by Joel Adrian
A Shattered Future
By Joel Adrian
© 2018 Joel Adrian
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:
[email protected]
Cover by The Cover Collection.
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Prologue
Mona ducked into one of the abandoned, destroyed buildings to her right. The roar of the bandit’s truck behind her kept her charging forward as fast as she could, despite being out of breath. The crack of gunfire rang out through the air, and the stray shots kicked up pieces of destroyed hardwood floor next to her feet.
She darted through what used to be a living room, a smashed television and overturned couch strewed about. She leaped over the couch and dove through an already-broken window, landing on a wrapping deck outside.
Her pursuers caught sight of her, and they parked the vehicle. More bullets smashed through the frail wall next to her, narrowly dodging her form. Doors shut behind her, and she knew she had to move. The four of them on foot with assault rifles meant she’d be no match with her measly revolver, half of the rounds already spent.
Running to the back of the deck and leaping off it, she hooked her hands into the chain-link fence and scaled it, vaulting her body over the top in one fluid motion. A rifle shot snapped the pole atop the fence a second after she’d been there.
Mona pushed on, exhausted, but she couldn’t stop. Not if she wanted to live, not if she wanted to fix this. She was climbing a hill now, chugging along as fast as her 49-year old body could carry her.
“There she is!” she heard one of the bandits call.
A mess of bullets hit the hill just as she reached the top. She rolled over the top of it and caught her balance, starting the jog down. Her military training had conditioned her, taught her how to persevere mentally when the body wouldn’t. But it was failing her now.
The ruins of what was once a playground lay strewn out in front of her. The poles of the swing set were unearthed, twisting and contorting this way and that. The slide had been smashed in two by a car that was slung from the road, now laying in burnt remnants 40 feet from the mess.
She turned back while slowing to a jog. The bandits, all wearing football or hockey masks, ascended the hill. It took them only a second to spot her and raise their weapons. She sprinted to the left, as fast as her aging legs would carry her, and ducked behind a large oak tree that was still standing.
The bullets chipped away at the oak but didn’t penetrate it. She wiped the sweat from her head onto her sleeve and pulled her revolver from its holster. She was two, maybe three blocks from her base. But the exhaustion had her in its clutches. She groaned and forced herself upright, pulling the hammer back on the gun.
She started again at a jog, keeping level with the tree to afford her as much cover as possible. Her knees were creaking with pain, but she fought through it. The semi-automatic blast of gunshots whizzing by urged her to zigzag towards a waist-high cement wall on the other side of the park.
Running as quickly as she could, she dove past the wall just as a rain of bullet chased her, all burying themselves deep into the cement. She popped her head and arm out, and took aim swiftly. She fired, hitting one of the bandits in the stomach. He collapsed with a groan, one of the others stopping to check on him.
The two others were hot on her trail. She crouch-walked as fast as she could, using the destroyed cars and debris as cover. As Mona turned to run down Aven Street, a shot clipped her in her right arm.
She cried out and turned, smashing into a burned building. The door, barely hanging on, collapsed with her. Raising her arm, she saw blood dripping off the side, but the bullet had just grazed her. Thank God, she thought. Turning, she rose to her feet and charged one of the doors in the back.
The burnt ruins of what looked like a jewelry store surrounded her. She vaulted over one of the burnt, smashed out cases, stray diamonds still lingering inside. As she pushed past the door leading to the back, she heard one of the raiders call to his friends. Damn it, they don’t stop.
The back was charred worse than the front. The walls were entirely black, and the floor was burnt to a crisp beneath her. She pushed forward, kicking open the door to the back alley, letting in the gray-brown light.
Mona jogged down the alley, fighting for every breath she took. She rounded a corner and started towards her base. She knew soon she’d have to lead the bandits away. The last thing she wanted was to lead them right to where her crew was.
The alley in front of her was strewn with half-burnt trash bags and two rotting corpses. She brought a hand up to shield her nose from the foul stench. The rustle of footsteps behind her alerted her that the bandits were right on her ass.
She stopped next to the pile of burnt garbage. There were at least 20 bags stacked together. She quickly dove into them, burying herself in what remained of the charred bags and garbage. Sticking a hand free and making sure her entire body was covered.
The stench was so foul Mona thought that for the first time in 30 years she might be sick. Clearing her mind, she tried to focus on the patter of footsteps approaching. She whispered a prayer that she hadn’t left any part of her body exposed and that the bandits were just as stupid as they looked and would saunter right by.
The footsteps slowed next to the trash. She could hear the muffled argument between the three remaining bandits. Two of them started back to the jewelry store, the other took off in the direction Mona had been running.
She held her breath and tried to not take in more of the refuse scent than she needed to. She stayed put for the next 15 minutes. When the bandits never returned, she deemed it safe and slowly eased herself out of the trash grave.
Sucking in deep breaths of fresh air, Mona looked around. The sky still had its sickly, brown-grey clouds swirling above. The same ones that haunted the air ever since the bombs dropped.
