Gemsigns

by Stephanie Saulter

  He blinked in astonishment, cleared his throat and allowed that that was not something the government would consider acceptable. Felix had gone rigid, eyes wide. The triumphalism of a moment ago was back in his body language. In the audience Eli could see Zavcka Klist mouth, No. Don’t.

  Up on stage, Felix could barely contain his excitement. ‘Excuse me, minister, but that is an excellent point, I’m so glad she brought it up.’ He actually slapped at the table. ‘Illegal scans by unauthorised agents. Well. What a good example.’ The moderator looked ready to interrupt this sudden flood of sarcasm. Aryel caught his eye. He paused for the briefest instant, and then waved Felix on.

  ‘You want to know what’s wrong with allowing gems to carry on as though they were norms? Some of you don’t see the problem with letting them go unregistered and unsupervised? Here’s why. Everyone has heard, I’m sure, about the psychic gem.’

  Eli tensed. The muttering around him spiked, exclamations of What? and Is he serious? audible throughout the room. Many people, he thought, had not heard, or else had dismissed it as tabloid hyperbole. He saw Zavcka Klist ball her hands into fists as she leaned forward. On the stage Rob threw a quick look at Aryel. She was sitting as still and calm as before.

  The moderator said, ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s a juvenile who is able to read the minds of people nearby. An unregistered prototype, which we now know has been hiding in the Squats. I believe Miss Morningstar here is well aware of it.’

  He waved contemptuously at Aryel. The bishop frowned, and interrupted.

  ‘If you mean the very young child who was instrumental in capturing a violent criminal yesterday, yes I have heard of him,’ she said. She spoke loudly, and there was an angry edge to her voice. ‘I’m not clear what you mean by hiding. As I understand it he and his parents are well known in the community.’

  ‘His parents. Well if we had the database set up you wouldn’t need me to tell you those gems are not his parents. I know that,’ he stabbed a finger at her, ‘because the female is Bel’Natur and we know she cannot possibly have had a child. All the people who worry about gem juveniles might want to concern themselves with how she got hold of this one. And by the way, any electromagnetic scanning she does when she’s not assisting the police is also unauthorised. But the main point is this.’ He drew himself up and addressed the audience.

  ‘Suppose this gem were to be treated as the Walker Report suggests. Not to mention this other crazy idea I hear is making the rounds. As though he were a normal kid. They would allow him to grow up, maybe even go to school, with ordinary kids. Your kids. He’d know what they were thinking. Imagine if you allowed him into your home. He’d know what you were thinking. That’s bad enough, but what happens when he grows up? If he could go where he wanted and do as he pleased? What do you think he would end up involved in? Spying and stealing, that’s what!’

  Eli had a moment of déjà vu then, taken back to the meeting at the Squats and the sense of an audience taking a single, deep breath as they listened and listened, and then exploding into the silence at the end of a speaker’s flourish. This time it was not Aryel’s place to marshal and calm them, and the shouts of disbelief, condemnation and anger sloshed back and forth. He could not tell whether Felix had registered that a fair amount of the outrage was directed at him. He sat back, apparently proud of having delivered such a stunning coup de grace. The moderator thumped the table and called ineffectually for calm.

  Finally, though, Aryel did flick a sideways glance at the crowd. Then she pushed herself to her feet, an incongruously graceful movement, eyes front on Felix. The room went quiet. As the last calls died away she sat back down again, and spoke.

  ‘What would he end up doing if he were in your custody?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve read your proposal. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that this child does have this ability. You’re going to ensure that all gems put their talents to good use. So tell us, to what use would you put his?’

  ‘We could make sure it was only used for legitimate purposes.’

  ‘If you could, I wonder why you think he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Let’s face it, Mr Carrington, for all you know there might be quite a few anonymous mind-readers around, minding their own business and not troubling a soul.’

  ‘No there aren’t.’

  ‘What makes you so sure? History is full of stories of people with psychic abilities.’

