Wormhole Pirates on Orbis (10 page)

“Yeah, but she still has nice pixels,” he replied.

Max shook her head and walked away.

I caught up with Riis as we headed to the pods. I needed a few questions answered.

“How do you join the conclave?” I asked her.

“You’re not thinking of joining, are you? You don’t even know how to play the game. The kids here will crush you.”

“No, I mean the professional league. The one we saw at the Labyrinth.”

“The pro conclave? Are all humans as crazy as you?”

“I’m just asking.”

“Why?”

“I enjoyed watching, and I just want to know a few more of the rules.”

Riis looked at me. She turned only slightly, since her eyes were already close to the side of her head. “Well, that depends. A Citizen can simply try out, but unless he or
she
belongs to a team, it’s pretty hard to place as an individual. Knudniks, on the other hand, can only play if their Guarantor enters them. Any winnings go to the Guarantors. Some Citizens own stables of knudniks they train for the games. Be glad you don’t belong to them.”

“Why?”

“Just because.”

That meant I would have to get Charlie to sign me up. He’d do it; I was sure of it. I just had to ask.
But how could a wormhole pirate enter?
They were neither Citizen nor knudnik. It didn’t make any sense.

“Can anyone else enter? I mean someone who is not a Citizen, not even a knudnik?”

“No,” she said. “Anyone entering the conclave must have Citizenship or belong to a Citizen.”

We paused at the entrance to the pods.

“After the results of the exam are announced, specific programming will be arranged for your . . . level. Chances are we may not even be in the same theater after this,” Riis informed us.

“Because knudniks will place poorly,” I said.

Riis didn’t answer me. She just smiled slightly, trying to be polite. “I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you meant.”

“Listen to me, Softwire. Dop was correct. I volunteered to show you around the Illuminate. I choose to do that, and my reasons are my own business. But I didn’t make the rules on Orbis, and I definitely don’t agree with how Citizens care for their knudniks — so quit treating me like I do.”

Her words slashed at me, and I felt my face redden. All I could say was, “I’m sorry.”

“I’ll meet you at the lockers after the spoke,” she said quickly, and slipped inside.

You’re such a split-screen.
I was the one treating her poorly. She didn’t treat us like Dop or Weegin, or any other Citizens for that matter. I took out my frustrations on her because she was the only Citizen of Orbis who spoke to me. I used her to get what I wanted and then dismissed her because she was a Citizen. I was doing exactly what the Citizens did to me. She did not deserve that. I felt foolish.

“Good luck,” Max hollered, taking a pod with Grace.

Theodore and I took the next one.

“I think I did pretty well,” Theodore assured me. “There were 720,000 questions and I answered 425. That’s more than half a percent. Pretty good burn rate, if you ask me.”

I liked Theodore’s optimism. It was rare, but then again, he was always confident when the numbers added up. I hoped I placed well, if only to disprove the theory the Citizens held of us. But the truth was there were too many questions on the exam that I couldn’t even understand, and I didn’t think half a percent was very much.

The pods drifted into place, and Theodore and I linked up. The white screen exploded with images of Citizens excelling at whatever they tried to do. I watched one alien control a spaceport on the moon Ki. Another reclaimed a planet devastated by war. Every image showed Citizens winning against all odds.

The propaganda then faded to some sort of ceremony. An alien, dressed in a black velvet robe similar to the Keepers’, with an oversize Citizen’s crest mounted on some sort of metal thing that hung from his shoulders, stood up in front of the small crowd sitting in attendance. He looked like he was going to make a speech. I also noticed a telepathic headpiece bolted to his smooth head, just like the one Ketheria wore. The alien drew a deep breath, taking his time. He reeked of confidence. This Citizen was important, and he knew it, or at least he acted like it.

The theater fell silent, eager to hear every word this alien had to say. Floating in front of him were several O-dats from which the alien read to the audience.

“Great Citizens of the Rings of Orbis, your fledglings have labored for placement this phase, and I am . . . privileged to share their results.” His tone was far drearier than I had expected.

