Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) (25 page)

38

I walk alone towards New Runcton. Hobb calls.

“Where are you?” he says.

“Near,” I say.

“Why didn’t you get off at the station?”

“I-I’m scared.”

I hear Ursula scream in the background.

“Do you want me to hurt Ursula again?”

“No! I’m coming. Please.”

“You’ve got two minutes before I start cutting,” Hobb says.

He ends the call. I walk faster through the unnamed community beside New Runcton. There’s no street; I just weave through narrow buildings positioned almost at random.

I hear someone behind me and turn. A chubby man in a black cloak stops and stares, his expression suspended uncomfortably between loathing and lust. I scan him.

“Oh please,” I say. “Am I really going to be hounded to death by someone called %JAmted3?”

%JAmted3 giggles nervously.

“We’re going to kill you and fuck you,” he says, his voice strangulated as if forced out by conflicting frustrations.

“I’d prefer it in that order.”

He goes red as I turn my back on him and start to walk again. More black-clad men creep around buildings and appear on roofs to stare at me; I know if I turn I will see a trail of them like a ragged cloak. I fix my gaze ahead and listen to my boots hit the road, one steady step at a time.

When I reach the outskirts of New Runcton something trips me. The floor is covered by a diamond layer, which I scan. It belongs to Hobb on closed protocol, so I can’t gif cannons, a flybike to escape on…

I’m shoved from behind and walk onto the layer. I only manage a few steps before I’m pushed from the right. I hear sneering laughter.

Now I’m pushed hard from the left and stumble. I turn but my attacker is safely anonymous in the crowd. Someone slaps the side of my head; the stinging blow is startling, outrageous.

I raise my gun arm but they seize me so my finger points at my side and the n-gun goes offline. One of the Sons touches a metal pad to my right index fingertip and agony crackles up my arm as if my nerves have been electrified. I manage not to scream but when I try to access the n-gun nothing happens.

The Sons of the Crystal Mind close in and I’m borne along by a black tide. Their hate makes everything hyper-tense and magnifies sound: the men as they breathe, the great patter of all our feet, the murmur of abuse and prayer.

I wish I could convince them they are… not wrong exactly but that there is so much more than the tiny world they have sealed themselves into. I think of what I found with Harlan, the still-untapped world of the Guidance, Anton Jelka’s mysterious last words.

Each of these wonders is a universe in itself. Some wait for me while others are lost forever although their echoes affect everything. The Sons of the Crystal Mind will never know such frightening glories. Release for them is another sacrifice, another burned body gone into the floor. Don’t they get bored?

Sons watch from every vantage point as we flow across New Runcton. There are so many, each one looking my way. A mad, delighted little voice in my head says, “All this… for me?”

Hobb sits on his bench with an air of cultivated humility that doesn’t suit him. Beside the bench is a pyre with a diamond post and tied to the post is Ursula. She looks more conscious now.

I’m sent sprawling by a hard shove from behind, smacking my hands and knees on the unyielding floor.

“Charity!” Ursula cries.

I look from side to side and see a variety of large, clunky weapons pointing at me. The n-gun is still offline.

“It’s all right baby,” I say to Ursula.

“It’s not all right baby,” Hobb says.

For once Ursula keeps her mouth shut. Hobb looks calm and happy: a man who is exactly where he wants to be. He gazes around his followers and as they stare silently back Hobb seems to absorb strength from their vast, lumpen presence.

I start to get up. Something hits me between the shoulders and I’m clubbed back down. Winded, I look at Hobb, who ignores me. Ursula whimpers, loud in the silence.

Hobb climbs slowly onto the bench. It rises on a growing block of diamond and stops when Hobb reaches sufficient height to be seen by everyone present. He spreads his hands and stares towards his god in the floor.

“Brothers,” he says, “I thank you for the sweet gift of your faith.”

His awestruck voice is hushed but amplification makes it sound like he is in the very air.

“Today, we have with us two women. They were friends to us once, when they blessed our last sacrifice here. Since then however, they have fallen into vice and betrayal.”

Hobb points at me.

“This one has murdered many of our brothers,” he says.

The Sons murmur, a sound rich with menace. I stare at the floor, too frightened to look anywhere else. I’m suddenly very conscious of the delicate organic processes that make my body work and the flimsiness of the skin containing them. Ursula sobs quietly.

“She has spread lies about us,” Hobb says. “Lies about the Crystal Mind.”

Their eyes snap back to look at me as I cower on the floor. There is a dreadful moment and then they lunge like a single vicious creature. Hard fingers dig into my shaky flesh and I hear myself scream as they hurl me up into the air. For a moment I’m free, then fists thud into my back and the jumpsuit armour is useless against them. I writhe and buck onto more blows, afloat on a black sea of cloaks and agony. I try and shield my head with my arms but they are wrenched away to reveal a fine red spray of my blood in the air.

Punches batter my face and now I can’t see. The sound of hitting is an awful dull staccato, almost too fast for my stunned nerves to match. Pain comes in astonishing waves; I can’t move because of it but it keeps on and on.

“Enough,” Hobb says.

I smash to the floor and the impact cuts through all other agonies. Dazed, I lie on my back and shake. My body jolts excruciating little puffs of air into what’s left of my lungs and each breath is like another blow. I don’t know whether my eyes are open or not.

“She cannot help what she does,” Hobb whispers. “She is evil.”

My hair is stuck to my face, which feels like it’s full of extra blood and flesh.

“This evil comes from an unexpected source: Centria.”

Sight blurs its way back. My feet point towards Hobb and the pyre. I look at the barricade of black-clad figures, who glare down at me with uniform cold contempt.

“The heart of our realm has revealed itself to be unworthy of our regard. In its arrogance, Centria has bred monsters.”

