The Last Builder

by C G Cooper

  The Last Builder

  C. G. COOPER

  Contents

  “The Last Builder”

  1. Cutler - The Year 2319

  2. Cutler

  3. Katherine

  4. Katherine

  5. Cutler

  6. Cutler

  7. Katherine

  8. Katherine

  9. Katherine

  10. Cutler

  11. Cutler

  12. Katherine

  13. Katherine

  14. Cutler

  15. Cutler

  16. Cutler

  17. Katherine

  18. Katherine

  19. Cutler

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  “The Last Builder”

  Book One Of The Last Builder Novels

  Copyright © 2017 JBD Entertainment, LLC. All Rights Reserved

  Author: C. G. Cooper

  with Karen Rought

  Get a FREE copy of Adrift, the first book in the Daniel Briggs spinoff, just for subscribing at http://CG-Cooper.com

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations and events are all products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual events or real persons are completely coincidental.

  Any unauthorized reproduction of this work is strictly prohibited.

  1

  Cutler - The Year 2319

  Cutler Copeland leaned forward against the heavy-duty straps that held him like a prisoner in his seat as the ship descended toward the pale blue planet. He could just barely catch a glimpse of the swirling surface through the window across the cabin where he and forty-two other passengers braced themselves for their return home. Not that it mattered. The only time Earth changed was for the worse.

  He leaned back again and shut his eyes. He hated coming home. There were only two reasons to return: One was dead and the other hated his guts. His ex-wife was always more apathetic than angry, but his daughter was outright hostile every time he touched down and tried to visit her. Victoria had tried to soothe him, bless her soul, by telling him that Katherine was just being a typical teenager. Cutler couldn’t help feeling like he deserved it nonetheless.

  But those were problems for when his feet finally hit pavement. At the moment, Cutler was concentrating on the image of Earth that had seared itself into his brain the last time he visited. How long was it? Two, three years? Again, not that it mattered. Everything had gone to shit generations ago, and no one had ever quite figured out how to shovel it.

  Gripping the arms of his seat as the ship bounced its way through the atmosphere, Cutler closed his eyes and pictured the spokes of the skyscrapers that grew from the ground. Awe-inspiring from above, Earth was a different story ground-level. A graveyard of buildings, metallic tombstones closing in on him as he walked through the streets, barely able to tell clear sky from pollution.

  He wiped a gloss of anxious sweat from his brow. He was only ever claustrophobic when he was on Earth. Other planets had issues with overpopulation, sure, but nothing like Earth’s. The weight of the entire universe seemed to press down on the planet and its people. It was hard to remember there were infinite worlds out there still waiting for anxious Adams and excited Eves.

  This involuntary grounding was one of the reasons why he didn’t make it home that often. Pollution hid the sky and all it could reveal, and each visit to Earth made it difficult to remember the endless opportunities that awaited him off-planet. Perilous, if you didn’t know what you were doing, perilous and profitable if you did.

  Too bad his marriage was the true price he’d had to pay for his sense of adventure.

  “Prepare for final descent,” said a woman’s voice from above, soft and calming. They couldn't have chosen a word other than final for that soulless AI to intone?

  Cutler kept his eyes closed as they entered the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere and began to slow. He was already pining for his little ship. He reassured himself that she'd be fine where she was, docked on Luna. No universal pit stop was safe by any stretch of the imagination, but Cutler had enough contacts throughout the solar system to guarantee a little more protection for her there. Private ships hadn’t been allowed to touch down on the planet for a couple generations now, unless you could afford to pay the exorbitant fee. Regulations were strict. The only reason why Cutler had been allowed to visit at all, and on such short notice, was because of Victoria’s funeral. Even then he had only just made it in time for the service later that afternoon.

  But getting off Earth would be even more difficult. Hoops to jump through and protocol to follow. The Keresian Virus was more ruthless than ever, whether the government wanted to admit it or not, and although they claimed it was contained to the outermost limits of the world’s largest cities, Cutler knew the truth: It was only a matter of time before it wiped everyone out.

  That was the thing with KV. It took seconds to transfer through bodily fluids and years to gestate. You could be carrying it for a decade and never show any signs, and then one day when the disease decided it had enough of a sleep, it erupted, and you were dead in an hour or less. There was no cure. And no prevention other than distance, which was why all the major cities had forbid transport of any kind across borders without special permits and viral screenings. You could leave as you pleased, as long as you had enough money and didn't mind the major risk. But money was scarce and the survival instinct plentiful, so those outside the city centers continued to die off while those lucky enough to be housed inside could at least afford to turn a blind eye knowing they were safe.

  But safe was a relative term to begin with.

  Cutler had gotten tested before he was approved to visit Earth, and again right before he had been allowed on the ship. Since they'd be touching down within the city limits of New Manhattan, the government required that each person be free of disease before they landed. It was all a shell game to mollify the hysterical. A realist like Cutler knew that walls around select pockets of the population were no real solution.

