The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set

by D J Edwardson

  I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Adan. I’ll come back for you, though, I promise.

  A yellow streak of locus energy to appeared once again at the tips of Gavin’s fingers.

  The somatarchs were within ten paces. Behind them ran Xander with the assessors and also a new pair of probes.

  Gavin clamped one hand onto the capsule, fastening it to the tube using the safety lock. With his free hand he sliced the end closest to him clean off and ducked. Air spit forth from the capsule, starting off at a low fizzle, but ratcheting up quickly to a furious whistle. An inky green light shot forth from the tube and Gavin was launched down the corridor like the tip of a spear formed of green lightning. He remembered to suppress the pain just before he hit the white plastic door. He splintered the door and impacted the wall of the shaft. His body jerked to a near stop for half a moment before the canister shifted course and angled his trajectory downward.

  The momentary drop in speed allowed him to see the light at the end of the chute. A moment later he burst out through the trash vent. Immediately a single thought seized his mind.

  Oh no, the Persepolis took off.

  Gavin could not see the ground for all the swirling clouds below. He plummeted like a rock, the spent altitude capsule in his hands powerless to stop his fall.

  Twenty-Four

  Laid out on a Table

  Adan awoke in a high-ceilinged metal room. He assumed he was still aboard the Persepolis. Above him hung a tangled ball of cables fused together and embedded in the ceiling, capped by a large metallic bulb. The bulb glared down at him, a giant, mutilated eye, merciless and unforgiving. A second, identical ball hung to its left.

  He tried to rise, to get up and move out from under the eye’s unsettling gaze, but his arms, legs, chest, and waist were held fast by thick straps. He had a metal band around his head as well, but it did not hold him down.

  Adan’s mind flashed back to the alembic chamber in the Institute. The scientists had tied him to a machine there to help him recover his strength. The treatments had been excruciatingly painful. Was something similar in store for him?

  His last conversation with Cyrith came back to him, causing him to shudder. They’re going to erase my memory, he realized. And they’re going to use that ball of cables to do it.

  No sooner had that thought entered his mind when another, even more devastating thought, exploded inside his head. I’ll forget Sierra. She’ll forget me.

  A door on the opposite wall swished open and a chromium cart floated through. It had a body strapped on top of it the same way Adan was. Two somatarchs stood at the door, watching the cart drift through, but they remained outside when the door closed. The cart came to rest a few paces away from him.

  Adan didn’t recognize the man on top of the cart. He was clean shaven with closely cropped hair, after the style of the scientists, but his nose and jaw were far too angular and well defined for him to be one of them.

  When he turned and locked eyes with Adan, Adan gave a start.

  “Nolan? What are you doing here?”

  Nolan regarded him with amused pity. “So, they captured you as well.”

  “Hull was taken, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Nolan said, eyeing the looming bouquet of cables overhead. “And soon they’ll take our memories as well. If the Collective has one treasure, it’s their memorants. We’re too rare and valuable to let them pass us by.”

  Adan tried not to think about what was going to happen. Nolan was here, and whatever else he was, he was resourceful. Twice he had plotted to bring down the Collective and had nearly succeeded both times. If anyone could find a way out of this situation it would be him.

  “It doesn’t have to end like this. We could escape,” Adan said, but Nolan’s response was swift.

  “Out of the question,” he said, shaking his head. “This is the end for both of us. We’ve had too many second chances already.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know when I’m beaten. You may look for help if you wish, but no help will come.” Nolan closed his eyes as if he intended to just lay and wait for the scientists to come and erase his memory.

  “I thought maybe Hull would be able to fend them off,” Adan said. “You had all those ships.”

  “If I had thought my army was a match for them, I would have attacked the Collective a long time ago and you would not have been needed.” His eyes opened and a spiteful grin crossed his face. It was so odd for Adan to see him without his beard and long hair. He looked less enigmatic now, his expressions more exposed. He seemed smaller, too, laying there beside Adan. They had divested him of his elegant, gold trimmed robe and finely-crafted staff. He now wore the same simple gray robe as Adan. “A cog in the wheel, that’s all I was in the end,” he continued. “However many other cogs moved because of me, I was just a part of a larger machine. I have failed in my mission.”

  “What mission? Are you working for someone else? And don’t tell me it was Numinae again. I won’t believe you.”

  “Why ask the question if you plan on eliminating one of the possibilities beforehand? That’s the first sign of a defective mind—a predisposition to a certain set of answers. You will not get very far with that sort of thinking,” Nolan lifted his chin and for a moment appeared to recover some of his former pride.

  What was Nolan getting at? Did he mean to continue the ruse about Numinae even now, when they were both caught, both facing the same fate? Adan couldn’t see what he had to gain by doing so.

  “So you’re sticking by your story then? It was Numinae who sent you?”

  “What does it matter now? Everything that comes to pass is his will. Don’t you see that? We’re just puppets in a theater.”

  Adan stared back at Nolan, trying to resolve the riddle before him in the form of a man. Was he just speaking out of bitterness and hopelessness? Adan wondered what he really believed about Numinae, though he was at a loss to say exactly why it mattered so much to him. Maybe it was because of the implications to his own beliefs. What if Numinae did use cutthroats and schemers to carry out his ends? It was a troubling thought. Wasn’t he the source of goodness itself? Why did he allow evil to exist at all?

