Alexander and Catalina de Leon were born in the Alliance state of Mexico. Soon after they get married, Alexander joins the Alliance space fleet to buy them immortality and citizenship in the utopian North.
After ten years of serving in the Navy, Alexander becomes Captain of the Lincoln, but instead of retiring from service, he is sent on a classified mission through a recently discovered wormhole to a habitable world, code-named Wonderland, and he will be forced to say goodbye to his wife for as much as another decade.
Just as the Lincoln is embarking on its voyage, the Confederacy sends a fleet to challenge the Alliance’s claim to the wormhole. Conflict breaks out, and both the Confederate and Alliance fleets are decimated. Alexander and his crew barely make it through the battle and into the wormhole to start their long voyage to Wonderland.
Back on Earth we learn via Catalina that the conflict led to a brief nuclear war that wiped out the largest cities on both sides. Catalina ends up in a dangerous refugee camp and meets a man there, David Porras, who becomes her guardian inside the camp. Many months pass, and having heard nothing from Alex, Catalina fears he was killed in the fighting. Her grief brings her together with David and she falls pregnant.
Alexander and his crew reach Wonderland and begin exploring the planet. The air is breathable. The plants move. Dinosaur-like monsters roam the jungles. After just a few weeks, a group of dinosaurs destroy their camp and they’re forced to leave Wonderland and return to Earth early.
On the way home, one of the Lincoln’s crew turns out to be a spy reporting the results of the mission to the Confederacy.
Upon returning to the Earth side of the wormhole, Alexander discovers that both the Alliance and the Confederacy have been racing to put together colony fleets to go to Wonderland.
Meanwhile, Catalina has had her baby—Dorian Porras—and he is now six months old. The boy’s father has revealed himself as an abusive alcoholic and an illegal immigrant in the North. Catalina leaves him, taking baby Dorian with her.
The Alliance and Confederacy race each other to the wormhole, but the Confederacy is faster and enters the wormhole first, only to be ripped apart by tidal forces.
Surviving Confederate ships turn around and surrender, but the Alliance fleet now guarding the entrance of the Wormhole fires on the surrendered ships, destroying them all. Alexander is the only one who refuses the order to attack.
Alexander returns to Earth a hero for his honorable dissent. President Baker of the Alliance asks Alexander to help fix the mess by running a PR campaign to make the Alliance look better.
Then a news story breaks revealing that the mission to Wonderland was really intended to trick the Confederates into sacrificing a large part of their fleet in the wormhole, thereby tipping the balance of power in favor of the Alliance.
Following this shock, Alexander helps negotiate a peace treaty between the Alliance and rebel Confederate forces. Alexander and Catalina are reunited, whereupon he learns about David’s abuse. Alexander is furious, and uses Navy resources to hunt down Catalina’s ex and deliver him to Alliance authorities.
Over subsequent years increasing automation leads to record-high levels of unemployment, and the unemployed masses find virtual fulfillment in the Mindscape, a collection of immersive virtual worlds where people are able to indulge their every whim.
Now, the story continues in the Mindscape…
Prologue
2819 A.D.
—Twenty-Five Years After The Last War—
Utopia. That’s what people call it, Dorian thought, shaking his head. They’d even gone so far as to name the world’s most popular political party the Utopian Party. People were losing their jobs left and right to automation and artificial intelligence, but they couldn’t be happier. They received a universal basic income, just enough to pay for necessities, and with the Mindscape to virtually satisfy their every whim, who needed more? It was ironic that after a hundred years of fighting communism, now it was a necessity for people to survive. Without the dole, billions of people would die of starvation.
Thinking about it that way, the world seemed more of a dystopia than anything, but everyone was more than content thanks to the Mindscape. No one needed to confront the sad reality of their lives. Virtual worlds are literally whatever people want them to be, so why live in a world you can’t change? Supposedly, mindscaping made life perfect for everyone. But for Dorian, there was always a crack in the perfection, a noticeable seam—his father, not Alexander, but his biological father, Angel/David Porras. Dorian had searched high and low for him using both names, but without any luck. His parents refused to talk about it. They said his father was a bad man, and he’d probably gotten himself killed by now, but that just made Dorian even more curious.
