The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1 (2 page)

“Why me? Why didn’t you get one of your friends to help?”

She was being polite. She knew I had only one friend on the
Renaissance,
and Theodore was too shy to do anything as
irregular
as this.

“If you can’t get at them, I figure no one else can,” I told her.

Max smiled. “You’re definitely right about that,” she said. “Now stand back and let me see why this computer is being so stubborn.”

Max pulled a thin folded piece of material out of her pocket. She slapped it on the wall next to my display and tried to smooth out the wrinkles.

“Where did you get that?”

“I made it.”

“You made it?”

“Well, actually, I took apart one of the O-dat displays. I only wanted the organic polymer, anyway,” she said.

“What’s it for?”

“Mother’s always destroying any little patch or workaround I make. This keeps them private.”

“Oh. Will that help?”

“It should,” she said, and pulled her brown hair into a ponytail before attacking the display. Whenever I watched her on the
Renaissance,
Max was always trying to be one of the boys, but it isn’t hard to tell Max is a girl: she’s very pretty. I’d never let her hear me say it, though.

I watched her work on the display. Everyone liked Max. She never stuck with one group of kids. Instead she liked to get involved in everyone’s business. Not like me. Besides Theodore and Ketheria, I wasn’t much for groups.

“What are you doing?” Mother asked.

“I need those restricted files,” I answered.

“I’m sorry, Johnny. If you continue, I will shut down this terminal,” Mother warned.

“Keep going,” I whispered to Max.

“Johnny?” Mother said.

“Fine, Mother, we’ll stop.”

But I motioned to Max to keep going. “Hurry,” I whispered.

Max was typing frantically into the terminal when the power went off.

“Darn,” I said. But Max flashed a devilish grin. She removed a small gold disc from the terminal.

“Can Mother hear me?”

“No,” I said.

“Good. I couldn’t crack it, but I did create a hyperlink on a memory disc. The files are not actually copied, but I can find them quickly from a remote location,” Max said. “I made a mirror image on this disc that links back to your parents’ restricted files. As long as the
Renaissance
stays parked on Orbis 1, we should have fun hacking in from any terminal on Orbis.” Max stood there smiling, with her hands on her hips.

“What if there are no computers on Orbis?”

Max frowned. “Of course there are.”

I cradled the disc in my fingers. This was the only thing on the ship that was of any importance to me. The rest I could leave: the
Renaissance
was not my home anymore.

“That’s it, then,” I said. “I’m all packed.”

During our study sessions on the
Renaissance,
Mother made sure we knew everything we could about what was going to be our new home. We knew that Orbis is a system of four rings: Orbis 1, 2, 3, and 4. Our destination was Orbis 1.

I knew that each ring is 9,848 kilometers in circumference and 32.82 kilometers wide. These rings maintain their position around the massive wormhole by floating at the natural Lagrange points created by the moons, Ki and Ta. I pictured them as giant Ferris wheels, just like the ones I’d seen in the history archives from Earth. Only these are much bigger and float in space.

We also learned what little was known about the alien civilization that first discovered the wormhole. This fold in space brought the Ancients, as they are now called, from their galaxy to the moons of Orbis ninety thousand years ago. The Ancients built the rings to stabilize the wormhole and harvest the lucrative energy crystals discovered deep within the moons. Ki and Ta were the only things left behind after the wormhole formed and swallowed up everything in its path.

But no one owns the rings. The alien race that created them mysteriously disappeared more than sixty thousand years ago. Mother attempted to teach us about their understanding of the universe in our studies — odd stuff about cosmic energy and nodes — but most of it I never understood. The Ancients also believed that any choice we made affected the entire universe. Somehow I doubted that whatever I did could affect someone on Orbis, much less in another galaxy somewhere.

The four rings, the wormhole, and the two moons are now governed by a race of alien philosophers known as the Keepers. The Keepers worship the Ancients, but the teachings of the Ancients are actually protected by incomprehensible creatures called Nagools. They were even more confusing to me, and I usually fell asleep during that part of my studies.

The Keepers now monitor all travel through the wormhole and create the rules of Orbisian society. Only they can grant someone citizenship on the rings. The Trading Council, elected by the First Families after the War of Ten Thousand Rotations and approved by the Keepers, controls the economy on the rings. They must also provide for the Keepers. In return, the Keepers do not seek economic power or exert control over the Citizens’ business dealings. Their only concern is to maintain the well-being of Orbis and to protect the sanctity of the rings in hope that the Ancients may one day return. They’re still waiting.

Once the Rings of Orbis came into view, normal activity on the seed-ship stopped. Mother tried to get us to continue with our studies, but the atmosphere was that of Birth Day, and everyone just did what they wanted. Most of the children sat in the observation tube staring at the rings, while others played games like Ring Defender or Diggum in the contest tank.

I watched as Ketheria played Quest Nest with her friends. In Quest Nest, partners searched for each other in a multidimensional maze, or nest, as we called it. Once they found each other, the pair had to get out through the maze, but the maze would always change. Mother would also throw in a few surprises from the interactive 4-D walls. The first pair out won.

This game Mother almost caught Ketheria with a crazed frontier pilot, but Ketheria hit him squarely in the head with an immobility cube. I always preferred dropping Mother’s little surprises with the alien plasma gun, but not Ketheria. She emerged from the maze victorious.

“Way to go, Ketheria!” I shouted as Theodore came and sat next to me.

“JT, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said.

