“Let me off away from the main entrance,” I say. “I want to just walk in quietly.”
“Whatever you say, beautiful.”
I let the compliment soak in. A response begins to form in my mind-
The bike spins. Blinding light. Centria is in the wrong direction. The outer wall races at me. I’m terrified but there’s no time to scream.
Shocking pain crunches in my shoulder. More lights.
People shout in my ear.
Harlan?
I’m on the cruelly hard floor. I try to clutch at it but my arms won’t work.
“Charity.”
A familiar voice. Who-?
“Charity, get up.”
“Harlan?” I say.
“He’s gone. He got away.”
“…Away…?”
“Charity, it’s Anton. Come on now.”
Anton Jelka looks down at me. He looks oddly ravaged although I’m the one on the ground.
“Got… got away? What do you mean?”
“You need to come with me Charity.”
Anton’s voice is firm.
“I can’t.”
“You can. You just moved both of your arms. Nothing’s broken.”
“What happened?”
“Come with me, please.”
I sit up. I’m surrounded by at least thirty Centrian guards who watch me closely.
“Fuze, right pocket,” says one.
Anton looks into my eyes.
“May I have that please?” he says.
I pull the stubby fuze out of my pocket and hand it to him.
“I’d like it back,” I tell him.
“Charity, you know there are no weapons allowed in Centria other than those operated by Security.”
He half turns to the guard who spoke and says, “Anything else? Explosives, monitors?”
“Nothing,” the guard says. “She’s clean.”
I get shakily to my feet.
“Where’s Harlan, Anton?” I ask.
“He left you. Now come with me.”
Anton walks along the great ring road away from the entrance to Centria. Up ahead, an opaque cylinder grows with a door in its curved surface. Inside I can see a chair with hand-sized globes on the end of each arm.
“In,” Anton says.
I walk into the cylinder, able to see out as if it isn’t there. Anton follows but the guards stay outside, surrounding the cylinder and facing it impassively. The door closes, silencing all exterior noise. Anton indicates the chair and I sit on it.
“I need to talk to Ursula,” I say.
“We’re keeping you outside Centria for now,” Anton says.
He stands with a slightly distracted look that tells me he’s reading something on his eye screens. Scared now, I look through the cylinder. To the right is the great curve of Centria’s outer wall with the ring road’s ellipse and three of the eight equally spaced link roads. I think of the train terminal on the other side of the outer chamber wall and people going where they want, a freedom I have suddenly been denied.
“Why don’t the trains come into Centria?” I ask nervously for something to say.
“Centria’s original purpose was as a final refuge,” Anton says distractedly. He focuses on me. “Hold the globes please.”
The globes don’t convey any sensation when I touch them, even when they start to glow.
“We were able to get footage from the club,” Anton says, “and of your journey to the hotel.”
I will not feel dirty.
I look up at Anton defiantly. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“Other than Harlan Akintan, did you meet anyone else at the hotel?”
“No,” I say.
Anton’s gaze goes in and out of focus. He nods.
“Did Harlan give you any instructions?”
“No.”
“Did he ask you to do anything?”
“Like what?”
“Anything pertaining to Centria.”
“No,” I say.
“Did you at any time do or say anything you felt could compromise Centria?”
“No.”
“Why did you meet him?” Anton says.
“He saved my life. And I like him.”
“You mentioned when we last spoke that you were following a lead. What was that lead and how did it develop?”
“I thought he could tell me something about the Guidance.”
“And could he?”
“He said it was some kind of ruling authority.”
“What evidence did he have?”
“None, it was just something he heard.”
“He was at two parties you organised. Why did you invite him?”
“I didn’t invite him.”
“Then why was he there?”
“For the girls.”
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“And no other reason.”
“No.”
“You spoke to him on both occasions.”
“Yes.”
“But you knew he shouldn’t have been there.”
“The Blanks shouldn’t have been there either Anton but-”
“The Blanks took us by surprise because VIA Holdings have no concept of security,” Anton says. “You’ve got no such excuse; on two occasions an unknown individual was in close and potentially lethal proximity to a key Centrian asset.”
I realise he means Ursula.
“At the first party I had no idea Harlan wasn’t meant to be there,” I say. “At the second he saved my life. I realise it was a mistake not to have told you Anton but if I hadn’t made it Balatar Descarreaux would have used me as a human shield and I would be dead.”
“Where did you go after the hotel?”
“To meet a friend of Harlan’s called Dodge69.”
“Why?”
“Harlan wanted to give me… the gun you took just now. It’s more powerful than a normal one. He said it was a gift.”
Anton looks worried, then turns abruptly and walks out. Unsure what to do I sit there uncomfortably.
The air before me begins to shine and a male figure takes shape. The head is sleek but looks like it could batter down a diamond wall, the hands resemble balls because they are clenched into fists and the grey light becomes a suit so expensive the patent can only be used once. As Gethen Karkarridan’s hologram completes its intimidatingly slow materialisation I’m so scared I forget to breathe.
