by Mark Lingane
Hadron Damnation Book One
WeFor four hundred years, the human race has been hiding, defending, surviving against an unknown alien attack, using weapons known as rippers and smashers.
Are
Coming
To
Kill
You.
Except they are not weapons, they are children—descendants of Cally Raiden—with unique abilities to rip open the space-time continuum and smash through to one moment in the future and broadcast back what they glimpse before they die. But one day, a child comes back…
…with the truth.
Humanity faces its greatest challenge. Can someone rise and galvanize the fractured societies, or will the planet fall?
Genre: SciFi Thriller
Content/Theme(s): Alien Invasion, Post-Apocalyptic
Release Date: May 12, 2017
Publisher: Insync Books
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iYe rested against the wall—a smooth, white stone, like sand but vertical, in stark contrast to the metal surfaces in the outland facilities. He ran his palm over the surface and small flecks scraped away. Bars lined two walls stopping several inches short of the ceiling making a gap too small to squeeze through. Spotlights shone on him and obscured anything beyond his incarceration. For a brief moment, in the tranquil bubble of light, he felt at peace. Coolness existed without breeze or noise. In his mother’s fleeting concept of home in the outland complexes, the purifiers and air conditioners ran around the clock as a constant soundtrack.
Being unconscious when the soldiers had brought him in, iYe missed seeing the complex, only waking up once he was in jail. His mother had said he originally came from here, but it seemed foreign. His first vivid recollection—the wind whipping around as he fell, wrapped in his mother’s arms—washed away any positive image of Command. But the feel of the wall had triggered a submerged memory. So, was he home or not? And would there be more falling?
iYe kicked his feet against the floor, watching how the metal edges of his boots left small marks on the stone. He tried to carve a rude word.
“Don’t be alarmed. I’m coming in.”
The voice resonated from everywhere. iYe stood and peered into the darkness. A figure emerged from the gloom. As it approached, the outline became defined and resolved into a woman wearing a white lab coat. She appeared to be the same age as his mother, although not as warlike. Her movements indicated hesitation; each step a cautious examination. The lady rested her hand on the central bar that ran around the cell and stared in, watching without speaking. Her hair, eyes, face, and clothes made her look like a wall of white, with the only bit of color being the Command crest stitched on her coat pocket.
After several moments, iYe felt uncomfortable.
The woman pulled out a key from around her neck and slotted it into the lock. The cell door creaked as she entered, the only noise in the room. He shuffled his feet to add something to the quiet. The woman positioned herself on the cell’s only bench and patted the seat, indicating for him to join her.
He approached, weary of her, and slowly sat, keeping open a cautious eye.
“Hello, iYe, I’m Ema.”
“How do you know my name?” he asked.
“They wrote it down for me,” Ema replied. “Is it okay to call you iYe?”
He gave her an indifferent shrug, then asked, “Do you know where my mother is?”
“Er … I’m sorry, no.”
“When will I see her?”
“In an hour or two.” She paused. “Do you know much about your name?”
“iYe?”
“No, Raiden.”
“No.”
“Raiden is the surname of Cally, Cally Raiden. You are theoretically a direct descendant of him. The original smasher. Although he was a ripper as well.”
iYe rubbed his nose. “I thought there were heaps of people with that name.”
“Information regarding that may be unreliable. But you’re fairly unique.”
“I’ve heard the name in the old stories. What does a smasher do?”
“Well, the Hadron, called the Omega, is surrounded by anti-gravity sub-loops that oscillate at a different speed to the main flare, generating what is called a Schwarzschild membrane, which is porous to the correct molecular cohesion. Every ten months, the Omega and sub-loops fall into alignment, allowing us access to the temporal optic absorption under dense gravity flux. This is called the teleological paradox. At that moment, a ripper can balance the flow of energy and hold it, while a smasher can approach the event horizon as the ripper delays the entropic expansion and—this is the exciting bit—go past the point where the energy displacements align and reciprocate the datum through atomic synchronization.”
iYe gave her a blank expression.
“A smasher helps us build up a picture of the future by sending back observations from the event horizon, a place where the future and the past meet,” Ema explained. “Bit by bit, we are able to collect small snippets of information about distant wars that we will be fighting. Smashers are heroes.”
“Oh.”
“Normally, a smasher has been Celebrated by the age of ten. We’ve never had one as old as you in here for the … pre-Ascension. Do you … do you mind if I take a sample?”
Before he could respond, Ema had stabbed a clear tube against his neck.
“Ow.”
The tube filled with brilliant red liquid, and she pulled it away. iYe licked his finger and placed the fingertip over the pinprick.
Silently, Ema stood and awkwardly shuffled out of the cell, swapping her gaze between the blood and iYe.
Once she returned to the observation room, Ema split the blood into a half dozen test tubes as she moved about in a near trance. She squeezed a few drops of blood on a glass plate and slipped it under the microscope.
“Everything all right?” Damien asked.
She waved a test tube at him. “Check the gamma levels.”
He grabbed the tube and placed it in the cream analysis box while glancing out through the one-way mirror. “The boy’s talking to himself. He’s been living in the outlands, hasn’t he?”
Ema mumbled.
“I’d better allow for higher readings.” Damien spun the knobs on the box and pressed the ANALYSIS button. “I checked the paperwork. We don’t need to terminate him. He’s to be executed.”
“It will be more humane if we do it,” Ema replied.
The machine dials swung to maximum before the entire device sparked and blew. Damien swore as flames rose.
“My god, this can’t be right. You need to see this,” Ema said, ignoring the fireworks behind her.
~~~~~~
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