CHAPTER FOUR
the Unexpected
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"I suppose you'll move him now."
"We were waiting to see how he handled the thing with Bernard. He handled it perfectly."
"As soon as he can cope with a situation, you move him to one he can't cope with. Does he get any rest?"
"We're trying to save the world, not heal the wounded. You're too compassionate."
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Attempting to access Ender's desk proved impossible. At first, Alex thought that Graff had finally come down on her hacking. She realized though, as a few days passed, that word would have reached her or the ship. Within this time, Alex attempted to focus on her studies instead, which she had fallen significantly behind in. Though her parents noticed the decline, they pursed their lips and turned the other cheek.
Had Graff spoken with them? At first, Alex discarded the idea of hacking into the ship's mainframe terminal and picking through the files and transfers stored there. But as the days passed, and she continued to receive the blinking error message, Alex found the prospect growing more appealing.
On the night of the third day, she finally gave in, and hooked her computer to a terminal in a storage room. Each room that contained information that needed to be stored, had its own terminal. The storage room held all their materials for the trip. Sitting down in the far corner of the room, hidden by the mountains of crates, Alex's fingers moved slowly but precisely. She couldn't make a mistake that might trip some sort of alert or alarm. The key was to trick the computer into believing she had a right to look at these files, which only the captain aboard the ship did. This meant pilfering through the right folders and maneuvering past the access key prompts.
The process and realization of the consequences of her actions turned Alex's stomach, but in the queasiness, she felt a rush that shook her arms that she hadn't felt since she had first come across Ender Wiggin's files. Over an hour passed before Alex was showed the profit of her efforts. As the list ran down, flashes of the titles lasting only a fraction of a second as the computer continued to scroll towards the bottom, Alex released a relieved sigh.
Redirecting towards the more recent files, Alex scanned them, finding nothing of real interest. There were communications with family members left back on Earth, reports about the ship maintenance, the staff, and other usual requirements from the captain and crewmembers. There were some documents from her parents' work that intrigued Alex's interest, but as she strayed the highlighter over the first file, the name of the one above it caught her attention immediately.
The file's name read, SessionAnalysis, and the subject matter was simply: #1230. Bringing up the detailed information on the file revealed that it was sent from Dana Pewter's personal terminal. Had she sent out the details on her sessions with those aboard the ship? What about Counsel-Client privilege?
Scanning further back up, Alex saw that a file was sent about every week. A sickening feeling reentered Alex's stomach as she realized that the description was always the same: #1230.
Commanding the computer to gain access to the latest file resulted in her screen turning black. After twenty seconds passed and nothing happened, Alex's eyes strayed to the now blank lens that had glowed a steady green to indicate the computer was on. A light dying exhaust caught the girl's attention, making her raise her gaze swiftly. The lights on the terminal began to flicker and then fade as the machine shut down.
Heart racing now, Alex hurriedly tried to turn her desk back on, but to no avail. Without more hesitance than could be helped, she swiftly removed the plug connecting her computer to the terminal, and rose to her feet. Taking both the desk and connector with her, Alex moved swiftly for the door with the bulky machine under one arm.
The door opened with a soft whine before her, and as she stepped out into the hallway, gravity was released once more. Floating down the corridor, pulling herself more quickly along with the handlebar on the wall, Alex tried to calm her racing heart. Had she shut down the terminal? Why wouldn't her desk turn on?
From behind she could hear doors winding open one after another, and knew her actions must have caused an automatic stir of confusion and alarm. One of the ship's engineers, an aging man with thinning hair named Justin, moved swiftly past her without a glance, speaking into the small communicator microphone looped around his head to his mouth. His words were rushed, and even if Alex had paused to listen to them, she wouldn't have understood what he was saying.
Gravity's pull yanked Alex down, making her fall to her knees. Kneeling there, it took her several confused moments to realize that they had turned it back on to make the process of running around to identify the crisis easier. From the other end of the hallway, Catherina emerged, and paused in half step at the sight of her daughter.
Hurrying to Alex's side, she rested her hands on either side of the girl's forearms, calling her name repeatedly.
On the fifth time she was called, Alex raised her solemn eyes to meet the worried expression that wrinkled her mother's fair, elderly face. Swallowing back a confession, Alex told her quietly, "I'm fine…" Then more strongly; "The gravity just took me by surprise."
