The Softwire: Betrayal on Orbis 2 (19 page)

“Why are you acting so weird?” Max said.

“Me?” I wasn’t acting weird.

“Yeah. What’s wrong?” Ketheria said.

“It’s dangerous; that’s what’s wrong. Theodore’s right this time, guys,” I argued.

“Then help us,” my sister said.

Both of the girls just looked at me.

“No one’s gonna get hurt,” Max tried to assure me. “Besides, this is the most interesting thing I’ve done since we’ve been here. You get to work with the Samirans, but we’re basically waiting around doing nothing except getting beaten up by Toll’s dinner.”

I looked at Max. I wanted to tell them about Toll Town, about the alien with the skin and how the families were broken apart. I wanted to warn them somehow so they wouldn’t do this, not this way.

But I didn’t.

“All right,” I said. “But I go first.”

“No, you don’t,” Max protested. “After me.”

“Then me,” Ketheria chimed in.

“I’ll wait up here,” Theodore said. “And keep the light on.”

I stood next to Max. “Whew! You guys reek.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Max said as she held up a portable light. “Here, hold this. Ketheria got it from Odran’s room.”

I looked at my sister. “Now
you’re
stealing?”

“It’s not stealing if you bring it back,” she replied.

“Ready?” Max said.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“Tie onto the grate with the rope, leaving enough rope in case you slip. Then lean out and grab the chain,” Max told us.

“In case you slip? You’re nuts,” Theodore exclaimed. Ketheria was already tying up.

“I want to know what those two found,” Max said.

We did what Max said, but she couldn’t reach the chain. Max stretched out as far as she could, but it was no use.

So Max jumped.

“Max!” I screamed.

As her feet left the edge of the hole, my mind flashed to the escaping alien jumping for the cable under the crystal flier. He missed the first time and so did Max. She caught the chain but could not hold tight. She slipped down the chain and the darkness swallowed her up.

“Max!” Theodore yelled.

The chain jerked and then held still.

“I’m all right,” she yelled back.

Ketheria shone the light on her. Max had managed to jam her foot in one of the rings that ran the length of each chain. She clung to the chain just below our feet.

“Be careful,” she warned us. “It’s a little slippery.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“You’re insane,” Theodore told her. “I’m staying right here.”

“Suit yourself. Here, catch.” Max grabbed another chain, gave it a yank, and flung it toward Ketheria. She caught it on the first try.

“How are you going to get off the chain now?” Theodore said. I think he was hoping Max hadn’t thought of that.

“Easy,” Max replied, and she tied the rope from the metal grate to her chain. She used it to pull herself back to the edge.

“Oh,” Theodore muttered.

Once we were on the chains, we looked at Theodore, still standing at the edge of the tunnel.

“We’ll be back in a bit,” I told him.

“Maybe longer,” Max added, and took the light from Ketheria.

“What’s longer than a bit?” Theodore said. “Wait — I’m coming, too.” And he tied off.

Once all four of us were secure, I carefully lowered myself down the tunnel. As we moved deeper, the crystal light cut into the grimy, tiled walls, following us from the main tunnel. Chunks of garbage were stuck in grates that punctured the walls, and there was a thin coat of slime on everything.

The air grew increasingly damp the deeper we went. We moved down the chain through a layer of mist just like the thin clouds that were at the center of Orbis 2. There was no bottom in sight.

“Let’s go back,” Theodore complained. “There’s nothing down here.”

“No, look,” Max said, and shone the light on another, larger, opening in the tunnel right below her.

Ketheria clambered back up her chain.

“There’s nothing. Don’t be scared,” Max yelled after her.

“No, wait,” Ketheria said. “Do you hear that?”

We hung motionless in the air, but no one heard anything.

“There. Shine the light there,” Ketheria said, pointing to a hole in the tunnel that was once covered by a grate. The grate now dangled from a single bolt.

Max shone the light into the hole. There
was
something there. I could see it squirming under the garbage and debris.

“Nugget!” Ketheria screamed. “I knew you were here.”

It happened very quickly. When Nugget heard Ketheria’s voice, he lifted his head from under the trash and shielded the light with his big, clumsy hands. Once he saw Ketheria, Nugget sprang toward her and launched himself from within the hole. There was no doubt that he would make it; I was only concerned that Ketheria wouldn’t be able to hold on once Nugget grabbed her.

