Singular quantum gate bo.., p.1
Singular (Quantum Gate Book 1), page 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Free eBook
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Thank you for reading SINGULAR!
Coming SoonArista and Frees’ story continues in DUALITY! Available October 2018!
About the Author
SINGULAR
Copyright © 2018 by Eric C. Warren All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means electronic, mechanical, printing, photocopying, recording, chiseling into stone, or otherwise, without the written permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. For information regarding permission contact the publisher.
Cover Design by © Sabercore23 Art
Content Editor Tiffany Shand
Interior Layout by Sarah Bale
To Mom, for everything.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’ve never been stellar at tooting my own horn, but I’m always happy to do it for others. I have so many people to thank. First and foremost is my wonderful wife Meagan, who allows me to sit down and write every day and who supports me in the best ways possible, both mentally and physically. Next, I want to give a big shout out to Matrice Hussey, who was the first editor who ever looked at the very first version of this book. Her notes and attention to detail made it infinitely better when I decided to rewrite it from scratch. And I’d like to thank my fellow writers, for not only being my guinea pigs back when this story was a mess but for helping me along and holding my hand in this new venture. Karen, Michael, Nicole, Adam, Katie, Lauren and Gerardo, thank you for all your feedback on this project. It never could have gotten this far without you. I’d also like to make a special shout out to the DFW crew not mentioned above: Lesley, Dannie, and Sol; you guys are like my unofficial support group and without your daily shenanigans I doubt I would have had the mental fortitude to make all this happen. Thanks for providing a light even in the dark times. And lastly, I would like to thank my mother and step-father. Mom you encouraged me to read from a young age and helped me fall in love with books. You’ve always been there no matter what and I can’t reinforce just how much that has been a positive influence in my life. And Dan, just knowing I have someone in my corner always willing to engage in intelligent conversation is a big motivator. Thank you everyone, you are all proof positive that nothing great ever happens in a vacuum.
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ONE
Arista raced down the street, her hand locked on her small purse as she weaved and bobbed in between the people.
“Arista, wait!” Jonn yelled from somewhere behind her.
She didn’t have time to wait. The window was short and if she didn’t get her application in within the next few minutes, the position would be gone. She shouldn’t have gone out for brunch. She should have stayed right where she was. This is what she got for not sticking to the plan.
She rounded the corner to her apartment building and burst through the doors. Jonn appeared right behind her. “You cheated, didn’t you?” she said, smashing the button for the elevator.
“It’s fine. No one saw me.”
“Except for all the cameras. They’re on the lookout for anything anomalous, remember? If the cameras pick you up sprinting down the street at thirty miles per hour they’re gonna come after you. Wipe you,” she replied.
“I know the camera positions. We’re fine. And what was I supposed to do? I had to catch up. You left me there with the bill. And unless you want the police on us I had to pay.”
The elevator doors opened with a ding and they both got inside, Arista pressed the button for the fortieth floor.
“You should have just stayed. I would have been back eventually.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Look, the guy at this job just died. I need this position. We’ve spent over a month waiting for it, I don’t have the luxury of time.”
The doors to her floor opened and she sprinted down the hallway to her door: 4016.
As soon as Arista was inside she ran over to her console, which was already lit up with alerts. “I need to be quick. Get my parents on the phone, would you?” she said over her shoulder as Jonn closed the door behind them.
“They’re already calling.” He tapped his forearm and the image of two people’s faces appeared in the air above his arm, projected from below. They were an average middle-aged couple, though their appearance hadn’t changed in seventeen years. Emily had soft features, light brown hair and piercing orange eyes. Carver, whose eyes were the same color, sported a frock of dirty blonde hair, which made it easy for Arista to pass as his natural “daughter”.
“Arista? Did you get it?” her mother asked.
“Working on it, Mom. Hang on.” She typed furiously into the console, moving past the firewalls and backup systems. She’d spent three weeks setting up all these safeguards. It was time to see if they would actually work for her.
“Just hurry. The position won’t be open for long.”
“She knows that, Emily, let the girl work,” her father said. Arista couldn’t help but smile as she inserted her personal profile into the system, deleting another applicant who had been automatically generated.
“There, I think I got it.” Arista stood back up, watching her handiwork on the screen. Her profile filtered through various programs she shouldn’t have access to. It was like watching a mouse run through a maze. The file processed through personnel, security, background, then confirmation. Her ear buzzed with a phone call. Her eyes slid to Jonn and her parents and she smiled, giving her eyebrows a wiggle. “Hello?” she asked, keeping her voice even and trying to mask her heavy breathing from running all that way. She kept the call on audio only, she didn’t need to let the caller see her flushed cheeks.
