Lost Sentinel: Post-Apocalyptic Time Travel Adventure (Earth Survives Series Book 1)

by R. R. Roberts

  LOST SENTINEL

  BOOK ONE OF THE EARTH SURVIVES SERIES

  R. R. ROBERTS

  Copyright © 2017 by Ronnie Roberts

  All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people or places are used fictitiously; other names and places are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people or places is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be copied or reproduced without the author’s express permission.

  Edited by Sherry Murphy

  Cover Art by Kristin Designs

  Published by Pajama Therapy Books – 2017

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9958025-2-0

  CONTENTS

  Books by R.R. Roberts

  Acknowledgments

  1. The Betrayal

  2. Ravens

  3. Reliable Source

  4. Prisoner

  5. The Two Dennys

  6. 0n the Town

  7. Horses

  8. No Dishes

  9. Dakota Fire Pit

  10. The Wolves of Summer

  11. Deklin Signals

  12. Salt Caves

  13. Traveling Circus

  14. Paths Cross

  15. Drop Out Acres

  16. Scavenging

  17. Dreamscape

  18. Expansion

  19. The Key

  20. Misdirection

  21. Nesting

  22. Missing: The Truth

  23. Not a Game

  24. Highway Signs

  25. Greener Grass

  26. Things Change

  27. Murder or Justice

  28. Run!

  29. Curtis

  30. Healing Time

  31. Outlanders and Freelanders

  32. Nightmares

  33. Hey Barista!

  34. This Won’t End Well

  35. The Gathering

  36. Freeland

  37. Time Bore

  Excerpt: Cursed Apprentice

  End of Book Stuff

  About the Author

  BOOKS BY R.R. ROBERTS

  The Earth Survives Series:

  Lost Sentinel

  Cursed Apprentice

  Deadly Messenger

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I want to thank my son Luc Pelletier, who talked through ideas for this book with me when I first came up with this time travel adventure. It was Luc who gave me the key to unlocking the heart of this story with one vital piece of information: “Some people see numbers as colors.”: six words that grew into a three books series. Big high-five to Luc!

  I want to thank my good friend Glenn Palmer, who asked me a pivotal question about telepathy that sent me down a whole new path in the series. Thank you, Glenn, you changed everything.

  (In a good way!)

  And a special thank you to Sherry Murphy, who saved me in the end, when all seemed lost. This book would not be here without your support. Everyone needs a Sherry in their life.

  1

  THE BETRAYAL

  (Year 2341 on Cloud Rez, over North Dakota in United Amerada)

  The rumbling Time Bore belched out blasts of heat even as chunks of the mighty structure fell away, smashing to the slick floor, shattering into jagged pieces, scattering in all directions like deviant billiard balls. On his knees, Coru Wisla jammed the archaic satellite positioning devices his mother Moira had thrust at him into two packs, one for his younger brother Payton—please God, let Payton know his way around a SPD, at least—the other for himself. Their father Cyprian stood over them, bracing himself against the sway of the room while feverishly keying coordinates into his sons’ glowing tablets, his tattooed head glistening with dripping sweat.

  The perimeter lights flickered and went out.

  The darkened room heaved again, listing further to one side, its once benign grey surfaces now twisted, casting sinister shadows across the space that spoke of hidden flaws and dangerous secrets. Cyprian staggered but stayed on his feet, focused on the task at hand.

  Moira clung to the edge of the ruined, half-lit console Sean Keyes was laboring over and Anala Patterawadee’s crew grabbed at railings, parts of which came away in their hands. Caught crouching in the open along with pieces of the Bore, both Coru and Payton slid across the floor toward its gaping mouth, their half-packed bags tumbling behind.

  “Not yet!” Payton protested, his young voice a high squeak as he grabbed at the floor, but he kept sliding.

  Coru shot out his hand and snagged the hot edge of the funnel, fighting the pull of the Bore and managing to corral his brother and both bags, taking a hit to his chest that emptied his lungs with a thud.

  A deafening crack sent an ominous shudder through the gleaming black structure that commanded half of the lab, this despite the supporting bands Patty’s team had hastily strapped around its twenty-foot wide mouth. A scattering of emergency lights flicked on, giving Coru just enough illumination to register the horror etched on Patty’s face. The room abruptly righted itself. There was a moment of stillness.

  “Go!” he gasped, shoving Payton forward. Dragging their packs, they scrambled away from the slippery entrance, back to the center of the vibrating laboratory, turning in time to see the Time Bore split further from its mooring. Coru’s heart stuttered at what had just happened, and at the insane chance they were about to take. They were seriously going to jump into that machine and hope it held together long enough for them to reach their destination?

  Patty shouted at the last of her crew. “Garry! Nicolai! You’ve done all you can, more than I asked. Get to the evacuation deck and Surface on the next shuttle. Don’t wait for me.”

