Epoch (The Templar Future Book 1) Read online

  EPOCH

  by

  CHRIS LOWRY

  Copyright 2015 by Lowry Publishing LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems.

  Lowry Publishing

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  Epoch

  The moon peeked over the edge of a monolith, pouring light between the skyscrapers and high rises that jabbed at the skyline, illuminating the shadows in the Quarter.

  Up this high, the dull roar of the Mob was faint, like the insect hum must have been in summers of years past, until it became part of the ignored background. The noise was buffered by the blast proof plexi-steel that coated the windows, allowing anyone in the room to look out over the pockmarked buildings etched in the ghost light of night. Nova stared at the scarred cityscape, noting the missing buildings with an absent minded familiarity, smiling at the similarity to the gaps in the toothy mouthed man behind her.

  “Commander, you know what your participation in this endeavor will be-”

  “It's only money,” she started to say and caught herself. She turned from the window and stalked to the oversized desk that dominated the far end of the large room.

  “Money we need,” the man with a gap-tooth smile and grease-slicked hair shot back at her. He waited for her to sit in the plush vinyl chair and ease back, hoping for a look of comfort, some sign that she understood.

  “Without them,” he continued. “The Project faces extinction. You know how this will affect your job.”

  “You don’t need to remind me,” she reminded him. “The Troops are my first concern and the protection of every citizen in the Metroplex is at the top of our agenda every time we suit up. But you’re trying to manipulate me, and that pisses me off.”

  She glared at him over the smooth black surface of her desk. He tried to hold her stare, but turned away after a moment, wiping an oily sheen that sprung up on his brow.

  “Just ask me,” she continued. “I prefer the direct approach.”

  “Fine. You need to go to this fund raiser. You need to put on a slinky dress. You need to show a lot of bosom and be flanked by two of your shiny Suits. They want to see the leader of the Troops, they want to know who is protecting them and just how capable she is.”

  She could feel him undressing her with his eyes.

  “And the way you look in a dress, they’ll open up a creditbook and give you what we need.”

  She twisted away from him, hiding behind the broad back of her chair. She looked up at the portrait of a wiry bald man behind her desk. His furrowed brow watched imperiously from the wall, tearing into the soul of each person that stood under it. She wondered for a moment what he would have thought of the whole affair, and checked herself. The Founder had to kiss the same butt, shmooze the same credits, only his job of starting the Team and nursing it through the formative years could only have been harder.

  People, taxpayers, voters these days expected the Troops to guard the walkways, demanded they pick up where peace officers could not, even if now it was just token decorations, their being out and about.

  The Founder would have put on a dress if necessary, would have slathed on the makeup and lipstick and laughed, bullied or beat anyone into submission. Humiliate, degrade, demean were just words to Conrad. A method to the means. She could stomach it, possibly even laugh at the ribbing from Team One, her personal task force. It was only a short period of time.

  “All right. RSVP me through e-mail. Send me a hovercar. I’ll put on the dress.”

  “I knew you’d come around,” Webster leaned against the desk. “I had an assistant pick out this great little strapless number-”

  “I can pick out my own clothes. Just make sure my car is on time.”

  “Not a problem at this juncture.”

  “Go.”

  He climbed out of the null grav chair, and walked for the door. The material in his pants whispered each time he took a step. She held in a laugh.

  “I’ll send you more details.”

  She waved him off without turning from the portrait, listening for the click of the door closing. She unfolded herself from the chair and went back to her vigil at the window.

  “How did we ever come to this?” she asked the painting. She could feel him staring at her back, but he didn’t answer. He never did.

  She leaned an arm against the cold pane, and rested her head on it.

  “You fought for something, at least. Hell, I fought to get this chair, and now look at me, a bureaucrat.”

  She swallowed, trying to clear the bitter taste from her mouth.

  “Money makes the world go round,” said a familiar voice.

  She turned, drawing her pistol, and realizing in the same instant it was useless. Her wrist went numb from an unseen blow and the laser slithered across the floor to rest under her desk. She back flipped, trying to get away from her assailant, stopping across the room.

  “Boo,” he whispered from behind her.

  She whirled in a round kick, missing his head by inches, following it with a blow to the solar plexus. He caught her hand, twisting it behind her, jerking it up between her shoulder blades. Her muscles screamed in objection.

  “You’re improving,” his breath was hot on her neck.

  He let her go.

  She stepped away, massaging her arm.

  “Bram, dammit. I’m not in the mood.”

  “Then why did you attack?” His white teeth gleamed from smooth black skin, the same color as her desk.

  “Lights!” she called to the Computer and the room brightened. “How did you get in here?”

  “Rumor downstairs is you were meeting with the Lizard and I wanted to make sure he didn’t slime you.”

  “Thanks for your concern,” she retrieved her pistol. “But if you recall, I can handle it. I am an administrative genius, remember.”

  “You have to wear a dress, don’t you.”

