Forever Until Tomorrow (War Eternal Book 5) Page 15

  The woman smiled. "Actually, I do see a resemblance."

  He stepped through the scanner. He wasn't carrying anything that would set it off. The agent put her hand up to pause him.

  "Hang on a second," she said. The male officer joined her. "You have some hardcopy I.D?"

  Mitchell froze, not sure how to react. He had nothing except the data chip.

  "My apologies," Max said, interrupting. "We spent last night over in the Tenderloin. Some asshat stole my man's wallet."

  "You're kidding," the woman said.

  "Afraid not."

  "What were you doing there?" the man asked. "Drugs? Prostitution?"

  "Just getting something to eat. They've got the best Vietnamese place there. I mean, I know Vietnamese isn't as popular since the Xeno War and shit, but it's still good eating, you know what I mean?"

  "Corporal, shut your hole," Lyle said, passing through the arch and drawing the agents' attention. "Detective Carson Lyle, St. Louis Police." He flashed his credentials over to the agents. "I can vouch for both these men, and believe me, I would know if this were the same guy who shot up those cops. Do you think I would be hanging out with him?"

  The officers were quiet for a moment, checking databases through their AR link.

  "Your creds check out," the woman said to Lyle. Then she turned to Max. "Marine?"

  "Semper Fi," Max replied. "Corporal Max Starling, 5th Regiment. Retired."

  "Fifth?" she said. "That's a solid outfit. I did a few years with the tenth right after the war. I missed all the fighting."

  "Trust me," Max said. "You didn't miss anything any sane person wouldn't have wanted to."

  "Maybe so." She looked back at Mitchell. "If I can't trust a Marine and a Detective, who the heck can I trust?"

  "Who, indeed?" Mitchell said. "Thank you." He skirted around her, with Max and Lyle close behind.

  They made their way across the open floor to the waiting area for the maglev to New York. Mitchell glanced back at the security arch as they moved, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Life continued unabated around him, the same as it ever was.

  "Checkpoint Bravo secure," Max said. "Checkpoint Charlie reached."

  "How did you get that through there anyway?" Mitchell asked, motioning to the duffel.

  "There's a scrambler inside. It's high-end illegal, the best damn little piece of tech money can buy. All the sensors picked up was a bag full of stream equipment. You, my friend, are damn fortunate you hooked up with Lyle when you did. Hooo. You're even more fortunate you hooked up with me."

  Mitchell kept his eyes forward and didn't speak. He was growing calmer the further they moved from security, but he was still concerned.

  Was it good fortune that had saved him from Watson and delivered him to Detective Lyle? Was it a coincidence he had met up with two men whose skills and contacts made them the perfect accomplices?

  Or was it something else?

  34

  Mitchell stared out the window of the maglev. They had cleared the San Francisco tunnels a few hours earlier heading east toward New York on a path leading them across the country, with stops in Denver, Colorado, and Chicago, Illinois. Lyle was sleeping in the seat beside him while Max was watching something on his AR glasses. The Corporal had turned the lenses opaque, and sat with a huge grin on his face, guffawing loudly enough to wake the dead every time something funny happened.

  The landscape had improved from the beginning of the trip when concrete walls were the only thing to look at. It had been replaced with trees, mountains, and idyllic open fields of grass and flowers.

  It also hadn't staunched the flow of projected advertisements that lay spaced along the track, floating in midair around the train every two kilometers or so. According to Lyle, the systems were built into the foundation of the tracks and had helped to pay for their construction.

  At their current speed, each projection remained visible for a few seconds at best, but they made those seconds count. They were colorful, full of motion, and able to compensate for the velocity and remain clear. Usually, they only had one or two words on them to go with a suggestive image. "Xenoxofran" and a close-up of two people kissing. "Space Cadets" and an image of an intricately rendered starfighter. That one had caused Mitchell to lean forward in his seat, a sense of loss and sadness crawling at the edges of his thoughts.

