Crystal Rebellion (30 page)

But the scout transferred this power to its owner in part through
the fearsome arsenal Criss had installed. Verifying that these weapons would
respond to his command remained the last item on his inspection tour.

Looking straight ahead, he took a deep breath, exhaled, and willed
himself to relax. Instruments around the ship read his physical signals, recast
them into Criss’s simulated reality, and projected that through field
manipulation into his brain.

Criss had used Sid’s and Cheryl’s natural styles to guide
the development of what they both agreed was a wonderful ops interface. Flying through
the sky in a virtual world, they could analyze something by looking at it,
shoot energy bolts by shaking their fists, lift great weights with the crook of
their finger, and fly anywhere they wanted just by willing it. They’d practiced
controlling their thoughts just so, and now they were able to use this
interface to make the scout respond to their intent as if it were a part of
them.

The scout’s thought reader engaged Sid, and he found himself
in orbit around Earth, flying through space with Cheryl flying off to his left.
While in Criss’s simulated world, they both were in what should be a cold,
merciless vacuum. To Sid, who flew like a rocket-man though he wore nothing but
regular clothes, it felt warm and comfortable, not unlike a spring afternoon on
the back patio at the leadership lodge.

Dressed in a gold formfitting outfit, Cheryl cruised nearby.
Her brow was lowered just enough to reflect her concentration as she piloted
the scout. Yet the sun lit her face with soft highlights, and a gentle breeze—impossible
where there was no air—somehow ruffled a wisp of her hair.

Seeing Sid, she waved. With her arms stretched in front of her,
she dipped her shoulder and swooped in his direction, slowing as she moved into
formation by his side. “Would it be too much to wear capes?” she asked with an
ebullient grin.

“We need to blow something up,” he replied.

Her expression darkened.

“We should confirm we have a hot arsenal,” he explained. “We
don’t want to find ourselves in a tough spot and learn we’re shooting blanks.”

“You think he’d do that? Give us all this but turn off the
good stuff?” She shook her head. “I don’t see it. And if we start firing
weapons, he
and
Ruga will see. We could end up losing the scout. Ourselves,
too, if we’re not careful.”

Sid agreed in principle but still believed it necessary—or
at least prudent—to test the weapons. “How about if we shift to a polar orbit?
I’d be happy to blow up a couple of icebergs.” He gave her a winning smile. “No
one will miss them. I promise.”

She paused. “Okay. But when they work, I get a wish.”

His favorite game, Sid didn’t hesitate. “Agreed.”

As Cheryl predicted, the scout’s energy bolts disintegrated
huge swaths of ice on command. When they retired that night, she announced her
wish. To his delight, it matched his desire. She’d learned the game from Juice,
and Sid made a mental note to thank her when she returned. For now, though, he
focused on making Cheryl’s wish come true.

Before dawn, Cheryl started her first shift in what became a
tag-team round-the-clock patrol. Orbiting Earth, they worked a standard
two-person schedule of twelve hours on and twelve hours off, watching and waiting
for something to happen. He didn’t see her for the next week except at shift
change. And neither of them saw anything approaching what one might expect if a
battle for control of Earth had begun.

Cheryl said it first. “This isn’t sustainable.”

They became practical after that, taking shorter shifts and using
automated detection systems when both were off duty. The days blurred together,
and then Sid surprised Cheryl by joining her in flight during a shift.

“Hey stranger,” she said. “What’s up?”

She looked spectacular, flying in a green and yellow outfit with
tufts behind the shoulders that looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a
cape. He’d spruced up, wearing an outfit reminiscent of the Fleet formal attire
they’d worn back in the day. It was a small gesture on his part since he only
needed to think of the idea for the transformation to occur.

“Moon Madness is what’s up,” he said, rubbing his hands
together at the prospect of a diversion.

No longer limited to gathering data using sight and sound, he
focused a thought on tracking the rocket racers and learned that the lead pack had
started its loop around Earth.