  “Shut up.”

  He watched her move behind the desk. She ignored her chair and perched on the edge of the desktop.

  “Every great general knows that you have to make a few concessions to win a battle.”

  “Whatever you say,” he laughed.

  “Stop laughing. I’m doing it for your paycheck.”

  “You keep telling yourself that.”

  “It's true.”

  “Nothing noble, like saving the world, or protecting these valuable citizens.”

  She polished her pistol absently with the sleeve of her jumpsuit.

  “We don’t save the world anymore. All we do now, is look good and try to stay alive. When was the last time you got one over on the bad guys. And I don’t mean the Mob. A year? Two? We get our allocations for flashy Suits and big pop guns and we keep their functions from being overrun. When was the last time we were outside after dark?”

  Bram pushed up on the desk beside her.

  “You’re too young to be a pessimist.”

  She looked at him gratefully.

  “I want to save the world. I just don’t know how.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Relax, boss. Something will turn up.”

  They looked out the window at the moon, half covered with thunder clouds that rolled in
from the ocean. The thick membrane that separated them from the streets thirty stories below blocked the wind and smattering of rain, and almost muted the crackle of blaster fire somewhere in the distance.

  “You’re not going to test that tonight?”

  Bruce Martin pushed his grimy labcoat out of the way and hurried after the short man rushing down the hall, head bent in concentration.

  “Dr. Darwin, I have to insist. The weather outside makes this way too dangerous. Besides, the radios say the Mob is getting worse tonight. We really need to make it to the shelters, or at least another building before the storm hits.”

  Darwin either ignored the young man or didn’t hear him, so absorbed in his own mind that he continued on with a crazed glaze in his bright blue eyes. Bruce grabbed his arm.

  “Dr. Darwin,.”

  Darwin wrapped his slender fingers around the young man’s upper arm, steadying him.

  “Bruce, you are an intelligent man and an average student, but you have little to offer in the way of persuasion. This is science, man. How can anything be more important than that?”

  The Doctor released Bruce and left him against the wall. Bruce rubbed his arm, shaking his head at the strength hidden under the old man’s labcoat. He watched him bustle through a reinforced door at the end of the hall. Shaking his head, he followed.

  The Lab was a maze of copper tubes and electric wires that lead from nowhere and connected seemingly to nothing. Some hummed with power, vibrating slightly, others glowed red or gold, smoking and sparking whenever lightning crashed across the sky. Bruce dodged in and under the wires, moving to the wall-long table the doctor was hunched over.

  “I knew science could win you over,” Darwin muttered without looking up.

  Bruce looked at the odd assortment of computer terminals lined up on the desk. Battered old husks housing only central processing units were connected to newer models, several tiny monitors showing individual charts or graphs, while the largest monitor squatted in the middle of the table, dominating them all.

  Bruce looked along the wall. None of the computers was plugged into an outlet.

  “Dr.?” he asked. “Are these connected to the Main Terminal?”

  Darwin shook his head, but if it was an answer to his question, Bruce wasn’t sure.

  “Science will answer everything, even if you doubt it. We have the technology to grow tomatoes the size of houses, but we don’t utilize it.”

  He moved away from Bruce, examining what looked like random connections in the pipes criss crossing the room.

  “Science has farmed the oceans and flooded the Great Plains, seeding them for fish. Science has carried us to the great age where a man across the ocean can press a button and send a grocery list to the Eastern States, and have an answer in less time than it takes to lick a postage stamp and mail it. Do you remember that?”

  He stopped his fiddling and looked at Bruce.

  “No sir, I don’t.”

  “When I was a boy, my grandmother told me about writing on what was called paper. It was made of wood.”

  “I minored in History, Doc. Sounds like a waste to me.”

  “Don’t be insolent,” Darwin scolded. “Respect your elders. That’s another thing we’ve lost to history. Manners are archaic.”

  “Ageism is out of fashion, or haven’t you read the studies?” Bruce leaned against the table, working with a disassembled gear box. “Just because I’m twenty two, doesn’t make me any less smarter than you. I’m just as qualified at History or even Science. I read your files, your papers. Our test scores were pretty much the same. The only thing you have on me is experience, and that just doesn’t cut it today, since most of what you learned is outdated or amended before the next series of learning tapes are out.”

  He ducked to avoid a tube of sealing compound thrown by Darwin.

  “Insolence. History minor my gray tuckiss. What happened in 2110?”

  Bruce set the gearbox next to a terminal.

  “I fixed that,” He moved beside the Doctor, watched him work. “2110? According to the tapes it was a barbarian’s paradise All the political and religious mania that swept the globe for the end of the millennium culminated in nothing and a lot of folks were left waiting for a second coming or Armageddon that never happened. So chaos ensued, infrastructures collapsed and the world descended into the Second Dark Ages. It lasted for 200 or so years until computers were rediscovered and employed to restore the world.”

  Darwin watched him through thin glasses.

