Wormhole Pirates on Orbis (8 page)

I know Ketheria liked Charlie because of his kindness, but she
loved
him for his appreciation of food. Even Nugget poked his head up anytime Charlie spoke of eating. The moment we stepped inside the arena, I could smell the food, and it smelled great. It was like the Birth Days Mother celebrated on the
Renaissance.
Every food imaginable was on display for purchase.

“Wait, it’s better where we’re going,” he said.

“You’ve been here before?” Max asked.

“A couple of times.”

Aliens shuffled under 3-D holographs of players simulating the game. The light emanating from the images deflected off metal railings that roped around the balcony we were now standing on.

“Is that the game?” I asked, pointing to the holographs.

Charlie looked up and said, “No, those are just famous matches from last rotation. I think the new professional season has already started.”

Past the railing I saw more aliens peddling souvenirs to fans eager to purchase anything and everything. The scores from some of the players flashed on O-dats that floated above the vendors.

“What do they do with all this
stuff
?” Max asked me. “I can’t imagine needing any of it.”

“I guess Citizens just need more,” I replied.

I tried to picture myself waiting to purchase a holographic portrait of my favorite player and bring it back to my home. I couldn’t. It just didn’t make sense to me. Was this what it meant to be a Citizen? When I was on the
Renaissance,
the Rings of Orbis and their customs were all I would dream about. But watching all of these strange creatures going about their business, laughing and enjoying whatever it was we were about to watch, a familiar feeling flushed through me — I was the alien here, not them.

We followed Charlie through the crowds, past the tiny stations where aliens lined up to wager on the outcome of the game, to an area high above the labyrinth. The huge walls of glass curved around a section in the middle of the arena that was even bigger than the plaza of the Illuminate. The labyrinth was dark, but a pulse of red light revealed the fans standing all around the lower level.

“We should hurry; a new match is going to start,” he said.

Charlie purchased twenty-three tickets and explained that we were paying to sit in a better section. I saw the attendant counting us, and he stopped Charlie.

“Why so many of
them
?” the attendant asked.

The alien was not wearing any sort of Citizen insignia. I could only assume he was a knudnik, too. Charlie leaned toward the attendant.

“Who are you to question a Citizen?” Charlie demanded.

The alien shrank back in his seat and quickly accessed his O-dat. It felt strange watching Charlie exert his power over a knudnik. We were knudniks, and he never spoke to us like that. Max smiled at the attendant as we entered the reserved viewing room. It was a
ha-ha
sort of smile, not the
pleasure-to-meet-you
kind.

Charlie found us a large table right at the edge of the glass. The table was covered in purple silk and laid out with sparkling crystal glasses — one for each of us. Four thin aliens dressed in white jumpers waited until everyone was comfortable, then offered Charlie a portable O-dat. They didn’t offer any to us.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“So we can order food. I can even place a bet with this, but this time we’re just here to watch and maybe eat something,” he said, his eyes widening. Ketheria smiled and moved to sit next to him. Max took Ketheria’s seat next to me.

There were at least five more rows of aliens sitting behind us, each row a little higher than the one in front of it. Every table was dressed as elegantly as ours.

“There’s a lot of people here,” Max said.

I looked at Theodore, who was busy counting exactly how many.

“Look at our table,” Ketheria exclaimed, pointing.

I stared into the purple silk. The material created a three-dimensional effect, and tiny lights in the cloth twinkled like stars in deep space. I lifted my drinking glass away from the illusion and then placed it back on the table. The crystal goblet looked like it was floating in space.

“This place is amazing,” I said to her.

“One hundred and sixty-eight Citizens, two hundred and fourteen knudniks, including us,” Theodore said. “I’ve noticed that a lot.”

“Noticed what?” Max asked.

“I always see more knudniks than Citizens.”

