Free Wormhole Pirates on Orbis by P. J. Haarsma

“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