“Who was that man?” I ask her.
“I don’t know.”
The crowd cheers something Bal has said.
“What’s his name?”
“He didn’t say.”
The crowd laughs at a joke I wrote for Bal.
“Did you scan him?”
“Charity Freestone! Where are your manners?”
The crowd applauds Bal.
“Why are you such a tart?” I ask Ursula.
“Dunno,” she says.
I shove her towards Bal and it takes all my self-control not to kick her arse. Instead, I cross to some unoccupied tables, sit down and watch the scene for a while. Ursula and Bal laugh, the man from the bar is nowhere to be seen and the energy in the room feels correct as once again the event moves through its proper sequence.
I close my eyes and sink into the ifarm. It’s immediately clear a lot of people have followed Ursula’s antics and want to know about the man from the bar. I activate a series of automated programs with faux personalities of their own that disseminate a message about the man from the bar being a friend of mine from the past, a past I will now have to invent.
Maybe he could help. I could hire him and he could pretend to have been my partner. Of course, if anything actually was to happen between us then, well, I’m not sure what I would do. I send Ellery a message that says I am going to find the man from the bar and get him to do some work for us. She responds with a blank approval note. I open my eyes.
The man from the bar sits on the other side of the table.
“You!” I say.
“Me,” he says.
“You caused a lot of trouble tonight.”
He stares off into the distance behind me and nods sagely.
“Hmm,” he says. “I tend to do that.”
“What’s your name?” I say.
“Just scan me.”
“No.”
“Why?” he says.
“It’s rude.”
He laughs, a big sound that should mock but doesn’t.
“So if I’ve scanned you does that mean I’m rude?” he says.
“Have you?”
“Scan me,” he says, “And I’ll tell you.”
“I will not.”
Despite everything I laugh. We look at each other for a while.
“I’m Charity Freestone,” I say, finally.
“Charity Freestone,” he says, savouring my name in that rich voice.
“Do you know who I am?” I say.
“No. Who are you?”
“I’m Ursula Freestone’s sister.”
“Ursula,” he says, handsomely confused and totally uninterested.
“She’s the People’s Princess!”
“A princess you say?”
“She’s way out of your league, mister.”
“Oh, I can get any woman,” he says. “I’m like gravity.”
“Well you’re not getting me!”
There is an awkward pause.
“Right,” he says, embarrassed.
Oh no…!
He gets up.
“Nice to meet you Charity.”
He walks through the crowd and out of the door. I sit and watch him go as if paralysed.
5
The Column floats high over a park in one of Centria’s inner districts. It is the most exclusive bar in Diamond City, a status guaranteed by the means of access. If you can afford to gif a diamond column tall enough to reach it you get in, otherwise forget it. I’ve never been. The only reason I’m going tonight is because Ellery has invited me and is growing the column I now ride up on.
Around me the purple darkness gathers. I rise past great crystal buildings that spill glowing colour into the night. Light sculptures twirl through the mist above like mysterious airborne creatures and soft music pulses in a dozen harmonies across the enclave as if the structures are calling to each other. The column rises through a bright-rimmed opening in the underside of the assembly, where a spiral of docking bridges caters for ascent columns of different widths. The very rich gif the thickest columns and don’t need a docking bridge at all. Ellery’s column is one of these.
I’m strangely unimpressed. I think it’s because of the two little icons superimposed over the bottom left of everything I see. One shows my continuous call to Dad, which is still unanswered. The other icon shows Mum’s condition, which is unchanged.
After the dramatic panorama outside, the large bar seems alarmingly intimate. I step off the column and look around for Ellery. Her message was characteristically terse, just a brief written invitation with time and place. I expect she’ll want to discuss Ursula’s wedding plans, which have slipped slightly.
The bar is not crowded, which is one of its attractions. Discreet booths and low tables hidden with subtle lighting make it hard to determine who’s actually here. I’m sure everyone can see me though and I’m tempted to hunch over and hurry to one side. Keris wouldn’t do that though, so neither will I. I stand as I imagine she would, proud but not aggressive, prepared to stay there all night unless someone comes over and offers me something. Sure enough, someone does: a smiling man in a red suit who I immediately feel I’ve known my whole life.
“Miss Freestone, welcome to the Column. How was the journey up?”
“It was really very special,” I say, surprised at how relaxed and confident I sound.
“Ah, good. I’m Martyn. Please let me show you to Ms Quinn.”
He leads me across the bar. When we reach a curtained recess near the back he directs me into it.
“Thank you,” I say.
Martyn smiles and walks away as I part the curtain and walk through. At the bottom of a short flight of steps is a small circular table with a single cushioned seat. Ellery sits there staring down at an empty glass. It’s hardly the exalted position I expect until I realise we are invisible to everyone else in the Column. I look at the top of Ellery’s head; the flow of her thick red hair glints softly in the dim light.
“Charity,” she says, without looking up.
“Hello Ellery,” I say.
Her reticence makes me nervous. Am I in trouble? Or… is Ellery the problem with Centria?