She stumbled free of the trash, stepping over one of the corpses. The spot she’d been concealed in now held a small pool of blood. Getting her bearings, Mona turned and started back towards her base, pistol out and eyes alert.
Mona reached her base without running into the raiders, though she did a thorough sweep up and down each bordering road to make sure they were gone. She didn’t want them to be a problem for Thompson and Lily.
The building couldn’t have been more ideal. It was the second floor of an old pizza shop. The first floor was destroyed and filled with debris, but supportive enough to keep the second floor above it from caving in. They always entered through the fire escape and knocked three times on the window to alert whoever was home that it was them.
Lily answered, pulling the creaky window to the side and letting Mona into the bathroom.
“Hey,” Lily said. “Damn, you get hit?”
Mona dropped down onto the ground and held her right arm over the sink. “Just a knick. Some gauze and I’ll be good.”
Lily turned, her long brown ponytail swinging behind her. She grabbed a medical kit from the top shelf in the otherwise-unused bathroom and pulled a roll of gauze out. Mona eased her sleeve up. The bullet wound wasn’t deep or long enough to require stitches. Lily rolled the gauze over it in a few layers, fastened it to itself, and smiled.
“All set,” she said.
Mona didn’t know how Lily stayed so optimistic, especially after the bombs fell. She always got on more with Thompson. Thompson had been a Corporal in the Army, and the two had served together on base.
Placing a hand on Mona’s shoulder, Lily led her into the tiny kitchen on the second floor. Without much to cook, the area had mostly been converted into storage. Pistol rounds and shotgun slugs decorated the counters and the table. A double-barreled shotgun sat on a rack for pots and pans.
“Since we’ve been eating canned beans every night, tonight I thought we’d try something different. I cut up the rabbit Tom caught, and I had a can of peas and corn. Thought I’d try my hand at a stew.”
Lily motioned to the oven. They’d cleared out the insides of it and made a makeshift stove with a log fire inside. The window adjacent to the stove was open, pushing out the smoke. Mona coughed but forced a smile. “Smells good.”
She always took it easy on Lily. The girl was upbeat, even after losing both her parents to the bombs. She kept the place up, cooked, and had nursing experience, which was enough for them. Tanner and Lily had always gotten along great, like a brother and sister. Mona’s heart sunk at the thought of Tanner, and how much he’d meant to her.
Stop it! She straightened her spine, and mentally tore herself apart for thinking of him again. It had been a week, it was time to move on. Thompson and Lily had.
In the room next to the kitchen, Thompson was working on fixing one of the beartraps he had. A wrench and a screwdriver were strewn across the wood table in front of him.
Thompson looked much older than his 39 years. He had a grizzled appearance, muscles defined under his tight green t-shirt. His beard was growing in, black splotched with patches of gray. He’d tried cutting the hair atop his head once it grew in, but he decided he didn’t have the patience for it.
He glanced up at Mona with his steel gray eyes and grunted. “Evening.”
She glanced at the sometimes-right clock on the wall. “From out there, it felt more like early morning, but . . . evening.”
He set the bear trap down and stood. “You got it?”
Mona reached back into her pocket and pulled out a small bag. “This is it. Just like Tanner and you told me.” She slipped before she realized it.
Thompson glanced up. It had been something of an unspoken rule between all of them to not speak about Tanner. He grabbed the bag and emptied it into the palm of his hand. The red gemstone fell out. He tossed the bag aside and raised it, looking it over. “That’s our Requiem gem all right.”
“You’ve got the activator?” Mona asked. She’d seen him use it a dozen times, and he’d even been teaching her how to program it, but she asked anyway. Her paranoia had been slipping through the closer they got to her mission.
He grunted and reached into a mess of mechanical parts piled behind him. He pulled the activator free. It was a small black box with a cord dangling out of it. Then he pulled out the Requiem case, which was a black fixture with a fitting just the size of the Requiem gem. He pulled the case into the cord and set the Requiem stone inside.
Thompson powered on the activator. A holographic display popped up. Blue text read off the status of the activator, and holographic prompts, keys, and dials below it allowed him to communicate with it. Fine military tech, Mona thought.
“Gonna take me a day or two to get her situated. So let’s just—”
The crackle of gunfire stole their attention.
Thompson, Lily, and Mona all rushed to the open kitchen window. They glanced outside to see the three remaining bandits in their truck. The two that weren’t driving were aiming their assault rifles out the window, firing right at them.
“Get down!” Thompson shouted, tackling both Mona and Lily to the ground as a storm of bullets punctured the window.
Lily scurried towards the bathroom. “How’d they find us?”
Glancing down, Mona scowled and pounded a fist into the floor. “My fault. I was bleeding. Damn it!”
Thompson pulled a pistol from his ankle holster and started raising himself from the floor. He poked his head out above the window and fired two shots towards the bandits. They responded with more shots to the window, destroying the wall piece by piece.
“Mona, you gotta go, now!” Thompson roared over the gunfire. He slid the pistol to Lily and ran into the main room. “Come here!” he shouted, “watch me do this so you can get back!”
