by J. D. Cavan
Copyright © 2018 by J. D. Cavan
www.JDCavan.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Prologue
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Acknowledgments
Editor: Allison Erin Wright
http://wrightediting.com/
Cover art: Deranged Doctor Design
http://www.derangeddoctordesign.com/
Back Cover Description: Megan King
Copy Editor: Keith R Gordon
Prologue
THERE’S SOMETHING YOU’VE always known about yourself but just couldn’t put a finger on, isn’t that right? That you’re different. That you know things others don’t. That you experience things others don’t. That who you are—your name that was given to you in some arbitrary way—isn’t really you at all. Well, today is your lucky day. You are going to know the truth.
It’s not going to be easy to accept, however, because you’re going to have to stop pretending and do something about it. You’re going to have to come out of the dark quiet places you’ve been hiding and get involved. Let me be clear—no one said this was going to be a piece of cake. As a matter of fact, it will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.
I was like you once. I lived a meaningless life. I had it hard. I was an orphan and lived on the streets with nothing. But then I became Actualized. And now I’m who I am today.
I didn’t have choice, but you do. You can choose to walk away right now, or you can look into my eye and let me wake you up to who you are. I think you are going to look into my eye.
If you do, I’m going to ask you to follow me, and I don’t mean blindly. I mean follow my logic, because synchronicity isn’t just supposedly random events occurring meaningfully—it’s a mindset, a way to think. You’ll see the connections right away, because that’s how some of us operate, how we think and act. What looks so disorganized or distracted is in fact the opposite. It is more ordered and powerfully connected than anything that this world has to offer.
So be patient and follow me.
Stop denying…
That you saw him today for a reason…
That she sat next to you today for a reason…
That you dreamt of him last night for a reason…
…. for a reason, for a reason. The more you see that it’s for a reason, the more you will understand the reason.
Then, you will see the real reason for it all.
Now look into my eye and get ready to become who you are.
* * *
SAMANTHA STOOD ON a large platform in the middle of the Arizona desert addressing all of the wide-eyed and willing. Dusk had fallen and the wind whistled loudly, whirling about her as she delivered her speech from the podium to hundreds of awestruck Potentials. Not one of them left, and they all stood straight, waiting, when the red star emerged from Samantha’s eye, slowly emanating, before blazing out in darkening night. Individual beams of ruby red light from the star in her eye, looking more like a meteorite, entered each Potential’s eye.
One by one they all began to show their own light. Soon all of their eyes lit, their birth rite complete. They had become Evolutionary Rebels, the Ereb. She felt the heat and energy coming off them, together with the hope for their new species—and that of humankind.
Then the skies grew dark and the night air got colder and she felt the fear and danger enter her. She walked amongst the Ereb in their camp, wondering and waiting.
The air turned stale and motionless before there were Aion drones in the night sky and Replica military assassins storming in. Bright floodlights hit the camp and the Ereb began running and hiding while the drones and Replica gunned them down in a bloody massacre.
She ran through the camp, trying to save as many of her Ereb as she could, but the Replica sent in assault helicopters next. With smoke filling her lungs and gunfire deafening her, she held a bloody Ereb in her arms, a young girl just Actualized.
She carried the Ereb out of the camp as they began to rain rockets and hellfire down upon them. She somehow escaped the camp’s perimeter and fell into a damp and cold ditch. She glanced down at the young Ereb that she’d been carrying. The little girl was dead. Samantha felt warm blood on her hands as she rested the girl gently on the earth and peered over the edge of the embankment toward the camp. Ereb on fire, their bodies burning, some shot in the back as they attempted to flee. They were slaughtering them.
Then, through the chaos and the smog, a giant solider emerged. The other military deferred to him as he casually surveyed the destruction. He stopped in front of a bunch of Ereb lined up on their knees and removed a large pistol from its holster. He then executed each one of them methodically.
Samantha shut her eyes and flinched before glaring back at the monster. She turned her hearing up and listened as his soldiers called him by a name. They called him General Zim.
Samantha knew that he was in command, and that his Replica were not taking prisoners—or accepting surrender. They were exterminating them, making them extinct.
Her horror turned into rage. She made vow to herself in that moment. She would get her vengeance.
1
SAMANTHA STOOD OUTSIDE of the bank letting the rotten memory fade. The flashback of the Ereb camp in the desert came to her often lately. It was an ever-present reminder of why she hated Aion, and why she was hell-bent on destroying every last one of them.
“Everyone put your hands in the air!” she ordered, entering the bank. She scanned the room while her Ereb protectors—Luca, Shark, Little and Bags—flanked her sides, locked and loaded.