Accessing her own information feeds, Cheryl nodded. “Got ’em.”
She canted and dove. “We have the best seats in the house. Let’s do this right.”
She guided them into a new trajectory and Sid followed, her excitement adding
to his own.

“Do you think Kyle’s going to cheat?” asked Cheryl.

He nodded. “Yup.”

“Why do they let him? And since they do, is it even
cheating?”

“Some say yes and some say no.” He shrugged. “His attorney finds
these tiny ambiguities in the rules, and he pulls and twists at them until they
become loopholes. That’s what Kyle flies through. The commission rewrote the entire
rule set this year just to stop his antics.”

“And he’ll still cheat?”

“Here they come.” Sid pointed to a flicker of reflected sun on
the horizon behind them. As he and Cheryl accelerated to match the course and
speed of the racers, he responded to her question. “He’s made a fortune from
his bad-boy image. Flouting rules is what bad boys do.”

They aligned themselves above the lead pack. The ferocious
power of the racing machines shook Sid’s body and a roar filled his ears. Enjoying
the commotion, he grinned like a schoolboy, causing Cheryl to laugh.

They jockeyed forward until they hovered just above a cherry-red
ship with the words
Lucky Lady
emblazoned in gold down the nose.

“That’s nothing more than a pilot’s seat fused to a rocket
engine,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s insanity.”

Covered by a clear cowl, Kyle Pickett sat at a tiny ops
bench. And though he was alone, he screamed and gesticulated the way one does
when in a terrible argument. Sid couldn’t imagine what the disagreement was about
or who it was with, but it ended with the
Lucky Lady
separating from the
other racers.

“You called it,” said Cheryl. “Let’s stay with the bad boy.”

As she followed Kyle, their separation from the others grew.
The silhouette of the
Andrea
loomed, and while the lead pack tracked
above the space factory, Kyle moved below it.

They stayed with him into the shadow of the
Andrea
,
and as the structure loomed next to them, Sid thought he saw men clinging to the
outside shell of the complex. Before he could confirm it, though, twin flashes activated
his threat response display.

The product of long hours working with Criss, the customized
interface helped him identify and assess threats, and provided him defensive
and offensive response options he could execute as fast as he could think of
them. He’d practiced until, like muscle memory, using it became reflex. And this
is what guided him in his next sequence of actions.

The flashes were from an energy weapon, with bolts directed
at the
Andrea
. Their destructive impact sent sparks flying in a
brilliant display. Sid identified the source of the attack as twin cannons on a
nearby Fleet ready-platform.

Friendly fire.
The twin bolts came from a Fleet
vessel, and his forensic trace could not detect a malfunction.
Someone fired
that weapon on purpose
.

Life-giving air burst from
Andrea
’s containment shell
and started accumulating into a frozen gas cloud. And then the twin cannons on
the Fleet ready-platform powered-up for a second shot. And still he could not
identify a perpetrator.

Only one creature was capable of such wanton evil while
maintaining perfect anonymity.
Ruga
.

Reacting, Sid pointed a finger and a narrow beam melted the
gun’s trigger mechanism, rendering the twin weapon useless. Certain there was
more to come, he searched for the next threat.

There.
On the planet below, three mountaintop weapons
arrays ramped to fire. Sid’s scalp tingled when he realized that the scout was
in the center of the hole they were about to blow open in the sky.

Throwing his hands forward, he launched a trio of energy
pulses that disabled the weapons arrays before they could disable him.

“Stop!” said Cheryl, tugging on his arm. Criss had given the
scout the ability to see things he didn’t want others to know. In this case, it
found something they didn’t expect. She pointed to her display. “That’s Criss’s
private protocol. He’s the one shooting.”

Sid looked at the
Andrea
, still leaking air into
space. “What’s he doing?”

“Ruga must be on board.” Her voice rose as she gained
confidence in the conclusion. “Why else would Criss be trying to destroy it?”

Pulling her arm back, Cheryl drew a bead on the orbiting
factory. “We need to finish this.”

Sid’s instincts intervened. “No, Ruga’s not there. We’ll
just hurt more people.”

