The Softwire: Betrayal on Orbis 2 Read online

  “Told you,” Theodore said.

  “Here, you do it,” Max said, holding it out to me. “Do the push thing,” Max said. She knew very well I could sneak into hard drives, network arrays, light drives, anything to do with a computer.

  I was about to push into the scroll when an alarm went off. I looked up and saw the field portals at the top of the outer metal dome sparkle to life and begin to fade away. Could a cargo shipment really be arriving? I wondered. Nothing had come through those portals in over a phase. I stood next to Theodore and watched as the robotic cranes warmed up by stretching out their huge tentacles. But before they were in position, a small metal crate was thrust through the opening. It dropped from the sky like a meteor, right toward my sister.

  “Ketheria, watch out!” I yelled and leaped forward, catching my sister’s arm and yanking her aside.

  “You all right?” Max questioned her.

  Before she could answer, Weegin burst from his office and scurried down onto the sorting-bay floor.

  “This has to be it. It has to be,” he said, rubbing his three-fingered hands together.

  “What has to be it?” Switzer said, inspecting the metal projectile.

  “Shut up. Get back, you imbecile. Move away from here,” Weegin scolded him.

  Switzer simply stepped aside, scowling, but that didn’t stop me from creeping forward. What was in the crate? I wondered.

  “I said get out of here!” Weegin snapped before I could get close. “All of you. I’m deducting one chit for not listening.” He used his small body to shield the contents of the crate. Nugget scrambled next to his father, but Weegin only pushed him aside.

  “How can you deduct chits? You haven’t paid us for a whole phase,” Switzer protested.

  Weegin ignored him and attached a thick data cable into his own neural port. He glanced over the ragged nubs on his shoulders to make sure none of us could see him tap an access code into the O-dat. Satisfied with Weegin’s entry, the crate hissed open and Weegin jammed both fists inside the container. Quickly, he pulled out an unmarked plastic box and clutched it to his chest. His eyes darted over each of us without looking at anyone in particular. Then he grinned and raced off toward the lift. If Weegin still had wings, I’m sure he would have flown.

  “I wonder what was inside,” I said, walking over to the empty carcass Weegin had left behind.

  “Nobody is to disturb me!” he shouted from the second floor as the latest messenger drone slammed into the closing office door.

  “Never mind the crate, JT,” Max said. “What does this scroll say?”

  “Oh,” I said, looking at the screen scroll still in my hands. I pushed into the scroll, and the message instantly appeared in my mind’s eye as if an O-dat was mounted inside my forehead. I read it aloud.

  Joca Krig Weegin,

  As previously arranged by Keeper decree, the labor force of human beings is to be transferred to work duty on Orbis 2. Since all business for Joca Krig Weegin has been forfeited on every ring of Orbis, you are called upon to surrender your humans for immediate relocation.

  CENTER FOR IMPARTIAL JUDGMENT AND FAIR DEALING

  “Weegin has to give us back,” I said, glancing up at his office.

  “He’s not going to like that. We’re the only valuable thing he has right now,” Max said.

  “This is not good. I feel it,” Ketheria muttered.

  I looked over at Theodore, who was rummaging through the discarded shipping crate. He froze, his eyes widening. “And I think it just got worse,” he added.

  “A replicator?” Max said, glancing up from the instruction screen Theodore had found in the crate.

  “Where did he get it?” Theodore asked.

  “Probably in some corrupted corner of the universe,” I replied.

  “What good is it going to do him?” he said.

  “He’s going to try to replicate things: yornaling crystals, chit cards, ID scans — anything of value that he can fit into the machine. A gadget like that will get him into a pile of trouble by the Center for Forbidden Off-Ring Materials,” Max explained. “Citizens call the stuff F.O.R.M.”

  “How do you know all this?” Theodore questioned her.

  “It’s all in the central computer,” she replied. “There’s a kabillion things that are forbidden on Orbis, especially a replicator.”

  Switzer snatched the electronic paper from Max’s hand.

