Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1)

by Wallace, Andrew

  “Jaeger,” I say and smile. “I’ve heard… so very little about you.”

  He smiles back. His teeth are even and efficient-looking although his thick chestnut hair seems slightly long for a soldier.

  “Please come in,” he says.

  I step into a large multi-levelled room full of Old World artefacts.

  “Thank you Harlan,” Jaeger says.

  The elevator doors close, leaving me alone with the leader of the New Form Enterprise. I resist the urge to look back. Jaeger gestures at a pair of wooden chairs by a floor-to-ceiling window onto the Outer Spheres. I cross the room and sit on the chair to the right. Jaeger arranges himself into a seated position opposite me. His movements are like choreography.

  The chairs are slightly uncomfortable. They are Old World so won’t respond to the sitter’s physiology. I think Jaeger has got them because he doesn’t like to be too relaxed. The ornate, beautifully carved wood has a peculiar shiny surface that seems deep, as if I’m staring into the past. I look up. Jaeger’s intense gaze hasn’t left me.

  “These chairs are lovely,” I say.

  “Thank you,” he says. “May I offer you anything?”

  “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

  We look at each other for a moment.

  “This must seem very strange,” he says.

  “Yes. I’ve fought so many simulations against, well, you.”

  “Are we what you expected?”

  “I didn’t know what to expect.”

  “We were just the enemy,” he says with a hint of humour.

  “When you say it like that it seems silly.”

  “We fought a war against Centria don’t forget.”

  “Why?” I ask him.

  “To get inside.”

  “But you were inside weren’t you? Before? When you were their general?”

  He looks out of the window.

  “Do you know what a soldier is Charity?”

  “A warrior,” I say.

  “Partly. A soldier is an extension of another’s will: an amplification of their power. A soldier can’t really question that will, or he ceases to be a soldier. And yet I did question it. Am I therefore still a soldier?”

  “No.”

  Jaeger looks at me again. Despite his obvious power he is not intimidating.

  “Correct. And that was intolerable Charity.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  I watch a subtle play of strange emotion flicker across his lean face.

  “Yes,” he says, “you do don’t you?”

  “What can I do for you Jaeger?”

  “Talk to me,” he says. “Tell me about Centria.”

  “I haven’t got any information about Security…”

  “I know about Security. Tell me anything else, however random. How is it there? How does it feel?”

  I pause, conflicted.

  “You’re struggling,” Jaeger says, not unkindly. “I understand. I have found that you never really leave Centria, even when Centria leaves you.”

  “My parents would have died for Centria,” I say, not so much evading the point as trying to work out what it is.

  “Indeed,” Jaeger says.

  “You know my parents?” I say.

  “Both good soldiers. You’re very different from them.”

  “They… Well they are my parents,” I say with the familiar sense of odd disloyalty. “I mean they brought me up. I don’t know who I am really though.”

  “A changeling princess,” Jaeger says.

  I flush. His interest emboldens me to ask the fundamental question.

  “Jaeger… What is the Guidance?”

  Crack!

  For a second I think I’ve been shot with one of those old guns we train with in Centria and then I notice blood run down Jaeger’s arm. He has snapped the armrest off his chair; the broken strut has dug into his hand. He breathes heavily as if my words have winded him. His eyes are fearsome now and I gulp in fear; it’s like sitting opposite an exploding bomb. I should get away but I can’t move.

  Jaeger looks down at the broken chair as if it’s a friend he has lost. He tries in vain to put the arm back.

  “Can’t the Basis help?” I say nervously.

  “No. This chair is Old World. The Basis can only manipulate objects it has created. Each molecule of everything it grows is marked with the Aerac ID of the person who giffed it. My chair, like any Old World object, has no such imprint. Without the Basis no one knows how to fix anything. We are helpless.”

  He gets up, puts the chair arm down and grips his open wound. I wait for him to push his hand into the floor so the Basis can heal it. Instead he stares out of the window at the Outer Spheres, whose vacant crystalline structures are a moving pattern of bleak geometry far below.

  “The Guidance,” he says almost to himself. “I haven’t heard that for a while. Who told you about it?”

  “Ellery.”

  Jaeger grunts. He notices blood drip through his fingers and puts the wounded side of his hand in his mouth. I’ve never seen anyone do that before and lean forward, fascinated. He notices and locks eyes with me. I hold his gaze.

  “You should get that healed properly,” I say.

  He doesn’t move. Presently, he takes his hand from his lips and I see the bleeding has stopped.

  “Often,” he says, “I have to quickly decide whether to trust a person. Other lives depend on those decisions. I have always been good at it and over the years become much better. I want to trust you. Is that wise would you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “You seem important somehow, as if we’ve met before.”

  “I would have remembered,” I say.

  “What is it about you? Like you’re part of something…”

  He shakes his head and for a moment seems undecided.

  “The Guidance is me,” he says finally.

  I am numb and astonished at the same time. A weird metallic taste creeps up my throat.

  “You?” I whisper.

