Wormhole Pirates on Orbis (11 page)

“Did you see this?”

I looked in the room, but I didn’t enter. “No.”

“She’s been busy.”

I knew Ketheria wasn’t feeling well, but I couldn’t understand what would make her do this. Drawn on the walls, the floors, and even the sleepers — everywhere Ketheria could reach — were the same spirals she was doodling in the garden. There must have been thousands of them.

“I guess that’s why Charlie got her that screen,” he mumbled.

Charlie came up behind us and said, “She started right after you left.”

“What does it mean?” I asked him worriedly.

“I don’t know.”

“Is something wrong with her?”

“Nothing. She’s as fit as a fiddle.”

“What’s a fiddle?” Theodore asked.

“For such smart kids, you don’t know much about Earth, do you?”

I didn’t know much about anything anymore. I just wanted to sit somewhere and turn my brain off. I wanted everything and everyone to go away. What if Ketheria was sick, I mean
really
sick? What if she had picked up some weird alien disease that no one knew would affect humans? I mean, Ketheria ate practically everything she could fit in her mouth. Maybe it was in the food. If Ketheria really
were
sick, would anyone care? Like the Chancellor said, we were the labor caste. I’m sure there was a motto written somewhere on one of their factory walls that read:
IF THE MACHINE BREAKS, GET ANOTHER ONE.

I tried to eat, but I wasn’t hungry. I tried to read, but all I did was reread the same sentence fourteen times. I gave up and went for a walk.

I had never looked at the plants in the garden before. I had watched Charlie coax some of the more shy plants to come forward, but I never really examined them. The ring was rotating into shadow now, and the fading light was grabbing slivers of purple, red, and bright green. I saw that some plants were spiked, protecting thick flowers blooming under the thistles, while others puffed up their tentacles and wiggled in the breeze. They really were striking.

I rounded a huge tree whose surface was a golden green, its skin as smooth as any metal I’d known. I placed my palm against the trunk. The tree was cool under my touch. It stood there unresponsive to the pressure of my hand. Leaning against the tree, I wondered how long it had stood in the garden, just being a tree. Did it ever try to be a better tree? Did it ever worry about what the other trees thought about it? Was I going crazy?

I didn’t want to think that Ketheria was going crazy. I forced the thought from my head.
All she did was draw on the walls,
I told myself. But I knew this wasn’t like her. I
knew
she wouldn’t care about the exam. I should have seen that coming, but the scribbling — this was something entirely different.

I paused at a curve in the stone path. I saw Max sitting on a crystal bench just five meters in front of me. She was playing with a small plant she must have coaxed out of the bushes.

Max showed no sign of concern about the cycle’s events. At least, she didn’t appear to — but then, she never did. I liked that about her. Grace could get upset over a tear in her skin, but not Max. She was always looking for more, always ready to try something new. I watched Max brush her brown hair away from her face. That’s when she saw me. I felt my skin go hot when her eyes caught mine.

“He’s cute, isn’t he?” she said. I thanked the Universe that she hadn’t noticed I was standing there staring at her. I stepped toward her, and the plant shuffled back into the bushes.

“I don’t think it likes me,” I murmured.

“Oh, quit thinking the universe is against you.” Max made it sound like a joke, and I smiled.

“We’ll find out next cycle, won’t we?”

“And we’ll deal with it then.” Max stood up. “You know, I can’t believe Theodore beat me. He’s much smarter than I give him credit for.”

“It doesn’t bother you that the entire student body of the Illuminate hates us now?”

“Should it? Maybe now you won’t think you’re just a knudnik. You can’t tell me that you didn’t want to place well and show those Citizens a thing or two.”

She was right. I did want to beat them; I just hadn’t prepared for the consequences.
How does she know that, though?
Sometimes I think Max knows me better than I know myself.

“Were you looking for me?” she asked.

“Huh?” I muttered, distracted.

“We’re you
looking
for me?”

“Um, no. I was just going for a walk.”

“Oh, good, then, can I join you?”

“Can I say no?” I smiled, and something inside me stirred.

“Absolutely not.”

We followed the stone path to its end and picked up a dirt path that weaved its way through a patch of wild trees.

“This is a big estate,” I remarked, looking back over my shoulder.

“Aren’t you curious how Charlie got it?” she wondered. “He doesn’t talk much about it.”

“Charlie has a lot of secrets.”

“That’s normal on the Rings of Orbis.”

The dirt path came to a dead end, and we stood in front of a thick-looking wall of cut and polished boulders. We both squinted to see the top.

“Typical,” I said.

“What is?”

“This wall.” I placed my hands on the rock. “It’s no different from anywhere else. This place is just bigger and prettier, but it still has the same purpose as every other place on the rings.”

“And that is?”

“To keep us here,” I said.

“JT, you need to lighten up a little. Seriously.”

The next cycle, Ketheria followed us to the Illuminate. She acted as if nothing had happened and didn’t show a single sign of the melancholy that seemed to plague her last cycle. Needless to say, I was nervous about our reception. The first anomaly occurred the moment we arrived — Riis was not in the plaza to meet us.

I caught a group of students staring, following our every step. Another group shouted something across the plaza while pointing at us.

“Let’s get inside quickly,” I whispered.

“They’re just jealous,” Max replied.

I concentrated on my feet, trying not to look at anyone as we headed straight for the storage lockers. Riis wasn’t there, either. Instead, Dop and his misfit friends were waiting for us. Theodore’s storage bin was open and Dop was playing with a screen scroll. It was the same one that was given to Theodore in the fake ceremony held with the Chancellor. The Illuminate must have put it in the locker, like Riis said.

“How did you get in there?” Theodore demanded.

“You’re knudnik; I’m not,” was all he said.