She turned and watched Lily take aim with the gun. She was a decent shot, but against three heavily-armed men, anyone would struggle.
Mona rushed to Thompson. He pointed to the keys and the dial. “You put in the GPS coordinates here. It shouldn’t be off if you do it right. The dial should always be kept at 75000, if you go higher, you’ll end up transitioning faster but you’ll be out for a day or so. 75000 and you’ll be up within minutes. Got it?”
She nodded as the gunfire rang out from the kitchen.
He pointed to the interface keys. “They never finished the menu, so a lot of it’s inoperable. But you can go forward and back. We never got to test the live teleportation function, but I wouldn’t go screwin’ with it. Give a berth for the coordinates in case something goes awry, and always give yourself time to get there.
A cascade of bullets stabbed through the walls of the living room. Thompson ducked and pressed a key on the activator. A second later, and a faint clicking was heard under the gunfire.
“Stay here,” Thompson said. He grabbed an assault rifle he had behind the couch. He slapped a magazine into it. “I’ve got to get Lily away or we’ll be caught in it. Warn them, Mona.” He turned to face her. “You stop this war, no matter the cost.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mona watched Thompson reach Lily, and pull her into the bathroom. Mona turned and sucked in a deep breath as the clicking continued. She ducked down as more bullets broke through the wall, shattering their base apart.
She knew her entire world was about to be ripped apart. She could barely recall what she was like 20 years ago. Tanner had instructed them that whoever went, they needed to find their older selves, and leverage it as proof of the concept. Then they could warn the government, and with any shred of competency or luck, they’d be taken seriously.
Mona felt like puking her guts out.
The clicking stopped, and the world she was looking at started to fragment and fall away.
Chapter 1
Emersyn Berg was never one for confrontation. She realized this every day, and wished even more she could change it. But the courage, the desire never came. She pushed past the set of doors that led into her own personal hell, the Atriarch call center, and tried to force herself to appreciate the setting sun and being free of the shackle of her headset.
Her weekend plans were ruined again by her boss, which reminded her how much she hated herself for not saying “no.” He’d become so dependent on her to work the weekend shift that it was almost a running office joke. “Emersyn’s life is Atriarch,” her coworkers joked both behind her back and to her face.
It hurt. But she wouldn’t correct them, or her boss. She’d smile, maybe laugh along or agree, then go about her day just as she’d done for the last six years.
She walked toward her beat-up Chevy Beretta. The once-white car was graying from the dirt and wear, and rust had set it on the underside, creeping up onto the edges. She unlocked the car and tossed her black bag into the passenger seat. She slumped into the vehicle and turned her key in the ignition. After several sputters, the engine rang to life with a screech, begging to be serviced by a mechanic.
Just one more thing to add to the list, Emersyn thought. She had too much on her plate right now, her car was going to have to wait. She plugged her phone into the car adapter to breath more life into it and backed out of her parking spot.
Two female coworkers of hers, Anne and Whitney, were crossing to the other side of the parking lot as Emersyn shifted her car from reverse to drive.
She let her car crawl towards them, imagining how much she’d like to run them over. They couldn’t be faker: between their gossip, their ploy to use their charm and innuendo to advance their careers, and their constant passive-aggressive comments at Emersyn, she’d had enough of them years ago.
The fact that they were succeeding, both up for promotion, made her hate them more.
Whitney started to pull Anne from the road once she noticed Emersyn pulling up, but Anne stopped her and flashed Emersyn a phony smile. She walked up to the side of her car.
Sighing, Emersyn stopped the car. She rolled the window down and looked at the pair of them, the scent of Anne’s strawberry perfume permeating from her skin.
“Emersyn!” Anne said with false enthusiasm. She rested a hand on the open window slot of the car. “How’s it going?”
“Not bad,” Emersyn replied. She kept her eyes on Anne’s hand. She couldn’t look her in the eyes, it was too intimidating. She wished the conversation over and done with as quickly as possible. “You?”
“Listen,” Anne said, her squeaky, over-excited voice grinding at Emersyn’s patience. “Whitney and I just realized we made arrangements to spend the day together on Sunday, but Gary has me scheduled to come in from 3 ‘till close. I’d do it, but Whitney’s babysitter isn’t free the rest of the week. Is there any way, any possible way, you could cover me?” Anne enlarged her eyes and pleaded with a begging smile.
Emersyn gripped the steering wheel tighter, and let her head fall back onto the headrest. There goes my entire weekend. “Sure thing.”
Anne squeaked in happiness and smiled. “You’re a life-saver, Emersyn! Thank you so much, you have no idea how much this means to us! We truly appreciate it!” She turned and exchanged a smile with Whitney.
The two left, carrying on to their cars.
Emersyn didn’t buy a second of Anne’s generosity. The two had thrown Emersyn under the bus at any opportunity to advance themselves. When she’d been up for a raise, she heard Whitney compare her to a new hire to their boss, Gary. The next day Whitney’s raise wasn’t anywhere near the expected $0.40, but a measly $0.07.
