by Stephanie
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2018 by Stephanie Flint and Isaac Flint
Formatting and cover design by Stephanie Flint
Cover art stock images from Depositphotos and Dreamstime
All rights reserved. Published by Infinitas Publishing.
infinitaspublishing.com
https://distanthorizonbooks.wordpress.com
A haunted airship made from living people…
Nineteen-year-old hacker Tim Zaytsev is a traitor, but he never expected his betrayal would earn him the highest honor among the international community—a place among the Camaraderie’s elite council.
Ushered into a glamorous lifestyle of fancy airships and a chance to use his programming skills to better the world, Tim is assigned the task of finishing their secret Legion Spore project—a living airship made from shapeshifters.
Inside the Legion Spore, dozens of humans have been forcibly hooked to the vessel’s computer, but fragments of their memories reside in the airship’s internal code as glitches. Their faces appear in the walls, and their whispers invade the code of the Camaraderie’s base. Tim’s ability to telepathically connect with computers means that he’s the only one who can make the ship fully functional.
But programming a computer is one thing. Dealing with a haunted, living airship will not only test Tim’s wit, but his sanity. If he can’t learn to trust himself and his abilities, his mind will be trapped in the Legion Spore as just another whisper in the code.
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
Thank You
Acknowledgements
About the Authors
Connect with the Authors
More from the Authors
I sit on a hard bench, listening to the Camaraderie leaders debate my fate. I helped their spy steal a valuable artifact from the rebellion, but the fact remains—less than twenty-four hours ago, I worked for their opposition.
Lady Bridget Winters, a telepath with a penchant for torture, stands across the force field from me, her manicured fingers stroking the dimple on her chin. Her white hair pools around her shoulders from an elaborate bun, and her face is a gnarly mess of wrinkles. Val, the spy I fell in love with, fidgets beside the old crone. Her frizzy, dark brown hair frames her face. Her eyes, lined with a thin layer of eyeliner, are wide with concern. Commander Gerald Rick, the head of the Camaraderie, stands behind them in full military regalia, a crisp, tan uniform with rows and rows of medals pinned to his chest. His white hair has been groomed perfectly, every strand in its proper place. He clasps his hands behind his back and looks over me, evaluating me as if I was one of his beasts, or could become one of his beasts.
I push myself further back on the bench, as if that might help me hide. Beasts are sub-human monsters, people who were forced to undergo a painful transformation in order to make them more effective servants or soldiers. They lose their memories and their autonomy as part of the transformation, and I’d prefer to keep my mind intact.
Lady Winters cocks her head, hidden wrinkles revealing themselves along her cheeks as she gives me a slow, malicious smile. “The boy’s powers involve technology and enhanced intelligence. He’s the perfect candidate for placement in a hub.”
I wince. If they put me in a hub, I’ll lose my memories, but at least I won’t have to go through the beast transformation process.
“Wait—” Val starts, but Lady Winters snarls at her, looking down with obvious disdain. Val quickly glances at the floor to hide her expression—not that anyone can hide their feelings from a telepath as strong as Lady Winters. The rebels call her “Brainmaster” for a reason.
“Commander Rick,” Val says softly, glancing over her shoulder to him. “Tim can be useful to us. You should have seen the improvements he made to the rebels’ main computer. He hijacked their anti-gravity craft and managed its flight and invisibility systems without any training. Think of what he could do in the Community. He could make the whole society more efficient.”
That was my goal. The Community is safe… or would be, if the Camaraderie wasn’t still fighting the OA and several small rebellions. The Camaraderie maintains the Community, which keeps its citizens safe, secure, and efficient. I’m not the most helpful when it comes to safety, but I can put my programming skills to good use making everything more efficient.
At least, I can when I’m not being held prisoner for collaborating with rebels. Long story.
Lady Winters waves her hand dismissively. “I have advisors for dealing with the Community. What I need are techno sight users for my project.”
Commander Rick clears his throat. “Given his aptitude, and his loyalty—”
“Loyalty?” Lady Winters protests. “He hacked EYEnet, joined the rebels, and caused havoc for your tech masters. How is that loyalty?”
I cringe. She has a point. Granted, I didn’t know what was going on at the time, but still…
“If you look in his mind, my lady, you will see that he is quite loyal. Perhaps the boy could review your personal project and make adjustments. I dare say his mind would be stronger if it is intact.”
I squirm. Personal project? I’m not sure I want to know what kind of personal project the woman has. And I really don’t want her to look into my mind.
Lady Winters narrows her eyes, and her gold eye shadow makes her look older than she already is—
Fire bursts through my skull. My brain threatens to peel open and I gasp for breath. There’s fire in my brain…
The fire subsides. I cough, feeling like I’m forcing smoke from my lungs. The whole world around me is far, far too white. Too much light… too much noise.
Note to self—don’t think about a telepath’s age.
Lady Winters harrumphs. “Fine. So the boy is loyal. But you want me to trust him with my personal project? He’s hardly qualified.”
