Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Congrats
About The Author
The Relics
The Keystone Trilogy - Part 1
Travelers of the Multiverse Series
Book 1
Michael K. Damron
Copyright © 2018 Michael K. Damron
All rights reserved. Cover illustration and all other images are property of Michael K. Damron. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the author’s permission—the only exception being that a short excerpt may be utilized for critical articles and reviews. All names, characters, objects, technology, events, and locales in this publication are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, businesses, governing bodies, agencies, events, or places, without satirical or fictional intent, is coincidental.
First Edition
Dedicated to all my friends and family. Thank you for your continuous love and support.
A special thanks goes to my wife, Skye, who’s support and belief in me has remained steadfast.
Much gratitude also goes to my beta readers:
Stephen R. Butler
Skye Damron
Oladiipo Olasanoye
John Wardenga
CHAPTER ONE
BEIJING NIGHTS
Morning light became sliced into thin strips as it scattered through the dorm’s window blinds. Jack started to open his eyes while angling his head toward his roommate. Cong, a rather plump teenager from Shanghai, always seemed to sleep past his morning lectures after gorging himself on late-night junk food binges and passing out from what was assumed to be a sugar coma. It happened at least three days a week since Jack met him at the beginning of the semester, when they were assigned to share a room together. As was the usual morning ritual, Jack slid onto his feet and conjured up an attempt to wake him.
“Cong, get up.”
Jack’s roommate remained incapacitated. Undaunted, he continued with apathetic enthusiasm to try and rouse him.
“Cong, your mother called for you and she sounded very angry.”
The bulbous body rolled over to mutter unintelligible words at Jack for several seconds. After babbling, he grabbed part of his bed sheets and rolled back onto his stomach, encasing himself in the covers to assume a human-burrito sleeping position. Jack mustered a bit more liveliness in his voice to deliver the next line with greater impact.
“Cong, Hao just ran off with some of your closet food stash!”
This remark made Cong rise to his feet with haste. He cast his blanket to the side, revealing a plump and nearly nude figure wearing gaudy boxers with depictions of cowboy hats and handlebar mustaches. Jack rolled his eyes and gave an amused smile at the ridiculous sight.
“NOT THIS TIME, HAO!”
“Quick, he ran out of the room and toward the physics building!”
Cong grabbed his circular-rimmed glasses and chased an absent Hao down the hallway. Jack couldn’t help but laugh at the spectacle before getting ready for class. To be nice, he waited for Cong to return and change into something besides an obnoxious pair of underwear.
Soon, Jack and Cong made their way to the physics building. While beginning to ascend the bottom-floor stairwell, Hao’s familiar voice came from behind him, “Wait right there!”
Jack paused to accommodate the request.
“What’s your glitch, Jackson? I want to know, what business do you have telling Cong I stole some of his nasty, unhealthy food? I awoke this morning to the most unpleasant sight of a crotch full of handlebar mustaches this close to my face,” he said, holding his hand a few inches away from his nose. Jack became confused for a second because Hao was trying to mimic a British accent while talking.
“Hao, first off, you’re not from the United Kingdom so I’m not sure why you’re pretending to be a dignified Englishman. And Cong wouldn’t have gotten out of bed if I didn’t use food as a ploy. Besides, you snuck some of his doughnuts last month so I figured he’d believe me if I told him you were trying some more of your food thievery.”
“As I have told you—”
“Look, we need to get a move on so we’re not late,” said Jack, beginning to walk up the stairs again.
Hao followed close while the distance between them and Cong increased with each step they took.
“As I was saying . . . I have told you at least a dozen times that the British accent drives the ladies wild, especially older women.”
“You should think about adding a large smoking pipe to your ensemble, and maybe even carrying around a little teacup and saucer to appeal to your geriatric suitors,” Jack taunted.
“I will have you know that my classy demeanor has earned me a date with a very attractive chemical engineer next weekend.”
“I noticed you didn’t say she was young. How mature is this woman?”
“She’s . . . refined.”
Jack raised his eyebrows, thinned his eyes, and pointed a finger at Hao. “I swear I’m not going to bail you out this time if it turns out she’s married.”
They arrived at the classroom and made their way to their seats before Hao continued the conversation.
“Indeed,” he said with a wiry grin, “I did get myself into quite a predicament last time I dated a woman with a lot of life experience.”
Hao then dropped his smile to appear stern. At this point, Cong finally waddled over to his seat beside Jack. Hao began to whisper so he could continue the conversation without Cong easily hearing.
“I can see you’re just trying to change the subject, Jack! We were talking about how you rudely sent Cong to my room this morning.”
“Do you have a deficit or something?” said Jack, giving Hao a bewildered look. “You’re the one who brought up the subject of British accents driving the ladies crazy. The subject change is all your fault.”
