A Child Of Our Time (The Veil Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

normal dream state this would be because the brain effectively paralyzes the body to stop it acting the dream out. He considers the Tap might have a similar effect, but it should all be in the mind, so…
    JoJo and Eleanor flank Lucius as he shuffles his way to the door, both ready with the lightest of supporting touches. With each step his gait improves and by the time he gets to the door it’s more natural.
    Eleanor opens the door for him to reveal a room within, not visible from outside. He steps in noting that he can no longer see the Common Room, despite the apparent lack of walls. A white-world enclosed within a white-world.
    Elegant pieces of furniture occupy the room. Just inside the door is an occasional table, with a number of personal items arranged on it. In the center of the room books lie open on an ornate coffee table, which itself sits before an eighteenth-century sofa. Of particular note to Lucius is a privacy screen, in a Japanese style, standing to one side.
    He finds it all to be highly captivating.
    The sound of a vase crashing to the floor, just outside the door, arrests all three of them. They turn to see pieces of china lying in the doorway, the sound of footsteps fleeing the scene outside briefly punctuated by a bump into a piece of furniture.
    They hurry into the Common Room, arriving just in time to see a third door slam shut. It’s a struggle, but Lucius makes his way to the door. It’s of an old fashioned appearance, with a large brass knob. He grasps the knob and rattles it. The door is locked from within.
    * * *
    Disorientated and drained, Lucius removes the Tap faster than Boyce can properly disconnect it. He tries to rise, a concerned Moule comforting him.
    “It’s not an experience I would recommend,” he croaks.
    He tries to rise again.
    * * *
    The third-generation chamber is silent, save for the whisper of air conditioning. Still exhausted, Lucius enters dragging a chair noisily along the floor. He sets it before MBI #3 and seats himself to ponder its obsidian slab.
    Boyce and Moule observe him briefly from the door way, knowing all too well how unwise it would be to disturb him.
    Lucius, for his part, is quite ready to invest a considerable amount of time in this particular staring contest.

THREE
    A new day dawns, the sun rising over the city to bathe the Cantor Satori tower. A convoy of blacked out SUVs accompany an armored truck as it comes alongside the building, heading down an access ramp to the underground garage.
    The convoy pulls up at a loading area, Landelle hopping out of one of the SUVs. Technicians alight from other vehicles and set about unloading the armored truck, manhandling three large containers to the freight elevator.
    It doesn’t take long for the equipment to be unpacked and arranged—three mobile units that the technicians maneuver into position outside Jerome Ellis’s glass vault. Atop each unit is a transparent tube fully two meters in length, its contents a complex arrangement of perforated metal sheets. Thick, shielded cables run from the back of each tube to the main unit below. Their placement is such that each points through the vault’s opaque glass wall at an MBI unit within.
    Lucius enters brusquely to confront Landelle.
    “What in God’s name is going on?”
    “You said it yourself—they’re tamper proof,” she says. “No off switch, like Alice. Once on they stay on.”
    She causally hands Lucius a folded sheet of paper, which he sets about reading.
    “It’s a proviso of the Supreme Court,” she says, “that termination be immediate if a third-generation Emby is judged to be psychotic.” She gestures at the mobile tube-devices. “Three independent electromagnetic pulse guns, one for each Emby.”
    Before Lucius can get a word out she sidesteps him to leave, with only a pointedly phrased parting.
    “No more monsters.”
    * * *
    Lucius stands before a ghostly projection of Justice Garr, speaking to him from her offices in Washington,