Wormhole Pirates on Orbis (19 page)

“But wait!”

The door reappeared, and we were standing behind the counter with our new helmets.

“I like him,” Ketheria said.

“Really? I thought he was strange.”

“Wonderfully strange,” she replied.

“We should practice with the scope if we’re going to play together,” Theodore insisted, after I asked him to be my new partner for Quest-Nest. I didn’t know if he was excited to play or excited to get on the tetrascope.

“We don’t need it,” I told him.

“Yes, we do. You don’t understand. You can
think
what they think. If you want to know how they choose the sort, scope them. Find out what they are afraid of, what they try to avoid. We need this, JT.”

It didn’t seem fair knowing that much about your opponent. What good was the sort, then, if you knew what everyone was going to do?

“No,” I said. “We can play without it.”

Theodore let out a deep breath and dropped his shoulders. His knuckles were almost dragging on the ground, he looked so low. “Fine,” he mumbled. “We’ll do it your way.”

We went to the arena on the very next spoke. Theodore chose to be the bait only after complaining that without scoping our opponents first, he wouldn’t know what to do with the sort. I agreed, so I was the tracker. The arena was filled since everyone knew Max and Ketheria were playing right after us and a lot of the Citizens had placed side bets on the girls. Charlie came to watch and said he was impressed with the turnout. He told us that sometimes they didn’t get this many spectators at an Illuminate game.

I recognized one of our opponents, a girl, from the Illuminate. The other, a male, I had never seen before. When I slipped my helmet on in the ready room, I worried who was poking around inside my head. I checked every thought twice, worried about what people could see. It was very distracting. I needed to get first choice in the sort because I knew my opponent did not breathe oxygen. She would try to go for
GAS
, and I wanted to block it. I also wanted to find an easy course because this was Theodore’s first game. He chose to scope most matches instead of playing.

As I feared, I did not get to play the sort first and my opponent chose
GAS
, as I predicted. I then chose
MECHANIC
, to push the game toward a version of Ring Defender that I knew Theodore was good at. The game began, and I battled opponents in the air using a slick flying machine while trying to defend the bait from attack. It should have been an easy win, but since Theodore had no practice with the real game, he was clumsy and made some beginner mistakes. I couldn’t blame him. I had made similar blunders when I first played Ceesar.

Despite my efforts, we still lost.

“I told you we should have scoped them,” he complained in the stands after the match.

“You just need practice in the real game,” I argued with him.

The match with Max and Ketheria was about to start. A big alien, a Trefaldoor, was trying to bet with the Citizen next to him. Since betting wasn’t allowed during the Illuminate league games, he refused. I heard Athooyi, who was seated behind me, offer to take his bet.

“On the humans, on the humans!” I heard him shout as four creatures scurried around him.

That’s when I spotted Ceesar and another alien as they came up to Athooyi’s table. Ceesar caught me looking and shook his head, as if he were ashamed of my loss. Why should he care? And why were they even watching a student game?

“JT, aren’t you listening? That’s what makes tetrascopes so good. You don’t need to practice. You can get everything you need by scoping,” Theodore pleaded, refusing to drop his argument.

“Are you allowed to be on those things?” Charlie asked, eavesdropping on our conversation.

“Yeah, to play the game,” Theodore said quickly. “They actually make you do it. You play better.”

I leaned toward Theodore and whispered, “Well, it didn’t seem to help you.”

Theodore just shook his head as if to dismiss me. I had never seen Theodore just flat-out lie like that, especially to Charlie. This was getting serious. I would have talked to Max about it, but I still felt tongue-tied around her. I decided that the next time Theodore wanted to use a tetrascope, I was going with him to find out how much trouble he was really in.

“Well, just be careful and only use them for the game.” Charlie frowned. “I’ve heard some strange stories about those things.”

