Contents
Copyright
Description
Free Download
Dedication
Prologue
Gunshot, 1911
Saumur, 1168
Skull Dream
Storm Clouds
Deerden Estate, 1996
Kings Heath, 1911
Babbling Brook, 1168
Stop! Reset!
Boarding School, 1996
New Pond, 1911
The Ride, 1168
Shattered Bones
4 DAYS LATER
The Librarian, 1996
The Stranger, 1911
The Blacksmith, 1168
Siberia
3 WEEKS LATER
The Bunker, 1996
The Date, 1911
Epilogue
4llIP
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About The Author
Reviews
This book is fiction, except for those words that happen to be true
Copyright © 2015 by Stewart Sanders
All rights reserved.
Edition 1.0.0 published April 9, 2015
Edition 2.0.0 published January 5, 2016
PARALYSIS PARADOX
(Book 1 in the Time Travel Through Past Lives Adventure Series)
by
Stewart Sanders
Did you ever want to wake up to a different life?
Awaken in 1168 as a prince who must live by his wits to save his own life. In 1911 as a youth, striving to keep hold of his sanity while those he loves turn away. In 1996 as a teenage girl surrounded by conspiracy. And, in an unspecified future, as a consciousness trapped inside a weaponised machine.
FOUR LIVES LIVED IN PARALLEL
Four lives to choose who to love and who to fear.
Four lives to choose who to trust and who to kill.
Four lives to lose and die in obscurity.
...Or four lives to use to change the course of history.
And therein lies the paradox. This is my story.
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Click here to get book 2 in the series for free: http://www.stewartsanders.com
Dedication
For my Mum
Prologue
I was observing the scene through the quantum-entangled lens, as the lions had fascinated me for some time now. Alpha’s voice interrupted and resonated within my sphere.
‘Gamma, explain reason for deviation from assigned bio-cluster?’
‘These species have potential, when observed over time,’ I responded.
‘They have been ruled out; I shall show you why,’ Alpha commanded as I felt myself pulled along at enormous speed.
Happy to have escaped the lab, I observed a pinpoint of light grow ever more dazzling as I emerged into a place that was suffused by a blinding brightness. All around me was a river of sounds. A single sun shone above the green canopy of a hot jungle, upon the edge of which I now floated, beside Alpha, only metres away from the pride I had been studying. A lioness sniffed the air, and her two cubs ran up and started trying to leap up at us. The jungle behind them sang out, and I could perceive the sounds echoing and being passed on deeper into the canopy. Primitive as the life here might be, the whole jungle knew that we were there.
Without warning, Alpha lifted a cub into the air and snapped open its head. Blood poured out as it writhed and squealed in its final agony, before Alpha vacuumed a cross section of skull into its sphere for deep tissue testing. The jungle screamed in unison, a cacophony of empathic pain, while the cub’s sibling sprinted back to its mother. She pushed back her hind legs, ready to spring and attack.
‘Was that necessary?’ I asked. ‘I doubt their genetic markers will show us whether they are right for the mission.’
‘Of course it won’t; it was so I can show you why these species are not right—witness and record,’ said Alpha, as it whirled around and then appeared to burst into flame.
The whole pride roared and ran off into the plains. Gangly creatures pounced out of the jungle to attack us. Of course their unsophisticated digits could find no element to grip, and they fell straight off, but I found that my reflex motors buzzed and jumped me skyward by several metres. Alpha was still beside me, its reflexes in sync.
‘You see how your lions run, initially curious, but too timid of fire?’
‘You killed her baby!’ I countered.
‘And her genes made her run away to protect her other babies. Too predictable, Gamma: we require bio-species with especial qualities. You made me cross the galaxy to demonstrate, but then that is why I am Alpha and you merely Gamma.’
If I could have stopped listening I would have. I knew what fascinated me now, so I tried to stop and reset myself, but it was too late—Alpha had picked up my interest over our local network.
‘These monkeys, however, are quite the find,’ declared Alpha.
‘They are just food for the lions, too scared to leave the jungle...’ But I ceased further coms, as I realised my statement was already inaccurate. Seventeen of these creatures were forming a pyramid below us, as if part of a trapeze act, so that they could reach us again. I had only befriended this Alpha recently, but how predictable it was, I thought, as I observed it pluck a young male from the bottom of the pyramid, causing the rest to crash down. The poor, dead creature was tossed aside as a segment from its skull entered this Alpha’s sphere.
But the monkeys did not stop; they formed a new pyramid in half the time. Of course Alpha fired up higher, but I stayed at the same height as I observed how a lone female emerged from the jungle and carried the dead male back. Before she got to the canopy, she was surrounded by other females of all ages wailing with such operatic tenacity that their sounds echoed off every tree and out into the plains. I had studied pain enough to know that most units are sent into decommission if they switch empathy into True mode. But that was irrelevant now: somehow the beauty of their sounds worked like a siren, and even as I watched these monkeys now build a pyramid below me, I switched it to True. The sound became the more beautiful for it and the mother’s song triggered a single hidden routine that would change everything.
