Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1)

by Wallace, Andrew

  Four people wait to board. I pull Loren past them and her shoes judder lightly on the platform surface. Unease emanates from the queue and I set the n-gun to level 1 as one of the men clears his throat loudly.

  “You can’t just push in like that,” he says.

  Behind him I see the first VIA warship squeeze into the chamber. A siren blares from it like the mournful cry of some great, mechanised beast. Everyone on the boarding platform turns, sees the warship and runs. As it begins to descend I haul Loren onto the train and drop her on the carriage floor. The doors close and shut off the electronic wail.

  I am safe; train tubes are part of the Diamond City superstructure so the warship cannons won’t work against them. As the carriage begins to move I look back, smiling at the large blue shape that hovers uselessly above. A moment later the train picks up speed and quickly carries us far away.

  36

  Loren lies face up on a couch at the back of a small ship, her arms and legs tied. Harlan looks down at her.

  “Did anyone see you?” he says to me.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “After the train I giffed a ship and flew around for a while. I dumped the ship at an empty station, got another train, repeated the whole thing and picked you up.”

  “We should be all right,” Harlan says. “Centria only looks at Centria and VIA Holdings isn’t organised enough to have eyes everywhere.” He frowns. “Mind you, she could be sending Bal our coordinates.”

  “How long are people usually unconscious for?” I ask him.

  “I’ve never stayed around long enough to find out.”

  I look out of the ship’s window at MidZone and then back at Loren.

  “It’s been two hours. What does Dodge say?”

  “Dodge rarely takes calls and I can rarely stand being around him so I don’t know,” Harlan says.

  I should get the Basis to run a diagnostic on Loren but that will mean untying her. What if she’s got a hidden weapon like an n-gun? I go in-Aer to research unconscious states, cross-referenced with the effects of known stun weapons.

  Harlan sits on the couch next to Loren, pulls one of her eyelids open and gently runs a fingertip across the exposed eyeball.

  “Aarggh! Get off!” Loren screams.

  Harlan laughs. I quietly abandon my complex research and hope he didn’t intuit what I was doing.

  “Find anything good out?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “What am I doing here you fucking bastard animals?” Loren yells.

  “Good point,” Harlan says and turns to me. “What is she doing here?”

  “She needs to answer some questions,” I say.

  Loren must hear the uncertainty in my voice. She laughs.

  “You ask me questions? You are a stupid little secretary who does a small bit of training with her spoiled, fat Centria friends and thinks she knows the way of Diamond City. Fuck your questions and fuck you.”

  “Not very ladylike is she?” Harlan says to me. “Nice accent though.”

  “My son will kill you you fucking savage,” Loren says.

  Harlan is unmoved.

  “Would this be your son who uses women as shields and runs away from the big kids?” he says.

  “He controls Centria Security now. He has a whole army! He is on his way here.”

  “We’re on a random flight path,” Harlan says. “He won’t be able to predict where we’re going.”

  “He will if I keep telling him my location,” Loren says.

  “I thought of that,” Harlan says.

  Harlan rips the bindings off Loren and picks her up as if she weighs nothing. She struggles and claws but her nails seem unable to connect and her blows ricochet weakly. Her wide eyes stare at the floor but the ship is mine so she can’t gif a weapon. The hatch opens. Harlan plucks Loren off him, turns her towards the hatch and starts to push her out.

  “No!” she screams.

  “Stop broadcasting our coordinates.”

  “All right, all right, I will do it.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Harlan says.

  He pushes Loren again and I watch her closely. Her terror looks genuine; I don’t think growing a crash pad has even occurred to her.

  “Stop!” she cries.

  “Understand this Loren,” Harlan says, “if I see any ships I don’t like the look of I will kill you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes! I will stop! Please!”

  Harlan lets go of Loren and she scrambles across the ship to press her back against the side furthest from the hatch, which closes. She breathes heavily as she tries to calm down, looking so pathetic I almost feel sorry for her.

  “I cannot die,” she says, almost to herself, “I am too valuable.”

  “We’re all valuable,” Harlan says.

  “No! Some are more so. Some people don’t matter at all. I matter. I must not die. I am precious.”

  I laugh at her.

  “What do you want?” she says.

  “Tell me about Centria,” I say.

  “Centria is broke,” she spits with a slightly crazy smile.

  “I know,” I say.

  They both look at me, Loren warily and Harlan with new interest. His beauty is distracting; I try to block him out and focus on Loren.

  “You’re using Fulcrus to blackmail Centria so the merger can take place entirely on your terms,” I say.

  Loren seems to look into herself.

  “It is not money,” she says. “It is something more powerful.”

  I remember the last part of Mum’s message.

  “Loren, what does VIA stand for?”

  “Vengeance!” she screams, her eyes bright. “Vengeance Is All! VIA. See?”

  “Vengeance for what?”

  “I was in Centria before. They-they threw me out,” she says.

  There is an unlikely moment of understanding between the three of us.

  “Me too,” Harlan says finally.

  “And me,” I say. “It was your fault Loren.”

  Loren ignores that.

