Sons of the Crystal Mind (Diamond Roads Book 1) by Andrew Wallace Read Free Book Online

assuming he doesn’t get bored before then, I don’t have to do anything he says. It means you will not get those files. Not now. Not ever.”
    He gets up and looks down at me. He doesn’t look angry; instead he seems to search my face for something. After a moment, he walks up the stairs and out through the curtains.

 
     
    6
     
    The man from the bar looks guilty. It suits him. The latest party for Bal and Ursula swirls around us, not in the golden saucer this time but in a great dark ballroom lit with bright patterns that blossom in the walls. The ballroom is part of a building complex overlooking VIA Holdings and is enclosed by a broad corridor full of Centrian and VIA Security. Everyone else here looks like they enjoy themselves professionally and the man from the bar seems completely out of place.
    “You weren’t invited,” I tell him. “I organised this party and know every guest here but I don’t know you.”
    “Ah,” he says, “that’s clever.”
    “That’s organised is what that is, mister. You never did tell me your name.”
    “And if I choose not to tell you now?”
    “Oh,” I say. “Security…”
    “Which ones?”
    “The ones in the uniforms that say ‘SECURITY’.”
    “Not the undercover ones over there?”
    “They aren’t-”
    “Parties are meant to be fun aren’t they? That woman by the wall wouldn’t know fun if fun made her naked and she felt fun’s hands run over every adorable contour of her willing body so that when fun eventually… Anyway, you get the picture. My name’s Harlan Akintan by the way.”
    “Harrity- um – Charity Freestone-”
    “Yes I know.”
    “Good. Good. What can I do for you? I mean, why are you here?”
    “I’m here for the girls, obviously.”
    “Well then. Good.”
    “I’ll see you around Harrity.”
    He laughs and moves off. People don’t notice Harlan Akintan unless he focuses on them, after which they can’t take their eyes off him.
    I shake my head. I should have him removed. Everything is at stake; not just my career but also the stalled investigation into what happened to Mum and Dad. Ursula’s wedding must be a success if we are to get any answers. Yet I drift and recall dreams of white teeth and black skin…
    I nearly bump into Bal, who glares at me as usual.
    “You got me a job I can do nothing with,” he says.
    “You’re Director of Security for the most powerful organisation there is. What more do you want?”
    “Anton Jelka refuses to do what I tell him.”
    “I find that unlikely,” I say. “Anton has always been very loyal.”
    “Not to me.”
    “You’re just going to have to find a way aren’t you?”
    He looks past me.
    “That man is here again,” he says. “Why did you invite him?”
    “I… He’s, uh-”
    “What’s the barman doing?”
    The barman has got on top of the bar. He’s not the barman from the last party, even though I asked for the same one. He is of medium height and muscular with a wildness about him that suits his long, blue-black hair and wide, grey eyes. The music fades into silence.
    The barman looks slowly around the room with that clenched calm of the righteously angry. People at the bar glance at each other, embarrassed at this breach of protocol and unsure what to do. The barman’s presence and behaviour are so unusual that conversation begins to die away as more and more people turn to look at him.
    Despite manners I scan the barman, whose name is 88 Rabian. I’ve never heard of him. I’m about to check in-Aer when the wall patterns coalesce into white sheets that transform the ballroom into a harsh bright cube. The Security Chief looks my way and I nod my approval for intervention. As the security team starts towards 88 Rabian he slowly removes his black shirt to reveal-
    “BLANK!” someone screams.
    All the people who are supposed to be serving drop their trays with a crash and strip to the waist. None of them have got navels.
    The nearest Blank to me is a woman with