The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1 (10 page)

“What’s this city called?” I asked Weegin.

“Nacreo,” Weegin replied. “The city of government. All business and dealings for Orbis happen on this ring. Most of them in this city. It’s the capital.”

The tram came to a rest and Weegin announced, “This is it. The Center for Wisdom, Culture, and Comprehension.” If I hadn’t known my Guarantor better, I would have thought he sounded a little sarcastic.

Once off the tram, I strained my neck searching for the top of the immense structure. It was larger than any of the surrounding buildings, and the distant starlight made the polished surface glitter against the thinning atmosphere high above the surface of the ring. Within these glass walls, I hoped I might get some answers.

“Let’s go enhance my investment,” Weegin said, and snickered.

I watched a group of four Keepers move smoothly past us, each clutching a bundle of narrow gold cylinders. Weegin followed them up the steep quartz steps.

“Move it, everyone. Time is money,” he hollered over his leathery shoulder.

The inside of the Wisdom, Culture, and Comprehension building was a maze of glass walls and thick beams of colored light that seemed to connect the different levels. The place was filled with aliens, like a spaceway station. We weaved through the crowd, crossing floors adorned with patterns of shimmering stones, and caught the attention of aliens perched on benches carved from blue and magenta crystals. The glass walls curved and bent in every direction, making it easy to lose your bearings.

“JT! Hey, look up!”

I looked up and saw Max three levels away. She was with her group, as were the other children and their Guarantors. She waved at me from the line, and I waved back. Torlee, the Guarantor with all the pink skin and the bubble on his head, was there also. He scowled down upon us and shoved one of the kids back in line. Theodore and I raced toward the spiral stairs to catch up with Boohral’s group, despite Weegin’s shouting.

When I caught up to Max, she asked, “What’s your Guarantor like?”

I shrugged. “I can’t complain. Look what he did to Switzer’s nose.”

Max searched the crowd and giggled when she caught sight of Switzer’s swollen snout.

“How about those sleepers?” I asked her. Maybe she could help me understand my dream.

“I know, aren’t they great?” she said.

“Any nightmares?”

“I thought that was Ketheria’s problem,” she teased. “You afraid of your new sleeper?”

“Of course not,” I lied. “I was only concerned for Ketheria.”

Now I felt silly. I decided not to mention my dream after all. I’d wait and talk to Theodore about it.

“Move along — you’re not here to chat,” Weegin barked, and pushed me forward.

We all filed into the hollow social studies room. The cylindrical space was eight levels high and encircled a common area located on the bottom floor. Theodore and I entered on the second floor. The humans took up three entire levels. I looked up and watched other aliens fill the remaining floors.

Max walked past me and said, “They’re children of Citizens.”

“Children?” I caught glimpses of the Orbis emblem, as well as other markings I could not recognize.

“Did you think we were the only ones?” she asked, and stood in front of an O-dat three stations away from me. Every floor was lined with O-dats, each with a neural link.

“I don’t know.” Actually, I hadn’t thought about it much.

“Boohral says the Keepers want us to interact with the other Citizens if we are ever to become Citizens ourselves.”

When
we become Citizens,
I said to myself, and watched the many different children attach to their O-dats. I spotted an alien who was a smaller version of Boohral.

“That’s Boohral’s kid,” Max said, catching me staring.

“Boohral has a kid?”

“I think he’s more of a clone,” Max said, and attached her neural link.

I stared at the alien children and wondered what it would be like to have parents. Even a clone for a father might be nice. I thought I might ask them about it.

“Supervisor. I am Supervisor Keetle,” said an alien, growing from the common area on the first floor. There was no other way to describe it. The alien simply emerged from the solid floor, taking shape as he, she, or whatever rose up into the center of the cylindrical classroom. “As supervisor, I will supervise your uplinks and integration of the information into your memory core. You may call me Supervisor Keetle.”

“She gonna repeat everything like that?” Theodore whispered from the station next to mine.

Apparently, she was. “Information. Anything you uplink is only information. It is up to you to use this information with practice.”

I looked at Theodore, and he covered his mouth so Keetle wouldn’t see him laughing.

“Behind you. Located on the wall behind you is your very own link with the central computer. Turn and face the uplink behind you,” continued Keetle, never moving from her spot. Her narrow face seemed to look at each of us at the same time.

“She must be some sort of material projection,” Max said.

“Gives me the creeps,” Theodore said.

“Familiar. Please become familiar with the controls. To become familiar with the controls is your goal today.”

I turned toward the display and picked up the hardwire link.
This won’t be much use,
I thought.

“Connect. Please connect your neural link, everyone. That is, everyone but the Softwire. The Softwire does not connect. Would the Softwire please show himself?”

Why would Keetle single me out like that? Why did everyone on Orbis have to know I was different? I stayed put.

“Softwire, please move forward,” Keetle ordered, and Theodore nudged me to obey.

I slowly moved to the rail. Everyone from the fourth floor and higher wanted to get a look at me. I guess by now my arrival was common knowledge. The news of a human softwire had spread quickly. I felt like one of our science experiments on the
Renaissance
— like a bug under glass. I still didn’t know what my softwire was good for except opening a few doors.

“Turnbull. Johnny Turnbull, you may access the data files in a manner that is most comfortable to you. Johnny Turnbull, please return to your station.”

This was one time I didn’t object. I gladly slipped away from the glares of the other students. Max and Theodore were already attached to their neural links. I stood there and stared at the screen.
What do I do now?

“History. The history of the Rings of Orbis is very important. History will facilitate your existence on Orbis. Please use the history files to practice control. Remember to uplink in small portions only,” said the monotonous alien.

