I land well. A gruesome wet snap to my left indicates the last guard did not. He screams and rolls from side to side as beneath him I see the shadow of Ellery healing in the Basis.
The roof begins to collapse. One cruiser drops past the window outside; another noses over the crumbling edge of the roof to crush the remaining guard. As the cruiser rolls towards me I scramble up and sprint out. An alarm begins to shriek.
A solid block of diamond now fills the entire floor below and the elevator stays locked above me. I dash up the stairs beside it and out onto the remains of the roof. I edge along to the last cruiser and jump on board.
I try to access the cruiser’s in-Aer controls but they’re blocked so I head for the seat with the backup controls. Before I can reach it I’m flung against the transparent side of the cruiser as my weight tips it over the tower’s broken rim.
I panic as I’m pressed against a surface I can’t see. Below me is the dreadful height; I try and scrabble away from it but the cruiser turns slowly as it falls. One moment the ground approaches, the next I tumble back and see the wrecked top of Ellery’s tower recede.
The spinning makes controlled movement almost impossible; when I pull myself to the seat it’s like lifting a terrific weight. I cling to the armrest and finally manage to activate the manual control.
The cruiser slows, rights itself and I thump to the floor. For a moment I lie there shuddering as if trying to throw off tension and fear. It doesn’t work. I climb shakily onto the control seat and stare numbly out. Centria hangs before me.
I want to go away, curl up and deal with everything slowly over time. However, I need to find Ursula before something happens to her, to get Mum out of that coma, to stop the Velossin murdering Dad-
I scream and pound stupidly against the armrests until the meat aches on the side of each hand. As I stop I slump forward as if unable to support my weight. My mind… slows.
Distantly, I realise I may be in shock. I wish Harlan was here, holding me. He’s probably sent me a message. I should check but I can’t even work the Aerac. I want my mum.
The Comms Tower begins to sink into the floor. No, wait – it’s the cruiser that is rising, higher and with increasing speed as someone else takes remote control of it. I clutch furiously at the manual controls but they no longer work for me. As usual anger is no use at all.
Why does it have to be me? I’m no saviour; I’m just a girl.
The cruiser gets higher and turns out over Centria. I think about calling Keris to tell her what I’ve found but I haven’t really found anything. So Zero isn’t a person. What is Zero then?
Maybe Zero is just zero.
The little voice in my head is the only urgent thing about me. Even my blood has slowed. Zero. Nothing. What would Centria have run out of for them to be so worried? Patents? Hardly; Ursula was never short of work advertising them. What then?
Oh. Of course. How on earth could it have happened? Kilos. Centria has run out of kilos. I remember Harlan’s description of Diamond City as a free-market utopia. The greatest sin here is to have no money. Centria clearly has something to operate with but not for much longer. I imagine Security Control being deposited to settle debt, maintain appearances, keep the story going…
If this information becomes known the rest of Diamond City will tear Centria apart. The enclave might keep people out for a while but not indefinitely. Those inside would want to escape because who would tolerate living in Centria without its wealth and power? No wonder the merger with a tenth rate outfit like Loren’s was so urgent. She discovered the secret and used Fulcrus to ensure her offer would be impossible to refuse.
The cruiser seems to drift but when I look at the controls I see I’ve sped up. My surroundings begin to look familiar. Unease rises through my lethargy.
The attack on Mum and Dad finally makes sense. The New Form Enterprise spied on Centria to get the kilos Jaeger thinks Keris is hiding. Instead the NFE learned things they couldn’t understand; weird accounts, tolerance of toxic relationships, nothing literally adding up. Mum and Dad were able to partly decipher what was going on using Centria’s database, which Jaeger no longer had access to. Unfortunately for my family, that information was meant to stay hidden.
In the distance a little island floats in the air. My blood thickens with surging adrenaline and I start to come out of shock. I’m no expert but I know such a quick recovery is unusual...