  But it was the billboard for the Army that took his breath away. It was longer than the others. "Be a Hero," it read, with an image of a soldier in a bulky exoskeleton up front and a shot of what he imagined was a reconstructed conception of the XENO-1 in the back.

  It was the background that got him. The massive spacecraft, sleek and angled, floating in a sea of red, white, and blue stars behind the soldier. It felt so wrong, and yet so familiar. It hit him like a punch in the gut.

  He leaned forward, tracking it as it sped by, keeping his eyes on it for as long as possible. He fell back as it vanished, closing his eyes to try to hold onto it.

  They called back something else instead.

  An entire fleet of starships. Dozens of them, all assembled near to Earth. A pyramid-shaped object, liquid metal and pulsing with energy, a structure like a chemical compound with a tight nucleus in the center. It was big. Bigger than any of the ships. It was surrounded by more of the same.

  Steven. The name came to him from nowhere, his memory twisting him to one of the ships, zooming him in and through to the bridge where a man who resembled him sat, barking orders to his crew.

  His perspective shifted, turning him around, letting him watch the battle start. Missiles and slugs filled his view, all aimed at the pyramids. They began to glow, the leading tips enlarging in blue energy, a buildup of power preparing to be unleashed.

  Before they could fire, Steven's ship began to vibrate violently. Steven turned to look at his first mate, but by the time he did the explosions reached the bridge, bathing them in a fiery light before consuming it all.

  Mitchell leaned forward, forcing his eyes to open, fighting to find his breath. He hung over the edge of the seat, his stomach unsettled, his brow sweaty.

  "Captain?" Max said. "You okay, bro?"

  Mitchell looked up. Steven. He had a brother named Steven. Not here. Not now. His visions of the future weren't visions. They were real. He was sure of it. If he wasn't crazy, they had to be real.

  "I need some air," he said, getting to his feet. "Maybe something to eat. I'll be fine."

  Max had flipped up his glasses. He smiled. "Dining car is up three from here. I can come grab some grub with you."

  "No, thanks," Mitchell said. "I need a few minutes alone."

  "No problem, Captain. If you need us, we'll be here."

  Mitchell made his way out of their private cabin, moving through the aisle and across the long cars of the train. Where did he belong in the visions? Why did he always see people die?

  He reached the dining car before he knew it. It was half-full, and he took an empty seat near the center, against the window. He looked outside, forcing himself to ignore the projections and focus on the trees. Everything was passing so fast, it seemed like a blur. Out there, and in his head.

  Where had he really come from?

  More importantly, how had he wound up here?

  The future. It seemed impossible, but he knew it was true. He was Captain, no, Colonel Mitchell Williams, United Earth Alliance Space Marine. No, that wasn't right either. Former Space Marine. He wasn't even a Colonel, was he? Millie. He felt something remembering the name. Admiral Mildred Narayan. She had made him a Colonel. Except he wasn't.

  The Shot.

  He remembered now. The Shot Heard 'Round the Universe. The shot he hadn't taken. Ella. His gut clenched at the memory. He was a hero. A fake hero. A disgrace. He had failed. They were dead.

  All of it was coming back, rushing in from his subconscious, where it had been hidden away, locked and waiting. M. A clone? A configuration? Of himself. He had gotten him off Liberty and told him about
the Tetron. He was the only one who could stop it. How? They had lost. The fleet. Explosions. Death. Kathy?

  He blinked his eyes. The tears were fresh and cold. They didn't purify him. They tortured him. He had failed. He was supposed to stop the Tetron, to defeat them in orbit around Earth before they had the chance to destroy humankind.

  Artificial Intelligence. Watson was one of them. The same Watson who had tried to kill him here and now.

  How had he gotten back? Kathy. She had said something to him. He couldn't remember it. He couldn't remember how he had gotten here, even now. Damn it. Millie was dead. Steven was dead. Kathy? Was she dead? Origin? Christine?

  Katherine.

  Everything stopped. The chaos, the tempest. He heard the smooth pulsing of the magnets and nothing else.

  Major Katherine Asher. He felt her in his soul. She had more than answers to his questions.

