Fire of the Dark Triad (eBook)

Asya Semenovich (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
326 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-6546-2 (ISBN)

Infos

'Fire of the Dark Triad' is a dark and compelling futurist tale of power lust, betrayal, and obsession. The Dark Triads, a malevolent group of humans born with DNA that makes them dangerous have wreaked havoc on Earth for centuries and nearly destroyed it. Its rulers tried to purify humans by removing these genes from future generations. But the civilization faltered without the creative fire of the Dark Triads. Earth recruited an elite group known as Headhunters to recruit Dark Triads from its intergalactic colonies back to Earth. Nick, the best of the Headhunters, on a routine mission, becomes entangled with a secret conspiracy that could change the human race forever. As fighting forces on two planets, he risks his life to prevent disaster and save the woman he loves.

---

"e;Fire of the Dark Triad"e; is a dark and compelling futurist tale of power lust, betrayal, and obsession. The Dark Triads, a malevolent group of humans born with DNA that makes them dangerous have wreaked havoc on Earth for centuries and nearly destroyed it. Its rulers tried to purify humans by removing these genes from future generations. But the civilization faltered without the creative fire of the Dark Triads. Earth recruited an elite group known as Headhunters to recruit Dark Triads from its intergalactic colonies back to Earth. Nick, the best of the Headhunters, on a routine mission, becomes entangled with a secret conspiracy that could change the human race forever. As fighting forces on two planets, he risks his life to prevent disaster and save the woman he loves. Earth was in a crisis. Despite its highly advanced technology, the planet was dying from pollution, overpopulation, and constant wars. Its only hope was mass migration to the newly discovered system of replica planets known as Mirror Worlds. Hundreds of millions of settlers were dispatched to colonize these worlds under Earth's global authority. Earth renewed itself but allowed the colonized planets to fall into neglect. They rebelled and sent a devasting pandemic virus back to Earth, destroying over one-third of the population. After finding a cure and defeating the terrorists, Earth realized that this problem was caused by Dark Triads. Despite the chaos they brought, civilization and technology stagnated without their creativity and innovation. In this unforgettable novel, Nick (the best Head) falls for Lita, a woman who rebels against the planetary rulers and becomes embroiled in an interplanetary plot that could jeopardize the future of humanity. Using his Dark Triad skills, he must fight against the conspiracy and save Lita.

Textauszug

Earth

I woke up drenched in a cold sweat. It took a moment before my heart began to slow down, and the familiar sight of the navigation room pushed the nightmare from my head. I rolled out of the pilot chair and fought an irrational desire to turn on all the internal lights.

“Kir,” I asked, “did you wake me up?”

“Your level of adrenaline was nearing the threshold. Besides, we’re entering Earth’s orbit.”

Our psychologists advised against cultivating a personal relationship with an implanted chip, but it was very reassuring to hear Kir’s voice.

Earth guard systems requested identification, the usual procedure for everyone coming from the Mirror Spaces, and I initiated the arrival protocol.

“Nick,” said Kir almost immediately, “we can’t land. The Cyber Safety Department has turned on a Red Alert for all ships arriving from Earth3, citing cyber-implant contamination. We’re told to dock in the quarantine area.” He paused for a second and added, “Nick, I’m positive that my systems are clean.”

Of course, they were, I thought. I didn’t believe for a moment that this check was related to contamination. It would be too much of a coincidence, and I didn’t believe in coincidences anymore. It was an information leak that certain people were trying to stop, that much was certain.

The border control cruiser escorted my ship to the quarantine hangar entrance – standard procedure in cases of suspected contamination, even if it felt somewhat menacing. Nothing personal … but I didn’t even try to pretend that it was true. The gates closed, and I surveyed the interior of a huge holding area, letting Kir deal with the landing.

All the other parking spaces were empty; and the only person inside was a woman in a Cyber Safety uniform. Kir opened the hatch. I stepped out and waved at her as I walked down the stairs.

She addressed me from several steps away, “Welcome to Earth. We apologize for the unfortunate delay and will send you on your way as soon as possible. Can you please grant us permission to run diagnostic software on your cyber-implant?”

Another standard procedure for cases of suspected contamination, I thought.

“No problem,” I said giving her my most charismatic smile. “How long will this take?”

She stopped and looked at me with the cold resolute eyes of an interrogator. How unusual for friendly Cyber Safety personnel, I noted. Except that she most likely wasn’t from Cyber Safety and didn’t care about appearing nice. She was testing me: citizens with nothing to hide wouldn’t pay attention, people trying to smuggle critical information might get nervous.

“We cannot provide an exact estimate at this moment, but we’ll make sure that you’re comfortable during your wait,” she said, smiling tightly.

I told Kir to allow all cyber safety access. She nodded in acknowledgment, and gestured for me to follow. We passed through the metal gate to an internal corridor and entered a room that was decorated pleasantly enough, but nevertheless lacked a certain touch of care with which Earth usually treated her citizens. They didn’t even bother to imitate natural light.