It meant they were hiding something.
Dorian had spent a long time trying to figure out how he could get more out of them. Now, as a professional mindscaper and Senior Director at Mindsoft, he’d finally found a way. A virtual world that would pry the truth out of them without them even knowing it. Now, for Alexander’s 55th birthday, Dorian had invited both of his parents to join him for a few hours in that mindscape.
“It’s a surprise,” Dorian said, answering the dubious look on Alexander’s face.
“A nice surprise?” Dorian’s mother asked.
“Of course. Don’t worry, it’s not full immersion, so you can wake yourself up whenever you like.”
“All right,” Alexander said and sat on his living room couch. Dorian’s mother sat down beside him and they both reached for their neural hoods on the shelf beneath the coffee table. Those devices helped block out external stimuli for low-immersion worlds like this one. Dorian grabbed his own hood from the coffee table and sat down in the armchair beside his parents.
“Ready?” he asked with his hood poised over his head.
Alexander gave a thumbs-up as he slipped his hood on. Dorian’s mother smiled and nodded before putting hers on, too.
“Happy Birthday, Alex,” Dorian said as he followed suit and booted up the Mindscape.
The simulation was incredibly simple—they all started in their own empty box. For Dorian, that box was filled with both of his parents’ fears, seen playing out on the walls. His parents, however, were stuck in boxes that showed them fond memories from their lives, playing out in short clips of blissful nostalgia—something basic to distract them while he went browsing through the horrors that haunted their souls.
In hindsight it should have been obvious to him. He knew how to find out the truth. Lies cause fear of discovery in the people who tell them, so browsing through his parents’ fears was a sure-fire way to find the truth about his father.
Dorian walked past dozens of graphic scenes of violence, misery, suffering, death… all obviously fabricated by his parents’ subconscious minds. Then he came to one scene that struck him as unique. It was on one of Alexander’s walls. He saw a man he didn’t recognize, lying in a casket with a face as cold and gray as a winter’s sky. Alexander was peering into that casket with a grim expression. Dorian also saw himself standing in the background with eyes wide and his jaw agape. As Dorian focused on that scene, it swelled to fill the entire box, playing out on all of the walls simultaneously.
“You killed him,” Dorian heard himself say.
Alexander turned and shook his head. “I didn’t pull the trigger, and I didn’t aim the gun.”
“No, you just put him in front of it.”
“He was an abusive alcoholic who beat your mother within an inch of her life. He would have beat you too if she hadn’t left him.”
“And that justifies killing him?”
“He was an illegal. The law conscripted him. All I had to do was find him and write his orders for duty. He was trained and armed, just like every other soldier on that battlefield. You can’t blame me for this, Dorian.”
“Except I do.”
Dorian watched his stepfather’s face collapse in dismay as the imaginary versio
n of himself stormed off. He was so shocked that he woke himself up with a jolt and ripped off his hood. His chest rose and fell with deep, shuddering breaths. His parents were still locked in their virtual worlds, both of them smiling at whatever they were seeing.
Dorian scowled, tempted to rip Alexander’s hood off and confront him right then and there, but he’d already heard Alexander’s excuses. He stood up from his chair, quietly leaving the room and his family behind. By the time they grew tired of their trip down memory lane and decided to wake themselves up, he would be gone.
Dorian gave a sigh as he strode out of his parents’ home and into the hazy orange light of the rising sun. He took a deep breath of the crisp spring air, and climbed into his company car.
“Where would you like to go, Mr. de Leon?” the car’s driver program asked.
“Not de Leon,” Dorian said, shaking his head. That surname didn’t fit. It never had. He wasn’t Alex’s son.
“What would you like me to call you?” the program asked.
