The Softwire: Awakening on Orbis 4

by P. J. Haarsma

  I could see the top of the tunnel, only a few meters above my head. There wasn’t enough time to figure out why, nor was there anyone around who could answer my questions. There had to be a way out of here. If they weren’t turning the labyrinth off, then that meant the match wasn’t over. There must be a way out.

  I swam to the edge and groped the walls for some sort of plate or panel, anything really, but the walls were smooth like glass. I couldn’t even find a seam, nothing except for the little holes where the pink beams of light shone. Was that it?

  My hand was now against the ceiling. There was nothing else to try. I held my breath and dove under, close to one of the lights. There was nothing to interface with, so I tried to push in, but I found nothing. I moved to another light, hoping it might be different, but again, nothing. I surfaced, gasping for air. There were only about fifteen centimeters left for me to breathe in. Surely they wouldn’t let me die in here. This wasn’t the Chancellor’s Challenge. Do I simply give up? I wondered. What if Ketheria was with me? Would I give up then?

  I dove back into the water, searching for any light that was different in any way. Near the bottom, I spotted one that appeared slightly brighter than the others. I dove deeper, knowing that this was my last chance, since the water would surely be at the ceiling by now. In front of the light, I groped for a computer device but still found nothing! This time, I pushed in and discovered a single computer chip attached to a sensory timer. It was the smallest thing I had ever pushed into before, but at least it was something. I knew it had to connect to something larger. I forced myself inside the circuit and pushed against the resistance. It felt as if something was scratching at my skin, pawing for something to latch on to, something to hold me back with. The narrow corridor I found inside the chip then opened into a larger chamber of data cells stacked one on top of the other. I noticed that the one at the center was highlighted with a bright yellow glow as if it were a beacon to let me know I had arrived.

  A simple manipulation of the data sequence, clearly marked for anyone who found it, set the tank on drain, and I felt the rush of water pull me down to the floor. The water drained through a grate that ran the circumference of the tank. I waited as the floor extended downward, enlarging the grate until I could simply walk out. My bait was waiting for me.

  “Well done!” he cried. “You’re the first.”

  “First what?”

  “The first one to ever escape that trap. Nice job!”

  The trek back was simple. The water obstacle was gone, and I exited the maze in front of the bait. Those watching erupted in cheers as we stepped out. A few Space Jumpers who had made friends with Switzer were coming up to me and clapping me on the back, hanging close to me and discussing the match with whoever walked up. I listened as some, in the excitement, even answered questions that were directed to me. It felt good.

  Switzer was nowhere to be found.

  Brine Amar walked up to me and said, “I must say, I am impressed. I’m sure your name will be carved into a rock around here somewhere. You should be proud of your accomplishment.”

  And I was. A little voice tried to creep up and remind me how scared I’d been, how I thought about quitting. But I didn’t, I argued. I had figured it out and now I was here. The winner. If I had given up, I would have been the loser. If I had given up in real life, I would have been dead.

  Switzer finally came out, shaking his head. “Nice job!” he cried. There were no jabs at my abilities, no taunts about next time. Switzer seemed genuinely proud of what I had done. “I couldn’t get out of that tank. I tried everything. The softwire thing didn’t help me at all.”

  “Ah, you just need a little practice. I’ll show you,” I called out to him as he walked over to the group of Space Jumpers standing around me. I expected the other Space Jumpers to turn to Switzer and leave me to myself, but they didn’t. He joined us as if it was the most natural thing in the universe.

  “Go on, smile,” he whispered. “You deserve it. You won.”

  Things were different after our Quest-Nest match. I don’t just mean with Switzer and me, but with everyone at the Hollow. I enjoyed my friendships with Max and Theodore, and even my sister — in fact, I cherished them — but this was different. We were all joined by an ability we shared, a talent that had at one time made me an outsider, but not now, not here. Here you wore that ability like a badge. Your softwire was your admission to the Hollow, and it didn’t matter anymore if some alien had tampered with your genetic structure or you had come to it through your own natural evolutionary process.