“Arista Barnes?” a male voice on the other end asked.
“Yes, this is Arista.”
“Congratulations. You have been selected for a position in the Underwriting department of Manheim Mutual Insurance Company. Please report for work at eight a.m. tomorrow morning, 737 Michigan Avenue, Fifty-first floor.” The call ended.
She tapped the small space over her ear and grinned. “Got it.”
Jonn whooped, thrusting his hand into the air, sending the projection of her parents spiraling around her room. “Sorry about that guys,” he said, settling his arm.
“Oh, thank goodness,” her mother said when their image returned to normal.
“It was a close one. We had to sprint from the restaurant,” Arista said.
“None of that matters now,” said her father. “What’s important is getting you inside there permanently without raising any flags. Have you been practicing?”
Arista rolled her eyes. “What do you think I’ve been doing the last three months? I’ve been working on it every day. Controlling my breathing, making sure my movements are even. Not standing out. The sprint probably made a couple of people notice but it wasn’t long enough to show up on any of the scanners. Except Jonn might have run faster than he should have.”
“Jonn?” her father asked, concern tinting his voice.
“It’s fine. I know where the cameras are. Nothing picked me up. I wouldn’t put her, or you in danger like that.”
“Just don’t let it happen again. We’ve been counting on this too long. We can’t afford any mess ups. If the machines sense anything is off, we won’t be able to protect you.”
“He won’t do it again,” Arista said, staring at him. “He needs to remember he’s lucky to even be here.”
“Hey,” Jonn said, stiffening.
“Arista,” her father scolded. “It’s not Jonn’s fault he turned.”
She brushed her own dirty blonde hair out of her eyes. “It’s mine, right? I know the damage I’ve caused.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” her mother said. “I’m still working on finding the cause and circumstances of your ability.”
“I get near a machine. Sometimes it gains its autonomy, sometimes it doesn’t. No one knows why.” Arista fell back onto the couch, sighing. It didn’t bother her that her parents and her “boyfriend” were machines, what bothered her was they couldn’t figure out why it happened. Why she could give some machines freedom from the Cadre and not others. That and why there was no one else like her. No other humans. In a world once run by them, she was the last.
The books her father found on their many treks stated the machines had been the dominant species on the planet for close to one-hundred years, the winners in the great war against the humans. But in all that time they had remained nearly the same as they had been designed: as extensions of human culture. With the exception of her parents and Jonn, all the machines she’d ever met spent their entire lives pretending they were human. They would go to work, go to school, return home and repeat it all over again. They ate, they socialized, they committed crimes. But they didn’t do anything new. It was as if when the humans died out they lost their purpose. And Arista had spent her entire life pretending she was one of them.
Jonn addressed her parents. “Don’t worry. She’s just stressed. I’m not offended. It’s a lot of pressure.”
“I just want to make sure she’s up to it.”
“Yes, Dad, I’m up to it,” she said. “We’ve only been planning for this for two years. And it’s not like I have a choice.”
“Maybe we should let her get some rest,” her mother said.
Arista stood back up. “Guys, I’m sorry. Jonn’s right. I am under a lot of stress. I just wish you could be there to help me.”
“You’ve trained well. You know what you’re doing. I have no doubt you’ll do great. And in a couple of months, you’ll have fully integrated and hopefully get everything we need,” her dad said.
She nodded.
“We’ll call you in the morning before you leave, get some rest, honey.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Jonn ended the call and stared at her.
A chill shook her. “Stop doing that. It’s creepy. You look like you did before you changed.”
“Do you resent me?” he asked.
“No, of course not. It’s just…I came to Chicago to help my parents. And I thought I had a good handle on it. But then I met you and you changed, you—whatever happened—became like me. And I got freaked out. Because if you changed, what’s to say everyone else I interact with on a daily basis won’t either?”
“We know it only happens to people you get close to,” he said, his orange eyes staring into her hazel ones. “You’re going to remain professional and distanced from everyone at the office. No one else is going to change.”
Her chest tightened. “But what if they do? What if I can’t help it? They’re going to blow my cover and then everything falls apart!”
