CHAPTER 22, Dragon's Revenge

“I don’t see why,” Bruce grumbled. “We’re friends. We’re not supposed to have secrets from each other.”

“Believe me, you do not want to know what I’m doing if Melinda ever gets hold of you.” Martin sank his right arm up to the elbow into the guts of his computer. He’d had to put the entire system to sleep, including the systems he’d borrowed memory and power from, for this surgical operation. Otherwise, Melinda could monitor his activities too easily.

The wall panel lay at his feet. The bottom of the secret compartment was deep. He had only recently grown tall enough to reach it without a step stool.

He groped with his fingers, feeling for the treasure he’d secreted here months ago.

“That’s another thing, Marty. You never call her ‘Mom’ or ‘Mother.’ You always use her name, like she was your sister or an impersonal guardian.” Bruce shifted anxiously from foot to foot, gaze riveted on the door.

“Her rules. No reminder that she has blood or emotional ties to me. That would make her vulnerable through me. She also likes to thinks she is younger and therefore more attractive than the mother of a teenager.”

Ah, there. His fingers brushed against the cool blue crystal he sought. A faint tingling progressed up his hand to his arm and shoulder. Suddenly, his eyes found a new focus as if seeing the crystal nestled into its bed of fiber optics as well as the scene in his room.

Dizzy for a moment, he lost his grip upon the crystal and grabbed something else. He withdrew a palm-sized clamp.

“Is that what I think it is?” Bruce whistled and grabbed the device.

“Yes. It’s an illegal Klip. Melinda put it on my computer to drain power and monitor everything I do.”

“Then how did you keep our correspondence secret?” Bruce examined the Klip closely, memorizing its construction.

Martin smiled and reached again into the wall compartment. “Will you get back to the door?”

“You mean you’ve got more in there than just this?” Bruce’s eyes went wide with awe. He shook his head. “This is amazing. You’ve got a mind to match your m . . .”

Martin glared at his friend as he grasped the blue crystal—even more illegal than the Klip.

Bruce docilely returned to his vigil at the doorway. He slipped the Klip into his pocket and seemed to forget it.

Martin grabbed the crystal and yanked it free of its fiber optic connections. Without this, the star map only reached half its true potential. He didn’t need the map anymore. He had the proximity coordinates of the wandering jump point firmly in his mind.

“Will you hurry up, Marty,” Bruce said. He continued to peer into the hallway looking for potential intruders. “Jane and Kurt are waiting for us. We’ll miss the best part of the factory tour. I really want to see how they program the virtual reality scenes into the rides without requiring headgear.”

Bruce turned around again.

Martin slipped the crystal into his pocket. It was about as big around and as long as his index finger. He had to keep his hand around it to disguise the telltale shape in his formfitting synthleather slacks interlaced with heat deflector threads. They made his long legs look even longer and, he hoped, gave the illusion that he was taller than he already was.

Bruce always opted for the baggy pantaloons, which made his square body seem bulkier. But the drapes and folds of fabric could hide a myriad of secret pockets and gadgets.

Martin needed to find a better place to secrete the crystal—a gift from his father, Konner O’Hara. He rubbed it idly.

His focus shifted again. The room seemed to tilt to the left and colors took on new depth and brightness.

He stumbled, not certain where the floor truly was or which way was up.

Bruce jumped to hold his arm and keep him upright. “You feeling all right, Marty? You look kind of pale. Maybe we should postpone the tour of the factory.”

“No. We have to go today. It’s the only time Melinda will let me out of the palace without her. She’s tied up with those dippos from Earth. We have to go today.” He couldn’t tolerate another day of being his mother’s prisoner. In another day she might figure out just how incomplete the star map appeared on her system and come looking for answers.

They took two steps together, Martin leaning heavily on Bruce. Either the world righted or he got used to the strange slant to his perceptions. Then he shook himself free of his friend’s support and marched to the hallway. They’d meet Quinn and the others at the side entrance near the garages. Just a short distance, then he could sit and think about the crystal and what it did to him. What the miniature king stone did to his computer. Did it have something to do with the way a full-sized king stone reacted with the rest of a crystal array to power spaceships and take them through jump points?

He almost giggled at the thought of flying through a jump point wearing nothing but an EVA suit and the little crystal that warmed to his touch and seemed to snuggle into his hand. Crystals were monopoles—no north or south to their magnetism, just their own internal forces. Perhaps he was a monopole, too. Separate, they were lost. Together, they were a family.

“Where are you going, Master Martin?” An armed security guard at the side door jerked Martin out of his strange looping thoughts and back to reality.

“My mother authorized a field trip to the amusement park factory.” Melinda might not like being reminded that Martin was her son, but it never hurt to keep that in the front of any conversation with her employees.

“My orders say that trip was canceled. Ms. Fortesque wants you to join her for lunch with her guests from Earth. I’ll just escort you to the formal dining room. Your friends are free to take the tour without you if they choose, or they may dine in the family parlor.” The guard grabbed Martin by the elbow and propelled him back down the corridor the way they had come.