The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1 Read online

  “Space Jumpers have intervened only in matters of life and death. Otherwise we have only counseled with them. Putting them in control of the central computer would be a direct breach of our agreement.”

  “But Theylor, I don’t think the Council is controlling the computer. I think it’s a virus.”

  Theylor seemed confused.

  “I am sorry, Johnny, but that is just not possible,” Theylor said, shaking his heads.

  “But it’s true; I’ve seen it!”

  “When?”

  “In my dreams when I hook up to the dream-enhancement equipment, or whenever I go deep into the computer. I saw it walk straight through the security seal that you were so proud of. It didn’t even stop. I never told you because I didn’t think you would believe me.”

  “You should have spoken of this earlier. If this is true, then the council has created something that will truly threaten the existence of Orbis. If they can control the central computer, they will control us.”

  Theylor tapped on the O-dat at the table and bypassed the menu. More strange symbols formed on the screen, which I recognized as the Keepers’ language. He worked with the screen as I just sat and watched him. Finally, I broke the silence.

  “You still haven’t explained how this involves me.”

  Theylor looked up. “You can enter the computer for us and protect it from the Council, even more than a Space Jumper. You can act as our final defense.”

  I didn’t want to be involved, but this seemed like a simple task. “That’s not a big deal,” I said. “I can do it during my rec spoke.”

  In fact, I actually liked the idea of having something important to do on Orbis, and it would give me time to prove them wrong and expose the virus.

  “It’s not as simple as that,” Theylor said. “You would have to be in the computer longer than your recreational spoke.”

  “You’ll have to take that up with Weegin. I don’t mind getting out of a few work spokes.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand. We want you to live inside the computer.”

  “What do you mean? Forever? Always? Could I come out and see Ketheria?”

  “I am afraid not. Once you’ve disconnected from your physical existence, your body will die shortly after.”

  “No way, Theylor. I’m sorry, but no way.”

  Theylor just continued to look at me. I had come here because I thought he was going to help me. But something on his face told me otherwise.

  “I don’t have a choice, do I? You’re only here to warn me,” I said.

  I stared in disbelief as Theylor nodded both his heads.

  “Drapling is preparing the outline of the decree as we speak. There is talk of war, and the Keepers must move swiftly.”

  This was not happening. “What if I run away?” I asked him. “Yes, you could help me, Theylor. Please. I could escape. I’ll go far away from here. I’ll take Ketheria with me.”

  “You asked about this when you first arrived. I’m afraid if you run, the punishment would still be the same.”

  “You mean death?”

  Theylor nodded his heads again. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The café was spinning around me.

  “How long do I have?” I asked him.

  “Three or four cycles, maybe. No more than a phase, I am afraid. This should be enough time to put your affairs in order,” Theylor said.

  “My affairs!” I stood up. “This is a death sentence. You want me to go around and tell everyone good-bye? See ya later? Look me up on an O-dat every once in a while!”

  I sat back down hard. In my pocket was the makeshift locket Ketheria had given me. I pulled out the pictures of my parents and stared at their faces locked inside the organic polymer. Is this what they wanted for me? I just wouldn’t believe it.

  “I do not comprehend your level of anger,” Theylor said. “You still have your debt to pay to Orbis.”

  “With my life? No one said I had to pay with my life.”

  “You will still be able to communicate with others that connect with the computer, and you will have a rewarding life guarding the sanctity of Orbis 1,” Theylor offered.

  I put the picture back in my pocket and leaned over the table. “I hate to be the one to inform you, but I really don’t care about Orbis right now. I don’t care about you or the Keepers or the stupid deal they made with the Trading Council. I know most people around here don’t think a human is worth much, but I do. Figure something else out!”

  I stormed out of the Earth News Café and ran straight into Charlie, Albert, and Rose.

  “Whoa there, big fella. What’s the rush?” Charlie said.

  I didn’t say anything, just walked around them. Ketheria was standing behind them with Max and Theodore.

