Wormhole Pirates on Orbis Read Online Free Page B

hope your trip to Orbis 3 was successful, JT,” a voice inside my head said.
    “It was, thank you,” I told her. “You can show yourself if you like.”
    The room was dimly lit by warm colors seeping in from a light source buried in a crevice that ran the perimeter of the room. The air in front of me tugged at the light. It gathered and churned and eventually formed a holograph of my friend, Vairocina. She was the girl whose essence I had found inside the central computer. I once saved her from destruction, and now she helped the Keepers protect the immense sentient computer that runs everything on the Rings of Orbis.
    The last time I saw her was on Orbis 2. She looked like a little girl then, almost like Ketheria, with brown hair spilling over her shoulders and big bright eyes. Except Vairocina’s eyes were darker and without pupils. The image that now floated in front of me was not the same little girl.
    “That’s not Vairocina,” Theodore whispered.
    “What do you think?” she said. Her voice sounded slightly electronic.
    Variocina looked different, older, more like Max now. Her hair was a little wavier and she was pretty like Max, too, but different. Her clothes were colored pink and white, and her face seemed painted.
Did she change her face?
I couldn’t remember. Everyone circled the holograph, admiring the new Vairocina.
    “I have made some upgrades,” she announced.
    “You sure did,” one of the boys said.
    Even Dalton seemed interested this time. Switzer had never believed Vairocina was real, the same way he never believed I could speak with the computer on the
Renaissance,
and Dalton always followed his lead. This, however, was hard to ignore.
    “Why did you do that?” I asked.
    “Why, don’t you like it?” Vairocina said, frowning.
    “I think you’re beautiful, Vairocina,” my sister gushed.
    “No . . . I like it. I mean . . . you know. What was wrong with . . . before? I liked that, too. I mean, not better. I mean, the same,” I stumbled.
    “I have to grow up sometime,” she said. “I am over a million rotations old, you know. Maybe more. I lost count somewhere between an Ysidron war cruiser and a Simgeesian memory chip.”
    Vairocina had run away from her planet as a child, hiding inside computers.
    “I studied images of your human culture and found it very interesting. It’s quite similar to my own, you know. I think this new form suits me better,” she added.
    “I gotta agree,” Theodore said.
    Grace and Max watched and whispered.
    “Did you want to have a conversation?” she asked me, adjusting her pink skirt.
How can a computer code adjust a skirt?
I wondered. Better still,
Why?
    “Actually, I have a couple of questions.”
    “Ask her about the wormhole pirates,” Max whispered.
    “I will, but first, is Charlie a Citizen now? Charlie Norton.”
    Vairocina’s gaze drifted away. She was accessing information somewhere inside the central computer. After a moment she replied, “Yes, he is, and a very wealthy Citizen at that. He seems to have acquired a large amount of chits just recently, too.”
    “Where did he get them from?” I asked. “I always thought Charlie was a knudnik.”
    “There is no data pertaining to the money’s origin. Charlie Norton became very wealthy the same cycle he became a Citizen.”
    “When did he become a Citizen?” Max asked.
    “This cycle,” she replied.
    “Wow, Charlie became a Citizen the same cycle we arrived on Orbis 3?” Max said.
    “The same cycle he became very wealthy,” I added.
And the same cycle wormhole pirates attacked the rings,
I thought. “Vairocina, have the wormhole pirates ever attacked a shuttle before?”
    “Are you referring to the attack this cycle on the Citizen vessel from Orbis 2?”
    “Yeah, the one we were on.”
    “The bandits you refer to lurk in the dimensions that intersect with the wormhole and other universes. Proprietary technology allows these criminals to remain undetected in space and time,