“Gray,” he decided. He would take his fiancée’s surname once they got married. His parents didn’t even know he was engaged, let alone to whom, or where he actually lived. He’d been planning to tell them all of that eventually, but now… now he’d have to think about it.
“Where would you like to go, Mr. Gray?”
“Anywhere but here,” he said, leaning his head back against the seat and allowing heavy eyelids to slide raspingly over his eyes.
“That is not a destination. Please specify an explicit destination or provide a list of criteria so that I may help you find one.”
“Take me to The City of the Minds, Mindsoft Tower. It’s time I got back to work.”
“As you wish, Mr. Gray. Please buckle up.”
PART ONE - ENEMY UNSEEN
“The unseen enemy is always the most fearsome.”
—George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
Chapter 1
2824 A.D.
—Five Years Later—
Time is an illusion.
-Albert Einstein
Love is the only truth. Let mine be yours.
-Catalina
Alexander studied the engravings on his antique pocket watch as he rode the elevator down through Freedom Station to the space-facing docking arm. The watch had been a gift from his wife over forty years ago, just before he left on a mission to another world, Wonderland. The Alliance had fooled him and everyone else with that mission, using it to win The Last War, and just a few years later he’d ended up back on Earth with Catalina, retired from the Navy for good.
After more than ten years of service, seeing Catalina for only a month each year, he’d finally earned the right for the two of them to live out their immortal lives in the utopian north. It should have been happily-ever-after.
But life isn’t a fairytale, is it? Alexander thought with a bitter smirk. He slipped the watch back into one of the outer pockets of his combat suit and climbed down the ladder through Freedom Station’s airlock and into the airlock of the N.W.A.S. Adamantine, his new command.
New, isn’t the right word for this aging battleship, he thought, noting the discolored walls and flickering lights inside the airlock. The Adamantine was the last of its kind, a relic from a bygone era of war. With a unified government ruling over Earth, the only kind of war still being fought was against civil unrest and terrorism. Expensive war machines like this one couldn’t join those battles, so they were left to rot in space, slowly falling apart from years of neglect.
Alexander continued from one ladder to another, passing through the Adamantine’s airlock and into the elevator waiting on the other side. The airlock swished shut overhead, and Alexander selected the glowing white button marked Bridge (65) from the control panel. He braced himself as the elevator fell through the ship.
The only reason Earth still had a fleet at all was to guard against the Solarian Republic in case they tried something stupid. Mars, Titan, Europa, Ganymede, and a handful of smaller colonies had all watched the stupidity of The Last War, and they’d declared their independence soon after it had ended.
Alexander watched the lights of passing decks flicker through the transparent windows at the top of the elevator doors. This was all too familiar, he thought, looking around at the padded walls of the elevator. He spied the handrails for zero-G, exposed conduits here and there—because concealed ones were a pain in the ass to get at for repairs. Thirty years ago he’d wanted nothing better than to get the hell out of the Navy. And now, what felt like a lifetime later, he was right back where he’d started.
At least this time it was on his own terms—not that those terms were pleasant. After Dorian found out what had happened to his biological father, he’d disowned Alexander and Catalina for keeping the lie. They’d had a big fight. Catalina blamed him for his part in what had happened, and left him to go after Dorian.
Alexander would have gone chasing after them both, but every time he’d thought about it, something stopped him. Maybe it was the fact that after all he’d done, and after all he and Caty had been through together, she’d left him. He’d waited for her to return, or at least for her to call and apologize, but she never did.
The Mindscape had ruined them, just like it had ruined so many others. It was too addictive. Humanity had abandoned the real world for an endless variety of fake ones.
It starts slow. At first it’s this thing you do as a couple, or as a family. You all participate in building a virtual life together in the same virtual world, but then pretty soon you find another one you like better, and each of you splits off into your own private world. Temptations abound, good and bad alike. For him and Caty it wasn’t any one thing, but it didn’t help that one day Alexander had gone into Caty’s mindscape using an alias and an avatar she wouldn’t recognize, thinking he’d surprise her, only to find her in bed with another man. Something like that happens in the real world and it’s pretty clear cut, but when it happens in a virtual one…
Things get a whole lot muddier.
