Warrior: Integration
Book One of The Singularity War
by
David Hallquist
PUBLISHED BY: Theogony Books
Copyright © 2020 David Hallquist
All Rights Reserved
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Get the free Four Horsemen prelude story “Shattered Crucible”
and discover other titles by Chris Kennedy at:
http://chriskennedypublishing.com/
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License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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Cover by J Caleb Design
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Contents
Part One: The Cave
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part Two: The Laboratory
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part Three: Labyrinth
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Part Four: The Deep
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Part Five: Hades
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Part Six: Ascent
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Part Seven: Glass Castles
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Part Eight: The Mountains of Light
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Part Nine: Singularity
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Part Ten: Hard Moon
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Part Eleven: Descent
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Part Twelve: The Core
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Part Thirteen: Tartarus
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Part Fourteen: Exile
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Epilogue: Falling
About the Author
Excerpt from Book One of the Salvage Title Trilogy
Excerpt from Book One of The Progenitors’ War
Excerpt from Devil Calls the Tune
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Part One: The Cave
Chapter 1
Coming back to life hurts. Maybe more than dying, not that I knew what had killed me. Still, not many men get another chance. If I could only stay alive.
My nerves re-ignite and scream for oxygen as my blood turns acidic and burns. I feel the fire in my veins, and the stabbing pain as I force my heart to beat again by sheer will to live. I try to breathe and only cough and choke on fluid. Desperate for oxygen, my blood rushes to my lungs, trying to grab air that is not there, dumping what little oxygen I have left. I tell my blood to stop that, and it does, carefully hoarding whatever is left as I begin to die again.
I fight my next death with everything I have, reaching for something, anything, that will save me. Something happens, something inside me moves, changes.
Strange new chemicals enter my bloodstream, some kind of witch’s brew that lets me live without oxygen, at least for a while. My thoughts get slow and fuzzy, and all that is left is the most primitive part of the brain, the part that will do anything to survive.
Opening my eyes, I see only darkness and feel the stinging fluid I bathe in. Struggling, I find I’m wrapped in something, it yields a little, but won’t release me. Thrashing desperately, it only tightens around me. I choke on the fluid, trying to breathe it; I so want to breathe again.
No.
I force myself to think again, to slow down as my blood burns. Slowly, carefully, I feel around in the blackness for an edge to the material and find it is a sheet of something I’m wrapped in. I pull it away until I have enough freedom to swim up.
I hit my head on something hard, and the dark world flashes white in pain. Wrong way. I force myself to exhale the last of the air in my lungs and feel which way up is. I feel the bubbles go past me, and I swim after.
The wrapping trails after me, dragging me down, slowing me as I pull desperately at the fluid. I want air so badly, everything else leaves the world.
I break the surface in perfect darkness and gasp for air. I cough and gag on the fluid in my lungs. Thrashing and flailing, I try to find land while lights flash and flare in my vision. That would be my brain getting ready to say good-bye again.
I reach a hard, rocky shore and desperately pull myself out of the chemical brew. I cough up a great lungful of water that never seems to end, never stopping for that one glorious breath of air I so need. Finally, I take a pull of the cold, hard, painful air that burns all the way down.
I scream from the pain and the greatness of being alive again. It’s agony; it’s glorious. Must be why all babies yowl with their first breath.
Gasping, I roll over, the sheets of material still wrapped about me. The darkness is perfect, absolute, immaculate
. Had this place ever known light? All around me I can hear drips of water and echoes off of distant walls.
I’m cold. I can imagine the steam of the water rising off of me, stealing away my warmth and life. The wrapping helps keep me warm as I begin to shudder and shake. Already, I cannot feel my feet, bad news.
I want to warm up desperately, then I do. I can feel my veins and arteries open up, bringing heat back to my extremities and skin. My temperature rises to a fever level, and I stop shaking. Is it hypothermia? It can make you feel hot as you freeze to death. I feel warm and comfortable, and the hard stone under my head is as soft as a down pillow. Sleep claws at me, trying to pull me under again.