Some of the kids went straight to their lockers in the oval foyer. I stood next to Theodore, along with Ketheria and Max. My anger was quickly connecting the neurons in my brain, igniting them one by one, but Max went first. “Why do you care how we did on that test if you know you’re so much better than us?”

Dop tossed the award into the locker and said, “Because you cheated.”

“I did not!” she pushed the words through her clenched teeth. Her fists were already balled up.

Dop pointed his willowy finger at me. “He’s a softwire. Everyone knows it. He used it to get inside the central computer and change the results. There is no other way.”

Theodore’s eyes narrowed and he stomped toward Dop, not something you would normally see Theodore do. “I answered every one of those dumb questions! In fact, they were easy. If I had more time, I would have answered them all.”

Dop and his friends laughed in Theodore’s face.

“Maybe with the help of the Softwire’s little friend inside the central computer.” Dop motioned his head toward me.

“Who told you about that?” I spoke each word slowly, trying to control my anger.

“Who do you think?”

I blinked as my mind rebooted. Riis? She wouldn’t. Why would Riis tell Dop about Vairocina? She didn’t like Dop.

“You’re lying,” I snapped.

Dop shrugged his narrow shoulders and smirked.

“You’re a creep, too,” Max said.

“What do you want, Dop?” I asked him.

“Admit that you cheated.”

“All right.”

“Uh, JT? I didn’t cheat!” Theodore’s eyes flew open.

“If you beat me at Quest-Nest. Then I’ll stand up in front of the whole Illuminate and tell everyone I cheated, but you have to win in the arena.”

A smile snaked across Dop’s face, a devilish smile that made his eyes sparkle. “I like that,” he hissed. “I will destroy you.”

“But if I win —”

“You won’t,” he boasted.

“But if I do, then you have to leave us alone, and we each want one of those things you guys wear on your neural ports,” I said, pointing to the metal device on his friend’s ear.

“A
pob
?” There was an edge of scorn to his tone.

“You can afford it.”

“Fine, I’m not going to lose.”

“One for each of us,” I repeated, motioning to everyone in the room.

Dop hesitated for a moment, but then said, “Deal. In three phases you register in the Illuminate league and I will humiliate you at the arena. Then everyone will know the truth.”

“I’ll be there.”

Dop shoved his way between us while his friends slunk behind him. Dop never stopped grinning. It was an overconfident grin, as if his quest was already accomplished. I smiled right back at him. Little did he know that I had been playing Quest-Nest since I was born.

“I don’t know about this,” Theodore whispered, even though I was sure Dop couldn’t hear us.

“He’s gonna wish he never made that challenge,” Max said.

“Thanks, Max.”

“The tap said the Illuminate league starts in three phases. We need to practice before then,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You can’t make that sort of bet, JT. I didn’t cheat,” Theodore insisted. He looked at Ketheria. “Are you gonna let him do this?”

“It’s not my decision,” she replied. “Anyway, Dop
is
nervous.”

“Why?” I asked. “Does he know we’ve played before?”

“No. It’s just that no one expected a knudnik to do so well on the placement exam. Maybe he’s worried about what else you know.”

“Don’t you wish you’d taken the test now?” I asked her.

“I’m not the one playing,” she answered.

“She’s right,” Theodore agreed. “Maybe you should use her as a partner. She was always the best at finding the bait.”

“Thanks a lot, Theodore,” Max protested.

“There’s too much at stake here. If Dop wins, everyone will think I cheated. I won’t be first anymore,” he pointed out to her.

“Dop’s not gonna win,” I insisted.

“We should practice, though,” Max said. “It has been a while.”

“That’s why we need to join the Citizens’ League,” I told her. “So we can practice.”

Theodore dropped his shoulders, threw his head back, and groaned.

“Out of the question,” Charlie said, standing near the chow synth.

“But —”

“No, JT. It’s not up for debate. You can play all you want in the school league.”

“Why won’t you let me play in the Citizens’ League?” I protested. I hadn’t expected his response. I had assumed Charlie would let us play.

“Because,” Charlie said.

“Because why?”

I stared at him incredulously, but the resolve on his face did not wane. “Because I said so.”

And that quickly, I had lost. I didn’t get it. What was he protecting me from in the Citizens’ League? I sulked my way to the sleepers, where Max was waiting with Theodore.

“What did he say?” she asked anxiously.

“He said no,” I told them. “You can start breathing again.”

Theodore let out a deep breath. His face was warning-light red. Probably from holding his breath since I went to ask Charlie.

“How will we practice?” Max asked, shaking her head.

“We’ll ask Vairocina,” I said. “She’ll help.”

Within a few moments, Vairocina displayed holographs of the arena and all procedures for starting a school game. It was almost identical to the one we played on the
Renaissance.

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Max muttered.

Theodore looked at Max but didn’t say anything. It was as if they knew something but didn’t want to say it.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” they both said.

But I could guess what they were thinking. I was thinking about it, too, but I wouldn’t dare say it out loud. If my father was who they said he was, if he really was a Space Jumper, maybe he programmed the game into Mother — but why? Were there more Space Jumpers among the adults on the
Renaissance
? Were they playing Quest-Nest to pass the time? But most of their time would have been spent in their own cryogenic sleepers. Then why would they program an elaborate game into the ship’s computer?

“Vairocina, show us the sort. There was no sort in our game. Show us how that works,” I told her.

“That’s probably because the Citizens added the sort when they began betting on the outcome. It was never part of the original design. The sort is a simple random generator, and each screen offers three selections. There are four screens, two for each tracker,” she said.

“That’s eighty-one possible game scenarios,” Theodore said.

“Not exactly,” Vairocina said. “The central computer has its own random generators to decide what to play in each stage. There are 2,554,675,200 game scenarios, to be exact.”