Jianna walked him down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk. She waited as he summoned an automated cab to take him back to his hotel and then kissed him in a way that set his hair on fire. Pulling a felt-tipped pen from a pocket, she wrote a number on the back of his hand.
“Perhaps tomorrow night we can go dancing,” she said as the cab pulled up. “I know a perfect club.”
“That sounds great.”
She turned to go, waving at him over her shoulder. “Sleep well, Rob Gregory.”
Rob watched Jianna as she closed the door behind her. As he climbed into the cab, breathing heavily, he knew that even if he had intended to sleep, it would not be on this night’s agenda.
EPILOGUE
NEW ZEALAND
2 February
When Janet, with Jack at her side, stepped off the AQ37Z’s ramp into a lush valley on a warm summer day in February, she felt like she might hyperventilate.
Five weeks ago, they had established subspace communications with what had once been the Smythe Fortress but was now the headquarters of Dr. Denise Jennings and her Directorate of Planetary Affairs. Janet and Jack had taken their time digesting this new world order that the Jamal Two AI had implemented. They’d learned that Mark, Heather, and their families, accompanied by Freddy Hagerman and Tall Bear, had led contingents of the Safe Earth movement and the Native People’s Alliance to a planet named Brillian-2. They had also learned of the departure of the Meridian Ascent and its crew.
Denise had made Jack and Janet the same offer to stay that she had made to the Smythes. And having learned of the thousands of people who had been snatched from history and placed in suspended animation aboard the research vessel, she had offered to arrange for their orderly awakening, counseling, and gradual introduction to the modern age. Janet suspected that Jamal Two was also very interested in the AQ37Z’s neural network and the AI that operated it.
But the most important factor in Janet’s and Jack’s decision to return to Earth was the discovery that Rob had remained behind and was romantically involved with an eighteen-year-old Italian woman named Jianna Bello, whom they would be meeting in the next few minutes. That was why Janet’s hands trembled so badly.
The distant rumble of tires on gravel pulled her gaze to the dirt road that led out of the woods a quarter mile to the northeast. Moments later, a black retro SUV emerged, kicking up a cloud of dust as it turned off the road and made its way directly across the open field toward them.
The car came to a stop a dozen yards in front of her. When Rob stepped out, she heard Jack gasp. Although she’d told him about their son’s rapid maturation, the reality of seeing the strapping young man he had become was a shock. That didn’t surprise Janet. When Jack had last seen Rob, he had almost been ten but had looked like an athletic thirteen-year-old. In the two years since then, he had become an adult. She couldn’t shake the weirdness of that distorted timeline, but she had come to accept his growth, something that Jack hadn’t had the opportunity to do.
Janet ran forward, threw her arms around Rob’s neck, and hugged and kissed him as he lifted her off the ground. Then he set her down to hug his dad. It was only when she saw tears of joy streaming down both Jack’s and Rob’s faces that she realized she, too, had been crying.
When Rob stepped back, he wiped his face with one hand and grinned. “Wait here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Then he walked to the other side of the SUV, opened the door, and led a beautiful young woman in a white sundress toward them. At five feet nine, she was almost as tall as Janet, with long dark hair and laughing brown eyes.
“Mom, Dad. This is my fiancée, Jianna.”
Before Jianna could speak, Janet had taken her in her arms in a hug that Jianna returned with only the barest hint of awkwardness. Considering the feelings churning within Janet’s breast, she found herself impressed at the performance.
On the thirty-minute ride back to Denise’s headquarters, Rob tried a little too hard to make sure that Janet and Jack knew everything he found wonderful about Jianna, a diatribe that caused the young woman to squeeze Rob’s hand in a way that screamed, “Please stop.”
Janet found their mutual discomfort oddly charming. The smile that crinkled the corners of Jack’s eyes told her he felt the same way.
When the vehicle stopped outside the headquarters and everyone got out, Janet noted that only a younger-looking Denise Jennings, accompanied by two of her combat robots, had come out to meet them. Denise had always been a loner, more at home with computers than with people. All she needed now was her fortress, robots, and Jamal Two to keep her company.
“You guys go on inside and conduct your business,” said Rob. “I’m going to take Jianna for a walk. We’ll be back in an hour.”
Rob and Jianna walked off, hand in hand, as Janet and Jack watched them go. Janet let her gaze linger on her son and his fiancée until they disappeared around a bend in the trail. Despite his true age, Janet thought that he’d made a good choice in terms of picking a partner. But the idea of her son getting married was going to take getting used to.
