Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) (7 page)

A lot of the adverts feature my sister. Over there she soars on the latest flybike, different from the last one only in the runner design although I must admit the change is an improvement. There’s also one for a product called Vingo that cooks itself while you eat it, which holo-Ursula is in the process of doing. The sexuality in her movements and expression is magnified by scale and Harlan’s overwhelming presence. I seem to need more and more oxygen, breathing deep, then deeper…

I focus on the most striking advert, which is for Centria itself. Hanging over the others, it is a huge hologram of Ursula’s head. Her eyes gaze steadily down, the iris and pupil altered to show Centria’s logo: a filled circle surrounded by a thick-bodied C, both elements glowing a soft otherworldly blue. The limbs of the C nearly meet, perhaps to resemble Centria’s great door open, perhaps to show the ring road that brings everyone close or perhaps to suggest Centria’s grip on Diamond City.

As we continue across the roof there’s a sudden deafening clang and a beam of yellow light flashes up from a shadowy area ahead to stand in the night like a golden pillar. Discordant music tumbles out of it and rises along with my hackles. Just as I start to feel actual anger the music resolves so sweetly I can almost taste it.

A woman flies up inside the pillar of light. She laughs and waves her arms as a man follows in a slow somersault. More people rise: a fountain of people. Some move gracefully in the absence of gravity; others bump into each other and the gentle impact sends them flying apart, mouths open in delight as if propelled by laughter.

We reach the light and I look down through a large, circular hole that opens a third of the roof. People fly up at us from a bright disc far below, increasing in size the closer they get and then diminishing once they pass.

The music is beautiful now and follows the movement of everyone in the air. A man flies on the crest of a rising chord while two women, solemn and curious as children, collide with a soft, echoing boom. Even the light has a sound: a low sibilant hiss one moment and the next a thousand voices joined in a single astonishing note…

Harlan picks me up and leaps off the edge.

Weird arse clench sick and lovely-

How can I fall
upward?
Harlan starts to let go and I grab at him. We rise together past happy people who move in the air and smile at us. I breathe deeply and feel better. Although I register the airborne drug my overwhelming focus is Harlan. As he stares up at me my gaze traces the dark contours of his expression, the thrilling whites of his eyes and his curlicues of hair as they begin to float around his head. He gently pushes me away and this time I don’t mind.

My hair is a soft cloud as I fly up feet first. I panic as I realise I’m at the high edge of the golden light but there’s a buzz and I bounce off the side of the field to head across it in a different direction. I flex my arms and legs in a slow cartwheel, then gyrate, curl and stretch to extend my body into every conceivable position. Sweetly hot inside my clothes, my own smell is an intimate intoxication.

I am free of gravity and self-consciousness, free of guilt and fear, free of confusion and thinking. When I run my hands over myself it’s like they leave a trail of sparkles.

There is a slow drain away and the golden glow dims. When I focus on my surroundings again I see I’ve already dropped past the edge we leapt from. I continue down into a huge room with levels built around the column of light.

Harlan reaches up and pulls me out of the air; I land in his arms and he strides through the dispersing crowd. We head up a spiral ramp to the first level and a table at the back, where Harlan lowers me to the floor. He gestures to a chair and I sink into it as he sits opposite me. Two drinks grow out of the table; we pick them up and sip without breaking eye contact.

“You’re a phenomenal dancer,” Harlan says.

“Oh stop.”

“I imagine you work out a lot.”

“Everyone in Centria has to be at battle-ready fitness,” I say.

“And are you battle-ready?”

“Did you want to start something then?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Why me?”

“You just happened Charity. Do you mind?”

“No. You owe me though.”

“Hmm?”

“You messed up my party,” I say.

“The one where I saved your life?”

“No, the other one. There’s still a load of weather about who you are. You need to pretend to be my boyfriend for publicity purposes.”

“We both know I’m not going to pretend to be your boyfriend.”

I feel myself blush. I need to say something important, something striking.

“Harlan,” I say, “have you ever heard of something called the Guidance?”

He goes still.

“How did you hear about that?” he says.

My heart jumps.

“Someone trusted me with it,” I say.

Harlan looks at me for what seems like a very long time.

“I don’t know much,” he says. “But in my various misadventures I get to hear things.”

“What things?”

“Where the real power is. That’s always worth knowing.”

“Is that what the Guidance is? Power?”

“Yes.”

I watch him, poised. Harlan takes a deep breath.

“Everyone accepts that Diamond City is a pure capitalist utopia,” he says. “There’s no government and there’s no one in charge.”

“We stand and fall by the market,” I say.

“Or do we? Because it seems there is an authority after all and the Guidance is it.”

“You say ‘it’-?”

“Could be a group or a person or…”

“Something else? What?”

“I don’t know Charity.”