A small icon labeled History floated on the right-hand side of my screen. Scrolling up and down the screen was simple; it was uplinking the file that was foreign to me. I practiced what Theylor told me and closed my eyes to visualize the file. It floated in front of me. I could see lines of code that contained the text from the file. Each file was divided into sections. I concentrated on the first link.

“Uplink,” I murmured to myself.

Instantly, the stream of code leaped from the file straight toward me. All at once I knew a lot more about the Ancients, the alien civilization that once inhabited the rings. The scholars believed that the Ancients harvested powerful crystals from the moons and distributed their energy throughout the universe. This information instantly became a part of my memory, fitting in with the pieces Mother had taught us on the seed-ship. I now knew that the Ancients used the wormhole to move the crystals to other galaxies, but I still did not know why they left. No one did.

This is easy,
I thought. I quickly uplinked another file. I learned that the Ancients built negative-mass generators on each ring to stabilize the wormhole, keeping the “throat” open. I learned that travel between the rings was available by shuttle. I discovered Orbis 1 housed most of the government buildings and main areas of commerce. Orbis 2 contained most of the refineries for harvesting the crystal moons, while Orbis 3 was kept solely for the Citizens’ use. There wasn’t much description about Orbis 4 except that the defense forces were housed on that ring.
What will we do when we get to Orbis 4?
I wondered.

With all that digested, I still couldn’t get the strange dream out of my mind. I turned to Theodore. Now was my chance. “Theodore, what did you dream about last night?” I whispered to him.

But Theodore did not respond. His eyes were glazed over, and he was swaying back and forth, moaning quietly.

“Theodore, you all right?” When Theodore did not respond, I moved around the kids next to me and poked Max. “Look at Theodore,” I said.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know. Theodore, can you hear me?” I said.

Supervisor Keetle grew taller and now hovered over the three of us.

“Large. The file was too large. This happens all the time. Must uplink in small bits of data when you first start,” she said.

Keetle reached out and removed the cable connected to Theodore. He fell to the floor. Two robotic first-aid units wheeled around the rail, scooped Theodore up, then whisked him away.

“Can I go with him?” I asked Keetle. “Will he be all right?”

“Fine, he will be fine. They are always fine with a little rest,” Keetle said, then shot up to the fifth level. “Please continue with your studies.”

But I didn’t want my friend to wake up alone. I thought that maybe if I downed a few large chunks of data, it would knock me out, too. I was gambling that those bots would take me to the same place as Theodore. I uplinked a good-size file, but nothing happened. I tried another. Same thing. No effect. How big was the file he swallowed? I moved over to Theodore’s display and grabbed the file he crashed on. Nothing. I found another and quickly assimilated a file five times the size of the one that had knocked Theodore out. I started to think my softwire just might have a few advantages. I decided to see if the computer could reveal any information about the dream-enhancement equipment. Could I link into other people’s dreams? Was it the equipment that made my dream feel so real?

I scrolled around the screen looking for other icons, something outside Keetle’s history lesson. There was nothing.
The files must be stored somewhere,
I thought. I concentrated harder. Suddenly, the wall around my O-dat pulsed bright red and Keetle instantly sprang up behind me.

“Abort! Please abort any unauthorized use. Class data only. Abort!” she shouted at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“What did you do, JT?” Max asked.

Everyone was staring at me. I saw Switzer elbow Dalton and say, “He’s gonna screw this whole place up if we let him.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I told Max. “I was finished. I was just looking for some more files.”

“You’re done already?” she asked.

“Back away. Please back away from the display while I execute a reboot,” Keetle ordered.

I did as I was told and every screen in the place went dead while the room continued to pulse like a distress beacon. Before the system came back up, the spoke ended and Keetle dismissed everyone. I watched the Citizen children filing out from the upper floors. I thought maybe I could get some information out of them.

I nudged Max and pointed to the Citizens. “Wanna go make some friends?”

“Don’t count on it,” Max said. “Not many Citizens want more new Citizens. There are only so many resources, and they have a good thing going here. Didn’t you uplink the file on the Citizen revolt on Orbis 3? I thought you said you were done.”

“I must have missed that one,” I said. Max turned away. “Where you going?” I asked.

“Home?” She shrugged.

“That’s right.”

“I’ll see you next cycle, I guess. Bye, Ketheria.” She waved at both of us.

The spoke hadn’t worked out the way I expected.

I took Ketheria’s hand. “Want to hear about my dream?” I asked her.

She nodded and we headed back to Weegin’s World.

“The first cycle and already two of you are sick,” Weegin snapped when we returned home. The leathery alien kicked one of the small cleaning robots. “And my robots are acting up. They shouldn’t be acting up. They’re too expensive to act up.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t do that, then,” Dalton said.

Weegin responded in a flurry. His bony shoulders twitched uncontrollably as he screamed at Dalton. “You be quiet!
I’m
not doing anything. Someone is messing with my business. Someone’s always messing with my business.”

Everyone stood motionless. No one dared to speak to Weegin.

“What are you standing there for? Get to work!”

“But . . . we don’t know what to do,” I said.

“More waste of my precious time. How do they expect me to turn a profit with useless, underdeveloped humans? Follow me. And keep up!”

We followed Weegin down to the floor of the sorting bay. The humongous robotic cranes continued their choreography as an endless supply of junk waltzed into Weegin’s World. Whenever the cranes pulled a container through the outer dome, the protective energy shields would crackle with electricity. In the sorting area, smaller robots sifted through the containers and threw the smallest stuff into large bins that hung in the air.