Disparity

by Eric Warren

  DISPARITY – QUANTUM GATE BOOK 4

  Copyright © 2018 by Eric C. Warren All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means electronic, mechanical, printing, photocopying, recording, chiseling into stone, or otherwise, without the written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. For information regarding permission contact the publisher.

  Cover Design by © Sabercore23 Art

  Content Editor Tiffany Shand, www.eclipseediting.com

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The Theory of the Multiverse says there are infinite parallel universes containing every possible situation.

  It makes me happy because I know somewhere,

  you love me back.

  -Unknown

  There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.

  -Simone de Beauvoir

  The Quantum Gate Series:

  PROGENY Quantum Gate Book 0

  SINGULAR Quantum Gate Book 1

  DUALITY Quantum Gate Book 2

  TRIALITY Quantum Gate Book 3

  DISPARITY Quantum Gate Book 4

  CAUSALITY Quantum Gate Book 5 (Coming Soon)

  Want a free download to The Quantum Gate prequel: PROGENY?

  Sign up on my website and you can read all about Arista’s first introduction to the machine world and how she survived.

  Go to ericwarrenauthor.com for your FREE BOOK!

  PROLOGUE

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” Frees asked. One moment he’d been shielding Arista, protecting her from the barrage of bullets volleyed at them from the human colony’s soldiers—soldiers which he’d been part of for a very brief time, if only as a disguise—and the next he was here. In this new place staring up into the clear, blue sky with Arista standing over him, a panicked look on her face.

  “I think we went through the gate,” she said, her voice full of gravitas.

  The gate.

  The one the humans designed to travel to the past. So they could erase the machine uprising. His people’s entire history, gone in one fell swoop. He and Arista had been trying to destroy it, to make sure no one could ever change history. But they’d failed. Somehow they’d come through to the other side. And now they were here.

  “Don’t tell me that,” Frees said. “Please don’t tell me that.” He wasn’t sure he could handle living in the past. How were they supposed to get back?

  “I’m sorry,” Arista said. “I don’t know what happened. The gate was almost closed. I was reaching for that energy drive when…” she trailed off, looking out into the distance. “One of the bullets must have set it off. It knocked us back through.”

  That made sense. Arista’s biological mother, Jessika, had tossed the spent energy drive at them. It’d probably had just enough power in it to affect a concussive blast, blowing them back through the gate. Good thing it hadn’t been full, they wouldn’t be here otherwise.

  “What about the rest of them?” he asked, looking into her eyes. She’d been through so much lately, and now to have everything torn away from her again. He didn’t see how she was maintaining her composure. “Your mother. David.”

  “David’s dead,” she replied, no love lost in her voice. David had been the one who designed the gate, who had turned it into his lifelong project. He also happened to be her biological father. And then when Arista had tried to destroy the gate, he’d threatened to kill her to protect it. Frees couldn’t say he was sorry the man was gone. Not to mention he’d betrayed Frees and tried to run through the gate himself.

  Arista sighed. “I saw McCulluh shoot him right before—” She shook her head. “He was doing something to the controls; I don’t know what. As for Jessika…I have no idea.”

  The full gravity of the situation had yet to hit him. “I guess, technically neither of them are alive yet. No one is.”

  She nodded, scanning the area. He really should try to sit up, why was he still lying on his back? They needed to take stock of their situation. Figure out their next moves.

  “Oh, shit,” Arista said, standing.

  “What?” Frees turned his head in the same direction. A figure lay on the ground not more than fifteen feet from Frees. She raised her head and Frees recognized her immediately. Only… an angry burn scarred her face.

  “Echo?” Arista asked.

  It couldn’t be, the leader of the human colony? Here? Had she been blown through the gate with them?

  “You,” she sneered, making her way into a sitting position. She held one side of her torso, breathing heavily. “What have you done?”

  Arista looked taken aback. “Me? It was your stupid soldiers who shot the explosive. That wasn’t my fault.”

  Echo glanced around, as if she were only now realizing where they were. “It worked,” she whispered. “We’re here.” She scrambled up, turning away toward the line of tall, needle-like buildings in the distance.

  “Wait, no, you can’t!” Arista yelled. They needed to stop Echo from doing whatever it was she planned to do here in the past. She couldn’t be allowed to interact with anyone. “C’mon.” Arista pulled at Frees’ sleeve. “We have to go after her. If she gets away now there’s no telling what she’ll change.”

  He’d been trying to get up ever since she’d appeared over him, but his internal diagnostics were displaying bad news. He’d been shot four times in the back, each bullet penetrating a semi-critical system. He might be able to re-route them for a short time, but unless he had repairs soon, he’d end up in body lock in only a few hours.