My plan to get more power after Ursula’s wedding endangered us both. Ursula was too popular to kill so we had to be discredited. Centria’s brutal rules were engaged and Diamond City was meant to have taken care of the rest.
The cruiser begins to whine as the island races at me. I recognise it finally; I’ve just never seen it from this angle. I’m heading like a missile for Mum and Dad’s house. At this speed even the diamond walls won’t keep the cruiser out. Behind those walls lies Mum, unconscious and helpless.
I gif a top-range flybike and picture it grow from the floor. Slow, so slow. The flybike controls finally appear over my view of the enlarging island. I focus my weary mind and instruct the bike to rendezvous with my coordinates. I set the n-gun to level 3 and blast a big hole in the side of the cruiser. Wind lashes hair in my eyes so I press an elbow crook to the top of my head and dispense cool gel. There’s an odd tickle as it slicks my hair flat and winds the blonde fall into a tight braid.
Mum and Dad’s house gets closer and I get up to wait nervously by the rushing hole. The assembly sequence the Basis has followed to make the flybike is fixed. My speed is fixed too, as is the time the flybike will take to reach the cruiser and the remaining distance to impact. These elements are a little universe of horror, its terrible perfection like a machine whose purity of function will expel all humanity without even knowing. The Crystal Mind could not have designed this scenario better.
Finally the flybike appears two metres off the side of the cruiser and I jump. My flight between the vehicles lasts less than a second, just long enough for the flybike to get slightly ahead. My hands skitter along the seat and for a long moment it doesn’t look like I’ll find a purchase but I just manage to grab the back end.
Immediately I’m yanked forward; my legs flail behind and air booms into my lungs. I get a good grip on the seat with my left hand, turn my eyes from the blistering wind and aim the n-gun at the cruiser’s pyramidal pads. The target sight settles. I fire.
The bolt destroys the nearest pad and the one on the far side. The cruiser wobbles and spins; I fire twice more and shred the vehicle into fiery streaks.
I grip the flybike with both hands and use the Aer controls to slow it down. The front hits the roof nonetheless and my legs are slung forward, almost jerking me loose. Debris whizzes past. One chunk hits my arm and knocks me off the bike onto the protective diamond covering the house.
I slide down the roof with my left arm on fire as heat forms a bracelet of agony around my exposed wrist. I try and get the arm underneath me to smother the flames but quickly run out of roof. Grabbing the edge before I go over, I hang as my boots swing above the garden. My burning arm convulses and I let go without thinking.
There’s a second of suspension, then jaw-snapping impact as I hit the grass. Dull pain jolts up my legs and I sprawl on my side. Two fizzing halves of a Basis interaction pad come right at me. I blast one into tiny stinging fragments and roll aside. The other smashes itself to pieces on the protective layer.
Flames crackle up my arm as the last fragments of the cruiser plink off the house and plough into the garden. I get up and stumble to one of the pools. Something clunks into the side of my head and I topple in headfirst, stunned but aware enough to hear the flames hiss out.
After that I become far less concerned. I relax into the cool depths of the water and its comforting darkness echoes the promise of oblivion. It is so calm here, so quiet. Distant submerged clunks have an inevitable quality, while the silence that follows does not bother me at all. Why in the world did I worry?
The last frantic bubbles rush out of my mouth. Their multiple spheres are like all the layers of Diamond City, adrift and flowing away. Will struggling make any difference in the end? I imagine the house as it was, the garden, the surface of the pool as it ripples with my final breath…
No.
Good seduction is Harlan. Bad seduction is drowning in a decorative garden feature. I rise, rise… The surface breaks around me; there is no spluttering, just calm re-engagement. My boots find the pool bottom and the surface comes to my chest. The sweet air is reassuring, unremarkable. I take my bearings.
Above the deserted garden the flybike angles off the roof as if protruding from it. No guards approach and the air is empty of ships. Something glints in the depths of the pool and I see the cruiser fragment that knocked me out. I put my hand to the side of my head; the hand comes away bloody.