  “You’re still saying that he told you to attack Oasis?” Adan pressed him.

  Nolan glared back, weary of the constant questions. “Through Illiud, yes. ‘The skies shall fall upon that city of iniquity and destruction shall walk its streets,’ remember?” Nolan rattled off the prophecy in a droning, monotonous voice, as if by rote.

  “But Gavin was given that prophecy. Not you,” Adan maintained.

  “Can you be certain of that?” That old cleverness flashed in Nolan’s eyes.

  Adan faltered. He had categorically rejected Nolan’s story about Illiud, along with Nolan’s claim to have been sent from Numinae, but staring at Nolan now, on the edge of losing his memory, Adan’s confidence in that rejection wavered.

  “But how could Illiud have found you? It took a Developer to free Will. Illiud was just a Welkin.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know how he did it,” Nolan said. “I assume Numinae must have shown him. Nothing is impossible with him, after all. But it doesn’t really matter. I failed and now I will be cast into the fire along with the rest of Numinae’s useless vessels.”

  “What are you talking about? You think he’s abandoned us? You think you’re outside his help if you ask?” As Adan spoke, he wrestled with whether he believed the same thing as Nolan at that moment. Perhaps Numinae didn’t care what was going to happen to them. Perhaps this was what he had wanted all along.

  “Numinae does not stoop to listen to our requests. That is Welkin talk. The best one can hope for is to stay clear of the swath of destruction which he leaves in his wake.” Nolan’s expression grew bitter once again.

  Adan was tempted to give into hopelessness like Nolan, but he reminded himself that Numinae wasn’t like that. He couldn’t be.

  “You’re wrong about Numinae,�
�� Adan said. “He has answered my prayers before. And he has saved me from worse than this. Besides, even if he didn’t answer my prayers in a way that I could see, that’s not the point. We pray to find out his will, like…like little children do with their parents.” A heaviness washed over him as he remembered his friend Zain, the one who had shared the analogy with him.

  “You are right about that. Conformity. That is what the ruler of the universe desires. And none shall stand in his way. In the end, he’s really no different from the Collective.”

  “That’s not what I meant. You make him sound cruel. He’s not like that.”

  “And what do you know of Numinae? You’re nothing more than an organically enhanced pawn of the Collective, the Delegation, and the so-called maker of the universe. Getting used is the only thing you know how to do. But not all of us are content with our slavery.” Nolan’s lip twitched in a sneer.

  Adan felt blood rush to his face in anger. This, from the man who had twice sent him to his death to do what he dared not do himself.

  “Maybe I’m not as powerful as you,” Adan said quietly, working to stay in control of his emotions. “But I know Numinae will protect me. And if you asked, I know he would do the same for you.”

  Nolan strained against his bonds again, his expression tightening and his eyes smoldering with an inner fire.

  “Who do you think sends the storms which ravage this world? It is Numinae. Who do you think allowed me to send you to Oasis the first time? The self same lord. Who do you think spurred the army of Waymen to their deaths? Your precious Creator each once again. And who do you think sent us to this cursed planet to begin with? It was the ever-loving, all-kind, all-good, supernatural being whom you pray to with such faith and sincerity. Now tell me again who it is that answers your prayers.”

  Adan stared at Nolan in shock, the words he had just heard whirling through his mind. He wanted to counter them, to defend Numinae as he had before, but they shouted down his arguments, drowning out any possible response. One phrase rose above the rest.

  Who do you think sent us to this cursed planet to begin with?

  The words settled in Adan’s mind like a hazy reflection clearing in the water.

  “What did you say—this planet? Someone sent us here? What are you talking about?”

  “This world is not our home,” Nolan said cooly. “I would have thought Kelm had enough of his mind left to at least tell you that.”

  Adan’s response sounded hollow in his own ears, as if in a dream. “Kelm did try to…tell me something…I think.” The prisoner’s ravings danced back through Adan’s mind. “He said he had seen me before…but that you did something to his mind. He wasn’t altogether there, so I didn’t believe him.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Nolan said.

  “He said you drugged him.”

  “That’s what I made him think. It sometimes helps the mind accept memory manipulation more easily to believe it has been drugged.”

  “But why? Why did you do that to him?”

  “He was far too dangerous to set free. I could have just killed him, but he knew too much about the Delegation to just simply dispose of.”

  “Wait, slow down. Kelm was trying to call the Delegation? Why? Who is the Delegation?”

  “The Delegation came before the Collective. Their leaders were more conventional, ruling by their military power and shrewd political acts where that failed. But their civilization was shattered and their cities leveled. The few survivors took refuge below ground since their planet was no longer inhabitable.

  “It was the Collective who destroyed their world, though they did not call themselves by that name back then. They were merely a resistance movement. Deliverance was their name in the beginning. They struck before the Delegation even realized the threat by capturing the prize of the Delegation armada, an interstellar ship called the Nebula through an act of betrayal.