Theodore was the same age as me. Actually, half the kids on the ship were the same age as me. After the adults died, the computer’s emergency program decided when the time was right for the embryos to be born. Half the children on the ship shared one Birth Day, and the other half, including my sister, all shared another.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Didn’t you see the message? On the O-dats?”

“A message?” Mother would have mentioned a message to me. “What does it say?” I got up and went straight to the first display I could find.

“Same message, one thousand two hundred and twelve times.”

“You checked every display?”

Theodore shrugged. He likes to count things. Why? I don’t know. He doesn’t talk with too many people, so I figure he does it to keep himself busy and away from —

Switzer shoved me aside and grabbed the display. “Get away from that,” he barked at us, and read the screen. “Delivery? What do they mean, ‘delivery’?”

His best friend, Dalton, stood guard, scowling at us while Switzer pored over the message. Dalton was a digital copy of Switzer, only not as sharp.

“It says they’re sending someone to greet us and prepare us for our
delivery,
” Switzer said. “I don’t like the sound of that.” He spun the display away and elbowed past me. “Get out of the way, split-screen.”

Theodore watched as they left the tank. “It took him thirty-six words before he insulted us. He’s getting slow.”

But I didn’t care. Someone from Orbis had finally contacted us. This was exciting. I turned the screen back toward myself and read the entire message:

“Delivery?” I said. “That is an odd choice of words.”

“We’re lucky they know our language,” Theodore said.

“It’s awesome, isn’t it? You don’t know how many questions I have. I can’t wait to get some answers.”

Theodore pointed at the screen. “It says we’re to be ready in two cycles.”

A cycle is like a day on Earth, only a few hours shorter. “Four diams make a spoke; four spokes make a cycle; four cycles make a phase; four phases make a set; ten sets make a rotation.” Theodore and I recited the Orbisian year in unison: something Mother had drilled into our brains since birth.

When the cycle finally arrived, I was pressed against the glass of the observation tube. The
Renaissance
dwarfed the tiny craft of the alien who was coming to welcome us to Orbis. Our seed-ship was large enough to hold forty-five hundred people for up to three hundred years. Except now it barreled through space with a passenger list of only two hundred children, and every last one of us was in the tube.

I was so excited, I couldn’t even breathe. The alien’s vessel silently docked with ours, and we scrambled to the docking bay. I ducked under Switzer’s arm and raced down the maze of corridors. I needed to be there first. My skin prickled from the cool air of the portal, and I swallowed hard, finally allowing myself to breathe. I wanted to know everything about my new home — all the great things about the Rings of Orbis.

Then, for the first time in 253 years, the seal on the entry door hissed open. Rancid-smelling steam stung my nostrils, and I covered my nose. Over my hand I could see a slender, hooded creature dressed in a soft purple robe moving toward us. He ducked to pass through the entry — the alien must have been close to three meters tall — then pulled his hood back to reveal his translucent blue complexion. His eyes were like marbles without eyelids — all four of them.

The alien had two heads.

“Hello, I am the Keeper known as Theylor,” said the alien’s left head as he bowed slightly but never stopped looking at us.

“I have attempted to learn your Earth language to assist in your delivery,” Theylor’s right head said. “That way we can understand one another until you receive your implants and the translation codec,” Theylor’s left head continued, finishing the thought.

Theodore, who was next to me by now, whispered, “Implants? Translation codec? What’s he talking about?”

I didn’t respond. I just shook my head and stared at the alien. This was the first time I’d ever seen a being other than a human. It took a moment to sink in. Each of Theylor’s heads was long and bald, and his skin looked as thin as a silicon wafer. I looked around. I wasn’t the only one staring. We were all gaping at the Keeper. Finally, one of the younger kids spoke.

“Why do you have two heads?” she asked the alien.

“Why do you have only one?” both heads replied, smiling.

“I only need one.”

“Well, I need two. That way I can see everything that is going on around me. My work on Orbis is very important, you know.”

Theylor’s two heads might take some getting used to.

“I am here to answer any questions you may have and prepare the seed-ship for docking,” he continued.

The shock of the Keeper’s appearance was immediately replaced with the desire to know more about Orbis. I wasn’t the only one with questions. The docking bay erupted in a chorus of voices.

“Please, children, one at a time,” Theylor pleaded. “Maybe we can move to a more comfortable area?”

“We can go to the rec room,” I offered.

Theylor looked at me for what seemed to be an unusually long time. I looked at Theodore. He was looking at Theylor looking at me. So was Switzer. I didn’t like that. Theylor’s gaze was cold, as though he wasn’t just
looking
at me but seeing right inside me. I rubbed the back of my neck as the alien stared.
Why is he singling me out?
I thought. Maybe he didn’t understand what I said.

“I’ll show you,” Switzer interrupted, but Theylor never stopped looking at me.

“Lead the way, please,” he finally said, and Switzer elbowed his way past me.

That was fine with me.
Let Switzer take the lead,
I thought, and I slipped back into the crowd. In the rec room we all surrounded the Keeper, but I hung back. Suddenly, I didn’t have very many questions to ask the Keeper.

“What will my room be like on Orbis?” Switzer asked.

“Room? Things are different on Orbis, different from how they have been on your seed-ship. We have tried our best to imitate the life you are used to until you assimilate to life on Orbis.”

“Are there other children?” Max asked.

“The Citizens have children. Some species, however, have different cultures and different manners in which they handle their offspring. You will discover all of them during your stay on Orbis 1.”