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

looks around and then gnaws furiously at its right inner thigh as if it’s got an itch.
    “Nice dragon,” I say.
    “Keeps the neighbours out,” Harlan says.
    The assembly’s base is suspended about thirty metres above a holographic tropical oasis that emerges like an island from the diamond plain. Despite this decoration, the area looks deserted. There are a few generic ads, probably here as part of a citywide scatter rather than because this place is a desirable market. The only one that stands out is an actual old-fashioned paper poster on a wall. ‘XPRO: WE KILL ANYONE’ it says.
    Harlan stops in the centre of the roof. All he has said about our destination is that he wants to get me a gift. I look up at him, unusually calm.
    He smiles as a ring of orange light glows in the floor around us. The circular area becomes an elevator platform that descends smoothly and silently into an opaque tube. After a few seconds the elevator stops and its containment slides open to reveal a curved corridor whose walls are inlaid with small glowing green discs. Harlan steps out onto the pearly floor and turns back to me.
    “We’re going to meet someone,” he says. “Please bear with him, he doesn’t get out much.”
    I feel an unfamiliar sense of balance, as if I’m ready for something but don’t yet know what it is. I nod and we follow the corridor’s curve until Harlan stops at a door made up of four triangles pointing at the centre.
    The triangles recess back to reveal a man who seems almost eaten away by nervous energy and rage. His jaw is permanently clenched and his body is a knotty arrangement of near fleshless musculature. He stares at us.
    “Morning Dodge,” Harlan says.
    Dodge grunts. I think the sound is meant to be a word as it struggles for life between the clamp of his teeth. He glares at me, his eyes a watery blue as if all reason has been diluted out of them.
    “Charity Freestone eh?” he finally manages.
    “Hello,” I say.
    “Bit nice for you isn’t she?” Dodge tells Harlan.
    “Harlan,” I say, “who is this gentleman?”
    “Dodge69,” Harlan says. “He’s a genius.”
    “Yes,” Dodge69 says.
    Dodge steps aside; Harlan strides in and I follow.
    The room is unadorned diamond and almost empty other than an odd-looking screen the height of a person in the corner by a table. One wall is completely full of a dazzling image from the Old World, a ‘photograph’ or a mock-up of one. The image is of a creature long dead; a sort of flying animal, with a small body and big, brightly coloured wings. I can’t remember the name of it.
    “Butterfly,” Dodge says. “Limited image patent.”
    “It’s beautiful,” I say.
    As I watch, the photograph fades to be replaced by one of an evening view over an ocean. The water is calm and the sky a dozen coloured streaks from orange to purple that fade in brightness towards a dark border.
    “Oh,” I say, “I’ve never seen this one. I mean I’ve heard of it but… This image is priceless.”
    I turn back to Dodge, confused.
    “Who are you?” I ask him. “Why do you live here if you can afford that?”
    “I like it here,” Dodge says. “All my kilos go on the pictures anyway; doesn’t matter where I am.”
    I look at the picture again. It has a strange effect on me. Perhaps it’s the sense of scale; no one sees height and distance like that anymore. Or it could be the sun, lost to us now and out of sight in this image too. When the picture was taken though the sun would have come back again… My breath catches.
    “Sorry,” I whisper.
    I shake my head and turn to see Dodge and Harlan watching me.
    “What is it?” I ask.
    “I like her,” Dodge tells Harlan.
    “Er…” I say.
    “Dodge has to like you,” Harlan says, “for us to…”
    He looks at Dodge.
    “Hm,” Dodge says.
    “To what?” I ask.
    Dodge points at the table.
    “Over there,” he says.
    We cross to the table. Dodge grows something out of it and picks the object