I descend into the dark recess and sit next to Ellery, keeping my face neutral. She doesn’t look up.
“Hn,” she says. “Not got long.”
Her voice doesn’t sound quite right. She’s drunk!
Out of the table in front of us grow two identical drinks: an orange liquid with a glittery golden swirl that spins and spins. Ellery points at one of the swirls as if to give her the necessary focus.
“Can only get it here,” she says. “Just as well.”
I take a sip. It’s delicious. Ellery presses a finger to the base of my glass as I take it from my lips.
“Drink,” she says.
I knock it back and it begins to work at once. I put the glass down. Another grows in its place.
Ellery watches me strangely. I realise her eyes don’t seem to vibrate; she is not engrossed in fifty other documents, fifty other conversations. It makes her look completely unfamiliar.
“You’re a funny little thing Charity Freestone,” Ellery says. “Do you know that?”
“No. Why am I funny?”
“Hn. You’ve got no idea about yourself. You’re like a beautiful country with gold and jewels just lying around because you don’t know to pick them up.”
I can’t think how to respond. I sip the second drink nervously and then sip it again for something to do with my hands. The effect spreads through me. It feels the way it looks, calming but with a streak of power.
“Ellery, I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You’ve got questions.”
The world shrinks to the bright green of her eyes.
“Who… am I?” I whisper.
“You need to understand the Guidance.”
“What guidance? You mean instructions for something?”
Ellery shakes her head. Sudde
nly, she looks up and to her left. I follow her gaze. There’s nothing there.
“She has to know!” Ellery shouts to the empty space.
“Ellery?” I say, scared now.
Ellery looks back at me again.
“Not instructions Charity. You’ve got to understand the Guidance. What it is. What it means. How it defines you-”
“Ms Quinn.”
Martyn stands over us, looking worried as Ellery’s breath speeds up.
“Damn it,” she says.
Martyn looks close to tears.
“I’ve been told I have to…” he stutters.
“This girl,” Ellery says, “this girl!”
She grips the table as if about to wrench it loose, then looks at me and goes to say something else.
“Please!” Martyn says, his voice high-pitched with nerves.
Suddenly, Ellery is up and out of the recess so fast it’s as if she was never here. Martyn follows without another look back.
For a while I sit in stunned silence.
The curtains twitch apart and Anton Jelka walks down the stairs. He stops at the bottom, frowns for a moment and then sits beside me on the cushioned seat.
“What just happened?” I finally ask him.
“Ellery Quinn is, as you know, the Voice of Centria,” he says. “But there are limits that need to be observed.”
“Who am I Anton?”
“You’re Charity Freestone.”
“What is the Guidance?”
“No one talks about the Guidance.”
“But what is it?”
“What is what?”
I tut and turn from him to scan the Aer. There are numerous references to guidance for specific things but nothing that relates to me.
“Charity,” Anton says.
I turn back to him.
“It seems I have a new boss,” he says, face still and eyes cold.
“Oh?” I say.
“Yes. Balatar Descarreaux is now ‘Director’ of Security, at your sister’s request.”
“Right.”
“He has told me to give you the files pertaining to the recent mission carried out by your parents.”
“Really?”
He leans over until his face is centimetres from mine.
“Ursula would never have thought of that,” he says. “I know you are responsible.”
“Let’s have the files then.”
Anton leans back.
“Have you got any idea what it takes to run a security operation like the one in Centria?” he asks.
“I’ve never thought about it,” I say.
“It would take you a year to begin to learn. I have been doing it for ten. Balatar Descarreaux has been in the job for ninety minutes. Do you know what that means?”
“Hm. No.”
“It means he needs me more than I need him. It means for at least a year, assuming he doesn’t get bored before then, I don’t have to do anything he says. It means you will not get those files. Not now. Not ever.”
He gets up and looks down at me. He doesn’t look angry; instead he seems to search my face for something. After a moment, he walks up the stairs and out through the curtains.
6
The man from the bar looks guilty. It suits him. The latest party for Bal and Ursula swirls around us, not in the golden saucer this time but in a great dark ballroom lit with bright patterns that blossom in the walls. The ballroom is part of a building complex overlooking VIA Holdings and is enclosed by a broad corridor full of Centrian and VIA Security. Everyone else here looks like they enjoy themselves professionally and the man from the bar seems completely out of place.
“You weren’t invited,” I tell him. “I organised this party and know every guest here but I don’t know you.”
“Ah,” he says, “that’s clever.”
“That’s organised is what that is, mister. You never did tell me your name.”
“And if I choose not to tell you now?”
“Oh,” I say. “Security…”
“Which ones?”
“The ones in the uniforms that say ‘SECURITY’.”
“Not the undercover ones over there?”
“They aren’t-”
“Parties are meant to be fun aren’t they? That woman by the wall wouldn’t know fun if fun made her naked and she felt fun’s hands run over every adorable contour of her willing body so that when fun eventually… Anyway, you get the picture. My name’s Harlan Akintan by the way.”