  I picked up my pace and walked through the Trading Hall. I never looked back, but I knew my friends would follow. I didn’t know if I wanted them there or not. I didn’t know anything at that moment. Nothing made sense. Nothing mattered. Everything was out of focus inside my head.

  “JT, wait up! Please!” Max yelled.

  I turned around. Albert and Rose were gone, but Charlie was with Ketheria and my friends. They stood there, with the green and blue lights from the trading chambers bouncing off the back of their heads, staring at me like I was an alien. My stomach flipped. I did not want to leave them.

  “What’s the big rush?” Max said, catching up to me.

  “Nothing. I . . . I didn’t see you there.” I swallowed hard. I did not want them to see me cry.

  “Is everything all right, son?” Charlie asked. Ketheria took my hand. I did not want to look her in the eyes.

  “Charlie showed us some really awesome places in the trading chambers,” Theodore said. “You’ve got to see them.”

  “Sure, maybe next phase.” If I’m not living in the central computer by then, I thought.

  “Are you sure you’re all right? Come on back to the café. Albert has some funny stories about Big Bertha. He spends a lot of time trying to crack those ones and zeros,” Charlie said.

  “I really just want to go home. Maybe you’re right, I’m . . .”

  Ketheria looked at me strangely. She squeezed my hand tighter.

  “What did you say?” I asked Charlie.

  “The ones and zeros, computer code — old computer code. It’s a joke. Not like the computer here on Orbis, which works with light, but, you know, like the computers back home.”

  “Some central-computer functions still use binary code,” Theodore interrupted.

  “I’m sure they do,” said Charlie, “but on Earth everything was based on ones and zeros.”

  “Like the number ten?” I said.

  “Well, a little, in the sense that a one next to a zero looks like a ten, but I mean —”

  “What are you getting at?” Max said.

  I was dumbfounded. Why hadn’t I seen this before? She had left it right in front of me.

  “The little girl in my dream. I always see the number ten,” I whispered to Max.

  “You all right, Johnny?” Charlie asked again. But my mind was going a kilometer a second. It took everything just to stand up.

  The little girl was trying to tell me something.

  At first I refused Charlie’s offer of walking us to the spaceway, but Charlie would not take no for an answer.

  “The dark brings out a whole new breed of aliens,” Charlie cautioned. “Besides, I have to take the spaceway anyway.”

  I could tell by the look on Ketheria’s face that Charlie was fibbing. All I need to do is look at Ketheria to know if someone is lying. She has a knack for smelling an untruth, but we let Charlie walk with us all the same. Besides, Max and Ketheria enjoyed his company. They loved his crazy stories about that funny town called Chicago. And I needed time to think.

  Night on Orbis is only a little darker than the day. As we walked to the spaceway, I concentrated on the stars in the deepest corner of the universe. I wondered how much longer
I would get to see them.

  “Are you thinking about the little girl in your dreams?” Theodore asked, breaking my trance. I glared at Max, who shrugged sheepishly.

  “I might have mentioned something,” she said, looking away.

  “Having bad dreams, are we, son?” Charlie asked.

  “JT thinks there is someone in the computer causing the problems, not the Keepers or the Trading Council,” Theodore said.

  “The computer would identify any foreign code and assimilate it or destroy it,” Charlie said. “The computer’s been around a helluva long time. It knows a lot.”

  “Can it know everything, though?” I asked. “I mean, could there be something it doesn’t know? Someone or something?”

  “I don’t know how,” he said.

  Charlie helped Ketheria into the spaceway. She had done it so many times now I think she only let people help her for the attention.

  “You know, Johnny, the Keepers and the Citizens have been going at it for some time. Especially the Trading Council. I don’t know of anything the computer did not catch. If there’s something or someone messing with it, it has to be one of those two,” Charlie said, as the spaceway headed toward Weegin’s World.

  “Don’t you live the other way, Charlie?” Theodore asked.