As I scoped the crowd, my eyes fell upon one alien seated in the row above me, just to my left. The alien was big. Not
Trefaldoor
big, but a lot bigger than Charlie. His skin was a chalky yellow, and he wore a large necklace inscribed with the Citizen insignia. The jewel glittered against the lights as the arena behind me lit up, announcing the next match. The alien snatched a small device off his table and clutched it in his thick fingers. He sat up and pulled the necklace aside to expose a large hole in his chest. The alien covered the hole with the device in his hand and began to speak. The words were raspy and mechanical, but everyone at the table moved. Frail aliens, dressed in soft colors, flittered around as each word emanated from the metal device. Two of them settled against him while another stood patiently in front of him.

“Yes, Athooyi. Your wishes?” the alien whispered, speaking very smoothly.

“I need to place my wager. Quickly,” Athooyi said, and thrust a fistful of crystal toward the fragile creature. The alien drifted away with the crystals and the portable O-dat. Another alien took its place at his feet. Athooyi stroked the alien’s fine hair and fed it something from the table. There must have been eight of these smaller aliens around Athooyi.

“You’re staring,” Charlie said, disrupting my trance.

“But . . .” I pointed at the alien.

“Now you’re pointing. Turn around; the match is about to start.”

Was I the only one staring? The others were all pressed against the glass, waiting for the match to start. Except for Max.

“I know — weird, isn’t it?” she whispered.

“Every time I think I’m used to this place, I see something like that.”

“Me too. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you here,” she mumbled. “I think I would go crazy.”

“Me?”

“Well . . .” Max changed color.

“You look hot all of a sudden,” I said.

“I do?” Max touched her cheek. “I am. Sorry. I meant to say, you know, everyone. I’m glad . . . everyone . . . all of us, here. Are here,” she corrected herself, sweeping her hand toward the others. “More
humans.
”

“Oh, yeah. I know exactly what you mean.”

But I wasn’t sure I did. Ketheria glanced at me, smiling.

“What?” I asked her, but then turned my attention to the arena.

What just happened?

Suddenly the lights in our viewing room dimmed. The only lights left were the twinkle from each of the tables and the colored lights illuminating the playing field below. Directly across from me, two enormous O-dats unraveled and draped over the game area. They sparkled to life as images of the gamers sprung from the screens and raced around the arena, larger than life. There were four different gamers, each paired in identical outfits.

The 3-D holographs returned to the screens, and statistics for each of the gamers flashed for everyone to see. The gaming area turned red.

“That means no more bets,” Charlie said.

“There are teams?” I asked.

“Yes, in this version of the game, it’s two against two. One tracker and one bait,” he said. “Here comes the bait now.”

Two gamers strolled onto the playing field, waving to the crowd. One was dressed in protective armor of green and silver, while the other sported mostly black. Each wore a large helmet that appeared slightly unbalanced on the left side behind their neural implants. The gaming floor was marked with two semicircles, the flat sides facing each other. The players stepped into a smaller semicircle inside each of the main semicircles. Once the players were in position, an energy field sprang up, surrounding them.

The giant O-dats that floated above the bait, as Charlie called them, displayed two more players as they each waited offstage inside some narrow tunnel. We watched the screens as these gamers stepped onto a flat crystal glowing in the floor, which triggered an O-dat–like energy field to spring up in front of them.

“What’s that for?” Max asked.

“That’s called the sort. A lot of strategy goes into playing the sort.”

“Why can’t we see the whole playing area?” I asked.

“Remember the place you stayed on Orbis 1?” Charlie said. “That blue cell?”

Of course, how could I forget that place? That’s when they thought I was messing with the central computer and they locked me up.

“That’s where I met you,” I replied.

Charlie nodded. “Remember how the testing area appeared larger than it should have?”

“Dimensional displacement,” I said. “The room appears bigger to the observer than it actually is. Theylor tried to explain it to me, but I never really understood it.”

“Well, it’s the same thing here. The trackers are playing just beyond that wall,” he said, pointing past the semicircles. “For them the playing field appears much larger.”

“Oh.”