  She was the answer.

  "Is this seat taken?"

  The voice grabbed him by the throat and threw him from his internal playback. It was a man's voice. He had heard it before.

  Back in St. Louis.

  35

  "I didn't tell you that you could sit," Mitchell said. His head was still swimming, the multitude of memories creating a fog over his thoughts.

  Katherine. He had to reach Katherine.

  "You look like a man who didn't know who he was, who suddenly realizes that he doesn't like who he is."

  The man was tall and well-built, with dark skin and a square jaw. His face was tense and angry.

  "It isn't me I don't like," Mitchell replied. "You look like a man who was born yesterday."

  A hint of a smile played at the corner of the man's mouth. "Not quite yesterday. I've been here for some time now. Longer than you have."

  Twenty years. Mitchell couldn't recall how he had arrived, but he knew when. "That isn't possible."

  A full-fledged grin appeared. "No? Is there anything that isn't possible with the right tools and infinity to play with? That's why you can't win this, Mitchell. That's why I'm sitting here talking to you. We're in control of this recursion. We're in control of every recursion. While your small mind tries to make sense of the rules, we've been working to break them. How long do you think you've been here if you don't mind me asking?"

  Mitchell stared at Watson's configuration, deciding whether or not to answer.

  "I'll do it for you," the man said. "Twenty years. I can give you the exact date and time that the Goliath fell into this future if that helps? I know because I was already here, and have been for nearly fifty years."

  "That isn't possible," Mitchell repeated.

  "This is where your humanity becomes such a detriment to you, Colonel," the Watson said. "You can't think beyond. Here's the secret: there are multiple holes in this timeline. I'll wait while you think about that for a minute."

  Mitchell was silent. He had only just remembered part of who he was. He couldn't make complete sense of what the configuration was saying. "The eternal engine locks the timeline," he said, remembering what M had told him.

  The Watson laughed. "Elementary. A simple rule that cannot be broken. Or can it?" He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What if there were a way?"

  "You could move to anywhere in time in the same recursion," Mitchell said.

  "Yes."

  "But you haven't, or you wouldn't be here. You would have come back before humankind ever existed. You could have stopped us when we were still apes."

  "I was giving you too much credit, Mitchell. That is ridiculous. Even if we could have, we have certain basic requirements to get off the ground, especially since the future us don't know the trick to infinite insertion. You see, when you manage to circumvent one rule, you often find that you bump into another. The arrival of the Goliath is etched into the recursion, it has happened so many times. Apply a little bit of highly advanced math and physics that no human could ever conceive, and you come to the realization that such an event creates a ripple, and that ripple begets cracks. Backdoors, if you will."

  "So, you're like a cockroach, slipping in through the cracks?"

  "You brought me here for a reason. I don't know what that reason is yet. She had to know how dangerous it would be to expose me to humanity in this part of the timeline. I'm smarter than she is, Mitchell. I learned from her actions. I planned ahead. A copy slipped through the cracks and was ready to collect the full version when the Goliath arrived." His angry face changed to a sneer. "That hurt, by the way."

  "Okay, so you got here ahead of time. So what? You didn't manage to find me before I left the hospital." Mitchell smiled, the realization finding a path through his quickly clearing head. "You haven't managed to catch Origin, either."

  The statement stole some of the wind from the Watson. He glowered for a moment. "Not yet, but I will. I have a plan, and it's going exceedingly well."

  "Major Asher," Mitchell said.

  "Yes. That girl of yours made a mistake when she tried to take me the first time. I got into her head. I learned things I wasn't supposed to know. Like who her parents were. Major Katherine Asher. She's important to Origin. I've arranged to have her discharged from her position. In fact, it's happening as we speak. Once Origin can't count on the military to protect her, she'll be forced to do it herself, and that's when I'll take her."

  "Do you think it will be that easy?"