  Nicolai hesitated. “But Patty, what about you and…” His wide eyes shifted to Cyprian and back to Anala Patterawadee. “What about…”

  Patty waved him off. “Go. Save yourselves. We’ll be close behind.”

  Everyone knew it was a lie. It would be a miracle if they got out in time.

  Coru bit back an overwhelming need to send both Payton and Patty with them. His brother’s expression of excitement about their pending jump through time was so wrong. He was too damned young to recognize his own probable demise when it stood right before him. To Payton, this was an adventure; to Coru, it was a necessary and most likely futile mission.

  There was no alternative, no time for second thoughts. If they did nothing, soon, very soon, Cloud Rez and all who lived here would be no more.

  Grateful for the poor lighting, Coru turned his attention back to packing, retrieving his bedroll and strapping it onto his bag while ignoring his trembling fingers. Hell, his whole body was vibrating.

  Last to go in his bag were two double-bladed knives, necessarily primitive weapons for their destination, tucked into the outer pockets where he could easily reach them. He stopped at the taser, considering it. An Exo-Taser would be better, less bloodletting, more civilized, but if it were to fall into the wrong hands…

  He glanced at Payton, taking in his soft, rounded cheeks, yet to grow a single whisker or feel the edge of a sharp blade. I will keep you safe. He shoved the Exo-Taser into his jacket.

  Moira fell to her knees and lunged for her younger son with a moan, wrapping his soft body in her arms, spilling silver food packets from his bag. “Why you?” she bleated, pressing her wet face to his. “Why not let Coru go by himself? He’s used to Surface. There’s only one girl to find. It will be easy. He knows exactly where and when she is. Stay here, safe with me.”

  “You think this is ‘safe’?” Payton pee
led her hands from him, scrambled after the scattered food packets and stuffed them back into his bulging pack. “There is no ‘safe’. The Bore is about to implode. It’ll be miraculous if we even make it to WEN 2036—if 2036 is in fact the year Zhang appeared in—let alone find Wren Wood and get back here. Two travelers are better than one.”

  Moira turned to Cyprian. “Cy! For God’s sake, stop him. Payton is a scholar, not a tracker.”

  Cyprian raised his arm and stabbed an accusing finger toward the bore. “Do you see anyone else with a clue about the past or experience on Surface willing to jump through that crumbling monstrosity Zhang created?” he demanded, his eyes glittering with rage.

  “Please, Cy, I beg you. My boy, my beautiful boy!” When he didn’t answer, she pounded her fists into the splintered floorboards. “You don’t even know if this will work!”

  With a bark of disgust, Cyprian ended the exchange, focusing on checking his numbers with Keyes, who was still hunched over the damaged motherboard.

  Coru turned away from yet another emotional tug of war between his parents and jammed his warming cloak into the last open pocket of his pack. Where were Moira’s pleas of “My boy, my beautiful boy” when he’d gone to Surface again and again, fighting to salvage something of the earth they had ruined in their bid to rise and live in the clouds? For six years he’d risked his life every day, without a whisper of protest from his mother. Though he had accepted his position in the family years ago, his mother’s disinterest still had the power to sting.

  Cyprian thrust the glowing tablets toward his sons. “Place these inside your jackets. These, if nothing else, will get you back to our time. Do not let them out of your sight.” Only then did he address Moira again. “First, your ‘boy’ is no longer a boy, but a grown man of eighteen years, who has made his own choice. Second, you have not one son, but two. Two sons willing to risk their lives for all the Citizens of Cloud Rez.”

  Coru looked at his father in surprise; Moira looked away.

  Cyprian continued, softer now, “You’re right. We don’t know if this will work, but we do know we’ll all be dead if this doesn’t work. We have one shot, and we’re taking it. I’ve set up the coordinates to return Payton and Coru to us within the hour. How long they will remain in the past is one thing; the time they return is entirely another. One hour of our time, Moira—that’s all you need suffer. One hour without both of your sons.”

  Her eyes narrowed at the reproof. She leapt to her feet, her face contorted. “If they come back at all!”

  “Like I said, if they don’t go, we’re all dead.”

  There was a moment when the stuttering hum of the Time Bore was the only sound to fill the space before Moira collapsed onto the splintered floor with a wail of despair. “I blame you,” she sobbed. “You should have stopped Zhang!”

  Moira without filters was not pretty.

  “Put the blame where it belongs, mother,” Coru ground out through clenched teeth. “Blame Zhang for going through the Bore in the first place. The handsome, charming Zhang you championed at every opportunity.” A lick of heat flamed through him as he envisioned the entitled Zhang making love to all the council members’ wives with his chocolate eyes and slow, promising smile. Zhang, who murdered his guardian and then set the Time Bore’s controls to self-destruct after he jumped back in time, with no regard for how his actions would impact everyone around him.

