The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1

by PJ Haarsma

  I tried desperately not to think about what had just happened with Max and Theodore. I had a plan and I couldn’t risk Madame Lee finding out. I sat at the O-dat and frowned.

  “What’s wrong?” Madame Lee asked me.

  “This won’t work.”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  “I can’t access the central computer from here.”

  “Make it work,” Sar Cyrillus demanded.

  “I’ll only be able to read files from it, then,” I said. “I can only push when I’m near a main portal.”

  “Wait,” Madame Lee said. She looked at me very carefully, trying to sniff out my lie. She whispered to Sar Cyrillus while I stared at the O-dat.

  Toonbas, toonbas, toonbas, toonbas, toonbas . . .

  “What do you mean by push?” she asked.

  “It’s how I get inside the computer. It’s how I manipulate it.”

  She leaned in and threatened in the meanest tone, “If you’re lying to me, you will never, ever, see your sister again.”

  “I’m not lying. I can try from here if you want. I don’t know if it will work, but I’ll give it a shot.” I turned back to the console, hoping she bought it.

  “Let him attempt it from here,” Sar Cyrillus said.

  “We don’t have enough time if he fails. Come with us,” she said to me.

  As I exited the ship, the magnitude of her army unfolded in front of me. How had she gathered so many? Some Neewalkers drove strange single-wheeled craft instead of walking on stilts, and others drove large transports. I could only wonder how an army this large could go undetected on the ring.

  “Much easier than you think, I’m afraid,” Madame Lee said, reading my mind.

  I looked up at her — Toonbas, toonbas, toonbas, toonbas.

  Max and Theodore hadn’t moved an inch from where we left them.

  “What do you want me to do with them?” Sar Cyrillus said.

  “Kill them,” Madame Lee said without hesitation.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “You can’t kill them.”

  “Yeah,” Theodore added.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  I looked at Max and Theodore before I turned to Madame Lee.

  “Because they are my family, too. If you kill them, I won’t help you. You might as well kill us all right here,” I said. “It makes no difference to me without them.”

  Sar Cyrillus reached for his sword.

  “If you don’t get in that transport right now, I will kill your sister and force you to watch her die,” Madame Lee growled at me, growing more and more impatient.

  “You need me,” I said. “You may not need them, but I do. There’s no deal without them.” I went and stood next to Max and Theodore. Sar Cyrillus gave me a steely look that told me this was not over.

  “Kill them anyway,” she said.

  I stood between my friends and we took each other’s hands. Sar Cyrillus drew his sword. The sharp blade flickered in the light.

  “I will enjoy this,” he said.

  Theodore closed his eyes. “Good-bye, JT.”

  “Good-bye, Theodore,” I said.

  The Neewalker raised his sword over our heads.

  I looked at Max. She squeezed my hand and smiled softly. We both closed our eyes.

  “Wait! Argh, humans!” Madame Lee snorted. “Put them all in, then, if he needs them so badly.” She stomped over to the transport.

  “Next time I will not hesitate,” Sar Cyrillus whispered, and he pushed us toward the vehicle.

  The three of us sat in the back of the stinky transport by ourselves. Madame Lee rode with Sar Cyrillus up top.

  “I thought we were goners,” Theodore said.

  “You didn’t think I would leave you there, did you?” I said.

  I looked at Max, but she was not warming up.

  “I do not want to be any part of a plan that will destroy Orbis 1. I will not work for that monster,” she said.

  “You have a plan, don’t you? You have no intentions of doing what she said, right?” Theodore asked, making me smile.

  Max finally understood that there was a plan.

  “A little slow there,” I said.

  We all laughed, despite what we knew was waiting for us.

  “I’m going to get the little girl in the computer to help me.”

  The laughing stopped.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” Max said, dropping her head into her hands.

  “The one you see in your dreams?” Theodore wasn’t excited by this plan, either. He lowered his head and stared at his feet.