  Despite our past, I felt that a bond had now formed between Switzer and me. We were in this together. I had finally accepted that. The fact that we had actually been in this together from the beginning did not escape me, either, but I was glad we had found a way to overcome all that. I looked forward to his company, and he had even begun asking me for help with his softwire ability. Switzer and I had become friends.

  Then I found Charlie.

  I tried to stop using the tablets like Switzer had suggested. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the nausea or the headaches — I really did want to live without the pills. The real problem was that whenever I began to feel sick, I thought about home. I thought about Ketheria and Max and Theodore. I ached to know what they were doing and to be near Max again. The Hollow provided an excellent distraction, but the sickness was a strong reminder of the people I had left behind.

  As I did on most sleepless spokes, I snuck off to the observation deck instead of staring at the lid of my sleeper. I found that the stars relaxed me, and if I was lucky, I might even drift off for a diam or two. When I entered the deck this time, however, I wasn’t alone. A Honock was there, staring at the stars. At first, I thought it was the one that was afraid of me, but when I got near and it didn’t run off, I assumed it had to be a different one.

  Leaving him to himself, I sprawled out in front of the glass, a good five meters away just to be polite. As I sat down, I glanced over to see if my presence had disturbed him.

  But there was something about him that looked familiar to me.

  I looked over my shoulder, trying not to stare. He was definitely a Honock — I could tell from the way his facial skin was pulled over his metal skull — so there was no way I could have known him. The skin stopped right at the jawline exposing a multitude of wires and metal bones. But despite the hardware, his profile was undeniable. It was Charlie Norton.

  “Charlie?” I whispered.

  The Honock turned and looked at me. It was Charlie, all right. The thick nose. The rugged chin. “Hello,” he replied.

  I jumped up. “Charlie, it’s me. JT!”

  I scrambled over to my old Guarantor, my friend — the person they told me was dead.

  He scooted back a little when I rushed forward. His movements were precise and machinelike — very “un-Charlie,” but there was no denying the resemblance.

  “Don’t you remember me, Charlie?”

  I sat still and let him examine me. I waited as his eyes searched my face, and I stared back at his waxen skin. I had never been this close to a Honock before, but I could see why Brine Amar treated them like machines. The facial skin was an excellent plasticlike imitation, right down to the fake pores. I heard a humming sound coming from him, sort of like the whir of many tiny motors. Each gesture he made had a slight pause and the exacting execution of a machine.

  What had they him done to my friend?

  “Ketheria?” Charlie said.

  “No, JT. But do you remember Ketheria? She was my sister. She loved you.”

  “Peanut Butter.”

  “Yes! Yes! Ketheria loves peanut butter.”

  “I don’t eat peanut butter.”

  “You did,” I told him.

  Charlie turned and looked back out at the stars, casually sitting next to me as if the two of us had done so a dozen times before. It hurt to think that he didn’t remember me, but what did I expect? I didn’t even know what C
harlie was anymore. I looked at his profile again, following the metal and wires down in to the collar of his green jumpsuit.

  “What have they done to you, Charlie?” I whispered softly. I didn’t think he heard me, but he turned and smiled anyway.

  It hit me that I was not as surprised by his presence as one might think. They had brought Switzer back from the dead, didn’t they? Why not Charlie?

  “What are you looking for?” I asked him.

  Charlie turned to me and said, “Chicago.”

  “I’m afraid we are a long way from home, Charlie. A very long way.”

  I wanted to blame the Rings of Orbis for what had happened to Charlie, but Orbis had nothing to do with it. Charlie was they way he was because of one person. Randall Switzer. It was Switzer’s malf of a plan to steal the Ancients’ Treasure that had gotten Charlie killed. Charlie’s presence was a glaring reminder of every selfish act Switzer had ever committed in his life — from his tyranny on the Renaissance to his utter lack of concern when he entered us in the Chancellor’s Challenge. Switzer was an animal, pure and simple. He was not my friend. Who was I kidding? I hated Switzer at that moment.

  “Charlie, do you know who I am?”

  “You’re JT.”

  “I am, but do you remember me? Do you remember being my Guarantor on the Rings of Orbis? Do you remember Max or Theodore?”

  “Your friends.”

