Travelers

by K A Riley

  Travelers

  The Transcendent Trilogy, Book One

  K. A. Riley

  © 2020 by K. A. Riley. Published by Travel Duck Press.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For further copyright information, you may contact K. A. Riley at travelduckpress@gmail.com.

  Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and events should not be associated with living people or historical events. Any resemblance is the work of the author and is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design

  www.thebookbrander.com

  Contents

  A Note from the Author

  Summary

  Prologue

  1. Need

  2. Devoted

  3. Plane

  4. Send-off

  5. Flight

  6. Touchdown

  7. Arrival Station

  8. Weapons

  9. Train

  10. Ravens

  11. Little Things

  12. Encounter

  13. Stable

  14. Barn

  15. Welcome

  16. Revelation

  17. Proof

  18. Power Play

  19. Tour

  20. History Lesson

  21. Maze

  22. Knight Fight

  23. Checkpoints

  24. Inside

  25. Dungeon

  26. Interrogated

  27. Food Chain

  28. Carnival

  29. Riddles

  30. Marbles

  31. Dinner

  32. Trade

  33. Killing Time

  34. Possibilities

  35. Strength

  36. Execution

  37. Chaos

  38. Liberated

  39. Takeover

  40. Fixed

  41. Reunited

  42. To the Tower

  43. Blessed

  44. The Real Reason

  45. Primed

  46. Underground

  47. Infiltration

  48. Lucid and Reverie

  49. Escape

  50. Discovery

  51. Lyfelyte

  52. Landing

  53. Ghost

  54. Next

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon: Transfigured

  Also by K. A. Riley

  A Note from the Author

  Dearest Fellow Conspirator,

  What you have in your hands is one-ninth of what’s called an ennealogy, a rare and hard-to-pronounce word meaning “a nine-part series.” It’s basically three sequential, interlocking trilogies. (Think Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, or Yukito Kishiro’s nine-volume Battle Angel Alita cyberpunk manga series.)

  Here is the Reading Order for the Conspiracy Ennealogy…

  #1: Resistance Trilogy

  Recruitment

  Render

  Rebellion

  #2: Emergents Trilogy

  Survival

  Sacrifice

  Synthesis

  #3: Transcendent Trilogy

  Travelers (You are here!)

  Transfigured (Coming in September 2020)

  Terminus

  If you’re enjoying the series, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads to let your fellow book-lovers know about it. And be sure to sign up for my newsletter at www.karileywrites.org for news, quizzes, contests, behind-the-scenes peeks into the writing process, and advance info. about upcoming projects!

  Thank you for reading and for joining in the Conspiracy!

  Conspiratorially yours,

  To my readers who travel from cover to cover, through adventures, and all the way across the pages.

  Summary

  After their costly victory over President Krug and the Patriot Army, eighteen-year-old Kress and her Conspiracy travel to a newly medieval London, England where they are forced to fight their way through two warring factions amid a decimated hellscape.

  Their struggle for survival takes them on an epic quest through what’s left of London as they race to track down a pair of mythical twins, who are rumored to have the unique ability to enter the world of dreams.

  Pursued by a mysterious woman and her relentless bounty hunters called “Hawkers,” Kress and her friends—old and new—embark on a danger-filled, whirlwind crusade that makes their previous adventures look like a summer vacation.

  “London is a roost for every bird.”

  — Benjamin Disraeli

  “To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls. All parts away for the progress of souls.”

  — Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road”

  Prologue

  Brohn and I are holding hands, our bootheels clicking in unison as we walk down the white, marble-tiled corridor of the U.S. Capitol Building. My auburn hair is tied back in a loose ponytail. My clothes—camo cargo pants and a black compression top—are comfortable and clean. My head, my muscles, and the black maze of biotech implants in my forearms have all finally stopped aching.

  I rub my neck where I had my Contact Coil removed a few days ago. Brohn, Cardyn, and Rain had theirs removed, too. A faint red circle is all that’s left of the embedded devices that were designed to give President Krug and his Deenay scientists access to our dreams, minds, and memories. Cardyn says the mark makes us look like a bunch of violin players with neck hickeys. The slightly raised ring on my neck still tingles a bit, but I can live with it.

  After all, things are good. And it’s about time.

  Brohn, his shoulders back and his head held high, has a glimmer of a contented smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  I don’t know if it’s his height, his aura of confidence, the flex of his muscles as we walk, or the heart-hammering feelings I’ve developed for him over this past year but being next to him like this makes me feel safe. And safety has been hard to come by in our lives.

  Brohn gives me a flirty wink. I return it with a blush and a contented smile of my own.

