Suffrage (World Key Chronicles Book 1)

by Julian St Aubyn Green

  Stanford frowned. Monarchs? He was curious about Mack’s bizarre yet clearly genuine trepidation. “Better do as she says Doctor Gillette. Until we have a clearer picture about what is happening.” Gillette scowled, obviously reticent to take instructions on how to look after his patients, but nodded his assent and headed for the door.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me why you’re recommending we sedate the teenager?” Stanford asked.

  “It’ll just be safer,” Mack replied.

  “Oh goody, even more reassurance. What the bloody hell is going on here?” Snake said with pointed heat.

  “Cool it Snake,” Sarge said before turning back to Officer Mack. “We’ve lost our memories, although some of what Mack says is starting to make sense. What can you tell us about ourselves?” Sarge asked.

  “Yeah, I’d like to know if I’m a Snake or a Pilot Adder. Adder. Oh, I get it. Snake’s a nickname. Cheesy nickname.” The Australian sounded relieved about finding that out, but impatience still laced his tone.

  “Call sign Snake, not a nickname. Look, Sarge … hmm. I’m really not sure we should be talking at all. Are we prisoners here?” Mack demanded of Stanford.

  “That’s not up to me,” he replied. “I know that isn’t particularly reassuring, but some very important politicians want to know more about all of you. You see, they are cautious about who you are and what you represent. Should they be?”

  Mack shook her head before thoughtfully nibbling on another bite of bread, plainly refusing to answer.

  “Prisoners?” China enquired, his tone darkening. “Why exactly would we be prisoners, Stan? We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Well, let me summarize,” Stanford stated while pacing the floor and looking at the visitors. “Some time ago, the five of you arrived in the middle of Patrick Air Force Base in what the witness described as ‘an angry ball of lightning and sound’. You were carrying with you advanced technology that is unfamiliar to us. You are also healing at an unnatural rate. Landing in the middle of a sensitive government installation, you were brought here and given medical attention.” Stanford tried a rueful smile. “Mysterious strangers popping up in the middle of a military base—I’m not sure how you should be treated, because we don’t know your motivations for being here. From a military point of view, they think you might represent a threat. Not cooperating,” he gave Mack a meaningful look, “is not helping that perception.”

  At Stanford’s speech, Sarge maintained her cool composure. Only a small tightening around the mouth gave away her apprehension. She was the one he needed to convince that answering questions was in their best interest. Mack pushed the table and empty bowl away, crossing her arms and looking put upon. Snake didn’t even bother to hide his annoyance. “Unknown medical advances, unknown technology, unknown motivations by unknown boffins all around. Strewth, is there anything you do know, Stan?”

  “I understand your reticence, Mr. Adder, but the sooner we sort out why you are here, the better. Seems like only Mack here can answer that question. There’s also a theory I’ve got that I’d like confirmed. So, question for a question: what do you think?”

  Snake’s face took a turn from sarcastic to agitated at the notion. He rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. He looked about to answer with a remark likely even more caustic when someone stopped him cold.

  “If that’s the case, I think it’s my turn for a question,” Mack quickly interjected, looking to Sarge for approval.

  “Something tells me I should trust you. Go ahead,” the big woman replied.

  “Do you know what a world key is?” Mack queried, studying Stanford intently with an appraising eye.

  Stanford blinked in confusion before shaking his head. “Sorry. I’ve never heard of a ‘world key’ before. Sounds … important.” He debated asking what a world key was and then considered that it may have something to do with his current theory.

  “My turn. What do you think of the many universe model?”

  “Ahh. You’re a smart one, Stanford. You’ve figured it out, haven’t you?” Mack fired back with a knowing look in her strangely colored eyes. Stan noticed that Mack’s eyes, while tinged with the faintest of periwinkle hues, were not nearly as deeply colored as Sarge’s or China’s.

  “Figured out what?” said Snake, just as China opened his mouth. All eyes fixated on Mack.

