Crystal Conquest Read online

  Cheryl stood with her fists on her hips and stared at the lieutenant. With Criss’s help, she knew the details of the treason, the others involved, what parts had been switched for counterfeits, and how they split the profits.

  Criss had suggested to her before she came that this was a case of simple greed. He’s right, she thought. And vigilance is the way to stop it in the future.

  She was done with Geitz. “We’ll let you take out the trash, Chief. I’ve forwarded the details and evidence to you.”

  Sid tilted his head toward the door, and she followed him into the corridor. As they walked, Sid stated what Cheryl already knew. “Given how fast word travels in such a small community, everyone knows what just happened. Anyone involved is nervous and looking for a way off this rock.”

  Sid glanced up and down the corridor. They were alone. He reached his arm behind her, and she felt his strong hand knead her back up along her spine. Her tension ebbed with every movement of his talented fingers.

  “And,” he continued, “I’m guessing the public confrontation isn’t sitting well with the base commander.”

  “Good,” she said, still miffed that he’d snubbed her. She shifted her shoulders forward to gain maximum pleasure from Sid’s efforts. “This happened under his watch, and I’m not giving him a fourth chance. I need to touch base with Fleet Command, but from my view, his assignment here is done.”

  “Criss,” said Sid, “suppose just one Kardish warship showed up today. Given what we have for defensive weapons, what’s your assessment?”

  “We’d be screwed,” he said in their ears.

  Chapter 4

  Lenny’s car merged into a line of twenty or so closely spaced vehicles zipping westward on the expressway. While his rational mind tried to give a reality check to his runaway fantasies of wealth and power, he ignored his brain’s stuffy caution and focused on how to get to his crystal. The way to win a quest is to break the challenge into manageable steps.

  The first of these was learning specifics about the Crystal Research complex. He knew its location. The car was taking him there. But he didn’t know details about the setting, who came and went, whether it was behind walls or open to the public, or pretty much anything useful that would move him closer to finding and taking possession of his prize.

  The second task on his list was closely tied with the first. And that was intel on this Juice Tallette. She was the key to finding the crystal. What were the rhythms of her routine? When did she come to work and go home? Who were her confidants? Where did she go during a typical day?

  He activated a sophisticated observation service on his com. It projected a live three-dimensional image of a location anywhere in the northeastern United States. Using the service, he could study a place from all angles and with extraordinary clarity. One of his professors had given him access to this government-grade surveillance tool when he had been working on an earlier incarnation of his senior-year project.

  In that previous effort, he had envisioned a nib that analyzed the movement of people and traffic within a neighborhood. His idea was that the patterns in these travel flows would provide insights into a city’s commerce structure. That knowledge, in turn, would benefit growth planning, resource allocation, business investment decisions, and who knew what else.

  It may not have worked, but it was a good idea. His early tests had revealed that local travel patterns didn’t tell enough of the story. He should have known that people and stuff moved significant distances in today’s world. He’d expanded the analysis from neighborhoods up to whole cities and, when that still wasn’t a big enough picture, kept pushing until he could analyze travel-flow patterns across several states.

  And then a different problem had appeared. The massive volumes of data from such a large region overwhelmed the meager ability of his travel pattern nib. He’d admitted to himself that he wouldn’t be able to overcome this limitation. He’d cut his losses and moved on to the truth nib project.

  When struggling to develop the travel pattern nib, he’d become skilled with the sophisticated observation service he now used to study Crystal Research, a facility located a few hours north of New York City. Zooming in for a closer look, he hovered above the site and noted it was in a wooded valley that bordered on a huge forest preserve to the north. Wow, I didn’t expect a rural setting.

  He studied the complex from different angles, seeking a way he might approach and lurk near the facility. His principal social behavior in his daily life—hang around without drawing attention to himself—had provided him years of practice. How do I do that in an unpopulated, low-traffic setting?

  As he considered his options, he rubbed small circles on his temples with the tips of his fingers. It was an unconscious behavior that emerged when he was deep in concentration. Then he realized what was bothering him. The images were somehow off. He’d spent long hours studying these sorts of views while trying to make his commerce project work. I know normal, and this isn’t that.

  This realization gave him an idea. He popped the truth nib out of his com, slid his butt forward on the seat, and fished a small pouch out of his pocket. He opened it and eyed the other two bits of crystal nestled inside. He looked at his prank nib and unconsciously licked his lips. He placed the truth nib into the pouch, picked up the prank nib, and conjured an image of Monica as he rolled the bit of crystal between his fingers.

  Intending it to be a fun toy, he’d used late-night lab time to create a sophisticated clone-and-spoof device. As he walked past a friend’s room, he’d use the prank nib to reset the morning alarm to an ungodly early hour. Or in the cafeteria, he’d override the drink dispenser and have the liquid keep flowing when his mark pulled the cup away. In today’s automated society, the opportunities for hilarity and fun were endless.

  In his search for opportunities for clever mischief, he’d discovered a security monitor in the dorm locker room. Using his prank nib, he had found he could override the vid pickup and move it to an extreme angle so it caught a view into the first shower stall. Excited by this new opportunity, he’d envisioned capturing one of his buddies in an embarrassing act and feeding the mortifying experience to the world.