  “Malthus was in command of the ship, and Darius promised to restore his son Dane to life if he would yield control of it to Deliverance. I was Darius’ mentor back then, and foolish enough to trust him with the secrets of the memorant path. But in an act of double betrayal, my life was forfeited and my mind and body used to host Dane’s thoughts, personality, and memories.

  “And thus the Nebula came into Darius’ hands. It was an enormous structure, capable of housing thousands of people. More importantly, it possessed a weapon called the omniclast, the World Breaker. With it, the leaders of the Collective brought an end to the war and turned their home world into a burnt out husk. Kelm was an advance scout in the Delegation’s army, sent out across the stars to find out where the Collective had fled to and signal back their location.”

  Adan stared off into nothing, lost in thought, trying to take it all in. Other planets? An army capable of crossing the stars? He wasn’t sure what it all meant. “And you learned all of this from Kelm?”

  “Most, but not all. Illiud told me some things as well. He said that I was not from this world and that if I would raise an army and fight against the ‘wicked ones’ as he called them, that Numinae would deliver me from this place and give me a new home.”

  Adan hung on Nolan’s every word. He could not believe that he was finally getting answers now that he was on the edge of losing everything.

  “What do you mean when you speak of another planet? You make it sound like there is something else beyond the Vast. But what is it? A star? Another land? Or perhaps just another word for the Eversky?”

  “You and I come from another world,” Nolan spoke slowly and letting his words sink in. “You have to pass beyond the clouds to get to it, and even then it is impossibly far away, but it is not the Eversky. The Eversky is a myth made up by the Welkin to get their people to follow Numinae. He dwells beyond all time and space. There is no way to get to him. He is wholly other. But our planet, and the planet where the Delegation comes from, is the planet of Kess, and it can be traveled to via space ship. An interstellar ship like the Nebula.”

  “What happened to the ship after the Collective used it to destroy the Delegation’s world?”

  “The leaders of the Collective crashed it onto the surface of this planet. I don’t know why. Maybe they thought that since the Delegation was gone they didn’t need it anymore. Whatever the reason, they were fools to destroy it. But now they’ve realized their error and want it back.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Nolan’s face grew grim once more. He replied in low, bitter tones.

  “Because I was in the process of rebuilding it. Do you think the attack on Hull was an accident? I wasn’t any threat to them. They attacked this city because they wanted their ship back. The city of Hull is the Nebula.”

  The door to Adan’s room whisked open before the full weight of Nolan’s words could sink in.

  Trey and Xander, wearing silver lab coats, passed into the room. Trey’s reddish scar glistened in the light like a warning beacon, heralding the terrible fate that awaited Adan.

  Xander took the lead, his movements and mannerisms more rushed than was typical for a Collective scientist.

  “We do not usually do warm-bodied remapping,” Xander said, not taking his eyes off them as he approached. “But in your case we have decided to make an exception. You are both extremely important to us.”

  Trey’s eyes shifted nervously.

  The two men took positions beside either cart, Xander standing next to Adan and Trey beside Nolan.

  “You know, no matter how many people you absorb into the Collective, you’ll never be able to survive the Delegation attack when it comes,” Nolan said, his tone as deep as it was threatening. “And it will come, you do know that, don’t you?”

  “We have ways of dealing with them,” Xander said, though Adan heard little confidence in his reply.

  Xander’s eyes glazed over a moment later and the tentacled ball of machinery above Adan descended. Trey did the same and the second ball lowered over Nolan.
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br />   Adan had to do something before it was too late, but his mind seized up. He was a memorant. There was some way for him to tell what Xander and Trey were thinking, but he couldn’t remember how to do it. He strained to recall the knowledge, but it eluded him, vanishing on the edge of his thoughts whenever he reached out for it.

  They already took that away. They erased it when I was unconscious.

  “Xander, please don’t do this,” he begged.

  But the expression on Xander’s face, or rather the lack of any at all, told Adan that it was pointless. To Xander, Adan was an object, a thing, nothing more.

  Numinae, please stop this, Adan prayed, knowing that this was truly his last resort. I don’t want to lose myself again.

  “You’re not going to die,” Trey assured him, his eyes briefly regaining focus. “In fact, this is the only way you’re guaranteed to survive.”

  The words were met by Xander’s cold stare and Trey went silent.

  “You cannot escape the punishment for your crimes. Judgment will be meted out on all who disobey.” Nolan said, his words reminiscent of the eidos from Gavin’s memories.

  Neither Xander nor Trey seemed to hear him. The mechanical bulb hovered so close to Adan he could have touched it if his arms had been free.

  As he stared out at the loss of all he held dear, he tried to remember the people who were important to him, to hold on to his memories for one last moment. Gavin, Senya, Raif, Von, and Lila, Senya’s precious little daughter. And Sierra, above all Sierra. How would he ever hold on to her?

  He remembered the way Senya had talked to him about the death of her husband. The pain of her loss was a tangible thing in her eyes, and yet there had been a spark of light behind that pain, her connection to him unbroken even beyond death. He wished he had been able to share that kind of bond with Sierra. But instead his hopes and memories would be consumed by that pitiless mass of tessellated coils hovering over him. The slinking cables sent shivers of fear through his body.