Diamond Star (38 page)

"Who's the golden hero?" Raker asked.

"My brother," Del said tightly. The Imperator. He even had gold skin. A metallic man.

"What about the fair-haired genius?" Raker brushed his hand across his bristly yellow hair. "You singing about me?"

"You certainly fit the line," Del lied.

Raker laughed harshly. "You're right, I'm a genius. And you're just a singer." He raised the gun. "What truth are you going to sing, hmmm?"

Then he fired point-blank at Del.

Mac stared out the window as the flyer circled, searching out a place to land in the mountainous forest. Maura Penzer and Jackson Stolia, the pilot and the copilot, were Marines trained for special operations, as were the four agents in the other flyer circling with them.

Jackson sat in a VR rig in his seat, the visor pulled over his head, his suit gleaming in the dim light from the controls. He was going through simulated walk-throughs of the mountains below, updating his assessment of the situation as the flyer's sensors monitored the area and refreshed his data.

Jud was in a passenger seat, looking out the window. He had been silent during the trip. It didn't surprise Mac, given what he had to absorb.
Oh excuse me, your roommate is a Ruby Heir.
Maybe it was good that Jud knew. Mac doubted Randall could handle it, and he didn't know about Anne, but Jud understood Del better than the others. He wouldn't take any guff from Del because his roommate turned out to be a prince, but Jud would keep an eye on him.

Holomaps in the flyer showed Del's location, a mountain cabin surrounded by fir trees heavy with snow, which also carpeted the ground. A quaint chimney jutted up from the roof, and a plume of smoke curled into the frosty air. It all looked innocently rustic. Maura brought them down in a clearing hidden from the cabin. The flyer had stealth capability, including shrouds that disguised it from radio, radar, optical, ultraviolet, and neutrino detectors. In silent running mode, it landed with almost no sound.

Jackson and Maura checked their armor and jumped out, followed by Mac and Jud. Mac sealed the front of his jacket, letting the climate controls warm his body. Jud watched him, then copied the gesture with an almost identical jacket that Jackson had lent him.

Maura stood facing Jud and Mac, and her voice came out of a mesh in the helmet covering her head. "Stay back. Let us do our work. Mac, I'm trusting your recommendation that we bring Mister Taborian. You're responsible for him."

"I'll stay out of it, believe me," Jud said.

"We'll hit the cabin with an EM pulse just before we go in," Maura said. "That's when your comm and the meshes in your clothes might stop working. Our optical and neutrino scramblers shouldn't affect you as much."

Mac nodded, and Jud said, "I understand."

"Good." She spoke into the comm on the gauntlet embedded in her armor. "Gregori, are you down?"

A man answered. "Two hundred meters north, Captain." Then he said, "Something's going on in that cabin. They've blocked all our three-D imaging sensors. I'm also registering a lot of optic-meshes, carbon fiber composites, and biosynthetics in there."

"Damn," Jackson muttered.

"Keep trying to get the images," Maura said. "We'll rendezvous at the cabin and go with Plan Delta." Then she said, "No lethals unless absolutely necessary. I don't want Valdoria hit by friendly fire, and if someone did kidnap him, we want them alive. But if you have no choice, I don't care what hostiles you blast. Just get Valdoria out of there."

"Got it," Gregori said.

"All right. Switch to internal."

Whatever other communication the team had went private among them, transmitted on a tactical channel from helmet to helmet. Mac had no doubt it was scrambled and encoded as well.

They slipped through the forest, their footfalls muffled by snow, Mac and Jud staying back a few paces. The pristine swaths of white on the ground and weighting down the firs reflected in the chameleon armor of the Marines until it was hard to tell where the land ended and the commandos started. It felt surreal to Mac.

Although it was out of character for Del to vanish this way, he wouldn't be the first of Mac's clients who went AWOL while celebrating the heady flush of success. They might discover Del had just come here for a tryst with some girl, but he would rather overreact than be unprepared. Given the cabin's defenses, though, Mac doubted they had overreacted. No normal person equipped a house with military-grade systems. Nor could the team's EM pulse, or electromagnetic pulse, affect the optical or bio-circuits Gregori had detected inside. The Marines had a Faraday cage that would protect their equipment against the pulse, but they couldn't put everything in it, which meant it might affect their nonlethal weapons. As a backup, they had semiautomatics, which were immune to modern tech, but in close quarters, the high-velocity rounds from those atavistic guns could end up hurting Del, too.

