Anton Jelka calls. I smile when I see his name and slow down, hovering beside the chamber’s triangular exit to take the call. I know immediately that something is wrong. He looks terrified.
“Charity, please,” he says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you, I’ve been looking for you for weeks, I- oh no…”
“What is it?”
“The Sons of the Crystal Mind. They’ve got me like they got you… Look, if you can do something I’m at these coordinates. It’s not a trap, they won’t expect you, just-”
The call is cut off.
For a second I sit there, stunned and then I send Anton’s coordinates to the flybike. It tells me that at maximum speed I will reach Anton in fifteen minutes. I put in a direct route, cross-reference it with occupied buildings in MidZone and set a course to avoid them. The new route will take me seven minutes. I set the n-gun to level 3 and fly through the exit.
A large grey building spans the next chamber. I grip the joystick with my left hand and point the n-gun. I open fire from ten metres away and the structure’s outer wall shatters inwards. The debris seems to hang there.
I realise I’m too close and duck. Particles sting my head and hot fluid trickles down my scalp. I race through a long vacant room as blood drips off my brow towards my eyes. I shake my head, scattering red drops. As I approach the next boundary wall I shoot earlier so it’s completely destroyed by the time I reach it.
I fly through the gap and over an open space. Unexpectedly, it contains a circus. I glimpse bright lights, costumes, people in flight… After the circus I soar over a range of low-lying green buildings under a high crystal roof. With no obstacles I can put the flybike on autopilot and go in-Aer.
Predictably, the Sons of the Crystal Mind are broadcasting their latest atrocity. Again, people writhe on a glowing floor amidst black-clad figures, while Hobb repeats the same nonsense. I spot Anton. He stands near a pyre surrounded by Sons. Tied to the pyre is a little girl.
I’m six minutes away and the flybike won’t go any faster. Ahead is a large, free-floating dome assembly whose surface is a flowing pattern of orange and blue. As I approach it moves aside. Suddenly, there’s a flash-
I yank the joystick hard left as a thick energy beam grinds off one of the flybike’s runners. People on the assembly think I’m attacking them! I swerve right. Another beam hits a white conical building in front of me and shears through a quarter of it. I dive to avoid the assembly but the angle is too steep. I brace myself and haul back the joystick.
It’s not enough. A terrible screech tears at my ears and hundreds of burning points hit my left leg as the flybike’s other runner tears a plume of sparks off the diamond floor. Another energy beam blasts through the ground in front of me; I can’t get the flybike up in time and fall into the red-edged, dripping hole.
I do a slow somersault in the weird, hissing well. It glows with damage and starts to close in as it repairs itself. I shudder as the scorching cylindrical surface approaches but drop without contact into the chamber below.
As I corkscrew towards a park with a lake in the centre I gently shake the joystick between thumb and forefinger against the direction of the turn. The spinning whips up a blinding nausea and I hear myself groan. After more coaxing I stop the corkscrew but can’t change direction. Hobb drones over the Aer as I race towards the chamber floor.
The engine stutters. Both of its back-up systems are damaged. I scan the ground to see if I can gif some sort of cushion but someone else owns the park. All I can do is head for that lake and hope for the best.
The bike hits the surface and flips over. Blinding water smacks into my face, forcing its way down my throat. The flybike’s in-Aer controls flicker then vanish. Nothing works and the almost invisible restraints that secured me in flight now drag me down.
The flybike bumps against the bottom of the lake. I hang there, too stunned to move. My throat burns and my lungs feel heavy. I feel my mouth open; the water tastes flat and metallic. Hobb’s voice in my ears is strangely unaffected.
“Perfection will make us worthy,” he says.
I try to deposit the flybike. However, the lake floor is on closed protocol ownership so the dead vehicle stays obstinately put. I struggle weakly against my restraints and the flybike rocks against the bottom of the lake, then settles again. Darkness creeps in from the edge of my blurred vision.