  “Since he knows, there is no point keeping it secret, and this might help you remember.” Mack paused, looking to the others in the room with a serious expression. “We are from this planet, but, as Stan has rightly surmised, we are from a different version of reality. Our reality and this reality have a singular divergence. At some point in the past, our shared history ceased to exist.”

  There it was: the reason for the little inconsistencies, neatly wrapped in a bow and tied off.

  Mack confirmed Stan’s theory with a single sentence. These travelers were definitive proof that alternate realities not only existed, but could be visited. The implications were staggering, yet the most important question remained. Why were they here? The way she mentioned a particular ‘point’ was important. Some pivotal event held the reason, the purpose of their journey.

  “You’re trying to figure out if a particular event occurred here, aren’t you?” Stanford asked Mack.

  Mack didn’t answer. Instead, she glanced to one side, unable to completely hide a small smile that turned up the corners of her mouth. She already knows the answer to that. When I didn’t know what a ‘world key’ was.

  “Why are you here then? Why did you come to this version of reality?” Stanford pressed.

  Mack shook her head in the negative. “Pass. Besides, I think it’s my turn for a question,” she declared as the door opened to admit Dr. Gillette, returning with a syringe.

  Even in such a short amount of time since her waking, Mack danced around certain topics, clearly remembering a good deal more and in full possession of her faculties. Her terse answers were complete and clearly compartmentalized. It frustrated Stanford no end.

  Before he could say anything else, Sarge flinched, pointing behind Gillette. “What’s that?” she asked, her deep purple eyes straining to recognize something.

  Gillette turned instinctively. There was nothing behind him. A high-pitched mechanical whine sounded and before Stanford could react, blood blossomed from Gillette’s forehead and neck. In slow motion, Stan watched his body fall with a sickening thud. His brain took a long moment to process what he’d just seen. Gillette wasn’t moving; a pool of scarlet spread out from his body in rhythmic pumps across the immaculate, pale linoleum.

  A disturbance in the air in front of the door caught Stan’s attention.

  The doctor’s blood had sprayed across something invisible and a plethora of red drops hung in the air like graffiti, written in Gillette’s own life across a window.

  “CONTACT!” bellowed Sarge.

  Stanford’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest completely. Something had killed Doctor Gillette. Stanford couldn’t see anything, except for that splash of red that hung, unsupported, in the air.

  When Sarge bellowed ‘Contact’ the visitors reacted, despite their amnesia. Someone watching via cameras activated the alarms and a harsh klaxon sounded.

  Stanford stood there, mouth agape, shocked into immobility while China spun out of the sheets, kicking the over-bed table across the ward to where the blood hung mid-air. The table broke against something hard.

  Snake cursed, scrabbling to untangle himself from the sheet and light blankets far more clumsily than China’s effortless display of athleticism. Sarge reached up and tore an oxygen tank straight off the wall with her cybernetic arm and threw it with terrific force. The tank slammed against the invisible assailant with a distinctly metallic clang and propelled the whatever-it-was back into the partially closed door, closing it with a resounding crash.

  Mack appeared at Stanford’s side, pushing him down. She groaned, legs trembling, and cast a desp
erate, wide-eyed gaze towards where the teenager still slept.

  “Jay, wake up!” Mack screamed in terror. As the oxygen bottle hit the ground, three circular blades spun out of thin air with a whine, towards China. He threw himself to one side, barely avoiding them.

  One blade sliced across Nurse Janet’s leg and she crumpled with a scream of pain and clutched at the gushing wound. The remaining blades buried themselves deep in the wall with a puff of plaster and concrete dust. Stanford had no idea how China managed to avoid the deadly projectiles. How did he move that fast?

  Yelling loudly, Sarge tipped her gurney over and pushed it forward, swinging the closest thing that came to her hand at the enemy only she could see clearly. Her IV tower crashed against the object, striking sparks and bending the thin pipe whenever it made contact with the disguised attacker.

  Stanford cowered by the wall in shock. It was all happening too fast and he jumped when Snake grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him to one side.

  “Chuck things at it. Keep it busy,” Snake yelled as he pitched a plastic water jug towards whatever the hell it was.

