Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) (20 page)

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A cloud of shattered diamond falls past me to the floor below. Anton flies back and I catch his eye. Is he smiling? Hobb aims his device at the pyre. The little girl screams. The Sons look up at the debris tumbling towards them as the pyre smokes and then catches fire.

I see the Son who shot Anton, rifle still aimed in Anton’s direction. I fire level 3 and the man disappears in a bright flash. The instant I fly past is long enough to reflect that I’ve killed someone. It feels terribly strange. I’ve never killed anybody before and neither have I wanted to. I’m not happy about it but I’m not exactly sad either. Weird power blazes through me.

I fire at Hobb but miss and destroy his steps. He stumbles, trying to bat away lacerating diamond fragments. Some just miss the girl on the pyre so I switch to level 2. I aim at Hobb’s midriff. Hobb jumps aside; I keep firing until two closely spaced shots take his right arm off. He topples from the column, lands badly and rolls on the floor screaming.

I fly over the little girl, register her coordinates and turn back for another go at Hobb. He looks astonished as he realises who I am. I take aim but the flybike jolts as the Sons of the Crystal Mind fire at me. How dare they! I speed up and ease the flybike around in a wide arc.

Even from here I can smell burning and the pyre is a horrible brightness to my right. I scan the floor; it’s not owned by anyone so I use the girl’s coordinates to gif a large bathing cylinder. The diamond tube glints with reflected gunfire as it slides up around her and for a moment she is obscured by thick white smoke. I try not to think how she feels as the container fills with water. By the time it stops the girl is completely submerged and bits of blackened wood float on the surface.

A few shots glance off the cylinder so I leave it where it is and bring the flybike around behind the Sons. Level 2 bolts kill three and they fall past the people writhing on the bright floor. I close in on Hobb again, who stops roaring obscenities and crawls into a small plane. I reset the n-gun to level 3 and blast the plane in half. Hobb falls out again, screaming and on fire.

The Sons rush at me. I bring the flybike down until it’s a metre off the floor and let them come. Soon they have left the drugged people and the little girl behind and I open fire with level 3. As white n-gun bolts cut through my pursuers I deposit the cylinder and the water. The glow in the floor disappears along with the post holding the Blank girl; Hobb must need his kilos for medical treatment now he’s only got one arm and half a face.

The girl jumps free and runs. She is hampered by a limp and the flapping wet remains of her burned pink dress. Ugly red-black gashes mark her skinny legs and the right side of her long dark hair is crisped away. She stumbles to a halt, coughs and rubs her eyes. When she runs again it is with almost hysterical abandon.

The Sons get too near so I haul the flybike out of range. Undeterred, they run after me, shooting. Hobb has managed to put out the fire and waves his followers in the direction of the little girl but they don’t notice. The girl runs towards a rec. She’s about seven and her face is crumpled with sobs. Behind her, more Sons close in.

The Aer feed shows a red figure soar above black-clad rabble who shoot uselessly up at it. The rider fires dazzling beams that almost flare out the recs. The rabble scatters and explodes amid gouts of broken diamond.

I get a weird sense of dislocation as I realise the scarlet rider is me. My face and hair are soaked with blood and my movements are methodically lethal. I hesitate self-consciously for a moment and the Sons below start to regroup. The feed shuts off.

I pull the joystick back to loop up and over so the floor looks like it’s above. The impression is of chaos attached to a dull blue ceiling. Hobb leaves a broad trail of blood; people run from buildings to pull their helpless colleagues inside to safety; Sons grow bikes and take off in pursuit.

I swoop down to skim half a metre above the floor. My bike is faster than any of the Sons’ but as I approach the girl I have to slow down. A bolt hits my right hip and the flybike spins. I hear a terrible crackle and feel electrical heat so intense it seems icy cold. I wrench the flybike straight and pump my right leg in panic. Despite the agony it still works thanks to the jumpsuit armour and my distance from the shooter. I gasp and press on.

