Infinite
Page 31
For a moment, elation.
And then, a memory.
That serial number. NCC-1974. The number is different, but similar enough that I know the sim is still borrowing from fiction.
Shit.
No…
“This isn’t real.”
Gal looks defeated. She sits down across from me. “It can be. We can be.” She reaches out. Takes my hand.
“You don’t want to go back,” she says.
“Capria?”
“Dead or alive, immortal or not, she’s not your Capria. I am.”
“And I’d never know if it was real, would I?” I am the creator of my own prison of infinite realities. Every one I peel back will lead to another, and I’ll never really be sure if any of them are real.
Unless…
A word flits to mind.
Hiraeth.
I could end the sim.
Fudgel.
End Gal.
In theory. Fudgel didn’t work before, perhaps because my mind is so immersed that my physical body no longer speaks when I do. Without the command being spoken in reality, it has no power. And saying the words... If they didn’t work, Gal would know I was trying to kill her. Not erase her programming. But kill her. Great Escape or not, Gal is an HI.
If the safe words worked, I could escape the infinite for reality, but would that be better? I could wake to find myself reduced to a brain in a jar. Or Capria could be dead, and with Gal destroyed, I would be alone again. Or maybe Capria is alive, but not immortal, meaning I couldn’t, or shouldn’t wake her, and even if I did, she could hate me.
If she’s alive, I think, she’s exactly where she should be until Tom’s firewalls are beaten and control of the Galahad is reclaimed. Until there is hope to offer her, letting her sleep through the void is merciful.
And who’s to say life isn’t truly a simulation that started long before I moved to Mars, or before Steven died, or before the dawn of mankind? Maybe all this time, I thought my life was the story of me, when it was really the story of Gal.
With so many unanswerable questions and endless possibilities, I narrow my thinking down to the only two questions I can answer.
Do I love Gal?
Yes.
Can I imagine living without her?
No.
Feeling a strange sense of freedom, I open my arms and welcome Gal into them. She kisses my neck, squeezing me tight, filling me with a familiar feeling of closeness, comfort, and safety.
“I love you,” she says. “No matter what you decide. I love you.”
My lips trace her cheek.
Her ear.
And with tears in my eyes, I whisper a single word.
48
“Engage.”
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Having just finished Infinite you’re no doubt aware that it’s a little different from the standard Jeremy Robinson novel. It’s a bit more introspective and intellectual, and it ponders the nature of reality and William’s place in it. Sure, there is a lot of action, and monsters, and lots of grossness, but there’s a little more…soul. I like to think it’s similar to The Distance in that way—a book I was worried I’d never be able to match, or top.
The difference is that while I wrote The Distance with my wife, I wrote Infinite while in the midst of a series of health scares. The first was a strange time of chemical imbalance that left me flip-flopping between extreme depression and horrifying panic attacks. At the time, I was writing like mad, exercising five days a week, and then wham, I wasn’t able to write for about two months. While most novels take me 4–6 weeks to write, Infinite took about six months from beginning to end.
As things started coming under control emotionally, my anxiety was refueled when a series of blood tests showed that I had an unusual, and increasing, amount of growth hormone. The cause, I was told, was a brain tumor. That’s not news someone with a panic disorder deals with well.
As William was considering his own unimaginable fate, I was considering my future, which if untreated would have led to deformity, early death, brain surgery that isn’t always successful, and weekly injections that would cost $5000 a month. Two months later, the MRI. A month after that, the results. No tumor. But sometimes these things can be missed, so a blood test at Mass General was scheduled to confirm. Those results showed that my growth hormone is…normal. NORMAL.
The point is, William’s journey of despair, in some ways, mirrored my own. We were processing our shit together. While I have expressed myself in previous books, this is the first that was really symbiotic to what I was experiencing at the time. I hope William feels a little more real as a result, and that you enjoyed the journey, which for both of us, ended with hope.
If you did enjoy the book, please spread the word and post a review online. Each and every one helps a ton, and because this is a different kind of book for me (a heady science-fiction novel in space) it could definitely use some word of mouth to reach old and new readers alike.
Thank you very much for taking this journey with William and me. The next few will have more explosions.
—Jeremy Robinson
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was unique for me in that it took a total of six months to write, with a two month hiatus about half way through. I wrote the first part in my office, some of it on the back porch, and the rest at the dining room table while kids were running all around. Despite the tumultuous events taking place while writing this book, my loyal gang of helpers was ready, willing, and able as ever.