I’m dizzy; my body hums with mysterious energy and my thoughts seem barely my own. There’s a strange, deep itch between my legs and I realise I’ve been wet since Harlan picked me up and jumped into the light.

“You need to make love to me,” I tell him.

9

The room is in a MidZone hotel. There are no windows, which is fine, and low lighting, which is also fine. A round, white bed grows with infuriating slowness out of the floor.

I hurl myself at Harlan, astonished at the violence of it. I grip one of his legs with both of my own and hear myself scream. He claps a hand around the back of my head, uses the other to grip the front of my jacket and yanks me up so I’m almost on tiptoe. He kisses me and as our lips touch I lose the ability to see.

Everything comes back blurred. My eyes ache. I thrust my tongue into his mouth; he tastes of apples and wine. I dig my fingers into his wiry hair and pull it and he gasps. I whip my legs around his waist; the spreading feels so good that my skin shakes and all my muscles jump. Beautiful energy builds uncontrollably in my centre. Too amazed at it to stop, I come in a sweet storm of agony and arch back-

A thousand inexplicable images erupt in my mind, each a fragment of some mysterious whole and gone before I register it. My mouth stretches in a silent scream. Harlan pulls me back and holds me tight as I twitch and shake against him.

“Bad girl,” he rumbles in my ear.

Recovering, I start to wind myself around him again and deposit my clothes; they run down us like wax into the floor. Now I’m naked against Harlan my skin feels one molecule thick. I rub my breasts against the coarse material of his jacket and the friction triggers crashing waves of pleasure. I begin to drop out of thought.

I try to kiss every millimetre of his face and his rough moustache makes my lips raw. His hands are huge on my body and he grips my backside so hard I cry out but it’s good pain. I writhe with it and try to crush him with my thighs but ecstasy makes me weak. I grit my teeth and try again but each contact is a delectable ache. I make a funny yipping sound as my eyes begin to water. I forget to blink, to breathe.

He wrenches me off and hurls me onto the bed. I bounce and roll over to look at him through my spread legs. He slowly takes off his jacket and deliberately doesn’t look at my sex, all beautiful and spread out for him. I snarl. I want his great white teeth to chomp me in half so I can taste the blood as it pours out.

Instead he slowly removes one garment after another. As each one falls he takes a single step closer, his touch the lightness of proximity, air change, pressure. I can see my thighs shake; I will come again any moment but it won’t spend me. It’s as if I’ve never come properly before and all those sweet explosions have backed up and need to be released. Harlan slowly sits on the bed beside me. He reaches between my legs, slips two fingers in and…

I’m blind again and scream inside my head. It’s like all the beautiful music at the club magnified in intensity by a thousand… soaring, soaring, the golden column, the light… then darkness for a while, a blank moment of total satisfaction.

I rise as if through the Basis only this time it is Harlan’s arms that lift me, healed of a wound I never knew I had. He leans back against the headboard and holds me to him so I lie across his chest. He carefully, thoroughly and gently kisses me. I feel precious and unique as his hands stroke my face and plunge into my hair. His strength is so great and so generous it feels like my strength too.

I feel steadier now as he lays me down. My hand finds him and he is hard and impressive. He lowers himself towards me and my mouth waters so much that some runs down my cheek. Generous though he is he enters me easily because I am ready and because I was made for him.

Until now I didn’t know how to use my body. I was just a passenger in it, some tinny voice unrelated to the delightful, terrifying complexities that now overwhelm me.

The Old World is suddenly much closer. I am formed of its oceans, land and sky like a living memory. Its madness makes sense to me now as l feel its colossal energy reach the final, cataclysmic-

10

Harlan lands his bike on the circular roof of a disc-shaped building. It is part of a complex formed by a loosely spread stack of similar constructs, wider near the floor and separated by slim columns. The complex is on the border between MidZone and the Outer Spheres, which are visible in the distance as a curious lack of structure.

Harlan wears the same outfit he had on last night. I’m in a red and yellow jumpsuit, which is very easy to move in and follows my figure snugly without being ridiculous. The jumpsuit is made of smart material that cleans and recycles everything and has the added advantage of very lightweight hidden armour. I wear chunky boots made to walk long distances over smooth, unyielding diamond roads and my hair is slicked back into a tight, shiny braid. I run my palms back over it. It feels good.

We get off the flybike and cross the roof, where the view is dominated by the neighbouring assembly. An inverted version of the complex we are on, it’s fixed to the huge chamber ceiling. The lowest circular level acts as a dock and three ships are attached to the side of it. One is a sleek dart, another a graceless rectangular transport and the third is cloaked with a holographic dragon. From time to time the dragon looks around and then gnaws furiously at its right inner thigh as if it’s got an itch.

“Nice dragon,” I say.

“Keeps the neighbours out,” Harlan says.

