Absolution

by Peter Smith

  Absolution

  A Spire Saga Novel

  Peter Smith

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. James Dawson

  2. General Kellen

  3. Maria Patterson

  4. David Williams

  5. Maria Patterson

  6. Maria Patterson

  7. Tobor

  8. Maria Patterson

  9. Trotsky

  10. Maria Patterson

  11. Maria Patterson

  12. Fitz Warin

  13. Maria Patterson

  14. Sean Williams

  15. General Kellen

  16. Maria Patterson

  17. Sean Williams

  18. Maria Patterson

  19. David Williams

  20. Tobor

  21. Jacob Patterson

  22. Maria Patterson

  23. Maria

  Prologue

  Jacob Patterson

  The words erupted from his chest with such force that his throat felt as if it were ripping apart, “Watch out!”

  The feeling of weightlessness enveloped him as their bodies tipped over the edge and toward the battle raging below. His adrenal glands flooded his bloodstream and the neural link implanted against his brain stem detected the surge of hormones and amplified their effect.

  Jacob Patterson felt time nearly come to a standstill. He understood that it was still progressing, that he and his beloved daughter Maria were plummeting to their assured deaths. Blown over the edge by a gust of wind or an explosion that had shaken the building and caused them to lose their footing. With the assistance of the implant his brain was processing data at an incredible rate, unlike so many others in similar life and death situations. He could think through what needed to be done.

  The golds and purples of the setting sun reflected off the carpet of shattered glass that covered the floor of his sanctuary. He could see the shards with absolute fidelity out of the peripheral vision of his right eye, as the two of them tipped over the edge. Explosions on the ground below slowly unfolded themselves, consuming both man and machine in balls of shrapnel and hellfire. He could feel Maria’s head resting against his chest and his heart wanted to burst. She was far too young to die. He knew that he had an opportunity to save her, that their feet hadn’t yet fully left the floor of the Spire as they arced toward their death’s.

  His hands gripped her shoulders, painfully slow. While his thoughts were operating at speeds impossible for mere men, the delay in transmitting electrical signals down his rudimentary nervous system to his extremities reduced his response time. The time to complete each movement was agonizing as he felt them finish more of their arc off of the building.

  He could see Tobor, moving with far greater speed and agility than he could ever hope to muster with his own organic body. The degenerate that the robot had been carrying appeared to hang in the air as the machine closed the distance. Jacob understood that no matter how fast he moved, he could never save Maria from this fate alone. He needed Tobor, but the drone wouldn’t be able to reach them in time, even with its incredible speed. He would need to delay Maria’s fall, if only for a moment.

  His hands finally finished gripping her and with every bit of strength he possessed he flung her back toward the ledge, hoping that he had timed it right, that his body hadn’t failed him when he needed it the most. Maria was still falling, her beautiful eyes closed as the unceasing winds of this altitude swept aside her hair. She appeared to hang there before him for a moment as his body continued to speed toward the ground at the original velocity of their fall. In that instant he was certain that she would die with him and his heart broke.

  And then the distance between them exploded, and she swung through the missing section of glass that had existed below his sanctum prior to the Marine’s attack on their home. She arced out of his vision for a moment, and then he saw Tobor. The robot hung from the ledge, its other hand gripping the back of Maria’s shirt material.

  Her eyes flashed open, and for one last time, they connected, and he saw guilt. He didn’t understand why. As quickly as he had seen her, she vanished as he fell for what felt like an infinite amount of time. He reached for her, for the little girl that he had dedicated his every waking moment to, for his future and that of the entire human race. She would be alone now, her mother had betrayed them and she would have to stand alone against the barbarians and monsters that lurked in our world. It destroyed him knowing that she would have to make decisions such as those he had made. He had wanted none of this for her; she deserved better.

  The air rushed past him and he could see the girth of The Spire increasing. The sounds of war surrounded him and joined the roar of the wind to batter his ears. He reached up for his little girl one last time to say that he was s…

  Hell, he had to be in hell.

  The stench of sulfur battered his senses, and pain lanced through every aspect of his being. He could feel his back against an unforgiving surface of cold metal. Harsh white light flooded his vision and merged with the pain that was overwhelming all thought. His eyelids closed, but that did little to reduce the blinding glare. A deafening sound hammered at his ears and his skin felt as if it were simultaneously on fire and freezing. There was simply too much to process.

  He opened his mouth to scream but wasn’t sure if anything came out. A second later a strangled noise was his response, and panic gripped at him. He tried to reach for his face, but his arms refused to move. His chest rose and fell dramatically, every breath mapping his respiratory system in pain. Something gripped him on the shoulders and his hips. It felt as if the vice like hold would crush the very bones that they were grasping. A pressure blossomed through his deltoid. Seconds passed, feeling as if they were an eternity, and then the pain diminished. It wasn’t entirely gone but it no longer consumed his every single synapse. The grip relented, and he found that he could move his arms and body, if only a little. Slowly he rolled onto his side. His knees sliding toward his chest to join the hands that were now clutching his flesh there.