Finally I reach the girl and lean over to slip my left arm around her waist. She struggles and her face locks with terror; I have to use both arms to hold her and let go of the joystick. The flybike begins to drift.

“It’s all right,” I say, “I’ll save you.”

We are heading for a wall at high speed. I use all my strength to lift the girl in front of me, grip her with my right arm and grab the joystick again with my left. The girl wriggles around, scans me and goes still.

“Your name’s Charity,” she says.

“Yes.”

“You shot the wankers.”

“I did,” I say. “Hold tight.”

The flybike wraps restraints around her and we start to climb. Another hit spins us again. The backup system kicks in and we stabilise but now face our attackers. They race closer at frightening speed so I bank right and show them the flybike’s underside, which acts as a shield for the next volley. The flybike shudders at the impact and I notice we are down to our last backup.

I want to land but the Sons are beneath us. Instead, I pull up until we are too high to make anything out on the floor. The airborne Sons come at us again and I let fly with a burst of obliterate shots. Two Sons explode but there are still a dozen left. Desperate now, I keep on firing and another Son goes down. Twenty more rise towards us.

We are close to the perimeter of the open area, bounded by buildings that reach to the ceiling. Out of space, I swing around to aim at the nearest Son as he closes in, his face bright with hatred. I fire the n-gun. It doesn’t work.

I check my Aerac. The kilo account is at 0. The previous flybike, this more expensive model plus all those pricey level 3 bolts have left me with nothing.

I drop us out of range and fly down at a steep angle, heading for the buildings so we can escape into one of them. However, when we get closer I see they are now shielded and inaccessible so I turn towards the portal that leads to the next chamber just as three enormous cannons grow from the floor in front of it.

I jerk the flybike left but cannon fire is a blinding corridor. I try and shield the girl with my body but now there is gunfire in both directions. A shot hits my back and breath leaves me with a hoarse animal screech. Again I’m preserved by distance and armour but it’s still like being punched by a man twenty times the size of Harlan.

I can only go up and climb at a daunting angle. My chest aches while trickling blood scalds my injured back. The flybike jolts with another hit and then it cuts out.

For a terrible instant we hang there, as if we can stay airborne if we figure out how in time. Worse, the flybike still has power but not enough to keep us up. Gravity clutches horribly at my sex as we begin the sedate drop. The girl starts to scream.

Suddenly, I have kilos, 91,284 of them. The name of the depositor appears: Anton Jelka. He has left me the kilo value of his body and that of everything he owns. Rage, love and hope inspire me.

I gif a large crash pad directly below us and watch the circular shadow get bigger as we plummet towards it. I grab the girl, release the restraints and vaporise the flybike so it doesn’t land on us. Soon we are only a few metres away from the ground, the familiar perspective made dreadful by velocity.

We hit the pad and the girl’s weight knocks the wind out of me but I still hold her tight as we crash through layers of material to shed the energy of our fall. A momentary pressure from below tells me the pad is still growing and then my entire body crunches to the floor-

It takes a while for the impact to register. Stunned and gasping, I lie with the girl on top of me. My head has walloped the floor with a ghastly high-pitched thump. Flashes of light, more abstract than gunfire, rip across my vision. My brain feels like it wants to vomit and is sickeningly angry that it can’t. Instead, more pain charges through me. My ribs feel crushed and my scorched back broken.

Gunfire shreds the edge of the pad so I deposit it. I gif a thick, high diamond ring around us and a thin layer over the circle of floor inside. It’s closed protocol; only I can gif anything in here. The girl rolls off me. Ignoring the pain, I struggle to my feet and pull her up. The fort keeps Hobb’s cannon fire off but gives no protection from the airborne Sons. They swoop, fire and another hit punches my left shoulder numb. I feel the hot spray of blood against my cheek.

I push the girl behind me and use short, controlled bursts to pick off Sons with level 3. Their gunfire explodes around us as Hobb’s cannons pound the fort. Nearby, another group of Sons takes to the air. The hundreds on the floor start to climb on top of each other to get over the fort wall. One of them lobs a grenade and I shoot it.

