Thread War Page 21

  “You really love him, don’t you?” Kesi said suddenly.

  “Hmm?” Shabaz said, squinting into the distance. “You mean Johnny?”

  “I know you guys are together—everyone knows that—but you’re different around him. You guys don’t . . . you act different than other skids who get together. That thing where you sent him off with Dillac; he’d just said he was going to follow whatever you said. Why’d he have it coming?”

  Shabaz chuckled. Explaining this, when she’d barely begun to understand what she and Johnny were going through herself, would be interesting. “Johnny sometimes gets this look when he thinks he’s doing something noble, like letting someone else lead. And given how much he likes to lead, it is kind of noble. But he still gets a little cocky. Which I like.” She grinned. “But I can’t let him get too cocky.”

  Kesi bobbed an eye in understanding, then a spasm of grief crossed her face. “Hey,” Shabaz said, rolling closer. “Are you all right?”

  The teal skid popped a Hasty-Arm. “I’m fine.”

  It took her a second before she got it. Oh, Shabaz thought, feeling a wave of empathy. So that’s why Kesi was asking about her and Johnny. “Kesi,” Shabaz said gently, “is this about Trist? Were you—?”

  “No,” Kesi said sharply. “We were just going to the woods. That’s it. He was just a snug.”

  Shabaz studied her. “Was he?”

  They rolled in silence for the next few hundred metres. Just when Shabaz thought Kesi wasn’t going to answer, the teal skid said, “He was different.”

  “Trist?”

  “Yes.” Kesi’s gaze wandered over the pods, her eyes full. “Crisp, this place is big.” Another silence, then she sniffed violently. “I don’t know exactly what it was, but Trist . . . thought different. I liked the way he was willing to stand up to you and Johnny. Lots of skids didn’t like what you were doing.” She glanced at Shabaz. “I think I get it a little now, although I’m still not sure how I feel about what you did.”

  “It’s okay, Kesi, you don’t have to apologize.”

  She sniffed again. “That’s nice. And if you were hanging out with skids when they died . . . I guess that was pretty nice too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I only say that because now I know about all this.” Her eyes swung around the corridor, shaking in disbelief. “Back in the sphere, no one knew why you and Johnny suddenly started doing what you were doing. Especially you. With Johnny some skids thought it was just a Ten thing, but you . . . no one could fathom why you’d quit at Eight. I sure couldn’t.” Her gaze narrowed. “Although you’re not really an Eight, are you?”

  Shabaz grimaced. “It’s complicated.”

  “Right. Okay.” Kesi stared at Shabaz’s eight stripes, then shook her stalks. “Anyway, lots of skids complained but Trist was the only one who did anything about it. He was the one who said if we went and told you to cut it out together then we’d have a better chance. Funny, but when I think about it now, he was helping other skids. The same thing we were mad at you for.”

  Shabaz smiled. She’d said something similar to Johnny not long after Trist and his gang first showed up.

  “So yeah,” Kesi continued, “I guess I felt . . . I mean, we weren’t like you and Johnny but . . . I liked him. More than the other guys I’d been with.” She took a long ragged breath. “But I guess that doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, Kesi—”

  The Hasty-Arm thrust out again. “Don’t. Please, just . . .” Her hand clenched into a fist, which she banged off one of the empty pods. “Crisp Betty, I’m doing it again. Whine, whine, whine. It’s like that’s all I’ve done since I got out here. Even Dillac isn’t complaining as much as me. When did that happen? I swear I’m not usually like that. That’s not the skid I am.”

  Shabaz chuckled. “I was.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The complainer. That’s exactly the kind of skid I was for most of my life. Hole, the first time we fell into the Thread, I never stopped moaning. Sometimes I think it’s a miracle Johnny and Bian didn’t vape me.”

  “Who’s Bian?”

  “Ahhh. . . .”

  That was dumb. She did not want to think about Bian. Or Peg. Or Bian and Peg. Or Johnny and . . .

  “That’s also complicated,” she said, then bit her lip, angry with herself. “No . . . no, it’s not. She . . . she was one of the skids who was with us the first time we were out here. She was my friend.”

