“I’ll get it,” Charlie said. “You stay here.”
Theylor was being careful. That worried me. How bad were things now? Charlie returned with a tap and handed it to me. I pushed in and grabbed Theylor’s message.
“Wait here,” I told them, and stepped out into the open courtyard. I felt naked.
On the tap were simple instructions, yet they were odd just the same. Theylor instructed me to walk across the stone plaza and jump when I reached the center. I was supposed to jump to the darkened alley directly across from the center, less than thirty meters away.
“Good,” Theylor said when I had refocused in the shadow of the empty alley. “If anyone was following you, they would assume you jumped far from here. Follow me.”
The Keeper turned away, his purple robe brushing against my leg. Another fifty meters down the alley and the Keeper pushed opened the dull-looking door of a lifeless building. Inside, the air felt bitter, as if trapped in a long-sealed metal container.
“How are you?” he asked, and offered me a metal crate for a seat.
“I’m good, Theylor, but I can’t say the same for the Rings of Orbis.”
“No, you are right. It seems the Council wants a war and the Descendants of Light are willing to oblige.”
“Drapling?”
Theylor removed a small light source from the depths of his rope and placed it on the floor. The blue light exposed the veins glowing under his skin like circuits in a computer. “They feel empowered by the presence of the Scion. They believe the Ancients will return now,” he confessed.
“Will they?”
“It is foolish to believe that the Ancients are still alive, Johnny. This is the reason we have worked so hard to bring you and your sister to the Rings of Orbis. Humans were the last chance for this universe. The Ancients sacrificed everything when they found your Earth, so isolated from everything else in the galaxy. Yet they feared that humans were too far along in their evolution to ever seed a Scion. To solve this, they moved backward through time, to find the precise moment to best alter the human race and seed your fate. It was almost ninety thousand rotations ago that this journey began. You were the very last component of the intricate project. But what the Ancients did is something that breaks all rules of physics. You cannot go backward in time without destroying what you leave; it is a one-way journey. However, the Ancients knew that unless they did so, someone like your sister could never be born.
“This was their sacrifice, and they have succeeded. The Scion has almost completed her enlightenment. We are so close to fulfilling the dream of the Ancients. Ketheria will have the power to enlighten every one of us and connect us all to the Source. It is our only defense against the Knull.”
“How can she do this from the rings?”
Theylor did not answer.
“But she’s gone now. What’s going to happen?” I pressed.
Theylor shook his head. I was suddenly aware of how familiar he was now with Earth gestures.
“Why can’t you find her?” I said. “That’s why you agreed to the staining in the first place, isn’t it? How else could you keep track of her? You knew back then.”
“We do not understand how she’s doing it. Drapling is livid. Somehow she has cloaked her staining. She is nowhere to be found. In our defense, we had never stained a Scion before.”
“You never stained my sister before,” I reminded him.
“You must find her and bring her to us.”
“I don’t think she’ll come.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because if she trusted you, she would have gone to you already.”
“It is the Descendants of Light who cannot be trusted. They want to use the Scion just as the Council would use a weapon. They believe she can unite the knudniks and the new Citizens against the Council and the First Families. The DOL have never forgotten the humiliation and loss caused by the War of Ten Thousand Rotations. They are convinced that the Scion can bring them revenge.”
“Can she?”
“She is the Scion. Of course she can.”
“I have no idea where she is,” I told him.
Both of Theylor’s heads stared at me, each one creased withanxiety.
“But —”
I interrupted him. “Do you know where Theodore is? Is he where they held Switzer?” If anyone knew Ketheria’s whereabouts, it was Theodore. I was certain of it.
Theylor shook his head and said, “We have been trying, all of us.”
“Trying what?” I asked.
“To keep him alive. The Trading Council has charged him with treason. The penalty is death, even for a Citizen.”
“You have to stop them!”
“The Council has convinced the Citizens that unless the Scion is controlled, she is a threat to their well-being. The Citizens have granted the Council control over every aspect of life on the rings, and they have banned the Keepers from participating in any decisions. This in itself is grounds for war, but the Trust does not want to attack until the Scion is located. I am afraid that Theodore, as he has been so close to you and Ketheria, is merely being used as a pawn in all of this. They are using him as an example of the Council’s ability to deal with the growing rebellion of knudniks and to convince the Citizens that they can use force over the Scion’s power.”
“How can I get to him?”
“I am afraid it’s impossible. He is guarded more carefully than the Ancients’ Treasure.”
“I already got through that defense,” I reminded him.
As I feared, Theodore was being held in the same facility that Switzer had called home for so many phases. Theylor could not provide entry, as the Keepers had been banned from entering the holding area, and he was convinced that the Trading Council would carry out Theodore’s sentence, with or without a war.
I first thought about simply jumping into Theodore’s holding cell, but I didn’t know which one it was, nor did Theylor. In fact, he believed they were using Theodore as bait to lure me into a trap. But if they were, why wouldn’t they simply declare his location to me?