That grenade… I try to focus on an idea as I aim and shoot, aim and shoot. As I do I realise how to get out of this nightmare. I just need to fight with one part of my mind and go in-Aer with another. I select a bomb, a medium-yield explosive I once used in a simulation, remember the coordinates of the entrance portal, click, buy…

The n-gun tugs my arm to assist the aim as years of simulations pay off. Somehow I’m able to balance these forms of violence; one immediate and the other strategic. I don’t have space for nerves but I am very aware of time running out. Soon one of those shots will hit me in the heart or the head. Even if that doesn’t take me then exhaustion and blood loss will.

The Basis completes the bomb. Between shots I detonate it via the Aer. There’s a dull crump. Hobb’s cannon fire stops and hard debris clatters to the floor in the distance. Immediately I realise my mistake as the Sons on the ground encircle us completely. They gif steps against the fort wall and run up them as their airborne brethren close in.

“Charity?” says the girl.

“It’s all right,” I say. “Kneel down.”

She kneels. I pull her close and grow a dome around us. Its two quarter spheres rise as the airborne Sons open fire and the first of the men on the ground jumps down inside the fort. I shoot through the closing gap and shove the girl against the concavity opposite. The dome begins to close over us as a second grenade is thrown. I shoot this one as well-

“Charity!” screams the girl.

I look up to see a third grenade caught between the closing sections and close my eyes. I hear a brief crunch as the growing walls crush the bomb and then silence from outside.

The space beneath the dome is tiny because the wall is so thick and our frightened breath sounds very loud. The dome pulses with blinding light as the Sons around us open fire.

I go in-Aer and find a missile whose complexity means it will take longer than usual to assemble. It costs 54,796 kilos. I definitely won’t get those back. The little girl whimpers. I gif a thick, dark viscous fluid that quickly rises in the small space.

“Hold your breath honey,” I say.

The fluid tickles over us until we are submerged and we float just off the floor. Gunfire pounds distantly. I go in-Aer again to find the missile nearly ready. I try to stay calm in the glutinous murk but tension saps my oxygen as impacts from outside increase in number and intensity.

Finally the Basis completes the missile. I enter coordinates, fire and detonate it at once. Even submerged in darkness the nuclear flash reaches our eyes. The girl panics and wriggles but I hold her tight. Heat, shockwaves and deafening sound are safely absorbed by the fluid. Soon the noise and light fade but I do not move.

My heart begins to thunder and my lungs ache. When it becomes unbearable I deposit the fluid and feel it slide down over me. My damaged jumpsuit struggles to get rid of the residue and the girl isn’t wearing smart-clothes so we lie panting and sticky in the semi-spherical space.

I gif a rec just outside the dome. The rec melts. I wait a few minutes and try again. The next rec lasts and through drifts of thick grey smoke I see the surrounding buildings cracked and streaked with sooty residue. Weird light flashes and pulses in the ground as the Basis tackles the radiation. There is no trace of the Sons of the Crystal Mind.

Presently, the smoke is sucked into the floor while around the periphery buildings begin to repair themselves. The rec lets me know there is no more radiation outside so I deposit it along with the dome and we lie there in the open. I smell something strange: part explosive, part scorched metal, part burned meat. Then it’s gone.

I read the auto-message from the Basis that appeared with Anton’s kilo notification:

ANTON JELKA CAUSE OF DEATH:

GUNSHOT TO CHEST

T-42 TASLA PULSE RIFLE

12 METRE DISTANCE

The Basis took Anton apart molecule by molecule so is best placed to establish how he died. At least the Sons of the Crystal Mind didn’t burn him.

“Thank you Anton,” I whisper.

I roll onto my knees, climb painfully to my feet and put out my hand. The girl takes it and pulls herself up. Smeared and shiny we limp towards the exit.

I get a message from Hobb: