by PJ Haarsma
Ketheria kept looking back and crying out for Nugget.
“You have to take her, JT,” Theodore said, and I hoisted her up into my arms. This only made her cry louder.
“Don’t, Ketheria,” I told her. “You’re making it harder. You’re too heavy.”
We had never been separated before our arrival on Orbis. All two hundred of us lived together on that seed-ship before the Trading Council divided us up. Until then we had never experienced the pain we felt when they took the other kids away. But things were different now. Ketheria knew, and I think she feared never seeing Nugget again.
I stayed close to Max as she navigated through every shortcut, every twist and turn, and found the only dry way out of there. Theodore adjusted our direction a couple of times. His counting had come in handy. But what do we do now? I looked back and wondered if I would have left this way with SenniUg. If something hadn’t started destroying the building, would I be leaving without my friends? And who was that screaming back there, anyway? Or rather what was that? It was like no computer I had ever entered before.
Once outside, Theodore said, “I think you should contact Vairocina, JT.”
Switzer snorted, but he looked too tired to make fun of me.
“Let’s get a little farther away first,” I said.
“But I’m tired,” Grace complained.
There was a lot of commotion in Core City. People were running, and an alarm wailed in the distance. It wasn’t Magna, that’s for sure. Core City was a small, crude metropolis bursting with activity. Trams loaded with aliens or the same battered crates I had seen at the spaceport raced from building to building. I walked past dingy trading chambers, but there were no toonbas for sale, no glowglobes, not a single place that looked like the Earth News Café. Instead, the shops were packed with tools and contraptions and things that could only have been used as weapons.
I was forced to squeeze against the wall as a transport shut tle floated down the street and then up and over a building. It carried more of those battered crates. An alien was yelling at me, but all the beeping, shouting, and roaring engines made it impossible for me to hear him.
“What’s he saying?” Max shouted.
Across a tram channel cut into the ground, I saw a concrete platform. It was dark, and no one was around it.
“Over there,” I said, pointing toward it.
We scurried across the channel and huddled under the shelter.
“Vairocina?”
“Are you kidding me?” Switzer scoffed. “We need to keep moving. Are you gonna believe this freak after he talks to some malf voice in his head?”
“Keep quiet,” Max scolded him.
For the longest time, the Trading Council and the Keepers hadn’t believed that Vairocina was real either. They argued fiercely over her existence, pointing fingers (or whatever they had) and accusing each other of sabotaging the central computer.
“Vairocina?” I said.
“Yes, Johnny Turnbull.” Vairocina’s voice echoed in my head.
“How are you?”
“I am exactly the same as I was last time we spoke,” replied the little girl. For an eternity she had isolated herself inside some sort of computer, so it was going to take a while for her to get used to communicating with other people again.
“Does anyone believe this dumbwire?” Switzer said, raising his arms in the air. “You’re just talking to yourself.” Switzer mocked me like he had on the Renaissance when he wouldn’t believe I could speak to Mother, the ship’s computer.
“Ignore him, Vairocina. He’s as dumb as he looks,” I said.
“Dumber,” Max added. Theodore snickered. Switzer took a step toward Theodore.
“Do you find something funny, split-screen?” he said to Theodore, who got very quiet. I rolled my eyes. It was getting old. Sometimes I wished Theodore would stand up to the bully.
“Maybe this will help,” Vairocina offered.
In front of me, the air bent and distorted, pulling colors from everything around us. A form began to take shape.
“How’s this?” Vairocina asked, now floating in the air in front me, no more than twenty centimeters tall. She was a six-year-old girl who looked a little like Ketheria, with her long brown hair, only Vairocina’s was lighter and did not move the same way. If you looked very close, you could even see little streams of computer code running under Varocina’s skin.
Everyone circled her.
“Wow!”
“Amazing!”
“See?” Max said, scrunching her face at Switzer.
“How did you do that?” I asked Vairocina.
“It is simple, really. I used the same program that the Trading Council members use to project their images as 3-D holograms,” Vairocina said.
Max poked Vairocina, but her finger went right through her image.
“I cannot manipulate solid objects as they can since I have no real physical form anymore,” Vairocina added.
“But this works,” I told her. “I like it.”
Everyone stared. They all knew about the computer virus that had wreaked havoc on Orbis, but they had never seen her before. Only I saw Vairocina when I pushed into the central computer.
“That’s it? That’s what was causing all those problems?” Switzer said mockingly.
“I was not the cause of all . . .” she started to argue.
“Vairocina, don’t bother. Listen to me. We’re in trouble. I need your help.”
“Certainly, I’ll contact the Keepers.”
“Don’t call the Keepers!” Switzer demanded.
“Yeah, not the Keepers,” Switzer’s sidekick, Dalton, said.
“Then who should I contact?” she asked.
“We need to tell the Keepers,” I said. “The rules . . .”
“Enough with the rules, JT,” one of the kids said.
“Was Weegin following the rules when he tried to sell us?” Switzer snapped. “Freakocina, or whatever your name is, do not tell the Keepers where we are. I have plans of my own.”
“No Keepers,” someone else murmured.