The students in the theater, however, cheered loudly.

“I guess this guy had a bad cycle, huh?” Theodore whispered.

“I think he has better things to do — or at least he thinks he does,” I replied.

“Throughout each cycle, our children on the Rings of Orbis have illustrated their excellence using the placement exam. It has primed many for lustrous careers in this universe, and each cycle the students who placed the highest have gone on to noble accomplishments.”

The alien paused and consulted another alien near him before continuing. His face scrunched up as if he were filled with anger.

“Show us!” someone shouted from one of the pods.

“Once again your children have excelled,” the speaker continued, regaining his composure. “These scores were higher than any cycle before.”

The students erupted in response.

“Please don’t show our scores,” I moaned. I didn’t need any more ridicule.

“As an example of our benevolence and understanding of all cultures, and in an agreement with our noble Keepers, this rotation saw the admittance of several children from our labor caste,” he announced.

The crowd jeered and thumped on their pods.

“That’s a nice way to put it,” Theodore remarked.

“Citizens, be proud of your kindness. Be proud of your gracious acceptance of those who can only dream of such stature, for you are the chosen ones.”

The students didn’t know how to respond to this. Some cheered while some still thumped on their pods. Obviously this wasn’t a normal speech.

“In observance of tradition,” the speaker said. “I would like to announce the student who succeeded above all others and placed first in our exam.” The alien next to him handed the speaker a small clear screen. “This rotation’s honoree is Theodore Malone from our labor caste. Property of Charlie Norton.”

Theodore?
I couldn’t believe it. I knew he was smart, but
Theodore
? Then the other students in the auditorium erupted, screaming and banging on their pods, and I forced myself to concentrate on the huge O-dat in front of me. Walking toward the speaker to accept his honor —
was Theodore
! Larger than life, he stood next to the speaker and took the clear screen scroll the Citizen offered up. Theodore waved it above his head and smiled. The speaker avoided any eye contact with Theodore and immediately departed the podium.

I turned to Theodore and pinched him.

“Ow! What did you do that for?”

“I want to make sure you’re not a hologram,” I said. “When did you get that award?”

“I didn’t!”

“Then how . . .”

“Wow! I’m first.” Theodore was glowing. He stared at the screen, watching himself with the biggest smile I had ever seen stretched across his face.

“It’s got to be a fake!”

“Who cares? I’m first!”

By now I was forced to shout over the noise of the students. On the screen the placement results scrolled in front of us. Theodore’s name was first, and it shot out from the screen.

“Look, there’s my name!” he shouted. “Yes! And Max is second! And look, JT, there’s yours!”

The air did not move. It was as if a vacuum had sucked it from the auditorium. The entire place was reduced to a point of singularity.
But it can’t be!
The third name on the list was
Johnny Turnbull.
Now all of the students were rocking the pods and banging on them in unison. Grace’s name was fourth on the list, right behind mine. Dalton was fifth. Every one of us placed before any of the Citizens. Beside our name was our Guarantor’s name: Charlie Norton. The crowd continued violently rocking their pods in disgust. I poked my head out, and an angry alien above me threw something. It stuck to my hair.

“What is it?” I turned to Theodore for help.

Theodore scrunched his face and said, “I don’t know.”

“Get rid of it!”

Gingerly, he swiped at my head, and flung the thing out of the pod.

“This isn’t good!” he shouted over the noise.

“Is it ever?”

“We need to get out of here.”

“JT!” someone shouted. It was Max.

Cautiously I peered over the edge of my pod and saw Max and Grace defending themselves from an assortment of projectiles being sent their way.

“Get Vairocina!” she shouted.

I could do better. I sat back and accessed the central computer through the pod’s uplink. The energetic coolness of the central computer washed over me as I pushed inside it. Without looking, I launched myself down the first corridor of data and accessed the Illuminate. I felt stronger whenever I was inside the central computer. Much more confident than I did on the outside. I located the auditorium on the network grid with my first try. A simple binary code stood guarding the power to the entire room. I reached in with my mind and disconnected the power. I bet that would shut them up.