  But the first victim he caught on record had been Monica. He’d watched her shower, thinking about the first time she had strutted down the hallway at the start of the semester. The feed he had collected was amazing. Her perfect body lived up to his wildest imagination. At that moment, he’d realized he could have more fun if he restricted the use of his prank nib to carefully selected private opportunities.

  Returning to the task at hand, he dropped the bit of crystal back into the pouch and fished out the travel pattern nib. He slid it into his com, put the Crystal Research complex in the center of the display, and tweaked the settings so the mapping would go beyond the default movements of people and vehicles.

  He included the movement of clouds, birds, and land animals in the evaluation, spent a moment considering if there were other physical objects that moved across geographic boundaries, shrugged when he couldn’t think of any, and launched an analysis. He furrowed his brow as patterns began to emerge in the three-dimensional map image. Zooming out, the patterns became more defined. He zoomed out further still and resumed rubbing his temples.

  His travel pattern nib detected an anomaly that extended around Crystal Research and up into the forest preserve. Its shape was irregular but contiguous, rambling like the outline of a puddle.

  The plot of land within this anomaly was big. It’d take me a half hour to drive across. He confirmed it wasn’t a failure of his algorithm by performing the identical analysis on several nearby locations. The odd result didn’t recur. But his nib found an irregularity in the picture every time he looked at Crystal Research and its environs.

  He zoomed in on an edge of the splotch and watched as a cloud moved toward it and across its edge. It was hard to say for sure, but if he concentrated, it seemed like the cloud changed shape as it passed into th
e odd zone.

  Focusing on a road, he waited for a car to cross. He spotted a satin-gray coupe moving fast as it hugged a curve and accelerated toward the edge of the mysterious puddle. It reached the boundary, disappeared for half a heartbeat, and reappeared, the same yet somehow different. Could forged data be corrupting the system?

  Lenny had a trained eye for evaluating map images, and the differences he saw were so subtle that he couldn’t state with certainty that anything was amiss. Yet his travel pattern nib found and displayed the same splotch every time it focused on that section of land.

  Sitting back in the seat of the car, he pondered this new information. He figured that somebody, maybe the government, maybe the staff at Juice’s company, had discovered a way to keep snoops from monitoring the goings-on at the facility. Whatever the case, he couldn’t progress in his planning until he had a proper view of the site and surroundings.

  His first idea was to use the ubiquitous public monitors positioned throughout society. But if a sophisticated government surveillance system was corrupted, could he trust simple monitoring feeds? No. He knew from experience these had weak security. Hell, he thought, it took seconds for my prank nib to take control of the one I use to watch Cynthia through her dorm window.

  Energized by the challenge of collecting reliable visual intel, he turned off the nib analysis and used his com for a more traditional activity. He located a specialty store and selected a couple of items he thought would serve his needs. After confirming that the store could deliver these to an expressway travel center about an hour down the road, he funded the purchase and instructed the car nav to drive to the center.

  He slumped into the seat and closed his eyes. It had been way too long since he’d slept; even an hour of shut-eye would be welcome.

  Lenny surfaced from his slumber to the sound of an annoying ding. The car signaled his arrival at the expressway center. Yawning, he rubbed his eyes, scratched his stomach, then peered out through the window. Travel dump would be more descriptive, he thought as he climbed out of the car.

  The bright sun caused him to squint as he looked back and forth, surveying the limited amenities. “Go park. I’ll be an hour,” he called over his shoulder.

  Entering the door marked Travel Service, he found himself in a small, crowded room. He got in line and waited for the people ahead to complete their business.

  When Lenny’s turn arrived, he stepped up to the window. His com verified his identity, and a window whooshed open, revealing a small package. Scooping it up, he walked around the other people in line as he tore away the delivery envelope and tossed the waste in a trash chute near the door.

  He stepped back into the sun and eyed the contents of the package. Looks like a jewelry box. Covered with a black felt-like material, the box opened in the middle along a hinge at the back. He palmed his prize and walked next door to the food carousel.

  Snagging a booth near a window, he set the box on the table and turned it so the hinge faced away from him. Letting his anticipation build, he examined its smooth exterior, then turned his attention to food. He skimmed the menu and spoke the moment he saw his favorite meal. “One slice of three-cheese pizza. One large Fried Side energy drink.”

  Turning his attention back to his box, he picked it up, lifted the lid, and peered inside. Before he could visually digest the contents, a small cubby door opened at the end of the booth. He set the open box back on the table and reached over to retrieve his meal. Taking a long pull from his energy drink, he eyed the two items nestled inside the small case.

  He reached inside and, using his thumb and forefinger, gently lifted out the camball. An orb the size of a grape, it had more than a hundred tiny faces joined to form a small faceted sphere. It’s like the gaudy decorations mom hangs in a sunny window to reflect light.