  “So what can it do?” Switzer asked, trying not to sound interested.

  “It will make Weegin a very wealthy alien if he starts replicating crystals. That’s why the machines are forbidden,” Max told him, and snatched the instructions back. She wandered toward the rec room, poring over the replicator’s diagrams. Theodore and I followed.

  Inside the rec room, Ketheria was sitting against the glass wall that led to the fake courtyard. Nugget sat next to her.

  I moved to the far side of the room, away from anyone that could hear me. “Vairocina.” I whispered for my friend. She was the little girl I had found inside the central computer. No one on Orbis had believed me when I told them something was inside their computer, but together she and I saved Orbis from an attack by Madame Lee. Now she lives inside their enormous mainframe helping the Keepers protect the Rings of Orbis. My ability as a softwire lets me contact Vairocina by simply calling out her name. She usually responds in an instant if she is monitoring the same frequency the central computer uses to translate all the different alien languages.

  “Yes, JT?” she said inside my head. I turned my back to the others.

  “Is it hard to get a replicator on Orbis?”

  “A replicator is a F.O.R.M. item,” she said. “Not only is it impossible; it is very illegal. Someone of your status should not be looking for such an item, JT. I am afraid the Keepers would not be very kind if they caught you with a F.O.R.M. item.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’m not looking for one.”

  “Who you talking to?” Theodore whispered. I hadn’t seen him come up behind me.

  “Good-bye, JT,” she said inside my head.

  “Vairocina,” I told him.

  “A game of Ring Defenders?” Theodore said, and plopped on a nearby foam lounger.

  “Why not?” I replied as he started the game.

  “What were you talking to her about?”

  “Replicators,” I told him.

  “I’ve been thinking about those, too. I wonder what Weegin plans to do with his.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, think about it. He can make anything he wants. If you had a replicator, what would you do?” he asked me, leaning in.

  “I don’t know, but you just lost a whole fleet with that move.”

  “C’mon, there must be something you want.”

  “I want a lot of things, just not a replicator,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, I want to work, you know. To do something useful around here. Prove to these people that I’m worthy of Citizenship. But I want it to be something I choose; maybe use my softwire. Weegin certainly hasn’t taken advantage of it. I also want my parents’ files back, but I know that will never happen. I want to know why we’re here. I want answers,” I said, a little worried that I was preaching again. “I don’t think a replicator can make any of those for me, Theodore.”

  Theodore was staring at his feet when he said, “You know what I want?”

  “What?”

  “I want a Space Jumper’s belt so I can jump off this ring,” he whispered.

  I just stared back at him. He was serious. Theodore had never spoken like that before. He always just did as he was told. He had never once talked about escaping.

  “Do you think I could do that?” he asked.

  “If anyone could just jump, why doesn’t everyone do it, then?” I said.

  “I think you just need practice.”

  “I don’t know, Theodore. They have to be illegal for more reasons than that. And besides, you kno
w what the penalty is for trying to escape.”

  “If you were a Space Jumper . . .”

  “I’m not, Theodore.”

  “But Madame Lee said your father . . .”

  “She was lying,” I told him.

  Theodore didn’t say anything else about the belt. He just looked out the window at the holographic garden. We sat in silence, and I caught Switzer staring at us. He must have listened to our entire conversation.

  That night the dream-enhancement equipment of my sleeper steered me toward the crystal moons of Orbis, glowing bright purple and orange against the empty void of space. But just as I was about to touch down on Ki, I was ripped from my dream. I awoke to find Weegin standing over me, thumping his fist on the lid of my sleeper. His beady red eyes glowed brighter than the moons in my dream, and his raspy breath stank of burnt hair.

  “Weegin, what’s the matter?” I asked him, trying to focus.

  “It doesn’t work,” he growled. The crevices in his face appeared deeper than normal, and there were dark crimson circles around his eyes.

  “What doesn’t work?” I whispered.

  “It doesn’t work. Get up.”