Though she appeared hesitant, Catherina took this lie in full measure, and without another word, she stood and headed down the hallway. Alex looked back as she watched her mother disappear into the storage room, and a worried grimace formed on her face. Alex's mother was in charge of - amongst other things - the working order of the technology aboard the ship. Her routine checks were very precise and thorough. When the matter calmed, fingers would surely be pointed Catherina's way.
Silently apologizing, Alex forced herself to her feet, and carrying the heavy desk with her, made her way back to the living compartments. Back in her room, she rested her blank computer on the locker surface. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she sat staring at it. The desk still refused to power on, and Alex wondered what had happened.
Was it because she had been accessing forbidden files? The first one she opened had caused this, Alex was sure. Was it just that specific file, or would this still have happened if she had chosen a different one? Maybe it was some sort of security lock down that happened when the terminal realized she hadn't entered the necessary access keys.
Either way, Alex wouldn't be able to function her daily routine without a desk. Turning to her parents would reveal what she had done, and the consequences could be more severe then simply restricted computer access. With a shake of her head, Alex slipped off her bed and picked up the handheld terminal.
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Resting in the lopsided chair rolled to the end of its leash, Garret sat slumped with one hand drumming on the edge of the counter, as he stared at the dead desk. The technician paid the shifting, anxious girl to one side no mind. Alex had come to him, presenting a desk that refused to power on, asking for a quick fix.
Alex expected that Garret was running through the list of reasons why it wouldn't turn on in his mind. However, the elderly man was actually pondering the reasons why Alex had brought it to him so anxiously. Desks were known to power down after a few years' use, whether from an internal power failure, or an outside source like a hacker or a virus. Generally, it was a quick and easy fix. A power failure meant the computer's salvation energy chip merely had to be reprogrammed. A virus could be wiped without even turning on the desk at all.
These solutions, Garret knew, Alex could have tried herself. However, she had offered no reason for bringing it here. Turning some in his seat, Garret looked to the girl now with a quirked eyebrow of skepticism, prompting, "And you did nothing to cause it to do this?"
It was a long pause - longer than usual - before Alex replied with a shake of her head, "No…nothing."
Glancing back at the desk and returning to drumming his fingers for a moment, Garret suddenly sat forward with a clearing of his throat, saying, "Well then, let's see what's just the matter."
Resting his hands on either side of the desk, he lifted and carried it over to a counter resting beside his own personal terminal. Without looking at the girl as he hooked the desk up, he informed Alex, "This terminal is designed to trace a desk's entire activity."
Raising her gaze sharply, Alex froze in place. For a minute, as she watched Garret work and a hologram appear in the air above the terminal, Alex felt her world crashing around her. Soon Garret would know about everything she had been doing in the last year or so - the hacking, the files, her communication with Graff, the Fantasy Game, and especially, her access to the storage room terminal.
The technician's face remained expressionless as he paused in his typing to peer up at the display. Something flickered in the man's eyes that Alex didn't recognize. Minutes passed in silence as the list slowly scrolled down, listing all of Alex's actions. From where she stood to one side, she couldn't tell what the display was showing at any given moment.
Finally, Garret looked down at the controls of the terminal, and after inputting a few commands, unhooked the connector cable. There was a light vroom of exhaust as the connection was broken. Picking up the desk, he turned and held it before him, but not towards the girl and her outstretched, waiting arms.
Garret looked down at her with an almost disapproving look, saying in a quiet, warning tone, "Be weary of your actions, Alex. Or they could cost much more than you expect." Alex tensed where she stood, blinking largely up at Garret with a pleading in her eyes. There was no softness or kindness resting in the elderly man's hard gaze.
For a moment, Alex was sure that he was going to take the desk away. Just as she went to lower her arms, Garret placed the computer in them carefully, and Alex got the sense he wanted it as far away from himself as possible. Without another word, he turned back to his terminal. Sidestepping, Alex watched as he deleted all traces of evaluating her desk.
Alex wanted to thank the man as relief filled her, but as Garret walked away from the terminal, he didn't look at her. Instead, he plopped himself down in the chair, and rolled towards the end of the counter, hands out held in the perfect stance to begin typing. His gaze became fixated on the display before him, but his input was slower and more hesitant than usual.