  China kicked off from a wall hard enough to leave cracks in the tiles laid over the concrete. His right foot spun through the air towards where Sarge’s gurney pinned their assailant.

  There was a deep, concussive jolt as China’s foot impacted and he somersaulted gracefully away. He landed in a crouching position, perfectly balanced in a long defensive stance with an outstretched hand behind Sarge.

  “What the bloody hell was that?” yelled Snake, following the mini explosion.

  Whatever China had done, something sparked with the smell of ozone. Hard angles rippled into view like a heat mirage and coalesced out of the air to reveal shining metal armor covering a menacing, human-shaped robot.

  Stanford forgot about Snake’s advice at the improbable sight. A collection of subtly glowing, red and green eyes peered from a head that was more appropriate to a spider than a human. Solid limbs articulated with inhuman flexibility as it worked to free itself. An armored carapace encased the entirety of the machine.

  Stanford’s mind scrambled to make sense of it. It’s like looking at an evil Tim Burton version of the Knights of the Round Table. Oh god. No. It’s the Terminator, but worse …

  Clawed hands gripped the metal frame of the gurney and with a whine of servos, it slammed against the bed, driving Sarge back, almost tripping her over China. The machine produced a strange-looking handgun from somewhere Stanford couldn’t see. Like the weapon Stanford had briefly examined earlier, it glowed in places.

  His vision sharpened with a renewed burst of adrenalin and desperation. Fresh sweat slicked Stanford’s hands as he followed Snake’s example and threw a blood pressure monitor at the robot.

  The monitor merely bounced off its chest plate. The machine ignored the projectiles, stepping forward with its weapon out-stretched as the door behind it burst open. The robot spun at the sound, firing at the first airman through the door.

  A tiny comet of black and silver light erupted from the barrel with a screaming noise. It struck the airman in the chest with a wet, sucking sound, followed by a dull thump that knocked him off his feet and left a fine mist of red in the air. The airman didn’t even have time to yell. He fell as if a light had been switched off. His M16 clattered to one side as the other airmen opened fire.

  Everyone in the room ducked at the sounds of ricocheting bullets, cracking tiles, and equipment being struck. The bullets didn’t appear to have enough force to penetrate the robot’s armor, but it staggered back against the metal frame of the gurney, firing its weapon at the men in fatigues who bravely or foolishly continued to engage the machine at close range.

  “Get that weapon, China!” Sarge bellowed, seeing the devastating effect it made. The machine ignored the visitors and Stanford for the moment, while it concentrated on the more obvious threat of armed airmen. Crossing that space infused with flying lead and spinning steel death seemed like suicide to Stanford as ricochets continued to paint their random patterns around the room. One ricochet came close to Stanford and he flinched away instinctively.

  The airmen at the door ducked behind the doorframe, frantically reloading, and Stanford heard Colonel Hardaker yelling incomprehensibly down the corridor.

  I’m gonna die. The thought struck home with a quiet finality that scattered all other coherent thought.

  His eyes roamed aimlessly across the room and in a haze, he watched Mack crawl towards the still unconscious teenager, Jay. She stuck close to the ground to reach her companion.

  Stanford missed whatever China did. One second, the robot’s gun’s screaming report sounded, and the next there was another of those concussive booms. Two more whirling blades shot across the room to embed themselves in the far wall. Someone cried out in pain.

  Stanford’s vacant gaze swept around the room to see China press one palm against a shoulder that oozed blood as the airmen poured bullets into the armored back of the robot.

  Stanford heard a high-pitched scream of anguish and frustration, which brought his attention back to the teenager. As she continued to scream, small objects on nearby tables began defying gravity, while dust rained from above them. The sheets fell away as the teenager levitated above the bed, her dark hair spread out and slowly rippling behind her like Medusa’s snakes.

  What in the world? Stanford turned, watching in amazement as the robot drone levitated into the air with limbs still, unable to move. Open-mouthed, he looked back towards the teenager and noticed a hate-filled gaze focused on the robot as she raised her hands and slowly curled her fingers into fists.

