He stayed close to the ground on the way home, about ten feet up, to avoid the icy cold that came with higher altitudes. Adrenaline had kept him warm earlier, but now he would freeze up there. He connected his skycycle’s system to the link rail that travelled between the two cities. It was nothing more than a fat blue strip that ran from one place to the next, about twenty feet wide. It was like a small runway that glowed in the dark—the only human technology you would ever find out here. The skycycle steered itself, following the signal of the strip, leaving Donovan’s mind free to roam.
He thought about his wife, Nona, her sleeping form awaiting him in the darkness of their room. There was a pleasant anticipation at the thought of a hot shower and then sliding into bed next to her warmth. She would stir from her sleep, the silky nightgown rustling under the sheets, then turn to him, kiss his lips, and drift back off to her dream.
It always happened that way. Donovan felt comforted by that certainty, that routine. The rest of the world was never that stable, that predictable. His job was to throw himself into chaos and somehow bring order. But with Nona, the order was already there.
When he neared his high-rise apartment, he elevated his height to two hundred feet, shivering as the temperature dropped. The smooth surface of the skyscraper opened up at the click of a button on his watch revealing a large garage with two skycars—one, a 2256 Convertible Chevy Corvette, the other a 2250 SUV Lexus RX. He glided inside the garage and lowered the skycycle onto the ground between the cars. The garage door closed behind him.
He entered the house stealthily, trying not to make too much noise. The place seemed to echo twice as much now that the kids were gone. He crept into the master bedroom and was startled to see his wife wide awake, reading a book by candlelight.
Her mahogany skin shone in the glow of the small fire. Her long black hair was pulled into a messy bun. She wore a very concentrated look that he loved, as if the thing she read had completely entranced her intellect.
“Hey,” he said.
She looked up at him and smiled, full lips revealing small, white teeth. “Hey. Catch the bad guys?”
Donovan smiled. “I always do. What are you doing up so late?”
“Research for the Extinct Species Revival Project.”
Donovan went into the bathroom and started stripping off his bloody, sweaty clothes. It was a testament to how long they had been together that Nona didn’t flinch at the sight of blood on his shirt.
“I thought you were done with that,” he said through the door.
“I was, but the board decided that they need a little more information on a few of the species before we could continue.”
Donovan turned on the hot water in the shower. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“Okay, Dad,” his wife’s voice sung out. “I’m almost done.”
Donovan spent a long time under the water, letting the heat sink into his aching bones. By the time he was ready for bed, Nona was sound asleep, the book sitting in her lap and her head leaning awkwardly against the headboard. He smirked.
He was glad that he would be stationed in Santa Monica for a while—the city had been his home for a long time. Plus, he missed his wife when he was called away. He had used his favorable position with the General to allow him to live in his apartment instead of the temporary headquarters. He left his First Lieutenant in charge.
He shook Nona gently and urged her to lay down. She barely opened her eyes as she responded. She curled up and was asleep again within seconds. He watched her face for a moment and noticed dark circles forming under her eyes. He would have to keep an eye on her—make sure she didn’t work herself to sickness.
She was so dedicated to her job she could easily stay awake for seventy-two hours straight working on some project. Once she got started, it was difficult to pull her away. He had much the same disposition. It was probably how they had managed to stay together all these years—they had started and they would finish.
Donovan stroked Nona’s hair, her forehead. He kissed her cheek and joined her in bed. As much as he desired to be connected with the moist warmth of her body, he was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
Chapter 2
“Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein’s general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.”
—Stephen Hawking
May 4, 2258
Santa Monica, CA
Donovan Knight
Donovan always rose with the sun. Even when he wanted to sleep in, long habit forced his body into wakefulness. He left the cozy comfort of the bed without disturbing Nona and cooked breakfast.
She emerged from the room thirty minutes later, yawning and carrying a stack of papers. The night gown hugged her curvy shape.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“Have to work on this report. The Board wants to push it through by Friday.”
Donovan looked at her for a moment. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her face seemed almost shrunken. He hadn’t noticed it last night. “Well, don’t work too hard. You look like you’re getting sick.”
“I am,” Nona said. “iMed detected a virus three days ago. I took some immunity boosters, but they haven’t helped much. Just have to get over it the old-fashioned way.”
His wife leaned toward him across the breakfast bar. “You make any for me?” she said, nodding toward the omelet on his plate.
He smiled and pulled out more ingredients. “Of course.” He slid his plate across the counter. “For you.”
She smiled that cute smile of hers—the one that was a faint turning up of the corners of her mouth, showing only a few teeth. The smile was mostly in her eyes.
She ate the omelet in large bites while Donovan began making another one. Nona never pretended to be a genteel woman.
“How do you even fit all that inside you?” Donovan asked, not for the first time. It was something he always teased her about. She was average height and had arcs in her body, but she was thin.
“I have to keep up with my metabolism.” She patted her stomach. “If I don’t feed the monster I get in trouble.”