  The ship jostled as they hit the ground, and Cutler heard a few people praying in their native tongues. A man to his left threw up onto the brim of his fedora, the realization of what he’d done dawning on him seconds later: A hat like that was not easy to come by. But that’s what happens when you’re used to artificial gravity. The real stuff punches you in the gut if you’ve been away from it for too long.

  Luckily, Cutler had a stomach made of steel. When the seatbelts automatically detached, he peeled his body from the seat. After the stretch of his life, he unlatched his duffel from the overhead and joined the line exiting the craft, trying to ignore the way his spine itched at the thought of being surrounded by so much commotion. That was another thing about space: it was quiet. Cutler liked quiet.

  As he stepped out onto the platform, the noise hit him square in the face, and it took him a second to gain his bearings. What didn't help was being jostled from side to side as a myriad of people rushed their way through the crowd toward loved ones.

  Loved ones. He chewed on that phrase for a moment. There was only one person left alive that he loved, and that was his daughter Katherine. Unfortunately for him, she hated his guts. Or at least she had when he’d visited two years ago. These days, he wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted him dead.

  He made a beeline for Katherine’s school, head down, shoulders squared. He wanted a chance to talk to her before the funeral, and he only had a few hours to settle in and track her down. The notice about Victoria’s death had come directly from the private institution where she had worked, the same school Katherine attended. They hadn’t made any mention of his daughter’s whereabouts, and Katherine hadn’t responded to the numerous messa
ges he had left for her.

  For an ugly moment, he wondered if Katherine was actually still alive. It wasn't out of the question, considering what he knew about KV. He hadn’t talked to her since last year, when her mother had evidently forced her to call him on his birthday. It was brief and awkward, but just hearing Katherine say, “Dad,” even shrouded in a layer of contempt, had lifted his spirits for weeks after. For all his self-imposed solitude, the idea that Cutler Copeland was truly alone in the universe would have been too much to bear.

  He shook his head. Clear those thoughts. They don't help. If something had happened to Katherine, he would know about it. Someone would’ve notified him.

  The streets in this part of the city were narrow, clogged with people and vendors and shanties. It’d been a long time since the police cared enough to keep the streets clear in the poorer districts. The wealthier areas, like the roads surrounding Katherine’s school, weren’t much better, but at least there was a touch more order to the chaos than out here.

  Cutler lifted his head and could just make out the tallest spire of the school reaching up beyond the buildings before him. Its once-bronze fineries were green and sick, but this made them stick out like a beacon of hope. The school promised an education for those who could afford it, and an education at Juniper Academy meant you had a shot at the best opportunities, not just on Earth, but just about anywhere in the solar system.

  A young boy in shabby clothes smacked into him, mumbled a hasty sorry, and scurried off. Cutler looked back just in time to see the kid stop short in his tracks with a short, stifled yelp, and tumble to the ground in a twitching heap. He walked over to the kid and used the tip of his boot to roll him over. It was a sorry statement for Earth that a scene like this drew only a couple of disinterested looks from passersby.

  Underneath the boy's body was Cutler’s Omnis. It figured. The kid looked like a typical hacker. Hackings were a real problem, which is why most people kept their devices, with all their private and financial info, firmly attached to their forearms. That was great until you met someone who didn’t mind separating your arm from your body. Cutler had met too many unsavory souls to consider permanently wearing the thing even a remotely good idea. But he wasn’t an idiot. If you wanted to risk carrying your Omnis in your pocket, you'd better have some foolproof way of protecting it. He'd modified his device, an older model Omnis 2265, to read fingerprints anywhere on its surface. If yours didn’t match the preprogrammed prints, ZAP! 80,000 volts to the solar plexus.

  The kid couldn’t have been older than eight, nine. He had a jagged scar running along the left side of his face. His blonde hair, straggles of it caked in mud, tossed while his body twitched. But the effect of the electroshock was wearing off quickly. It was the non-electric shock, the shock of the surprise, that still held the boy in its throes.

  Cutler scooped up his device and unlocked it with a couple swipes of his finger. “What’s your name?”

  The kid squinted up at him through one eye and croaked out, “Benjamin.” He sat up slowly, shaking his head and moving his jaw, ostensibly to pop his ears.

  “They call you Benji?”

  “Some.”

  “That was pretty stupid of you, Benji.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Cutler chuckled. “Shouldn't you be in school or something?”

  “Sister’s sick. We need medicine.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel bad? How long did it take you to rehearse that?”

  “I got a prescription.”

  “You got parents?”

  “Just my ma. And my grandma, too.”

  “Other sibs?

  "Seven." The kid was fully aware now. He was starting to look his age, and terrified.

  Cutler punched the numbers into his Omnis. "Ten total?”