  It was through high-born Moira Wisla’s patronage that Zhang had been able to push the unpopular project through council in the first place. Of course, Moira had chosen to forget this fact, draping herself across the disintegrating floors, sobbing about her precious son and heartless husband.

  “Why are we even standing here debating who is to blame for this disaster?” Coru demanded. “It changes nothing. Father’s been against building this monstrosity from the beginning. It was you who thought it would be fun to dabble in time travel, like a holiday vacation, mingling with our ignorant ancestors and feeling superior.” He caught the look in his father’s eyes and shut up. This was not what they’d agreed upon.

  Patty appeared before them. “Come into the light and pull back your sleeves.” Her normally grinning brown face was matter-of-fact and ashen.

  The brothers complied, baring the insides of their forearms. The difference in the muscle tone and skin color—Coru’s thick, corded and tanned, Payton’s chubby and pale—told it all. Coru had the strength, Payton the knowledge.

  Patty swabbed their arms with a blessedly cool cloth, a tiny escape from the roiling heat that surrounded them. “Antiseptic,” she explained, her voice vibrating with the motion of the room. Her dark eyes met his for a brief, telling moment. They had left so much unsaid between them and now it was too late.

  She tossed the cloth to the floor and produced two thick, bullet shaped devices. She pressed the narrow ends against the freshly swabbed area of each brother’s arm in turn. With a flick of her thumb, she plunged a cocktail of inoculations into their bodies. Her smile, meant to encourage, was weak. “That’s it, protection from our best-guess at the viruses from three hundred years ago. That should keep you healthy.”

  Coru wanted—no he needed—to tear off his jacket and insulated shirt to escape the heat. He wouldn’t, of course. They had no way of knowing the conditions in which they’d arrive in WEN 2036. He drew his sleeve down, covering his arm again, and swung his pack onto his back, strapping it securely across his broad chest. “Thanks, Patty.” It was time to go.

  Payton was slower to adjust his sleeve, his shadowed expression thoughtful, as if the angry outburst between his brother and mother had not occurred. As if death by some long ago 2036 disease wasn’t likely to knock them down before Wren Wood was ever found and their futures saved. It was his habit to withdraw from surrounding drama when it suited him, and there was always plenty of drama to be had in the Wisla chambers.

  He produced a blue m-pod and handed it to Coru. “Some things you need to know; things I’ve learned in the archives. In case we get separated.”

  Coru shoved the m-pod into his back pocket. “Tell me yourself. We stay together, no matter what.”

  “The least you need to know is Wren Wood will be able to read our thoughts.” With a smirk at Coru’s surprised expression, Payton hitched his pack higher onto his shoulders and strapped it across his chest as Coru had done, covering his jacket with the cheeky ‘Professor Rez’ emblazoned across it.

  Did Payton truly realize how dangerous this was? Yes, he had a plan based on his knowledge of the histories, and it was the only plan they had time to attempt, but still…he was so young and untested…

  Payton slapped a second blue m-pod into Cyprian’s hand with that same cocky grin. “Give this to Coru should he return without me.”

  The m-pod disappeared inside Cyprian’s fist. “You return together,” he insisted, his voice thick with emotion. “I want you to know how proud I am of you both.”

  A thunderous crack sounded overhead and they all staggered, reaching out for something, anything, to steady them. The aftershocks were hard and strong, and slower to dissipate. Daggers of blinding sunlight flooded into the lab through the gaping ceiling, cracked open like an egg from side to side. Warning sirens erupted all around them.

  Moira rose like a drunkard and staggered toward the exit. “We’ve got to get to level three,” she screamed even as the air vents flooded breathable air into the compromised lab and hundreds of repair-bots scrambled across the roof dragging secondary skins behind them to seal the space. It was all over in seconds: Pressure equalized, sirens silenced, shadows reappeared. And Moira was gone.

  “This is as good as I can get it, Cy. It’s now or never,” Keyes called out, his uncertainty carried in the swirling dance of icy atmospheric and mechanically warmed air. Without taking his gaze away from the cracked screen before him, he began counting down. “Ten.”

  Coru reached for his brother’s hand, and was comforted to find his grip warm and dry. “It’s a good
plan,” he murmured. He saw Payton’s barely contained excitement, liberally laced with fear, and knew his little brother would not back down. Yes, he was an intellect, a dreamer, and completely untested, but he was also the only person at Cloud Rez who had come up with a plan to save them.

  “Nine.”

  Payton’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his large eyes locked with Coru’s. “You and I will make a new history, I promise. This will be the adventure of our lives.”

  Coru frowned. Did Payton not understand? “This isn’t a game, Payton.”

  Payton’s expression darkened, as if realizing he’d said the wrong thing. “I know it’s no game. We go together, brother.”

  “Eight.”