In my last moment of calm I remember the n-gun. I point at the restraints but there seem to be too many. Meanwhile, my sense of direction is coming apart. I begin to forget what I’m doing and realise I’m out of oxygen, out of time…
I select level 3. I’ve got no idea what a hint of antimatter will do to my surroundings but can’t think what else to do; even the panic is weak now. Clear in the knowledge that if I don’t disintegrate I will drown I jam my finger against the flybike and fire.
Instantly there’s a terrific roiling and I’m heaved up amid enormous pressure that stabs my ears. Water spurts from my throat and nose as I glimpse a weird silent perspective. Bright globules stretch and shatter; buildings hang upside down; a gleaming yellow banner swings…
I’m in the air, bent over. The banner is my wet hair; the globules are the lake. I reach a height that has no context and turn almost lazily. I take half a breath and wonder how much water remains-
I slap into the lake again, the impact jarring my back. I go rigid to slow my descent but still hit the bottom hard enough to bounce off. I float briefly, too dazed from another battering to notice the pain. Soon however my lungs become insistent and I make myself flail against the water until I burst through the surface.
I’m not far from shore and the lake only comes up to my waist now. Gasping, I fight through the shallows to stumble onto dry land. Water vents from the jumpsuit and I spit bloody hair. As my feet steady I begin to run towards clear floor a hundred metres away.
The flybike is just metallic vapour; I won’t get those kilos back. Nonetheless, I gif a top range flybike that costs nearly all I’ve got. As it grows I pump more energy into my straining legs and sprint.
The flybike settles just as I leap onto it from behind. I send it Anton’s coordinates and the Aer tells me I’m four minutes away. I lift off, still spraying water.
Hobb reaches his crescendo but this time it ends differently.
“We know our cause is just because we have such support from Centria,” says Hobb. “The People’s Princess lent us her favour and as a result the Blanks tortured her into insanity. Rightly disgusted by this barbarism, the legendary Head of Centrian Security is with us today to bless our latest triumph.”
I glimpse Anton’s stricken face on the Aer feed. I have to concentrate on flying because there’s another building ahead. This one is occupied but I’m going through it anyway.
I call Anton.
“Nearly there,” I say. “Stall them.”
I switch to audio as the structure looms like a great diamond cliff. When I fire level 2 n-gun bolts at it I’m relieved to see people run out of the way. Moments later I spray the wall in with level 3 and duck under the jagged edges. Sound closes in as I speed through the building. Calm but almost dizzyingly focussed, I glimpse workspaces, discarded food and other fragments of people’s lives with perfect clarity.
“Anton Jelka,” Hobb says, his voice euphoric, “you guard the very heart of our society against evil and misrule. Like us, you must make difficult decisions in the name of the greater good. Do you agree that the creature before you should be burned before it can reach maturity and spread its vile influence throughout our realm?”
I hear Anton clear his throat.
“Well,” he says, “that is a great responsibility and I’m, er, honoured that you should consider me worthy of…”
“Yes or no, Anton Jelka,” Hobb drones over the booming chant of his followers.
One minute away. I jerk forward in the flybike seat in a vain attempt to make it go faster.
“In my capacity as Head of Security I often
have to weigh up…”
“YES OR NO?” Hobb screams.
I will not get there in time. I call Anton.
“Anton?” I say.
The room is a blur. Ninety seconds.
“I love you Charity,” Anton says and cuts the call.
I still hear him over the Aer broadcast.
“NO!” he roars and my heart burns with pride. “Never! I will never agree to anything you say! Your religion is a joke and you are a fool! There is no Crystal Mind…”
I hear the shot as I blast through the final wall.
28
A cloud of shattered diamond falls past me to the floor below. Anton flies back and I catch his eye. Is he smiling? Hobb aims his device at the pyre. The little girl screams. The Sons look up at the debris tumbling towards them as the pyre smokes and then catches fire.