  “That’s all right, I’ve got nothing to do anyway.”

  I trusted Charlie, but something in my stomach told me he was wrong. When I was on the Renaissance, some of the kids did not believe that the computer could talk to me, and I had put up with years of abuse from people like Switzer and Dalton. It was the same thing now. I knew what I’d seen — I just needed to prove it.

  Charlie rode with us all the way back to Weegin’s World. Ketheria gave Charlie a hug before he left, and Max promised we’d come back to the café on our next rec cycle.

  “You’re gonna come, too, right?” he said to me.

  “Sure,” I told him.

  Charlie put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You may not see it right now, Johnny, but our presence here is good for mankind. There’s no way our species will survive if humans don’t head to the stars like we did. Think of us as pioneers.”

  I looked up at Charlie as he stood tall and puffed out his chest, trying to make me laugh. I wanted to tell him about how the Keepers were going to make me live inside the central computer and I would never see any of them again. I wanted to ask him if I could escape from the ring. I wanted help, but I didn’t want any more people involved.

  “Promise me you’ll come by tomorrow,” Charlie said. “For me.”

  “I will. Thanks, Charlie,” I said, and headed inside.

  We entered the first interior dome with little fanfare. As usual, our vests automatically granted us access through the door. We walked under the warm yellow light that illuminated the foyer, and crossed the walkway high above the sorting-bay floor.

  “I thought Weegin might lock us out,” Max said.

  “No, he’d just deduct chits from us,” Theodore said.

  None of it mattered to me anymore.

  Max tapped on the control panel that activated the energy beam that served as the walkway. The blue light beam shot across the sorting bay and connected to the other side. Even at this late hour the robotic cranes continued to work as we crossed.

  That’s when I heard a scream.

  “What was that, JT?” Theodore asked. Ketheria snuggled close to me.

  “I think it was Weegin.”

  “Look,” Max said, pointing up several levels to Weegin’s office, perched high above the factory.

  “He’s not alone,” I said.

  I could see Weegin’s silhouette through the office glass. Three other figures stood next to him. One held Weegin up as he kicked his feet in the air. The shapes of the other figures were undeniable.

  “That’s a Neewalker with him,” Max said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Max and Ketheria both started back across the walkway.

  “We can’t,” I said, and moved toward the elevator shaft.

  “Johnny, this is not our fight. Let Weegin handle his own shady deals,” Theodore said.

  “It’s my fight, too, I’m afraid. More than you know. The ring is in trouble, and whether I like it or not — whether we like it or not — I have to help him,” I told them. “Maybe you can take Ketheria back to her room.”

  “You don’t know that this has to do with the central computer, JT. Weegin could be up to no good all on his own,” Max said.

  “She’s right,” Theodore added.

  I looked at Ketheria, but she shook her head. I knew that whatever Weegin was up to somehow involved me.

  “The whole time we were on the Renaissance, I dreamed about living on Orbis. I thought of nothing else. But we don’t have a hope of making a good life here unless I can prove there’s a virus in the central computer. The Citizens and the Keepers are convinced it’s each other, and they’re willing to take extreme measures to prove it.”

  “What extreme measures?” Theodore asked.

  “I’m going to do this with or without you,” I said.

  “No. If you go, we all go,” Max said, and Theodore nodded.

  With a deep breath and a lot of apprehension, I headed for the elevator door.

  None of us had ever used Weegin’s elevator or entered Weegin’s office before. We tried to be as quiet as possible, but the elevator screeched as it lifted us to Weegin’s level. If we had hoped for an element of surprise, we had definitely lost it.

  “I don’t like this, JT,” Max said.

  “Me neither, but when that door opens, get ready to duck under the stilts of the Neewalkers. That will give me enough time to access the chip and knock them over.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Max said.

  “No, I’m not.”

  Theodore kept mumbling as he stared at the door.

  “What are you doing?” Max asked him.

  “He’s counting,” I said. “It calms him down.”

  “Counting what?” she asked.

  “My heartbeats,” he replied.

  The elevator rose at a deathly slow pace, centimeter by centimeter. When the door finally disappeared, Ketheria panicked. She grabbed my vest and yanked me to the back of the lift. She got in front of me and punched at the controls.

  “Ketheria, I have to,” I said, trying to calm her, but it was no use. She was frantically trying to get the elevator to go back down.

  “Ketheria?” Max said.

  “Look, no one is there,” I said when the lift stopped, but that didn’t stop Ketheria. She would not let me leave the elevator.

  “Ketheria, I must do this now. C’mon — please,” I said as I fought her off and headed for Weegin’s office.

  A familiar sound came from behind us.

  I turned to find Sar Cyrillus poised with a large ion rifle aimed right at us.

  “Surprised?” he asked.

  I immediately accessed the chip that controlled Sar Cyrillus’s mechanical legs.

  “Don’t bother, Softwire. You can only do that to us once.”

  He was right. I immediately encountered a blocking device that would take some time to figure out.

  “Get your dirty little mind out of my computer chip,” he said, shifting toward us. “And get a move on.”

  Sar Cyrillus motioned toward the office with the giant weapon that extended from his right arm. No one argued, and I took the lead.

  I reached for the door to Weegin’s office, and Ketheria tugged my arm again.

  “I know. Stay close,” I said. I looked at her. She shook her head very slowly, almost as if she was trying to tell me she was sorry — for what, I didn’t know.

  “No, it’s my fault, Ketheria. Maybe I should have listened.”

  The door disappeared.

  “It’s about time. I didn’t know Weegin let his chattel stay out so long. I would not have come so early,” a familiar voice said from the shadows.

  Madame Lee stepp
ed out from the corner of Weegin’s office.

  “You?” I stared at Madame Lee. Her jet-black skin and pure white hair were a stark contrast to knobby little Weegin, who hung in the air, thanks to the meanest-looking Neewalker I’d ever seen. Another Neewalker stood in the corner.

  “Don’t look so surprised. I might be offended,” she said, pushing a braid behind her long, thin ears.

  Ketheria moved behind me, trying to stay out of Madame Lee’s sight. Madame Lee set her piercing silver pupils on Theodore.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, and she snuck a peek at Ketheria. When Madame Lee moved closer to Theodore, Ketheria moved behind Max.

  “I’m Theodore.”

  “Yes, you are, and you’re wishing you hadn’t invited yourself on their little excursion, aren’t you?”

  “How did you know?” he said.

  “I know a lot of things.”

  Sar Cyrillus grew impatient. “Get on with this,” he growled, and Weegin squirmed in the hands of the ugly Neewalker.

  “Put me down,” he demanded.

  “Be quiet, worm,” Madame Lee snapped.

  I tried to push into the computer chips of the other Neewalkers, but they were also using the blocking device.

  “Poor child,” Madame Lee said, obviously knowing what I was trying to do. “Do you think the Trading Council succeeds without any defense against those Space Jumpers and that nasty little habit of yours? How could we do our business if we didn’t know how to shut those meddling creatures out of our computers?”

  “Why are you trying to destroy the central computer? It’s only going to ruin Orbis,” Max demanded.

  Madame Lee let out a deep breath. “Oh, ignorant little one. We are not destroying the computer; the Keepers are. They’re greedier than we are, if you can believe that.”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Well, they are. They want those beautiful moons all to themselves, and I will not allow that. Were it not for that idiot Trefaldoor, everything would be mine by now.”

  “Boohral?” I said.

  “Yes, that oversize, bloated yellow do-gooder. How can a Trefaldoor be expected to do business for us? Trefaldoors, poor things, are biologically unable to lie, and lying is essential to our success.” She grinned.

  “So is killing,” Max said, but the comment didn’t even faze Madame Lee. She smiled at Ketheria. A knowing smile I couldn’t figure out.