Dark Star by Lara Morgan

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.