I see the Son who shot Anton, rifle still aimed in Anton’s direction. I fire level 3 and the man disappears in a bright flash. The instant I fly past is long enough to reflect that I’ve killed someone. It feels terribly strange. I’ve never killed anybody before and neither have I wanted to. I’m not happy about it but I’m not exactly sad either. Weird power blazes through me.
I fire at Hobb but miss and destroy his steps. He stumbles, trying to bat away lacerating diamond fragments. Some just miss the girl on the pyre so I switch to level 2. I aim at Hobb’s midriff. Hobb jumps aside; I keep firing until two closely spaced shots take his right arm off. He topples from the column, lands badly and rolls on the floor screaming.
I fly over the little girl, register her coordinates and turn back for another go at Hobb. He looks astonished as he realises who I am. I take aim but the flybike jolts as the Sons of the Crystal Mind fire at me. How dare they! I speed up and ease the flybike around in a wide arc.
Even from here I can smell burning and the pyre is a horrible brightness to my right. I scan the floor; it’s not owned by anyone so I use the girl’s coordinates to gif a large bathing cylinder. The diamond tube glints with reflected gunfire as it slides up around her and for a moment she is obscured by thick white smoke. I try not to think how she feels as the container fills with water. By the time it stops the girl is completely submerged and bits of blackened wood float on the surface.
A few shots glance off the cylinder so I leave it where it is and bring the flybike around behind the Sons. Level 2 bolts kill three and they fall past the people writhing on the bright floor. I close in on Hobb again, who stops roaring obscenities and crawls into a small plane. I reset the n-gun to level 3 and blast the plane in half. Hobb falls out again, screaming and on fire.
The Sons rush at me. I bring the flybike down until it’s a metre off the floor and let them come. Soon they have left the drugged people and the little girl behind and I open fire with level 3. As white n-gun bolts cut through my pursuers I deposit the cylinder and the water. The glow in the floor disappears along with the post holding the Blank girl; Hobb must need his kilos for medical treatment now he’s only got one arm and half a face.
The girl jumps free and runs. She is hampered by a limp and the flapping wet remains of her burned pink dress. Ugly red-black gashes mark her skinny legs and the right side of her long dark hair is crisped away. She stumbles to a halt, coughs and rubs her eyes. When she runs again it is with almost hysterical abandon.
The Sons get too near so I haul the flybike out of range. Undeterred, they run after me, shooting. Hobb has managed to put out the fire and waves his followers in the direction of the little girl but they don’t notice. The girl runs towards a rec. She’s about seven and her face is crumpled with sobs. Behind her, more Sons close in.
The Aer feed shows a red figure soar above black-clad rabble who shoot uselessly up at it. The rider fires dazzling beams that almost flare out the recs. The rabble scatters and explodes amid gouts of broken diamond.
I get a weird sense of dislocation as I realise the scarlet rider is me. My face and hair are soaked with blood and my movements are methodically lethal. I hesitate self-consciously for a moment and the Sons below start to regroup. The feed shuts off.
I pull the joystick back to loop up and over so the floor looks like it’s above. The impression is of chaos attached to a dull blue ceiling. Hobb leaves a broad trail of blood; people run from buildings to pull their helpless colleagues inside to safety; Sons grow bikes and take off in pursuit.
I swoop down to skim half a metre above the floor. My bike is faster than any of the Sons’ but as I approach the girl I have to slow down. A bolt hits my right hip and the flybike spins. I hear a terrible crackle and feel electrical heat so intense it seems icy cold. I wrench the flybike straight and pump my right leg in panic. Despite the agony it still works thanks to the jumpsuit armour and my distance from the shooter. I gasp and press on.
Finally I reach the girl and lean over to slip my left arm around her waist. She struggles and her face locks with terror; I have to use both arms to hold her and let go of the joystick. The flybike begins to drift.
“It’s all right,” I say, “I’ll save you.”
We are heading for a wall at high speed. I use all my strength to lift the girl in front of me, grip her with my right arm and grab the joystick again with my left. The girl wriggles around, scans me and goes still.
“Your name’s Charity,” she says.