Frustrated by his impotence and discouraged that he may have
helped Ruga escape, Sid acknowledged a need for a different approach. “Juice arrives
in a couple of days. Let’s stop this until we hear from her.”

Juice had misgivings about the
separation, but two of the most important people in her life wanted her to do
it and she wanted to please them.

In particular, Criss needed his independence to free up
resources for his fight with Ruga. Things seemed to be heating up on that front,
though most of what she knew she learned secondhand through Cheryl.

Alex wanted her free of Criss during their trip home so he
could rekindle a relationship with her alone, the woman he’d first come to
love. He’d taken the time to express his desire with sincerity and care, and she
thought it more romantic than just about anything that had ever happened to her.

And in truth, she wanted to prove to herself that she was
the same person without Criss. “I hereby forsake thee,” she said to him, trying
to show bravado with flippant humor.

Unlike when she’d been angry and given him the silent
treatment, here she imposed a hard separation. Criss wouldn’t even know she existed,
let alone be a member of his leadership, until she called him back. She and
Alex would have only each other.

They had booked the last room on the
Explorer
and laughed
when they learned it was the honeymoon suite. Their self-appointed mission was
to transport the Triada back to Earth. Still in the rucksack, the three
crystals were now stowed under the honeymoon bed.

As the ship accelerated out of Mars orbit to start the
journey home, they joined Captain Hardaway, his crew, and twenty other
passengers for the ship’s signature Bon Voyage Barbeque party. There they met
some of the other passengers, who were all much older than Juice and Alex, with
interests centered on standard cruise items: dinner menus, table seating,
cocktail service, and gambling.

So Juice and Alex had the run of the ship, or at least the
run of those amenities not part of the food and gambling agenda. The first two
days were a dream come true.

They talked about everything and anything—from the future of
artificial intelligence to whether schoolchildren should be taught using
immersive technology or old-style classrooms. And they fretted together about how
the world might look by the end of their voyage if Criss did not prevail,
though they both felt certain he would.

And then Juice’s world collapsed. In an unexpected move, Cheryl
and Sid ordered a permanent split with Criss, too.

No!
Her mind swirled in confusion and fear. Of
everything bad she had imagined might happen in the coming weeks—and with Ruga
that list was substantial—this had never been even a passing thought on her
horizon. She sat on the edge of her bed, staring but not seeing, and fighting
to control her panic. A gamut of emotions flooded through her—denial, fury,
vulnerability, fear. But it was grief that took hold and started to grow,
edging out everything else until it was all she knew. It stabbed through her
heart and into her soul.

Alex found her curled on their bed, eyes puffy and red. He’d
been at a Fun with Fungus class—the first in a series of shipboard workshops
arranged by the cruise line as entertainment for the passengers—so she could
have privacy during her chat with Cheryl.

“Are you all right?” His voice anxious, Alex sat on the edge
of the bed and rubbed her back. “What happened?” When she remained silent, he
shifted so he was kneeling on the floor with his head near hers and whispered,
“Tell me.”

“Criss is gone,” she replied, the words barely audible.

“I’m sorry I had you separate from him, Jessica,” he said,
using her given name. “I didn’t realize the implications. Let’s get him back. I’m
fine with it. Really.”

She gained strength from his comforting tone and used it to
will herself upright. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, she wiped
under her eyes with her fingertips. “He broke with Sid and Cheryl, too.”

“Wait, no.” Understanding dawned. “How will you get him back,
then?”

They both believed that her separation from Criss, though absolute
and complete for the voyage home, would not be permanent. At any time, Sid or
Cheryl could order Criss to disable the source filter he’d used to scrub Juice from
his feeds. Once she was visible to him, his loyalty imprint would naturally restore
her to leadership.

“With all of us out, I can’t see a way back.” Her voice
broke as she spoke.

“We’ll figure this out, J. This is fixable. There has to be
a way.”

“I’m not so sure.” Scooting off the bed, she began to pace
on the short strip of floor between the door out to the hallway and the suite’s
bathroom.
Every puzzle has an answer, please let me see it.