“Yeah, so do I.”
Nona was notoriously grouchy when she was hungry.
She laughed and held out her empty plate. “Another one, please.”
Donovan slid the freshly made omelet to her. She dove right in. He started the process a third time, hoping he’d actually get to eat the result.
After breakfast, his wife dressed and left for her department’s lab and library suite. She spent most of her time there, doing research and bringing the fossilized genes of extinct animals back to life. She would be exploring the DNA of a zebra today. It was once classified as an Equus and belonged to the Equidae family, she’d said. Donovan had seen pictures and footage of the animals. The images were so clear that it was hard to believe that they no longer existed.
Nona obsessed over bringing animals like the zebra back to earth. Donovan thought that was another reason they had stayed married—they were both driven by a desire to right the world, only Donovan wasn’t sure he did as good a job as she.
Donovan went through his morning workout and shower and took his skycar to the Saint John’s Providence Hospital. The twenty story building was located at the center of town, easily accessible from all parts of the city—not that it was ever much needed. The iMed App that came preinstalled on most Liao Inserts these days prevented the majority of illnesses through early detection. Donovan was a part of the dwindling group of people who refused to undergo the minor surgery for a Liao Insert. Yes, it was convenient to have information and connectivity literally at your fingertips, but Inserts were far too invasive for Donovan—even with the medical benefits. He’d rather just use a watch and make regular visits to the doctor.
Donovan entered the parking structure at the very top of the building, parked, and desce
nded to the fifteenth floor. Inside room 1508, a permanent lodging, he found his grandfather staring blankly at the TV. A little bit of drool slid down his chin as the news anchor chattered at him.
Donovan rushed to wipe the spit from his grandfather’s face with a piece of tissue from the bathroom. Even with the best care in the world, Donovan still felt that his grandfather wasn’t getting enough attention.
Tobias Knight was a world-renowned scientist—the inventor of teleportation and the man who had discovered dozens of planets with his space probes. Donovan knew, unlike most people, that he had also invented a time machine—he just hadn’t found a substance powerful enough to sustain it. His grandfather knew everything about everything. Physics and astronomy were his specialties, but his grandfather was well versed in biology, chemistry, and geology, too.
It somehow disturbed Donovan to see Tobias’s dignity smeared by a line of drool. It was so frustrating. He knew that his grandfather would be able to solve the mystery of his illness. But, of course, if he could do that, he wouldn’t be sick in the first place. His mind had slowly deteriorated with no apparent cause. He had lost his presence of mind, becoming more and more confused over time. He would wake up and not know his own name or his wife’s name or Donovan’s name. He wouldn’t recognize his grandchildren. He would think he was in a different time—in the past, in his childhood.
Those were the worst times to be around him. When he thought he was a child again. Donovan could hardly imagine all of the horrors his grandfather had seen. Tobias had told him stories of the gruesome events of his youth but never in full detail. When his grandfather had screamed like that, it sent chills down his spine, leaving his imagination to spin out of control. What was it that he was reliving?
That had been a long time ago. Now, sitting beside this vacant, staring figure, Donovan almost wished the screaming would happen again, if only to show that there was actually someone there, inside the body. They had thought it was Alzheimer’s, an easily cured disease. It would have taken one shot of serum and he would have been fine.
But that wasn’t it. All of the tests came back negative. Tobias Knight had a normal, healthy brain. They could only guess that his illness was completely psychological.
“Grandpa,” Donovan said, holding the man’s hand tightly in his own. He waited for some kind of response, knowing that he would get nothing. He could just feel the Insert that the doctors had installed in Tobias’s hand—it did nothing to help his condition.
Tobias used to be a tall man with broad shoulders. Donovan had once thought that his grandfather looked a lot like an older version of himself. Today, Tobias looked like a dying version of himself—the skin under his eyes drooped down his cheeks and his soul seemed to have made an escape through the unblinking eyes.
Donovan shook the thought from his head. His grandfather wasn’t dying. His body was in perfect health aside from the slow deterioration of his skin and muscles. If only Donovan could figure out what was wrong with him, what had driven him into this state of psychosis. But he wasn’t the great genius that Tobias was. The world didn’t know him as the smartest man since Steven Hawking.
“Tobias Knight,” Donovan said. There wasn’t even a flicker of a response in his grandfather’s eyes, but he kept going, “My father was named after you. He wanted to name me after you, too—Tobias Knight the Third.”
Donovan let go of his grandfather’s hand and leaned back in his chair, staring at the empty face as he spoke, watching, as always, for some sign of recognition, knowing by now that it was highly unlikely. But he had to keep trying.
“I thank God to this day that my mom had the sense not to let that happen.” Donovan chuckled. “Do you remember when you first started to teach me chemistry? I think I was six.”
Donovan couldn’t remember his age at the time, but he recalled the lessons almost perfectly. His grandfather had already become world-renowned and he wanted to share his knowledge with all of his children and grandchildren.