“I’m afraid you will not survive on Orbis on your own,” Vairocina protested.
“Contact Charlie,” Ketheria said.
“OK. Charlie would be good. He helped me before,” I agreed.
“I now have a code address for him, but I have no way of telling him your location. Do you know where you are?”
I looked around. “We’re near Core City,” I said. “That’s all I know.”
“I don’t think we are too far from the spaceway,” Max added.
“There are many spaceway stations, and Core City covers over twenty-four square kilometers,” Vairocina said. “Give me a moment. I will make a digital representation of where you are and download that to the terminal where Charlie purchases his passage to Orbis 2.”
“What if you get the wrong terminal?” Theodore asked.
“I won’t. I’ll monitor for his chit scan and present it then.” Her image distorted, sending shapes and colors back into the air. Then Vairocina was gone.
“That’s incredible,” Max said.
“She does look like me a little,” Ketheria said. “I like her.”
“Stupid computer tricks,” Switzer scoffed.
“Why do you always have to be so negative, Switzer?” Max asked.
“Why do you always have to defend your boyfriend, Maxine? He wanted to call the Keepers.”
“He’s not . . . oh, forget it.”
Before the argument was over, Vairocina was back. Ketheria stepped toward her.
“Hi, I’m Ketheria,” my sister said.
“Hi, I’m Ketheria,” Switzer mimicked.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ketheria,” Vairocina said, holding her hands together in a formal fashion. “Charlie Norton has been contacted. It will be the better part of a spoke before he can arrive. Is there anything else I can do?”
“Can you tell us what happened on Orbis 2, in Core C
ity?” I asked.
“Everyone is going nuts around here,” Max said.
“And I’m not sticking around to find out,” Switzer said, “C’mon Dalton, let’s leave these malfs here. Anyone else want to join us?”
I remembered when Switzer tried to rally his friends to take over the Renaissance, and lots had joined him. But this time only one other kid besides Dalton joined his side: a small boy who always looked up to him.
“That’s it? Then you’re all malfs. Good riddance,” Switzer said, and stepped out from under the concrete shelter.
“Where you going to go?” Max asked him.
“Anywhere but here,” he said, and left with Dalton and the small boy.
“They’ll be back,” Ketheria said, but I wondered. Was this the last time I would see Switzer?
“He will not get far. The Samiran has breached his crystal-cooling tank,” Vairocina said.
“What’s a Samiran?” Max asked.
“Samirans are amphibious mammals from the planet Samira, a water planet ravaged by poachers. Samirans are massive. If my calculations are correct, one Samiran would not be able to fit inside your rec room at Weegin’s World.”
“That’s huge!” Theodore exclaimed.
“What do they look like?” Max asked Vairocina.
“On Earth, they could be considered similar to an elephant or a whale but much larger.”
“We’ve never been to Earth. We don’t know what an elephant or a whale looks like,” Ketheria reminded her.
“Samirans are extremely powerful and very dangerous. The only known Samirans in captivity are on Orbis 2.”
“Why did he break the tank?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she replied. “But I’m sure it doesn’t concern you.”
I wasn’t too sure about that. Something told me that what I saw inside that strange computer had something to do with the Samiran breaching its tank. I just couldn’t figure out what.
“I’m tired,” Ketheria said.
“Yeah, and I’m hungry,” Grace added.
I looked around for something Ketheria could sit on. Some plastic piping ran along one of the building’s walls, and four metallic cylinders sat by themselves as if waiting for someone. I made a space behind them.
“We’ll wait here, Ketheria — until Charlie arrives. C’mon, you can lean against me.”
I plopped on the ground, and the other kids followed after Ketheria sat down. It wasn’t cold, but everyone huddled close anyway.
“I will monitor Charlie’s progress,” Vairocina said.
“Thank you,” I said as the particles of light dispersed, taking Vairocina with them.
The larger of Orbis’s two crystal moons pushed a dark blue shadow across the ring and over Core City. I leaned against the cylinder and wondered about Weegin. Was he dead? Did I care? I felt I should, but he tried to sell us. How many other knudniks were sold like that? Maybe I should have gone with Switzer. What was I expecting from Charlie? For that matter, what was I expecting from Orbis 2? I followed the curve of the ring up and over my head. The Rings of Orbis 2 looked different to me somehow. I felt different. I didn’t like it.
“Wake up, split-screen,” I heard Switzer say, but when I opened my eyes I saw Charlie.
“Well, don’t you bunch look like a bucket of fish outta water,” Charlie said.
“Thanks for coming, Charlie,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes.
“Don’t thank me. Thank these guys,” he said, grabbing Dalton and Switzer by their vests and holding them up for inspection. “I found them trying to sneak on a starship in the spaceport. But they decided they would rather show me where their friends were stranded. At first I thought they might be trying to escape, but I’d like to believe they’re smarter than that.” Charlie glared at Switzer.
“Traitor,” Switzer mumbled at Charlie.
“Just be thankful some Citizen didn’t find you and have you both put down for farts and giggles,” Charlie said.
Ketheria laughed, and the little boy who had left with Switzer and Dalton quietly snuck back in with the rest us.