  “In Diamond City are many ex Centria people with a big, big axe to grind but no one can do anything about it,” she says. “I am doing something about it because to be thrown out is the worst thing, yes?”

  “No,” I say. “The worst thing is your family being decimated. The worst thing is being shot while you watch your sister burn. The worst thing is morons trying to rape you.”

  Terrific energy surges through me.

  “THE WORST THING IS KILLING PEOPLE,” I roar and I don’t recognise my voice. “YOU. MADE. ALL. OF. THAT. HAPPEN!”

  I’m not quite in control; I could do anything. Loren looks more scared of me than she did of Harlan.

  “Technically,” Harlan says, “that’s four worst things. You can really only have one.”

  I giggle.

  “Things like that happened to me,” Loren says.

  I look at her but she stares at the floor and talks as if we aren’t here.

  “Being thrown out was still the worst because it caused everything that came afterwards,” she says.

  She looks lost as I cross the ship and stand over her. When I move, she flinches and light ripples over the shiny green dress. I slowly sit and she stares into my face.

  “Tell me,” I say.

  “I was in love with Gethen Karkarridan,” Loren says.

  My surprise must show.

  “I know,” Loren says. “A man like that you think how could anyone love him? He is ruthless; like a machine. But a machine with such passion, and so incredibly clever. He makes money as if it flows from his hands, thousands of kilos, millions. Patents, terms, all of it like magic implements to him. Even now it amazes me what he could do.

  “Everyone does what he says; they do not even question him, while Ellery in her silence she makes it all beautiful you know? And Keris is the leader we adore. They work so well together, like a family, as if they do not need words. But strange; not… normal.

/>   “And me, this young girl, there in the middle of it. I learned to do what Gethen could do; he was my inspiration. Other people they faded away when I compared them, then I did not think about them at all. Only him, as if he possessed me.

  “I was like a part of him. He knew as well. He told me I was special: I was the first person he had met who could make money like he did. He said maybe one day I would have the power he had, but I didn’t want that. I just wanted him.

  “That love you know it was so strong, like it was burning me up but I did not care. I could not sleep or think or do anything except love him and do my work for him. And when finally we did make love it was like…”

  She stares back through the years, a shaky hand pressed to her brow. Her eyes are wide but her expression vague.

  “Only the one time as it turned out, because Ellery Quinn loved him too and she was more powerful than me. One silly girl, what does she matter? I did nothing wrong, made no mistakes, unless you say loving him was a mistake. I don’t think so though, not even now.

  “But Ellery, she… she turned all her power on me. Such horrible words; I never knew words could hurt so much. How she had been Gethen’s lover for a hundred years and would be his lover for a thousand more and I was nothing, nothing.

  “When she had finished talking the guards came and took me to the door and walked me out. They put me on a train straight to the Outer Spheres with only two thousand kilos. Two thousand. After all the money I had made.”

  She looks sick. I wonder who else she has told, whether even Bal knows.

  “I ran,” she says. “They came after me: the subs, the nasty people. I knew nothing about how to survive out there; all my life was in Centria, which is so different. I had no preparation, no understanding.

  “I made it to MidZone, but what could I do? By then I had no kilos. My skills they were in big business not practical things. I had to eat. What does a pretty girl do in MidZone when she has no money? I try not to think of it now but…

  “The people they come and fuck me and-and other things and they go and… They all blur into one person with no face and the same smell. I get the money. I survive. Then others give me drugs to control me and I lose years. I don’t remember a lot, only in nightmares.

  “And one day life comes back into me. I am pregnant. I do not know who by. It does not matter. I have a reason other than myself to survive. I have a short time to do something for me and for the baby.

  “I get off drugs. I just… one day just do it. My body is changing and that helps. But my will, I find my will. And all that has happened makes me stronger; furious and raging and powerful now.

  “I do things for money but not like before. I seduce people and drug them into giving their kilos to me. Some I kill. The kilos come quick and many. I am bad bad bad. I do not care. My soul is gone but my life is on her long journey back to the light, back to Centria.”

  Harlan stares impassively at Loren who talks on, her lips wet.

  “Because I blame them you know,” she says, “for what happened to me. I was punished and did nothing wrong. But that is not all.

  “I see Centria from out in Diamond City: there like a person at the heart of it making these decisions that affect everybody. And I realise… these decisions are not good.

  “It was strange, this learning, to know that Gethen who I admired was wrong in so many things. Because I see his hand in it, and Ellery’s. There was a pattern there and in that pattern I saw an opportunity.

  “Most exes they just become nothing or die because they are weak from being in Centria. Not me. I am strong now and I know Centria. I see how to tempt Gethen with his greed and his arrogance.

  “I set a trap for him. He does not know it is me. I am rich now, using my bad money to make good money. I use other people to approach Gethen.

  “He is tired you see. Ellery is tired. They want to stop but they do not know how to do anything different. That is why they seek the big score.

  “So I give them the big score: a whole patent system that will change itself every year so people must buy the same thing over and over, even more than now. The Basis it would never allow this but I convince Gethen a way has been found, out here in Diamond City where we do not respect his rules.