My hair is still slicked back despite the water that trickles past my eyes. I run my hands slowly over it and grip the thick wet braid as water laps gently under my breasts. Everything feels good. I begin to drift again.
I should deposit the flybike; I should… I should probably get out of the pool but I realise I barely have the strength to move my legs.
Fear of another attack gets me going. I haul myself out of the water and stagger dripping to the house. I open a doorway and stumble into the living room, where I turn and watch the diamond wall rise behind me. Before it reaches the top I’m unconscious…
34
I wake up on my back shrouded in dull pain. The time doesn’t mean anything; it’s mere numbers amid a glaze of ache and confusion. I get to my knees and retch wearily but nothing comes up.
After a while I crawl to the sofa. Leaning against the hard surface that covers it I access the house recs to look outside but there’s nobody in any direction.
I slowly get up and support myself against the wall as I climb the stairs. Mum is still unconscious in her room. I lie next to her and pull her arm around my waist as if she’s cuddling me but it flops away. I decide not to call Harlan because I don’t know who is listening. Instead I call Keris.
My call is blocked. I try Ellery. The same. Gethen. Blocked. They are all on the ifarm, which is monitored by Security, who are now controlled by Bal.
I sit up angrily, ignore the nausea and swing my legs over the side of the bed. When the room steadies, I slip down to sit on the floor. I access a med package for 30 kilos, press my burned hand into the Basis and use the other to apply cream to the wound in my scalp. As the healing tingle begins I grow four multicakes and a large glass of water. I drink it in one go and almost hear my shrivelled cells gasp in relief. I grow another glass of water, drink that as well and then munch purposefully through the multicakes.
When I finish them I withdraw my hand from the floor and get up. I deposit the damaged jumpsuit and gif a new one straight on, then grow a dental block and bite into it until my mouth feels fresh and the droning ache in my teeth subsides. Pulling my hair clean, I apply a generous coat of makeup to hide the exhaustion that tightens my face then drop the dental block and stand away from Mum to hide her.
I call Balatar Descarreaux. He appears before me as a hologram wearing a newly designed, rather menacing uniform. Although his eyes glitter his face is without expression as I toss my hair and flash him a big smile.
“Bal!” I say brightly, “how are you?”
“Oh, you know,” he says. “Better when you’re fucking dead.”
“To think you were going to be my brother-in-law.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not,” he says. “Your sister is a stupid whore and you are an abomination.”
My smile freezes. Bal laughs.
“Keris Veitch thinks no one can listen to her,” he says. “However, since I arranged that encounter between Anton Jelka and the Sons of the Crystal Mind I’ve been able to put eyes and ears wherever I want. I heard everything Keris told you about the Guidance. I know who you are. I know what you are. You’re not smiling any more Charity.”
“Why are you doing this?” I whisper.
“Because Centria is old and greedy and pathetic. I’m not surprised Keris and those other creatures lost their grip; all we need do is hasten the inevitable.”
“I’m still alive,” I say, more pedantic than defiant.
“For now. Ellery is unconscious and after your little drama the Comms Tower Keris will know if I do anything else. I shall wait until after the merger; you’re not going anywhere.”
Be subtle.
“You support the Sons of the Crystal Mind,” I say eventually.
“Yes,” he says.
“What did the Blanks ever do to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why hate them? Us?”
“Because I can, Charity! Every economic system needs its pariahs. If it wasn’t you it would be the subs or some other garbage. Besides, it’s just…” he shudders, “…disgusting. Have you even got a soul?”
His words hurt because I’ve wondered that myself.
“If you had any decency,” Balatar Descarreaux says, “you’d kill yourself.”
“You’re so incompetent I’d have to.”
We cut the call simultaneously and I sit back on the bed, drained.