“Yes.”
“You shot the wankers.”
“I did,” I say. “Hold tight.”
The flybike wraps restraints around her and we start to climb. Another hit spins us again. The backup system kicks in and we stabilise but now face our attackers. They race closer at frightening speed so I bank right and show them the flybike’s underside, which acts as a shield for the next volley. The flybike shudders at the impact and I notice we are down to our last backup.
I want to land but the Sons are beneath us. Instead, I pull up until we are too high to make anything out on the floor. The airborne Sons come at us again and I let fly with a burst of obliterate shots. Two Sons explode but there are still a dozen left. Desperate now, I keep on firing and another Son goes down. Twenty more rise towards us.
We are close to the perimeter of the open area, bounded by buildings that reach to the ceiling. Out of space, I swing around to aim at the nearest Son as he closes in, his face bright with hatred. I fire the n-gun. It doesn’t work.
I check my Aerac. The kilo account is at 0. The previous flybike, this more expensive model plus all those pricey level 3 bolts have left me with nothing.
I drop us out of range and fly down at a steep angle, heading for the buildings so we can escape into one of them. However, when we get closer I see they are now shielded and inaccessible so I turn towards the portal that leads to the next chamber just as three enormous cannons grow from the floor in front of it.
I jerk the flybike left but cannon fire is a blinding corridor. I try and shield the girl with my body but now there is gunfire in both directions. A shot hits my back and breath leaves me with a hoarse animal screech. Again I’m preserved by distance and armour but it’s still like being punched by a man twenty times the size of Harlan.
I can only go up and climb at a daunting angle. My chest aches while trickling blood scalds my injured back. The flybike jolts with another hit and then it cuts out.
For a terrible instant we hang there, as if we can stay airborne if we figure out how in time. Worse, the flybike still has power but not enough to keep us up. Gravity clutches horribly at my sex as we begin the sedate drop. The girl starts to scream.
Suddenly, I have kilos, 91,284 of them. The name of the depositor appears: Anton Jelka. He has left me the kilo value of his body and that of everything he owns. Rage, love and hope inspire me.
I gif a large crash pad directly below us and watch the circular shadow get bigger as we plummet towards it. I grab the girl, release the restraints and vaporise the flybike so it doesn’t land on us. Soon we are only a few metres away from the ground, the familiar perspective made dreadful
by velocity.
We hit the pad and the girl’s weight knocks the wind out of me but I still hold her tight as we crash through layers of material to shed the energy of our fall. A momentary pressure from below tells me the pad is still growing and then my entire body crunches to the floor-
It takes a while for the impact to register. Stunned and gasping, I lie with the girl on top of me. My head has walloped the floor with a ghastly high-pitched thump. Flashes of light, more abstract than gunfire, rip across my vision. My brain feels like it wants to vomit and is sickeningly angry that it can’t. Instead, more pain charges through me. My ribs feel crushed and my scorched back broken.
Gunfire shreds the edge of the pad so I deposit it. I gif a thick, high diamond ring around us and a thin layer over the circle of floor inside. It’s closed protocol; only I can gif anything in here. The girl rolls off me. Ignoring the pain, I struggle to my feet and pull her up. The fort keeps Hobb’s cannon fire off but gives no protection from the airborne Sons. They swoop, fire and another hit punches my left shoulder numb. I feel the hot spray of blood against my cheek.
I push the girl behind me and use short, controlled bursts to pick off Sons with level 3. Their gunfire explodes around us as Hobb’s cannons pound the fort. Nearby, another group of Sons takes to the air. The hundreds on the floor start to climb on top of each other to get over the fort wall. One of them lobs a grenade and I shoot it.
That grenade… I try to focus on an idea as I aim and shoot, aim and shoot. As I do I realise how to get out of this nightmare. I just need to fight with one part of my mind and go in-Aer with another. I select a bomb, a medium-yield explosive I once used in a simulation, remember the coordinates of the entrance portal, click, buy…
Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) Page 19