  It must have been in her face, because Kesi hesitated before asking, “She died?”

  “She did. Saving the Skidsphere.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. Anyway, I spent most of my life complaining. About everything. If I lost in a game, I complained. If I got to the sugarbar and didn’t get a booth I liked, I complained. And once we were out here . . .” She winced, remembering the entire time leading up to meeting Betty. “Seriously, it’s a miracle Johnny didn’t kill me.”

  “What changed?”

  Shabaz smiled. “He saved my life instead.”

  “Oh, like how you and him did with us?”

  “Yeah. It was Johnny and Albert.” A small pang went through her heart at the thought of the silver skid. She took a ragged breath. “I was certain I was going to die—another skid just had, right in front of my eyes—and then . . . they saved me. And I helped. And that’s when I realized that maybe I didn’t have to be a victim. Maybe I’d never been a victim. I mean, there were all these skids, even the little ones like Torres and Aaliyah,—” another pang “—all feeling overwhelmed, all beat up and half-vaped . . . but they were doing something about it. So I decided that maybe I should do that too.” Her stripes tilted. “And that was it.”

  Kesi bobbed an eye. “Yeah. Maybe I should start doing that.”

  “Hey. You geared up for Torres in that prison sim. And besides, you and Trist and even Dillac weren’t complaining in general.” She stopped. “Okay, maybe Dillac was.” She smiled and was rewarded with a smile in return. “You guys had a specific problem: Johnny and me. Even if I think you were wrong at the time, you were trying to do something. And as for what you were like when you first got out here . . .” She swept an arm across the immense hallway. “Everyone gets a little vaped by the Thread.”

  They rolled in silence, past pod after pod. Then Kesi smiled a little smile and said, “Thanks.”

  “No problem. We’re all in this together.”

  “Yeah. So . . . are we supposed to be looking for anything in particular?”

  Shabaz laughed. They’d already rolled over four kilometres. Every five hundred metres, there was a side corridor that looked like a slightly smaller version of the first. “Beats me,” she said. “I guess it’s like Krugar said: get an idea of what this place looks like, maybe find a spot we can defend if we need . . .” Her voice trailed off as she stared down the hall.

  “What?” Kesi said, swinging a second eye out front.

  “Hold on.” She couldn’t believe it, she’d just been talking about her. Shabaz turned on her com. “Johnny?”

  “Hey babe,” his voice came over the com. “Is your hallway as exciting as ours is, ’cause we’ve been rolling—”

  “Don’t care. Drop what you’re doing and get over here.”

  “Uh, that’s a pretty long haul back. Is there a reason—”

  “Your girlfriends just showed up.” She couldn’t believe it, but there were two smears of colour in the distance: one pink, one red.

  She half-expected Johnny to say something about Bian not being his girlfriend, but instead there was just a short pause and then: “I’m on my way.”

  “What’s going on?” Kesi said, as they continued to roll. “Johnny has other girlfriends?”

  “Do you see anything down this corridor?”

  “Uh . . . no? But I might not scope as well as you.”

  I’m not scoping. Ahead of them, she saw the pink and red shapes turn. “Hey!” she yelled, gunning it.
“Don’t you dare!”

  After about thirty metres, she geared down. She was not going to do this. She was not going to chase Bian and Peg—vaping Peg!—down a hallway to hole knows where. She’d follow, but she was not going to chase them.

  “Uh, Shabaz . . .”

  “Listen,” she said, “I know what this looks like. I just need you to trust me, all right? And if you do see anything, let me know.” It’ll mean I’m not vaped off my gears.

  “Okay,” Kesi said sceptically. But she did follow.

  Several times, the pink and red smears disappeared and then reappeared. Not playing, ladies, she thought, although that was a little absurd because she was following. When she caught up to them . . . well, she wasn’t really sure what she was going to do. She was chasing ghosts—she might not be racing after them, but she was still following two dead skids.

  She wasn’t sure who made her more angry: Peg or Bian. She wasn’t sure it was sane to be angry at dead skids, but then again, they refused to stay dead.