With a grimace, Alex decided to let it be, and turning, started her way slowly up the steps. She was halfway up, when Garret raised his gaze, and called to her, "There was nothing wrong."
Pausing, Alex turned to him in confusion. Was he talking about her desk? Didn't he see what she had been doing? Maybe he was just assuring her that he wasn't going to report her actions.
As Alex opened her mouth, Garret leaned back in his chair, and spanned his gaze to peer up at her, saying in a simple tone, "The game room's Battleship simulator."
Perplexed still, mind still registering that Garret had deleted her tracks, Alex prompted, "What about it?"
"There's nothing wrong with it."
Taking in this piece of information, Alex gave a slow, numb nod of her head. Garret returned the gesture, and waited a few moments before returning to his work. Standing there for a minute longer, Alex pushed away this odd piece of information as she turned and headed out of the room.
Back in her favored corner in the living room of her family's quarters, Alex sat with legs outstretched and her desk lying heavily on her lap. She was impressed and relieved as her terminal turned on. A quick search revealed that all her documents and pieces of work remained intact.
What Garret had said came back to her: "There's nothing wrong with it."
He had mentioned the game room, but now that Alex gave it thought, she wondered if maybe there wasn't something wrong with her desk. She had been able to hack into the storage room terminal - at least, to an extent - and maybe that was what she was looking for. Proof that she hadn't been cut off from her personal studies.
Sitting back, Alex tried to think of everything she knew about Battle School. She knew very little other than that those who went there were raised to be tacticians, commanders, and pilots. Ender, who at first seemed to be rejected, had been admitted. The reports on his actions had caused a stir in Graff, and a teacher, Anderson. She knew that they were organized into groups because each student's file listed them under a different type of animal. Those within the same group were listed together.
Was it possible that Ender had been switched into a different group? What point would there be in that?
Alex understood little about Battle School, so she supposed it was possible. Ender had been listed under the 'Launchies' group, which was full of newbies to Battle School. It would make sense that they eventually moved him. Wouldn't he have been able to keep his desk though?
Deciding to check Ender's file, Alex brought up the screen. The hack was once again, simple. Scanning over the file revealed that Ender had been moved into a group called 'Salamander'.
The file read:
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ENDER WIGGIN
ASSIGNED SALAMANDER ARMY
COMMANDER BONZO MADRID
EFFECTIVE IMMIEDIATELY
CODE GREEN GREEN BROWN
NO POSESSIONS TRANSFERRED
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Alex had her answers, and at the same time, confusion was added to the mix. Salamander Army? And what was this code? Checking the file again, she saw that Ender was still indeed in Battle School. Scanning some other files revealed other kids were part of this 'Salamander Army' as well. No possessions transferrefd meant that she was trying to access a desk that no longer belonged to Ender. It might have even been destroyed.
This prompted Alex to begin a new search, and it wasn't long before she found the Salamander listing, and then found Ender. Gaining access showed that he hadn't played the Fantasy Game since the day he had been transferred. However, further probing showed that there were recordings of what he had done. Deciding to feed her curiosity, Alex sat back against the wall and watched her screen fade in to show him moving his character beyond Fairyland and the Giant he had killed. He climbed down from the table, and dropped to the ground from the chair's leg.
Alex gave a twist of disgust as Ender's character killed a rat approaching him with a snarl, through the use of a pin from the Giant's shirt. The others were smart enough to scatter. The Giant had become a half-decomposed body with its jaws wide and large, yellow teeth bared at the sky. He followed the stream that led him to the edge of the forest, and Alex wondered if it was the same forest that she herself had traveled through. She made a mental note to investigate further later on, when she played again herself.
Ender appeared in a playground, where children were running the rides merrily. Anything Ender tried to do though resulted in his figure falling through or thrown off, as if the ladder, slide, and merry-go-round were hologram, but only partly. He could make it part way along on one of the rides before his child form fell. Whenever he fell, the twelve other children would circle him and laugh raucously at his small figure.
Ender directed his character into the forest, stepping onto a brick road overgrown with weeds. Alex recognized side quest games, but Ender had developed beyond that. His focus had become to find the goal of the area, and to complete it. He eventually came to a well in a clearing with a sign that said, "Drink, Traveler."