No. I fight it. I’ll die of exposure here, wherever this is. I don’t know what threats are out there, where I am, who or what did this to me…I don’t even remember who I am.
In the perfect darkness and numbing cold, sleep and reality war for control. Dreams and images dance across the darkness, anything to fill the emptiness with meaning. I fight to stay awake. Sleep means hypothermia and death. Staring up at the immaculate darkness, I don’t even see when my eyes close, and night rolls over me at last.
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Chapter 2
God, I hope this is a dream.
“Test Room 12” comes in and out of focus above me. Bright overhead lights and agony wash out any detail.
I struggle and convulse against the restraints and the hard bench I’m fixed to. I try to speak, to scream, but all that comes out is a thin wheeze through my ruined throat. My heart is racing, each beat is agony, and I struggle to breathe with all the tubes in my throat.
Above me, the people in white sterile spacesuits simply watch and record. “The subject is failing to adapt to the symbiont,” one says calmly.
I look down at myself. Big mistake. Tubes run in and out of every part of me in ways nature never intended. I see darkness crawling up my veins, carrying burning agony to every part of my body. I can feel something spiraling along my nerves, setting them afire.
A monster is growing inside me, eating me alive from the inside, and I cannot stop it. It doesn’t stop with my blood and nerves; it tears through my muscles, breaking through my bones and drilling into my vital organs. It wants all of me; it’ll eat me alive.
Things get even crazier when it reaches my brain. My vision shatters into a million different views, and sounds take on colors and scents. I can feel the strange, alien thoughts of the thing; a monstrous hunger and desire to survive.
Mercifully, all goes dark, and I feel no more.
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Chapter 3
I wake again, surprised to find I am still alive. All around me is the impenetrable darkness with only the memory of light.
I don’t want to move. A cliff, a wall, or any kind of hazard could be hidden in the black. I feel around. The ground is some kind of rough rock, and loose rubble slides across my fingers. The ground is colder than the chill air, but I’m still staying warm somehow.
Where am I? Who am I? Who did this to me? Am I still in danger? How do I get out? Questions pile up, and I go back to the basics. I don’t remember anything, but I remember how to survive.
I have air. It’s cold, but something is keeping me warm, at least for the moment. There is a faint movement to the air, so it isn’t going to get stale too quickly, and most gases would have lurked near the floor and killed me in my sleep. I can hear water, so that will probably help me last longer, as long as it isn’t poisonous.
I pick up one of the pebbles and drop it, listening for the impact echoing off the walls. About 1.6 meters per second, squared. Luna then. Thank God, I’m not stuck on Earth. My Terran physique will give me an edge on a world of lightweights.
I’m going to have to watch it, though. Lunars like to keep the air thin; the lower pressure is easier on the habitats. I could get exhausted quickly in the thin air, I’ll have to pace myself. So far, no signs of trouble though. I’m not light-headed, breathing quickly, or having any headaches. I’ll have to see what happens.
I inhale the stale air deeply through my nose. It’s hard to smell anything past the sharp chemical tang of the nearby fluid and the scent of old death. The sharp gunpowder scent of new Lunar rock is missing, so this is an old cave, the volatiles oxidized long ago. If there had been a pocket of methane, ammonia, or hydrogen sulfide, I’d already be dead anyway.
The cave rock and air are above freezing, so heat must be leaking in from a habitat somewhere. Maybe that Hell-lab place.
So I’m not going to die right away. Check.
I dare to move again and carefully check myself for injuries. Nothing hurts, no bruising, not even any sense of fatigue. All my hair is gone though, everything, even my eyelashes. I find no trace of injuries from the tangle of tubes from my dream, not even a single scar. Was it only a dream?
I’m real hungry, though. Soon, I’m going to need to find food and water, as well as someplace warmer than this chill cave.
I don’t dare move around carelessly. There could be anything down here, including the people who threw me into this pit.
Why did they throw me down here? Even if they thought I was dead, you don’t waste biomass. Water, carbon, nitrogen; a body has everything a body needs. You only throw away biomass on Earth. Am I infected with something so horrible this is the only place to dump my body?
