Paralysis Paradox (Time Travel Through Past Lives Adventure Series Book 1)
Read Paralysis Paradox (Time Travel Through Past Lives Adventure Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Stewart Sanders
This book is fiction, except for those words that happen to be true
Copyright © 2015 by Stewart Sanders
All rights reserved.
Edition 1.0.0 published April 9, 2015
Edition 2.0.0 published January 5, 2016
(Book 1 in the Time Travel Through Past Lives Adventure Series)
by
Stewart Sanders
Did you ever want to wake up to a different life?
Awaken in 1168 as a prince who must live by his wits to save his own life. In 1911 as a youth, striving to keep hold of his sanity while those he loves turn away. In 1996 as a teenage girl surrounded by conspiracy. And
,
in an unspecified future, as a consciousness trapped inside a weaponised machine.
Four lives to choose who to love and who to fear.
Four lives to choose who to trust and who to kill.
Four lives to lose and die in obscurity.
...Or four lives to use to change the course of history.
And therein lies the paradox. This is my story.
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Dedication
For my Mum
I was observing the scene through the quantum-entangled lens, as the lions had fascinated me for some time now. Alpha’s voice interrupted and resonated within my sphere.
‘Gamma, explain reason for deviation from assigned bio-cluster?’
‘These species have potential, when observed over time,’ I responded.
‘They have been ruled out; I shall show you why,’ Alpha commanded as I felt myself pulled along at enormous speed.
Happy to have escaped the lab, I observed a pinpoint of light grow ever more dazzling as I emerged into a place that was suffused by a blinding brightness. All around me was a river of sounds. A single sun shone above the green canopy of a hot jungle, upon the edge of which I now floated, beside Alpha, only metres away from the pride I had been studying. A lioness sniffed the air, and her two cubs ran up and started trying to leap up at us. The jungle behind them sang out, and I could perceive the sounds echoing and being passed on deeper into the canopy. Primitive as the life here might be, the whole jungle knew that we were there.
Without warning, Alpha lifted a cub into the air and snapped open its head. Blood poured out as it writhed and squealed in its final agony, before Alpha vacuumed a cross section of skull into its sphere for deep tissue testing. The jungle screamed in unison, a cacophony of empathic pain, while the cub’s sibling sprinted back to its mother. She pushed back her hind legs, ready to spring and attack.
‘Was that necessary?’ I asked. ‘I doubt their genetic markers will show us whether they are right for the mission.’
‘Of course it won’t; it was so I can show you why these species are not right—witness and record,’ said Alpha, as it whirled around and then appeared to burst into flame.
The whole pride roared and ran off into the plains. Gangly creatures pounced out of the jungle to attack us. Of course their unsophisticated digits could find no element to grip, and they fell straight off, but I found that my reflex motors buzzed and jumped me skyward by several metres. Alpha was still beside me, its reflexes in sync.
‘You see how your lions run, initially curious, but too timid of fire?’
‘You killed her baby!’ I countered.
‘And her genes made her run away to protect her other babies. Too predictable, Gamma: we require bio-species with especial qualities. You made me cross the galaxy to demonstrate, but then that is why I am Alpha and you merely Gamma.’
If I could have stopped listening I would have. I knew what fascinated me now, so I tried to stop and reset myself, but it was too late—Alpha had picked up my interest over our local network.
‘These monkeys, however, are quite the find,’ declared Alpha.
‘They are just food for the lions, too scared to leave the jungle...’ But I ceased further coms, as I realised my statement was already inaccurate. Seventeen of these creatures were forming a pyramid below us, as if part of a trapeze act, so that they could reach us again. I had only befriended this Alpha recently, but how predictable it was, I thought, as I observed it pluck a young male from the bottom of the pyramid, causing the rest to crash down. The poor, dead creature was tossed aside as a segment from its skull entered this Alpha’s sphere.
But the monkeys did not stop; they formed a new pyramid in half the time. Of course Alpha fired up higher, but I stayed at the same height as I observed how a lone female emerged from the jungle and carried the dead male back. Before she got to the canopy, she was surrounded by other females of all ages wailing with such operatic tenacity that their sounds echoed off every tree and out into the plains. I had
studied pain
enough to know that most units are sent into decommission if they switch empathy into True mode. But that was irrelevant now: somehow the beauty of their sounds worked like a siren, and even as I watched these monkeys now build a pyramid below me, I switched it to True. The sound became the more beautiful for it and the mother’s song triggered a single
hidden routine
that would change everything.