“Vairocina!” I hollered while still inside the computer.

“This is a nice surprise,” she said, floating through a portal. “What’s wrong?”

“Can you get the pods moving in the Illuminate and get all of us out of here?”

“Everyone?”

“Just the humans; you’ll have to restrict the power flow. Can you locate us by our staining?”

“Absolutely,” she said.

I pulled out of the computer.

“Did you do that?” Theodore asked.

“Yeah, hold on!”

The pod jerked sideways. The doors out of the auditorium cracked open, flushing our pod with light. Theodore and I scrambled out and found some of the other kids already waiting.

When Max finally appeared in the doorway, she gasped, “I’m telling everyone now: Don’t try so hard next time.”

“When did you get that award?” Grace asked Theodore, getting out of her pod as quickly as possible.

“I didn’t. That was a fake, but the score still counts,” he assured everyone.

“Did you see Ketheria’s score, JT?” Max asked.

“No, why?” I replied. I must have been inside the computer when her score came up.

“She placed last.”

“Last of us?”

“No, last in the whole Illuminate.”

Staying at the Illuminate was not an option. I had no intention of facing anyone from the student body after the way they’d reacted to our placement scores (I especially didn’t want to face a mob of them). I also wanted to ask Charlie how Theodore could receive an award without even knowing the event had taken place. Almost immediately, we jumped a chute back home and found Charlie sitting in the garden with Ketheria. She was leaning up against him, wrapped in a blanket, drawing on an O-dat.

Charlie stood up when he saw us. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“They don’t like us very much at the Illuminate,” Max informed him.

“We’re too smart,” Dalton added.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, everyone,” Theodore moaned, and rolled his eyes, his tone implying that he was the cause of the entire problem. I looked at Max as she bit her bottom lip, trying not to laugh.

Charlie raised his eyebrows and let out a deep breath. “The placement exam.”

“You knew?” I questioned him.

Charlie nodded.

“Why didn’t you warn us?” The edge on my words was a little too sharp. I tried to soften my tone a bit. “And when did Theodore get that award?”

“The Citizens always honor their own, especially the student who places highest. When Theodore received the best score, the Chancellor refused to acknowledge it. The Keepers made him do it, but he would only perform the staged production you saw.”

“The Keepers monitor the test?”

“They wrote it.”

My mind was swimming with questions again. I couldn’t even fathom what Charlie meant. And I couldn’t care less. I really didn’t want this attention. Not at the Illuminate.

“Your sister’s feeling much better,” Charlie said as Max sat next to her.

Ketheria. I forgot. “I’m sorry,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

I really wanted to ask her about the test. Did she even answer the questions? How could she place last? It just didn’t fit.

I stared at Ketheria, and before I said anything, she said, “The exam means nothing, JT. It only fills their need to label everyone. Forget it. But congratulations just the same, Theodore.”

“Thanks,” he replied. He was still smiling. In fact, he hadn’t stopped smiling the entire way home.

“But . . .” I wanted more from my sister. I wanted an explanation. It infuriated me when she was so passive.

“I just didn’t do the test,” Ketheria said. “Is that enough? It’s better this way.”

My little sister could be odd sometimes, and unfortunately, this was one of those times. The device on her head didn’t seem to stop her from always knowing what I was thinking, either. I never knew how to reply whenever she blurted out a piece of advice or some sort of warning. I leaned forward, tugging at the O-dat she was writing on.

“What do you have there?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Nothing,” she replied.

On the screen were lines spiraling around a fixed point like a swirling galaxy. Just kids’ stuff. Doodles, really. I ran my hand over her hair, bumping my fingers against the metal bolted to her head.

“You look better.”

Ketheria poked her chin up at Charlie and said, “I’m hungry.”

“She’s better,” Max agreed.

From behind me, Theodore called, “JT?” He was now standing at the doorway to the house. “Can you come here?”

I followed Theodore inside. “What is it?”

“I want to show you something.”

Theodore stopped outside the room to our sleepers, where we had left Ketheria at the start of the spoke.