  ‘There’s no evidence that any of those stories are true.’

  ‘But you’re sure the story of this child is true. Why?’

  He sensed something, maybe, and tried to backpedal. ‘I’ve read the reports.’

  ‘What reports would those be? The ones on the streams?’

  ‘Of … of course.’

  ‘I’ve read those as well. They are journalistic hearsay, no more proof than the old tales you’ve just dismissed. Less in fact, since some of the historical psychics were tested quite rigorously.’

  Eli found he was holding his breath, stunned at how dangerous a game she was playing. Zavcka Klist had gone still and cold, face impassive. Felix sensed a final victory in the silence of the audience, the acquiescence of the moderator, Aryel’s lack of denial.

  ‘Rigorous testing is exactly what’s needed.’

  *

  A quarter of a mile away, on a corner where a main road was bisected by a smaller street, three men emerged from the Underground. They strolled towards a food kiosk which had for several years been festooned with hand-printed signs proclaiming that gems were welcome. Their number had increased in the last few days, with messages of support for the injured and beleaguered. A banner fluttered above, streaked into a rainbow with a dozen colours meant to represent the most common hues of phosphorescent hair. The proprietor was a plump, jolly woman who changed her own hair colour weekly in a further expression of solidarity. Today it was a vibrant pink. She had never been able to get it to glow properly, and had long since given up.

  She realised, as she set out cups and swung into a practised banter, that these customers were among what she called the sourpusses; no smiles or repartee, glares at her hair and the signs. Usually they went elsewhere, or launched immediately into abuse. She was puzzling over this when she noticed one of them slide in behind her, and another come crowding up at the side.

  And then she was shouting at the top of her lungs as they dragged her out from behind the counter and into the road, vehicles screeching to a stop, feet slipping on the icy pavement as she tried and failed to find purchase, her breath billowing out in a fog. Towards the towering monument in the plaza opposite, one of them breaking away to swing something into the skull of the attendant that sent him crashing to the ground, and all the while the other two were hitting and pulling and cursing her, and then the third man had hold of her again, and she was shrieking and shrieking, she could see the stairs winding up inside and Oh my god they were dragging her to the top …

  She had been hauled halfway up the first flight, clothes torn and face bloodied and out of her mind with terror, before the other vendors and passers-by were able to pull them off her, and the first police patrol came screaming up.

  *

  Five minutes later another call came in, echoing into the earsets of the officers at the scene as well as those guarding the Conference hall and on patrol in the area. Three more men, masked and hooded this time, had been spotted in a service alley that ran behind the building. They had disabled the security vidcam, but not before the operator had seen them start to attack an environmental systems exhaust hatch.

  By the time the police arrived the hatch had been wrenched open. There was no sign of the men. The first officer on the scene peered into the gaping hole and declared the conduits too narrow for anyone to have entered. But there was doubt in his voice, for the men had not yet reappeared on any other vidcam feeds. He asked the building manager to run a diagnostic on all systems, and sent for the bomb squad.

 
; *

  There had been just enough time for a second cluster of patrol vehicles to gather at the mouth of the alley, and the officers on foot to be deployed throughout the building double-checking internal hatches and secondary means of ingress, when a man wearing an old-style greatcoat walked up to the desk in the lobby. He gave his name as a delegate who had already checked in the day before, and explained that he had lost his tablet and identity pass and needed to have the new ones registered. The senior attendant immediately excused himself to alert the police, for the supposedly mislaid pass had been used to enter the Conference that morning. His blue-haired colleague busied herself trying to link the delegate’s replacement pass and tablet.

  When she looked up to tell him that his biometrics were not syncing properly with the Conference’s datastream records, he pulled an antique electronic stunner from the pocket of his coat and shot her in the face. Then he strode towards the access gate. A second stunner had appeared in his other hand and he used it on the senior attendant, who screamed an alarm into his earset as he ran forward.