  “I couldn’t tell you back there because I didn’t want Madame Lee to listen to your thoughts.”

  “Don’t worry, JT. Even if she did, I don’t think she would have understood a word,” Max said.

  “I certainly don’t,” Theodore added.

  “No, listen to me. She, this thing, the virus — I’m positive she’s been causing the computer malfunctions. The Keepers and the Trading Council mistrust each other so much they can only point fingers at each other. While they bicker, Madame Lee is using the malfunctions to camouflage her plans to control Orbis. If I can get the virus on my side and get her to stop causing the malfunctions, then I can expose Madame Lee.”

  “I don’t even know where to start, there are so many holes in that plan. Do you not remember that this virus tries to kill you every time you get close? Am I the only one who remembers this little detail? Even if you’re right and you do stop the virus, how will that help you?” Max asked.

  “She’s got a point,” Theodore said. “Besides, you can’t even talk to her.”

  “Ones and zeros,” I said.

  Max held her hands up. “What does that mean?”

  “Remember Charlie? He talked about binary code, the ones and zeros that used to run the old computers.”

  “So what?”

  “The virus was trying to talk to me. She wants to communicate with me. She left ones and zeros everywhere. First I thought it was the number ten, but that doesn’t make sense. She only knows binary code.”

  “How is that going to help you?” Theodore asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Great!” Max threw her hands up again.

  “Why wouldn’t the computer just destroy the virus?” Theodore added.

  “Because I think she’s alive.”

  “What?” they both said.

  “No, listen to me: The computer doesn’t know what to do with a life force, not yet, anyway. It doesn’t spit everything out, like people have been saying. Look at me. I feel the computer scanning me the moment I push in, but it always just lets me do my thing. It’s the same way with the virus. I think that, despite what everyone says, the computer is not perfect. Maybe in time it will discover how to deal with the little girl, but right now it doesn’t have a clue.”

  I knew I was right. If I could just find the virus, figure out how to talk to her, and then persuade her to help me, I could warn the Keepers and avert a war. It was simple, really. But Max and Theodore still looked uneasy.

  “Do you remember when you were the only ones who believed me when I said I could talk to Mother?”

  They both nodded.

  “Well, you have to believe me now when I tell you this plan will work. I just know it.”

  No one said anything.

  “Max?” I pleaded.

  “Fine,” she said. “But I’m not happy about this.”

  “Remember, clear your mind. Think about anything else. This is extremely important. We don’t want Madame Lee to know,” I reminded them.

  “I hope you’re right, JT,” Max said.

  “I am.”

  The transport came to an abrupt stop. Theodore toppled over and landed in a puddle of sludge.

  “Ew!”

  He was trying to wipe his hand off on the wall of the transport when the doors flew open.

  “Let’s go — quickly,” Sar Cyrillus ordered.

  This part
of Orbis was unrecognizable to me. Seven white cylindrical structures, arranged in no particular pattern, towered above us. They stood at least three hundred meters tall. Atop each hung three layers of enormous sails that slowly spun around each structure. Some sails lay out flat, while others turned straight up or straight down. I could not even begin to guess what these structures were built for.

  “We don’t know, either,” Madame Lee said, walking past me toward one of them. “But we’ve made good use of them.”

  Close off your thoughts! I reminded myself.

  “I’m sure you have,” Max said, her voice laced with sarcasm.

  Theodore poked Max in the sides. “We’re lucky to be alive. Can we try and stay that way?”

  The interior of the structure provided no additional clues. Beautifully crafted hollow crystal globes of every color were nestled in the walls as if waiting for something. For some reason I felt relieved that these buildings did not belong to Madame Lee.

  “They will,” Madame Lee said.

  Toonbas, toonbas, toonbas, toonbas, toonbas . . .

  “Be careful what you think,” Max whispered to me.

  “I’m trying.”

  “Try harder,” she said.