Hao began speaking in an even more hushed tone. “Let’s not split hairs about that. But next time you pull a prank on Cong involving food theft, tell him Robbin did it instead of me.”
“I heard that!” proclaimed the unmistakable, raspy voice of Robbin close behind them.
The sudden interjection made Hao jump and clutch his chest. The sight of this made Jack, Cong, and Robbin laugh in chorus together.
“You’re an evil girl, Robbin,” Hao said through heavy breathing.
“The evilest,” she said, giving Jack a wink and seeming very pleased with herself.
Jack met Robbin the first day they arrived at the University. As their friendship developed, Jack learned nearly everything there was to know about her, becoming most intrigued by the fact she chose to proudly sport her thick, Southern United States accent. As was the custom, her teachers in grade school instructed her on how to properly speak and enunciate words, doing their best to eradicate her regional dialect. Robbin played along with the training and mimicked how the teachers told her she should speak, only to resurface her accent once the reign of the stringent educators ended. She never knew her mother, who died when she was an infant, but was raised by a loving father, whom she inherited her strong will and ambition fr
om. Robbin liked to remind Jack on a frequent basis that her father worked as a scientist at a prestigious chain of biofuel production facilities in the Midwestern United States. While other companies set up algae farms in the desert to make biofuels from a small amount lipids produced during photosynthesis, the company Robbin’s father worked for raised their algae in the dark and fed them sugar, allowing greater quantities of biofuel to be produced. He would often bring his work home with him and solicit Robbin to help him with his research, exposing her to a scientific way of thinking at an early age.
It wasn’t long at the university before Jack realized how brilliant in the sciences she really was. Anyone who had ever met Robbin between her grade school and college years would agree that she never allowed a moment of silence during conversation. Jack was both intimidated and infatuated by her. Although he stumbled into a handful of dates throughout college, he was never able to muster up the courage to ask Robbin on one. Besides being a coward, he confided in Hao that it was also because she had a special kind of spectacular severity and intensity in her eyes, making it seem like whatever she was doing or whomever she was engaged with was the most important thing happening in the world at that exact moment, which tended to intimidate Jack.
Robbin glared playfully at Hao. “Jack would know better than to choose me as a scapegoat for one of his pranks on Cong. I’d get him back at least tenfold for even considering it! Besides, Jack assumes you’re an easy target because of how gullible you are, especially around older women. Ha!”
”We were just talking about his older-women issues before you got here!” said Jack. “Weren’t we, Hao?”
Hao became flustered and red in the face.
“As I have said before, the way I carry myself when I am in the presence of a well-developed woman is my personal business so please get off my back about it.”
Robbin shot him an incredulous look. “Oh, why don’t you go smoke some tea and drink some pipe tobacco or something?”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” said Hao.
The professor, Dr. Wu, finally made his way through the classroom door and slightly raised his left hand to quiet the students. On the room’s front table, he hoisted his briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers marked up with red ink.
“Hello class, I have a present for you on this beautiful Friday morning. I am pleased to report that the class average for your last exam was nearly ten points higher than the one before. As usual, some people did very well while others performed mediocre at best. Two people tied for the high score and . . . four tied for the low score. Ha!”
The students were called down in alphabetical order to pick up their exams and return to their seats. Dr. Wu gave a lecture for the remainder of the class period, but, of course, the students who did poorly on their test had a hard time focusing on any new material.
Once class ended, the always-competitive Robbin was ready to see how her friends fared against her exam score. She was notoriously obsessed with being the best academic among everyone she knew.
“How did you do, Hao?”
“An A-, but I’m sure I could have done better if I would have studied harder. I may have focused a bit too much on my elective art classes. Let me guess, you made a perfect score.”
Robbin did her best to hold in her excitement, which lasted for only a fraction of a second. “Yes! But I studied really hard, of course. What about you, Jack? Were you the one to make the other perfect score? I saw you studying an awful lot for the exam this time.”
Robbin’s eyes squinted with pensive anger at Jack, in case he performed as well as her on the exam.
“Nah, it must have been Cong who tied your score. I really wish Dr. Wu would get with the times and just deliver the exam scores online. It’s a waste of paper to print them out and he’s the only professor who does it.”
“I think you’re trying to change the subject! And Cong may be a closet genius with advanced placement into our class, but he still uses strap-on laces to hold his feet in his shoes because he can’t even figure out how regular shoestrings work. There’s no way he tied my score!”
Jack looked back at Cong, who was staring off into space and not paying any attention to the conversation.
Typical Cong, Jack thought to himself.
Robbin used this moment to snatch Jack’s exam from his hands.
“Come on, Robbin, please don’t . . .”
