Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) (22 page)

31

“Come back Charity…”

Keris’s voice is a fixed point in the chaos.

“Come back my lovely one, my treasure…”

The intolerable rotation of galaxy and nucleus resolves into her face. We lie on a long chair that supports me in her arms. She looks kind but lost and her gaze triggers something-

It’s as if a giant, invisible hand begins to shake me. I sob into Keris’s chest and she holds me to her. The terrific shaking continues, massive and exhausting. I feel like a conduit for some elemental power I can barely accommodate and Keris strains to keep me in place.

If she lets go I will fly off through the side of the assembly, through Centria and the walls of the city. I will fly through the outermost sphere to brute rock. I will fly through the dead Earth’s crust and up through the stumps of ruin. I will fly into the venomous sky, the agony of space and the terrifying emptiness beyond.

The darkness of that lost sky is a new gravity. It pulls at my clattering heart and swirls the wanton riot of my hysterical mind.

The great hand that shakes me does not let up.

88 Rabian burns.

I let him die.

He was one of my own.

Instead of his face that burns it’s mine.

My eyes melt but I still see-

          I can’t take any more…

I look up at a swirl of galaxies. Time has passed without me noticing. Keris’s hand is in mine as I lie under a blanket, silvery with reflected starlight. Most feeling has been shaken out of me. The only thing left, barely perceived, is relief.

So now I know.

I sense Keris in me. I sense Jaeger and Ellery and Gethen. I sense others, undefined because although I want to know them I am at my limit for now. Still, the names tantalise:
Sol Bassa, Louis Ruckingham
…

“You talked about stars,” Keris says.

Her profile is a lovely shadow against the backdrop of ancient light. I don’t know if it’s my state of mind that gives me vertigo or that incalculable distance. I turn on my side to face Keris, her head ringed with the soft gold of forgotten suns.

“I remember stars,” she says. “You could just stand there at night and see them. Imagine!”

She strokes my face. A crystal glade grows around us and the huge space becomes intimate and mysterious. Faint coloured lights run through the sensuous curved structures in rivulets of purple, violet and blue, their radiance warming the ruthless beauty of the stars.

I sleep. Wake. Sleep again.

When I wake up fully once more Keris’s fingers touch my dry lips. She murmurs, concerned and holds a glass to my mouth. The water is amazing in its simplicity. I drink it all and Keris refills the glass. There’s an odd moment when she clearly doesn’t know whether to hold the glass for me or hand it over. We giggle nervously. I reach for the glass and finish its contents. The blanket slips off but I don’t mind.

“How are you?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

My voice is hoarse and unfamiliar. I have survived again, or have I? I feel so utterly different. Is the old Charity dead?

“You didn’t kill 88 Rabian,” Keris says. “There’s nothing you could have done for him. Can you begin to accept that?”

I nod, wary of easy resolutions.

“Ask me what you like,” Keris says.

“Am I sterile too?” I ask.

“No,” Keris says. Her expression is enigmatic as she puts her hand between my legs to cup my sex protectively. “You can have babies. You can do anything.”

She leans back. Her eyes narrow slightly.

“What?” I say.

“You’re wondering if I decided your parents were in the way and ‘removed’ them so I could have you for myself.”

“Well…” I say.

“I didn’t hurt them. How could I when they had done such a good job?”

I nod, breathe. She watches me.

“Jaeger thinks you’ve got an unlimited supply of kilos,” I say.

“I know. He’s wrong.”

“Why does he think it?”

“He needs a reason for what he does. Other than that I don’t know.”

There’s a pause.

“Keris, Mum said there’s something wrong with Centria.”

“There is something wrong with it Charity.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“That, my Golden Princess, is what I want you to find out.”

“Princess?”

“Yes,” Keris says. “We ensured Ursula had the career she did so you could see what it was like. Of course, Ursula has her own way of doing things…”

“So,” I say, “I’m some sort of… er…”

“Saviour,” Keris says.

“Right,” I say. “Well. I’d like a pay rise then please.”

“Of course. How much?”

“50,000 a month?” I say.

Keris laughs. I try to keep a straight face.