  “Okay,” Johnny said over the com. “We’re in your corridor. Be there soon.”

  The flashes disappeared and reappeared again. “No rush,” Shabaz muttered to herself. “We’re having a grand old time.”

  She suddenly realized that the smears of colour had stopped. As Shabaz and Kesi approached them, the corridor came to an end. They’d traveled ten kilometres from the central hub.

  Shabaz stopped about twenty metres away from Bian and Peg. The ground trembled, but she ignored it. The two skids sat there, just shy of the end of the corridor. They didn’t shimmer or fade in and out. She couldn’t see through them. Bian looked alive and well, although Shabaz noticed that she was missing the arm that had been lopped off when they’d invaded the Core. Peg didn’t look nearly dead enough.

  When they didn’t say anything, a surge of impatience went through her stipes and she said, “Well?”

  “We will wait for Johnny,” Peg said.

  “Sweet snakes,” Kesi said, rolling back a tread.

  Shabaz couldn’t help but laugh. “See them now?”

  “Yeah,” Kesi said, her eyes wide. “Yeah . . . okay.”

  Welcome to the circus, Shabaz thought as she turned back to the ghosts. “Johnny’s going to be a minute. Why don’t you tell me what you want?”

  “We will wait for Johnny,” Bian said.

  “Well then you should have shown up in his vaping corridor!” she yelled, her anger echoing off the walls. She rolled forward a tread. “Seriously, it’s nice to see you again, Bian, but unless you both got some reason for being here, unless you got something to say, you can scram. So speak up.”

  “You will not lose him,” Peg said.

  “You will lose each other but you will not be lost,” Bian said.

  “And talk sense!” she screamed again. Snakes, she hated this. She glared at Peg. “You’re vaping right I won’t lose him. I’m not you.” She was pretty sure this wasn’t fair—she actually had no idea how Peg had died—but she didn’t care. “And as for you . . .” Her eye swung towards Bian. “I loved you like a sister, but stop talking like Wobble and talk like Bian.”

  “We can’t,” Bian said. “He didn’t remember doing this.”

  “He will,” Peg said, “but there isn’t time. They’re coming.”

  With her trail-eye, she saw a powder blue smear appear, then a crimson one. Johnny was booking it top speed. Behind them, another two skids appeared: Torg and Zen.

  “Yeah,” Shabaz said, “I can see that.” She rolled right up to Peg. “So before they get here, let me tell you something. You want to talk to my boyfriend, you talk to me first. Are we clear?”

  Peg didn’t respond. She silently met Shabaz’s gaze until Johnny rolled up, slowing as he got near. “So . . .” he said, in that way he had when he tried to sound casual. “How’s everyone doing?”

  “Like sugar,” Shabaz said, backing away from Peg, holding her gaze. “The ladies here were just talking about getting lost.”

  “Easy to do in this place,” Torg said, arriving with Zen. “Any of you check down those side halls? It’s like a maze.” He looked at Shabaz. “Heard over the com. Thought I’d come and see this for myself. Bian, Peg. You’re looking good.”

  A faint smile graced both their faces then faded. “We are sorry, Torg. They are coming.”

  “You said that before,” Johnny said, inching forward. “Who’s coming? Who’s they?”

  “The stars grow narrow and fall,” Peg said.

  “The Core is falling,” Bian said.

  That sent a chill down Shabaz’s stripes. “Explain that,” she snapped.

  “We can’t,” Peg said. Now that others were here and she wasn’t quite so worked up, Shabaz realized they both looked sad. They’d carried a sense of sorrow from the moment Shabaz and Kesi had arrived. “There’s no time. He would have shown you, but there’s no time.” She looked at Johnny. “This will be the last but one.” Before Shabaz could react with the anger that surged again, Peg’s gaze spread as if to encompass them. Bian did the same.

  “We love you all,” they said together. Then they disappeared.

  Where they’d been sitting, a door appeared at the end of the corridor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “What’s going on?” Torres said, rolling up.

  “Johnny’s ex just showed up and disappeared again,” Shabaz muttered, looking shaken. “Bian was with her.”

  “Bian?”

