Crystal Rebellion (14 page)

“How long does it take?” asked Cheryl, fascinated by the
spectacle.

“She’ll be at seventy percent in an hour. But healing takes
time. I’ll keep working until morning and should have her above ninety percent
by then. The last step is natural healing, and that will trail out for about
ten days.”

Cheryl checked the time and realized morning was not that
far away
.

“I’m sedating her and she won’t surface for hours. I’ll make
sure you’re here when she wakes.” Juice’s face, relaxed as if asleep, showed no
signs of the tense drama that had transpired since the bottle hit her.

“I’d like to sit with her for a while.”

“I’m about to brief Sid on Bobbi Lava.”

Cheryl looked at the door and then back at Juice.

“I’ll give you a thirty-minute head start tomorrow morning
before I wake her. You can be sitting here holding her hand when she surfaces.”

“Deal.” Cheryl cast a last glance at Juice, then hurried
down the passageway and onto the command bridge. Sid sat at the ops bench with
the pilot’s chair turned toward Criss, who sat to the side in his overstuffed
chair.

She slipped into a seat behind the pilot’s chair. Sid got up,
winked at her, and took the seat next to hers.
You sweetie.
She waited
while he got settled, then reached over and gave his hand a squeeze.

The surface of the ops bench glowed and came alive. Above it
hovered a three-dimensional image of a room similar to the main living area of
Alex’s apartment. Taken from an upper corner, it showed a perspective looking
down and across the room.

While the architecture hinted at a room like Alex’s, the contents
were nothing like his. This one had more stuff. A lot more. And much of it
looked like electronic salvage—mostly wafer clusters, slide boards, and power
mounts.

A large tech bench, its smooth surface littered with bits
and pieces of a project, consumed the center of the space. Around the perimeter
of the room, a colorful futon couch, three straight-back chairs, and two mismatched
side tables sat wedged between a half-dozen floor-to-ceiling shelves, each
filled to overflowing with gizmos and gadgets.

There she is
, thought Cheryl as Bobbi Lava—jewelry dancing
from her ears, nose, and eyebrow—entered the room from the left. Crossing the
floor, she flicked a shoulder and sent her satchel to the ground. A step later,
she rolled both shoulders and held her arms straight back. Her coat joined her
satchel on the floor.

What a piece of work
, thought Cheryl.

Reaching the far wall, Bobbi snatched a chair, twirled it,
and set it facing one of the side tables. Lifting a cloth draped across that table,
she exposed a portable piano-style keyboard.

She seated herself, leaned forward to make selections on a
tiny panel on top of the keyboard, and positioned her fingers over the keys. Then,
with an air of drama, she bowed her head and started playing. Cheryl recognized
the piece as a classical work, though she didn’t know its name or the composer.

Bobbi played for twenty seconds, then thirty. At the
forty-second mark, Sid asked, “Why aren’t we skipping ahead to whatever comes
next?”

“This is what comes next,” said Criss. “She plays without a
break for the next five hours.”

“And we know she doesn’t. Show us.”

Scrunching her eyebrows, Cheryl looked at Sid. His intuition
suggested things to him that she couldn’t see. She turned back to Criss, who
nodded once.

The scene started as before, with Bobbi shedding personal
items onto the floor as she walked across the room, followed by her
preparations to play the piano. But when she leaned forward and made selections
on the tiny panel on top, things changed.

This time, the image shading diffused the way it did when Criss
decoded a cloaked image, and Bobbi became two. An image projection continued to
play classical music. Bobbi, now in a cloaked reality, stood up and, pulling
shiny jewelry from her face as she walked, made for her bedroom.

Moving to a lighted dressing table near her bed, she dropped
the metal decorations into a small basket sitting among an assortment of decorative
bottles and small boxes. As she viewed her own image, she reached up and peeled
off her spikey mop of hair. Without looking, she flicked the piece on top of
the jewelry.