  “Can’t,” Frees replied. “I don’t think I can move. The damage…” He managed to lift his arm and pointed behind him. “You go. I’ll be okay here. Go stop her.”

  She made a face like he was crazy. No doubt she was thinking of the last time she’d had to repair him. He’d barely made it in that situation too. But she managed to fix him right up. She bent down on one knee. “I’m not leaving,” she said. “Not until you’re better.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. What did he do to deserve someone like this? “But what about the timeline?”

  “We’ll have to make sure we undo everything she does,” Arista said.

  In the distance Frees picked up a strange sort of wail, repeating over and over. It took him a moment to identify it as an emergency vehicle siren. Though it didn’t sound like the ones he was used to. They were in the past after all, maybe sirens were different here.

&
nbsp; Arista glanced at him. “Think those are for us?” Frees asked.

  “I don’t see how. But with the way this day is going I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  Out of the corner of his vision, Frees identified a police vehicle approaching. It was shaped like a bubble floating on the surface of a lake, except the sides were tapered so they were flat. He’d never seen such a sleek vehicle before. The vehicle pulled to stop, hovering silently as the sirens were cut. Two men dressed in blue uniforms stepped out, their hands on their weapons on their belts.

  “Citizens,” the taller one announced. “You have made an unlawful entry into grid 757.”

  “I apologize, officers,” Arista said, standing back up. “I didn’t realize this area was out of bounds.” She put her hands out in a calming gesture. The last thing they needed right now was to be interrogated by the police.

  There was a flurry of activity and the taller officer had his weapon drawn and pointed at Arista’s chest. She took a step back. “Whoa,” she said. “What’s the trouble?”

  Somehow Frees found the strength to move into a sitting position. His diagnostic system warned against it, showing how the movement caused additional damage but he didn’t care. No one pointed a gun at her. No one.

  “You’re carrying an unlicensed, unregistered, illegal bionic,” the officer with the gun out said. “Turn around and put your human hand on your head. Leave your bionic arm straight up in the air.”

  “What are you talking about?” Frees demanded.

  “Jennings,” the officer with the gun said. The second one nodded and produced a device from his belt. It was unlike anything Frees had ever seen before. He placed it around Arista’s metallic wrist as the other officer cuffed her human hand. Her metal arm was then encased in a bright blue bubble produced from the bracelet. The officer connected her bracelets together where they made an audible click.

  “What is this?” Arista asked.

  “Standard immobilization procedures,” the first officer said. “But you know all about that already, being an unregistered bionic after all.”

  Unregistered bionic? Frees hadn’t remembered anything about that part of human history. They’d barely scratched the surface of bionics when the war happened.

  “Unregistered?” Arista said, echoing his thoughts. “What does that even mean? There’s no law against having artificial limbs.”

  “And I guess you’ll be telling us you haven’t heard about the Artificial Control Act of 2053 next, huh?” The officer shoved her from behind toward his patrol car. “C’mon. You’re under arrest for harboring unlicensed tech.”

  Every system in his broken body screamed at him to stop when he tried to stand. “Wait, you can’t just take her—” Frees began.

  “Sir, stay right there.” The first officer held his hand out. “We are arresting your wife. If you want to file an appeal you may do so at the third district courthouse after eight a.m. tomorrow morning. Until then she is being placed in quarantine.”

  Wife? Frees was momentarily distracted until her voice brought him back.

  “Wait. This isn’t right,” Arista said. “Frees, this isn’t right. I don’t think we are where we’re supposed to be.”

  They continued to escort her to the waiting car. Several people had stopped on the nearby trail to watch the commotion. He had to do something. He had to stop them somehow. But what could he do if he couldn’t even stand up?

  “Wait,” Arista said again. “Just wait a second. I have a right to say what I want, correct?”

  The first officer paused and took an exasperated look at his partner. “You also have the right to remain silent. But go ahead.”

  She screwed up her face. “Just tell me because I have…um…retrograde amnesia. What year is it?”

  “Oh goddammit,” the officer said, as if he couldn’t believe the question. “Another one of these.” He took a deep breath and slowed his words, like he was speaking to a child. “It’s August 29th, 2151. Same year as it was yesterday.”

  No. That didn’t sound right. They’d just left August 29th, 2151, back in the colony. Did that mean the gate hadn’t transported them through time? Had it just been a regular gate? And if that was the case where was this? These officers couldn’t be machines…could they?

  “And where…am I right now?” Arista asked, reading his mind.

  “You are in the middle of the lawn in Central Park. That over there,” he pointed off to the east, “Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now. Are there any other questions princess would like answered?”

  They continued to escort her. Now he knew something was definitely wrong. New York City was under fifty feet of water; had been ever since the levees were destroyed in the war. If this was still 2151 there was no way they could be in New York. It wasn’t possible.