The assembly’s base is suspended about thirty metres above a holographic tropical oasis that emerges like an island from the diamond plain. Despite this decoration, the area looks deserted. There are a few generic ads, probably here as part of a citywide scatter rather than because this place is a desirable market. The only one that stands out is an actual old-fashioned paper poster on a wall. ‘XPRO: WE KILL ANYONE’ it says.

Harlan stops in the centre of the roof. All he has said about our destination is that he wants to get me a gift. I look up at him, unusually calm.

He smiles as a ring of orange light glows in the floor around us. The circular area becomes an elevator platform that descends smoothly and silently into an opaque tube. After a few seconds the elevator stops and its containment slides open to reveal a curved corridor whose walls are inlaid with small glowing green discs. Harlan steps out onto the pearly floor and turns back to me.

“We’re going to meet someone,” he says. “Please bear with him, he doesn’t get out much.”

I feel an unfamiliar sense of balance, as if I’m ready for something but don’t yet know what it is. I nod and we follow the corridor’s curve until Harlan stops at a door made up of four triangles pointing at the centre.

The triangles recess back to reveal a man who seems almost eaten away by nervous energy and rage. His jaw is permanently clenched and his body is a knotty arrangement of near fleshless musculature. He stares at us.

“Morning Dodge,” Harlan says.

Dodge grunts. I think the sound is meant to be a word as it struggles for life between the clamp of his teeth. He glares at me, his eyes a watery blue as if all reason has been diluted out of them.

“Charity Freestone eh?” he finally manages.

“Hello,” I say.

“Bit nice for you isn’t she?” Dodge tells Harlan.

“Harlan,” I say, “who is this gentleman?”

“Dodge69,” Harlan says. “He’s a genius.”

“Yes,” Dodge69 says.

Dodge steps aside; Harlan strides in and I follow.

The room is unadorned diamond and almost empty other than an odd-looking screen the height of a person in the corner by a table. One wall is completely full of a dazzling image from the Old World, a ‘photograph’ or a mock-up of one. The image is of a creature long dead; a sort of flying animal, with a small body and big, brightly coloured wings. I can’t remember the name of it.

“Butterfly,” Dodge says. “Limited image patent.”

“It’s beautiful,” I say.

As I watch, the photograph fades to be replaced by one of an evening view over an ocean. The water is calm and the sky a dozen coloured streaks from orange to purple that fade in brightness towards a dark border.

“Oh,” I say, “I’ve never seen this one. I mean I’ve heard of it but… This image is priceless.”

I turn back to Dodge, confused.

“Who are you?” I ask him. “Why do you live here if you can afford that?”

“I like it here,” Dodge says. “All my kilos go on the pictures anyway; doesn’t matter where I am.”

I look at the picture again. It has a strange effect on me. Perhaps it’s the sense of scale; no one sees height and distance like that anymore. Or it could be the sun, lost to us now and out of sight in this image too. When the picture was taken though the sun would have come back again… My breath catches.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

I shake my head and turn to see Dodge and Harlan watching me.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I like her,” Dodge tells Harlan.

“Er…” I say.

“Dodge has to like you,” Harlan says, “for us to…”

He looks at Dodge.

“Hm,” Dodge says.

“To what?” I ask.

Dodge points at the table.

“Over there,” he says.

We cross to the table. Dodge grows something out of it and picks the object up.

“Payment,” Dodge says to Harlan without looking at him.

“Done,” Harlan says.

Dodge hesitates, presumably to check his Aerac and then holds out the object from the table. It’s a hypo.

“Left or right handed?” he asks.

“Either.”

“Choose one.”

“Right hand,” I say. “What are you injecting me with?”

“This,” Harlan says.

He points at one of the empty walls. A red beam of light flickers from his right index fingertip and crackles against the diamond wall. It’s the weapon he used on the Blank at Ursula’s party.

“And this,” Harlan says.

“No!” Dodge shouts, too late.

A white beam from Harlan’s right finger disintegrates the wall with a terrific crash that shakes the building and fills the room with smoke.

“You fucker!” Dodge shrieks. “I said to you, I fucking said to you no more fucking obliterate shots in my gaffe Harlan, I said that, did I not fucking say that?”

“You did,” Harlan says, “and I ignored you. Now if you please: the young lady.”

“I’m getting one of those?” I ask.

Harlan smiles.

“It’s a nano-gun or n-gun,” Dodge says. “It uses the movement in your body to generate energy. The clever bit is how it amplifies that and fires charged particles down the beam.”

He points at the remains of the wall, which begins to grow back as the smoke and debris are absorbed into the floor.

“The obliterate bolt gives a single particle a hint of antimatter at the point of impact.”

“A hint?” I say. “That’s… not possible.”

Dodge looks at me and then at the wall. He shrugs.

“You want it or not?” he says.

There’s something wrong with Centria.

“Yes please,” I say.