Robbin unfolded the paper and looked at the score. She immediately gave it back to Jack and apologized. “I’m sorry. I got carried away. You’re usually close to my score so I—”
“Don’t get all worked up, Robbin. I was just having a tough time grasping the material. A C+ isn’t the worst score in the world. I’m really hoping my VAT score is high, though. I’ve been pretty anxious about it lately.” Jack straightened his posture and switched the conversation to something less stressful. “Anyway, are we still going downtown to eat after our final class today?”
“Of course!” said Robbin, “We need a night out on the town to defrag and let loose from this week, especially considering that the Vocation Aptitude Test results will be released later on tonight. I just need to be back in time to view them in privacy, in case I don’t like the results.”
“C’mon, Robbin, you know you’ll be fine. I was trying to change the subject from talking about the VAT, anyway. I don’t think I even want to see mine. The results might make me lose my dinner,” said Jack, nudging Hao, who was engrossed in a text conversation on his screen. “Are you coming with us as well, or do you have another grave to rob?”
“Please stop making fun of my refined tastes and love for experienced women. I’ll tag along with you as long as you promise not to leave me with another group of andies again. Those people are so weird.”
Robbin gave a little smirk. “What’s so wrong with loving an android? You can design them to look, talk, do, and think however you want. You could even give yours grey hair and dentures, Hao!”
Jack and Cong laughed hard at the thought of Hao with a geriatric android.
“All I’m saying is that those guys were weird. Their ‘girlfriends’ looked like they walked off the screen from a risque anime show. They weren’t exactly going for realism, if you know what I mean. Besides, the three of you know how afraid I am of the future android uprising, and yet, the last time we went out, you made sure to have me sandwiched in the middle of a circular booth by the andies and their droid girlfriends. And then you all left the bar without me!”
“Okay, okay, we’ll avoid performing any high jinks on you tonight,” said Robbin.
“That sounds good, but will you also make sure Cong is fully dressed when we leave for downtown?” said Hao, looking at Jack.
“I’ll do my best, but I can’t make any promises.” Jack turned around to nudge Cong, but didn’t find him. “When the hell did he give us the slip?”
Robbin shrugged her shoulders while donning a guilty expression, causing Jack to wonder if she really didn’t see him leave or if she knew exactly where he disappeared to.
“There’s no telling,” said Hao, giving a slight head shake, knowing how unpredictable Cong could be.
Later in the afternoon, Jack called Robbin and Hao on their screens and asked them to meet up in his dorm’s lobby area. Jack finally found Cong in their room a little after five o’clock, fully dressed and ready for the night out. However, to Jack’s amusement, Cong put his own personal spin on what he planned to wear out on the city streets. Not only did he have on a dress shirt, dress pants, vest, leather shoes with shoestrings, and a bow tie—which was similar to how Hao liked to dress when going out to socialize—but Cong also slicked back his hair and was holding a smoking pipe.
“Oh geez, I hope Hao wears a similar ensemble. He’ll be so pissed,” said Jack, laughing.
“Oh, this is not the entire outfit. Check this out.”
Cong pulled out a pocket watch and a monocle from his vest. He temporarily laid them
on his dorm room desk and picked up a small jewelry box.
“This will complete my outfit. Go on, open it!”
Jack did as he was asked, both curious and nervous. Upon opening the box, he proceeded to laugh so hard he nearly collapsed to the floor. Inside the purple velveteen box was a fake handlebar mustache that Cong planned on donning for the whole world to see.
“Tonight is going to be great,” said Jack, after regaining his composure from laughing.
Cong placed his new gentleman accessories where they would respectively go on his person and he and Jack made their way to the lobby. From a distance, Jack spied Robbin and Hao sitting on one of the vestibule benches. She looked even prettier dressed up, as usual, and Hao was wearing a predictably debonair outfit with a bow tie. Naturally, once Hao caught a glimpse of Cong, he would become exceedingly embarrassed.
Cong started waving at them as he and Jack approached, giving his best British accent. “Howdy, ya wankers!”
The skin tone in Hao’s face slowly transitioned to at least three shades more red as anger and humiliation filled his system. He was momentarily speechless. Robbin laughed so hard, she couldn’t even produce an audible sound.
“Wha—” Hao began to form a sentence, but couldn’t seem to find more to say at first than a single syllable. He placed his hands on his temples and began again.
“Cong, I know you are only trying to infuriate me by dressing like some sort of over-the-top version of me,” said Hao, pointing directly at Cong’s ridiculous mustache. “But I will not be vexed by an imbecile like you!”
“I am not being sinister, good sir,” Cong said with a smile, “I have always been considered a most sophisticated gentleman!”
Robbin finally began to laugh audibly at Cong’s ridiculous dress and demeanor.
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