One of the bank tellers held her empty hands out in front of her. The woman had bright pink nail polish with little sparkles encrusted in it. Not exactly Samantha’s style—none of this bank robber stuff was, but Aion owned more than everyone’s souls. They owned their money too, so her job—among a million other things—was to take it all back from Aion.
Originally, the super artificial intelligence systems of Aion had been developed to save humanity from its own self-destruction, but now it did everything but help them. Ereb were hunted mercilessly by Replica because they couldn’t be controlled like humans. The Ereb were impervious to Aion’s tyrannical technologies.
“Come here,” Samantha ordered the bank manager. He was a young guy sitting at the desk that was closest to the bank’s vault door. The teller and the manager, along with the five or so other customers, all wore the blank emotionless stare that was produced by Aion’s nanotechnologies. It never ceased to piss her off seeing the once-proud human species now wandering around half asleep, like lobotomized zo
mbies.
The nanos were invisible to humans, but as an Ereb she could see them. Billions of poisonous micro specs of dust in the air. They were in every breath they took, food they ate, and water they drank.
It was hot for a September day in the Northeast, and her already tight black Ereb gear clung to her body. She had her two pistol blasters holstered on either side of her hips, and her long dark hair was pulled up tight on her head. She quickly took off her backpack and unzipped it. Inside was a rolled-up duffle bag for the cash.
“Don’t worry, I use my mind, not my gun,” she told the manager. Guns were for Replica only. He didn’t respond and just stared at her with an empty gaze.
She went for the vault, but she stopped dead in her tracks. She felt it full force. It was her synchronic sense trait, a rare trait among the Ereb. She instinctively did something she absolutely knew she shouldn’t. She sent a thought to Luca. There’s something different this time—it’s my senses telling me.
Luca waved his head in frustration and then lowered his voice. “No thoughts, you know that. Even if there’s a reason for it, it’s too dangerous.”
Luca had no problem killing Replica, which made him the best Primary Protector a high-status Ereb like her could have. She’d spent years living on the streets with him, before they were Ereb. Luca was straightforward and there was nothing deceptive about him. As far as she could tell, Luca only had one secret—and it was locked up deep in his heart.
Sorry. I forgot that you’re always right, she said sarcastically. But I’m in charge here if you haven’t noticed.
He raised his voice. “Stop thinking to me!”
She smirked. Luca’s buttons were so easy to press, but that wasn’t the reason she was using telepathy. She needed it now. Something’s going to happen and this is part of it. I’m serious, Luca.
His face flushed in anger and his jaw clenched. She knew Luca long enough to know what he was thinking without literally reading his mind—he thought she was making a big mistake. Aion’s Replica assassins could track Ereb in lots of ways. Creating disturbances, like robbing a bank, was equivalent to dropping a pebble in a pond. Sooner or later the ripples would span out and reach Replica assassins. Once that happened, the Replica would be on them quickly. But when Ereb used their abilities, such as telepathy and telekinesis, it was like dropping a boulder in that same pond.
“Throw up a mind barrier, Sam’s going off script again,” Luca quickly said to Bags. Bags could create force fields with her mind to block Replica search systems.
Samantha was a high-status Ereb, which ironically enough wasn’t a good thing because they were the ones Replica went after. If you had high status, you had a giant target on your back. She was the only one who could find and Actualize other Ereb. Potential Ereb didn’t know they were Ereb until a high-status Ereb unlocked their abilities. That’s why they were losing the war. The Replica had killed off the few high-status Erebs at an extinction-level rate, leaving her as the only one left. Her existence was imperative for the survival of the entire species.
Little rumbled over, looking concerned, followed by Shark.
“Is there a problem, boss?” Little said. He was anything but small at six-three and built like a linebacker. Shark stood by his side, holding a shotgun. He had a tall Mohawk, hence the name Shark, and huge tattooed arms.
Samantha rolled her eyes. “Thanks for singling me out.”
“Oops, that’s right, I shouldn’t call you boss,” Little muttered sheepishly.
“You just did it again,” she said. Replica could tell who was high status anyway, but it still bugged her. Little and Shark were low-level Ereb; they had some strength, but nothing like her. Most Ereb were either high on strength, had some strength and intellect, or were high in other domains such as compassion or synchronic sense. But there were no Ereb high in all four domain traits. Samantha was the only one—she carried strength, intellect, compassion and synchronic sense, and they were all off the charts.
“There’s no problem, get the money.” Samantha told them as she walked toward the vault. “Reminder, ink explosions,” she said. She had previously warned Little and Shark to watch out for ink traps. The money was wrapped in transparent plastic packaging, and any of them could have been booby-trapped to spray dye all over everything if they were mishandled.
It didn’t matter, because as Little clumsily ran his hand around the edges of the huge cash bundles checking for traps, one blew up all over everything. Little stumbled backward out of the vault whipping the blue dye off his face, looking stunned.