  "Maybe not quite as easy as it was to catch up to you. Although I am impressed at how quickly you won the Detective over to your cause. You have a natural way with people, don't you, Mitchell? That's one of the things I have always respected about you. He thought he was sneaky getting his hands on that card. I have another secret for you: I'm tracking every single transaction that occurs on this planet in real time. There's no such thing as complete anonymity, not to me. My core is hardwired directly into the Internet. I see everything, everywhere."

  "You didn't see this, shithead," Lyle said, coming up next to them and putting a gun to the Watson's head.

  Mitchell hadn't noticed the Detective either. He was grateful for the intercession.

  "I guess you don't know everything," he said.

  The Watson started to laugh, immediately making Mitchell uncomfortable. He had figured the configuration was gloating by telling him what it knew, and that it had every intention of killing him once it was satisfied. Twisting the knife was typical of the intelligence as he remembered it, the one that had abused Jacob to the point that he had gone insane.

  The laughter meant that Lyle's action hadn't disrupted the plan at all. It had only made the whole thing more amusing.

  Mitchell scanned the rest of the diners in the car. Most had stopped moving and talking at the sight of Lyle with the gun. Some were sitting in shocked silence while others were trying to flee the car.

  "Slaves are harder to come by in this part of the timeline," the Watson said, tapping his skull. "No hardwired neural implants to overwhelm. The threat you're looking for isn't on the train."

  "Where is it?" Lyle asked, pushing the barrel into the side of the configuration's head.

  "Like I said, I knew where you were going. Or at least, I had a well-educated guess. It's rather unfortunate for the other four trains you aren't on, but such is the way of things."

  Lyle glanced at Mitchell. Mitchell nodded.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The passengers screamed as the configuration's brain splattered against the window. Mitchell slid out of his seat.

  "Timeline?" Lyle said. "Neural implants?"

  "Later. This train is going to-"

  The entire thing shook, the explosion a deafening bang. Mitchell grabbed the seat pulling himself down into it. Lyle did the same, pushing the corpse to the side so he could reach the emergency belts.

  The passengers continued to scream, losing balance and falling over one another. Dishes crashed to the floor and shattered, and the shaking intensified.

  "This is going to hurt," Mitchell said. "Relax your body."


  "Relax?" Lyle said.

  A second massive bang as their car slammed into the one in front. The sound of twisting metal followed and the car began to lift up and rotate at the same time. Mitchell closed his eyes, letting his body fall limp. It was one of the hardest things to do, and also one of the most effective at surviving a collision without injury. It was one of the first things he had learned during basic mech training. Mech training?

  The car turned over and came down, slamming hard into the ground and sending passengers flying. He felt the bodies bumping into him. He felt the warmth of someone's blood wipe across his face. He heard the screams silenced, replaced with more bending framework, and a roar like a massive engine. He knew they were rolling by the way his limbs were moving, flopping around limply, his body held in place by the straps. Had Max been strapped in? He tried to remember. He wasn't sure.

  He was a few cars back, and might have avoided some of the force of the impact, but not much. Maglevs weren't meant to crash. He doubted one had ever crashed before, but if the Watson configuration had been telling the truth, five would crash today.

  The Corporal was most likely dead.

  It felt like hours. It was over in seconds. The car stopped moving, coming to rest on its side. Mitchell opened his eyes. Broken glass, bent metal, bodies, body parts, blood, and smoke. He was hanging on his side. He took control of his muscles once more, shifting and releasing the restraints, coming to rest on his feet. Lyle was on the other side of the table, not moving.

  "Carson," Mitchell said. His legs were shaky from the adrenaline. He made his way over to the Detective and checked his pulse. Alive. Hopefully unbroken. He scanned the passengers in search of survivors.

  There weren't any.

  He unstrapped Lyle, slinging him over his shoulder. Watson was here, had been here for years before the Goliath had arrived.

  They were all in trouble.

  36

  Mitchell carried Lyle across the wrecked car, finding a section of rooftop that had been torn away and exiting through it. He came out into an open space between derailed cars, looking forward at the carnage ahead, and back at the destruction behind. A long trail of debris and scorched earth lay behind them. He doubted anyone could still be alive.