  This moment of relaxation, bordering on pure bliss, feels like the first time we’ve breathed together since we defeated Krug and his Patriot Army two weeks ago.

  Up ahead, Render, my raven companion since I was six years old, flutters up and perches on a decorative ledge near the ceiling for a few seconds before soaring and banking away down the wide, portrait-lined hall.

  The golden filaments threading through his inky-black flight feathers and the thin, gold-leaf plates of armor around his head and wings glitter in the artificial white light.

  I know the network of circuitry and micro-fibers woven into his body are there to save his life. But it doesn’t hurt that they also make him look cool as hell.

  Brohn gives my hand a little squeeze. As always, I’m equal parts shocked that we’re together in the first place and amazed at how this confident, powerful, young man, with little more than his proximity, can somehow make me feel powerful and confident, too.

  I’m in the middle of processing this happy thought when a violent explosion buckles the floor and rips through the walls around us.

  A split-second later, I scream as another blast brings down half the ceiling.

  1

  Need

  By the time the second explosion hits, Brohn and I are already in a full sprint, our arms over our heads to protect ourselves from the conduits, cables, pipes, plaster, and segments of aluminum ductwork that come crashing down around us.

  Underneath our feet, a seam sp
lits through the floor, and the polished marble tiles spasm and buckle up into a jagged ridge.

  I think my head might explode from the ringing buzz piercing through my ears.

  Dodging the falling debris, Render blasts back toward me through a churning cloud of dust. In a single motion, I scoop him up, gather him under my arm, and nestle him to my body.

  Brohn has one arm around my shoulders, and I’m tucked up hard against him with Render pressed to my side as we slide to a stop at the end of the hall where Cardyn and Rain, their eyes wide with panic, are shouting out for someone, anyone, to tell us what’s going on.

  “I don’t know!” I cry out through a hacking cough and over the echo of slabs of concrete and synth-steel struts thundering down and smashing to the floor in the hallway behind us.

  “We need to find Granden!” Rain insists. She turns and bolts down the corridor leading to the row of conference rooms we’ve set up for meetings, strategy sessions, and for all the post-war planning Granden, Kella, and Wisp have been leading.

  Up ahead, Kella is leaning halfway out of the Central Operations Room, her eyes wide, her arm whipping back and forth as she hurries us forward.

  She shuttles the four of us and Render into the room and slaps her hand to the input holo-panel just inside the entranceway. The steel security door grumbles shut behind us, leaving us safe, for now at least, while the floor and walls continue to tremble and muffled aftershocks rumble through the building.

  With their backs to us, Granden and Wisp are standing in front of one of the room’s slanted, glass-paneled monitoring stations. Granden, his hand to his ear, is barking orders into a comm-link.

  An array of holo-images is spread out in front of him and Wisp, each hovering grid showing a different view from various parts of the interior and exterior of the Capitol Building. Whipping some of the glossy, emerald-hued images aside and enlarging others, Wisp’s hands skitter in a flurry through the shimmering displays.

  Within the projected panes of light, most of the scenes look normal. Others, like the hallway we just barely escaped from, look wrecked and permanently ruined. In several of the displays, there are people running or limping through smoke-filled corridors or down darkened stairwells. I recognize some of the Insubordinates and a few of the women from the Unkindness.

  There’s no sound coming from the feeds, but it’s not hard to imagine the screams.

  Startled, I wince as Render flutter-hops his way up to my shoulder.

  “There!” Wisp cries out, pointing to an outdoor image of the Mall not far from the Capitol Building.

  In the greenish glow of the expanded 3D holo-monitor, seven masked people—mostly men, I think, dressed in what appears to be cobbled-together, dark blue combat gear—are running full-tilt off into the distance. One of them has a rust-streaked grenade-launcher hoisted onto his shoulder. It slips off, and the man seems to debate whether to pick it up and keep running or else leave it behind.

  He decides to stop and pick it up.

  It’s a mistake.

  Our giant friend War and his security team of bald and broad-shouldered Survivalists stream into view. In a flash, they swarm over the man and pummel him to the ground.

  As we watch, six of War’s men sprint ahead and capture three more of the fleeing terrorists. On the adjacent monitor, three of the other blue-clad figures slip away behind a line of parked, dinosaur-sized construction vehicles and into a wooded area with two of the Survivalists, guns drawn, in hot pursuit.

  Following fast, their assault rifles ripping off a lightning spray of rounds, the Survivalists leap into the woods, leaving the field behind them, as well as the monitor we’re watching, empty and still.

  Granden has his head down now, and he doesn’t turn to face us when he mutters, “Devoteds.”