Luca whispered to Samantha in frustration, “We’re running out of time.”
“I warned them,” she replied, checking the remaining bundles of cash herself. Shark unrolled a large empty duffle bag and quickly started filling it with stacks of clean money.
She turned around and looked out the large front windows. A line of police cars were racing into the parking lot.
Luca noticed too and pursed his lips in anger. “Now what?” he asked impatiently. Even though the cops were as lifeless as everyone else, they’d perform tasks associated with their job, and she wouldn’t hurt any of them, cops or innocent civilians. Her compassion domain trait wouldn’t allow it.
She rubbed her forehead, thinking. Her synchronic sense was still ringing a bell inside her like an alarm. Where was it? she said to herself in frustration, searching the bank for clues.
Being a high status Ereb was hard, with lots of complex things going on inside her at once. Luca was always warning her not to get distracted. “Distraction is the evil brother of purpose,” he’d say to her, but for her what appeared as a distraction was actually following her synchronic sense. The meaningful potential of every supposed coincidence; two things that didn’t seem to go together always did later, significantly so.
“Can you do Time Grip?” Luca asked, clearly trying to solve the immediate problem.
“No, I get one Time Grip a year, and I’m not using it for this,” she said. Time Grips were for extreme energies, and it took so much out of her that using it more than once a year could kill her.
“Replica’s gonna be here any minute, Sam,” Luca said urgently.
“Just a second,” she muttered to Luca, waiting and trying to will her synchronic sense to find the answer.
Bags walked forward and put her hand up in the air like she was picking up something coming from the Mind Barrier.
“Replica!” Bags shouted, and just as she did, there was a loud explosion from the back. Samantha ducked and shielded her face as the back door blew open, smoke pouring into the room.
Little, Shark and Luca swung around with their guns immediately blazing cover, bullets and lasers forming a protective shield around Samantha as SWAT-looking Replica came rushing through the door.
Replica were easy to spot. They wore eye-shields, which appeared as dark sunglasses, one black strip across the eyes. It enhanced their techno-psychic search systems and protected them from Ereb mind control. It was always easier to get into someone’s head through their eyes.
They gunned down the first group of Replica but more rushed in and returned the fire. Samantha waved her hand and sent the bullets back at them and wiped out a bunch of Replica before another explosion detonated. Luca yanked her down behind a wall, then stepped forward and began to unload on them again.
Luca slid down next to her as bullets crashed around them. Little and Shark were holding them off while Bags hid under a desk. The manager was lying flat on the floor with the rest of the people in the bank. The sound of gunfire was deafening.
“There’s something different this time, something going to happen, huh!” Luca shouted over the noise, mocking her as he watched the back of the bank. “Like calling Replica here by using your telepathy!”
“That’s not it, there’s something else!” she screamed back. She went to grab her pistol blasters from her hips, but Luca stopped her as more Replica rushed through the doors, guns blazing.
Luca stepped up and pumped more rounds at them. His gunfire ripped through the back of the bank’s glass offices and took down a bunch of Replica, but there was another detonation that blew him backward through the air as the enemy quickly closed in on Samantha.
She stood up and delivered booming rounds from her blasters, Replica body parts flying everywhere, while Little tried to protect her. He began firing, but then he was shot in the chest and head and hit the floor in a heap. Blood splattered all over Samantha’s face and covered her clothing, but she ignored it and continued to crank fire at the Replica.
Shark let loose with his shotgun, providing cover while she momentarily searched for Luca. She couldn’t find him anywhere, and the Replica began intensifying the attack, raining heavy gunfire. They wouldn’t stop until they reached her.
She tried her psychokinesis again but the Replica’s eye-shields blocked it. She usually had only moments to use it, sometimes melting Replica guns or crushing their heads with her mind before Aion established protective shields.
The bank was coming apart at the seams, debris and bullets flying everywhere. She was backed into a corner, literally, and she had to do what she truly didn’t want. It was her only option left. She threw her arms out in front of her and created a Time Grip.
* * *
INSTANTLY, ALL THE ROUNDS FROZE in the air just before hitting Shark and Bags. Replica stood motionless, as did the people in the bank and the cops outside. They all looked like statues in a museum.
Samantha’s shoulders went back as her arms straightened out even further. An invisible force flowed through her, creating waves of unseen energy. There was a huge risk of spontaneous and uncontrolled explosions.
Her body radiated heat and reverberated violently; time seemed to ripple and contract in front of her. She clamped down on her jaw, feeling like the energy could reverse back inside her and implode—or unleash outside her body, creating a gale force hurricane of destruction.
She finally reined in the Time Grip—like lassoing a bucking bronco—when Luca materialized out from under some rubble, looking injured but alive, thank God.