I snuck a glimpse at Ceesar and watched Athooyi throw something on the table and thrust a finger toward the arena.
What is he so mad about?
I wondered. Athooyi waved Ceesar off and turned toward the match. Ceesar, who was almost two heads taller than Athooyi and a lot wider, reached forward and grabbed Athooyi’s shoulder. The Citizen spun around, striking Ceesar across the face. He stumbled back, shook it off, and then stepped toward Athooyi as if to challenge him. Before Ceesar could act, the frail creatures that were always around Athooyi sprang toward him. The soft and willowy creatures moved without hesitation, morphing as they positioned themselves to protect Athooyi. Their noses pushed forward as fangs exploded from their upper jaws. Their shoulders heaved up and their forearms mushroomed. They landed in crouching positions as their backs expanded, their fists smacking the ground. These monsters looked ready (and eager) to launch at Ceesar’s throat in an instant. Athooyi never once glanced at the commotion. He was focused on the game now. Max was taking her position in the goal, and Nugget squeezed in front of Charlie and pressed his snout against the glass as I gawked at Athooyi’s henchmen.

“You’re staring again,” Charlie whispered.

“Did you see that?” I said.

“I warned you about him. Now, watch the game. His business is none of your business, and it’s best to keep it that way.”

As Ceesar and his friend slowly backed away from Athooyi, he caught me staring. Ceesar nodded to me, and my eyes darted toward the playing field.

Max and Ketheria won their match easily. Ketheria made a gutsy move: knowing her opponent hated water, she selected
LIQUID
in the sort, even though she and Max were not the best swimmers. Max must have told her to go for
MAGICAL
, so they followed colored currents in the water that guided them through the obstacles. It was a perfect example of using one’s head over muscle, and their opponents never saw it coming.

“You girls are good,” Charlie praised them after the match as Nugget bounced around the house imitating their best moves.

I had to admit I was jealous. If I had been playing with Max instead of Theodore, Charlie would be praising me right now.

At the Illuminate on the next cycle, Theodore and I were waiting to grab our taps when I said, “I’ll go with you before our next match.”

“Go where?” he mumbled.

“To the tetrascope place. I don’t know, wherever you go to scope people.”

“You will?” he cried, his tone much cheerier.

“Yeah. I don’t like losing. If you think this will really help us, then I’ll do it.”

“That’s golden, JT!” He grabbed my arm and dragged me to an O-dat near the taps. The screen listed teams looking for a match. Theodore entered our names, and a host of opponents appeared. It wasn’t difficult to find someone to play against since we had lost our last game. More and more kids were agreeing with Dop that I had cheated in our match because I hadn’t won since, and I think a few also believed that Max was the stronger opponent. Citizens loved to beat up on knudniks, but they didn’t like losing to them.

“We got a match,” Theodore exclaimed. “I’ll get us some time on the scope.”

“Why don’t we just use the ones the school provides?”

“These are better,” he whispered. “Trust me.”

I went to my sleeper early that cycle. I was bored and, quite frankly, a little lonely. No, I was
really
lonely. My worries about wormhole pirates and what they had to do with me paled in comparison to what was happening with Max and, now, with Theodore. I tried to sleep but didn’t get much of a chance.

“C’mon,” Theodore whispered, shaking me after removing my sleeper from its cave in the wall.

“What are you doing?” I groaned.

“You said we’d use the scope.”

“Now?”

He put his index finger to his mouth. “Shhh, you’ll wake up Charlie.”

Maybe I should,
I thought. I dragged myself out of my sleeper and dressed while Theodore checked the hall. This was
so
unlike him. Normally, I was the one coaxing him to do something we shouldn’t do. Now here he was trying to sneak out while Charlie was asleep.

“Why can’t we go when normal people are awake?”

“These aren’t normal people,” he replied.

That scared me. Now I wanted to go just out of curiosity. What had Theodore gotten involved in?

Theodore punched a number into the light chute, one he memorized from repeated use. It was a very long number, not a normal destination code.

“How many times have you done this?”

He didn’t answer. “You first.”

I stepped into the chute and emerged in a part of Orbis 3 I’d never seen before. The Illuminate poked through the dark blue sky to my left, so I knew we were not far from school. But I was still unable to get a bearing on exactly where we were.

“This way.” Theodore motioned me to follow him through the chute and away from the Illuminate.

