The softwire : Virus on Orbis 1 (26 page)

“I’m sorry, Vairocina. I miss my sister, too, and if I don’t get to her, they are going to let her die.”

“What do we do? I must help.”

I stared at the dark pool.

“Do you want me to work the interface?” Vairocina asked, pointing to the pool.

“What do you mean?”

“The black water. It is similar to the screens everyone uses. I have watched you use them.”

“You’ve watched me?”

Vairocina dropped her head.

“I am sorry, High Memory. Please do not be angry.”

“Stop it. I’m not a High Memory. I’m a kid, just like you . . . well, I think,” I said, looking up at the Keepers’ pool. “If that’s an interface, then we can use it.”

Vairocina lifted her head, smiling. “Let me do it for you.”

“Fine, the translation codec I gave you should let you speak with any alien race on Orbis —”

“And thank you for that,” she interrupted. “It has been so long since I have conversed with another being. Such a simple gift, for which I can never repay you.”

“Yeah, okay. But wait — the symbols in that pool do not translate. The Keepers never added that language to the translation codec on the central computer. They must have some sort of secret language hidden behind one of their barriers. You must find that language and assimilate with the central computer. I don’t think I can go any farther. Can you do that?”

“Absolutely. I’ve been living inside computers for millions of years. Nothing gets in my way now,” she said, full of pride, and with that, Vairocina vanished.

“Wait —” But she was gone again. “Vairocina, where are you?” I panicked.

“I can still hear you,” Vairocina said in the same manner Mother would speak to me on the
Renaissance.
It felt reassuring, in some weird way.

“Where did you go?”

“I’m accessing the archives for a translation. I only wish I knew about this earlier.”

“You never asked.”

Vairocina was back. “I have many more questions.”

But they would have to wait.

“Watch out!” she screamed.

The moment Vairocina opened the portals, six monstrous programs stormed the main cache leading to the Keepers’ mainframe.

“She must have been monitoring the portals!” I shouted.

The programs looked like machines, something used to tear up the ground. They lashed out at anything within their reach and quickly destroyed the walls of the main cache.

“Vairocina! Did you close the portals behind us?”

“I did not. I’m sorry.”

“Warn the Keepers that an army is about to march on Magna. Hurry, please!”

Vairocina instantly disappeared as one of Madame Lee’s digital soldiers fired a stream of electrons at her.

“Vairocina!”

“Is that what you were hiding behind your silly little thoughts?” Madame Lee said. A seventh and even larger program entered the portal. A life-size image of Madame Lee’s head was positioned in the middle. Static electricity sparkled around the opening that held her head. I only hoped Vairocina had made it out.

“How did you get in here?” I said.

“Technology, my peon. You don’t feel so special now, do you? I’ll have an army of these creatures in here before the cycle is done. And then I can control everything from here. Destroy it all!” she screamed, and the sound of her voice tore through my brain like a rocket.

The programs drew energy from the central computer, directing the electrical flow to exact powerful strikes against the data fields. The resulting shock waves rolled over me, twisting my reality and striking up a firestorm of electricity.

“Stop!” I screamed, but Madame Lee only laughed.

I pushed into the destructive programs, but their codes changed with every attempt I made to breach their security. I pulled out of the demon program. There was nothing I could do but watch Madame Lee’s army of data soldiers pulverize the central computer.

“I said everything!” she screamed at them as one of her demonic foot soldiers turned on me.

I felt the program latch onto my computer form. Its electrical claws wrapped around my face and drained out all the energy I had left. I instinctively tried to pull out of the central computer, but the program would not let go. It had me. My mind’s eye flickered between the images of destruction and blue static.

With one jerk, Madame Lee’s monster ripped my essence from my body. My mind flashed bright white as ice-blue energy currents filled my veins and sent a burst of silvery flame charging through my bones and out through my fingertips. Static electricity crackled across my new form. I was completely inside the computer, just like Vairocina, but I knew that I was also still in my old body, caught between two realities. From deep inside my head, I felt my physical form slide off the chair back in the room with Theodore.

“JT!” I heard Theodore screaming. “JT, what’s wrong! Wake up!”

Theodore shook my body, but I could not respond. I could hear and see him, but I was unable to move. I felt as if I were looking up at him from the bottom of a very deep well. Theodore ran to the door.

“Max! Max! Come quick. JT is hurt.” I didn’t hear anything for a while after that. He must have left to find Max.

The break from my physical form, although painful at first, left me bursting with the energy of the entire central computer. I steadied myself using my new limbs. Madame Lee’s demonic programs were no match for me now. Manipulating them was as easy as tossing trash from Weegin’s conveyor belts. I no longer pushed into anything. I was in everything. My mind reached out to a billion data points at once. I sucked knowledge from every source on Orbis and from every corner of the central computer. Dismantling each program would be as easy as thinking about it. A stream of fiery electrons shot from my hands as Madame Lee’s demons scrambled for cover. The explosions left nothing but pieces of code floating in the air.

“Stupid little tricks,” Madame Lee said as I turned on her. She released a fireball of electricity that sprang high above me and thundered down on my new form. To her horror, I simply absorbed the energy.

“That’s it?” I said, and reached in and grabbed her face with my right hand.

“Don’t!” she cried. A rush of electricity shot up my arm as I ripped Madame Lee from her program. She screamed in pain as the space around her crackled and sparked. I threw her form to the ground, where the central computer immediately began to dismantle the essence of Madame Lee, sending chunks of code to the trash.

“You can’t do this!” she screamed, almost begging.

“Yes, I can,” I said. As I watched Madame Lee thrash about, now under the control of the central computer, I felt a distant sensation of my physical form being moved. Caught in two places, I could at once see three scavenger robots encasing my real body inside a glass and metal disposal crate. The part of me that was still in that body could vaguely see them building the coffin around me. As Theodore returned to the room, I screamed from inside the computer that I was still alive, but no one could hear me.