She couldn’t, though, but chose to act anyway. “I won’t
accept this.” Drying her eyes on her shirt sleeve, she faced the door.

“Where are you going?” called Alex as she stepped into the
hall.

“To figure it out,” she replied, so deep in thought that she
reached the stairs before realizing how rude she’d been to dismiss him so.

Down a level, she looped back, turned a corner, and stopped
at a door labeled
Library
. She’d
passed by it a number of times and had never seen anyone inside. Signaling it
open, she stepped into a closet-sized space big enough for a utility bench, three
chairs, and a lingering, musty smell.

“Please don’t let it end this way,” she whispered as she
sat.
Swipe
. She touched the bench surface and the interface came alive. Scanning
the selections, she considered what action to take.

Modern libraries depended on two foundational technologies—communication
and integration. They needed to be linked to every source of information, and
they needed to organize and present information so it was understandable to the
patron.

Poking at the interface, she tested different ways to boost
the signal strength between the
Explorer
and Earth, figuring that it would
give her more options. After several hours of intense concentration, she
succeeded in increasing the power by less than one percent.

Her frustration spiked and she slammed her fist on the bench
surface.

“Calm down.” She said it out loud, then leaned back so her
head poked into the hall. Looking both ways, she was relieved to see that no
one had witnessed her tirade.

She contacted Cheryl to brainstorm, but after a short
conversation, Cheryl added to her burden. “Sid and I are on extended patrol.
I’ll always get back to you, you know that. But there will be long delays for
the foreseeable future.”

Juice felt more alone than ever before.

Alex brought her sandwiches and tea at midnight. “How’s it
going?”

She rose and gave him a long hug. He enveloped her in his
arms and held her until she lifted her head. “To have him out there and know I
can never talk is so painful.” She buried her face in his chest. “I can’t lose
him.”

“What have you tried so far?”

“I’ve confirmed that his source filters are working
perfectly. Well, nothing I do can get past it, anyway. I’ve sent messages that
say some variation of ‘Hey, Criss. It’s Juice. Remember me?’ every way I can
think of, but he hasn’t reacted.”

She picked up a sandwich and took a bite, then sipped the
tea. “I included personal information about him to confirm I’m an insider. I
sent it through conduits only a real insider would know. I put it in places he
couldn’t miss. And I varied the message to see if that mattered.”

Shaking her head, she sat down at the utility bench. “It
didn’t. He didn’t react that I could tell, which makes me think he didn’t see
any of it.”

“Can I sit with you while you work? I’ll keep you company.”

She pressed her lips together and looked up at him. “I’m
cycling pretty hard between angry and sad. I feel sad right now, so having you
here is great. But when the anger comes back—and it will and it will be sudden—you
don’t want to be anywhere near here. I can be mean.”

“Got it.” He turned to leave.

“Hey, Alex. Wait.”

He turned back.

“I love you.”

He smiled, then leaned over and kissed her temple.

The next morning, Juice returned to the suite to sleep while
the other passengers emerged for breakfast. She woke in time for lunch, and she
and Alex brought their meal to the library.

“His source filters are intrinsic procedures,” said Juice. “So
I think of them as being like our autonomic system. We can’t command our heart
to stop beating or even be aware of how that rule exists in us.” She took a bite
and continued as she chewed. “How would I signal you from afar to tell you to take
control of your heart? That’s what I’m trying to do with him.”

Alex gathered the dishes. “I wonder if we could make a virus
that infects him in such a way that it disables the source filters. Then, after
he sees you and lets you in, we cure him.”

She got a faraway look in her eyes. “It sounds dangerous,
but maybe. That’s not my skill set, though. Could you do something like that?”

He shook his head. “Nah. It sounds cool as an idea but I
wouldn’t know where to start.”

Alex left Juice to her labors, and after a few more hours,
she took a break to exercise.

The ship had a first-class athletic pod and she had a lot of
frustration to work through. Climbing inside, she programmed a two-hour workout.
On a lark, she chose as her setting a roadway through the foothills near the
leadership lodge.

