The Diamond Deep (58 page)

“I am,” she said in his ear. “Ruby says stay safe.”

“Ruby?” How was Ruby in contact with Aleesi? But there wasn't time to ask.

The two enforcer bots had been holding them by sheer force of presence, but now a third floated eerily toward them. Slightly taller and slightly wider, this third faceless cylinder caused the crowd to pull back, muttering. Space opened around them in a place where there was no extra room at all.

Onor took that as a bad sign.

“Don't run,” Naveen said. “Don't tease the robots.”

Naveen could joke at a time like this? But then surely he was recording. He was always recording, everything. Even sending everything out. Onor tried to read the intent of the bots. This close, they loomed larger than he expected them to, as wide around as his waist and a head taller than him, featureless. No eyes. It was impossible to tell if they were looking at him or not, impossible to know what they saw or heard. The two that had first cornered them looked the same, but the third had a gold-colored band around the top if its head. It spoke. “Onor Hall. Naveen Tourning. Haric Lopez. Evie Justine. You are all under arrest.”

“For what?” Naveen demanded.

“Harboring an illegal being.”

Aleesi, in his ear. “They mean me.”

He waited, unwilling to speak back. Surely anything he said would be wrong. Naveen asked, “What illegal being?”

The enforcer sounded very formal. “A hybrid human from the Edge. One who has broken the laws of the
Diamond Deep
.”

“Don't say anything,” Aleesi hissed. “There are many copies of me. One can die.”

Other Aleesis would not be this Aleesi, and would not remember him. That felt like a death to him.

“Break the earbug.”

Then he wouldn't be able to talk to her. He risked a single-word subvocalization. “No.”

Naveen knew about Aleesi, but he didn't know Onor had access to her right here.

“It's a counterstrike,” Aleesi explained. “It didn't work to throw Haric in here so now she's throwing him somewhere worse. And getting you, too. There are signs she is sending people to Ash. I believe that Koren feels threatened.”

He stood still and tried to feel brave, to think rather than react to the news, or the enforcers. He wanted to flee the way he and Marcelle had fled from the spider bots, but they had been killers which yielded Aleesi. But there wasn't anyplace to run. He had seen how futile that was from the observation window.

Evie had not. Her head whipped from enforcer to enforcer and to the crowd, and she quivered.

Onor stepped toward her, hoping to get close enough to grab a hand or an arm and make her stand still. Before he could get there, she grabbed Haric's hand and raced for the crowd, clearly hoping it would part and make room for them. Haric stumbled behind her.

“Stop!” the enforcer commanded.

They slowed, Haric looking back over his shoulder.

The crowd remained steadfast and tight, as if helping the enforcer.

“Stop!” it called again, its voice a deep boom, louder than the last command.

They stopped.

Evie turned on it. “We haven't done anything.” She let go of Haric's hand and yelled into the crowd. “I bet none of you did anything wrong either.”

The crowd remained stoic. Curious but not moved to help. Almost cruel.

“There's so many more of us than of them. We can't let this happen.” Evie looked young and thin and tiny, too insignificant to possibly matter. But like Ruby, she had a force about her, an energy that was far bigger than her frame. Her voice carried throughout the circle, edged with desperation. “Help me!”

A few voices murmured, people shifted.

She sounded like Ruby years ago, angry and impassioned. It drove Onor's heart into his throat, scared him.

Haric stepped between Evie and the enforcer.

She stepped out from behind him.

He turned his back to the enforcer and grabbed Evie's arms, looking down into her face. He looked frightened and desperate and in love.

She pulled away from him and turned back to the crowd. “Don't let them take us,” she pleaded, her back to the enforcer, staring at the crowd.

A light blinked red on the top of the robot. A warning?

Onor raced toward Haric and Evie.

Haric turned and stared at the enforcer, his eyes wide with fear.

The robot was so close to them that if it had arms, it might be starting to reach for them.

A beam of light emerged from the top center of the machine and struck Haric between the eyes.

Aleesi announced, “Haric has been shot by one of the enforcers.”

“Stunned,” Ruby sat up straight on Joel's lap. “Stunned. You must mean stunned.”

“I cannot see the Brawl,” Aleesi replied, sounding stressed. “Onor is breathing hard and he's scared. If he were talking I could hear what he's saying, but he isn't.”

Joel spoke with the calm of a seasoned veteran. “Do you have any influence on the situation?”

She couldn't lose Haric. He was the closest thing to a child she would ever have, even if he was only eight years younger. Maybe the closest thing to a little brother. Regardless, he was hers, and she couldn't stand not knowing what was happening to him.

“I'm trying,” Aleesi answered Joel. “Are there guards on the door?”

“Why?” Marcelle asked.

“They are using the fact that I exist to attack Naveen, Haric, and Evie. I believe they will come after you, too. You must protect Ix.”

Anger drove a spike of energy through Ruby. “We need to protect you!”

“There are many of me,” Aleesi said. “I do not know how many of Ix exist.”

There was only one of Haric. Only one of any of them in this room. Fear joined the anger burning through Ruby.

“It doesn't matter,” Joel said. “If we protect one, we protect the other. They live in the same place.” He turned to The Jackman. “Double the guards on all the doors into Ash.”