Tobias had given up on Donovan’s father long ago. Tobias Jr. had chosen to go into the military and become a weapons expert. It was what killed him in the end. And Donovan’s mother, too. She died of grief a year later. Donovan had been nine years old.
After their deaths, he went to live with Tobias for good. Donovan had lapped up his grandfather’s lessons. Once, in Tobias’s private lab, when he was teaching Donovan about the complicated theories of teleportation, Donovan became frustrated with what seemed impossible for his brain to absorb.
“I can’t learn this,” he’d said, throwing his pencil onto the counter. “It’s too hard. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course it does, boy. I learned it and so can you.”
“I’m not like you. I’m not as smart.” The young Donovan had stared gloomily at his notebook, refusing to look back up at the e-board. The symbols danced in his head, taunting him—never seeming to stay in the same place or to mean the same thing. One day, his grandfather would tell him how important gravity was and the next he would dismiss it altogether as a “weak” force.
“You have my genes,” Tobias said, straightening his spine. Donovan could feel his grandfather’s intelligent eyes drilling into him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tobias turn back to the e-board. “Of course you’re just as smart. You’re just not trying hard enough.”
“But I am trying.” Donovan watched his grandfather hold the e-pen parallel to the e-board, about three inches away, and move it in broad strokes, erasing the equations and Greek letters.
His grandfather sighed and sat down on one of the stools in the lab. The place never seemed to be empty of stools. They were everywhere. Sleek, silver, and very uncomfortable.
“Donovan,” Tobias said.
The tone of his voice forced Donovan to look at him.
“I know it’s difficult,” he said. It was the gentlest he had ever seen his grandfather look. “You’re young. But you are smart. You can understand this. Just give it time.”
Donovan nodded, feeling a little less glum.
“Why is it so important to you that I learn all this stuff?”
His grandfather shifted back on his stool, leaning against the wall. “Well,” he said, “to me, science is…” He searched for the right words, then shrugged. “Everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Do you know who said that?”
Donovan shook his head.
“Arthur C. Clark.” His grandfather smiled. “He wasn’t a scientist, but he got it just right. Science is like magic. If you push hard enough, explore deep enough, you can produce amazing things. I want to share that joy with you. The joy of giving birth to something new and beautiful.”
Donovan tried his hardest at science from that point forward. He never complained again. He became the perfect student, learning in leaps and bounds. He saw the magic that his grandfather had described, but he couldn’t feel it. Donovan had really enjoyed the sciences, especially physics, but they didn’t invoke the same passion in him as in his grandfather.
Donovan was a mover not a thinker. Sure, he was smart—really smart—but his joy came from action, from doing something.
“That’s why I joined the military, like my dad,” Donovan said, coming back from the reminiscence. “I didn’t want to disappoint you—it’s just what I was made for. Like you were made for science.”
Donovan stared at the immobile figure before him, wondering where all that intelligence had gone, all that passion. Tobias Knight had to be in there somewhere. He just wished there were a way for him to find out where.
Donovan rose from the hospital chair. He didn’t want to go down that line of thought again. It would drive him crazy. He kissed his grandfather on the forehead and left the room.
He stopped by the nurse’s station before he left, reminding them that his grandfather needed the greatest attention and care. The oldest nurse, a short, stout
woman, assured him that Tobias was being given the highest quality help. She said it in that way that some doctors and nurses tended to—like you weren’t intelligent enough to understand the intricacies of the medical world. “We’re all very busy,” her look seemed to say. “Your grandfather isn’t the only patient in this hospital—isn’t the only one deserving of help.”
As soon as Donovan stepped into the parking garage, two uniformed men approached him. He identified them as being with the military—the Army and Space Force. He could tell by the four vertical gold stripes across the right shoulder of their navy blue uniforms. One of the men was black and bald with a round face. The other, of Hispanic descent, had short cropped, black hair.
Instantly, Donovan was worried. They never just showed up unless something extreme had happened. Was it Nona? Was it one of the kids?
“Mr. Knight,” the black man said, “your presence is needed immediately at Fort Belvoir, at the command of General Hesekiel McGregor.”
“What’s going on?”
“That information is classified until you reach the base, sir,” his partner said. “We have a skycar here to take you to the base.”
“Is my family safe?”
“Sir, your family is fine. We need you to come with us.”
Donovan nodded and followed them to an all-black skycar with a small American flag attached to the top. He was surprised that they would send a Magna 15—it was the fastest skycar in the army’s fleet, not available to civilians. It could reach speeds of six hundred miles per hour. Civilian skycars were limited to two hundred miles per hour. Donovan’s trepidation grew.
He gave a command to his watch. “Call Nona.”
The bald man opened the door for him and both soldiers followed him into the back of the car. It was a lot more spacious on the inside than it looked from the outside. All three of them fit quite comfortably.
The Legend of Things Past (Beyond Pluto SciFi Futuristic Aventures Book 1) Page 2