  “Yes, sir,” the kid said with a sneer. His gaze darted around, looking everywhere but at his interrogator.

  Cutler made a move to place his device on top of Benji’s, which was held in a metal sleeve attached to the inside of the kid’s forearm. The kid snatched his arm away.

  “Relax, for Chrissake. I'm not gonna kill you."

  Benji jumped when the devices touched. He looked up at Cutler with wide eyes.

  “Enough to get you through the week,” said Cutler. “And enough for some medicine for your sister, too. No more hustling. You're no use to anyone in prison, or dead. Find a job that allows you to attend school at night. You got me?”

  Benji lifted his arm and read his Omnis screen. He stared incredulously at the notification of a money transfer that stood boldly out from the face of the device.

  “You got me?” Cutler repeated. The boy nodded his head, still staring at his device. It was pocket change for Cutler.

  He stowed his Omnis and readjusted his duffle over his shoulder. He left Benji staring down at his device, knowing that soon the realization of what just happened would kick in and the kid would be running through the streets and back home to his sister, medicine and a sense of purpose in hand. Hopefully. Cutler was a terraform engineer. It was his job to spread hope.

  As for his sense of purpose, all he wanted was to find his daughter. He kept his head down the rest of the way, and by the end of the hour, he was at the aging bronze gates of Juniper Academy. In a city of steel and heartbreak, the academy had remained regal with its brick façade and twisting turrets. It was a relic of older times, better times, and one that was equally loved and despised; for although it was an institution that bred wealth and nobility, it was also a place of humble learning that prided itself on teaching its students to value hard work and knowledge. Victoria had loved the school since she and Cutler had attended as kids. There was never a question of whether their daughter would attend. It was just about the only thing they agreed on in twenty years of marriage.

  Katherine loved the school too, though she’d probably find reasons to hate it if she knew her father was the one paying the bills. He scoured every inch of the campus, soaking in the calm that filled him before it was inevitably washed away by the rush of students. Was it just that? Or was it also knowing how annoyed his daughter would be at having to deal with him again? He wondered if she knew he was grieving as much as she was.

  A simple wave of his Omnis in front of the sensor and the gate gave a gentle chirp, then swung open without a sound.

  2

  Cutler

  Professor Witwick’s office door was ajar. It was always ajar. Cutler gave a one-knuckled knock and the older man started. His hair was a shock of pure white; his elaborate moustache, greased and sculpted like a bow spring, only added to the eccentricity of it.

  Realization of who was standing outside his office dawned after a squinting second. Then a grin grew across the old man’s face.

  “Cutler Copeland,” the professor said reverently, slowly getting to his feet and motioning the other man inside. “When I found out you were coming I'd hoped you’d make time for a visit.”

  “I’d never pass up the opportunity, sir,” Cutler said, reaching across the desk to shake Witwick’s hand.

  “Sir?”

  Cutler managed a smile. “I don't know what else to call you.”

  “Why, Wick, of course. It's what the students call me behind my back.”

  It never ceased to amaze Cutler that his old professor was still teaching at the school all these years later. Witwick had seemed ancient when they’d first met. Cutler had been a teenager then, and to think this man was now teaching his daughter.

  “I'm sorry about Victoria.”

  “Thank you.”

  “She was a wonderful woman, I liked her very much. A beautiful person. And a wonderful teacher.”

  Cutler worked past the lump in his throat. “Thank you.”

  Cutler tried to shake off the unease, smiled warmly at the man and set his bag at his feet. He rubbed the knuckles on his right hand until the swell of emotion settled.

  The professor waved a hand in dismissal. “She will always
be your wife, in marriage and in divorce, in life and in death. You will always be connected through your time together... through your daughter.”

  “Speaking of,” Cutler interjected, not liking the way the professor always cut to the truth of the matter, “where is Katherine? The letter from the school didn’t tell me where I could find her, and she... Well, let's just say I haven't gotten any response to my messages.”

  “She’s a strong girl, Cope. Smart, resourceful, resilient. But she’s lost. She doesn’t know who she is yet.”

  “Did any of us at seventeen?”

  “You did,” the professor said. “You always knew you wanted to leave Earth. You always knew there was more for you out there. I’m afraid Katherine doesn’t realize that yet. She sees only what’s in front of her, and right now that’s this hallowed institution.” The professor telegraphed his irony with a grandiose hand gesture.

  “She’s graduating in a week. Her mother didn’t prepare her for college? An apprenticeship? Anything?”

  “Don’t blame Victoria,” Witwick said sharply. “She had no desire to place the same expectations on her daughter that she had when she was a child. She wanted Katherine to make her own choices. The world is in flux. You can't expect to impose goals on a child that may not even be there when the child is ready to advance.”

  Cutler walked over to the window and stared down into the courtyard. It was such an anomaly in the city. The flowers and shrubs had been genetically bred to flourish in the low light and polluted air.