  “Forget it,” Johnny said, two eyes on Shabaz. “Long story.”

  The ground trembled beneath his treads, but he didn’t care. Right now, he just wished the others weren’t there. He had no idea what was going through his girlfriend’s mind, but it couldn’t be good. Why Peg and Bian had decided to appear to her, he had no idea. What they’d been talking about, he had no idea. He knew that there was probably something important about the door that had just appeared, but right now he just wanted to talk to Shabaz alone.

  Apparently, he wasn’t going to get to do that. “Hey,” Onna said, rolling forward and examining the door. “That’s interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?” Johnny sighed.

  “Wasn’t one of these down our corridor,” Onna said. She eyed Torres. “Was there?”

  “Kind of hard to miss,” Torres said.

  “You got to the end of your corridor too?” Torg said. He winked at Zen, “Apparently, we were dawdling, sir.” Zen grinned in return. Johnny was glad Shabaz had put them together.

  “We, uh . . .” Onna stammered, her stripes flushing. “We made good time. We were . . . racing a bit.”

  Now why would they have done that? Johnny and Dillac had only been five kilometres down their hallway when they’d heard Shabaz’s call. Dillac had talked largely nonstop the entire time, mostly about how weird all this was, and about how he was sad about Trist, and a lot about Kesi. Johnny suspected Dillac might have a thing for her. Although with the way Dillac talked, it was hard to be certain.

  “Yeah,” Torres coughed. “We even got to . . . look down the side halls a bit. Didn’t see anything like this.”

  “Well, Bian and Peg wanted us to see it,” Shabaz muttered, glancing from Torres to Onna and back again.

  “Might have been nice if they’d left us the code to open it,” Torg said, rolling over to the door, reaching out. “Without Wobble—”

  As he touched the door, it disappeared, leaving an empty space in the wall.

  “Oh,” Torg said. “How about that?”

  They all looked at Johnny. “Hey,” he said, hoping to make peace, “Shabaz picked the corridor.” A weird look crossed her face, although it didn’t seem to be directed at him. He waved towards the door. “After you?”

  This time she smiled. “All right then,” she said, rolling forward.

  They rolled down a short hallway, then into a single room not much larger than the room Wobble had locked them in when he’d fought the Antis. A single pillar sat in the centre of the room.
And the walls . . . the walls were strange. They didn’t look like the rest of the factory. In fact, they looked a little like . . .

  “Is it me,” Shabaz breathed, “or is the entire room a holla bank?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” Torg murmured, contemplating the central pillar. He rolled over. “Huh,” he grunted. “Give me a minute.” Popping his Hasty-Arms, he laid them over the surface of the pillar. “Now where are . . . ah.”

  The room lit up.

  “Whoa, boz,” Dillac whispered.

  Whoa boz is right, Johnny thought. The room stunned everyone into silence, as streams of information flashed by. Everything from still pictures to moving hollas; schematics, blueprints, and diagrams; seemingly random shapes and lines; what looked like code . . .

  “What are we looking at?” Torres said finally, staring.

  “I’m not sure,” Torg said, studying the walls, then looking down at the pillar where a light seemed to wrap around his hands. “Whatever it is, it’s huge.”

  “True words,” Dillac murmured.

  “I just can’t quite tell . . .” He stopped. “Huh.” His eye swung away from the pillar and examined the room. Not the walls—the room. And then the doorway. “Huh,” he grunted again, looking back at the lights around the pillar.

  “What?” Johnny said.

  “I don’t think this room is part of the factory.”

  “What?”

  “If I’m scanning this right,” Torg said, “this room and the factory haven’t existed for the same amount of time. The room is newer.”

  “So SecCore added it after he built the factory?” Torres asked.

  “Maybe,” Torg said, scowling.

  “He would have shown you, but there’s no time,” Johnny said softly, glancing at Shabaz.

  She was already there. “Wobble,” she said. “They were talking about Wobble. Wobble built this room.”

  “Then why didn’t he tell us about it?” Kesi said. “If we’re supposed to find it, why didn’t Wobble tell us himself, before he went into that repair . . . uh . . . thingy.”