  Without a valid pass the gates would not open, and with a weapon in each hand the man could not vault them. So he stuck them back in his pockets to launch himself over the barrier, and had only managed to pull one out again when the security guards and police officers who had been dispatched to listen at air vents came tearing back into the lobby. This time he missed, but as they scattered to avoid the charge he dodged away into a corridor and disappeared.

  It took them several minutes to find him, and several more to eliminate the threat of the stunners. All the while he barked a continuous series of situation updates and confirmations into his earset, while they shouted at him to give up and to tell them who he was talking to. Finally they brought him down, at the cost of two stunned officers joining the injured attendants in a hospital transport. It was only later, when they broke his tablet encryption and tried to trace his uplink pathways, that they realised he had been speaking to no one at all.

  *

  From her post in the old leisure centre at the Squats, Sergeant Varsi listened with growing disbelief to the emergency calls and urgent reports that poured into her earset. Mikal stood just inside the door. She kept her input muted so she could brief him without adding to the confusion.

  ‘They’re attacking the Conference?’

  She shook her head, frowning as she tried to understand what she was hearing. ‘It sounds that way, but what’s happening doesn’t make sense. None of it is big enough, there aren’t enough of them, it doesn’t seem coordinated … unless it’s so big that these are just small parts of it …’

  ‘A distraction?’

  She looked up at him. His strange eyes blinked back at her, his strange hands opened and closed. She liked him enormously.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. That’s already occurred to Masoud; he’s pulled everyone in close to protect the delegates.’

  ‘Do you have to go?’

  ‘Don’t think so. We’re not going to leave the Squats without a patrol. They’ve already diverted one of our units, but the others have been taken from the financial district.’

  ‘You’re sure Aryel and the others are safe?’

  ‘So far they’re fine. Don’t worry, we—’ she stopped, suddenly rigid, as a new series of communications were barked into her ear. These were for her, and they came from the remaining unit, close to half a mile away. She flicked the sound input back on and grabbed for her jacket and utility belt.

  ‘Varsi responding. En route, I repeat, en route. Emergency services confirmed. Mikal,’ as she shrugged into the jacket and clipped her tablet in place, ‘how many people in the Tyler block? Over near the park?’

  He ducked back through the door as she rushed towards him, moving his giant bulk with considerable speed and dexterity. ‘Should be seven, spread over four flats. They’re all new, came in this week. What’s happening?’

  ‘There’s a fire. Patrol rounded the corner and spotted hooded men running in with lit cocktails. Door is smashed. Doesn’t that building have an alarm?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Suppression system? Sprinklers?’

  ‘No. Hasn’t been retrofitted yet.’

  ‘Shit.’ She spoke into the earset. ‘There are potentially seven occupants, I repeat seven occupants, on floors …’

  ‘One and two.’

  ‘Floors one and two, I repeat first and second storeys are occupied.’ She listened again. ‘Got it. Get them out, I’ll go after the bastards.’

  She was almost at the double doors when Mikal grabbed her shoulder. ‘Sharon, wait. You’re going after them alone? You can’t. Let me help.’

  ‘No.’ She pushed his hand away, a shock like electricity at the feel of the double thumbs against her palm, not bad but strange. ‘I’m armed, I’ll be fine. You stay inside, lock the door, contact the other blocks and tell them to do the same. Get everyone indoors. Fuckers aren’t just targeting the Conference, they’re here in the Squats.’

  *

  Mikal did as he was told. Three minutes went by. Then five. People checked in from the firebombed building. Everyone was out, no one was hurt, fire units were on the scene, it was under control. The minutes were creeping up to ten. He decided to hell with playing it cool, ten was a good number and he’d call her then if he hadn’t heard.

  Her comcode buzzed once and flicked straight over into message mode. He was leaving something that he hoped sounded witty as well as worried when he heard a beeping behind the desk. He checked the systems monitor. It was coming from home, a fire alarm in the community room of Maryam House. He hurriedly tacked the news onto his message.

