Dark Star (6 page)

“I saw your face earlier, by the way,” she said, “when Freddie asked you about being a Banker – and the spares.” She paused long enough to force Rosie to look at her. Gillian gave her a rueful smile. “You shouldn’t worry about him; he’s been here a lot longer than some of us and has some set ideas about things. He doesn’t know what it’s really like out there. And Stefan regurgitates whatever he’s taught, it doesn’t mean he really understands what he’s saying.” She pulled her knees up and looped her hands around them. “It doesn’t bother me about you being a Banker. We all come from somewhere, don’t we? Can’t help where you’re born.” She flicked one finger then another out, watching them. “I mean, I was eleven when I got here.”

Rosie spoke cautiously. “So, what–”

“Happened? How come I’m not still on the farm I told you about?” Gillian studied her hands. “Bad things, like what happens to a lot of people. You know how it is. All my family are dead.”

Rosie hesitated. “The MalX?”

“Nope. The gangs.”

Rosie knew about the gangs. They ran certain areas of Newperth and had guns and bikes and plenty of reach. They liked to take things they wanted. They’d taken the innocence and lives of her neighbours when she was little. She still remembered the sounds coming through the thin apartment walls, and how scared her parents had been that they’d be next. “Sorry,” she said.

Gillian shook her head. “I’m okay now … well, sort of, thanks to Helios.”

Rosie frowned and Gillian said, “You’re wondering how they came into it, aren’t you?”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Rosie said, but Gillian waved a hand.

“It’s okay. It was a while ago. Some of the gangs made one of their field trips out of town. Our farm was small, out of the way, not much defence. They decided they wanted it. My dad and brothers disagreed.” Her gaze clouded with the memory. “I only survived because Helios came and ran them off. Don’t know how they knew, but it was lucky for me they were there. Chance I guess. But those bastards left a mess, no house to live in, the water stores all destroyed. Helios took me in. The farm’s still there. Helios hold it now, they’re looking after it for me. I’ll get the run of it back when I turn twenty-five. It still produces fuel.”

Give it back? Somehow Rosie didn’t believe that would happen and wondered how Gillian could. Helios being there in the right place at the right time sounded too coincidental, but she didn’t know Gillian well enough to say so. “You sure you wouldn’t rather be there?” she said.

Gillian shook her head. “I’ve got all I need here. Better than I would have had. Better than being left an orphan.”

Rosie supposed it might seem that way when you lost everything and didn’t know what Helios was really like. Though there were still a lot of gaps in her own knowledge about Helios. She considered the other girl. Maybe now was a good time to try to pry out some information.

“So,” she said, “if you’ve been here a while you must know how Helios got started, who started it. No one’s told me much.”

Gillian gave her a wry smile. “Yeah, they don’t get too detailed about all that. I think they like to keep things mysterious – you know, secrets wrapped in secrets.”

“Haven’t you ever wondered who runs it? Who started it and why?”

“Sure.” Gillian lifted one shoulder. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to find out. All I know is about one hundred years ago a group of scientists and company owners decided the world was going to hell and it needed a bit of help. You know about the Climate War in 2390 something?”

“Yeah, over energy,” Rosie said, “when all the fossil fuels were outlawed. I studied it in school. We almost wiped each other out.” She remembered learning it had lasted for years. Every continent on Earth had been involved and it had destroyed governments and borders.

“Exactly,” Gillian said. “Well, after that, when all the countries were trying to rebuild, these people came up with new ideas for powering the planet. They got the geothermal stuff working and the new solar, or whatever, I don’t know the details, but, from what I’ve been told, this group were all aiming to make the world a better place and they had the dollars and resources to do it, so Helios was born. And that’s what they’ve been doing ever since, trying to find ways of changing things, of making the world better.”

That explained how Helios had infiltrated so many levels of the Senate and probably the UEC.

“Have you ever met any of the group who run it?” Rosie asked.

Gillian snorted. “You mean the top dogs? You must be joking. No one meets them. No one even knows who they are. I bet Alpha doesn’t even know.” She stretched and yawned. “Anyway, it’s nearly lights out. You better get changed for bed and throw that shirt in the clothes hatch. It’s not much good for anything now.”