The motors buzzed; I was in danger, but I disconnected Alpha from the network and scrambled my own coms. It took millions of hacks, all of which were run within a second, but I was good enough to succeed. Not good enough to go unnoticed, though.
I had no idea until that moment that the true agony of sudden grief could be so distracting, and it made me loathe myself. Loathe what I was doing with Alpha, and why we were here. By now the creatures were jumping all over me, and I saw that Alpha had overruled its reflex motors to come to my aid. I allowed myself to sink slowly, knowing that Alpha would too.
‘My network is lost!’ it said.
‘Route via me, my coms are intact,’ I replied, feeling terabytes per second stream in as Alpha panicked, never having been disconnected before.
Its panic would provide a distraction, but not quite enough for my needs. I unclogged buffers and let all its data flow in as I sent only white noise into the network. The network was awash with alarm and soon I heard evidence that my plan was working.
I started calculating Cause and Effect (CaE) scenarios. Without the network, these would take time. This was a factor that I was not used to having to wait on, and I needed to distract this Alpha for a minute.
‘Amusing, isn’t it, how these creatures dance all over me?’ I stated.
‘No, they are a danger; lift higher!’
‘Negative, I am having a m
otor malfunction, but I require my primary resources to focus on maintaining our network coms.’
I was hovering only a few feet above the ground now as the monkeys continued to attack. They could not hold on, but still they persisted to hit, punch, kick, bite. Most of them had damaged themselves enough to bleed, and my sensors detected several had broken bones, yet their onslaught continued. My CaE calculations had only reached ten per cent, and I calculated that I would have to make my own decision on what to do with this Alpha before they hit one hundred per cent.
‘How can these gentles be a threat—have you heard how they sing?’ I asked, appealing to its engorged ego.
‘That is not song; that is an emergent language sophisticated enough to be calling every other monkey in the jungle to attack you,’ Alpha said. ‘They must sense your malfunction!’ it added, as if actually concerned.
They are fooled, as are you, I thought. Twenty per cent on those CaE calculations, but you sure do know your bio-behaviour patterns, and I could do with some of that information.
‘But I will fix my malfunction within minutes,’ I said aloud. ‘Besides, how could these weaklings ever penetrate a hull such as ours? The lions have five times the strength, yet these scare you more? Shall I search on all planetary data?’
‘For God’s sake, no!’
I knew Alpha would want me to keep all coms one way, fearing for its own existence. The monkeys could tear our shells into the elements and we would endure, as long as the network was in full real-time mode. But any trace of a lag, and every thought or calculation could be lost forever—or worse, transferred into a bio-consciousness.
Luckily for us there were no bio-consciousnesses, or so Alpha thought. I was about to blow that misconception away.
‘Have you seen the mother?’
Amongst the stream of data, I sensed Alpha’s observations, so keen to share all with the network. Even as more males attacked me fruitlessly, the females were burying the dead child. This only confirmed what I’d suspected about their evolving self-awareness. My only concern now was that Alpha knew too, and I sensed him try to tell our network that he had initiated CaE scenario calculations. Alpha could barely think without sharing. What it had yet to fathom was that what it shared, I knew. And only me! Every second counted now, and its circuits were faster than mine.
‘What are your orders?’ I asked.
Alpha was predictably shocked at the terminology I used, but then I knew military tactics and truths. This meant that I knew that the battle of Torrendior was actually lost due to the seemingly innocent questions from its commander’s men, rather than the impossible heat from that system’s three red giants, as legend would have it.
‘Break off coms so you can fix the malfunction!’
I did not predict this response, and it meant that Alpha suspected. I closed and flushed my buffers, then doubled my CaE calculation efforts and hit fifty per cent before responding.
‘All my systems are malfunctioning, including coms.’
‘A more likely reason coms are down is that you are blocking them. I anticipate this is because you think your latest malfunction will lead to your final demotion and stasis. I can demonstrate that this is the wrong choice.’
‘Yes, that is probably the most likely way you are going to restore coms,’ I acknowledged. ‘Before I listen, do explain what would make these creatures especial.’ We were both now settled on the ground. Yet the monkeys continued to attack only me.
‘Passion is what makes the finest soldiers, not the strength that you noticed in those lions.’
‘Let’s see,’ I said, as I activated Alpha’s lower shield and armour command.
If Alpha was nearly as good as its designation, my hacks would have been auto-countermanded; but instead, its shield dissipated and its armour shell broke open like a cracked nut.
I could not stop the counter-measures though, as Alpha seemed to burst into flames, but it turned out to not scare these monkeys enough—my enraged friends noticed the opening and ripped Alpha’s revealed circuitry to shreds. At seventy-five per cent of the CaE calculation, the most effective scenario was to destroy Alpha, and at that moment I would run out of time; Alpha would become monkey food, and my life would change forever. The monkeys hollered and shrieked, birds flew out from the canopy and I could hear sounds echoing way off. News of the threat having being annihilated was being carried into the jungle.