  There was a sound like the fender of a ‘63 Ford meeting an oak tree at ninety-five miles per hour and Stan turned his head to see the robot implode inwards under enormous pressure. The head, arms, and legs were forced towards the torso of the machine by an unseen force. It looked as though the machine had been placed inside a transparent industrial crusher.

  He stared, dumbfounded, as the wrecked machine dropped to the floor as if released from a giant, invisible fist. All Stanford could hear over the ringing in his ears was a sobbing that presumably belonged to the teenager, and what sounded like Mack consoling her.

  His Royal Majesty King Heinrich Saxe-Wernher stepped from the bathroom, wiping his hands, and paused, watching the screens in the captain’s quarters of his lightship The Songstress. The screens indicated that six fighters were ready to deploy at his command. With any luck, ground troops would not be needed. “Thalia,” he called.

  “Yes, Your Majesty?” The melodious voice of Thalia, The Songstress’s AI, appeared to come from the holographic image she projected next to him. Thalia chose to appear as she usually did: dressed in a Grecian toga, almost-black hair styled in heavy, dark ringlets, the very picture of her muse namesake.

  “Thalia, please tell me about our guests sent by the other Monarchs for this mission,” he commanded.

  “Yes, Your Majesty. King Mycroft Barrett’s emissary is only referred to as Mr. Delta. Strangely, my files do not contain any information about him. Mr. Delta remains on the bridge at this time.”

  Delta. I wonder if it’s the boy all grown up? Mycroft never did give me a proper explanation for that mess. Can’t tell under that mask of his, Heinrich mused.

  “King Mahmoot Al Aziri has sent his thirty-third son and twenty of his armored Elites to serve as the prince’s personal bodyguard. Prince Ahmed Al Aziri. He remains in his assigned quarters. I have extensive files; his life is a matter of public record. Shall I have a copy of the pertinent information sent to the data reader in your quarters?”

  “Please. Did you receive any further information on Princess Belya in the last databurst before transfer?”

  “No Your Majesty. The princess has disobeyed her mother by all accounts and is nowhere to be found.”

  “Undoubtedly a blessing. I didn’t relish the prospect of dealing with any of those she-wolf slatterns she calls daughters trying to hump th
eir way through my male crew,” Heinrich said. “What is the condition of the countess?”

  “My sensors indicate the drone she is driving has successfully penetrated the base undetected. It appears that my initial scan was correct. There are structures below the surface of the base. It has diffused the signal, but there is a high probability that the Rebels remain here, given how close it is to the original penetration point.”

  Heinrich nodded and moved for the bridge. This mission had him on edge. Him and the rest of The Five. It felt too similar to events in his past. Long, careful planning, years of research and husbanding of resources must have occurred to send these Rebels here.

  This was a major move.

  When he felt that strange quantum tag reverberate around the world he’d followed it to Florida and found a hidden Rebel base. He’d bombarded the base and sent in drones and his own peacekeepers to clean up. They’d netted two ringleaders, an older Asian man and young Caucasian man with a sharp nose nestled amid fine features.

  “Thalia, show me the schematics again.”

  As the diagrams of the guitar-shaped device spun into holographic existence, Heinrich pressed down the sudden feeling of rage. Thrice damned Rebels.

  After sending them to King Barrett for processing, Thalia had broken into the base data system and found these schematics for a new kind of transit. Not simply one that moved distances, but one that passed across timelines. She’d also found detailed scans of his own world key. The Rebels had used scans of his long-destroyed key to build the device. That was what had enraged him and made him take the lead on this mission.

  He’d been lucky that Empress Yoshimoto had been able to find similar plans inside her own world key and quickly manufacture a device for The Songstress.

  In distaste, he turned away, the door dilating open to the bridge, but it was too late. He felt his face assume the hollow expression as his thoughts turned to that day. Fire and pain, and the deaths of millions. And his family, gone. Hell … is a world in which everything one loves is taken away, replaced by darkness. His thoughts lingered grimly. I’ll never find one like her again. I’ll never be whole, just this shell full of vengeance.