  Deep in my mind, behind my thoughts of Ketheria’s favorite sweets, I was trying to devise a plan. How would I make contact with the virus? What if the virus wouldn’t stop? Max and Theodore kept glancing at me as if to see whether I had finally come up with something. I shrugged in response.

  Madame Lee led us down one sterile corridor after another, each containing nothing but more crystal globes. The building was completely deserted. The only noise was the clunk, whirl, clunk, zing of the Neewalker’s mechanical stilts. It was clouding my ability to think. I needed more time.

  “You’ll have all the time you need, but I don’t think your sister does, so get to work,” Madame Lee said.

  She opened a door and said, “You’ll find everything you need in here.”

  I filed into the room with my friends. Several O-dats were positioned around the room. Unlike the ones I was used to, these O-dats were attached to large computers. Max touched a few of the wires, admiring the work someone had done to put all of this in here.

  “Thank you. It’s much harder for me to monitor what people are doing on Orbis 1 than it is for our little softwire here.”

  “They should not have seen this,” Sar Cyrillus said.

  “You spy on people with this stuff?” Theodore asked.

  “Spying is such a dirty word, don’t you think? Let’s say I use it to reach out to others, shall we?” Madame Lee said as Sar Cyrillus checked each machine. “I have no problem using these computers to distract everyone when I find it necessary.”

  “You were causing the computer malfunctions,” Max said.

  “What is this obsession with details?” she replied.

  “But you didn’t cause all of them?” I asked.

  “It’s only a computer, despite what the Keepers tell everyone. It makes mistakes,” Madame Lee said. “Besides, your arrival was perfect timing. Citizens are so jumpy around softwires.”

  It was then that I realized that no one, not even Madame Lee or the Keepers, knew about the virus.

  “And just in case you’re trying to scheme up some foolish plan while attempting to block your mind with those childish candy treats —” Madame Lee flipped on a small O-dat in the corner.

  “Ketheria!”

  I ran to the screen. Ketheria was in some sort of holding cell. It resembled the one I was kept in when the Keepers were studying me.

  “Just like the one you were in,” Madame Lee said, and she tapped the screen. The image pulled back to reveal Ketheria in a single blue cell high above the ground in the Science and Research building. Almost all of the other cells were gone or hanging in disarray. I could see Ketheria look down and then start to scream when she saw the front wall of the cell blink on and off.

  “If you don’t do what I ask in — oh, say, this long” — Madame Lee motioned to Sar Cyrillus and he slapped a liquid-crystal timer on the wall next to the O-dat. The red liquid crystals began dripping into the empty reservoir below it — “then the floor of the containment cell that’s holding her up right now will begin to blink off. You remember that effect, don’t you?”

  I remembered the ceiling to my blue cell blinking off and the slopcrawler falling through and the wall going out and my sleeper sliding down —

  “Exactly,” she said, reading my mind.

  “How long is that?” Max said.

  “Just make sure it’s long enough,” Madame Lee replied.

  Madame Lee and the Neewalker went to the door.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have an army to get ready. So many things to do.” She cackled, and with that, the door closed behind her.

  “The liquid crystal is moving pretty fast,” Theodore said.

  He was right. At this rate I had less than a diam — a lot less. I rushed to the computer terminal.

  “Wait,” Max said as she opened the door. “Why didn’t they lock us in?”

  “Where would we go?” Theodore asked. “We don’t even know where we are.”

  “You watch him, Theodore. I’m going to get help.”

  “Be careful,” I said. “Don’t let anyone see you.”

  “Once I’m inside, I should still be able to hear you,” I told Theodore. “Stay and watch the door. Warn me if Madame Lee comes back.”

  “JT?” Theodore looked very nervous.

  “What?”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks, but I hope I won’t need it.”

  I pushed into the computer and felt the familiar rush of electrons across my face. I moved quickly along the network, looking for a portal out. There were more than fifty paths leading from Madame Lee’s computer array. She was a busy alien. I picked a portal at random and shot through.