  On one side of me, Cardyn bites his lip and ruffles his hands through his rust-colored hair. With a tremble in his voice, he asks Rain if we need to be worried, but she doesn’t answer.

  On my other side, Brohn’s hands close into clamped fists. I look over to see the tendons strain in his neck. Even though it’s been two weeks without hostilities, I know he’s on edge and ready to leap back into battle if the need arises.

  The need may have just arisen.

  2

  Devoted

  We heard about the Devoteds, also known as the “True Blues,” for the first time about a week ago.

  According to the intel sourced by Kella and her security team, the Devoteds are a newly-formed, scattered band of mostly men but also some women, who don’t feel especially liberated by recent events. They’ve dedicated themselves to, in the words of their slogans spray-painted haphazardly in blue paint on various buildings and marble monuments throughout the city, “Restoring Our Glory.”

  They’ve quickly become known as much for their all-blue outfits—full-body motorcycle riding gear, gloves, boots, hoods, and blue and white bandanas covering the bottom half of their faces—as they have for their violent guerilla tactics.

  Over the past few days, they’ve attacked at least three of our security outposts and even tried, unsuccessfully, to break into some of the smaller, empty military installations in the city. But they’ve also left graffiti tags on the pulverized, jagged-topped walls of the various shops and retail stores they’ve targeted.

  Personally, I figured the Devoteds were just an underground batch of disgruntled troublemakers who would lose interest and fade away as Granden, Wisp, and Kella continued to lead our rebuilding and transition projects.

  We didn’t really take the Devoteds seriously or give them much thought.

  Until now.

  Apparently, our victory over the Patriot Army wasn’t enough to convince everyone to abandon President Krug’s sinking ship of tyranny.

  In the smoky gloom of the Central Operations Room, Granden finally turns and seems to see the four of us for the first time. “You’re all okay?”

  Brohn answers, “Yes” for all of us, and Granden and Wisp invite everyone to sit down at the conference table of reflective black glass.

  “They’re not going to go away quietly,” Kella announces, sliding into a mag-chair. Her blue eyes seem to crackle with an almost electrical energy. She tucks her short, ivory-blond hair back behind her ears. “Until we get the fleets of drones back on-line and keyed into the new security protocols, we don’t have a good way to keep track of the Devoteds. We’ve heard reports from existing informants of other attacks. This is the closest they’ve come to us, though.”

  “That was more than ‘close,’” Brohn points out. “They didn’t fire those explosives at us from the Mall. They got inside.”

  Nodding her agreement, Wisp bows her head a little and squints down at the table. “They’re getting bolder every day.”

  “We’ve got an army out there,” Cardyn grunts quietly and half to himself. “We won. They lost. Can’t we just track them down and wipe them out?”

  I put my hand on his and tell him we don’t do that. “They’re still citizens, just like us. They deserve justice. They deserve a chance to be won over.”

  Without turning to look at me, Cardyn snorts his disapproval. “They chose which side to be on.” Scowling, he crosses his arms and burrows his chin into his chest. “What’s that mean, anyway? ‘Restoring our Glory.’ When were things glorious? Did this used to be some kind of utopian paradise no one told us about? Maybe the Devoteds should visit the Valta sometime. Have a first-hand look at how our own government killed everyone while they turned our town into a ‘glorious’ graveyard. How about helping us build a better future instead of running around blowing stuff up and trying to resurrect our crappy past?”

  Her hard, dusky eyes going suddenly soft, Rain says, “Take it easy” and puts her hand on Cardyn’s arm. With his jaw tight and his own eyes wet with rage, he stares at her until she draws her hand back like she’s been bitten.

  I’m not used to Cardyn being this intense. He’s usually the most laidback and even timid member
of our Conspiracy. But these days, there’s a darkness churning inside of him.

  As for me, I’m not in the mood for a debate, especially when I kind of agree with Cardyn. We barely survived the very brutality the Devoteds want to get back to. Our parents didn’t survive it at all. Neither did anyone else from our town or who knows how many tens of thousands of innocent people in towns like ours all over the country.

  I don’t want things to go back to the way they were. It’s hard enough trying to focus on the future without having a bunch of fanatical, trouble-loving sociopaths disguised as patriots and freedom-fighters trying to yank me back to the past.

  Hoping to stave off a debate between Cardyn and Rain over the merits of vigilante justice, I turn to face Granden, Kella, and Wisp. “Are we okay in here?” I ask. I don’t want to sound nervous, but I am. It doesn’t matter how many fights I’ve been in. I can’t seem to shake the feeling that Death is lurking around every corner.