Rosie realised she’d forgotten she was still wearing the ripped shirt from the training games.

She went to the clothes locker. The stylus was still sitting lodged under her bra. She kept her back to Gillian as she pulled out a clean sleep tank from her stack and slipped the stylus between her shirts.

Gillian was already in bed when she finished and Rosie got in under the sheets as the lights out signal sounded in the hall outside. The darkness wasn’t complete and she lay there staring into it, willing herself to stay awake. As soon as Gillian was asleep, she’d see how far that stylus got her.

“Good evening, Mr Curtis.” The door AI on his family’s apartment building greeted Dalton as he swiped his thumb over the entrance to the foyer. He rode the lift to the penthouse, his stomach in knots. Another day at Orbitcorp Academy without Rosie and he was finding it hard to care about going. He’d skipped the last few classes and had been wandering around Central most of the evening feeling useless. It was getting harder to pretend he wasn’t angry at Rosie for leaving. He should never have agreed to cover for her for that week. Now both Pip and Essie were angry with him. So much for trying to do the right thing. It felt like they’d shut him out. The only person who still contacted him was Cassie – and that was only on and off because it was too dangerous for her. Thank God his dad wasn’t here. He didn’t think he could pull off the “good son” routine today. Jebediah Curtis, Pantheon member, Helios bully. It was getting harder to look at his father knowing who he really was.

He leaned against the shining wall of the lift and massaged the muscles on his thigh. His leg still ached occasionally from the shot he’d taken up in Gondwana.

The lift chimed and the doors slid open. “Welcome home, Dalton.” The mechanical woman’s voice sounded again. He tossed the activation set for the car AI on the hallstand and headed across the pale stone floor to the great room. A wall of heat-shielded plasglass gave a view over the city to the river and beyond. The whirling lights of shuttles, helijets and a few Central-owned jumpers cruised soundlessly through the air like bugs attracted to the light.

Two long curving red sofas faced each other and large artworks depicting garish scenes and colours that were supposed to liven up the white space hung on the walls. Dalton had never liked them. He kicked off his shoes and, leaving them in the middle of the floor, headed past the spiralling stairs that led to his parents’ rooms. He heard a soft footfall above. His mother? She was supposed to be on one of her benders somewhere. He stopped and listened but heard nothing more. With a frown, he headed for his room.

One third of the lower floor of the penthouse was taken up by his and his dead brother’s rooms. Chris had always had the larger space. A massive bedroom with a view out to the ocean and an entertainment chamber with all the immersion games, Grid-connect computers and tech money could buy, whereas Dalton’s rooms were smaller, faced east. He only had low-tech music systems and instruments in his entertainment pod. Chris had been seventeen when he died eight years ago. His father had told Dalton to move into his brother’s rooms, but he’d never been able to. It felt wrong. He preferred his own, the comfort of his guitars and the small piano his mother had bought for him. A relic from a backward age, his father liked to say.

A better age, Dalton thought privately. He swiped his thumb over the reader and the door slid back to admit him.

“Dalton?”

He turned. His mother was there, barefoot, too thin, trailing streamers of material from her gauzy dress. Her beautiful face had cost a fortune. Sculpted cheekbones, thick long honey-coloured hair and green eyes that had once been the same hazel colour as his own. But nothing could fix what lay behind those eyes. She was haunted by grief over the son she’d lost.

“Dalton, darling, I heard you come in.” Her smile was tremulous. “Why didn’t you come see me?”

“I didn’t realise you were home,” Dalton said. “When did you get back?”

“Oh, um, this morning, I think.” She blinked, confused.

“And how’s Kal?” Dalton asked. “Was he with you in the islands? Did he keep you company?” He suddenly wanted to hurt her. She thought he didn’t know of her affair with her image maker.

She frowned. “Of course. How else would I know what to wear? Would you rather I went alone? Your father won’t go, you know that, and I had to … had to go … I had to …” She trailed off, eyes filling with tears. Her gaze fell on the door to Chris’s rooms and she flinched, drawing her arms around herself.

Words Dalton had been about to say died before they reached his lips. He stepped towards her. “Mother–”

She drew back. “Have you got anything, son? A small wire of stim, ghost powder? It would make me feel better. Your father’s men took all mine away.” Her lower lip trembled. “Can you maybe find some for me?”

