The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1 (25 page)

“She’s right, Johnny. You’ve got to stop them.”

“But how?”

“Warn them. Warn anybody. Overload the system. Use it,” he said quickly, and Max nudged me toward the O-dat.

“Okay. I’ll do everything I can,” I said.

“I’ll keep searching,” Max said.

“What should I do?” Theodore said.

“You stay and guard the door. Don’t let anyone in — except me, of course,” Max said.

“How will I do that?”

“Just think of something,” Max said, and she left once more. I pushed back into the computer. Theodore sat against the wall and watched me.

How was I going to send a message? I’d never done that before. I thought of a blank file and then tried to think about what I wanted to say.

Beware: Neewalkers are marching on Magna.
Simple — probably not very effective.
Hi, my name is Johnny Turnbull. You don’t know me, but I’ve been told that Madame Lee is about to attack Magna with an army of Neewalkers.
Equally ineffective, I decided.

I pushed farther into the computer, with no particular direction. I had no idea what to do. At that moment I would have traded anything to buy more time.

“Charlie!” I said out loud. He would believe me.

I accessed the computer grid to locate the Center for Impartial Judgment and Fair Dealing. On the way, I accessed every file containing the name Charlie. Thousands came up in front of me. What was Charlie’s last name? Howards? Howen? Nor — Norton!

Nothing. There was no Charlie Norton anywhere in the computer system.
How can that be? I’ve got to find him.
I accessed the central computer for the Earth News Café. The grid maneuvered in front of me and I saw the portals for each electronic menu at every table. I accessed them all at once.

I closed the file and hoped like mad it would work. Now what? I didn’t have to look far to know what to do next.

Directly in front of me, bound against her wishes to a silicon chip, was the little girl I so desperately wanted to find. The virus struggled frantically to free herself from a ruthless stream of code that entangled her legs and right arm. It looked as if the central computer had finally managed to nab the errant virus and had begun systematically removing pieces of her program. She was snatching them away with her free hand and stuffing them into her mouth. She wasn’t fast enough, though, and small chunks of code were being deposited along the light paths and moving toward the trash. The virus, which once looked so powerful, was crying like the little girl I first thought she was.

She saw me as I moved toward her, and she recognized me at once. The look on her face this time, however, was one of pure terror. The central computer was slowly destroying her.

“What can I do to help?” I asked her, but she only looked at me with a puzzled expression. The closer I got, the more clearly I could see the colored code beneath her transparent skin. It was nothing like the computer code I was used to. “Let me help you,” I said, only slower and louder, as if this would make a difference. She still couldn’t understand anything I was saying.

I pushed at the stream of code that tied her right arm. She struggled to pull away from me even though it was impossible. “It’s okay. I just want to help.” But it was no use. The code would not move, and the computer was slowly taking more and more pieces away from her. She could only swallow back so much of it.

The little girl opened her mouth as if to cry, but let out a sound that almost made me flee back to Theodore and Max. Her piercing scream penetrated the core of my brain. It was the sound I had heard when the
Renaissance
was docking. The same sound as when the sorting bays were being destroyed. I wanted to tell her to stop crying, but how could I communicate with her? I could not speak binary code. And that’s when it dawned on me.

The translation codec.

No one could understand her, and she obviously could not understand me, because of her language — or whatever you called the noise she made. The central computer never translated it. Maybe she spoke a language that Orbis had never encountered in the last ninety thousand years. It was possible. That must be it.

I accessed the computer for the translation codec. In an instant, the file with the small program was right in front of me.

“Use this program,” I told her, moving the program toward her head. “Then I’ll be able to und —”

The virus just stared at me and continued to scream. She didn’t understand a word I was saying.

“Please stop that noise.”

How was I going to get her to use the program? Would she even be able to use it?
This is a dumb idea,
I thought. I needed to get to Ketheria.

“I’m sorry,” I said to the little girl, who took the program with her free hand and began to eat it. “It’s not food. I wish I could give you something.”

The little girl did not seem to care. She gave herself up to the central computer and stopped fighting. I headed back to Theodore.

“Help me.”

I whipped around. The virus had spoken to me.

“Help me,” the little girl repeated.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I asked her.

The little girl’s eyes widened at the sound of my words.

“How do you speak my words? No one in two million years has spoken my words.” The little girl winced as the computer removed another chunk of code.

“Listen to me. The computer thinks you are a virus. It’s trying to destroy you. It wants to eliminate your code.”

“Why?” the virus asked, acting more like a little girl than ever.

“You’ve done some damage while you’ve been inside the central computer.”

The virus looked at me the same way Ketheria looks at me when I scold her.

“I’m sorry, I was only looking to be whole again. I have so many memories of flesh.”

“Can you copy yourself?”

“It’s not in our ability. That can only be performed by the High Memory.”

“There are more of you?” I asked her, worried about the answer.

“Not here. Very, very far away, on the edge of this universe,” she said, and I sensed in her voice the longing to be home. “I escaped. I ran away.”

“But can one of these High Memory guys copy you?”

“I’m too far from one. I’ve been traveling for billions of light-years.” The virus began to cry.

I saw a real tear on the transparent skin that covered the yellow and magenta computer code now flowing through her body.

I pushed into the virus’s code. The alien programming was unlike anything I’d ever seen. The complexity of its codecs and architecture was beyond my comprehension. I felt, however, that I was truly inside a living being.

I snapped out of the virus.

“You are a High Memory!” the little girl said in a very excited manner. “Please do not punish me for the things I did to you. I did not know. I thought you were trying to destroy me.”

“Hold on. Hold on there, I’m not a . . . a . . . Higher Memory guy — thing.”

