Free The Softwire: Betrayal on Orbis 2 by PJ Haarsma Page A

off.”
    I stepped onto the metal platform, and it jostled under my weight. It felt very unsteady, so I knelt down. A greenish-blue energy shield sprang up about one meter high around me. I looked at Drapling.
    “Do your best,” he whispered.
    “For your own sake,” Odran added.
    “I will,” I said. “I want this to work, too.” I looked at Odran. “Aren’t you going to signal the Samiran to come?” I asked him.
    Odran looked at his metal staff leaning against the railing. “I already have,” he said to me.
    The small craft lifted and moved out over the rim of the tank. I was floating above the tank now and high above the floor below. I saw Max and Theodore watching as I disappeared below the tank’s edge.
    The smell from the water grew sickly sweet, and I breathed through my mouth to avoid it. My hovercraft came to a stop a little less than a meter above the water. I knelt there waiting, but nothing happened. I looked out across the green water. There was no sign of the Samiran.
    “Toll?” I shouted, but nothing. “Hello? Toll!”
    If he couldn’t hear me from the platform, how was he going to hear me shouting across the water?
    But near the horizon, I saw the water ripple. It was too far away to judge the size of the waves, but they quickly grew closer. If Toll was making those waves, he was moving fast. At first he circled wide, the water cresting much higher than the device I was on. I knew not to touch the water, but that wave was going to drown me.
    “Get me out of here!” I shouted up to Drapling, but my craft did not move. “Drapling! Get me out of here. Now!”
    I thought I could see something moving in the water. The wave grew closer, and the water thundered against the glass walls of the tank to my right. Now I could see the shape of Toll under the water. To say there was a beast inside the tank seemed to trivialize the creature. What swam toward me was a monster. The enormous alien barreled straight toward me.
    “Toll! I am Johnny Turnbull. Please stop!” I shouted over the crashing waves. The water was so high now I could not see the edge of the tank. And then I heard him. My skull felt like it was going to crack as the alien bellowed out, “I am Toll the Samiran. Where is the Softwire?”
    And then the wave hit me.
    I have never felt so much water in all my life. It was like being weightless in space but far more invading. The water was in my eyes, in my ears, in my mouth. It was everywhere, and I was tumbling through the waves, sinking into the tank.
    At first the water felt warm, but a prickly sensation crept along my skin and then I began to feel the cold. A deep cold. Not as if the temperature changed, not as if I needed to bundle up, but rather a feeling that started in my veins and worked its way to my heart. Something was sucking the heat from inside my body, pulling it out of me, and devouring me. I could do nothing. I tried to swim but I didn’t know how.
    I opened my eyes, searching for help, only to see the monster’s murky shadow bear down on me. Its thick, tapered tail thrust the green liquid. Two broad front flippers that ended with clawed fingers rested over its huge belly.
    I sensed the world slipping away. I remembered when Madame Lee’s evil programs ripped my essence from my body, leaving me to die inside the central computer.
You’re dying now,
I thought. Could it be happening again?
    Instead of hitting the ground, I landed on the tough, crusty skin of Toll. It was hard as concrete and rougher than anything I knew. The force of the water pinned me against Toll’s forehead, and the Samiran rushed to break the surface.
    The silence of underwater gave way to shrieks and screaming as Toll tossed me onto the platform. Hands grabbed at me, pulling at my arms and legs. I was so cold. I tried to suck oxygen into my lungs, but my throat froze shut.
    “You imbecile!” I heard someone shout. I think it was Charlie.
    “How could I know humans were so weak,” I heard Odran