“You can have 20,000 kilos a month with an advance now for operating expenses,” Keris says.

“Okay,” I say. “I don’t want an ifarm though. I need to be able to move around Centria without one.”

“Agreed,” Keris says.

“Thank you.”

“I would keep this to yourself for now,” Keris says. She goes to speak again, hesitates and then says, “Be subtle.”

I nod solemnly. We both get up. I stand for a moment with the most beautiful, powerful woman in the world. My sort-of-mother. My twelfth of a bio-parent. Hn.

I step back and do up the jumpsuit. Keris and I regard each other for a while. Finally, I give her a little smile and turn to go.

“Charity,” Keris says.

I look at her.

“I love you,” she says.

32

A doorway in the crystal shroud protecting Mum and Dad’s house opens and I walk inside. Repelled by the silent glistening contours I hurry upstairs to where Mum lies in bed, unchanged as the structure around her.

“Wake up Mum,” I whisper, “I’ve got so much to tell you.”

Mum’s chest rises and falls. Her eyes stay closed. I climb onto the bed but can’t relax without Ursula so I call her. She isn’t taking calls or even messages. Thwarted, I cuddle Mum with such love its warmth should wake her. When it doesn’t I’m gripped again by the now familiar anger.

I remember who and what I am. The knowledge is a brightness in me; a small but astonishing tension. I hold it in my mind and look at it in different ways, as if it is a precious object. Excitement is balanced by dread though. What will I say to people?

It’s funny how life just goes on despite revelations like this. I continue to breathe, my hair grows a tiny bit, I digest the food I ate… whenever it was I last ate. I gif a plate of Centrian Old World-style Plugger and eat the six warm yellow and green strips slowly. The familiar rich savoury melt has a loamy texture and sharp tang that helps me to focus.

I know the following: Fulcrus deals in money lending and hostages. VIA Holdings owns Fulcrus. Centria is paying Fulcrus but Fulcrus hasn’t got a Centrian hostage as far as I can tell. The only name in the files is ‘Zero’. Who or what is Zero?

VIA Holdings and Centria are to merge although have not yet done so. The delay is due to bad weather about 88 Rabian’s death, which was orchestrated by VIA Holdings or at least by Balatar Descarreaux.

However, not only do the payments to Fulcrus by Centria predate Bal’s appointment as Director of Security, they total a higher value than anything he could authorise. Who does have authority? Gethen? Gethen’s job is to make money; it’s what he was created for. Why, then, would he be pouring money out of Centria?

How is the New Form Enterprise involved? Mum and Dad were attacked because they were spying on the NFE, but the NFE has no involvement with Fulcrus or VIA Holdings and nothing to do with the Sons of the Crystal Mind either.

I now know that Jaeger and Keris are linked. They were lovers and Jaeger was Centria’s military chief before he left to found the NFE. Why did he do that? Surely it would have been better to carry out research here in Centria, with all its resources.

Jaeger said he was looking for a new form of humanity, whatever that means. However, he was bred to be a soldier. Why does this change in role worry me?

His last fight was the Ruby War, the war that was never meant to happen. Someone in Centria was supposed to let the NFE in. Who? And Jaeger lost! It can’t just be because he loves Keris or he would never have left Centria. I don’t accept he simply ran out of ideas either. There’s another reason but what is it?

Jaeger believes the story about the unlimited kilos. Keris says he’s wrong. She’s got no reason to lie to me. Who is right?

I think about Keris’s description of the Guidance as old and not in control. They are in charge though, as much as anyone in Diamond City can be. In charge but not in control.

In charge. Not in control…

Zero…

I wake up snuggled against Mum. It is dark out and I see I have slept for twelve hours. That isn’t surprising; it’s been quite a week.

Mum and Dad’s room is a series of round-edged shadows lit by occasional washes of red and blue from assembly lights over Centria. I look around. That lump over there is a diamond-shrouded cupboard full of things made by Ursula and me when we were children. In the cabinet by the bed are Dad’s medals and Mum’s two Old World Harvest Day stars. The big block next to the door is a wardrobe although there will only be a few items of clothing in it.