Hobb closes his eyes. When he opens them again he looks stricken with grief, as if he has been betrayed.

“She is one.”

The Sons emit a euphoric sigh. Hobb tenses and the crowd leans forward as one.

“Centria tinkers with the works of God as if those mighty endeavours are playthings for stupid pampered children. No wonder the outcome is abomination!”

“ABOMINATION!” the Sons of the Crystal Mind roar.

The deafening word strikes my trembling core like all their punches in one.

“We must teach her the meaning of love my brothers. We must burn away distractions that keep her from seeing the Crystal Mind.”

He points at Ursula.

“Distractions like this false sister of hers.”

Hobb aims his hateful little device at the pyre. Dumfounded, I watch the wood begin to smoke. Ursula looks at it dully and passes out.

“You said you would let her go if I came here,” I croak at Hobb.

He looks theatrically bemused.

“No,” he says, “I didn’t. You have contaminated her, but her cleansing will be quick. Yours alas will take years.”

Hobb nods at the Son nearest to Ursula.

“Wake her.”

The Son jabs something into Ursula’s arm. She inhales sharply and her head comes up. She sees the fire around her and strains to escape but can barely move. Flames chew through the wood towards her. She screams.

I try to stand. A boot that seems almost disembodied flies in from the left and kicks me back down. Ursula’s screams go up a pitch.

“Get up,” Hobb says.

I try. They beat me down again.

“Get up!” Hobb shouts.

He sounds confused and I slowly angle my head so I can see him. He isn’t talking to me.

The flames reach Ursula and smoke gags her screams. She becomes senseless with choked hysteria as her trouser legs blacken horribly and-and then they catch fire.

Suddenly, water pours onto her from above. Flames hiss out and the pyre spreads in a fan of blackened wood. I look up. Above Ursula hangs a ship, smaller than a warship but heavily armoured. Water drips from its hatch and I glimpse Harlan in a black cloak as he ducks back inside.

“No!” Hobb screams, “nooooo!”

Painfully I clamber to my feet. No one looks at me; Hobb hasn’t even noticed that Ursula’s fire is out. Instead he stares into the crowd and I follow his gaze.

There is a civil war among the Sons of the Crystal Mind. Great swathes of them lie motionless on the floor. Elsewhere, their black-clad brethren methodically cut them down and Hobb’s floor cover stops the Basis absorbing the bodies.

I see Jaeger under a black hood, his expression eerily calm. His troops respond to the tiniest indication from him as he whirls untouched through knives and weapon beams to fling Sons of the Crystal Mind into their own fields of fire.

One of the Sons flies back and knocks me flat, his weight crushing my injuries. I gasp and inhale the smell of his sour body and musty clothes; then grab his rifle and struggle out from under him.

The Sons who surrounded me have all dispersed. They’ve got no idea who to kill; they don’t know it’s the New Form Enterprise dressed in identical black robes.

Two of the genuine Sons fight their attackers. One of the two then shoots the other. The NFE have got an identifier I can’t see to ensure they don’t make the same mistake.

“Stop,” Hobb shouts.

One of the Sons turns and sees me. He raises his fuze but I blow him apart with the rifle. Behind him I see the pyre. Ursula is gone.

“Charity!”

Harlan’s voice. I turn; his ship has landed nearby. I limp towards it.

The ground in front of me erupts! I stumble back, stunned. I look around and then up. Hobb points a rifle at me from the top of his diamond block. He laughs and shoots again; he wants me to know it’s him.

As I lift the rifle I notice a number on the side: 3, which becomes 2, which becomes 1… The rifle dissolves in my hands. It must have been a cheap model, only made to last a short time.

Another blast from Hobb explodes in front of me and the shock wave throws me back. I struggle up and a shot smashes down behind, hurling me forward to land on the jagged edges. Hobb fires again and again, his shots churning up the floor. Although I cover my head and throw myself out of the way bright fragments still cut through.

I writhe and scream in a storm of bloody diamond but all of a sudden it stops. I look up to see Hobb fire at Harlan’s ship and then my head nods forward involuntarily. My entire being is agony but in the terrible heart of it I notice… Hobb has blasted away a large patch of his floor cover.

Harlan fires a white n-gun bolt that shatters part of Hobb’s block. A few of the remaining Sons notice and shoot at Harlan. Harlan ducks into his ship, which rocks under the impact of gunfire.

I shelter against the base of Hobb’s block and gif a fuze in the patch of revealed floor. As I watch the gun form and grow, hot blood drips off my face like tears. Finally, my fuze rests on the floor and I reach over to pick the weapon up. Pushing myself to my feet I limp backwards until I can see Hobb.

“Hey handsome,” I say.

He turns, his expression a mix of surprise and guilty delight at my words. He notices the fuze and looks too confused to raise his rifle. His eyes flick to the exposed floor patch and as realisation softens his features I shoot him in the stomach. An impressive red spray jets out behind him; he doubles over and the rifle falls from his hands. For a moment he kneels and then slowly somersaults forward to land on his back with a dull thud.

I point the gun at his face. He blinks slowly and tries to speak as the noise of battle around us gradually fades. I let the fuze fall to my side, drop it and kneel next to Hobb. Ignoring the pain I grip his shoulders and pull him up until he sits with his back against my front.

“Look,” I say.

We face the remains of the crowd. Amid a horrible layer of black-clad bodies, the disguised New Form Enterprise pick off the last of the Sons and then disperse across Diamond City.

If anyone cares enough to investigate, it’s unlikely the NFE will be suspects. There’s no historical animosity or even link between the two groups. Hobb scared everyone out of New Runcton and none of the Sons are left alive to pass on scanned IDs.

“I don’t… understand,” Hobb says.

“Perhaps the Crystal Mind had other plans,” I say.