  “No one likes a show off.”

  Bruce flashed a smile at him.

  “2110 was a cesspool,” Darwin said. “Worse than these so called dark ages.”

  “How can you say that? Except for the Mob, we’ve got it pretty good. I mean, relatively.”

  “Ha,” spat Darwin. “Relatively, now a man will kill you for a kilo of kelp to feed his family. When was the last time you went outside after dark? When you were a small boy? Younger?”

  “I don’t remember-” said Bruce.

  Darwin ignored him.

  “Then, men could farm their own land. Now, children go hungry in the street, men fight for no reason, no sanity. Only the wealthy can afford Suits to guard them.”

  Darwin moved under Bruce’s face, shaking a finger under his nose.

  “Relax Doc, you’ll blow a gasket.”

  Darwin took a deep breath and two steps back.

  “I have a program you could try,” Bruce offered. “It might take your mind off all this.”

  He waved his arm around the room.

  Darwin shook his head.

  “That’s the problem, I think. Too many people taking their mind off of it. Off of it all.”

  A shrill siren cut through the room. In the distance, a dull boom resounded. Bruce looked at Darwin with wide eyes.

  “Great! We missed curfew. Now we’re stuck here tonight.”

  The lights in the room dimmed as power was lowered to the building.

  “You know, I could have had a date tonight.”

  Darwin moved to a terminal and keyed in a sequence. The lights flickered and yellow globes slowly grew brighter in the four corners, casting a soft glow around the room.

  “Your virtual girlfriend will be there tomorrow, I’m sure.”

  “You’re on an independent power circuit,” accused Bruce with a laugh. “I bet your terminals stand alone too.”

  He quickly searched under the table, and held up a cable.

  “I thought so. Do you know how much trouble you could get in if they found this?”

  “They won’t find it,” Darwin said. He reached down, grabbed the cable and jerked it from Bruce’s hand. “What did your history tapes tell you of the Templars?”

  Bruce sulked against the table.

  “I don’t want to play this game, Doc. It’s bad enough I’m stuck here with you for the whole night. I don’t want to make a class of it.”

  “I’ll tell you then,” Darwin smiled quizzically. He picked up the completed gearbox and moved to a metal shelf next to Bruce. “It will make my work go faster.”

  “What’s that?” Bruce asked.

  Darwin lay on the floor and crawled under the shelf.

  “The Templars were around after a series of battles in the 11th Century called the Crusades. They disappeared in anonymity for hundreds of years, re emerging after the economic collapse in 2110.”

  Bruce scooted under the shelf next to Darwin, handing him tools without being told.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Did you know they traveled the world, trying to teach man the golden rule? Protecting. Serving.”

  “I know Conrad Pound founded the Troops on the philosophies of the Templars. Based on that, I don’t know how much they practiced the golden rule.”

  “Templars were great warriors who disavowed violence in search of peace and tried to teach it. They were strong, proud and fierce, the culmination of Ardai’s supermen,” Darwin said.

/>   Bruce noticed a shadow move across the window.

  “You think they can see the light?” he asked.

  Darwin rolled out from under the box and looked at the glass, wiping his greasy hands on his labcoat.

  “Surely not,” He motioned to the gearbox attached to the shelf. “Do you know what this is?”

  Bruce stood back and examined it a moment.

  “A new servo mech? A dishwasher.”

  Darwin tisk-tisked.

  “You are a very silly young man with no imagination. Why would I be talking to you about history and build a dishwasher?”

  “Because you have some weird disease and are slowly losing your mind,” Bruce offered.

  Darwin moved to the other side of the room and grabbed two cables. He dragged them back to the box, connected them to posts jutting out from either side.

  “You may be right. But I’m crazy to save this world. I have always had a vision that I would do something grand for humanity, but it never told me what. I tried it once and failed. Now, my reading has come to my rescue. Bruce, I give you a time distortion array.”

  “A what?” Bruce jumped to his feet and stood beside the Doctor.

  “A time machine. Observe,” Darwin pointed to the pipes overhead. “Note the wires entering the room? I’ve built an accentuation which collects the energy, channeling it into the box you were so kind to put together for me. It allows me to open a window and control it.”

  Bruce backed away from Darwin, reaching for a table for support.

  “Are you all right, Doc?” I mean, do I need to go get some help?”

  “I’m serious, my boy. I’ve tested the prototype. That’s how I got this Templar History.”

  He rambled over to the desk, Bruce scrambling out of his way as if to avoid a contagion. Darwin picked through the paper and debris that cluttered the top and held out an ancient bound book. Bruce gasped.

  “It's a book,” he whispered in awe.

  “Astonishing,” said Darwin. He held the book out to Bruce, who backpedaled away from it. “If your grasp of the obvious is so astounding, it's no wonder ageism offends you. I retrieved it last month. I’ve worked day and night since and expanded the prototype to incorporate something larger. Say the size of a Templar.”