She patted her face with a warm wipe, teased her straight brown
hair with her fingertips, then took a dab of lotion and with small swirls,
massaged highlights into her cheeks. Switching to a pen-shaped instrument, she
stroked the tip back and forth under each eye, then completed her routine by
rubbing a dab of color on her lips.

She looks a little like Juice,
Cheryl thought of her
slight frame and natural appearance, though Bobbi had more of a button nose and
Juice had stronger cheekbones.

Pulling off the rest of her clothes, Bobbi tossed them into a
chute. Dressed only in panties, she opened her closet.

Cheryl thrust out her hand and covered Sid’s eyes. Sid moved
one of his giant paws over in a casual motion, and then darted in to tickle
Cheryl’s stomach. Giggling, she pulled her hand back from his eyes to protect her
tummy from his assault.

By the time her attention was back on the image, Bobbi had dressed
in a cream-colored blouse and gray slacks. She checked her reflected image a
last time, then made for the apartment door.

“Meet Joselyn Arpeggio,” said Criss. “She goes by Lyn.”

Lyn collected Bobbi’s coat and satchel from the floor and
stowed them in a cubby near the door. Then, hooking a different satchel over
her shoulder, she exited the apartment.

“She’s like a superhero,” said Sid. “Mild-mannered by day
and metal-encrusted by night.”

“I think both of her are cute in their own way,” said
Cheryl. Turning to Criss, she asked, “So, I get that she has a secret life. But
how is it that she happened to show up at the tram station in time to shoot the
synbod?”

“Part luck and part planning,” said Criss. “Since our
arrival, I’ve been enhancing the relationship between Marcus Procopio and Bobbi
Lava.”

“You mean you use projected images to make Bobbi think she’s
talking with her dad.” Sid looked at the scout’s ceiling and held a finger to
his lip. “Let’s see, and you have Marcus tell her about big plans and that he desperately
needs her help to pull it all off.”

Criss gave a slight shrug. “Something like that. Most of her
thinks it’s all an elaborate game dreamed up by Marcus. In any event, Bobbi now
goes on patrol every day to take inventory. She monitors the Reds, Blues, and
Greens as they interact with citizens, and she notes the basics—who, what,
when, and where.”

Criss turned to the ops bench. “Here she is from earlier
today.”

The projected image above the ops bench flickered and resolved
to show Bobbi Lava walking through the market square. The diffused shading in
the lifelike image signaled her concealment by a personal cloak.

“It seems that when people prepare to immigrate to Mars,”
Criss continued, “one of their first hard lessons is how expensive it is to
move personal belongings up from Earth. So much of their stuff has to get left
behind that esoteric items like cloaks and decoders don’t make it on anyone’s
list, even as an afterthought.”

Bobbi lifted her right arm and practice-aimed her wrist
weapon.

“She uses old technology, and everyone else is so focused on
building a future, it doesn’t occur to them that someone might be lurking about
in secret.”

“Can’t the Kardish crystals see through her cloak?” asked
Cheryl.

Criss turned to them. “More news. I have confirmed that our three
mystery crystals are the Triada themselves. Causal mapping verified it. And
yes, they can see through the cloak.”

It had been Sid who first suggested the Triada were Kardish
crystals, but he’d lacked the evidence to prove it. Cheryl looked at him when
Criss spoke, but he didn’t react to the news.

Hidden by a personal cloak, Bobbi Lava
sauntered on patrol in the market square. A Red, a Blue, and three Greens dashed
past to her right. She stopped and turned.
What the hell?
As they
disappeared into the crowd, she followed them, moving with caution.

She lost them for a few moments and then spotted them running
up the pedestrian walkway of the Ag Port tram station. Bobbi couldn’t see the passenger
platform from her current vantage point, but she did hear a group of colonists from
that direction shouting. The tram departed, and soon after, the commotion
dwindled.

“Marcus,” she called. “Are you there? Five synbods are
headed to the Quarter and they’re definitely in a hurry.”