  “Well, I’m part of it,” Jaeger says. “One of twelve people bred to be the absolute best at a specific job. Together we were meant to form the supreme government although that’s rather a quaint idea now.

  “Each of us has a different ability. Together we possess all the skills needed to run anything, hence ‘the Guidance’. Obviously I’m the ultimate soldier. Ellery Quinn is the ultimate communicator, Gethen Karkarridan…”

  Jaeger pauses as if unsure how to describe Gethen.

  “Well, you’ve got to make money haven’t you?” he continues. “Gethen could sell us diamond if he wanted. And then of course you have the leader.”

  “Keris.”

  “Yes. I can command troops but Keris can lead everyone.”

  Something in his voice…

  “You and Keris?”

  “I’ve loved her for over a hundred and seventy years,” Jaeger says.

  It takes me a while to absorb his words.

  “How old are you all?” I say.

  “More than two centuries.”

  “Do you use longevity patents?”

  “Even we would struggle to afford those over that length of time. No, with us it’s natural. We were created before Diamond City was built to save a world that no longer exists. So instead we came down here and made the best of it.”

  The incredible facts move in my mind like elemental forces. Jaeger watches, allowing me to take it in. I don’t feel obliged to comment or even react and something of this ease reminds me of how well I get on with Keris. As the second vital question forms I notice Jaeger looking expectant and almost guilty.

  “Jaeger, are you and Keris my parents?”

  His face trembles for the tiniest instant and is then still. He doesn’t speak; I suspect he is not able to. This moment is the longest of my life.

  “No,” he says finally. “It’s not possible.”

  “Why?”

  “Our… creator decided it wouldn’t be et
hical to allow the super race to breed and so ensured we can’t.”

  There is a very long silence.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “No. I am. That I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

  I relax back into disappointment.

  “It’s okay,” I say although we both know it isn’t. “Is that why the Ruby War ended the way it did?”

  “I didn’t think Keris herself would come at us. That was out of character. She knew I could never harm her.”

  “Why did she do it?” I ask.

  “Because there is something in Centria she cannot let me have.”

  “What?”

  “An unlimited supply of kilos.”

  The structure of Diamond City is substantial enough to accommodate its own weight, the Basis and all the kilos but… unlimited?

  “I don’t know how that would work,” I say.

  “All you need to understand is that Centria controls far more than it should, which must change. If that supply is lost then eventually we will starve down here.”

  We sit for a while as I consider.

  “So the Guidance is you, Gethen, Ellery, Keris… Who are the other eight?” I say.

  Jaeger looks troubled.

  “In Centria?” he says. “The scientist, Sol Bassa.”

  I know the name but I’ve never met him. Jaeger’s eyes narrow.

  “What about outside Centria?” I ask.

  I keep my voice bright and naïve but I doubt that will fool Jaeger.

  “Louis Ruckingham, the artist. The others…”

  He frowns again. There is a long pause. I take a deep breath.

  “Mum said there was something wrong with Centria,” I say.

  Jaeger leans forward.

  “Wrong?” he says. “Wrong how?”

  “She didn’t have time to say.”

  “Have you found anything else out?”

  “Not yet. I’m still going through Dad’s mission files.”

  “Can you make sense of them?”

  “No.”

  “Nor I. Will you tell me if you do?”

  I hesitate.

  “Just think about it,” he says.

  “All right,” I say. “But what is the New Form Enterprise? New Form of what?”

  “Humanity.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Will you join us?” he says.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Then that is all I can tell you.”

  I nod. Jaeger watches me.

  “You can trust me not to say anything about… anything,” I add.

  “Not even to Harlan.”

  “Agreed.”

  Jaeger Darwin stands and so do I.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “Think about joining us,” he says. “You would be extraordinary.”

  I feel my face get hot and look away.

  “Goodbye,” I say.

  I hurry out and don’t look back.

  25

  Harlan gets up from an incongruous purple armchair as I walk out of the elevator. He smiles at me understandingly.

  “All right?” he says as the Basis dissembles his chair.

  “I-I suppose so, yes.”

  “Meeting Jaeger for the first time is always intense.”

  Harlan sounds fond of Jaeger although he is clearly scared of him.

  “I’m reeling inside…” I say.

  “He can do that,” Harlan says.

  “I’ve got to see Ursula.”

  “She’s still asleep. I checked.”

  I shake my head and then shake it again.

  “I want to go home,” I say.

  “I know.”

  I go to speak but losses and revelations crowd in and I can’t…

  “I understand how you feel,” says Harlan. “I’m an ex as well.”

  There is a long pause. He reaches over and gently closes my mouth with his forefinger. My teeth click together.

  “Drink?” he says.

  “Are there any bars in the Outer Spheres?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Harlan takes my hand and leads me along the corridor past groups of NFE operatives until we reach a ramp. Harlan doesn’t slow as he strides up and I match his speed despite our difference in height. We emerge inside a transparent dome on top of the NFE assembly, where a generously upholstered sofa grows out of the floor. I sink gratefully into it.