“What are they doing now?” Theodore asked, pointing to the large O-dats overhead.

The screen on the left displayed a close-up of one of the sorts. Three glowing diamond shapes were grouped together over the Orbis insignia. Each diamond displayed a different word:
SOLID
,
LIQUID
, and
GAS
.

The first alien tapped on
SOLID
, and the crowd cheered, while some pounded their tables out of disgust.

“You can bet on any aspect of the game, including the first round of the sort,” Charlie informed us. “Some people just lost a lot of money. But why anyone would bet on the sort is beyond me. Too crooked.”

On the right screen, three new diamonds now appeared. These said:
MECHANIC
,
KINETIC
, and
PSIONIC
.

The second alien selected
MECHANIC
. The effect on the crowd was instant.

“The trackers set the game’s parameters with the sort,” Charlie said. “If the player is weak in one specific area, he or she may try to force the other tracker to choose around that weakness. They each have one more pick.”

“Then what?” I said.

“Then the tracker has to find the bait and bring him back,” Charlie replied matter-of-factly.

“What?”

“The tracker. With those parameters selected, he has to work his way through the labyrinth, find his partner, and then they both fight their way back before the other team does,” he explained.

I didn’t have to look at Max; she was already gawking at me, and so was Theodore. In fact, everyone was surprised by Charlie’s statement.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she said.

“It’s Quest-Nest,” Theodore exclaimed.

“But how can that be? How could Mother know about a game played on the Rings of Orbis?” I pointed out.

Max shrugged and said, “Maybe she did and didn’t tell us.”

“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.

“We’ve played this game before,” I informed him, and everyone nodded.

“That’s impossible,” he remarked.

“Mother set it up for us on the
Renaissance,
” Max said.

“Except there was none of that
sort
thing,” another kid mumbled.

Charlie shook his head. “This game is only played on the rings. The Citizens make sure of that. It’s like a tourist attraction.”

“Well, we played it on the
Renaissance,
” I replied. “All the time.”

“Maybe you’re wrong,” he tried to assure me. “Let’s just watch and see.”

But we weren’t wrong. The labyrinth was a little fancier, but the concept was the same. The tracker utilized different weapons to destroy 3-D holographs and fight his way to the center before the force field fell. Near the semicircles surrounding the bait, the computer placed several alien monsters waiting to attack the bait if his tracker took too much time. The sort was the only unique part of the game. But then, Mother had randomly changed the parameters of Quest-Nest for us. It was always different.

Charlie pointed to the holographic monsters. “There’s a time limit. If the tracker doesn’t get here before it —”

“Then the energy shield comes down,” I said, finishing his sentence.

“And the labyrinth will begin to shift, too,” Max added.

Charlie dropped his shoulders, tilted his head, and closed his mouth.

“I like using the immobility cubes,” Ketheria informed him.

“You were the best with them,” another kid remarked.

“You found the bait so fast because you could read their minds,” Dalton said, and Ketheria only smiled.

“That’s cheating!” Grace shrieked.

“Didn’t help her get back out, though,” someone else pointed out.

Charlie sat in awe while we discussed the game as if we had watched it a million times — and we probably had. I was not worried about Dop’s challenge anymore. Actually, I was smiling inside. He wouldn’t see me coming.
What a great cycle that will be!

“But this isn’t kids from the Illuminate playing,” I said to Charlie.

“No,” he said. “This is a like a professional sports league back on Earth. The players are competing right now for entry into the conclave. Citizens own many of the players, and it’s very competitive. A lot of money is won and lost on these games. People come from all over to compete. Your school league is separate, but all conclaves are played at the labyrinth.”

I figured Vairocina could help me learn about the sort before my match with Dop. And I noticed that some of the weapons the players used in the match were foreign to me, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

The alien in green and silver made it to the bait just before the alien in black. When he entered, the energy fields around the bait dropped and the labyrinth shifted. When the shield was down, the alien in black turned, then fired his weapon at the other bait.