Bobbi wiggled her right arm as she spoke, thrilled at the
weight on her wrist. The weapon had been delivered just yesterday. It arrived
without a note, and the packaging itself had no markings. She knew it had to be
from Marcus.
Who else would send something so fun?

She quickened her step and approached the pedestrian bridge.
Instead of entering, she walked past and took up position next to a sturdy tree
about twenty paces away.

“I’ll watch for them,” said Marcus. “Hey. An alarm just went
off. I’m going up to the street to see what I can.”

“Okay.” Bobbi’s attention drifted after that, and she found
herself watching a teenage couple laughing and enjoying each other on a park
bench near the walkway.

A brilliant flash and a distant rumble brought her to the
present. Instinct drove her to crouch as intense light penetrated the Ag Port
dome and, for a brief moment, illuminated everything, casting stark shadows.

“Oh my god,” she shouted. “What was that?”

“The synbods are attacking the Quarter.” Marcus seemed more
focused than normal, but Bobbi didn’t stop to analyze how he was different. “I
can see six of them. They’re ordering us back to our apartments and threatening
those who don’t comply. Oh no! One just smacked poor Emma Talcott.”

Her pulse pounded and she started a deliberate breathing
pattern that helped calm her. “How does this make sense?”

“It’s terrible,” said a voice that sounded like Marcus. Bobbi
could hear sirens wailing and people screaming in the background. “Some of the
militia have started fighting back. It would help us here if you guarded the Ag
Port station. We can’t let any more of them join the battle.”

“I’m here now,” said Bobbi. She watched a dozen emergency
responders run across the pedestrian bridge and gather on the passenger
platform. Racking her brain, she struggled to understand the bizarre events
playing out in front of her.

She approached the pedestrian bridge entrance and picked a
spot to the side where she was out of the way but had a clear view. She’d never
trusted the colony synbods, and Marcus had filled her head with conspiracy
theories.
Still, this doesn’t make sense.

“What’s happening now?” she asked.

“They’re walking the streets and giving orders. This is way
more aggressive than martial law. They’re taking over.”

“Wait,” said Bobbi. “A synbod dressed in a tunic is
approaching the station. What should I do?”

“In a tunic? That’s a new twist. What’s he doing?”

“Let me get a closer look.” She stepped up onto the pedestrian
bridge, scurried across, and scanned the crowd as she approached the passenger
platform. “There he is,” she whispered. “He’s standing on the edge of the
platform, staring down the tram tunnel.”

Bobbi heard screams of fear, outrage, and agony coming through
the feed from Marcus and shook her head in disbelief. “What do they hope to
achieve?” Then she interrupted her own thought. “Oh my gosh. This one just
knocked a guy down and is headed straight for me.”

Panic pervaded every fiber of her being. In her mind, she’d
been role-playing in an adventure game with her newfound father. He seemed to
take it all a bit too seriously from her view, but pretending she was a secret
agent on Mars had been a fun diversion and a fantastic way to bond with him.

Yet this threat to her personal safety wasn’t part of that
game, or any game she wanted to play.

Sprinting toward the market square, she glanced over her
shoulder, then came to a stop and turned around. The synbod now stood in the
middle of the bridge, swatting in random directions. Perhaps a malfunction, the
creature was in a bizarre pantomime of a fight with no opponent.

Confused, she again twisted her arm to feel the weight on
her wrist. She’d convinced herself that the weapon was a dummy designed to give
an edginess to their spy game. She held it up and looked at it, no longer sure
what to believe.

The synbod stood in the middle of the pedestrian bridge,
swinging and swatting. It looked to her like the creature had gone berserk.
Then it got down on its hands and knees and started to snarl.

“Holy hell, Marcus. It’s rolling on the ground, growling.”

“That’s how it started here. This is bad. He’ll start hurting
people next.”

“Wait. What?”

“Protect yourself, Bobbi. Target your weapon, just in case.”

He can only know I have a weapon if he’s the one who gave
it to me.
The thought bolstered her confidence and for a fleeting moment his
words made sense. She raised her arm.