I sat down in the only chair, which felt pristinely unused. Cyber contamination protocol hadn’t been invoked for a very long time.

I wasn’t surprised when Kir turned on a widespread security breach warning. They went beyond running diagnostic software – so much for standard procedure. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe in coincidences, and my connection to the stolen information was obvious.

Let them look, I thought. They wouldn’t find anything. It would be a big overstatement to say that the situation was under control, but things were going as planned, at least for the time being. As for the delay – I still had several hours before the timing would become truly critical. I praised myself for such rational and restrained thinking.

According to quarantine rules, I had to use their proxy to contact Earth. Not that it mattered, since Kir’s communications were under surveillance anyway.

I took a deep breath, preparing for the conversation, which would determine if my plan had any chance to work.

“Kir, request a connection to Hilgor,” I said finally. Listening to the gentle sound of the outgoing ring I silently begged for Hilgor not to reject my call. The truth was that I would most definitely get killed in the very near future if he wouldn’t take my call now. And incidentally, my life wasn’t even the highest stake in my game.

°°°

A young man, Hilgor, a recent transplant from a Mirror World, was standing at his window wall looking out onto a multileveled flow of traffic connecting skyscraping sectors of the great city of Berlin. He seemed to be deeply immersed in his thoughts when a sudden shift in the building brought the sunlight directly into his eyes. “Damn it,” he said, shielding his face with his hand.

A large dog in the middle of the room stretched, sighed and turned onto his back, his shiny fur looking particularly black on the pristinely white surface of the floor.

“Damn these narcissistic buildings, Riph,” repeated the man stepping away from the window. “I get they desire to look their best, but what about me?”

The dog ignored the question and went back to sleep. He didn’t have a problem with tower behavior unlike his master who sounded mildly annoyed. Architects programmed skyscrapers to periodically change shape in order to achieve their best appearance under different light conditions. None of the modern windows had the ability to block the sun, however. Generations of Commonwealth’s people had received retinal filters and self-protecting skin as a part of their standard birth package, so the brightness regulators had been redundant for some centuries now. But the man wasn’t born here. In fact, he arrived to Earth only three months ago, and, in spite of the best efforts of his hosts, minor issues like this kept popping up in his day-to-day experiences. The external walls of his apartment needed to be replaced with some transparent photochromic material, but he kept forgetting to order it.

Of course, it was Hilgor’s own decision to refuse implanting any hardware upon arrival to Earth. Instead, he wore the assistant chip on his wristband, and his residence and his flyer had to be rigged with custom devices, but he preferred to deal with the corresponding inconveniences.

He walked to the corner, which remained in the shade regardless of the building’s orientation, and sat down in a shabby-looking armchair, blatantly contrasting with the sleekness of the overall room design, and refocused on the conjecture he had been trying to prove.

“Hilgor,” said the chip through the surrounding audio speakers, “you have an emergency call from Orbit. Nick is online. Would you like to accept?”

The man abruptly got up, and his expression quickly went through the degrees of surprise and hesitation.

“Fine,” he said finally, “two-way audio.”

He didn’t have implanted optical displays, and he didn’t feel like searching the apartment for his goggles, which made up for this disability. But most importantly, it was easier to control his voice than his facial expressions. He wanted to hide his bitterness.

A soft chime signaled the beginning of the open connection, and then a familiar voice came from the room speakers.

“Good evening, Hilgor. How’s life?” Nick sounded perfectly casual, as if they had parted just yesterday. “Listen, sorry for disappearing – I have been extremely busy recently. I had to leave Earth for a while.”

“Busy?” asked Hilgor. “What do you mean – busy? How is …”

“I’ll tell you everything,” said Nick quickly. “But can we talk face to face? It’s important.”

Hilgor had to admit that he was rather keen to finally find out how Nick’s extraordinary story ended. His pride briefly fought with his curiosity, and then he replied in a similarly casual tone.

“Sounds good, Nick. I will send you the meeting location. When do you want to meet?”

“The sooner the better,” said Nick, and Hilgor picked up on a note of relief in his voice. “I just need to go through a couple of things on Orbit before I can land, but it shouldn’t take long.”

“How about if I go now, and you join me when you can?” asked Hilgor. He knew that his work session had ended anyway – it would have taken much less than Nick’s sudden reappearance to forget about mathematics.

“See you soon, Hilgor. And thank you.”

The chime announced the end of the connection, and Hilgor approached the sleeping dog.

“Wake up, Riph, and let’s go. We’re meeting Nick tonight,” he said and headed to the door.

Hilgor decided to go to their meeting place on foot. It would take Nick some time to get to the city even if he landed right away, so there was no rush. In general, Hilgor preferred walking over taking a flyer unless he was in a hurry, and not just for Riph’s sake. After three months,...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.7.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-6546-1 / 1098365461
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-6546-2 / 9781098365462