  Outside, the terrible silent beauty of the Outer Spheres invites me to fill its emptiness with dreams but only nightmares come: people frozen in giant coloured shapes, people in the floor just before they’re taken apart, people in flames… I close my eyes to block it out.

  When I open them I’ve slept for two hours.

  “Better?” Harlan says beside me.

  “I am,” I say. “I don’t know why, but somehow… yes. Better.”

  I get up and stretch. Harlan watches, which I like a lot. As I wander round the dome Harlan takes off his jacket to reveal a blue t-shirt that’s actually faded. A few necklaces of gold, rope and bits of runic bone encircle his corded neck. His clothing and adornments seem earned, as if lesser objects have been swept away by ceaseless violence and adventure. I sense his being here is a pause in some greater journey that will soon resume.

  We have left the huge walls behind to drift through a long empty corridor. Its ceiling is a mere five metres above the top of the dome, which seems inadequate protection against such vast and terrifying stillness.

  “You’re spending a lot of time with me,” I say. “Haven’t you got missions to go on?”

  “My lady before my cause.”

  “I’m not your lady.”

  “Ah. Well, you do love someone else.”

  I stare down at him.

  “Who?” I say.

  “Ursula.”

  “Of course I love her, she’s my sister!”

  “Not your biological sister.”

  “That doesn’t matter!”

  “I think it does.”

  I struggle to understand for a moment and then the implication hits me.

  “That’s an awful thing to say Harlan,” I say, hot-faced and upset.

  “Your life is absorbed by hers. You obsess over her.”

  “That’s my job,” I say. “Was. Was my job.”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at Ursula,” Harlan says. “I wish you looked at me like that.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have betrayed me.”

  “I didn’t betray you.”

  “You… Well. You sort of did.”

  He leans back, slips his hands behind his head and watches the gloomy ceiling glide past.

  “Have you ever found another woman attractive?” he says.

  I try and remember; anything to get him off the subject.

  “When I was younger I was, you know, curious and… nothing happened you understand…”

  “Perish the thought,” Harlan says. “What did she look like?”

  “Tall, pretty.”

  “Dark-haired?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Long, straight dark hair?”

  “Yes,” I say again, surprised.

  He watches me.

  “Oh, I see…” I say.

  The dome seems to shift. Swaying, I reach for the edge of the sofa and lower myself onto the edge of it. I think back a few hours to when I held Ursula in bed. A dark part of me rejoices that she needs me, that she is mine alone. I feel sick with guilt.

  “It’s all right,” Harlan says and I love him a bit more for not judging me. “Your sister is beautiful and charismatic. I can understand why you love her the way you do.”

  “I thought I had it worked out.”

  Harlan laughs.

  “People thought they had it worked out with the Blanks. Look what happened there!”

  Despite myself I laugh with him and he puts his arm around my shoulder. I want him to hold me tighter but instead he sits by my side like a friend and presently gifs
us both a drink. I sip and feel slightly better. Harlan watches, amused.

  “Only in Centria do people still booze,” he says. “You people and your traditions.”

  “You can’t say ‘you people’. You’re an ex yourself.”

  “My parents were really,” he says. “I was too young to remember.”

  “They threw a little boy out?”

  “They’ll throw anyone out. You don’t get to rule Diamond City by being nice,” Harlan says, a trace of anger in his rich voice.

  As he lets go of me and leans back I remember Jaeger’s description of the Guidance. They don’t sound quite human. I finally sense the contempt forcing that churn of people out of Centria’s front door and the paranoia behind the recs everywhere. For all his troubling ambiguity the man beside me feels closer and more familiar.

  “Who are you Harlan?” I say.

  Harlan gazes into his glass.

  “My parents were brokers,” he says. “Pop was ambitious but not good with people, which meant that although he was great at what he did he never really got anywhere. Ma was the other way around so they complemented each other.

  “Pop was an idealist. He believed that Centria should be more of a force for good than it was. Unfortunately, he wasn’t important enough for anyone to care. So he decided to make them listen.

  “He overvalued a patent, to change your tongue shape of all things. He created a network of people to buy into it, traded related products against each other and made a fortune, which he proceeded to give away to some kid farm in MidZone.

  “Then Pop told Gethen Karkarridan about it, like he was going to teach that fucker anything about dodgy finance. I think they marched Pop out before he had time to tell Ma. My earliest memory is my parents shouting at each other outside some big round building, which must have been Centria.

  “Pop quickly found out that doing good for Diamond City is a lot easier when you’re safe inside an enclave. He had some kind of breakdown. All I remember of him after that is this ragged loon following me and Ma around. Then he just disappeared. I know he’s dead because Ma got his kilos but we didn’t see it happen.

  “She had to use Pop’s kilos to trade with but being a broker is much harder without Centria behind you. Ma had to work all the time just to keep us fed and when she wasn’t working she drank.”

  He puts the glass down and glares at it as it’s absorbed.