  ‘It’s not a smoke alarm. One of those you have to activate, like a panic button. Outer doors are fine, though. I’ll find out what’s going on.’

  He called Bal first, knowing he would be down there. With Gaela and Gabriel, probably. It was his day to organise lunch and keep an eye on whoever showed up in need of company or a meal, as was the regular habit of many of the more vulnerable residents. He had said, grim-faced as they perused the streams last night, that he would neither duck the obligation nor let his family out of his sight. Gabe was a little quiet and a little sad after the trauma of encountering John Senton, but he’d said he didn’t want to be kept cooped up in the flat. Bal thought he was looking for the reassurance of kinder minds.

  But there was no answer. None from Gaela either, nor Wenda. Half a minute had ticked by. He called in the emergency, unlocked the door, and ran.

  *

  There were two vans parked in front of Maryam House. One was the United Churches transport that had brought so many to safety over the past days, and as he skidded round the corner and saw it his initial feeling was one of relief. But he knew all the UC volunteers, and the man who leapt into the front and gunned the engine was not one of them. Nor were the two who shoved something in through the side access door – something that kicked and struggled – known to him.

  They dived in after whoever it was, and slammed the door shut. He was moving fast with fifty yards still to go when he saw Bal. The big man’s face was covered with the blood that matted his glowing indigo hair. More poured from half a dozen wounds. One leg dragged behind him, and he staggered and fell on the threshold of the undamaged front door, roaring his fury and his loss as the vehicles accelerated away.

  26

  The attorney-general had been speaking, explaining that while the Temple solution might prove politically impractical it was legally really quite straightforward, when proceedings were interrupted by the moderator with the news that violence had erupted not only nearby, but within the Conference building itself.

  ‘Commander Masoud has asked everyone to stay calm and remain in their seats. This room is secure, and we don’t want anyone to get mixed up in what’s going on outside.’

  An uproar, naturally, people on their feet regardless. Security guards appeared inside the hall. A police officer hurried in, looking for the delegate
whose pass had allegedly been lost. His identity was confirmed. She hurried out again with him in tow. Rob and the attorney-general conferred quietly, as did Aryel and the bishop. The Secretary of State was speaking into his earset, back to the room. Eli at first assumed he was being briefed, but from where he sat could see that the man was doing most of the talking. Zavcka Klist walked to the edge of the stage and stood there, arms folded, until Felix Carrington came over to speak to her.

  Finally Masoud strode in, spoke to the moderator for a few seconds, then gave the audience a clipped summary of what had taken place in and around the building.

  ‘We don’t believe there is any danger to you. However I’m going to ask you to stay here for a few minutes longer while we complete our sweep of the building. We are maintaining a very heavy police presence in the area—’

  He broke off and turned away, frowning at something coming into his earset. The moderator jumped into the breach, suggesting the panel be adjourned until the organisers decided how or whether the rest of the day could proceed. Eli stopped listening to him, because Aryel was also on her earset now, her chair screeching back as she surged to her feet, all colour drained from her face. She met Masoud’s eyes. Were it not for his darker pigment, Eli thought the policeman would have been as pale as she.

  He found himself on his feet as well, moving without thought towards her as she rushed from the stage. Masoud made to leap down, then caught himself and readdressed the audience. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve just been made aware of another incident. It’s in a different part of the city; what I said just now still applies to you …’ He came off still speaking, striding after Aryel as she made for the door. ‘Please stay here. Stay here.’

  He did not mean her, though, for he wrapped an arm gently around the huge lump of her cloak to help her along, just as Eli caught up with them. Rob was scrambling after. His calls of ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’ were picked up and echoed back from a dozen throats as the delegates stood and stared, already aghast at the latest, unknown tragedy. Eli reached over and grabbed Aryel’s hand. She was still listening to her earset, and for the first time her sky-blue eyes seemed to look at him without seeing.