A smile tugs at the commander’s lips. “If you’re questioning your ability to manage this promising young man, have Benjamin keep an eye on him.”
“I can manage the boy just fine,” she retorts.
Benjamin is their… well… he’s a scientist who focuses on powers and enchanting artifacts. He’s also a spirit. He attached his life force to a set of five pendants, which is what the Camaraderie uses to maintain power. If they want to use the pendants, they have to keep him around.
Commander Rick strokes his beard, contemplative. “I’m not so certain you can manage him. It was not long ago that you were bested by two young rebels who had less than a year’s training. This young lady here,” he pats Val’s shoulder, “used guile and wit to retrieve what you lost when you could have made an impressive capture—without allowing anyone from our council to die.”
Val shrinks against him as Lady Winters glares at her.
“Perhaps,” he continues, “you should consider changing tactics.”
“My tactics are just fine!” Lady Winters raises her chin, fierce. “I let
them think I was dead so we could track the pendant to the rebels’ location.”
The commander grunts. “Need I remind you that a plant elemental, armed with an electric spear, managed to heavily wound you? You’re losing your touch, my dear.”
The woman bristles. “Fine. I’ll take the boy. He might do better than the last whelp you sent.” She glowers at me. The hairs rise on the back of my neck. My chest feels tight—
Lady Winters smirks and waves a large, hulking beast to her side. He almost looks human, save for his cat-like eyes, pointed ears, and his thick, overly prominent forehead. He wears a loose black robe over his barrel-like chest. Knots of muscle bulge in his lengthy arms. Given the latter attributes, he probably had enhanced strength or toughness as a power before his transformation.
“Take him to my office,” she tells the beast. “Let’s see how well this boy’s mind functions under duress.”
Panic surges in my chest and I stand abruptly, unsteady since I can’t use my arms to balance myself. Being alone with Lady Winters is almost worse than being condemned to beast transformation. What she can do to a person’s mind—
“Wait!” Val shrieks, but the commander holds her back.
Lady Winters spins and points a finger at Val’s nose. Her deep purple robes swirl around her ankles and metallic, matching boots. “Watch it, girl. I outrank you.”
I swallow hard. Val’s trying, but there’s no way she can hold off Lady Winters. The force field goes down and the strength beastie roughly grabs my shoulders. He drags me down the hall.
The last I see of Val before we turn the corner is her mouthing, “I’m sorry.”
I push a computer tablet into a dazed rebel’s hand and then close her fingers around it. The tablet has the approximate locations of the artifacts the rebels want. If they’re focused on finding those artifacts, that should keep them out of the Community, where they might cause harm. I take a deep breath. Now I just have to keep the Camaraderie from knowing that I’m the reason this rebel, Jenna, is still alive. A security camera in the corner of the room records everything, but I can’t let anyone know that Lady Winters is dead.
That I killed her.
I’d been working for her ever since Commander Rick ordered her to give me a chance, but she hadn’t made it easy on me.
I reach my mind to the camera, using my techno sight ability to find the fleeting strands of code sending messages back to the hub, the base’s living command center, until I can picture the code in my mind like a movie. I erase the past few moments, changing what’s there to show the rebel in front of me, a former friend of mine, taking the gun and shooting the leader. Once I’m satisfied the video feed sees what I want it to see, I tell the camera to record. A red light winks at me.
I turn back to the rebel and swallow hard. Her face is red from screaming; her eyes are bloodshot and unfocused. Lady Winters did this to her. Lady Winters dug into her mind and tortured her. She forced my hand, and despite the fact that Jenna is a rebel, despite the fact that she’s working against the Camaraderie’s intentions of creating a safe, efficient society, I couldn’t let the telepath hurt her.
She’s one of the people in the rebellion who still wants to see the Community exist. She believes in the Community. She wants it to be safe. She just doesn’t like the Camaraderie’s methods. In a sense, we’re alike. And if it wasn’t for her getting me out of the Community in the first place, I’d be inside Lady Winters’ project, not out here with a gun in my hand.
“You killed Lady Winters,” I say for the camera. By pinning the blame on the rebels, I should be able to continue making the Community more efficient. I can’t do that if the Camaraderie decides to execute me for treason.
Jenna stares at me, puzzled. “But I—”
“The Community is safe.” I step away from her and kneel beside Lady Winters’ corpse. I’m careful not to look at the holes I put in her skull as I take the emerald pendant, an artifact I helped steal two months ago, from under her hair.
“Tim—” Jenna starts, plainly confused.
“It is my duty.” I hook Lady Winters’ pendant around my neck, the safest place I can think of at the moment, then find the nearest door’s controls with my mind. The door slides open and I stride through. But, coward that I am, I look back.
Jenna sits alone.
A lump forms in my chest. At least she’s alive. My mentor from the rebellion is not. Lady Winters killed him before I could stop her.