Running along the edge of the road, she reached an
intersection and turned right. The road had a gentle upward slope, and after a
bit she turned again, this time onto a steeper winding lane—one she’d been on
many times—that climbed the mountain in a long and looping route.

It took the full two hours, but the narrow road eventually passed
a cute, well-tended farmhouse. A red barn sat near the house, and except for a
smattering of weeds growing along the foundation, it too looked neat and maintained.

Both structures sat toward the front of the land, the rear
portion of which was a lush hayfield. The whole clearing was surrounded by woods
where the border had an abrupt edge, almost as if the plot had recently been
hewn and cleared.

Juice stopped running, and while her heart rate slowed and
her breathing tempered, she studied the scene from the road. The farmhouse
seemed so real, she half expected Anna and Marco, the resident caretakers, to
come out and greet her.

The barn looked real, too. Except the one on Earth had a
warren of tunnels running beneath it, and one of those tunnels concealed a
room-sized hollow. Secreted in that hollow was a four-gen console, a console that
held Criss, safe from intruders and secure from detection.

Shutting down the pod display, Juice dabbed her face with a
towel and acknowledged a certain emotional comfort from the simulated visit. She
told Alex about it a few minutes later when he joined her in the shower.

The next day, Juice returned to the library well before
breakfast, worked all day, and ate only when Alex brought her something. She
had a few ideas, some of which took minutes to try while others took hours to labor
through. Nothing in her bag of tricks showed even a hint of promise in linking
her back to Criss.

In the exercise pod that evening, she didn’t pretend. Emotionally
drained and carrying a full load of frustration, she started her run at the
leadership lodge.

Two hours uphill is a long run for any athlete, but she’d
done this route many times in real life and knew how to pace herself for it. She
tested her limits, though, by running like her life depended on it.

She repeated the sequence the next day—struggle and fail in the
library, run up the hill to Criss’s hideout, and spend time with Alex. It
became a routine that continued for the next week, and then the one after that.
She didn’t know what else to do. Her only success from all that effort was that
she shaved four minutes off her time for the lodge-to-farm run.

They were a day out from Earth when the routine on the
Explorer
changed. It began with the Aloha Mahalo party, a signature event advertised in
the cruise ship literature. Juice led the way into the ballroom where she was
greeted by Gretchen, the ship’s entertainment director.

“Aloha,” said Gretchen. Wearing a modest version of the
classic hula dancer costume, she draped a beautiful fresh-flower garland over
Juice’s neck. Then she hugged Juice and gave thanks for their safe passage together
across the solar system. “Mahalo.”

Motioning Juice forward, Gretchen turned her attention to
Alex. Tommy, a white-haired extrovert who slurred as if he’d gotten early
access to the rum punch, squealed to Juice, “I bet you didn’t expect to get laid
today.” He pointed to the flowers. “Get it? Lei. Laid?”

She nodded and smiled, then turned to wait for Alex as he took
his turn experiencing Tommy’s wit. She hooted when Alex replied, “Actually,
this would be my second time today.”

Glittery signs that could have been made by one of the
crew’s kids twirled lazily from the ceiling, flashing words like “Happy,” “Gratitude,”
and “Love.” Alex pointed. “Every good party should have signs that tell you how
to feel.”

Juice found herself enjoying the food and drink. She also
enjoyed meeting for the first time some of the people she’d been living with in
close quarters for so long. They all gasped when, for the party’s grand finale,
the back wall of the ballroom became transparent, allowing them to look
directly into the ship’s hold. A sleek private shuttle, dark green with gold
streaks down the side, sat poised on the deck.

Three passengers said their final good-byes, exited the
ballroom, reappeared when they entered the hold, waved to the group, and
clambered into the small craft that would carry them to their homes on the Moon.

Before the shuttle hatch closed, a service bot scurried onto
the deck carrying a bright blue courier bag. It climbed onto the shuttle and
the hatch closed behind it.