To get answers, to get out of here, I desperately need to see. I try to focus, and stare through the darkness through sheer will, hoping my senses will attune enough to give me some bearing, some hope of escape.
I feel the monster inside come alive again. It begins to move and shift through me, spreading again. It wasn’t a dream after all. I feel it burn into my eyes and ears, and stitch through my skin with threads of fire. It’s everywhere and growing fast. Am I going to check out for good?
No.
I struggle against it, fighting to stay alive. Slowly, I master it and make it back down. The agony subsides to mere pain, and I lie back panting and sweating in the cold.
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Chapter 4
I see a flash of light. Then another. Soon a random series of flashes starts up. If it’s cosmic rays, then I’m being slow-roasted by the universe. Bad news. Or it could be a search party from the Hell-lab. More bad news.
I wait a bit and notice a pattern building. The after-image of the flashes starts forming an image. I can make out the shapes around me in ghostly gray light. Each flash is a photon. This is impossible without augmentation. Do I have some kind of boosted vision?
The image builds up slowly, and I have to be careful not to move my eyes and smear it. The rough outlines of the rock walls in the cave stretch away. The walls have the spiraling cut patterns from tunnel drillers all along the sides. The tunnel is about 3 meters across, and curves out of sight in both directions, with a cross tunnel not too far from where I lie. I can also make out the small pool of fluids I awoke in earlier. It looks like the water is filling the bottom of a vertical shaft intersecting this tunnel, because there’s a shaft in the ceiling right above it that continues upward, out of sight. This must be one of the older, abandoned tunnels in the depths of Luna, made back in the days before real shielding was available on the surface.
Around me lie the dead. Heaps of ruined flesh bob in the fluid and lie scattered by the edges of the pool. I gag and choke it back down. Memories of smoking battlefields come back up, and I force them back down. Not now.
Did anyone else escape that Hell-lab, or are they all dead?
Remaining still, I listen. I can hear the drops of water falling from above and can pinpoint where the pools of water are. The faint sound of the moving air tells me a lot about the layout of these caves, and this maze seems to go on forever. This must have been one of the old mines, for water or other volatiles, maybe. I’ll need to watch out for gas in the lower levels. Distantly, I can hear the scurrying of roaches and the other insect life that we’ve brought to every planet.
I can
smell them too. I find I can sort out the millions of scents around me, without any being overpowered by the strong chemical odor in the tunnels. I can smell the roaches, the decaying bodies, plastic and other refuse, and even the faintly salty tang of the rocks around me. I can tell that fresher air is up the tunnel above the pool, and that there is drinkable water down the tunnel that way. Scent becomes a three-dimensional sense, giving me a map of direction, distance, and motion, even in absolute darkness.
I can feel the direction of the faintest breath of the breeze in the tunnel. It’s just a little warmer that way. The slope of the tunnel is almost imperceptible, but I can tell which way it slopes up. Faint vibrations in the rock indicate the machinery functioning scores of meters straight up, and the few people walking about even farther off in the distance. Soon, a complete map of the maze and the complex far above me forms in my brain.
How can I sense all of this? What kind of augmentation do I have? Is this the monster or cybernetic boosting?
I examine the plastic sheet I’m wrapped in by touch, running my fingers across it. There is writing stamped into the durable material. Feeling the slight impressions of the letters, I read it. “DISPOSE OF ALL MEDICAL WASTE PROPERLY.” It looks like someone didn’t read the instructions.
Since I’m alone, for the moment, I stand up and pull the plastic about me, cinching it up to make crude clothing.
Things are coming back, the feel and sense of how to move on Luna. My body remembers what my brain forgets. Like how not to move too quickly so I don’t hit my head and how to glide rather than walk or run in the low gravity.
I glide back to the shaft. Newcomers to Luna try to walk, jump, skip, or do the “Moon Bounce.” Locals and others who’ve been here a while know better. You move on Luna with a controlled glide, pushing forward with one foot, but with no upward force, so you just drift over the ground in a low, slow-motion run. You use friction to control your movement, because gravity isn’t going to help you.
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