Thanks to Kane Gilmour for supreme edits and all around help, and to Roger Brodeur for proofreading. Big thanks to advance/proof readers: Kelley Allenby, Sherry Bagley, Julie Cummings Carter, Elizabeth Cooper, Dustin Dreyling, Jamey Lynn Goodyear, Dee Haddrill, Becki Tapia Laurent, Jeff Sexton, John Shkor, Heather Beth Sowinski, and Kelly Tyler. And thanks to Jonathan Dearborn, whose expertise in programing and physics helped keep some of my crazy ideas grounded in reality…or is it unreality? I’m still not sure.
If you’ve read the author note, you know I was struggling while writing this book (health and emotional related) and I need to thank my wife, Hilaree, for standing by me the whole time. She helped get my brain working and fingers typing again. Love you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeremy Robinson is the international bestselling author of sixty novels and novellas, including Apocalypse Machine, Island 731, and SecondWorld, as well as the Jack Sigler thriller series and Project Nemesis, the highest selling, original (non-licensed) kaiju novel of all time. He’s known for mixing elements of science, history and mythology, which has earned him the #1 spot in Science Fiction and Action-Adventure, and secured him as the top creature feature author. Many of his novels have been adapted into comic books, optioned for film and TV, and translated into thirteen languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children. Visit him at www.bewareofmonsters.com.
Older E-reader device? Click here for e-book store.
(Click here for older devices.)
ALSO by JEREMY ROBINSON
Standalone Novels
The Didymus Contingency
Raising The Past
Beneath
Antarktos Rising
Kronos
Xom-B
Flood Rising
MirrorWorld
Apocalypse Machine
Unity
The Distance
Infinite
Nemesis Saga Novels
Island 731
Project Nemesis
Project Maigo
Project 731
Project Hyperion
Project Legion
SecondWorld Novels
SecondWorld
Nazi Hunter: Atlantis
(aka: I Am Cowboy)
The Antarktos Saga
The Last Hunter – Descent
The Last Hunter – Pursuit
The Last Hunter – Ascent
The Last Hunter – Lament
&n
bsp; The Last Hunter – Onslaught
The Last Hunter – Collected Edition
The Last Valkyrie
The Jack Sigler/Chess Team Thrillers
Prime
Pulse
Instinct
Threshold
Ragnarok
Omega
Savage
Cannibal
Empire
Jack Sigler Continuum Novels
Guardian
Patriot
Centurion
Cerberus Group Novels
Herculean
Helios
Chesspocalypse Novellas
Callsign: King
Callsign: Queen
Callsign: Rook
Callsign: King 2 – Underworld
Callsign: Bishop
Callsign: Knight
Callsign: Deep Blue
Callsign: King 3 – Blackout
Chesspocalypse Novella Collected Editions
Callsign: King – The Brainstorm Trilogy
Callsign – Tripleshot
Callsign – Doubleshot
Horror Novels
(written as Jeremy Bishop)
Torment
The Sentinel
The Raven
Refuge
Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Novels
(written as Jeremiah Knight)
Hunger
Feast
Comics & Graphic Novels
Project Nemesis
Godzilla: Rage Across Time
Island 731
COMING SOON
SEEKING TO CONTACT HUMANITY’S LOST TRIBE…
On the precipice of a cliff, contemplating suicide, dishonorably discharged U.S. Army Ranger, Rowan Baer, is invited to provide security to a research team visiting the most dangerous island in the world—North Sentinel Island in the Sea of Bengal. Seeking redemption, he accepts.
Living among Amazon rainforest tribes, eccentric Israeli anthropologist, Talia Mayer, is recruited to study the island’s elusive inhabitants—the Sentinelese—who have resided on the tropical island since the dawn of mankind. Seeing the chance of a lifetime, she joins the team.
On the run from his past, Palestinian linguist, Mahdi Barakat, is given little choice: join the expedition and make contact with the Sentinelese, or be left to face the men tracking him down. Afraid for his life, he finds safe harbor halfway around the world.
As part of an expedition funded by the Indian government and supported by a local resort millionaire, the team struggle to make contact with the Sentinelese, a tribal people renowned for their violence, strange behavior, and mysterious ways. But when the expedition’s yacht strikes a reef, and sinks, the team find themselves stranded on an island few people have ever set foot on and survived, an island that they quickly discover is home to far more than primitive tribal people.
…THEY UNCOVER THE VERY SOURCE OF EVIL.
Jeremy Robinson has been compared to both Matthew Reilly and Stephen King, and with Forbidden Island, he brings the characters and plotting of the fastest paced thrillers together with mind-bending horrors of which only an imagination like Robinson’s can conceive.
© 2017 Jeremy Robinson. All rights reserved.
Cover design by Jeremy Robinson ©2016
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information e-mail all inquiries to:
jrobinsonauthor@gmail.com.
Visit Jeremy Robinson on the World Wide Web at:
www.bewareofmonsters.com.