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Switzer said, bolting to his feet, as Charlie and I were discussing an assortment of strategies. “Why can’t we just walk into the Keepers’ building, use the light chute, and jump our way through? That’s what we do. We’re Space Jumpers! How many times do I have to remind you of that important fact?”
“He might be right,” Charlie agreed.
“And remember: we have the Hulking Honock here. He’s a regular superhero, if you ask me. I’m sure he could crack a few heads if they overwhelm us.”
“You can’t do that,” I told him. “We don’t have any weapons, and we don’t have a clue what their defenses are. For all we know, they could have changed the path of the chute and directed it right into a holding cell that we can’t jump out of. We may be Space Jumpers, but you seem to have forgotten most of what we learned at the Hollow.”
“Well, my way has worked a million times before,” he said, almost pouting.
“You’re not a wormhole pirate anymore, Switzer. Look, I’m going to do this myself. I’m going to jump in there and grab Theodore and then jump out. You don’t have any coordinates, and at least I know how to get inside.”
“How are you going to bring him out? You don’t even have a belt!”
“I’ll use yours.”
“And leave me here with nothing? Did you pop a chip? What if you get caught? No way. You’re not taking my belt.”
“Switzer. There’s no other way!”
“JT, another trace has been placed on you,” Vairocina whispered in my ear.
“How long do we have?” I asked her.
“They’re close, maybe a fraction of a diam. If you jump now, you might be able to shake the trace.”
“Thanks,” I told her, and turned to Switzer. “Come on. We can’t stay here.”
We jumped to the far side of Murat, near the restaurant I went to with Max and Theod
ore. My whole life seemed marked by moments with them. I had to find them.
“Look, Switzer, do you have a better solution?” I asked, pushing Charlie into the shadows of a trading chamber.
“Of course. We can all go. You jump with me. My belt will store the coordinates. We jump back out and then grab circuit-man here.”
“You really don’t trust me, do you?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you; it’s that I don’t trust them. I’ve got a good thing here. I lose this belt and I have nothing. There’s no way I could get back to the Hollow, and I don’t even want to think about what the Council will do to me. I really thank you for getting me out of that hole, but I cannot risk going back in there. If you want your little friend, then we do it my way. I’m not letting this belt out of my sight.”
“What if we jump right into them and give our plan away? Then we lose the element of surprise.”
“I’m afraid there ain’t much to give away,” he said.
“Let’s do it, JT,” Charlie urged. “I don’t think we have much time.”
A clatter was seeping through the stillness. I peeked out of the shadows and glanced up the empty alley. On the horizon, a jagged line of darkness was gobbling up the sky.
“Who are they?” I whispered.
“You want to stick around here and find out?”
“Fine! Give me the belt. Charlie, we’ll be right back. And stay hidden!”
Charlie nodded as Switzer unlocked his belt and moved next to me. I slipped the belt around my waist and grabbed Switzer. I was so angry with him, I wanted to throw him through the jump.
I remembered the corridor Drapling had taken me to in order to see Switzer. That’s where we jumped. As we refocused, Switzer and I crouched with our backs to each other. It was a standard position we learned using SEMs at the Hollow when jumping tandem into a hostile environment. I had never tried it before, but I needed it.
Four armed guards from the Council’s Preservation Forces were marching straight toward the spot where we had materialized.
“Again!” Switzer shouted, and I jumped behind the four guards as they readied their plasma rifles.
Before they could spin around, Switzer and I dropped to the floor and swept their feet out from under them. The four guards collided into one another as Switzer and I each secured a plasma rifle. Since I had the belt, I knew Switzer was unable to jump again, so I refocused back to my original position. My hope was to keep the guards disoriented.
“Hey!” I screamed. I greeted the first guard with my right foot. I spun around and planted my new plasma rifle in the belly of the second guard. Then I turned to help Switzer.
“Could you take longer,” he said. Switzer stood triumphantly over the remaining guards, who were unconscious, with both of their rifles slung over his shoulder.
“Show off,” I muttered under my breath. Switzer was a natural.
I stared down the corridor. No one else was coming.
“What’s wrong?” Switzer asked.
“I don’t know. It seems too easy.”
“I tell ya, we’re Space Jumpers!”
“Still.”
“Think they contacted anyone?”
“I don’t think they had time,” I told him.
“Your guys might have.”
“Funny.”
“So where’s split-screen?”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Fine, any idea where we might locate Theodore?”
“He has to be in one of these rooms. You never had any guards watching your cell. I guess they weren’t as afraid of you.”
“Now, that’s funny,” Switzer said.
I found Theodore in the third cell down from Switzer’s. He sprang from the floor when he saw me.
“JT! How —?”
“Don’t worry about that. We have to get out of here.”
“You want to go get circuit-man first?” Switzer asked.
“What’s he doing here?” Theodore asked.
“Don’t worry — he’s on our side,” I said.
Theodore only snorted.
“We could leave you in there, you know,” Switzer said with a sneer.
“No, we won’t,” I argued.
I jumped to the other side of the energy field and refocused next to Theodore.
“Golden!” he cried.
“Grab on to me,” I instructed.
Outside of the cell, both of us refocused next to Switzer. “Now you,” I told him.