A door slides open on the opposite wall and Jenna’s friend, Lance, enters the room. He sees me standing in the door and his eyes narrow. He runs at me, his swords extended. “Traitor!”
My heart leaps to my throat. I slam the door shut with my mind, but his words echo in my ears. A flurry of urgency flares in the tech around me and I frown. Now what? I look at the feed of the nearest camera and nearly drop my gun. The rebels, a different group than the one I worked with, are planting bombs. The base’s hub is trying to send out warnings with their locations.
There’s a strong chance that this base is about to suffer heavy damage. The map of the base rises to my surface thoughts and I trace a way out that should bypass Special Forces agents and beasts. And Val…
Val! My chest constricts. She could be in danger.
I race toward Val’s room. She’s probably recovering after completing the Camaraderie’s recent project, so I should be able to get to her without anyone stopping me. The Special Forces agents will be too preoccupied with the rebel incursion to worry about what I’m doing.
Door after door flies by me and I hurry around a corner, the emerald pendant slapping my chest as if Lady Winters is snapping at me even in death. Not possible, since she didn’t have life-spirit powers, which is a requirement for becoming a spirit the way Benjamin did, but the thought makes me shudder.
I near the experimental segment of the base where the Camaraderie was working on Lady Winters’ pet project. The hall is eerily silent. I need to see if Val left the area, or if she’s still inside. I mentally link into the security cameras nearest to me. The code tickles my mind as if it’s whispering in my ear.
I shrug off the feeling and continue checking the security cameras. Val has to be in the base somewhere. I just hope she’s not near the rebels. She can take care of herself in a fight, but a bomb?
I can’t let her get hurt—
A flood of telepathic voices slams into my mind. The voices strain and grab me, nonsensical and desperate. Pain wraps around my brain, a squelching sense of dozens of humans losing their individual clarity, merging as part of a larger, single organism…
I double over, sick to my stomach, and press my fingers against the cold floor. What in the Community is going on? The voices… so many voices…
They solidify in my mind, a rushing tidal wave of emotion and fear.
Help us…
I gasp for breath. I’m being crushed under their weight; I can’t focus, can’t remember why I’m here—
An explosion rocks the base. I struggle to lift my head. I need to make sure Val is okay. I return to the security footage and find Val running toward the latest explosion. I start toward the route I need to take to reach her.
A pair of Special Forces agents stand in my path, their rifles aimed at my head. “Drop your weapon,” the woman says.
I freeze. Unlike Val, I’m not good in a fight. I lower my gun and place it on the ground before me. “The rebels are trying to destroy the base,” I sputter. “Val—Lady Salazar—was running toward them. There might be other bombs—”
“Lady Salazar is fine, and we’ve disabled the rebels’ other devices. Now, you’re going to step away from the gun, then walk to the cells. You know the way.” She nudges her rifle in the direction of the detention center. The other agent keeps his rifle pointed at me. I wince, but do as she says. If I’m lucky, they’ll let me see Val before they execute me. If I’m not so lucky—
I swallow hard. Despite the fact t
hat I’m probably going to be tried as traitor for killing Lady Winters, I’m better off handing over the pendant and explaining why I killed her than I am trying to escape, especially if Val is okay.
Help us…
I shiver as the voices echo in the back of my head. I can’t be sure, but I think they came from the room housing the Camaraderie’s secret project.
The Special Forces woman cuffs my hands behind my back and sits me against a bench in a sterile holding cell. She has super strength; I can’t balance myself against her. A moment later, a man in a white lab coat follows. He opens a small box, extracts a syringe, and flicks the needle. My stomach twists. I’ve never liked needles, but if I resist, my punishment will be worse.
“Timothy Zaytsev?” the lab technician asks. I nod. He checks for the proper vein in my neck. My muscles tense, pinched as the needle goes in, and within seconds, my sense of the technology around me dims from the injection of adominogen, a substance that blocks powers. The technician waggles and removes the needle. The woman tapes a cotton wad over the entry point. I feel sick, made worse for the loss of my powers.
The woman checks that the room is clear of any foreign objects I might use against them, and then steps outside the open cell. She presses the side panel. Electricity hums as a force field flickers to life, and they leave me there, my hands still cuffed behind me. At least this is a private room.
I stretch out my thoughts, searching for the computers, for any sense of modern technology. Nothing. No grid of circuits, no constant feed of ones and zeros. No threads of other techno sight users moving through the system. If I still had my powers, I could shut down the force field. I could move through EYEnet and eavesdrop anywhere there’s a microphone. Play a video game by thought, like I did when I was with the rebels.
A pang of regret forms in my chest, but I push it away. Right now I need to figure out what to tell Commander Rick. I let out a breath and stare up at the bright LEDs in the ceiling. I try to remain calm and, in the process, lose track of time. There are no shadows here; everything’s lit. It prevents criminals from hiding anything. Hours pass before two blurry silhouettes appear in front of the force field. It flickers, then blinks out of existence. A young woman stands in the force field’s place, and a tendril of hope warms inside me.