  “Gethen he buys it. He does not even tell Keris, not Ellery. He buys it. And it has no worth Charity; he spends all your money on something that has no worth. Stupid no?

  “Soon he realises. I tell Fulcrus to call him and make him start to pay so they shut up and stay shut up. Because if anyone were to find out the truth Diamond City would fall on Centria and all their clever guns would not keep the people out.

  “Centria has always fooled us into thinking we need it more than we do. Gethen he will take me back so the secret can be kept. And so I will go home.”

  She looks at us, eyes wide and smile wider, as if she has forgotten why she is here.

  “Why did you attack my parents?” I ask.

  Loren blinks and then blinks again.

  “They were going to find the truth,” she says.

  “But Bal destroyed the merger,” I say.

  “Bal destroyed the wedding; the merger will still go ahead. You and your sister had become a problem because we feared what your parents might have told you.”

  “My sister was burned.”

  “Your sister was burned, I was burned,” Loren points at Harlan, “he was burned. Grow the fuck up.”

  Be subtle.

  “What did Bal use on my mother?”

  “Oh that was easy. Once we knew she was spying on us we embedded a one-time disguised file. Anyone looking at it after would just see accounts.”

  I smile as if at her cleverness. She seems relieved, as if we have connected.

  “What was really on the file?” I say.

  “A looped vix link!”

  “Of…?”

  “Sleep! Me asleep!”

  She laughs hugely. I laugh too but halfway through I hear my laugh become a weird howl.

  Level 3 – side of her head – fire-

  Part of the hull bursts outwards. Loren screams and then her screams choke off. I was not aware my hands were around her slender throat until Harlan prises them loose. Loren makes odd mewling noises and crawls away as my limbs thrash with delirious abandon and utter viciousness. Only Harlan’s greater physical weight enables him to restrain me and even then I nearly break free. I cannot blink; my eyes feel like they blaze white fire. Loren screeches from the ship’s far wall and slowly her screeches become words.

  “You cannot kill me, I am too precious; you cannot or all my horror will have been for nothing,” she cries.

  It is pity that calms me; pity for this wreck of a woman, this used up scrap of desiccated humanity. I kick for a while longer to wring the madness out and then let myself relax. Harlan strokes my hair.

  “We need her,” Harlan whispers as he kisses my neck.

  “I know,” I whisper back, too quietly for Loren to hear.

  Harlan slowly lets go and I walk over to Loren, who cowers.

  “How do we make my mother better?” I say.

  Loren peers up at me.

  “A virus sent to the file will corrupt it,” she says. “I-I will send it now. When the loop finishes she will wake up.”

  Loren blinks a few times and then nods nervously. I watch her for a while. She swallows.

  “You will sell VIA Holdings to me for one kilo,” I tell her.

  “Wha-? No, it’s not possible Charity; it is not just me who owns it. We guard against the very possibility of me or Bal or any of us being taken like this-”

  “Fulcrus then, sell me Fulcrus. That’s smaller and there won’t be as many stakeholders because you need to keep it secret.”

  “I cannot do that-”

  “Yes you can,” I say. “You don’t need Fulcrus now anyway. If you want to merge with Centria go right ahead but tell Bal to step down as Director of Security.”

  Loren shakes with fear
and reluctance but after a moment an option appears in my Aerac:

  Fulcrus: 1 kilo – BUY?

  I accept and a sub-routine opens showing Fulcrus operating patents and revenue calculations. I file them for now and call Keris. When she appears in a window on my eye screen I hear myself gasp with relief and triumph.

  “Charity,” Keris says. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes thanks. Balatar Descarreaux has stepped down as Director of Security. Please accept his resignation and get him out of Centria immediately.”

  Keris’s lovely violet eyes go out of focus for a moment and then fix on me again. I like the most powerful woman in the world doing what I say.

  “Done,” Keris says. “I never liked him anyway.”

  I go to tell her about Loren and stop. Before any conflict between VIA Holdings and Centria breaks out I need to make sure my sister is all right.

  “I’ll be back soon,” I say, “but I’d like Ursula home as well.”

  “I agree,” Keris says, “although she’ll have to keep a low profile. Do you think she can manage that?”

  “If I have to anaesthetise her,” I say.

  Keris smiles and ends the call.

  I send Mum a message that says:

  CALL ME NOW!

  I look at Loren as if I’ve just remembered her. She shakes and cries as I slowly raise my gun arm.

  “No!” Loren screams, “nooo-!”

  I cut her off with a level 1 stun bolt. She slumps disappointingly against the side of the ship. I let out a long sigh and turn to Harlan, who grins.

  “You really are surprisingly awful,” he says.

  “Your influence,” I say.

  “I wonder,” he says but looks pleased.

  I call Ursula but she still won’t answer so I send her a message:

  Get back to Centria, they will let you in

  My Aerac begins to accumulate profit from Fulcrus. The kilos seem dirty, as if they pollute those Keris and Anton gave me out of love. I try to decide what to do about Fulcrus and Loren but I’m too jumpy, too exhausted.

  Mum calls.

  “Charity?” she says, sounding irritable.