At least the team's armor included release ports for nanite gas, which could knock someone out without killing them. The nanites could be partially counteracted by an antidote gas, but it would take someone with a survivalist mentality bordering on psychotic to have stolen the military-issue gear and chemicals needed to give that protection.

Mac didn't want to think what would have happened if Del
hadn't
been a Ruby prince. Far more time would have passed before anyone found him. It brought home with a vengeance the price public figures paid for their fame. Nor did the tech advances of their mesh-saturated age guarantee celebrities would act with any more wisdom than in prior ages. Del had made a mistake, and he could die for that misjudgment.

Del became aware he was slumped against the wall of a darkened room. Immobile--but alive.
Alive.

He couldn't move his legs. After several moments, he managed to raise his arm.

"Del?" Delilah spoke sleepily at his side.

With painful slowness, he lowered his arm and turned his head. He was sitting on the mattress, and Delilah lay next to him, just waking up, her body covered by a silvery sheet. He tried to speak, but only a whisper came out. "What do . . . to me?"

She pulled herself up until she was sitting, and the sheet fell around her waist, leaving her torso bare. Del didn't want to look, but his traitorous gaze dropped to her voluptuous body.

"You'll be all right," she said. "Your brain thinks you were blasted."

"Delilah, don't do this." His voice cracked. "Don't you want the real Del? You don't have to settle for some phony simulation."

"You'll never be corrupted in the bliss," she said in a surreally angelic voice. "You'll always be exactly as you are now." She touched the hinge in his hand. "Except better."

"It will get boring if you can predict everything I do," he rasped. "With the real Del, you'll always have pleasant surprises. New songs."

"Sing to me," she murmured. " 'Diamond Star.' "

He sang raggedly. "Shimmering radiance above / Softening this lost man's love."

She sighed with pleasure, but something felt wrong. He didn't feel her enjoyment. With a rush of vertigo, he realized they were
still
in the virt.

"Make love to me," Delilah said, sliding down onto the bed.

Nausea swept over Del. He couldn't stand the thought of having sex with her.

A harsh voice spoke. "I don't think so."

Del jerked up his head. "No!"
Not again.

Raker stood across the room with the carbine. He hadn't been there before, and Del hadn't heard any door open.

Delilah pouted at Raker. "You're always interrupting us. You'll get your turn."

"That's right." Raker raised his gun. "Good-bye, Del."

"No!" Del struggled to get up, but his legs were paralyzed from the last time Raker had "shot" him. "Don't--"

Raker fired.

Del barely managed to open his eyes. He was sitting against the wall in a dim room with no lights on, just dirty sunlight filtering in through high slits on the walls. As his eyes focused, he saw Raker crouched a few paces away, watching him, holding the carbine across his knees. A heavy metal ring hung around Raker's neck and lay against his chest. Delilah had put on an old shirt and mesh-jeans and was kneeling next to Del with a neural injector gun.

"What's that?" Del whispered. This time he knew he wasn't in the virt; he felt the moods of both Delilah and Raker with an intensity unmatched by anything in the bizarre universe of their bliss-node. What he picked up most was their avid fascination with him, as if he were a drug they craved. It scared the hell out of him. He tried to move, but his body wouldn't respond.

"This will act right away." Delilah pressed the gun against the base of his neck, and the cool tickle of its injection chilled his skin. "It'll kick the universe."

Del strained to push her away. "What are you giving me?"

"It's a theta-kicker," Raker said. "You'll see the world in whole new colors."

"No!" Panic swept over Del. Thetas weren't that different from taus.

Delilah twisted the top of the injector, resetting it, and poked the tip against his skin again. "We have lots of chem-candy for you."

This time Del managed to knock the syringe away. "Gods, don't."

"Oh, come on," Raker said. "Everyone knows you rock stars eat drugs like candy. Quit acting like it's going to kill you." He drummed his fingers on his gun. "We need more material. We need to know how you act under the influence."

