Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) (10 page)

The fluid turns dirty pink. I can’t make out the man and woman clearly any more and after a few moments they disappear in a swirl of blood and bone to leave a fizzing soup.

DAD:   Acid?

MUM:  Hmm.

DAD:   And the other one?

MUM:  Don’t worry about him.

The acid subsides into the floor, followed by the walls. There is no trace of the man and woman. Dad runs for the gangway again, sees movement on his left and turns towards it, fuze raised. Halfway down the tunnel a diamond spike slopes up and away. The impaled body of the last pursuer slides down it, colouring the top half an even red. His head hangs down and only the back of it is visible. I’m glad I can’t see his face.

I’m short of breath. My lovely Mum and Dad are these incredible, terrifying people. I ought to be shocked but I’m not. My hand grips at a gun that isn’t there so I point my n-gun finger instead.

I’m with you Daddy.

Dad peers over the side of the gangway, which crosses an ornamental shaft so deep I can’t see the base. I jerk in fear as he vaults over the side to freefall headfirst. I feel air whistle past him and shout in fear at the immense height. However, his heart rate has returned to a slow, steady counterpoint to mine and eventually I start to relax as he falls past platforms and windows to glimpse people working, arguing, embracing…

Dad calmly goes in-Aer to activate his dekpak. He feels movement against his back and glances from side to side as the dekpak opens out into four thinner discs on slender arms. The discs angle themselves so they are parallel with the unseen floor far below and Dad uses controls superimposed over his rushing descent to avoid another gangway that bisects the space beneath him.

Dad falls out of the shaft into a vast MidZone chamber. He drops towards the throbbing stratum of adverts past a massive inverted pyramid. The first advert is a giant green holographic head with hairs like thick cables and when Dad plunges into it he seems weightless in a green void. He pops through the underside of the jaw and passes a group of huge letters although I can’t make out what they say. The adverts get smaller the nearer they are to buildings and Dad falls between rather than through them as if past fragments of a dream voided into the air.

The buildings below are either huge and basic or small and complicated, probably needlessly so. There is no order to the layout and the chaos makes it hard to focus on any one area. It’s a horrendous clash like a visual equivalent of the advert racket, which we quickly reach the heart of.

This close, music, words and bits of both implode in a weird roar like the voice of some giant alien. One ad is so loud it hurts and Dad’s view snaps around to a free-floating speaker. He shoots it into vapour and the pain in our ears diminishes.

Dad drops closer to the top of a monolithic black building and activates the dekpak’s descent control. His fall slows and his legs swing down so he glides feet first. As if aware his reduced speed makes him vulnerable, he tightens his grip on the fuze and his heart rate increases. He operates directional controls to push away from the building and soon floats between six octagonal towers that bend hopefully towards each other over a park whose greenery at this height looks like khaki.

MUM:  Oh no.

DAD:   What is it?

MUM:  Don’t set down in MidZone.

DAD:   I’m already too low.

MUM:  Please let me be wrong.

DAD:   Julie?

MUM:  I’m not…

DAD:   Ju-

MUM:  VELOSSIN!

I’m back in Ursula’s room, on the bed. When I try to stand my legs give way; I slump down until I sit on the floor and then lean to one side and throw up. For a moment the vomit gleams at me before it’s absorbed into the floor.

That horrible scream was the last thing Mum uttered before they got her. I go in-Aer to look up this Velossin. There is no match.

The scream is not the worst thing about the recording, however. The worst thing takes the longest to register, perhaps because it defies reason. I’ve realised what it was about Dad’s pursuers that was familiar.

They wore Centrian Security uniforms.

14

“I’m not calling the wedding off,” Ursula says.

“Please,” I say.

“Are you insane? No.”

We are in a restaurant where she has reluctantly waited for me, her face flushed but focussed. The restaurant juts over one of Centria’s rare unpopulated areas and the view is of a clean drop into crystalline emptiness. As the day lights fade into evening, Ursula plays with an empty glass while I look at discarded cutlery. I expect Security to turn up any second.

“Everything about this is wrong,” I say.

There is a difficult silence.

“I know you’re sad after Harlan…” Ursula says.

“It isn’t Harlan,” I say, my voice uneven. “I just think we should grab Mum and get out of here.”

“Where would we go?” she says. “What would we do?”

“I don’t know and it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. How are we going to look after Mum?”

“We’ll find a way. We’d be alive at least.”

“Why would we die if we stayed here?” Ursula asks, hurt and confused.

“You wouldn’t,” Anton Jelka says, having silently appeared beside us.

I stare up at him, conscious of the fear and rage in my eyes. He looks back at me evenly. The lines in his tight face give nothing away.