  The noise was still there, but it was no longer random bits of data, instead it held a repeating pattern. He opened his eyes to see what was the source of the sound, but was greeted with the blinding light again. His hand slid across the surface of the table he lay upon and up toward his face. He placed his palm over his eyes and tried again to use his eyes. The light slowly faded, and he wasn’t sure if it was due to his actions.

  Letting his hand rest on the surface, he slowly opened his eyes again and this time could make out shapes through the glare. A form was standing before him.

  “Too bright” he croaked.

  The lights dimmed further, “Is this level of illumination acceptable?”

  The form resolved itself into a low-resolution image of one of his drones. It’s grey, black and white colors sending a surge of relief through him.

  It was tempered though. He concluded that if this was hell, Satan would want to lull his prisoners into a false sense of security. To magnify the shock and pain that would come from the torture certain to follow. And if anyone deserved to burn in hell, it was he.

  “Are you,” his voice seized as he tried to form the words. Several dry gulps later, he worked up enough saliva to wet his throat. The sensation of sandpaper being scrapped across the sensitive tissue within his neck subsided and he finished, “Are you the Devil?”

  The machine looked down at him, Jacob wasn’t certain for how long but it felt as if the wait stretched into infinity and then its emotionless voice responded, “I do not understand your inquiry.”

  He tried a different approach, “Am I dead?”

  This time the drone responded with much greater speed, “Your vitals are elevated, however the cloning and animation process
experienced no detectable complications and you appear to be in good health.”

  Cloning, what the hell did the machine…

  His eyes focused on his hands and the scars and callouses that had covered them from a lifetime spent working in laboratories had vanished. His palms went to his head, to feel for the wound that had been cut into his scalp by a piece of shrapnel from the aerial combat drone. The one that had shielded his family from the artillery shell lobbed at them by those murderous rats.

  What met his touch were rigid and short hairs, just poking out of the skin. His hand swept over the surface of his head, feeling the rough consistency of newly grown hair. His palm slide all the way around to the back of his neck when his fingers tips encounter the bulge at the base of his skull. His hand stopped, and his memory triggered.

  He was plunging toward the surface, the sounds of individual fire arms and screams of men pushing through the roar of the wind. His aerial combat drones danced in tight circles, chasing after the two Marine fighter jets and strafing the soldiers below. The peak of the Spire rapidly retreated as he fell, and then, suddenly, there was absolutely nothing.

  He had died.

  His stomach convulsed, and he threw up a mass of bile onto the table, portions of it striking the drone’s outer protective shell and adhering to it. Most of the material sailed off and fell onto the ground at the feet of the machine. Slowly, shakily, he gripped the side of the bed and pulled himself toward the edge. The material gave beneath his palm making him realize that he wasn’t laying upon metal but upon what likely should have been a comfortable foam mattress with a fluid proof coating over it.

  His body was new. The signals sent through his nervous system screamed along never used nerves. Everything was foreign for his body and he was experiencing the physical sensations that a newborn might. He had the mental experience to understand it all, but the physical nature of his body hadn’t developed the resilience it needed to be able to handle the tsunami of sensory information.

  That was what the injection must have been for, to mollify the power of the sensations he was experiencing. The light was already softening and his breathing didn’t feel as if a blowtorch were being directed down his throat. Thought was still difficult though, even with the pain diminishing it was hard to recall the information he needed to place everything into context.

  “So this isn’t hell?” He managed and to his relief the act of speaking wasn’t as painful as before.

  The drone replied flatly, “With your unexpected termination, emergency protocol engaged and real-time data stores at the New York facility were synched with servers located here at VO1.”

  He tried to press against the bed, to push himself into a seated position, but managed only a few centimeters before falling back onto the mat. The machine’s hand rested on his shoulder and while Jacob was certain it was being placed there gently, it felt as if it were a thousand pounds holding him in place, “It is inadvisable to move at this time, this body was removed from the maturation tank five minutes and thirty-two seconds ago. It is anticipated that at least twelve hours are necessary for acclimation and muscular growth acceleration.”

  Jacob rolled onto his back and immediately regretted the act as the lights shone directly into his eyes. His hands went to shield them and once again the light level dropped, “How long?”

  “Please clarify.”

  He laid his right hand over his eyes and applied gentle pressure to both of his temples, annoyed at himself for not being concise enough with the AI running the machine. He wrote much of the code for the damn things. He should know what was needed to get the response he wanted. He tilted his head toward the drone, never removing his hand, “How long since I died.”

  “Ninety-five days, seventeen hours and thirty-six minutes since receipt of your data packet from the primary facility in New York.”