“What should we do now, Charlie?” I asked.
“Yeah, Weegin tried to sell us,” Theodore said.
“And now we think he’s dead,” Max added.
“Well, let’s go, then. Gather up your things. Theylor is waiting,” he said.
“Theylor!” Switzer scoffed. “And you call yourself a human?”
That made Charlie frown.
“Why did you contact the Keepers, Charlie?” I asked.
“Look,” he said. “You didn’t belong to Weegin any more than you belong to me. As far as they’re concerned, you belong to Orbis. Who looks after you is merely a formality. Workers are traded between Citizens all the time on the rings.”
“Some of those aliens we saw weren’t Citizens,” Max told him.
“Understand that you have to do it their way, and it might make it a little easier. You don’t have that long before your first review.”
“Three rotations!” Dalton complained.
“There is no choice, guys,” Charlie said while looking directly at Switzer and Dalton. “You may think there is, but if they catch you, I promise you they will kill you just as easy as they would squash a bug. There are a zillion others who would eagerly take your place.”
“Pfft,” Switzer scoffed. “Let them have my place.”
“Is that what you did?” I said. “Just looked the other way? Did you just wait it out?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s not important. What’s important is that the Keepers have requested the presence of young Mr. Turnbull here,” Charlie said to everyone. “Don’t get too excited, but I smell a very important job in your future, JT. C’mon, we have to hurry. I wasted too much time dragging these bolt-heads back here.”
“I told you to just leave us,” Switzer said.
“Shhh. What important job, Charlie?” I asked. “Where are you taking us?”
“To the Samiran Caretaker,” he said.
Charlie led us to a couple of trams and piled us in. Without a word, the driver sped along a shallow channel carved through rows and rows of buildings. Tiny lights glimmered through the grimy exteriors and blended in with the stars on the sloped horizon.
I was anxious to put Core City and the events of the last cycle behind me. I was also very curious about this Samiran Caretaker and the job Charlie mentioned. I sat behind Charlie with Ketheria. I was glad I had called him now and had not listened to Switzer. What was the job? I wondered as the blackened buildings blurred against the ring. And why me? Would I get to use my softwire abilities? How important was it? Charlie turned and looked at me.
“What?” I said.
He looked down at my foot and smiled. I guess I was hitting the back of the chair a little too hard.
“Relax, we’re almost there,” he said.
After only about a kilometer, the vehicles slowed and stopped in an open stone court. I got out and stood in front of a building so massive that it blacked out the stars. It must have been at least ten times the size of Weegin’s World. Six different spacecrafts scoured the building with blinding white searchlights. The ground under my feet pulsed red while smoke from sparking construction drones drifted through the searchlights.
“Stay together!” Charlie shouted over the crackling din.
Water trickled down the soaked steps as we climbed up them to the Caretaker’s. “Do you smell that?” I asked.
“I do. It smells like those creepy tunnels where Weegin took us,” Max answered.
We followed Charlie up the wide steps and through an enormous stone archway. The corners of the building were rounded from age and the whole thing felt old to me, really old, like Magna, the city where the Keepers lived on Orbis 1. Yellowish plantlike material sprouted from the cracks that ran along the walls, and everything looked wet. Charlie inserted a crystal ID disc into a metallic device next to a do
orway so tall I couldn’t see the top of it. A thin, red beam of light sprang from the doorway and scanned Charlie and then all of us. When the light beam seemed satisfied, the two incredible doors drew apart as if they were floating in space.
Standing on the other side was Theylor. “Welcome,” he said.
“Hi, Theylor,” I said.
“Are we glad to see you,” Max said.
“Speak for yourself, malf,” Switzer whispered under his breath.
“Hello, children,” Theylor said, awkwardly opening his arms to imitate the Earth gesture of a hug. Max and Ketheria rushed the tall, two-headed alien and hugged him. Theylor smiled — both of his faces.
“Theylor?” said another familiar voice. Drapling stepped out from behind Theylor. Although he, too, was a Keeper, Drapling was not one of my favorite aliens. He always seemed to look at me with contempt. “Quite the homecoming, is it not?” he said with his left head.
“Not really,” I replied. “What . . .”
The ground shuddered violently beneath our feet, and the cavernous building echoed with thunder.
“. . . was that?” Max said, finishing my sentence.
“That was the Samiran,” Drapling said. “May we proceed?” He looked at Charlie and said, “You’re late.”
Drapling turned, and we all followed him under another archway. I tugged on Theylor’s purple robe.
“What are we doing here, Theylor?” I whispered.
“It appears you may be quite helpful to us once again, Johnny Turnbull, but we will have to see. Follow me, and please stay close together. Do not wander off, for I am afraid it may not be safe.”
We all followed Theylor deeper into the moist labyrinth. Its dampness wrapped around me like a thick, wet blanket that was impossible to get out from under. A silky sort of light rained down upon us and gathered in puddles of blue and silver on the floor. After every ninth or tenth step, the stone foundation would tremble beneath our feet.
“That one was quicker,” Theodore mumbled.
“Quit counting, malf,” Switzer said.