We slogged our way under dripping concrete and steel girders. It was a stark contrast to the slick buildings the Citizens erected in honor of themselves. Despite my misgivings, I was excited. I always enjoyed a good adventure.

Theodore stopped in front of a concrete wall beneath a tall curved structure. The grimy wall was marked with symbols. Unlike the drawings in the tunnels on Orbis 2, though, these symbols were angrier and they slashed at the concrete. Theodore traced a purple one with his fingers. The gesture produced a light chute inside the concrete wall.

“Wow,” I exclaimed. “Nice trick.”

“Wait,” he said, smiling, his eyes widening.

He stepped into the light chute without punching a code. I followed him immediately, and we were both on the other side of the wall before I could blink. In fact, we could have been anywhere on the ring, but it felt like we simply walked through the concrete to the other side. The corridor was cramped, lit only by thin blue crystals dangling from the ceiling. We followed the glow.

“Where are we?” I whispered.

“They call it the shed.”

“Who are
they
?”

“My friends.”

Even though I’d stood toe to toe with Neewalkers, battled Sea Dragons, and fought monsters inside the central computer, I had never felt apprehension like I felt now.

The corridor ended at a round metal door. I looked back and noticed that we had just walked through some sort of tube, not a real hallway. Now Theodore was forced to tap an entry code into an archaic keypad on the wall. The wall dilated, and we stepped inside. The first thing I noticed was the sound. A strong thumping filled the air, like a heartbeat. This was broken up with a slight tapping and wailing moans. Not a moan like a person would make, but something mechanical, more high-pitched — like a bot on its last legs. An alien stood in the corner of the messy room, her body jerking violently every time the heartbeat sounded. Covering her face and the top of her head was a tetrascope. It was bigger and bulkier than the one I had seen at the Festival of the Harvest back on Orbis 2. I think about six wires attached the tetrascope to the wall behind her. The wall was covered with different types of connectors and cables. I pushed into it quickly, just out of curiosity, and found a dark, haunting array of computer codecs with more personality than I’d ever felt inside a computer before. Images of masked faces, wires, and knives sparkled on the codecs near the girl’s connection points. I pulled out, wondering if Vairocina had ever visited this place. But then I guessed that this place wasn’t linked to the central computer. I had heard that Citizens paid a lot of money to block their estates from the probing central computer, and I was sure this place was one of them.

The girl pulled the scope off and said, “What was that? Something just looked at me. Peeked right inside me.”

I looked away from the girl, not saying a word. I reminded myself to be careful where I poked around. I didn’t know if they would appreciate a softwire in here.

“Who’s this?” an alien asked Theodore, getting up from several O-dats. They were taller than normal and hardwired to an assortment of unrecognizable devices. The tangle of wires and machines made Tinker’s workshop look very organized. The alien’s pale skin glowed blue from a dull sapphire-like crystal perched in the low ceiling. The O-dats provided the only other light source. He twirled a metal tool in his long fingers as he spoke.

“This is JT. He’s the one I told you about.”

“The Softwire?”

“Yes. This is Sul-sah, JT. He’s my friend.”

“Hey,” I grunted, waving at him as I looked around. There must have been at least eight kids attached to scopes inside the room. Others were too old to be kids, and some looked so frail and emaciated that I wondered if they ever left this place.

“A softwire,” Sul-sah said admiringly. “You ever thought of letting people ride you for a living? A lot of freaks would pay plenty to scope a real softwire.”

“There are
non-real
softwires?” I asked him. It was a little sarcastic, but I’d never heard it put that way before.

“This big freak came in the other cycle pretending he had the gift, but he was a phony. That’s what I meant.”

“Thanks, but I’ll stick with Quest-Nest,” I said.

“No, my friend, really. I mean when you scope someone, it’s real. You
are
that person. You see what they see, you feel what they feel, but when you scope a softwire . . . wow, it’s so much deeper. I mean you even think what he’s thinking. The fears, the joy, the
thoughts.
” Sul-sah tapped the side of his head.

“Theodore, can we get this over with?” I groaned.

“Get what over with?” Sul-sah snapped as if coming out of a trance.