  “Three months” he rasped and his heart beat faster.

  “Maria, what happened to Maria!” His fear beginning to take hold and he could feel himself about to hyperventilate. His new respiratory system becoming easily overwhelmed by the sudden influx of air.

  “Please direct your attention upward.”

  Jacob, annoyed, moved the hand from over his eyes and opened them. A blurry image hung above him. Seconds passed, and it clicked in his mind what he was looking at. The drone was displaying his Pulse Oximetry and Capnography waveform, “Why are you showing me this?”

  “If you lapse into unconsciousness, you will cease being able to receive treatment which will delay your ability to re-assert control. Please monitor your current vitals and avoid unexpected complications.”

  He slowed his breathing and took a stabilizing breath. The machine was right, if Maria were in danger then he couldn’t save her if he was unconscious. While he certain the medical facilities here could treat him, seconds would matter if he needed to come to her aid.

  “Is Maria okay?” He asked, slowly and now in control of his breathing.

  “Her status is unknown, access to the primary network ceased thirteen minutes after receipt of your data packet.”

  He turned his head toward the drone again, “Why?”

  “Unknown.”.

  “What about her mother, Eva, what’s her status?”

  “Unknown.”

  His vitals began to rise again, and he could feel the frustration growing within. Pain slowly ebbed from his hand and he looked at it, wondering if it he had somehow hurt it, “You killed my family you bastard!”

  He looked up at the drone, “What did you say?”

  “The last statement made by this unit was, ‘unknown’,” The machine said, staring down at him.

  He placed his hands beside him and leveraged himself up, his abdominals screaming in resistance until the upper half of the bed angled upward, supporting him through the movement. The machine stepped forward, ready to provide assistance in case he fell forward. After agonizing seconds he sat upright, exhaustion saturating every cell of his body even with the mechanical help of the bed.

  “I heard a voice, someone’s here.”

  “All other subjects are currently in their maturation chambers and are not scheduled for processing.”

  He looked around the room for the first time, getting a good view of it. It was a windowless space with two doorways. One was in front of him, another to his right. A medical drone stood against the wall waiting with its specialized equipment in case it was needed. A small machine was moving over the floor where his vomit had landed, cleaning it up. Small and utilitarian were the words that best described the room.

  Processing chamber. This was where he had planned on having all of them removed from the maturation chambers. Though this wasn’t where they were supposed to be woken, they had rooms specially designed to make the transition smoother. So why had the AI running the facility woken him early… then he remembered, the plan had been for him to be woken first, to oversee their transition and to make sure everything here was safe. The other Spire patriarchs and matriarchs were cunning. It was always possible that they could have discovered this place and infiltrated it, if not physically then possibly digitally.

  His priority had to be in securing this facility. He couldn’t help Maria or Eva if there wasn’t a stable location from which to manage his operations and less so if the place he would bring them too wasn’t safe, “I want to look for whom ever spoke, to see for myself that this place is vacant.”

  “That is inadvisable.”

  He turned his head, his mouth dropping open as he drew breath, “Are you going to stop me?”

  It was a frightening thought, but the machine may have been co-opted. He hoped not, there was little to nothing he could do if it was, it could easily kill him in his current state. Then another thought occurred to him, why resurrect him at all. His heart beat faster. It made no sense to bring him back unless the goal was to deceive or torture him to gain information on the empire’s holdings.

  The entire room took on a diff
erent feel. The robot which moments earlier had seemed comforting and helpful now shifted in his mind and appeared more sinister. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he turned his head toward the door before him. A flare of pain flashed into existence across his neck and upper back as he pulled an untested muscle. He almost threw up and his vision blurred as the pain threatened to overwhelm him. An exoskeleton stepped through the doorway and into the room, stopping beside the bed. The drone extended its hand to him and it became clear that the machine would not prevent him from leaving.

  He tried to scoot forward. The drone stepped up and placed a hand gently on his shoulder, above the damaged muscle, while the other slipped under his hand. The pain subsided, and he suspected that it had detected the damage and had treated it with micro needles located in its palm. Cautiously he moved forward on the bed and the surface altered its shape, no longer a flat surface with a raised back to support. Now it shifted into that of a chair, his legs slowly dropping toward the ground.

  He moved his foot off the bottom of the newly created chair and touched the cold and dusty floor. His knee immediately threatened to buckle, but the drone held him until the other machine could arrive at his other side. The exoskeleton shuffled several steps closer to him as he stepped up into it; the dust creating a grimy feel on the bottom of his feet between him and the assisted walking technology.

  The two drones immediately strapped him into the exoskeleton, “Why is it so dusty in here?”

  The first drone didn’t hesitate as it secured the back brace that would keep him upright, “An unexpected breach in the primary airlock occurred thirty-seven hours and fifteen minutes go. Much of the facility was exposed to the native atmosphere.”