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

short blonde hair and the wiry, androgynous physique of a dancer. Her expression is solemn, as if she deals with excitement like this every day. She looks at something that forms in the floor in front of her. It’s a fuze. As it emerges she squats to wrap her hand lovingly around the grip and then she straightens, her breathing deep as if she is turned on.
    I don’t understand; VIA Holdings own this facility and no one except them should be able to gif anything in here. I go in-Aer to check the status of the building and discover someone else has bought it.
    The other Blanks have grown weapons as well, not all of them as modest as the blonde woman’s. The Blanks snatch up their guns and fire over the top of the crowd, which panics. The security guards get into attack position.
    “Drop your weapons!” the guards shout almost as one.
    The VIA and Centrian guards in the outer corridor rush in. Centria’s guards wear dark blue and VIA’s are in white. There’s a lot of shouting as each group of guards tries to drown out the other with instructions. Taking advantage of this confusion, the Blanks grow thick diamond walls between the guests and the incoming guards, trapping us. The Blanks hold their weapons ready but do not fire.
    A VIA guard takes this restraint as provocation. He shoots at the blonde woman but she has already seen him aim and jumps aside so the bolt hits a table, which clatters into some chairs. Tension in the reduced space makes everyone overreact to the noise and suddenly we are in the middle of a gunfight.
    A small blue-haired woman in a costume of pink and purple beads spins with unnatural, eerie grace and falls. The beads break away from their fixings and roll in all directions, some adrift in a widening pool of blood. The woman starts to scream.
    Horror catches up with me and I freeze. The dread sense of having no idea what I’m doing is never far and rears up with its usual dull power. Someone with the correct knowledge and ability should step in.
    “CEASE FIRE!” the barman roars.
    His amplified voice drowns out all other sound. Everyone stops and looks at him, even the guards and the woman on the floor.
    “We are the Blanks,” 88 Rabian says, his voice quieter now. “We have control of this building. We have control of you. You can fight us if you want but a lot of you will die.”
    His gleaming muscular stomach rises and falls rapidly as he breathes. There is something deeply disturbing about its unbroken flesh, as if 88 Rabian is over-finished.
    “You shot that woman,” Ursula shouts from the other side of the room.
    88 Rabian goes white with a rage so pure I can almost feel its heat from six metres away.
    “She was shot by your own incompetent security force!” he shouts. “And you blame us for it as you blame us for everything! It has to stop!”
    He gets himself under control and shakes his head, exasperated as much as furious.
    “We have tried to be peaceful,” he says. “We have tried to be patient. But we are hunted like vermin and we are not vermin; we are human beings just like you. It is not our fault we were born the way we were and we have come here tonight to tell you that we will not take it anymore!”
    “We aren’t the Sons of the Crystal Mind,” a man in the crowd says, I can’t see who.
    “The Sons are funded by people in VIA Holdings and people in Centria,” 88 Rabian says. “How else could they afford to buy every cosmetic patent that would allow us to blend in? By striking here we strike at the Sons and their medieval beliefs.”
    “Are you going to let that woman die?” Ursula yells.
    “No,” 88 Rabian says.
    The woman begins to sink into the floor and I see her arm move. She is clearly still alive and about to be healed by the Basis, probably at 88 Rabian’s expense.
    “She’s dead!” someone screams. “She’s going into the floor!”
    “No!” I shout.
    Even if anyone hears they ignore me. The VIA security guards rush at the Blanks, clearly