“Harrity- um – Charity Freestone-”
“Yes I know.”
“Good. Good. What can I do for you? I mean, why are you here?”
“I’m here for the girls, obviously.”
“Well then. Good.”
“I’ll see you around Harrity.”
He laughs and moves off. People don’t notice Harlan Akintan unless he focuses on them, after which they can’t take their eyes off him.
I shake my head. I should have him removed. Everything is at stake; not just my career but also the stalled investigation into what happened to Mum and Dad. Ursula’s wedding must be a success if we are to get any answers. Yet I drift and recall dreams of white teeth and black skin…
I nearly bump into Bal, who glares at me as usual.
“You got me a job I can do nothing with,” he says.
“You’re Director of Security for the most powerful organisation there is. What more do you want?”
“Anton Jelka refuses to do what I tell him.”
“I find that unlikely,” I say. “Anton has always been very loyal.”
“Not to me.”
“You’re just going to have to find a way aren’t you?”
He looks past me.
“That man is here again,” he says. “Why did you invite him?”
“I… He’s, uh-”
“What’s the barman doing?”
The barman has got on top of the bar. He’s not the barman from the last party, even though I asked for the same one. He is of medium height and muscular with a wildness about him that suits his long, blue-black hair and wide, grey eyes. The music fades into silence.
The barman looks slowly around the room with that clenched calm of the righteously angry. People at the bar glance at each other, embarrassed at this breach of protocol and unsure what to do. The barman’s presence and behaviour are so unusual that conversation begins to die away as more and more people turn to look at him.
Despite manners I scan the barman, whose name is 88 Rabian. I’ve never heard of him. I’m about to check in-Aer when the wall patterns coalesce into white sheets that transform the ballroom into a harsh bright cube. The Security Chief looks my way and I nod my approval for intervention. As the security team starts towards 88 Rabian he slowly removes his black shirt to reveal-
“BLANK!” someone screams.
All the people who are supposed to be serving drop their trays with a crash and strip to the waist. None of them have got navels.
The nearest Blank to me is a woman with short blonde hair and the wiry, androgynous physique of a dancer. Her expression is solemn, as if she deals with excitement like this every day. She looks at something that forms in the floor in front of her. It’s a fuze. As it emerges she squats to wrap her hand lovingly around the grip and then she straightens, her breathing deep as if she is turned on.
I don’t understand; VIA Holdings own this facility and no one except them should be able to gif anything in here. I go in-Aer to check the status of the building and discover someone else has bought it.
The other Blanks have grown weapons as well, not all of them as modest as the blonde woman’s. The Blanks snatch up their guns and fire over the top of the crowd, which panics. The security guards get into attack position.
“Drop your weapons!” the guards shout almost as one.
The VIA and Centrian guards in the outer corridor rush in. Centria’s guards wear dark blue and VIA’s are in white. There’s a lot of shouting as each grou
p of guards tries to drown out the other with instructions. Taking advantage of this confusion, the Blanks grow thick diamond walls between the guests and the incoming guards, trapping us. The Blanks hold their weapons ready but do not fire.
A VIA guard takes this restraint as provocation. He shoots at the blonde woman but she has already seen him aim and jumps aside so the bolt hits a table, which clatters into some chairs. Tension in the reduced space makes everyone overreact to the noise and suddenly we are in the middle of a gunfight.
A small blue-haired woman in a costume of pink and purple beads spins with unnatural, eerie grace and falls. The beads break away from their fixings and roll in all directions, some adrift in a widening pool of blood. The woman starts to scream.
Horror catches up with me and I freeze. The dread sense of having no idea what I’m doing is never far and rears up with its usual dull power. Someone with the correct knowledge and ability should step in.
“CEASE FIRE!” the barman roars.
His amplified voice drowns out all other sound. Everyone stops and looks at him, even the guards and the woman on the floor.
“We are the Blanks,” 88 Rabian says, his voice quieter now. “We have control of this building. We have control of you. You can fight us if you want but a lot of you will die.”
His gleaming muscular stomach rises and falls rapidly as he breathes. There is something deeply disturbing about its unbroken flesh, as if 88 Rabian is over-finished.
“You shot that woman,” Ursula shouts from the other side of the room.
88 Rabian goes white with a rage so pure I can almost feel its heat from six metres away.
“She was shot by your own incompetent security force!” he shouts. “And you blame us for it as you blame us for everything! It has to stop!”
He gets himself under control and shakes his head, exasperated as much as furious.
“We have tried to be peaceful,” he says. “We have tried to be patient. But we are hunted like vermin and we are not vermin; we are human beings just like you. It is not our fault we were born the way we were and we have come here tonight to tell you that we will not take it anymore!”
“We aren’t the Sons of the Crystal Mind,” a man in the crowd says, I can’t see who.
“The Sons are funded by people in VIA Holdings and people in Centria,” 88 Rabian says. “How else could they afford to buy every cosmetic patent that would allow us to blend in? By striking here we strike at the Sons and their medieval beliefs.”
Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) Page 4