"I'm allergic to kickers," Del said. "I'll go into something like anaphylactic shock." He prayed to every god of Lyshriol that his meds could counter thetas, or he was going to die a horrific death to entertain these two fanatics.

Delilah's face twisted. "You have
more
wrong with you?"

Del just looked at her. Nothing he could say would help. If he denied it, they would pump him full of more drugs. If he told her yes, something was very wrong with him, it would give them more reason to kill him.

"I want that edited out of the virt," Delilah told Raker.

"Why?" Raker said. "It'll make it more interesting to see what happens to him."

Nausea rolled over Del--an all too familiar nausea. It didn't slam him the way it had the first time; today it came more slowly. Gods willing, the meds in his body were fighting the thetas. But the sickness was building just like before.

"I need a doctor," Del rasped. "Please."

"This isn't fun anymore," Delilah said shrilly. "He's defective. I don't want that in our virt."

"Neither do I." Raker raised the carbine. "Good-bye, Del."

"Ah, gods." Del raised his arm as if that could ward off the laser shot. This time, if Raker fired, he would die. At least it would be fast, rather than the drawn-out agony of the kickers.

The world seemed to slow down for Del. Delilah pulled down his arm, and Del stared into the bore of the gun. From somewhere he heard a dim shout, something about,
Can't wait . . . move now . . .
The air crackled as if in a great pulse.

The laser flew out of Raker's grip, hit by some projectile, and flipped over as it arced away. Raker jumped up as if he were moving through molasses and spun toward the far side of the room. With a snarl, he yanked up the ring around his neck, and it molded into a mask over his face. A white cloud was swirling in the room, and its sweet, nauseating stench saturated Del until his head swam. Delilah sprawled onto her stomach, falling across his legs. But the mist had no effect on Raker. Moving in that eerily slowed motion, he reached behind his back and pulled out a huge, barbaric shotgun. He sighted on Del--

A rain of bullets hit Raker.

The virtiso spasmed, convulsing under the force of the shots. The bullets entered his torso in small holes and exploded out of his back, taking a substantial portion of his body.

"
No!
" Delilah's voice echoed as she struggled to her feet. In nightmarish slow motion, she grabbed the shotgun. "You can't have them both!" she shouted as she aimed the gun at Del.

Del raised both arms in a futile gesture of defense. But instead of shooting him, Delilah spasmed as if a massive, invisible hand had slammed into her torso. She arched with a drawn-out scream and collapsed onto the bed, falling so close to Del that her blood sprayed across him.

Gods help us.
Del couldn't speak, he could only think the words. The thetas were kicking hard, both the hallucinations and pain. He doubled over, then fell onto his back and began to convulse.

"Del!" The word vibrated in his ears. Mac was kneeling over him, shouting, "Get the stretcher here!
Now!
"

Del's shaking eased just barely enough to let him whisper, "Help me--" His voice cut off as another convulsion started.

"God, no. This can't be happening." Mac literally picked Del up in his arms and carried him across the room.

Darkness swirled and encroached. Then a blast of cold air hit Del, jagged and sharp. Mac was carrying him outside. The sky heaved and buckled, turning red like a giant, laboring heart. Trees bent around him, heavy with snow, waving their arms, nauseating. The cold prickled Del's skin as it ran tiny feet over his body.

Mac laid him on something soft and people crowded around. Then they were carrying him, rushing through the cold air. The moments passed with jagged spurts. They were inside another place, setting him down. A woman leaned over him, and a mesh-patch wavered and popped on her military flight suit, then jumped off and ran across Del's body. He groaned as it gave him electric shocks.

Suddenly
Jud
was there, kneeling by Del, that familiar dark face, the dreadlocks threaded with yellow and blue beads. Ever since Del had seen Jud's hair, he had wished he could do that to his, too. Seeing Jud gave him an anchor in this theta-kicked madness.

Moisture showed in Jud's eyes. "I'll make all the dreads in your hair that you want if you promise to stay alive."

Del tried to say,
Did I tell you that out loud?
but no words came out.

A hum vibrated his body. An engine? Medics were attaching lines to him, their motions smeared across his sight. Mac had knelt on his other side, across from Jud.