Most people had open relationships when it came to virtual dalliances, but he and Catalina had decided to hold themselves to a higher standard. Virtual cheating was still cheating. So what had happened?
They fought over the incident, and then made love in the real world for the first time in a long time. They agreed to make more time together, but that never happened. The Mindscape took every spare second of their lives.
In hindsight, Caty leaving him to go after their son wasn’t all that strange. They’d stopped being husband and wife a long time ago.
The elevator stopped with a screech of brakes that set Alexander’s teeth on edge. This ship is falling apart, he thought. The doors slid open and he stepped onto the bridge to see his crew all assembled and waiting.
“Admiral on deck!” someone called out, and a cheer rose from the crew, accompanied by hoots, whistles, and applause.
Frowning, Alexander shook his head. Not the salute he was expecting. “Settle down everyone. Save the fanfare for someone who deserves it.”
One of the crew stepped forward, a familiar face—blond hair, blue eyes, perfect skin, ruby red lips. Viviana McAdams. Alexander smiled, feeling better already.
“If you don’t deserve it, then who does, sir? You’re Admiral Alexander de Leon, The Lion of Liberty. You negotiated world peace and won a Nobel prize, so yes, I think that deserves more than just a salute.”
Alexander spied the silver oak-leaf insignia on her uniform. She’s a commander now. “I thought you left the Navy?”
“Likewise, sir.”
“All right, I’ll go first. My wife and son left me. What’s your excuse?”
The corners of McAdams mouth turned down. “Sorry to hear that, sir.”
“I’m not looking for a pity party, just stating the facts.”
“Well, I did leave the Navy, but I came back about two years ago. Turns out civilian life wasn’t for me—Navy jobs are practically the only real ones lef
t. And I’m not the only one who had trouble settling down. I managed to get most of the others transferred here, too.”
“The others?”
McAdams nodded and half-turned to the rest of the crew. “Lieutenant Commander Stone—” a particularly burly officer with a familiar lumpy face stepped forward and saluted. “—Lieutenant Cardinal—” The Lincoln’s old weapons officer stepped out of line next. “—and Lieutenant Hayes.” The comms officer.
Alexander felt a suspicious warmth leaking from the corner of one eye.
“Gettin’ all misty-eyed on us, Admiral?” Stone quipped.
Alexander shook his head. “No, staring at your ugly mug again is making my eyes burn.”
Stone snorted.
McAdams smiled. “Welcome home, Admiral.”
Alexander nodded, realizing just how true that was. “Thank you—all of you,” he said, his eyes skipping over the group. There were still a few faces he didn’t recognize.
“Maybe you’d better finish the introductions, Commander.”
“It would be my pleasure, sir.”
* * *
Alexander sat in his acceleration couch staring at the stars. Each of them was another galaxy or solar system that humanity would probably never reach. What else was out there? People had been looking up at the stars and asking that question for as long as humans had walked the Earth, and now that they were flying through space, they were still no closer to answering it.
“Entering lunar orbit,” Lieutenant Bishop reported from the helm.
Alexander nodded. “Keep me posted.”
“Aye, sir.”
Bishop was a gener, like McAdams. Over six feet tall with perfect brown skin, wavy black hair, straight white teeth, and piercing blue eyes. Physical perfection was just one of the hallmarks of his genetically-engineered heritage that set him apart from the natural-borns like Alexander. Of course, there were a lot more geners in the Navy these days, now that any real threat of war had vanished. Disillusionment was universal. Gener or not, plenty of people got tired of the Mindscape and went looking for real fulfillment. Sooner or later those people all signed up—that, or they became Humanists and joined the Human League, where bots, AI, and the Mindscape were all treated like the plague.
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