“You have to be. Only a High Memory would be able to do what you just did. You must copy me, and quickly.”

“I don’t know how, you’re so . . . complex —”

“Please, hurry!”

Hurry was definitely something I had to do. Time was running out for Ketheria, too. If only Max were here. She would know how to do this. I thought about the mirror copy Max made for me from the
Renaissance
’s drive. I accessed an empty file, created a new directory, placed it outside my personal files, and . . . and then what? How was I going to get her onto another file? I had no idea what to do next.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how,” I said, looking back at the virus, but she did not respond.

Instead she began to glow. The code under her skin moved so fast I could no longer make it out. Then the little girl’s programming lifted from her body and began writing to the mirror directory I had created next to her. The light intensified, filling the passageway where she was bound to the hardware as the code began transferring faster and faster.

It was beautiful watching the new virus — the new alien, that is — taking form. Magenta streams of the little girl’s code swirled around the mirror directory before finding their rightful place. The central computer began adding more streams of its own code to hold her old form down, but it was no use now. The new destination folder began to take shape. I could begin to see the outline of the little girl.

I watched as the master copy went limp. The central computer quickly began dismantling what was left of the old virus as the little girl opened her new eyes.

“You
are
a High Memory,” she said thickly as the static from the electron surge faded.

“Whatever you say,” I replied. “But right now I need your help.”

“Anything.” The little girl was smiling, looking at her newly formed arms.

“Do you have a name?” I asked her.

“No one has spoken my name in so very long. The Elders once called me Vairocina.”

“Hello, Vairocina. My name is Johnny Turnbull; my friends call me JT. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Hello, Johnny Turnbull,” she said, closing her eyes and holding her hands in a very formal fashion.

“Who are you? What are you doing in the computer?”

“I heard about the magical Rings of Orbis many, many light-years ago, when I journeyed in the brain computer of a galaxy merchant. I had been without a body so long, I hoped I would find one here. It was foolish to think I could be whole again.”

“Again?”

“I was once of flesh, but after my accident, the Elders uploaded my consciousness to our planet’s digital neural society. It was terrible, so I ran away.”

“I wish I could do the same,” I told her.

“But why? You are a High Memory. You can do whatever you please.”

“Uh . . . yeah . . . well, there’s a lot more to it than that, but do you remember the new barriers created for the network portals?”

“Silly little tricks.” She glanced at where her body once lay.

“I can’t get through them. You have to show me.”

“Anything you like, High Memory. Follow me.”

The little girl zipped in and out of the central computer with ease. It was her playground. There wasn’t an obstacle she couldn’t get through. By the time we reached the Keepers’ domain, I knew I had traveled too far. I felt very weak, very thin. I was stretching beyond the limits of my abilities. Bands of color circled my head, and everything was washed in a gray static. I slowed to a stop, but Vairocina went straight through the portal.

“Wait.” But she was gone.

I attempted to follow her, but I might as well have tried to walk through the hull of a spaceship. I could not get through.

“Vairocina!” I shouted, but no one answered. “How do you —”

And then every portal to the Keepers’ domain opened at once. Vairocina stood in the middle opening.

“Come this way,” she said, smiling.

“You’ll have to show me how to do that.”

“Shall I do that now, my Cynosure?”

“Cynosure? What’s that? I’m JT.”

“But you are a High Memory. It’s not proper that I call you by your common name.”

“I’m not Higher — oh, just forget it. Listen, Madame Lee wants to use these portals to attack Orbis 1. We must warn my friends and warn the Keepers.”

“Follow me,” she said.

Inside the portals, the Keepers’ computer seemed far more crowded with files and hardware. This slowed us down as we pushed deeper into the Keepers’ domain.

“We must be in Magna,” I said.

“This is where the two-headed people live,” Vairocina said. “They do not like me.”

“That’s because they think you are trying to destroy their home.”

Vairocina had a puzzled look on her face. “I am not trying to destroy their home.”

“Then why do you break things from inside the computer, like Weegin’s World? You destroyed his giant sorting factory.”

Vairocina got angry. “I did not destroy that. It was attacking me. I was visiting your sleeping devices when I came upon the attack. I did everything to stop it, but you got in the way. It would have been destroyed if I hadn’t arrived.”

“Okay, you don’t have to get so upset.”

I guessed the destruction at Weegin’s World was Madame Lee’s doing. Not only did it distract everyone on Orbis, but it also enabled her to buy off Weegin and get closer to me.

“Where I am from, it is insulting to accuse someone of something they didn’t do,” Vairocina said, looking dejected.

“It’s supposed to be like that where I’m from, too. I’m sorry, but don’t get too upset, because you’re getting blamed for a lot of things right now.”

We both floated to a clearing inside the computer. I looked up and saw a large opening. I could see my reflection. I floated up and saw familiar symbols forming in the dark void, only they appeared backward. I pressed myself close against the transparent barrier high above the computer floor.

“I know where this is,” I said to Vairocina.

I could see Keepers. Drapling stood next to the dark pool, glancing at the surface. He shouted with both heads at the other Keepers.

“Hey! Help! In here!” I pounded against the surface.

“They can’t hear you,” Vairocina said.

“We have to warn them; then I can rescue my sister,” I told her.

“You have a sister? Here?”

“Yes, her name is Ketheria. You kind of remind me of her. They have her locked up in the Science and Research building.”

“I had a brother once — and a mother and a father. But that was when I had a physical form. When I was of flesh.” Vairocina held her hands up, looking at the computer code running through her veins. I saw the sadness on her face. “I miss them very much, but that was a long, long time ago.”