  “Yes!”

  “My friends.”

  “Yes!”

  “They’re sleeping.”

  “Who’s sleeping?”

  “Our friends.”

  Was Charlie talking about the other Space Jumpers at the Hollow? I’m sure he had seen me training with them. “No, Charlie. I don’t know what our friends are doing right now. They’re far away. Too far, I’m afraid.”

  “I watch them. I watch you. I watch your friends now.”

  I looked through the glass and out into the stars. Could he see the Rings of Orbis? “Don’t you mean my friends here, Charlie? On the Hollow? Do you watch me and the other Space Jumpers?”

  “I watch them.”

  “I thought so,” I mumbled.

  “But I watch Theodore and Max and Ketheria and you.”

  “What?” I cried.

  “Shh!” Charlie whispered. “I am not allowed. I watch when they aren’t watching me.”

  “Charlie, you can see Max? Where? Show me.”

  “It is forbidden. I am not allowed.”

  “You have to show me, Charlie. Where is it? Is it here on the ship? I have to see them, Charlie. Show me, please!”

  Charlie covered my mouth with his hand. To my surprise, it was warm. Charlie looked over his shoulder toward the door and then stood up. I followed him, something I had done so often that the back of his head had been emblazoned into my memory, but this was different; everything was different. The confidence in his walk was gone; there was a Honock-like stiffness to his movements, and the hardware around the base of his brain looked unnatural. Plus, he was bald.

  Outside the observation deck, Charlie moved quickly, even with his awkward gait. I followed him down four decks and through the Honocks’ living quarters. He never once paused to see if I was keeping pace. When he did stop, the only exit I could see in the dimly lit corridor was a ventilation grate that covered most of the wall.

  “What is this place, Charlie?” I asked him.

  “Shh!” he replied, and glanced back down the corridor. He lifted the thick metal grate out of the wall and set it down with a clank. The thing must have weighed sixty kilos, yet he moved it as if it was a scrap of plastic.

  “Go,” he whispered, and nodded for me to enter the tunnel.

  I heard the grate grind back into place as Charlie followed, covering our tracks. A greenish electrical glow at the end of the tunnel was my only guide as I slid my foot forward to make sure I was walking on solid ground. When I reached the light, I discovered a patchwork of O-dat terminals, wires, and computer parts, all linked to a control panel that looked as if it had been hacked open.

  “Charlie, did you make all of this?” I asked, staring at his makeshift control center. I think the hideaway was fashioned from some sort of a utility shaft off the main ventilation system.

  I moved aside so Charlie could sit at a small stool he must have taken from the meal room. Then he pulled a scrap of polymer out of his pocket and attached the crude device to a hardwire that he coaxed from his arm. The makeshift O-dat sparkled to life, and Charlie began copying numbers into the larger O-dats in front him. After a few moments, I saw the screens light up with unrecognizable coordinates, each with small blinking dots near the right of the screen. I could see that one of the dots was moving slightly.

  I looked at Charlie as he rested his head on his hands and stared longingly at the screens. What was he looking at? The markings made no sense to me whatsoever. They looked like some sort of radar coordinates, or maybe he had hooked into a deep-space probe. I couldn’t break it to him that he was just staring at nothing, especially if he thought these were Max and Ketheria. Or should I tell him? I didn’t know how much a Honock understood. What sort of feelings he had, if any at all. The creature in front of me looked like Charlie, but he wasn’t Charlie. My friend never had a nest of computer circuitry mounted to the base of his skull. Suddenly, I felt sad. What had I done to him? What had Switzer done?

  “That’s nice, Charlie. They look good,” I croaked, pushing down the lump trying to free itself from my throat.

  Then, as if as an afterthought, Charlie flipped a yellowed toggle switch mounted to the frame of his contraption. The screens exploded with images of Max, Theodore, and Ketheria. They were all asleep except Max.

  I pushed myself in front of Charlie, practically jumping into his lap.

  “How are you doing this?” I grabbed the piece of polymer. It was filled with numbers and symbols. “What are these? Where did you get them?”

  Charlie typed in some more numbers, and an image of my room on Orbis 4 came up on one of the previously blank O-dats.