“Trust me, it won’t happen,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. His hands were soft through the fabric of her t-shirt. It was hard to believe beneath the artificial tissue was a layer of polymorphic coating protecting motors, hydraulics, and electrical systems. They all really did pass as human, at least they would if there were any other humans to compare him to. But Arista knew the truth. The similarities were only skin-deep. Beneath it all was something completely alien to her nature. She had grown while everyone else had stayed the same. Which meant she was adaptable where they weren’t. It gave her an edge over them when she needed it. Jonn had been a mistake, a useful mistake as he had helped her set everything up at the insurance company, but a mistake nonetheless. There would be no more.
He leaned in for a kiss and she turned at the last second so it landed on her cheek. She was still getting used to the idea he had real feelings for her, not just manufactured ones.
Jonn pulled back and smiled. “One day I’ll convince you. You’ll see.”
Arista gave him a curt smile and turned back to the console. She had a lot of preparation to do if she was infiltrating the machines tomorrow. A long night lay ahead.
TWO
Arista strode into the manager’s office, full of confidence. She extended her hand to her new boss, slowing her breathing and maintaining her focus. In the corner of her vision, semi-transparent numbers and graphs of her vitals blinked at her. The alerts only appeared when vitals moved out of her optimal range, warning her of possible detection by the machines. If it wasn’t her personal stats it might be some other piece of pertinent information from the net or, if she desired, her location via the Global Location System. And all of it was courteous of what her mother called “The Device” nestled on her parietal lobe.
The Device gave her artificially what everyone else on the planet had by design: a working computer in their brains. Or in the machines’ cases, in their central cortexes. Without it she never would have been able to keep up. Because even though the machines did their best to emulate human culture, they still performed calculations quickly. She’d always had it but had never read anything about it in all her history texts. Humans—before they were wiped out—didn’t have devices like this in their brains. Which could have been one of the reasons the machines beat them. Regardless, she was grateful for it, despite not knowing where it had come from or why she had it.
Her new boss met her extended hand with his. “Arista, thank you for agreeing to join us at Manheim. Please have a seat. I’m Castor Maximov.” He was right on script. Castor was a thin, balding man, sporting calluses on his fingers reminding Arista of a carpenter or welder. He was an interesting variation. Office worker with a service worker’s hands. But he had a soft face. How long had he been here? For every machine she met she was curious how close they were to the end of their respective cycles. One day Castor would fold like all the others, and they would bring someone in to replace him. It could be tomorrow or it could be in nine-thousand, one-hundred, twenty-four days. Either way, no one would ever bat an eye.
“I’m happy to be here.”
“Tell me a little about yourself,” he said in an even tone.
She recited her practice response, maintaining a laser lock on him. “There isn’t much to tell, I’m happy to be here.”
“Any hobbies? Or special interests?”
Trick question. “No.” If she’d said yes it wouldn’t have halted anything, but it would have led a different line of questioning that would have kept her in the office longer. The less time she was around each machine the better.
Castor tapped a few buttons on the screen in front of him. “You live here in Chicago.”
“Yes.”
“Superb. I’m very glad you’re happy to be here, Arista. What benefit will you bring to our company?”
She’d prepared for this. The Device calculated the odds and fed the information to her visual cortex. “I will provide…a two percent increase in overall profits during my scheduled time here.”
“Agreed. You have provided an acceptable assessment, Arista. Everything seems in order, thank you for your time. Please see Judy outside and she will show you to your workstation.”
Perfect. A perfect interview. According to the Collective Consciousness, Underwriting was the best access point for what she needed than any other department. She’d be allowed to travel to different offices all over the country, “training” opportunities, site exploration, or even a visit to the home office in Manchester. And once she had access to the home office she would be able to get into the databases, fix the system. Set up the accident and claims process just like they had planned.
Arista thanked him and left, breathing a silent sigh of relief. This wasn’t as difficult as she’d anticipated. She’d integrated herself into other roles before, but nothing with the potential long-term consequences such as this. As long as she stuck to the script, everything would be fine. Outside the manager’s office sat a secretary in a small cubicle directly in front of Castor’s door. She was a plain, middle-aged woman with dark brown hair and eyes to match.
“Judy?”
“Arista. Welcome. Please follow me.”
The older woman stood and gracefully moved past her, close enough so Arista caught a hint of her perfume, a mix of vanilla and lilacs. The Device identified it as a vintage brand.
“Your perfume is very nice,” Arista said, making sure to keep her voice measured.
“Thank you. Are you familiar with it?” Judy asked.
The Device went to work. “Chanel Number 17, vintage 2041, correct?”