I tug the jumpsuit down to expose the top of my right arm. Dodge presses his hypo against it and I feel the cool jet of smart molecules as they enter.

“It’ll take a while to grow,” Dodge says.

He drops the hypo onto the table as I do the jumpsuit back up.

“It’s a permanent product as well,” Dodge continues. “There’s no time limit before it’s automatically reabsorbed so you never have to buy another one.”

“How do I work it?” I say.

Dodge points between my eyes.

“It connects to the seed so you control it with your Aerac,” he says. “You’ve got three levels of power: one is stun and the beam is blue. Two is kill, which has a red beam. Three is obliterate. That’s white.”

“Okay,” I say.

“But be careful,” Dodge says. “You need kilos to work the n-gun and too many obliterate shots are expensive.”

“Can I still-?”

“Yes you can still pick your nose,” Dodge snaps.

I look at Harlan.

“I thought that was quite funny…” I say.

Harlan shakes his head slightly in warning.

“The n-gun won’t work on you,” Dodge says as if I hadn’t spoken. “It’s too easy to have an accident. If you want to commit suicide you’ll have to find some other way.”

“Right.”

“Another thing: this beauty won’t register on any scanners so use it sparingly. The fewer people know you’ve got it the more useful it will be.”

“But…”

“Get a standard weapon as well and use that as a decoy. Actually, take this one.”

Dodge hands me a small, squat fuze.

“It’s nearly as powerful,” he says. “Another one I designed myself. Thought I’d throw it in.”

“Oh, thank you,” I say.

I slip the gun into a pocket. Harlan rolls his eyes. I look at Dodge again.

“How much was the n-gun?” I ask.

“100,000 kilos,” Dodge says.

“How much?”

“I’ve made you superhuman, nigh on,” Dodge says.

“Yes but Harlan-?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harlan says.

“That’s more money than I’ve ever had!”

“I think you’re worth it,” Dodge says.

“I – thank you Dodge – I will pay you back Harlan.”

“No,” Harlan says.

“How can you charge that amount?” I ask Dodge.

“That’s what it costs,” he says.

“But you could charge less and sell more.”

“She’s from Centria,” Harlan says.

“Figures,” Dodge says. “I’m not like that. I just sell a couple of these a year to people I like.”

“Huh,” Harlan says.

“To people I like most of the time,” Dodge says and glares at Harlan. “Let’s see how it’s getting on. Stand behind that.”

He points at the opaque screen in the corner and I walk behind it. The screen begins to glow.

“Looks like the circuits are growing up your arm nicely- Jesus Christ!” says Dodge.

There is silence from the other side of the screen. I don’t move.

“What-?” Harlan says.

His voice is soft, awed, not like I’ve heard it before.

“Jesus Christ!” Dodge says again. “Who… what the fuck is she Harlan?”

“I don’t know,” Harlan says.

“I’m right here; I can hear you,” I say, trying to mask panic with indignation.

There is silence again.

“Charity, you’d better come round here,” Harlan says.

I walk around the edge of the screen and stop when I see how Dodge and Harlan stare at me.

“Do you really not know?” Harlan says.

I can’t think what he means so I just shrug.

“Show her,” Harlan tells Dodge.

Dodge looks at the screen and a man’s silhouette appears on it. The shadowy figure has wires woven through his flesh, as we all do. There isn’t much, just the bright silver point of the seed between his eyes and a loose nest of silver fibres leading back into the brain. A further set of filigree wires lead to the n-gun at the tip of his left index finger.

“That’s me,” Dodge says.

Another, bigger shadow appears on the screen.

“That’s Harlan.”

More shadows appear one after the other.

“Other people,” Dodge says as he flicks through them.

Everyone has got a different shape but they all have the same silvery wires, until…

“You.”

On my shadow the seed and the wires are gold.

My legs lose their strength and I slowly sit on the floor. Dodge and Harlan watch me. My head seems to shake itself.

“I don’t understand,” I whisper.

“Would your parents know?” Harlan says.

“I don’t know who they are,” I say. “I mean I’ve got a mum and dad but I don’t know where I came from originally.” I nod at the screen. “I certainly don’t know what that means.”

“You must be a princess,” Dodge says as if it’s the only logical explanation.

“No, that’s my sister,” I say.

The automatic response usually gives me a sense of certainty but it doesn’t anymore. Instead the feeling of not fitting in, which is as much a part of me as the heat in my blood, intensifies until it’s almost painful.

I have always felt like an outsider, even in a city you cannot leave. The irony of that condition used to be grimly amusing but now it just seems cruel. I stare at the golden threads, which imply a value I do not recognise.

“It’s okay,” Harlan says.

He kneels beside me, runs the palm of his hand across the top of my head and holds my braid tightly as he kisses my hair. Dodge shuffles nearby and then leans over and pats my shoulder. I have only known him a very short while but I sense that such consideration is rare.