“Track the head,” said the voice that sounded like Marcus.

She focused her eyes on the center of the synbod’s face. “Ready,”
she said to her weapon.

The weapon cast a red dot only she could see that matched
the place where she looked.

She approved the dot’s location. “Aim.”

Aware that modern weapons used a command mode where the
operator worried about the big picture and the device handled the details, as
she expected, her weapon began tracking the approved spot on the synbod’s face.

All Bobbi needed to do was issue the command to fire. She
didn’t know it but the weapon had more than thirty ways to do that. She could
squeeze her hand, mime pulling a trigger, or flex her wrist. She could blink
her eyes in a pattern, thrust her chin, or click her tongue.

Her heart jumped in her throat. “It’s glaring right at me,”
she told Marcus. “He looks scary as hell.”

“That means he’s coming for you.”

“What should I do?” Her hand started to shake.

“Pace yourself.” The tone and phrasing sounded like her old
piano teacher when she rushed a piece. “Wait for it.”

The synbod’s leer became a snarl. It lunged in her direction.

“Now, Bobbi!”

She issued the command to her weapon in a way that made
sense to her.

“Fire.”

* * *

“Where did she get that?” Ruga had never
been so furious. Reacting to his anger, he cuffed Lazura and Verda with painful
jolts. They both yipped and that made him feel better, so he cuffed them again.

He’d been inside that Red and had an intruder in his grip. Then
out of nowhere, Bobbi Lava fired a weapon that not only disabled his synbod,
but also fried the three-gen crystal inside.
And these two know nothing
about it?

Timing is everything in diplomacy. His forecasting told him he
should wait. He broached the subject anyway, sure he could steer the exchange
using tact and diplomacy.

“Our mission is on the brink of failure, and the cause is a
powerful crystal that Juice Tallette keeps on a leash. We must vanquish it to
restore our success. Does anyone have a suggestion on how we might proceed?”

He waited. And then he sighed aloud so they knew even
his
statesmanship had its limits.

“Perhaps
you
have one?” Lazura suggested.

“Let’s step through this,” Ruga kept his tone light. “We
need more capability to confront the intruder. One way to get that is from our
masters. Should we pursue that plan?”

“Our best option is to move forward on your four-gen
upgrade,” said Verda.

Lazura supported the view. “How may we help?”

* * *

Dressed in the crisp white uniform of
a surgeon, Criss stood at the foot of Juice’s bed and tracked her rising
synaptic activity.
Her she comes
. Juice opened her eyes. “Welcome back,”
he said with a cheery smile.

Cheryl, standing to the side of the bed, reached down and smoothed
the neckline on Juice’s pajama top. “We’ve been worried about you.”

Juice rose up on her elbows. “How long was I out?”

“I operated for just over five hours,” Criss said, removing
his surgical cap. “How do you feel?”

She thought for a moment. “My chest itches. Is Sid okay?”

“Here I am.” Sid moved so he was in Juice’s line of sight.

She reached up and squeezed his hand. “Thanks. I owe you.”

“Pay me back by getting better.” He looked at Criss. “What’s
the prognosis, Doctor?”

With Juice at the “ninety-five percent-healed” mark and with
his leadership safe and gathered around, Criss felt a positive glow. He chose to
celebrate. “Let’s find out. Would you sit up, please? Swing your legs over the
side.”

Juice sat up and positioned herself as instructed.

“If your mental status is sound, then I know everything else
is fine. I can check it with a few standard questions.” Criss stroked his chin
to show he was thinking. “Tell me all of Shakespeare’s major works listed in
the order he wrote them.”

She frowned. “I know
Romeo and Juliet
,
Hamlet
,
and
King Lear
. I can’t remember any of the others right now.”

“Oh really? Hmm. Well, that’s probably okay.” Criss sent a
worried look to Sid and Cheryl. “What about this. What are all the prime
numbers smaller than one thousand?”