“Ursula,” Anton says, “I’d like to speak to Charity alone if you don’t mind.”

Ursula is suddenly uneasy; she’s usually the important one. I try to stay calm but grab her hand.

“I think I’ll stay,” she says.

To avoid trouble I want her to go but I also need to see her, to make sure she’s all right. My gun finger twitches.

I force myself to accept that Anton has got access to soldiers just as lethal as my parents and could have seized me at any time. I kiss Ursula’s fingers and let go of her hand.

“It’s all right,” I tell her.

Ursula hesitates, then gets up and backs away with a warning glare at Anton, which he ignores. I wonder if I will ever see my sister again.

Anton sits opposite me. He is able to appear bigger than he really is by dint of restrained aggression that gives him a kind of charisma. The effect is enhanced by his eyes, which are set too deep so he always looks tired and haunted. His mouth turns down but is very full-lipped, its sensuous contours at odds with brutally cropped dark grey stubble on his head and jaw. As I study Anton I notice his rigidity hides a restlessness, which he must keep under ruthless control.

I realise the usual restaurant sounds of cutlery and talk have died away and glance around. The restaurant is deserted; in this stillness and silence we could be the last people alive. I look back at Anton.

“How did you get the mission files?” he asks.

I try to look nonchalant but fear strains my eyes.

“You searched in-Aer for Velossin,” Anton says.

“Is that all you’ve got?”

“It encouraged us to check your ifarm. A file the same size as the mission document was discovered.”

“Dad sent it to me.”

“But-”

“He got someone else to send it for him so you wouldn’t know, given that you tried to kill him.”

Anton frowns slightly as he sends and receives information.

“I see,” he says distractedly.

“Well?” I say as anger burns away my fear.

He looks at me again and I feel my patience come to a definite end. I jump to my feet and the chair clatters over. My right index finger trembles so hard that my entire hand shakes.

“WELL?!” I shout.

I hurl a chair at a window and it bounces off. I pick up another one and smash it against the table next to us. My face feels weirdly static. I smash the chair against the table again and look at Anton. He looks back at me without changing his expression.

“Charity,” he says.

The tension in his face has gone. As I glare at him, lungs pumping oxygen into me at a terrific rate, I realise I’m building up to a fight that will not come, a crisis that is already over.

“Why did you try and kill Dad?” My voice is quieter now.

“I didn’t,” he says, “I would never-”

“They wore Centrian Security uniforms!”

“I know.”

“Someone attacked Mum inside Centria!”

“And where is Julie now?”

I stare at him.

“In her house,” I say.

“Protected by?”

I think of the diamond layer Anton grew to keep Mum safe. Despite the evidence from that last mission file, my anger suddenly feels childish.

Anton gets up.

“Come with me please,” he says.

I look at the wrecked table.

“Leave that,” Anton says. “Frankly it’s an improvement.”

He walks towards the exit and after a moment I follow him. Instead of leaving through the front door, Anton heads up a spiral staircase. I walk behind him, watching the back of his legs and the soles of his boots until we emerge on the roof where the mirrored ball of a small Security cruiser waits. The door slides open as Anton approaches and he gets on but doesn’t sit. I follow and stand next to him. The door closes and the cruiser rises straight up.

We pass assemblies and the tops of buildings and keep going into Centria’s filmy, vaporous clouds. Above them the diamond ceiling is divided into quadrants by four great slots that make it look like a giant targeting sight. We ascend into one.

The ceiling is at least ten metres thick and forms ground level for Security Control, which I’ve never had clearance to visit. The upper edge of the slot is lined with spherical cruisers, battle planes, troop transports and great red warships, all of which can descend to any point in Centria at a second’s notice. As our cruiser continues to rise I can see that the other three slots are armed in exactly the same way.

The view is very different to the rest of Centria. Security Control, which includes all of Centria’s armed forces, is a huge, shallow dome with a thick pillar linking floor to ceiling in the centre. The pillar has got a luminous band near the top, bright in the darkening air. Our cruiser slows and stops midway between the floor and curved ceiling and halfway between the pillar and the circular perimeter.

Below us army training camps spread over a series of levels, their varied battle terrains a huge set of brightly lit squares in different colours. Flashes of light indicate work in progress, while nearer by hundreds of troops march in formation across a white parade ground. The soldiers are tiny from up here but their precision is unmistakable; they remind me of the microscopic machines in the Basis.

Anton watches me impassively as I survey Centria’s awesome military power.

“If I wanted anyone dead they would be,” he says finally.

“I understand.”

He puts his hands on my shoulders. His grip is very light, very comforting and very confusing.

“I do not know why the people after Connor were Centrian soldiers,” he says. “I would never have authorised that.”