The Jackman gestured to Allen and the two of them nearly ran out of the door.

“What about Haric?” Ruby asked.

“No one has told me anything.”

Joel stroked Ruby's back and shoulders. If she weren't shivering so hard, his hand would be warm and comforting. “We need to think,” he whispered.

“I know. I just . . . I hate it here.” She took in a big gulp of air. “There's no time to get to the Brawl. I'll see if I can get us help.” She bent to her slate, but Joel put his hand over hers, stopping her from writing.

“What?”

“Who are you going to call?”

“Satyana. She's on our side. I know it.”

Joel looked directly into her eyes. “You trust her?”

“I don't trust anyone here. But she's not on Koren's side.”

SueAnne had been watching everything quite closely from her wheelchair. “Do we know what side we're on?”

“The one that isn't Koren, and the one that didn't create the Brawl.”

Ruby stared at Joel. “Satyana brought you to me.”

He pursed his lips. If they were alone he would tell her he needed to keep thinking—she could see it on his face. She loved that he thought about risks, about leadership, but now wasn't the time. “I have to,” she told him. “We need help. Satyana has ships.”

When Joel finally nodded, she bent to her slate. “I'm going to tell her that I'm ready to go to my next concert, and she should come pick me up.”

Joel clutched her closer. “You can't leave. You're not strong enough.”

“Satyana knows that. But I can't exactly tell her ‘we might be attacked by Koren and can you please help?' can I?”

SueAnne asked, “Are you leading your friend into danger?”

“Probably.” The adrenaline and anger were already fading away, as if her body just couldn't sustain them anymore. “She's tough.” Ruby leaned back against Joel's shoulder, fading into his embrace and both happy to be there and furious that she wasn't up stalking the room. It felt as if her body was trying to force her to abandon it so it could sleep forever. She hated this illness with so much passion that the hatred gave her a little extra surge of energy. “Aleesi? Anything?”

“Onor hasn't said a thing to me for three minutes. Nor has he said anything intelligible to anyone else.”

Marcelle came over and stood next to Ruby and Joel.

“Onor is breathing,” Aleesi said. “That's something.”

Ruby took Marcelle's hand and looked up at her. “Haric will be okay. He has to be okay.”

Marcelle's other hand rested on her stomach. “No. No, we don't have to be okay. None of us have to be okay. We aren't living inside one of your songs.”

“I'll write a song about this,” Ruby declared. It felt like a hollow threat.

Marcelle's face was white and drawn. “If we live, I'll help you sing the damned thing.”

The first few moments after the beam pierced Haric's forehead moved so slowly that Onor had time to notice detail after detail, like a series of still photographs snapped with his slate.

The soft thud of Haric's form falling forward on the hard floor.

The arc of Evie's body as she bent over the line of Haric's thin form and turned her ear toward his back.

Two enforcers just in Onor's peripheral vision, canted slightly toward Evie and him.

Naveen with his mouth open, looking shocked.

The crowd moving even further back, feet shuffling and voices whispering.

Evie shaking her head and putting it back against Haric, one slender hand on his still shoulder.

Naveen murmuring to his audience.

Aleesi's silence.

Onor's own body shivering, reacting. His breath.

One of the enforcers moving inches closer to them.

The first wave of shock passed and his perceptions slowed to a more normal pace.

Evie's shoulders heaved in anger or fear or despair or some mix of those. Was Haric dead? He needed to see her face to tell; Haric's face. He couldn't.

The largest enforcer loomed over Evie. “Move,” it demanded.

Evie ignored it, maybe she didn't even hear it. Her hair hid her face, and she said, “Haric,” over and over. “Haric. Haric. Haric.” The cadence kept changing, like she could get through to him if she just said it exactly right.

“Move,” the machine demanded again.

Onor had been standing, rooted, watching. He should be protecting. He took the five steps necessary to put himself between the machine and Evie.

She looked up at him. “He's not breathing.”

Onor almost told her she had to be lying. But he remembered Colin floating in pieces in the hold, and he remembered Hugh being stunned to death. He knelt, careful to cover as much of Evie's body with his own as he could. He lifted her, holding her close to him, getting some of her weight off of Haric. “Roll him over.”

She tugged, and Haric moved like the stunned or the dead, bonelessly.

His eyes stared up at the ceiling, and Onor knew he had gone.

Another shock rolled through him, anger this time. He stood, legs splayed over Evie's and Haric's bodies. The enforcer was only a few feet away from him. He screamed at it. “You had no right to kill him!”

A force tugged on his right arm. Naveen. “Stop. Let it go.”

Onor shook his head. Let it go that the thing had just killed Haric?

“Protect Evie,” Naveen almost screamed.

The enforcer stood quietly in front of him, looking for all the world as if it were waiting for someone.

Naveen backed him up two steps. They stood side by side over Haric and Evie. Onor glanced down at Evie to see tears running down her cheeks. She didn't look like herself, but she also didn't look like Lya had when Hugh died. Angry and disbelieving, but not undone.

Evie scrambled up to a crouching position, and Onor held a hand out to her to help her up.

She ignored him, and instead launched herself at the enforcer that had shot Haric.

Its red light blinked back on.