“Give me my belt. I can take both of you,” Switzer protested.
“You’re ridiculous,” I said, unlatching the belt and handing it to Switzer. He slipped it lovingly around his waist and then held his arms out to both of us.
“Come to Papa!”
“Oh, shut up,” I snapped.
Back on the surface, Charlie was waiting patiently, shrouded by the shadows. The angry mob I had seen in the distance now spilled through the streets of Murat. I had to shout in order for Charlie to hear me.
“Who are they?”
“Knudniks, Citizens, all of them angry,” Charlie replied. “Very angry.”
“Charlie?” Theodore said, his voice almost cracking.
“Hi, Theodore,” he said. “I missed you.”
“But . . . I thought . . . he . . .” Theodore was gawking at Charlie, then Switzer, then me.
“It’s hard to explain, but, yes, that’s Charlie.”
“Part of me,” he corrected me.
“The best part,” I pointed out, and Charlie smiled.
“Enough with the family reunion,” Switzer butted in. “I don’t like hanging out here in the middle of their party.”
I looked down the alley and saw that the mob was blocking the entrance. I watched hundreds of aliens file past, some with metal pipes, some with sticks, a few even with real weapons. Zinovian claws were popular, but I also saw a Fedaado blade and even a Choi cril.
“They mean business,” I said.
“They’re everywhere,” Theodore remarked. “Ever since the Council began adding more and more restrictions on our way of life, people have been rallying. They want a war.”
“So does the Council,” I replied.
Suddenly I felt a horrible rumble that dampened the sound of the crowd. The shock stretched down the alley and called up the stone beneath my feet.
“What was that?” Theodore cried.
The crowd was turning. I watched a Honine backtrack and then fall. Another retreating alien stomped on his chest, and the Honine screamed in vain. I jumped to the end of the alley.
“JT!”
Panic. The crowd was rushing from something, but I could not see what that was. Another explosion. I jumped to the top of the building across the street to get a better look.
“What do you see?” Theodore called out.
I didn’t speak at first. Not because I couldn’t see what was coming, but because I couldn’t believe it. An army of Neewalkers was marching, rolling, and flying through Murat. One machine, or monster (there wasn’t much difference), rolled over anything in its path while firing at anything above it. A Neewalker, strapped to the controls, artfully maneuvered the rolling tank against the outmatched aliens. I counted more than a dozen of the machines before I jumped back into the alley.
“It’s bad,” I told them.
“What do we do?” Switzer asked.
“We should help them,” I said.
“Let’s do it.”
Neewalker defense strategies were a vital part of a Space Jumper’s training. These nefarious creatures were often at the heart of conflicts in this star sector. At least this is what we were taught at the Hollow, and it happened to be the norm on the Rings of Orbis.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Switzer asked. His faced brightened with anticipation.
“Remember: I can push into those stilts and disable them once you knock them out. It will take you too long to decipher the interface.”
“Always tryin
g to show off,” he muttered.
“And I’ll handle those rollers as well.”
“Why do you get all the fun? Those I can handle.”
“Fine,” I agreed. “But let’s get the guys on the ground first. Those machines look like they’ll take forever to turn around.”
“Got it.”
“I’ll be right back,” I told Theodore, and turned to Charlie. “Make sure —”
“I will.”
Switzer and I jumped behind the center roller. We refocused next to a Neewalker. We dropped fast, swiping out the stilts with our legs. My good arm was far more effective, and I grabbed the first Neewalker and snapped its stilt. As it fell, I pushed inside the stilt chips and trashed anything I could find. Switzer and I took out more than a dozen Neewalkers before they even knew what had hit them, and even then they couldn’t find us. When one spotted us, we jumped to the other side of the battalion, working in unison. I jumped a nanosecond behind Switzer, waiting for the Neewalker to fall before taking out its computer. I began to see glimpses of Switzer as he broke through time and space and refocused next to the unprepared Neewalker, as if a ghost image of him revealed his whereabouts between dimensions. I found the effect extremely useful in trying to stay close to him.
Soon Neewalkers began to abandon their broken stilts, but their fins were useless on the streets of Murat. The rollers crushed many of them as they frantically searched the skies for Switzer and me.
“JT!” Switzer called.
I turned to Switzer, who was strapped into one of the rollers, firing on our enemy. I watched the Neewalkers turn and run while the crowd of angry aliens moved in on them.
“Get out of there!” I shouted at him.
“I couldn’t resist!”
One of the other rollers saw Switzer and returned fire with a direct hit.
“Switzer!”
I jumped next to the attacking machine and pushed into the controls. The machine was useless by the time it tried to fire again. I jumped to Switzer’s machine and found it pitched wildly on its side. Switzer was coughing and swiping at the smoke as a small fire licked at the cockpit, but he was still alive.
“Get out of there, Switzer!” I grabbed him by the collar with my good arm and hoisted him out, and we both jumped to the ground.
“The Tonat!” I heard someone cry from the crowd, and a group of aliens near the front line rushed in and smothered me. “The Tonat! The Tonat is helping us!”
Awakening on Orbis Page 24