  “Frees!” Arista yelled as they pulled her toward the car, squirming. “Frees, find a way to get me out. The gate wasn’t a time machine! It was a dimensional portal! It’s a different universe!”

  He willed himself to move. To get up. To do something. But all he could do was sit there as they pushed her head down into the back of the car and pulled away. He couldn’t even see her face due to the windows being so dark.

  Another universe.

  Damn.

  ONE

  THE PARK FLASHED BY IN A BLUR.

  It was taking a long time to get to the main streets. Longer than Arista had expected, twisting and turning around the sharp corners, avoiding joggers, bikers, skaters and a hundred more different types of people. Arista brushed the dirty blonde hair out of her eyes; she had never seen such diversity all in one place. The colony had a variety of people, but they were all united under one roof. Everyone had a purpose and they all seemed determined to reach it. Here the variety seemed to stretch on forever. It wasn’t just the business people and the bird-feeders and the people who manned the street stands, it was everyone. Such an array.

  The vehicle pulled out of the park onto the main thoroughfare and Arista pressed her face against the glass to stare up at the giant skyscrapers all around them. It was different than anywhere she’d been before. Osaka had tall buildings, but they had all been decorated with advertisements of some kind. And Chicago had its own skyscrapers, but they didn’t compare to the sizes of ones here. The Device nestled in her brain that fed her information, made calculations and even functioned as a communication device estimated their heights from anywhere between two and four thousand feet. The buildings looked like giant steel and glass toothpicks, reaching into the sky. All white and gleaming, as if they’d been poured from a giant pitcher in the sky into a slender flask.

  New York. She was in New York. Of course she’d read about it. The Capital of the World they’d called it back before the war. It’d been one of the first cities the machines hit when they attacked. Or counterattacked. She wasn’t quite sure what to believe. But shortly after the AI’s came online the city had been destroyed by local missile strikes. Not nuclear—the machines were too smart for nuclear—but they were happy to use plain ol’ missiles to clear a city of its population. Then the individual units would infiltrate and weed out the rest of the humans. Over time the city had sunk back into the ocean as the water levels rose. There had been no one left to stop it. The machines pretended like it had never existed. Written it out of their programming. Just like San Francisco.

  “Citizen, brace yourself,” one of the officers said from up front. It brought Arista back from her thoughts.

  Brace for what?

  There was a sharp jolt and Arista experienced a slight nausea in her stomach as the vehicle lifted off from the ground at a forty-five-degree angle. Scores of windows blew by her as they rose higher into the sky. This car was like the personal transports of her world. Except those couldn’t transition from ground vehicles to sky. The machines hadn’t figured that part out. Or they’d never needed it. But here, it seemed, many new things were possible.

  Their ascent leveled out and they joined a
sky-lane of other vehicles traveling in the same direction. She glanced all around. There were tons of them all moving in unison. It reminded her of the PTD’s flying around back home in Chicago. Her Chicago. She needed to find a way back. If it was even possible. David had said the gate worked on different principles than the rest of the Quantum Gates. That it didn’t need an exit gate. Which meant there was nothing to activate on this side. No way to go back. Her only hope was someone from the other side would come through for them. But based on what she’d seen right before they’d come through, there wasn’t anyone at the colony who would be very keen on getting them back anytime soon.

  “Request landing at pad K-04,” the officer said.

  “Granted 286. Welcome back.”

  “Welcome back,” the officer muttered under his breath.

  His partner shot him a look, then turned to glance at Arista. “What was that you were saying back there about a time portal? Another dimension?” he asked.

  “Just crazy talk,” Arista said, shrugging. “I’m off my meds.”

  “Then we’ll make sure to send you down to medical once we’re done with our questioning,” the officer said. She thought she heard the taller one call him Jennings. He was clean-shaven, with a boyish face uncharacteristic of someone she’d expect to see in the human police force. He wasn’t nearly as intimidating as his partner who was larger, with square shoulders and dark eyes that reminded her of well that used to be on their farm. A well so black it seemed to never end..

  Massive buildings off to her right reflected the sun in her eyes and she glanced down, examining the device that held her hands together. On her artificial arm was some kind of flexible material except it wasn’t flexible from the inside. The outside was as soft as a balloon but the inside hard as a rock. She laid her arm on her knee and the balloon-thing formed around her knee, yet her arm and hand remained completely immobile. The whole device was connected to the other cuff with what she assumed was a very strong magnet. She needed to figure out this unregistered bionic business. Things were different in this world, that much was clear. But they’d outlawed bionic implants? For what purpose? Whatever happened, she needed to learn as much as she could. She didn’t need a second misstep and she didn’t want to make a crucial mistake should the gate reappear. The one good thing about Frees not being able to move would be he could stay there and watch for the gate. She would try to contact him on her comm as soon as her hands were free.