  The camball offered the amazing ability of recording an image feed through each facet, collecting vid input in every direction all the time. This made it a fantastic tool for surveillance, because as long as there was a clear line of sight, at least one of the facets would always be pointing and recording exactly where he’d want to look. His idea was to hang it somewhere outside Crystal Research—a bush probably—and watch the activity near the complex as it actually happened.

  Setting the ball on the table, he eyed it as he took a bite of his pizza. Surprised by the savory wash of flavor from what he expected would be bland roadside fare, he took a second bite, enjoyed the moment, and set his slice on the plate.

  Accessing his com, he practiced using the vid streams to look at different things in the dining area. He found it intuitive to scan the camball facets and locate the one pointing in the direction of interest, and he soon learned how to scan backward in time to see what had been happening in any direction he chose.

  He heard laughing and looked up. Two college-age girls were making a grand entrance, taking turns whispering to each other and giggling after each exchange. They both had dangly earrings that twirled as they walked.

  Strolling down the aisle, they glanced at him and averted their eyes. Lenny barely noticed because his focus was on their short skirts. His heart beat faster as he shifted the camball out to the edge of his table. “Thank you,” he mouthed, glancing skyward. Checking his com, he reassured himself he was still recording.

  They chose a booth across the aisle and down one table from where he was sitting. This is great, he thought, his excitement growing. The cutie facing him slid into the booth seat and crossed her legs at the knee.

  When she was seated, he located the facet that had the proper angle and replayed the episode. Twice. To his disappointment, she’d performed her sit-and-leg-cross maneuver without revealing the slightest glimpse of the mysteries beneath that scrap of a skirt. Damn.

  He picked up the small jewel box and tilted it so his second purchase—a light, fashionable chain—poured into his open palm. He hooked the camball to it, looped the chain over his neck, and used his com to see how he looked. Not my style, but I’ll pretend it’s an accent piece.

  Lenny finished his meal and, as he wiped his mouth, slid out of the booth. Go for it, he urged himself. Letting the opportunity of the moment override his natural shyness, he stopped at the girls’ table and leaned forward so the ball swung freely between them. “I just bought this bauble,” he said. “Do you like it?”

  Both girls looked at each other, covered their mouths, and giggled. He could hear some discomfort in their laughs, but he didn’t care. Walking to the exit, he made a mental note to check out the facet vids later to see if he got any good cleavage shots.

  Shielding his eyes from the sun, he waited as his car weaved across the parking lot. The vehicle stopped in front of him, and as he slid into the seat, he felt a prickle. It started at his neck and traveled down his spine. This wasn’t excitement; it was fear.

  Lenny’s subconscious finally had its say. This crystal—the goal of his quest—was more powerful than he could ever comprehend. He was being reckless and willfully ignoring the consequences. When you play with fire, prepare to get burned. Or worse.

  As the car accelerated onto the expressway, Lenny felt bile rise in his throat.

  Chapter 5

  Running at a comfortable pace, Jessica “Juice” Tallette jogged through the streets of the neighborhood where she’d lived as a child. The roads were empty, the air still, and the sun peeked over the houses. Crossing an intersection, she entered the favorite part of her route—the long, gradual climb.

  She heard a frightening growl and looked back. A doberman pinscher leapt off the front porch of a house a half-block back, sprinted across the lawn, and veered into the road. Undulating in a muscular gait, it sprinted down the street in her direction. It was fierce, focused, and fast. Whimpering, she turned forward and stretched her stride. I’m going to die.

  The growling intensified. A second doberman ran next to the first. She screamed for help. Her lungs and voice projected a shout, but no sound came out. Looking again, she watche
d the dogs elongate, float off the road, thicken, and morph into drones. Their growls became a buzzing hum. A light glowed red on the tips of both. Twin bolts of energy flashed in her direction.

  Juice jerked upright in bed, her breathing fast and shallow. The bed sheets, twisted and tangled around her, were damp from night sweats. She tugged the sheets loose, pulled her knees up under her chin, and wrapped her arms around her legs. Turning her head, she rested her cheek on her knees. Her eyes settled on her vial of little white pills.

  Post-traumatic stress. That’s what her doctor called it. Waves of alien drones had attacked her when she was trapped on the Kardish vessel. Up until then, she’d lived the simple life of a lab scientist. The loud, gritty horror of live battle terrorized her. She’d watched a soldier die that day.

  She’d been there trying to help Criss, a super AI she’d created. The surviving soldiers—now her partners—had rescued them both. The group had escaped and made it safely back to Earth. And now two years later, she still awoke in panic.

  Knowing she’d take one, Juice contemplated the pills. She’d be fresh and cheerful in the morning and sleep well for several nights. Then they’d wear off and the dream would repeat. She reached for the glass of water next to the bed.

  * * *

  Deep in his bunker beneath a mountainside farm, Criss worked tirelessly on his never-ending to-do list. Able to multitask to a fantastic degree, he took a thousand different actions in as many different places, racing ahead to further his larger agenda.

  At this moment, though, he pulled back resources from low-level chores so he could center his attention on the shuttle carrying Sid and Cheryl on their hop to the moon. Safe and secure, he thought, feeling a cheerful surge when they docked without incident at Fleet Lunar Base.