  I commanded the computer to give me any information on my sister. As I traveled, several files came dashing forward. Files about her assignment to Weegin, reports to the Keepers and the Trading Council — all of them amounted to nothing more than paperwork. Not one of them mentioned Ketheria’s imprisonment in the Science and Research building. I tried to access the building’s files, but all I got was an error message.

  I turned my thoughts to the virus and tried to imagine where the little girl might choose to hide. I called up a schematic of the computer’s main structure and located the trash. She had been there once before; maybe I would find her there again.

  Getting there was easy this time, but there was no sign of the virus.

  Where is she?

  Did I really believe I would just push into the computer and find her? It happened before, I reassured myself.

  I shot through another network port, scanning every nook and cranny I could find, but she was nowhere.

  I pulled out.

  “What did you find?” Theodore asked, anxiously jumping up from the floor.

  “Nothing. I can’t find her.”

  “There’s nothing in this building, either, just more and more computers,” Max said, returning from her scouting mission. “I think Madame Lee’s gonna put them online once you’ve broken down the central computer’s defenses.”

  “Let’s just get out of here and find the Keepers,” Theodore said.

  “It’s too easy,” Max said.

  “Then let’s do it,” Theodore pleaded.

  “She’s right,” I said. “Madame Lee wouldn’t have left us here if we could just walk away.”

  I didn’t know what to do next, and time was running out for Ketheria.

  “Forget the virus, JT. Go to the Keepers. Warn them and then help Ketheria. Madame Lee has no idea what you can do,” Max said.

  I looked at the O-dat on the wall. Ketheria was stretched out on the floor. I could tell she was still crying. The crystal timer on the wall kept on dripping.

  “Go,” Max said, pointing to the sc
reen.

  “You’re right.” I sat down and pushed back into the computer.

  Back through another network portal, I called up the schematic again and located the Keepers’ grid. I pushed through as fast as I could, but it was far — a lot farther than I normally went. I could feel myself stretching very thin, and I was reminded of Theylor’s warning: Never get caught in the computer, Johnny. Your body will die. Isn’t that what they wanted, anyway? I had no choice right now. I kept pushing.

  The portal I traveled along opened onto a large cache that exposed several entrances to the Keepers’ mainframe.

  Every single one of them was locked.

  Not with a simple security device, either. Each portal was blocked with the security device that Theylor had shown me during our experiments.

  That’s why he wanted me to test it. To see if anyone could get through.

  The Keepers were waiting for me — or someone else.

  I studied the portals, but nothing Theylor had shown me had equipped me for this. I didn’t have a clue, and time was running out for Ketheria. I pulled out.

  Max and Theodore jumped up from the floor.

  “It’s no use. The Keepers must have prepared for me. They studied my ability and built a device to keep me out,” I said.

  “It’s obvious they were trying to keep someone out, but that doesn’t mean it was you,” Max said. “Besides, don’t they want you to protect it?”

  I glanced at the liquid clock next to the O-dat of Ketheria.

  “Don’t look at that,” Theodore told me.

  “I’m never going to be able to save her.”

  “Then save Orbis, JT,” Max said quickly.

  “What?”

  Max moved next to my O-dat. “What if all of this is a ploy? A ploy to keep you busy while Madame Lee and the Neewalkers march on Magna? With you out of the way, it only makes it that much easier.”

  I didn’t buy it. “I’m not that much of a threat,” I argued.

  “But a threat all the same,” Max said.

  I looked back at Ketheria.

  “Maybe this is what you’re supposed to do,” Max said.

  “What is?”

  Max said, “Maybe this is why you came halfway across the galaxy — for this very moment. To save Orbis. It might not be what you expected, but we need you right now. Everyone needs you. Don’t let Madame Lee win. That’s your purpose. That’s what you must do.”