“Hold tight, Ketheria!” I shouted.

Grunting under the impact of the heavy load, she beamed and yelled, “I’ve got him.”

My sister wrestled one arm through the metal ring in the chain and used the other to hold on to Nugget. He was as big as she was now but far more muscular.

“Kechera, Kechera, Kechera!” Nugget repeated over and over.

“He remembers me,” she said, glowing.

“What do we do now?” Theodore said, staring at the alien.

“We keep going,” Max replied, and pushed deeper down the tunnel.

“Ketheria can’t carry him,” I told her.

“It’s OK, Nugget; you’re safe now,” my sister whispered. “You can stay with us forever.”

I wasn’t sure if Odran would agree with Ketheria’s hospitality.

“Nugget, catch,” Theodore said as he swung a chain toward him.

It bounced off Nugget and clanked back and forth. Nugget reached out and grabbed it.

“See? He knows what to do. C’mon, Nugget — we’re exploring. Come with us,” Ketheria said.

The little alien hesitated until he saw all of us doing the same thing. Gone from his eyes was the meanness I had seen when he used to order us around Weegin’s World. Weegin must have abandoned him — or worse, Weegin was dead.

“Wait,” Nugget barked. He turned back to the hole. “Inal!”

“What’s he saying?” Theodore said.

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“There is someone with Nugget,” Ketheria said.

A small creature with fierce blue eyes and patches of white whiskers poked out from under the same spot where Nugget had been hiding.

“Friends, Inal,” Nugget said.

“I don’t remember being Nugget’s friend,” Theodore said.

Inal was the same size as Nugget and had feet like hands. The alien was wrapped in a soiled rag, but his Guarantor’s skin was still visible. Inal was a knudnik.

He looked at us cautiously without saying a word, then he asked, “Do you have food?”

“No, we don’t. I’m sorry,” I told the alien.

“Do you know where any is?”

“Come with us,” Ketheria offered. “We’ll get you some food.”

“Food!” Nugget yelped. “I want food.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea, JT,” Theodore complained.

I thought the same thing. Inal had obviously escaped from his Guarantor. Someone must being looking for him. I just didn’t know what he was doing with Nugget.

“I found another tunnel!” Max shouted. She was three meters below us, swinging wildly on her chain. I looked at Inal.

“Come with us, Inal. We’ll find you some food,” I said.

“And how do we get over there, Max?” Theodore shouted down the tunnel to her.

“Like this.” Max swung on her chain slowly, picking up momentum as she neared the hole. Ketheria did the same.

“Be careful!” I warned.

Max grabbed a grate above the tunnel and let go of the chain, dangling above the opening, and over the huge hole below us. With a swing and a jerk, she landed on the edge of the opening — the very edge. She waved her arms to steady herself and then safely slipped inside.

“Come on — swing over, Ketheria. I’ll grab you.”

“You
are
crazy,” Theodore told her.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she said, proud of what she was doing. She caught Ketheria’s chain on the first attempt and helped Ketheria into the tunnel. It was just like the one we left, a hundred meters above us.

“Push Nugget’s chain,” Ketheria ordered Theodore. The alien leaped at Ketheria well before he should have.

“Nugget!”

He knocked Ketheria flat on her back, but he was safe. Inal was much more graceful than Nugget. He leaped from the hold and shimmied down the chain all in one motion.

“I don’t think that was the first time he’s done that,” Theodore whispered, but Inal still heard him.

“I am a female. Can you not tell?”

Actually I couldn’t, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, Theodore and I followed Inal into the opening, and soon we were all heading down another tunnel. This one sloped upward, but the light that had followed us in the other tunnel did not turn on. Max shone her light along the tunnel walls. Scratched onto the walls were circular symbols and spirals. Some drawings looked like waves, while others looked like the markings I’d seen on the faces of Nagools.

“Someone’s been here,” Max said.

“I’ve never seen stuff like this before,” Theodore said.

I had, on the walls in Toll Town. Circles and sketches made by those waiting — bored or burdened with the desire to leave their mark before they left. I wondered if the same aliens hiding in Toll Town had made these.