She shifted her thoughts to Denise, who had installed herself as an AI-aided planetary monarch. Neither she nor Jack considered this a good thing. Then again, maybe she and her husband were a bit too old-school to accept a reality that, at least for now, appeared benign. Still, the thought of a self-appointed ruler worried Janet, as did the departure of the Smythes, McFarlands, and a sizable number of their NPA and Safe Earth movement allies. She and Jack would continue to scrutinize this new world while keeping a close watch over their son and his family to be.
As Rob and Jianna disappeared around the bend, Janet sighed.
“Looks like we’re moving to Italy,” Jack said, pulling a laugh from her lips.
She took his hand and squeezed it, then turned to lead him toward Denise. “Retirement sounds lovely.”
As she and Jack followed Denise through the doorway into the temple of this world’s new god, she hoped with all her heart that her words held some truth.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank Alan Werner for the hours he spent working with me on the story. Thank you to my editor, Clarence Haynes, for his wonderful help in fine-tuning the end product, along with the outstanding editorial and production staff at 47North. I also want to thank my agent, Paul Lucas, for the work he has done to bring my novels to a wider audience. Finally, my biggest thanks go to my lovely wife, Carol, for supporting me and for being my sounding board throughout the writing of all of my novels.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Phillips was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1956. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1979 and qualified as an Army Ranger, going on to serve as an officer in the US Army. He earned a master’s degree in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1989, completing his thesis work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. After working as a research associate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he returned to the army to complete his tour of duty.
Today he lives with his wife, Carol, in Phoenix, Arizona, where he writes science-fiction thrillers—including the Rho Agenda series (Once Dead, Dead Wrong, Dead Shift); the Rho Agenda Inception series (The Second Shift, Immune, and Wormhole); and the Rho Agenda Assimilation series (The Kasari Nexus, The Altreian Enigma, and The Meridian Ascent).
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CONTENTS
MAP
CHAPTER 1 FRIENDSHIP CAVERN, NORTH KOREA
CHAPTER 2 FRIENDSHIP CAVERN, NORTH KOREA
CHAPTER 3 SMYTHE FORTRESS, NEW ZEALAND
CHAPTER 4 MERIDIAN ASCENT, DEEP SPACE
CHAPTER 5 PARTHIAN, QUOL, ALTREIAN SYSTEM
CHAPTER 6 FRIENDSHIP ASSIMILATION CENTER, NORTH KOREA
CHAPTER 7 MERIDIAN ASCENT, SCION SPACE
CHAPTER 8 ORTHEI, SCION
CHAPTER 9 PARTHIAN, QUOL, ALTREIAN
SYSTEM
CHAPTER 10 MERIDIAN ASCENT, DEEP SPACE
CHAPTER 11 MERIDIAN ASCENT, DEEP SPACE
CHAPTER 12 SMYTHE FORTRESS, NEW ZEALAND
CHAPTER 13 SMYTHE FORTRESS, NEW ZEALAND
CHAPTER 14 FRIENDSHIP CAVERN, NORTH KOREA
CHAPTER 15 KALASASAYA TEMPLE, BOLIVIA
CHAPTER 16 PARTHIAN, QUOL, ALTREIAN SYSTEM
CHAPTER 17 MERIDIAN ASCENT
CHAPTER 18 LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS
CHAPTER 19 PARTHIAN, QUOL, ALTREIAN SYSTEM
CHAPTER 20 SMYTHE FORTRESS, NEW ZEALAND
CHAPTER 21 MERIDIAN ASCENT, MOON
CHAPTER 22 PARTHIAN, QUOL, ALTREIAN SYSTEM
CHAPTER 23 LA PAZ, BOLIVIA
CHAPTER 24 MERIDIAN ASCENT
CHAPTER 25 NEW ZEALAND
CHAPTER 26 FRIENDSHIP CAVERN, NORTH KOREA
CHAPTER 27 QUOL, ALTREIAN SYSTEM
CHAPTER 28 QUOL, ALTREIAN SYSTEM
CHAPTER 29 THE HAGUE
CHAPTER 30 MERIDIAN ASCENT
CHAPTER 31 QUOL, ALTREIAN SYSTEM
CHAPTER 32 NEW ZEALAND
CHAPTER 33 THE HAGUE
CHAPTER 34 MERIDIAN ASCENT, BRILLIAN-2
CHAPTER 35 ALTREIAN SYSTEM, AQ37Z
CHAPTER 36 THE HAGUE
CHAPTER 37 MOSCOW
CHAPTER 38 MERIDIAN ASCENT
CHAPTER 39 MERIDIAN ASCENT
CHAPTER 40 QUOL
CHAPTER 41 BRILLIAN-2
CHAPTER 42 MERIDIAN ASCENT
CHAPTER 43 EARTH
EPILOGUE NEW ZEALAND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Meridian Ascent (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 3) Page 36