As his character stepped forward, there was a snarl that made him turn. Twelve wolves with the human children faces stepped towards him, and before Ender could do anything, he was quickly devoured. When his figure appeared in the same area, he tried to climb down the well before he was devoured once more. When he appeared at the playground, he lured a girl to follow him down the slide. She was so close that when he fell through, she did too. However, the girl became stunned and remained motionless, in the form of a wolf. He began to do this to the others, but before he could stun them all, the others began to shift and come awake, and thus, he was once again devoured.
Ender grew smarter. The third time was the last encounter. He would stun a wolf, and then dump it into the brook in the woods. The wolf would sizzle and meld as if the water was instead acid. This time, he made it down the well in the bucket, ignoring the piles of treasure. It was obviously another sort of trap.
He moved past a table covered in food, and through cages from the ceilings holding friendly, odd creatures that Ender continued to ignore. Then, he came to a door that intrigued Alex, and caused her to sit up. Glowing emeralds were inlaid into the door to read:
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THE END OF THE WORLD
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Ender opened the door almost instantly and stepped through to stand on a ledge. He overlooked a medieval setting, with small villages scattered in the open land bordered by Autumn forests. His figure was so high up, that Ender was staring down through the clouds. Above him, rested a cavern ceiling with crystals glinting in the darkness.
Alex nearly cried out as Ender sent his character hurling from the ledge and through the air towards a curving river just beneath him. He had reached a sort of paradise, a place of peace, and was about to give it up foolishly. A cloud sped beneath him though, and caught his character, leading him towards a high window in a castle tower. It dropped him on the floor of a door-less room, high above the ground - even higher than the ledge he had jumped carelessly from. The rug before the fireplace twisted into the form of a snake, tongue hissing softly at him with vicious, hungry eyes. "I am your only escape," it said. "Death is your only escape."
The screen darkened unexpectedly, and it was a moment before the recording closed and Alex's desktop reappeared. She sat there in wonder, pondering what she had just seen. The game had taken both Ender - and unknowingly - her to a place neither of them had expected to go. Ender's logic and quick mind had dragged the children into the stream to their death, and his foolishness and impulsion had made him leap from the ledge dramatically.
Beginning to feel overwhelmed, Alex shut down her desk and rested it on her locker. Her limbs trembled at the faint clunk, and she stood staring down at the cover in thought. She was relieved that her desk was in working order, and that she hadn't lost her ability to watch Ender.
"There's nothing wrong with it."
Alex suddenly remembered what Garret had been referring to. She had gone to him, telling him about how the Battleship simulator had worked oddly. He said there was nothing wrong with it, but then, what had happened? Stroking the top of her desk thoughtfully, Alex decided she would find out when she awoke. Turning off her light, she laid down and attempted to sleep. Though her eyelids were heavy, and eventually closed, a hum in the back of Alex's mind spoke faintly of the Fantasy Game.
Ender's actions in his own saved file were logical and then rash. It had served as proof that even geniuses were prone to impulse and irrational actions. It proved that even geniuses, like every other normal human being, were prone to mistakes.
With this comforting thought, Alex let exhaustion drag a blanket over her mind, and slept more peacefully than she had in weeks.
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With shaky hands, Alex connected her desk to the terminal that ran the controls and rules of the Battleship simulator. Hacking into the mainframe, she scrolled through the lines of coding, testing it. She had the simulator bring up the images of all ships, and to her confusion, and yet not to her surprise, Alex saw that there was no Mothership. Nothing she did to fiddle with the restrictions forced it to show what she wanted.
Alex would have examined the game further if she wasn't weary of someone stepping into the room without notice. She hadn't heard word about the storage room terminal, and wanted to avoid the subject matter altogether. As she disconnected her computer, Alex hesitated, her eyes straying over the controls. Placing her desk closed on the ground beside the lift, Alex slowly placed both feet on the pads. She was hoisted six inches to see better, and gazed out across the grid to the lift opposite. The Battleship simulator was designed for either one or two people to play. The game waited to see if there was an opponent, and registering that it was a solo round, booted up.
Lights danced from the other side and passed along the rims of the grid to Alex's end, then stayed solid with a warm glow. The simulator waited for her input. Alex hesitated in thought, and then decided to go with a one-on-one battle. A wheel array of ships she could choose from appeared in the air before her. The one presented in front of her showed its stats; speed, weaponry, and maneuverability.