After a while I nod. He takes his hands away and waits for my next question.

“Why did they wear the uniforms?” I say.

“I think it was deliberate. Knowing their own side was against them would have undermined Connor and Julie, however skilled they were.”

“The attackers must have had Operators like Mum. Can’t we ask them?”

“They didn’t have Operators,” says Anton. “That ambush in MidZone was off the books. An Operator would have revealed it.”

“Who authorised the attack?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

“But you know everything!”

Anton throws his head back and loud, surprisingly high-pitched laughter pours out of him. I shift uncomfortably and wait for him to finish.

“I don’t know everything,” he says finally. “No one does, not really. Look, I’ll show you.”

The cruiser moves up to the pillar’s bright band and docks at a gantry. I follow Anton out of the ship, across a walkway above the unfamiliar landscape and into the pillar, where a circular lobby surrounds the central chamber. Anton’s ifarm opens a door to it and I walk beside him into Surveillance.

The vast, high-ceilinged room is full of people. Some are in uniform, some not although everyone I can see wears the Surveillance symbol: Centria’s logo inside a stylised eye outline. They create quite a din as they talk to each other, stroll or sit and process images fed by the ifarm to their eye screens from all the recs in Centria.

Anton leads me towards a raised office set into a wall, greeting members of his staff from time to time as he passes.

“We accrue information and search for patterns,” he says, his voice raised. “I know more than most people Charity but there are forces in Centria that are much greater than me.”

We walk up a short flight of steps into Anton’s office and the door closes behind us to shut out the noise. The office is modest with a round table and built-in bench. There are pictures on the wall, some medals in a case and a large screen. I peer at one of the pictures, in which a group of twenty uniformed soldiers pose formally in front of a warship.

“Is that Mum?”

“We were in the same battalion,” Anton says wistfully.

He gestures to the table; I sit slightly awkwardly and Anton sits nearby with his back straight and palms flat on the surface. Two drinks grow out of the table; Anton picks one up and knocks it back. After a moment I do the same. Two more grow. Anton stares at his and I move mine around like a chess piece.

“What forces are greater than you Anton?”

“Ellery. Gethen. Keris.”

“Why would they attack my parents?”

“I don’t know. It may not be any of them. There may be others, hidden even to me.”

“Isn’t telling me that a bit risky?”

“Riskier not to, under the circumstances.”

“What do you mean?”

Anton takes a breath and then another one on top of it as if he can’t get enough oxygen into his lungs.

“Do you ever wonder why you always get me when you call Security?” he says.

“I thought it was because of my job,” I say.

“Ellery Quinn doesn’t speak to me as often as you do.”

“So why do I get you?” I ask him.

He scratches the back of his head and then very deliberately places his palm back on the table.

“Because I have watched over you for your whole life,” he says.

Astonishment buzzes in my head while the silence around us seems to get deeper, almost like something solid.

“Why?” I whisper.

“I was ordered to. Sealed instructions. On
paper
.”

“When?”

“The instructions were there the day I got my first job in the department.”

“Who sent them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you still got the paper?”

“No.”

“Do you know who I am, who I really am?”

“No,” he says. “I’m sorry. Your parents don’t either.”

“What do you know about the Guidance?”

“I know the words are off limits. I react when they’re said under certain circumstances.”

“Do you think it’s the ruling force in Diamond City?”

“I’m surprised you take what Harlan Akintan says seriously.”

“I-I don’t, it’s just…”

My glass scrapes against the table. I hesitate and then drink the contents, which have no effect.

“What gave Harlan away?” I say to change the subject, not very successfully.

“Your father was tracking an operative who led to Akintan, whose goal was to get access to Centria and let the rest of the NFE in.”

“Would that have been so bad?” I say.

“Yes,” Anton says.

“But I didn’t think we knew their intentions.”

“We know they want to take over. We don’t know why.”

“Who’s in charge of them?”

Anton smiles strangely to himself.

“Jaeger Darwin,” he says.

“Who is he?” I ask.

“He used to be my boss.”

“Here? In Centria?”

“Yes.”

“Was he thrown out?”

“No. He’s an exceptional man, with access to unique insights. He decided that Centria no longer aligned with his worldview and left.”

I know how Jaeger Darwin feels but refrain from saying so.

“When?” I ask instead.

“Twenty years ago,” Anton says. “One day he was just gone.”

“Have you heard from him since?”

“No.”

“How do you know he’s not dead?”

“He is basically unkillable.”

“What was this view he developed?”

“No one knows except the NFE and they don’t advertise.”

“What’s Jaeger Darwin like?”

“The greatest soldier who has ever lived,” Anton says, his voice hushed with awe.