Gethen devised the policy dictating that failure is punishable by expulsion from Centria. Failure is relative of course. Centria doesn’t just buy patents; it researches and develops them so there are acceptable tolerances of trial and error. How acceptable depends on what is agreed in advance and how profit is affected in the long and short term. The commercial seethe of Diamond City makes it hard to determine when a business disadvantage can flip to an advantage or vice versa. Gethen’s genius at intuiting financial trends makes him final arbiter of who stays and who goes.
Will I be going?
Gethen glares down at me; it’s the most emotion I’ve seen in him. I remember to breathe again and try to think of an appropriate greeting. Nothing comes.
“Did Harlan Akintan mention anyone else when you were with him?” Gethen says.
His voice is quiet. He does not blink.
“Only Dodge, his friend,” I say.
Gethen thinks for a moment.
“Not relevant,” he says. “Anyone else?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” I say.
“What did you find out about Harlan?”
“He’s rich. He rides a big flybike-”
Gethen shakes his head angrily and I stop talking.
“Did he say why he picked you?” Gethen says.
“What do you mean, ‘picked’-”
“Did… he… say… why… he… picked… you?”
“H-he he said I just happened.”
“Meaning?”
&
nbsp; “I thought he liked me.”
Gethen snorts.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I say.
His look makes it clear he disagrees. I swallow with difficulty.
“All I did was go on a date with a man who saved my life,” I say, my voice high as I try and stop myself chewing my lip. “What’s this about?”
Gethen isn’t listening.
“Gethen?”
He notices me again.
“You’re lucky,” he says. “If it was up to me you’d be out.”
Gethen’s hologram fades, his cold, unblinking eyes focusing on me until the last moment so I can still feel his gaze when he’s gone.
I get up, shaking. The door opens and I walk out as the cylinder is absorbed. Anton waits nearby with his guards.
“This way,” he says.
The guards crowd around me until I follow Anton along the ring road and through the great door into Centria. A Security cruiser waits, its spherical bulk obscuring the view. Anton walks onboard and four of the guards escort me after him. I sit next to Anton as the cruiser lifts off.
I expect us to go straight up to Security Control but instead we fly across the enclave. I look past the impassive guards who sit opposite me and through the side of the cruiser. We are past the Comms Tower and now cruise by the five great silver needles of Gethen’s Centrian Business Division. I shiver and turn away.
Presently, I see our unexpected destination is the assembly housing Ursula’s apartment. The assembly is an airborne tumble of enormous cubes that reveals a different set of stunning symmetries from every angle.
When we dock Anton gets up but stays where he is. I stand as well, feeling uncertain and clumsy. Anton nods to the door and I walk unsteadily off the cruiser.
Ursula waits on the docking platform outside her apartment wearing a black wraparound with too many tassels. Her worried expression reminds me of Anton’s.
“What is it?” I ask her.
Anton is in the doorway of the cruiser now. He and Ursula exchange a look and then the cruiser’s mirrored door slides shut. For a moment all I can see is my confused face above the unfamiliar jumpsuit and then the cruiser lifts away from the platform to disappear over Centria.
I turn to Ursula.
“Come inside,” she says.
She walks away without looking at me again. Nervously I follow her in.
The volume of her dwelling is at least five times that of Mum and Dad’s and twenty times the size of mine. She could have a standalone building or a whole assembly if she wanted but unlike me Ursula needs the proximity of other people at all times.
Of the ten rooms she owns she only uses one, which is the huge living space we stand in now. The others are stuffed with goods she thought she wanted and didn’t but can’t bring herself to deposit and gifts she feels she ought to keep even though she doesn’t like them. She enjoys the big living area because it’s got a view over the heart of Centria.
The heart of Centria is a strange, empty space. Diamond City is held up by a variety of devices, none of which is a thick pole connecting the top of the great sphere to the bottom. However, if such a structure existed then the heart of Centria would be at the middle, embodying an almost unimaginable concentration of pressure. The space seems aware of this perspective and a perversely relaxing, otherworldly calm emanates from it.
Ursula feels obliged to counteract this existential void with a staggering amount of over-ornate clutter, all of it expensive and none of it tasteful. Pictures of mythical whimsy, some of them featuring her in various unintentionally comic poses (Ursula The Mermaid! Ursula The Cloud!), clash with earnest sculptures like the brick in a sieve that’s there because Ursula thinks it ought to be rather than because she understands anything about it. The floor is a patchwork of tile and gem-studded carpet that radiates like an explosion from a ceramic copy of Ursula’s eye.
She turns to me.
“Oh baby,” she says.
“What is it?”
“Anton thought it would be better if I told you…”
A grunt of impatience escapes my throat.
“Harlan,” Ursula says hurriedly.
She states his name like a fact. I stare at her; she gulps and goes on.