Picking a light ship with a quick, but weak shot, Alex's heart thumped in her chest. However, she suppressed any rising doubts or fears, and waited patiently for the simulator to pick its own, according to her choice and randomness.
Be patient and wait, like a good little soldier, Alex thought in a sarcastic manner.
As the enemy ship appeared, the first thought that came to mind was, salamander. The ship was in a form that Alex had never seen, and that hadn't been in the array she'd chosen from- which was common. The player didn't get to choose from all the available ships. The enemy ships took on the form of the battlers that the buggers had been seen fighting in, in the last two invasions. However, this one hadn't appeared in her check of the programming either.
Alex thought to the invasion videos again, and how the buggers had been found aboard their ships unharmed, and yet dead. She swayed where she perched for a moment, but then shook her head and cleared it, making herself focus. The new ship facing her had four branch offs, two in the front, and two in the back. They were bent in an upside down, L position, with three fire arms on each side in the front, and five on each in the back. There was a long winding column behind the bulk, which served as a power engine. The 'head' of the ship had two circular lens, serving as the Battle Salamander's eyes.
The game rule was that the simulator wouldn't start until the player actually moved their own ship. However, the Salamander was already making its way through the air towards her battler, firing warning shots. The ship had spanned a fourth of the distance when Alex's thoughts reached her hands, and she began to clumsily move her ship to one side, setting off shots aimed for the enemy. She wasn't going to attempt to warn off a battleship when the simulator was ignoring its programmed rules. None of her shots hit the Battle Salamander however, as it slithered easily from side to side, column swaying behind it like a tail.
It moves like a lizard, I'll give it that, Alex thought. Temporarily distracted, her next action didn't come quick enough, and her ship was destroyed in a barrage of missiles from the twenty-five lasers on the Battle Salamander. There was a chained sound of decaying parts as her ship broke down and disintegrated piece by piece.
The Battle Salamander hovered in the air in expectancy, like a taunt. It reminded her of the watchful, encircling children with their raucous laughter - hovering there, waiting. There was a wolf hidden beneath the metal of the ship.
A wolf in sheep's clothing, Alex thought. I won't play the part of Little Red Riding Hood.
With a defiant shake of her head, Alex took the six inch step back off the lift. Though her descent was clumsy, her actions were steady. The simulator continued to run, and the Battle Salamander seemed to be watching her daringly, waiting for her to step back up.
When it didn't disappear, Alex bent down and picked up her desk, and without glancing back up, turned and walked out of the game room.
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Returning to her studies on Ender revealed a document of his scoring in some sort of game she couldn't gain access to. It listed him as "Damaged but Active". This confused Alex thoroughly, and she made a mental note to look further into what happened in Battle School.
As time began to pass slowly, Alex stayed away from the game room, and continued to watch Ender's score rank up. Still no one approached her about the terminal. There was no listing of his score, under shots fired or taken though, and yet, he was at the top of the ranking. A day came when Alex was reading through Ender's files, when she noticed that it was his seventh birthday.
With a fleeting smile, Alex sent an anonymous 'Happy Birthday' message to his desk, and closed her own down. She wondered if birthdays held any significance at Battle School. They mattered very little on the ship. The most that happened was someone received leave from their duties for part of the day. Other crewmembers would take on the extra burden to give the birthday person some peace. Since Alex's duties were to her studies and appointments, this meant that got no breaks at all. It was okay, it didn't bother her much.
Another birthday was just another reminder of her failure to live up to the standards that had been set for her.
After the next scores were listed, Alex was shocked to find that Ender had dropped in the standings. He had a score for firing and accuracy now. After a few hours passed, Alex returned to Ender's file and found that his desk was, once again, unavailable. Mystified, she did a search and found that he had been moved into 'Rat Army'.
A fleeting smile appeared on Alex's face as she hacked into Ender's new desk, relieved to find it still easy to do. So Ender was moving up in the world, and quickly at that.
"Well, Ender," Alex stated aloud. "It's about time the world was shown that even someone like you, a Third, someone nobody expected anything from as time passed, can be proven wrong. Maybe you won't be alone in the end of this."