Lying in the familiar but strange place I go in-Aer for signs of Ursula but there’s nothing recent. Instead I see footage of my fight with the Sons of the Crystal Mind, most of which shows an airborne red blur lashing stupid little black-clad figures with a net of white fire.

“Mystery saviour,” the feed says.

There’s that word again: saviour. Keris said to be subtle so perhaps this saviour should remain a mystery for now.

Feed from Hobb at a rally shows him recovered from his injuries although he’s left his face scarred for effect. I’m astonished at the number of Sons present; the Aer says three thousand.

I am part of a group despised and misunderstood by the general population. They won’t let ignorance of who I really am get in the way of forming idiotic, vicious opinions. I could do without the bother but at least only I know for now.

I cut Hobb off as he shouts the word ‘abomination’.

I will give him abomination.

33

Ellery and I stand opposite each other in her vast office at the top of the Comms Tower, which rises from the centre of the enclave’s curved base. The tower is directly beneath the rotating assembly and is so tall I fancy I hear those enormous rings whoosh by above. Centria gleams through a great cylindrical window around us and the vista is such that no other ornamentation is necessary. I used to be impressed by the scale and the view but now it just reminds me of Fulcrus.

“Hn,” Ellery says. “All right?”

I go to say yes with automatic politeness but the word comes apart in my mouth. When I slept again at Mum and Dad’s I had nightmares about my fight with the Sons of the Crystal Mind. There was a horrible sense of falling, worse than when the flybike cut out. It was like that unknowing, panicked lurch I sometimes get on the point of sleep but this time it went on and on.

Through a disorientating sheen of terror I saw the men I killed but the memory had varying degrees of detail. The men I remembered looked at me with weirdly accusing indifference and I made up faces for the others, who looked at me in the same way.

“I know about the Guidance,” I say to Ellery.

“Figures.”

“I met Jaeger.”

“Hn.”

“Why don’t you like him?”

Ellery’s eyes move as she searches the room for something to focus on.

“Gethen,” she says finally.

“Why?”

Ellery looks out of the window and then back at me. She is restless and her expression worried.

“Guards,” she says. “Soon.”

“Tell me,” I say.

“Gethen thinks Jaeger is the only predator greater than he is. Jaeger knows but doesn’t care. I love Gethen but-but he isn’t constant. Jaeger is just another, another… one.”

There is movement in the distance, coming this way. Ellery gives an odd, strangled cry and runs forward. I step back, confused as she throws her arms around me. Her body shakes; she’s crying but even her sobs are silent.

“Sorry,” she mutters, “I’m so sorry.”

“Why?” I say into her crazy red hair.

She pushes me away but grips my arms. Through the window I see three spherical Security cruisers approach.

“No time,” she says. “Can’t begin to-”

“Ellery, tell me about Fulcrus.”

“Lot of work to hide Fulcrus,” she says. “Takes as much to keep someone out of the Aer as make them the focus of it.”

“Centria is funnelling thousands of kilos to them because of someone called Zero. Why are we doing that?”

“Fulcrus don’t just take human hostages, they take information hostages as well,” Ellery says.

“Blackmail?”

Ellery looks frightened. The cruisers surround the tower and disappear from view as they land on the roof. There are voices outside.

“Yes. We pay them not to broadcast something and help keep them hidden.”

“What do we pay them not to broadcast?”

She hesitates. The guards are here for me, not her. Why is she so scared?

“Who is Zero?” I shout.

“Not who,” she says.

I hear the boots of the guards behind me, turn and bring up the n-gun.

Be subtle.

I let my hand fall. The guards surround me.

“Are you all right Ms Quinn?” the squad leader says.

“Hn.”

“We need Miss Freestone. It’s urgent.”

“Fuck off,” Ellery says.

“Orders from the Director of Security Ms Quinn.” The squad leader’s voice fails to hide a sneer of menace.

The change in Ellery is sudden and astonishing. Her green eyes blaze, her shoulders go back and her chin comes up. She doesn’t look like a madwoman now; she looks like an empress.

“Your uniform is a disguise that doesn’t work,” she says.

Her voice is a thrilling whisper. It’s the only sound in the room as the guards unconsciously stop every movement to listen.