“Anton and his nods have been going through the files Mum and Dad produced and found something earlier today, something deeply coded. It seems… I’m sorry Charity but Harlan Akintan is a spy, a spy for the New Form Enterprise.”
12
I twist in some kind of low rent immersive. The visual quality is poor and the content meaningless. The sensurround feels wrong; I seem to boil in my own skin. The only aural input is a series of attempted breaths that fail and fail.
I wake up. Ursula watches me, more concerned than I’ve ever seen her. The horrible memory erupts again and I’m back in the low rent immersive. There is no comforting darkness. Not even sleep can block out what’s happened.
* *
Through a haze I see Ursula in a different outfit that doesn’t suit her or maybe it does. She leans towards me.
“Just rest Charity. Here.”
Ursula takes my hand and pulls me slightly off a bed I don’t remember getting into. She presses my palm against the floor and I feel a drug from the Basis tingle through my system.
“This should help you. Get better. Take all the time you need.”
Dark.
* *
“Charity?”
Ursula again, but only her voice this time.
“Wake up honey. Charity!”
“For pity’s sake.”
Another voice: Bal. Why is he here? My eyes are open but I can’t see.
“Charity!” Ursula shouts.
I feel fingers on my eyes. Dull light enters and then flickers out.
“Don’t just play with her eyelids, hold them open,” Bal says.
More pressure on my eyes. Light again; everything is blurred.
“Charity?” Ursula says.
I try to speak but my throat seems filled with foul sticky plastic. I start to worry about Bal seeing me like this and then realise I don’t care. The pressure on my eyes is released.
“No good.”
“We’re running out of time,” Bal says. “It’s been two days. I can’t believe Ellery is letting this happen.”
“It’s not Ellery.”
Their voices fade with the light.
* *
I wake up and look around. Ursula isn’t here. I’m on a bed, presumably giffed on the spot where I fell. I feel incredibly weak, as if Harlan has taken something essential from me.
I move and immediately regret it. The most vicious simulated battle loss would not make me feel as defeated, sick and physically sore as I do now. My heart seems to have enlarged itself to become an echo chamber for every unhappy thought.
I push myself upright. The ifarm lurks like a headache; the one part of it I can tolerate is the date. Although I’ve been unconscious for three days I don’t feel rested. Memories of Harlan, Dad, Mum in a coma and the Blanks’ attack remain terribly clear. They sit inside me, as undeniable as the end of the world.
I call Harlan. I don’t expect him to reply but he does instantly and appears on my eye screen. His expression is hard but has a sadness I realise was there all along.
“Harlan,” I say, “are you a spy for the New Form Enterprise?”
“Yes.”
My body creases to wring the grief out and tears blur everything so he is just a shadow. It’s hard to speak but I force out the words.
“Why?” I say. “Why me?”
“Because I am trying to do good.” His voice cracks. “Because we came together as if we were meant to-”
CENTRIA SECURITY INTERCEPT:
CALL TERMINATED.
A hologram of Anton Jelka appears in front of me.
“Are you mad?” he asks.
“I had to hear him say it.”
“The NFE are opposed to everything we stand for Charity. H
arlan Akintan will kill you if you get in his way or if he thinks it will advance his cause. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Am I going to be fired Anton?”
“Not this time, but you are running out of chances.” He hesitates. “You need to be much more careful Charity, please.”
If I didn’t know better I’d think that ‘please’ sounded almost tender. The hologram of Anton fades.
Out of breath and giddy, I stare dully at an empty patch of wall and then get slowly out of bed. I deposit the now-embarrassing red jumpsuit. Naked, I feel shapeless, stale and small, as if I have been used up.
I shuffle through a connecting doorway into Ursula’s shower. Its many heads on multiple waving stalks seek out individual target areas and blast me from all sides. As my hair lifts, fans and ripples in the flow I don’t know if it’s hot water from the shower or tears pouring down my face. The shower ought to feel good but doesn’t so I shut it off and step out.
I grow my usual business suit straight onto me. The familiarity is disappointing. I sit at Ursula’s table and look out over Centria, which seems reduced somehow. Still shaky, I grow a mug of Soupergaz and gulp it down. It hits my innards like a cramp.
Ursula calls.
“Charity!” she says when she sees me.
I run the back of a trembling hand over my mouth.
“Food…” I mumble.
“You haven’t eaten for days. I was going to force-feed you some canapés I got from this filthy party on Wednesday but Bal said that suit you had on would take care of you, so I ate them. Sorry. How are you anyway?”
“Quite… bad.”
“Don’t move. I’m nearly home.”
I watch the empty mug disappear back into the table and check the call to Dad, which is still unanswered, and the system that monitors Mum, which shows no change.
Ursula walks in and rushes over to grab me. I’m pinned against her awkwardly but don’t move.
“You poor little thing,” she says. “Men! I mean they’re fun but honestly…”
“’S all right,” I say.
“You look good though,” she says. “Thinner. Very poetic. Very you.”
Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) Page 8