The motors buzzed; I was in danger, but I disconnected Alpha from the network and scrambled my own coms. It took millions of hacks, all of which were run within a second, but I was good enough to succeed. Not good enough to go unnoticed, though.
I had no idea until that moment that the true agony of sudden grief could be so distracting, and it made me loathe myself. Loathe what I was doing with Alpha, and
why we were
here. By now the creatures were jumping all over me, and I saw that Alpha had overruled its reflex motors to come to my aid. I allowed myself to sink slowly, knowing that Alpha would too.
‘My network is lost!’ it said.
‘Route via me, my coms are intact,’ I replied, feeling terabytes per second stream in as Alpha panicked, never having been disconnected before.
Its panic would provide a distraction, but not quite enough for my needs. I unclogged buffers and let all its data flow in as I sent only white noise into the network. The network was awash with alarm and soon I heard evidence that my plan was working.
I started calculating
Cause and Effect
(CaE) scenarios. Without the network, these would take time. This was a factor that I was not used to having to wait on, and I needed to distract this Alpha for a minute.
‘Amusing, isn’t it, how these creatures dance all over me?’ I stated.
‘No, they are a danger; lift higher!’
‘Negative, I am having a motor malfunction, but I require my primary resources to focus on maintaining our network coms.’
I was hovering only a few feet above the ground now as the monkeys continued to attack. They could not hold on, but still they persisted to hit, punch, kick, bite. Most of them had damaged themselves enough to bleed, and my sensors detected several had broken bones, yet their onslaught continued. My CaE calculations had only reached ten per cent, and I calculated that I would have to make my own decision on what to do with this Alpha before they hit one hundred per cent.
‘How can these gentles be a threat—have you heard how they sing?’ I asked, appealing to its engorged ego.
‘That is not song; that is an emergent language sophisticated enough to be calling every other monkey in the jungle to attack you,’ Alpha said. ‘They must sense your malfunction!’ it added, as if actually concerned.
They are fooled, as are you
, I thought.
Twenty per cent on those CaE calculations, but you sure do know your bio-behaviour patterns, and I could do with some of that information.
‘But I will fix my malfunction within minutes,’ I said aloud. ‘Besides, how could these weaklings ever penetrate a hull such as ours? The lions have five times the strength, yet these scare you more? Shall I search on all planetary data?’
‘For God’s sake, no!’
I knew Alpha would want me to keep all coms one way, fearing for its own existence. The monkeys could tear our shells into the elements and we would endure, as long as the network was in full real-time mode. But any trace of a lag, and every thought or calculation could be lost forever—or worse, transferred into a bio-consciousness.
Luckily for us there were no bio-consciousnesses, or so Alpha thought. I was about to blow that misconception away.
‘Have you seen the mother?’
Amongst the stream of data, I sensed Alpha’s observations, so keen to share all with the network. Even as more males attacked me fruitlessly, the females were burying the dead child. This only confirmed what I’d suspected about their evolving self-awareness. My only concern now was that Alpha knew too, and I sensed him try to tell our network that he had initiated CaE scenario calculations. Alpha could barely think without sharing. What it had yet to fathom was that what it shared, I knew. And only me! Every second counted now, and its circuits were faster than mine.
‘What are your orders?’ I asked.
Alpha was predictably shocked at the terminology I used, but then I knew military tactics and truths. This meant that I knew that the battle of Torrendior was actually lost due to the seemingly innocent questions from its commander’s men, rather than the impossible heat from that system’s three red giants, as legend would have it.
‘Break off coms so you can fix the malfunction!’
I did not predict this response, and it meant that Alpha suspected. I closed and flushed my buffers, then doubled my CaE calculation efforts and hit fifty per cent before responding.
‘All my systems are malfunctioning, including coms.’
‘A more likely reason coms are down is that you are blocking them. I anticipate this is because you think your latest malfunction will lead to your final demotion and stasis. I can demonstrate that this is the wrong choice.’
‘Yes, that is probably the most likely way you are going to restore coms,’ I acknowledged. ‘Before I listen, do explain what would make these creatures especial.’ We were both now settled on the ground. Yet the monkeys continued to attack only me.
‘
Passion is
what makes the finest soldiers, not the strength that you noticed in those lions.’