35
When I approach Keris’s assembly on the flybike, three red warships descend to cut me off. For a while I hover, regarding the implicit violence in their ridged faces. I could destroy at least one warship but remember then the proximity to Keris; how a stray beam could cut through her assembly, through her…
A better idea presents itself; I pull back the joystick and the flybike arcs up. The warships move closer, twitching their mighty guns but I ignore them and loop over towards Centria’s great doorway. I fly under the rotating circular assembly and pass the Comms Tower, which is whole again as if no damage had ever been done to it. I picture Ellery there, unconscious in the floor as the tiny machines of the Basis heal her.
Centria’s door is open to admit a stream of people. I soar over them and out through the huge doorway, descending to a couple of metres above the diamond road. Speeding into the train terminal, I rise to weave through the pulsing tubes and glance back but no one is following me. Soon I leave terminal behind and fly the same route I took when I flew Ursula to the golden saucer.
When I reach VIA Holdings I slow down and look around. Two warships drift with slow, calm menace. Their design is unfamiliar; square and bright blue, they sport unusually prominent cannons. There are white-uniformed guards everywhere: some stand to attention while others march in formation around the charmless architecture. Bal has learned his new trade quickly but he’s no Anton; unchallenged, I join the flow of airborne vehicles to blend in and scan the structures around me.
Soon I’m back where I started, increasingly nervous. I circle VIA Holdings again but the other vehicles dissipate and I feel exposed, as if I’m ten times my actual size. The warships are nearby so I move out of their line of sight around an oblong assembly mounted on the ceiling. That’s when I spot her.
Loren Descarreaux strides along a twenty-metre enclosed catwalk linking one of her ugly square buildings to another. The catwalk is high above the floor, the tiny figures inside a dramatic contrast to their bulky surroundings. Loren is escorted by four guards, two in front of her and two behind.
I wait for them to pass. My grip on the joystick is slippery, while my heart races like it wants to speed up time. Loren takes another step, another, another. Go on Loren, don’t look down.
And then they are where I want them. I fly up behind Loren’s party and use level 3 to demolish a third of the catwalk. The bolt shears through so efficiently there is little sound and only one of the guards turns. He shouts and snaps his rifle to his shoulder; I reset the n-gun to level 1, fire twice and stun both of the nearest guards. The other
s spin around and Loren throws herself back in panic. The remaining guards try to wrestle her out of the way; as they struggle I stun all three.
I fly into the open end of the catwalk, setting the bike down beside Loren who sprawls in a shiny green dress and purple heels across her unconscious guards. Even in sleep there is something decadent about Loren, as if I’ve arrived at the end of an orgy when everyone has passed out.
I get my hands into her smooth armpits and lift, hefting her onto the flybike which wraps restraints around her dainty ankles. Jumping onto the saddle in front of her I glance back to see more guards bunched on the broken stub of catwalk behind me. They shout but their words are lost as I vaporise the catwalk roof, rise through the hole and accelerate away.
The two warships change direction towards me. I bank left and speed into a tangle of VIA structures built too close together for the warships to follow. Through windows either side I see panicked soldiers run after us but nobody shoots in case they hit Loren. I rake the buildings in both directions with white n-gun fire, carving great jagged lines through the tedious facades as my pursuers dive out of the way. Cold air rushes against the inside of my lips and I realise my teeth are bared in a snarling grin. Some of the soldiers gif flybikes but I’m out of VIA Holdings before anyone gets airborne.
My protection slumps against my back, her chest pressed against me. Ahead, a huge wall begins to grow in the archway to the next chamber so I slow and swerve into a vertical shaft. I start to descend but it’s too slow so I cut the flybike’s power. We drop at once; down, down, wind streaming my hair and Loren’s together, copper and gold, linked as we have been all along.
Aerac coordinates tell me we are near the train terminal so I reactivate the flybike and soar through a portal into the blue light of the terminal sphere. Landing on the nearest platform, I deposit the flybike and catch Loren as the vehicle subsides beneath her. I buy two tickets for the Outer Spheres and drag Loren towards the train.
Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) Page 22