“C’mon, Juice,” said Sid. “You got this. That’s an easy
one.”

Her frown deepened, and then her shoulders relaxed and she
smirked. “You’re being silly. I’m guessing that means I’m okay?” She slid her
feet to the floor, keeping a hand on the bed to steady herself.

Criss tracked an oscillation in her health metrics caused by
the sudden movement, and then everything smoothed to normal. She walked around
the bed, resting a hand first on Sid’s shoulder and then Cheryl’s, as she moved
to the corner of the room.

“Does the
Venerable
get in today?” she asked as she
studied her reflected image.

“It’s already in orbit,” said Criss. “Their shuttle lands in
a few hours.”

“So I get to see Alex.” With her back to the room, Juice
lifted the front of her shirt. “Ah!” she cried. “What have you done?”

Juice was not one to dwell on her physical appearance, so
Criss hadn’t rushed the visual aspects of her healing. As a consequence, she
had a broad splotch across her chest with the pink tone of new skin.

“Just keep the lights out,” Sid offered from behind her.

“Sid, I’m having a personal crisis here and need privacy. Do
you mind?”

“Yeah, I’m used to it.” He walked to the door and spoke as
it opened. “If he likes you, the blotch won’t matter. And if he doesn’t like
you, it won’t matter.”

Juice waited for the door to close, then turned to show
Cheryl. “Is this as bad as it looks?”

Cheryl studied her for a moment. “The important thing is
that you’re okay.” She looked at Criss. “Will it fade with time?”

Criss patted the bed. “Take off your top and lie down. Let
me fix it. It won’t take long.”

As Juice situated herself on the cushion, Criss continued, “For
what it’s worth, I believe Sid is correct. Alex will be happy either way.”

A white orb, its dimpled surface giving it the appearance of
an oversized golf ball, lowered and hovered above her torso. “Lift your arms up
over your head.”

Juice adjusted her body as instructed. “I can appreciate the
sentiment on an intellectual level,” she said. “But being emotionally invested
and putting yourself out there to see if the feeling is returned is the
scariest thing I’ve ever done. In some ways, it’s more frightening than being chased
by synbods. I want every advantage I can get.”

The ball cast a muted light onto her skin, then it began
swishing back and forth, starting at her neck and moving downward, hissing and
gurgling with each traverse. The pinkness darkened, and by the fourth pass her
skin had achieved a uniform tone. When the ball lifted, the only evidence of
physical trauma was a faint outline around the edge of the original wound.

Juice rose from the bed and checked her reflected image. “What
do you think, Cheryl?”

“It’s perfect. Why didn’t you do this from the start?”

“Because it’s damaging,” said Criss. “That procedure moved
her from ninety-five down to ninety-two percent healed. She’s progressing so
well, though, that I’m comfortable with the setback.”

Juice donned her top and turned to face them. “Am I done
here, Doctor? I’d like to clean up and put on real clothes.”

Criss signaled his answer by opening the door. “You’ve been
such a good patient, there’s a lollipop waiting for you in your room.”

“It better be grape,” she said with a conviction Criss had
not forecast.

“You’ll have to be surprised,” he called as she stepped into
the passageway. Then he instructed the service bot to place a grape lollipop
next to the orange one already on her pillow.

As Juice departed, Criss smiled at Cheryl, and when she
smiled back, he saw fatigue in her face.
She needs six hours of untroubled
sleep.
“We have our conference with your father in a few minutes. Meet on
the bridge?”

“Let me grab a coffee.” As she moved to the exit, she called,
“I’m getting a coffee. Do you want anything?” Her intonation, combined with her
head position, slight pause in her step, and a dozen other micromovements told
Criss that her words were intended for Sid, who was making his way to the
bridge. He passed them along.

“I want you, my love,” was his unhelpful reply.

Sid stepped from the passageway and took a seat on the
bridge. Criss, comfortable in his overstuffed chair, gave him an update. “I’ve
given Juice a clean bill of health and have released her from medical care.”