlie replied.
“Vairocina?” I called out.
“You’re safe!
” she cried.
“You have to tell me if anyone puts another trace on me, all right? And don’t worry about Switzer. According to the central computer, he’s dead, but you need to give me as much time as you can. I can’t risk what they did to Ganook.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Can you find any sign of Theodore?”
“No, I’ve been looking. I cannot trace his staining unless a Citizen initiates it, and can find no record of this happening. The Keepers may have done it, but I have not been able to breach their security.”
“Then you have to get ahold of Theylor for me. I need to meet with him, but be very careful. I don’t know who’s on what side anymore. After you establish a meeting place, check to see if a trace is placed on me. If there is, then we’ll know what side Theylor is on.”
“Where do you want to meet him?”
“Across from the Center for Relief and Assistance. I think I might know where they are holding Theodore.”
While we waited for Theylor, Vairocina discovered two different traces placed on me.
“Can you trust him?” Switzer said.
“I want to,” I replied, refusing to believe that it was Theylor who had initiated the trace. “We need to keep moving.”
The more I jumped around Murat, the more obvious it seemed that war was coming to the Rings of Orbis. Vairocina had given Switzer plenty of coordinates for Murat, and this enabled us to move freely. Each time we jumped, we found barricaded streets, closed trading chambers, and barely a person to be seen. The three of us stuck out everywhere we jumped, so we glued ourselves to the shadows.
When Vairocina informed me that Theylor was waiting for us, I jumped once more to shake off anyone who might be tracing me. Switzer was walking on his own now, but not saying too much except to warn me.
“I don’t trust those two-headed space monkeys,” he hissed.
“I trust Theylor,” I reassured him.
Across from the Keepers’ aid center, I saw Theylor standing near one of those sleeper arches that Theodore had used. I watched him open a capsule and place something inside it. He closed it and slipped away.
“I’ll get it,” Charlie said. “You stay here.”
The Softwire: Awakening on Orbis 4 Page 23