“You thought it would cover your small mind the way the Basis has given you muscles to cover your small body,” Ellery continues. “You didn’t earn it. You didn’t earn anything. You are the man who will do what others find repulsive because that is the only way anyone will ever notice you.”

Ellery’s words are like blows and the squad leader groans. He shakes his head, his arrogance battered away as the other guards watch confused.

“Get out,” Ellery says.

The squad leader looks like he’s about to cry. His gaze darts around the room and suddenly stops. He’s on a live vix link; someone is listening in and giving instructions. It can only be Bal. The squad leader’s mouth twists and then he points his fuze at Ellery.

Ellery ignores the fuze and her nostrils flare with contempt. She doesn’t think anything will happen to her because she has never been in a situation like this before. She goes to speak again just as the squad leader shoots her.

I scream as if the bolt lances into me. Ellery is thrown back but scarily her eyes don’t leave the squad leader. Ellery’s expression barely changes, even when she thuds against the window. The squad leader tenses to shoot her again.

“I’ll come,” I say.

The squad leader breathes heavily with excitement as we walk to the elevator. Its doors open and we enter the large white circular car. The guards in front glare down and I feel the hostility of those behind like an almost painful pressure. I stare ahead and don’t meet their eyes.

After a thankfully short journey the doors open onto the tower roof, surrounded by the tops of buildings grown from Centria’s spherical inner surface. They reflect the coloured illumination of the glowing cloud, which is snipped and recast by the rotating assembly. Beyond the cruisers an ornate railing outlines the roof perimeter and glints in the moving light.

The guards back onto the roof and I follow them. The mirrored surfaces of the three cruisers reflect triple versions of the scene, my jumpsuit a slash of red amid the dark blue Centrian uniforms. Two of the guards take my arms.

“There’s no need for that,” I say, “I’m not going to cause any trouble.”

One of them laughs; three more grab me and push me towards the railings. I struggle and kick, but there are too many of them.

“You’re going to commit suicide,” the squad leader says, “over your poor mum and dad.”

My n-gun flickers blue on level 1 and the guard on my left falls, stunned. An instant later so does the one to my right.

“Get the fuck up!” the squad leader screams at his two unconscious men.

I use level 1 to stun him and get two more guards before the last three even raise their guns. When they finally do I dive to the floor and wriggle beneath the squad leader.

One of the guards shoots straight through him and I get a nasty jolt as the jumpsuit absorbs the charge. I shoot the guard; the other two pull the dead squad leader off me and he sinks into the floor. One of the guards stamps on my right wrist and keeps his boot there.

“Shit,” he says and points his gun at me.

“The Basis will record my cause of death,” I say and he hesitates. “If you shoot me it won’t look like suicide.”

The other guard kicks me in the head with a dull thud. Stunned, I feel them haul me up and grip my gun arm. Before they can twist it I point straight down, fire level 3 and destroy the roof we stand on.

We drop through flaming debris back into Ellery’s office. Before we hit the ground I shoot the guard on my right, forgetting I’m still on level 3. He is vaporised and half the great cylindrical window bursts into a sparkling plume over Centria.

I land well. A gruesome wet snap to my left indicates the last guard did not. He screams and rolls from side to side as beneath him I see the shadow of Ellery healing in the Basis.

The roof begins to collapse. One cruiser drops past the window outside; another noses over the crumbling edge of the roof to crush the remaining guard. As the cruiser rolls towards me I scramble up and sprint out. An alarm begins to shriek.

A solid block of diamond now fills the entire floor below and the elevator stays locked above me. I dash up the stairs beside it and out onto the remains of the roof. I edge along to the last cruiser and jump on board.

I try to access the cruiser’s in-Aer controls but they’re blocked so I head for the seat with the backup controls. Before I can reach it I’m flung against the transparent side of the cruiser as my weight tips it over the tower’s broken rim.

I panic as I’m pressed against a surface I can’t see. Below me is the dreadful height; I try and scrabble away from it but the cruiser turns slowly as it falls. One moment the ground approaches, the next I tumble back and see the wrecked top of Ellery’s tower recede.