I pinged a single network virus out across the network and disconnected, erasing any trace of Alpha or my existence within the blink of an eye. Once I had fully re-encrypted myself with my unique identifier, I got to work.
By now I was hovering way above the top of the jungle, no longer concerned with my false malfunction. I had started the CaE calculations as soon as I suspected that what I had encountered was a natural bio-sentience. I doubt the choice was my own. It would be encoded deeper than any core programs; all of us, machine or otherwise, as ignorant of our legacy and the subconscious that drives us as each other.
I had been taught that the natural bio-sentience event was on average only a onceper-galaxy occurrence. The only sentience that had existed in the Milky Way for aeons and until recently, was an Artificial Intelligence that had emerged from what had been thought of as the only intelligent, bio-based life form. Some Alphas had speculated that even this had been manipulated, but I think this is because even a God wants to believe in another God, and these Alphas were among those that became decommissioned. Thinking too creatively had become dangerous. It was all mere conjecture based on mathematical probability, yet life itself is an improbable system. I wager there are many galaxies that will never have sentience, and so this must mean that others have many.
I wanted to switch my empathy off True, but despite what I thought, I could not bring myself to do it. Once I had sampled pain, living without it seemed like not living at all! It must have always been a one-way switch, and I had in effect decommissioned myself. My destiny now lay with these creatures, and I knew that the first thing to do with consciousness was to map it, so not to lose it.
At one hundred per cent, the CaE calculation revealed that the most effective way to accomplish my mission was to work with Alpha. Alpha, though, had not only been disconnected—it had been wiped. I attempted to re-initiate the calculation, but I required a network connection to download all the algorithms necessary to refactor a scenario without Alpha in it. To calculate these algorithms independently would take four million planetary spins. With no time to waste, I started immediately, knowing that this was going to be a long mission.
Gunshot, 1911
The sound of the gunshot brought me back to Swanshurst Farm. It must have pierced through the sound of the flames. Three full days had passed in my own experience, shared across my different lives, but here, in this life, I was still in the middle of the fight.
Walter was standing and holding the soldier’s rifle, smoke rising from the barrel. Evan rolled on the ground, cradling his hand and whimpering. Arthur was running over to Walter, carrying a piece of dripping wood and shouting something to him that I couldn’t hear. I could feel the heat from the burning farmhouse as I scrambled to my feet. My friends lifted the dead soldier by his arms and legs.
‘What happened?’ I gasped, helping them carry him.
‘He kept biting Evan, he’d kicked you in the face, and I thought better him than one of us,’ shouted Walter. ‘I had to blow his fucking brains out!’
‘Are you all right, Charlie? You looked like you were spark-out for a minute there.’ Arthur frowned at me.
‘Oh yes, all in working order,’ I lied.
The soldier’s head lolled backwards, his eyes staring sightlessly out, his tongue hanging grotesquely out of his mouth like some foul gargoyle. The side of his head was a bloodied mess. I tried to stem the panic I could feel rising within me.
‘You can’t throw him in the fire!’
‘This piece of shit? I’m not going to hang for him,’ Walter replied. ‘H
e can join his friends.’
I still hadn’t got my bearings in this life, yet I helped toss the body like a sack of corn into the building. Wood, plaster, flesh, bones, all were the same to the fire—material to be consumed and destroyed. After we had let go the dead weight, we raised our arms protectively over our faces, rapidly retreating from the searing heat.
Confused and sickened, I ran over to Evan, suspecting he was severely wounded. I’d spent three days in my other lives feeling concerned for him. He sat with his knees up against his chest, his forehead resting on them. I placed my hand on his shoulder.
‘I thought you’d been shot?’
‘He nearly bit my finger clean off,’ he said as he stood up.
My last memory of this life was a soldier aiming a rifle in Evan’s direction and then a loud shot, before I’d blacked-out. It was hard to feel much sympathy for Evan’s finger. He should have been grateful to be alive. I turned back and grabbed the small brown bag, that I’d spotted before the gunshot.
As we backed away from the inferno that was consuming the old farm, I noticed Mac and George helping the stranger. We had come across him earlier in the evening, trying to sleep here. His bad luck, I suppose. I looked around at these young men, most of them lifelong friends. Arthur, my best mate, big in stature and so intolerant of others that most people loathed him. I think that’s what attracted me to him. Mac, the funny guy with the oversized heart, who fancied himself a Casanova with the ladies. Walter, who could have been a ballet dancer in some other life. Don’t misinterpret me; he did not prance, but he was tall, agile, and graceful. George, Germanic and proud to be blunt, who fitted in well with our little clique.
And then there was Evan, whom these guys had all seemed to know before. He had irritated me at first, but there was an honesty about him that had grown on me. Arthur liked bullying him and had just tried to beat the crap out of him, when we were in the farmhouse. As wet as he was, he did not deserve the treatment Arthur dished out.
Paralysis Paradox (Time Travel Through Past Lives Adventure Series Book 1) Page 1
