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

head. Reluctantly I let go of Harlan, who swings his long legs off the flybike to land in a single motion. I jump off too and stand beside him.
    “Good club this,” he says.
    I look up at him and smile. We both start to walk at the same time.
    The roof of the building is a circular platform thrust up into the bright chaos of the MidZone night. Shorn of their gruelling racket, the adverts streak and pulse. Some of them literally fight each other, like huge characters made of light. Assemblies and ships, also adverts, crash through them and the whole relentless process begins again. Endlessly evolving illumination floods the platform and the fifty or so vehicles parked there throw odd shadows that stretch and turn like dark fingers pointing at a moving target.
    A lot of the adverts feature my sister. Over there she soars on the latest flybike, different from the last one only in the runner design although I must admit the change is an improvement. There’s also one for a product called Vingo that cooks itself while you eat it, which holo-Ursula is in the process of doing. The sexuality in her movements and expression is magnified by scale and Harlan’s overwhelming presence. I seem to need more and more oxygen, breathing deep, then deeper…
    I focus on the most striking advert, which is for Centria itself. Hanging over the others, it is a huge hologram of Ursula’s head. Her eyes gaze steadily down, the iris and pupil altered to show Centria’s logo: a filled circle surrounded by a thick-bodied C, both elements glowing a soft otherworldly blue. The limbs of the C nearly meet, perhaps to resemble Centria’s great door open, perhaps to show the ring road that brings everyone close or perhaps to suggest Centria’s grip on Diamond City.
    As we continue across the roof there’s a sudden deafening clang and a beam of yellow light flashes up from a shadowy area ahead to stand in the night like a golden pillar. Discordant music tumbles out of it and rises along with my hackles. Just as I start to feel actual anger the music resolves so sweetly I can almost taste it.
    A woman flies up inside the pillar of light. She laughs and waves her arms as a man follows in a slow somersault. More people rise: a fountain of people. Some move gracefully in the absence of gravity; others bump into each other and the gentle impact sends them flying apart, mouths open in delight as if propelled by laughter.
    We reach the light and I look down through a large, circular hole that opens a third of the roof. People fly up at us from a bright disc far below, increasing in size the closer they get and then diminishing once they pass.
    The music is beautiful now and follows the movement of everyone in the air. A man flies on the crest of a rising chord while two women, solemn and curious as children, collide with a soft, echoing boom. Even the light has a sound: a low sibilant hiss one moment and the next a thousand voices joined in a single astonishing note…
    Harlan picks me up and leaps off the edge.
    Weird arse clench sick and lovely-
    How can I fall upward? Harlan starts to let go and I grab at him. We rise together past happy people who move in the air and smile at us. I breathe deeply and feel better. Although I register the airborne drug my overwhelming focus is Harlan. As he stares up at me my gaze traces the dark contours of his expression, the thrilling whites of his eyes and his curlicues of hair as they begin to float around his head. He gently pushes me away and this time I don’t mind.
    My hair is a soft cloud as I fly up feet first. I panic as I realise I’m at the high edge of the golden light but there’s a buzz and I bounce off the side of the field to head across it in a different direction. I flex my arms and legs in a slow cartwheel, then gyrate, curl and stretch to extend my body into every conceivable position. Sweetly hot inside my clothes, my own smell is an intimate intoxication.
    I am free of gravity and