“Stop!” Theodore screamed, too, but the drones would not let up.

Theodore kicked one of the robots, but it only paused momentarily before continuing. Theodore could only stand and watch as they welded a coffin around me.

He threw his arms around the closest drone and pulled it away from my lifeless form. There was nothing I could do. Inside the computer, I retraced my steps as the drone zapped Theodore with an electrical charge. He fell to the ground and then scrambled to the door.

“Max! Max!” I heard him shouting.

“The sails on the building have begun to turn. What’s happening?” she said.

I could still hear her running down the hallway. My senses were alert, but they were fading — fading fast.

“They’ve got Johnny. I can’t stop them.”

“Who’s got Johnny? What do you mean?” Max pushed past Theodore to see the drones completely entomb my body inside the glass and metal coffin.

“Stop!” she screamed, but the drones were no more responsive to her than to Theodore.

“Look, the globes on the walls are filling,” Theodore shouted.

Images mixed with blue static filled my mind’s eye. The drones pushed my coffin, which hovered a meter above the ground, toward the door. I could see Max through the glass as she put her weight against the coffin.

“Forget them — help me push it back,” she yelled, but the drone zapped her before Theodore could react.

“Ow!”

The drones pushed me past my friends. Max scrambled to her feet and banged her fists against the glass. Theodore jumped on top of the glass tomb, and two robots zapped him at the same time. He fell to the floor. Max stared at Theodore’s unconscious body.

“JT! JT! Wake up!” she screamed, but I could do nothing. I raced through the computer, hoping I could get to my body at the connection point. I needed to find a way back — now.

Max frantically tried everything she could to get the robots to stop, but nothing worked. As she searched for something to distract them with, I heard a hissing noise. Blue gas began to fill my tomb. Max screamed as the gas crept along my body.

Without thinking, she grabbed the closest robot and lifted it above her head. The robot zapped her several times, but she would not stop. She brought the robot crashing down on the glass coffin, shattering the top and destroying the robot.

The coffin fell to the floor while red flashing lights blinked from the two remaining robots. Max kicked one and they both scrambled away.

“I should have done that earlier,” I heard her say as she pulled my body from the debris.

Max slapped me on the face several times.

“Johnny! Johnny!”

“Is he all right?” Theodore, still a little groggy, came around the corner.

“I don’t know. Help me get him back to the O-dat.”

They struggled down the hallway and set me inside the room. It was very hard to see them now. I slipped farther down the well.

“Johnny!” Max slapped me very hard.

I could no longer sense my own flesh as a brilliant shard of golden lightning shut down my brain.

The bright white opening at the end of the well came rushing toward me, only to fade away again and again. As it came close once more, I lunged my entire essence at the light, knowing it was my only salvation.

Reboot. My eyes flickered open, and I gasped real air into my lungs. My head throbbed as I focused on the fixture in front of me.

“You have been doing that quite a few times, I am afraid.”

“Theylor?”

“It is good to have you back,” he said.

“But how . . . I . . .”

“Humans are a very strange species. Full of surprises, I must say. You showed great resilience. The cosmic energies in the building Madame Lee kept you in were unusually high.”

“Ketheria? Where’s Ketheria? I have to get . . .” I said, struggling to orient myself.

“Ketheria is fine. Relax, everyone is safe now, thanks to you.”

“Madame Lee? The war? What happened?”

“Madame Lee’s ship is gone. She has fled Orbis.”

“But I killed her,” I said.

“You may have done just that,” he said. “Your message to Drapling took some time to understand, I’m afraid, but your friend — I believe his name is Charlie — was smart enough to believe you.”

“So it worked?”

“You should have come to us much sooner. We were monitoring Madame Lee’s army for some time. Neewalkers do not come cheap, I am afraid.”

“Sar Cyrillus?”

“With the help of Torlee. They were friends at one time. We did not know how Madame Lee would strike our defenses. We should have suspected she might try to use you. That is the same reason we needed you inside the central computer.”

“I forgot about that. Do I still have to go? Can I say good-bye first?”

“Do not worry about that anymore. We have Vairocina now. Once again, thanks to you.”

“Vairocina?”

“She was instrumental to us in destroying anything Madame Lee put in the computer. She will be a valuable asset to Orbis as long as you remain here with us. She has grown very fond of you.”

“So I don’t have to live in the computer?”

Theylor shook both of his heads. What a relief that was.

“How did you learn to communicate with Vairocina?” Theylor asked.

“After Charlie mentioned the ones and zeros, I realized she was trying to communicate with me the only way she knew how. I knew she was just code, in a manner of speaking, but still a living being all the same. She must have come to Orbis 1 in such a manner that she never received the translation codec.”

“True. No one from her species has ever traveled the wormhole. Vairocina comes from a solar system at the very edge of the universe. Her people are a very old species of immortals. Through the millennia they rid their system of disease, war, famine — anything that would shorten their life cycle. When they were tired of their physical form but still wished to be in contact with their loved ones, they simply uplinked their consciousness and personality to a digital community. Very old and wise, this virtual community provided wisdom and guidance for every new generation.”

“But Vairocina looks so young. How did she get in there?”

“When she was six years old, her physical form was damaged beyond repair in an accident. Her parents begged the Elders to uplink their daughter’s consciousness so they could still communicate with her. They loved her very much. Never had such a young consciousness been placed in the community. She rebelled. She ran away. Vairocina jumped across the galaxies inside any device she could, anything she could store her consciousness in, as she searched for a new body. She ended up here in the belief that Orbis, with its riches, was a magical place.”