  “Charlie, how do you know how to do this? Who gave you these? Did someone put surveillance equipment in our rooms? Charlie, tell me!”

  “I don’t remember,” was all he said, and then he went back to staring at the screens.

  Max was not in her sleeper. She was sitting at her chair, her back to the camera. There was something in her hands, something she was looking at, but I couldn’t make it out. How long had it been since I’d seen her? She looked just as she did in the image that was burned into my memory. Maybe her hair was a little longer, but that was it. The sight of her flooded my senses with her smell, her touch, the smoothness of her skin, the sound of her voice — all of it was inside me right now, igniting an ache I had been trying to bury. I wanted to be back on the Rings of Orbis. I wanted to be back on the rings right now.

  I watched as Max placed whatever she’d been holding on her table and then walked toward her sleeper. She slipped out of her robe and climbed in. As the lid closed, she looked up — toward whatever was looking at her, I thought. For a nanosecond I was looking straight into her eyes again. It felt as if I had been impaled with a rod of hot metal. After the lid closed, I stood there staring at her sleeper, and then I slumped onto the floor. Charlie flipped the toggle switch, and the green dots came back up. He just sat there and watched them.

  When I returned to my room, I found Switzer already up.

  “Up early or just getting in?” he asked.

  I couldn’t talk to Switzer. Not right now. I crawled into my sleeper and closed the lid. I didn’t even look at him. Knowing what he did to Charlie made me sick to my stomach.

  “I’ll take that as just getting in. You got to lay off those tablets, JT.”

  “Shut up,” I muttered, and closed my eyes. How could we ever be friends? How could I ever forget what he did?

  Switzer thumped his big hand on the lid of my sleeper.

  “C’mon. Big cycle. We start looking like Sp
ace Jumpers. New uniforms. I want something mean-looking. What do you want to get?”

  I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. Not a single word. I wanted to throw back the lid and rip Switzer’s throat out. I wanted to hit him, punch him once for every one of the millions of stupid things he had done in his life. I wanted to hit him until he was dead.

  “Suit yourself,” he grumbled, and then I heard the door disappear.

  Finally, I breathed. Then, for the first time in a long time, I slept. I didn’t dream; my body simply wanted to check out for a while, to turn my brain off. When I woke, Switzer was back in his sleeper. I had spent the entire cycle asleep. No one had bothered me. No one had come looking for me when I missed my scheduled appointments with my connector or my meeting with Quirin. I found that odd, but I was relieved to find some freedom left in my life.

  I got up and searched for Charlie. He was not in the observation deck, so I traced my steps back to the ventilation shaft. The huge grate was in its proper place, and when I went to remove it, I was forced to adjust the settings to my arm. How strong was Charlie now? I wondered. The clunk of the grate hitting the floor resonated down the hallway, but I didn’t wait to see if I had alarmed anyone. With the grate back in place I headed toward the green glow.

  Charlie was not at his screens, and all the O-dats were turned off. I searched the counter under the screens for the polymer, but that was nowhere to be found. Where are you, Charlie? I sat waiting for him to return, but he did not come. Instead, I stared at the blank O-dats. I wanted so badly to turn them on. I could simply push in and take a little peek into his handiwork. He wouldn’t mind, I convinced myself, and so I sat at his stool and fired up the portal that was my only link to my old life.

  Charlie’s computer creation seemed designed for only one purpose: to spy on us. Once inside his array, I found hundreds and hundred of unlabeled files containing digis of Max, Theodore, Grace, Ketheria, me, and most of the other kids who had lived with Charlie on Orbis 3. Somehow Charlie had managed to locate each of us on Orbis 4. It was easy to figure out how he had done it — the staining. Everyone had been stained on Orbis 2 with a genetic mark that allowed Citizens to track us. After Switzer had jumped (and taken my arm with him), the Trading Council demanded that we get stained or be put to death. I remember Charlie railing against the staining at the time. I wondered if they gave him the tools to find us after he became our Guarantor. It all seemed plausible, but who had installed the surveillance equipment in our rooms and why? And how did a Honock find out about it?