The spinning makes controlled movement almost impossible; when I pull myself to the seat it’s like lifting a terrific weight. I cling to the armrest and finally manage to activate the manual control.

The cruiser slows, rights itself and I thump to the floor. For a moment I lie there shuddering as if trying to throw off tension and fear. It doesn’t work. I climb shakily onto the control seat and stare numbly out. Centria hangs before me.

I want to go away, curl up and deal with everything slowly over time. However, I need to find Ursula before something happens to her, to get Mum out of that coma, to stop the Velossin murdering Dad-

I scream and pound stupidly against the armrests until the meat aches on the side of each hand. As I stop I slump forward as if unable to support my weight. My mind… slows.

Distantly, I realise I may be in shock. I wish Harlan was here, holding me. He’s probably sent me a message. I should check but I can’t even work the Aerac. I want my mum.

The Comms Tower begins to sink into the floor. No, wait – it’s the cruiser that is rising, higher and with increasing speed as someone else takes remote control of it. I clutch furiously at the manual controls but they no longer work for me. As usual anger is no use at all.

Why does it have to be me? I’m no saviour; I’m just a girl.

The cruiser gets higher and turns out over Centria. I think about calling Keris to tell her what I’ve found but I haven’t really found anything. So Zero isn’t a person. What is Zero then?

Maybe Zero is just zero.

The little voice in my head is the only urgent thing about me. Even my blood has slowed. Zero. Nothing. What would Centria have run out of for them to be so worried? Patents? Hardly; Ursula was never short of work advertising them. What then?

Oh. Of course. How on earth could it have happened? Kilos. Centria has run out of kilos. I remember Harlan’s description of Diamond City as a free-market utopia. The greatest sin here is to have no money. Centria clearly has something to operate with but not for much longer. I imagine Security Control being deposited to settle debt, maintain appearances, keep the story going…

If this information becomes known the rest of Diamond City will tear Centria apart. The enclave might keep people out for a while but not indefinitely. Those inside would want to escape because who would tolerate living in Centria without its wealth and power? No wonder the merger with a tenth rate outfit like Loren’s was so urgent. She discovered the secret and used Fulcrus to ensure her offer would be impossible to refuse.

The cruiser seems to drift but when I look at the controls I see I’ve sped up. My surroundings begin to look familiar. Unease rises through my lethargy.

The attack on Mum and Dad finally makes sense. The New Form Enterprise spied on Centria to get the kilos Jaeger thinks Keris is hiding. Instead the NFE learned things they couldn’t understand; weird accounts, tolerance of toxic relationships, nothing literally adding up. Mum and Dad were able to partly decipher what was going on using Centria’s database, which Jaeger no longer had access to. Unfortunately for my family, that information was meant to stay hidden.

In the distance a little island floats in the air. My blood thickens with surging adrenaline and I start to come out of shock. I’m no expert but I know such a quick recovery is unusual...

My plan to get more power after Ursula’s wedding endangered us both. Ursula was too popular to kill so we had to be discredited. Centria’s brutal rules were engaged and Diamond City was meant to have taken care of the rest.

The cruiser begins to whine as the island races at me. I recognise it finally; I’ve just never seen it from this angle. I’m heading like a missile for Mum and Dad’s house. At this speed even the diamond walls won’t keep the cruiser out. Behind those walls lies Mum, unconscious and helpless.

I gif a top-range flybike and picture it grow from the floor. Slow, so slow. The flybike controls finally appear over my view of the enlarging island. I focus my weary mind and instruct the bike to rendezvous with my coordinates. I set the n-gun to level 3 and blast a big hole in the side of the cruiser. Wind lashes hair in my eyes so I press an elbow crook to the top of my head and dispense cool gel. There’s an odd tickle as it slicks my hair flat and winds the blonde fall into a tight braid.

Mum and Dad’s house gets closer and I get up to wait nervously by the rushing hole. The assembly sequence the Basis has followed to make the flybike is fixed. My speed is fixed too, as is the time the flybike will take to reach the cruiser and the remaining distance to impact. These elements are a little universe of horror, its terrible perfection like a machine whose purity of function will expel all humanity without even knowing. The Crystal Mind could not have designed this scenario better.