  “Weegin, are you all right?”

  “Get up now. You must make it work,” Weegin pleaded, almost out of breath as he shoved the lid of my sleeper back into the wall.

  I did as I was told and slid off my sleeper.

  I followed my Guarantor through the darkened sorting bay in my plastic pajamas. The robot cranes slouched over us as I trudged behind Weegin toward his private lift. It was the same lift I’d taken with Ketheria, Max, and Theodore the night Madame Lee stole my sister and forced me into the central computer to destroy the Keepers’ security devices.

  “Weegin, have you slept?” I asked the alien after he stumbled into the lift. He was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

  “No time. No time,” he mumbled.

  The door to the lift disappeared, and Weegin paused for me to exit. A trail of stench led me to his glass cubicle. We had left the Renaissance in complete disorder, but then we were kids. Weegin’s office was littered with unanswered screen scrolls piled everywhere, and it looked as if Nugget had clawed or chewed every single item in the place. I was shocked at the mess and searched for the smell that was coaxing the dinner tablet from my stomach. Then, in the far corner I saw it. It was another larva that Weegin must have been nursing. Only this one was dead.

  In the center of all the garbage sat the replicator. It looked simple enough: a shiny metallic cone inverted over a small, black circular base. On the base sat a glowing blue dish. The whole thing stood just taller than my knees. Weegin stumbled next to it and placed a small crystal on the dish.

  “Make it work,” he ordered.

  “I don’t know, Weegin. Maybe Max should . . .”

  “Make it work!” He screamed so loud I jumped back. Weegin dropped to his knees and caressed the peculiar piece of metal.

  I moved closer and knelt next to Weegin. I scanned the device for a chip or any computer device I might be able to manipulate. But there was nothing — just some simple circuits that worked the lights. Basically the inside was empty. Weegin had been scammed. He’d purchased a dud.

  “Weegin, I don’t . . .”

  “You’re all I have. You have to make it work.” The alien was begging now.

  “But . . .”

  “I’ll give you ten percent of everything I replicate. You must!”

  “Weegin, it’s not . . .”

  “Fine, then, half! Half of everything,” Weegin said spitefully.

  “It doesn’t work, Weegin. The replicator’s a fake.”

  Weegin just stared at me. His face shifted under his tough, wrinkled skin, and if he possessed any emotions, I mean real emotions of sorrow, he was fighting desperately to hold them back now.

  “Don’t you want to stay with Weegin?” he said, almost whimpering. “Don’t you want to stay at Weegin’s World?”

  I hesitated. I shouldn’t have, but I wasn’t good at lying. Weegin was no telepath, but he read my mind at that veryinstant.

  “Fine,” he said, and his tone grew meaner. “There are worse out there than me.” Weegin stood up. Any emotion on his face now turned to anger and mistrust.

  “Weegin, I read the screen scroll from the Keepers. I’m sorry. I know you have to give us back.”

  “Not if you make this work.”

  “But I can’t.”

  “You’re worthless!” Weegin said, and kicked the replicator. It flew across the room and shattered against the wall.

  “Weegin . . .”

  “You owe me!” he shouted so loud it could have woken the dead larva.

  “Owe you what?”

  “Get everyone up. Bring every child to the recreation room,” he said. His voice was firm and filled with a dark determination.

  “Why?”

  “Do as you are told!”

  “Please, tell me what you’re doing.”

  Weegin moved to the edge of his office and looked out over what was left of his business.

  “The scroll said I had to take you back, right?” he said.

  “Yes . . . ,” I replied.

  “But it didn’t say when, did it?”

  “Well, I think it said immediately.”

  “Fine, then. We leave tonight,” Weegin said.

  Was I really worthless? Was Weegin right? What was I doing on the Rings of Orbis? I was glad to be leaving Weegin’s World. Surely there had to be some purpose for me on the rings. I was eager to see what the Keepers had in store for me. I mean, I had helped them avert a war against all those Neewalkers. And it was me who set them up with Vairocina. Maybe they would reward me with an important job — one that didn’t lock me inside the central computer but that proved I was capable of more than sorting trash.

  I was still fantasizing about my new job by the time everyone gathered in the rec room. All twenty of us huddled in different groups, chatting, as we waited for Weegin.

  Max turned to me and whispered, “Theodore said the replicator was a fake.”

  “Just a shell,” I told her.

  “What’s he going to do now?”

  “I don’t care. Anything’s better than this place,” Switzer said, and sprawled himself on a lounger. “I’m glad we’re leaving.”

  Secretly, I couldn’t help but agree with him.

  “Trip! Time for trip!” Nugget shouted as he entered the room, followed slowly by Weegin.

  Weegin’s shoulders drooped as he walked toward us. His eyes were half closed, and he shuffled more than walked. He mumbled, “Is everyone here?”

  “Yes,” Switzer said.

  “Weegin, why —” Max started to ask.

  But Weegin snapped at her. “Enough with your questions. Grab your stuff and follow me.”

  Nugget spun on his heels shouting, “Time for aucti —!” But Weegin clipped him in the back of the head with his walking stick. “Shut up, you annoying little runt!”

  Nugget frowned, rubbing his bald head as he retreated back toward Ketheria.

  “What was he gonna say, Weegin?” I asked. “Where are we going?”

  “I said move!”

  “But wait . . .”

  “Wait! Wait! You have no right to tell me to wait.” Weegin was no longer slumping. “You are still in Weegin’s World. You still belong to me,” Weegin said, thumping his chest with his fist. “You will do anything I tell you. Now move!”

  “Come on, Weegin,” Switzer said, pushing his way up next to him. “I got my stuff. I’m ready to put this place behind me.”

  Weegin looked at Switzer. He lifted his chin slightly, but he did not get angry. He simply stood there, trembling. Then he looked around at each one of us.

  “Come on, Weegin. Don’t go soft on me now,” Switzer said.

  “Shut up,” Max said.

  “Weegin?” I nudged him.

  “I have no choice. You have no choice. It is in the hands of the Keepers n
ow.”

  Weegin slumped once again and shuffled toward the door.

  “Move! Follow!” Nugget shouted.

  I followed my Guarantor across the sorting-bay floor and out of Weegin’s World. I admit I was very excited, even though I didn’t have a clue where I was going.

  The trip on the spaceway lasted long enough for me to realize just how much my feelings for Orbis had changed in one rotation. On the Renaissance I couldn’t wait to land and start my new life. Even when I learned I would be forced to work to pay off my parents’ debt, I still believed there was a better life for me on the Rings of Orbis. I clung to the fact that my parents must have known what they were doing, even if I didn’t understand why. They chose to come to Orbis. No one forced them. Yes, it was a complete malfunction that I had to slave away for a bunch of ungrateful aliens, but what choice did I have? I couldn’t escape. Switzer tried that on the Renaissance and failed. If I tried and failed here on Orbis, they would put me to death. I could never take that risk because I wouldn’t even try to leave without Ketheria, and I would never risk Ketheria’s life like that.

  So I put all my focus on Orbis 2. At least I was going back to the Keepers now, and I liked the Keepers. Well, I liked Theylor anyway. Despite the fact he had wanted to stick me inside the central computer forever. It wasn’t his idea, I told myself. He tried to warn me. I trusted Theylor.

  “Get up!” Weegin barked at us once the shuttle docked.

  “You think you’re gonna miss him?” Theodore snickered.

  “Like a foot in my face,” I whispered.

  We followed Weegin into the spaceport while Nugget ran about pushing us all together with his big snout.

  Whenever I thought of the spaceport that shuttled passengers to and from the Rings of Orbis, my mind was always filled with images of exciting journeys to faraway stars. It had been a while since I’d been here, but I vividly remembered the wonder and awe I felt the first time I walked across that vast polished floor. Back then I really believed that anything could happen and I could be whoever I wanted to be on Orbis.