Every time. He fell for this every time.

“No.”

“Son, please …”

Without answering, he entered his room and locked the door, leaning against it. He listened while she hovered there. Something hard and aching filled his throat. Finally, she went away.

A training bag was beside the door and he punched it once, hard, then hung on to it while it swung, trying to swallow the pain down. It wasn’t the recoiling, the way she couldn’t stand to touch him, that bothered him any more. She’d stopped touching him after Chris died. After eight years you got used to it. It was the wheedling, her need for the drugs, for anything that would close her mind to reality. Sometimes he wished she would take too much, close herself off for good. At least, then it would be over.

He went to the com and sent a ping to their assistant.

“Dalton?” Pilar’s face appeared in the screen. “You’re home very late. It’s after eleven.”

“I know. Mother needs some rest. Will you give her some fruit tea, and make sure some of the sweet dreams is in it?”

Pilar’s expression softened. “Of course, and anything for you, love?”

Dalton’s heart turned a little at the endearment. “No. I ate out.” He switched the com off before she asked anything more. Pilar had been with them since he was six and knew all there was to know about their family dynamics. But he didn’t want her sympathy now.

He walked across the plush carpeting through another door to his entertainment pod. Five guitars, the piano, two kettle drums and an assortment of AIs that could provide orchestral backing if he wanted it, were placed about the soundproof room.

“Play music. Random select.” Dalton spoke to the room AI and strumming guitar chords came through the invisible speakers.

A long narrow window looked out to the hills surrounding the city, but Dalton ignored the view and went to the wall instead. He wiggled his fingers along the thin slit in the soundproofing until he felt the switch, and pressed. A section slid away revealing a narrow hiding spot where he kept his research and the recordings he made for his Rogue Waves broadcasts, the illegal anonymous hacks he ran in the news waves. He had other items stashed at the beach house, but this room was more secure, despite his parents living here as well. They couldn’t come in here if he locked it. Not without overriding the system.

He pulled out his gear, setting it up, connecting it through the secure line that couldn’t be traced. He’d been thinking hard about what sort of broadcast to make next. Something that would really rile his dad.

Since Rosie had told him his dad’s name was definitely on the Pantheon list, he’d been trying to think of a way to get his father to reveal if he was Helios straight down the line, or if he was involved with Agent Sulawayo’s rebellion in the ranks. Part of him wanted to believe the best of his father, to hold on to the hope that he was the one wanting to change Helios, to make it better. But the reality of the kind of man his dad was made it hard. Jebediah Curtis valued profit over philanthropy. Curtis and Co was one of the most powerful corporations on the planet. They owned the water resources on Titan, held half the colonisation ships that went out to Gliese, not to mention the terraforming contracts for the UEC.

And then there was Chris. His older brother and his dad had fought, a lot. Chris hated what the company stood for and hadn’t been afraid to say it. Then Chris had died from the MalX. A disease Helios had created. Dalton’s lips clenched as he slipped on the Rogue Waves headset and flicked the systems on, pinging the signal through a thousand different points on the globe so it couldn’t be tracked.

“This one’s for you, Dad,” he whispered and began to type furiously on the holo board. Across the city the Senate news waves froze in place and the Rogue Waves strip began scrolling over every screen linked to the Grid.

Think you know Curtis and Co? Think again. Links have been found between the corporation and Helios. There’s a secret group who run Helios called the Pantheon. A list of five names. No one knows who they are, or where they are, but Rogue Waves does. And one of the names on that list is Jebediah Curtis, the very man you trust to cart our water, terraform our planets and take us out to Gliese. Do you still trust him now? Rogue Wavers, fight for our freedom
.

Dalton’s hands were shaking as he signed off and powered down. A sick scared feeling lay in his stomach. He was sure he couldn’t have jeopardised Rosie by putting that out there. If his dad was with Sulawayo, he would already be aware that Rosie knew his name was on the Pantheon list, and if he wasn’t, then he didn’t see how he could know Rosie had the list. She should be okay. But it would upset his dad, and the Senate wouldn’t be able to ignore it, not with the major campaign they’d launched so publicly against Helios. Maybe it would shake him up enough to make a mistake, but until then …