The tunnel sloped down and then turned to the right. More debris and junk littered the ground, and now the circle drawings completely covered the walls. The tunnel ended with three more choices, just like before.

“Which way do we go?” Theodore asked, and we all looked at Ketheria.

“Why are you looking at me?” she asked.

Nugget yanked on Ketheria arms and pointed to the tunnel on the left. “I’m hungry!” He charged down the tunnel, dragging Ketheria with him.

“Er, nice to have him back, isn’t it?” Max said.

Ketheria and Nugget walked ten meters, and then the ground they were walking on simply gave away.

“Ketheria!”

We ran to the hole in the floor. It was covered with garbage.

“Ketheria! Can you hear me? Are you all right?” I shouted down the hole.

“Yeah, I’m fine — just jump!” she shouted back.

“Someone did this,” Theodore realized, picking up a piece of plastic just large enough to cover most of the hole.

“I think someone is trying to hide it, too,” I added. “And look at that rope.”

Tied to a metal ring at the edge of the hole was a red rope, knotted just like the one we had seen tied to the grate at the top of the main tunnel.

“Switzer?” Max wondered aloud.

“Who else?”

“This is not the way,” Inal said.

“The way to what?” I asked, but Inal did not respond. She looked at me, her eyes narrowing as if she was searching for something. Inal took my hand and turned it over, examining my palm.

Unsatisfied, she dropped my hand and said, “What are you doing in the tunnels?”

“Looking for our friends,” I told her, grabbing Inal’s hand. On her palm, cut into her flesh was a circle with a symbol in it — sort of an upside-down letter
V.
I saw this same symbol on the walls in the tunnel. I had also seen it everywhere in Toll Town.

“What does that mean?” Theodore asked, but Inal said nothing. She pulled her hand back, hid it under her clothes, and ran back the way we had come.

“Inal, wait!” Max yelled, but I knew what the symbol meant. She was on her way to Toll Town.

“Let her go,” I said.

As I watched Inal running through the tunnel, I realized that the tunnels must have been some sort of filling or draining system for the cooling tank at one time. Even now for all I knew. But I also figured that knudniks like Inal must use them to find their way to Toll Town. Maybe they followed the symbols on the walls left by others who had already made the journey. Inal must have scratched the symbol into her skin so she would not forget it.

I turned away and jumped into the hole. It was a quick drop that landed me next to Ketheria and Nugget in a puddle of stinky water.

“You all right?” I asked.

Ketheria nodded. “I hope that water is not what it smells like,” she mumbled.

“Don’t think about that,” I said.

“JT!” Max shouted from the top of the hole.

“It’s all right. Come on!” I shouted back, and stepped aside. Max landed hard.

“Eww!”

“Better move,” Ketheria said, but it was too late. Theodore was not going to wait long at the top by himself. He landed right on top of Max.

“Cute,” I said.

Theodore got off Max without ever touching the water.

“You guys stink,” he said.

“And you don’t?” I said.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“We’re back at the beginning,” Ketheria replied.

“What do you mean?” Max said.

“Core City,” I told her. “This is where Weegin tried to sell us. Those are the waterways we traveled along to the arena Weegin took us to. See?” I pointed in the dark. The water glowed red from the crystals in the walls.

“Then I don’t want to stay here very long,” Max said.

“
Clack
Inal?” Nugget asked.

“The central computer doesn’t work here,” Max said.

“She went a different way,” I told Nugget, but it was obvious he couldn’t understand. “But she said to say good-bye.”

Nugget took Ketheria’s hand.

“Which way are we gonna go?” Theodore asked.

We all looked at Nugget.

“Nugget, where’s the food?” I asked him. The little alien cocked his head, frowning. I opened my mouth and pointed to it. “Food!”

Nugget grabbed Ketheria’s hand and stomped through the red shadows.

“Do you think he knows?” Max said.

We followed Nugget until he left the main waterway and slipped through a jagged crack in the moss-covered wall.

“Wait. Where’s he going?” I asked.

“C’mon — Nugget knows the way,” Ketheria said, and slipped through the crack. We all followed her into a completely dark tunnel.

“Ketheria?” I called out for my sister, feeling my way along the damp wall.