Heavenfall: Genviants Book 1

Heavenfall

by TG Franklin

All rights reserved. No part of his book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is for reviewers who may quote short excerpts for reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

© TG Franklin 2013

for Daddy

CHAPTER ONE

Knoxville, TN

July 29, 2027

Mary lay still on the roof, stared into the night sky, and watched the ghost images from Palisade's energy web as they danced against the black backdrop of space. The gritty shingles scratched through her clothes, pulled at her hair, made her itch, but she embraced the discomfort and tried to remember the last time she'd been comfortable. Been more than just content to exist.

Not since the wave had been discovered. A raging wave of cosmic dust and debris that promised total annihilation of everything in its path.

Reporters, television evangelists, and scientists, they all delivered the same message: Heaven is falling. And, depending on the messenger, it was going to be in a fiery light show, with and/or without
the brimstone, or the wave was going to be so thick, so dense, it would completely block the sun, and the world would end in total darkness.

The world had almost ended when the wave was first discovered. People rioted, burned, looted, and killed indiscriminately until martial law broke up their end-of-the-world party.
Knoxville, Oak Ridge, and the surrounding areas were still a protected militarized zone. Marines guarded the laboratories in Oak Ridge that housed Palisade, a pseudo army guarded the wall, and Hadrian's security forces served as law enforcement for the cities.

She stood and again peered through her garage sale telescope. The one her dad had bought for her seventh grade science project, with its fraying duct tape and scratched lens.

Memories of her parents surfaced and smothered her in clouds of pain like the oily, black smoke of the lab explosion that had killed them a little over five years ago. So real it choked her until she couldn't breathe. Not rioters. Not the wave. They died in a stupid lab accident while working on some super secret technology for Palisade. For Hadrian.

Unshed tears burned her eyes, made it difficult to focus. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and peered through the lens past the energy web and on to the vast regions of space. Well, maybe not so far, but enough to know the wave wasn't going to hit in the next twenty-four hours. Soon though, if the predictions held. A couple of weeks, possibly sooner.

How long had it been? She left her perch on the roof and counted the rungs as years as she climbed down the ladder.  Seven, eight, nine years since one of Palisade's long range probes discovered the wave? And how long after the discovery did it take Palisade, and its proud owner, Hadrian, to announce the arrival of their new Sentinel web technology? Did it matter?

Not really. Nothing much did anymore. She'd be a little more skeptical if other space agencies hadn't confirmed the sighting, but they had, and she'd watched her world change. Sometimes in violent flashes, and other times like the muddy flow of the
Tennessee River.

She jumped the last few feet off the ladder and cut through the yard to the street. A cold, sharp wind sliced across the city, seemed to follow her, teasing up the hem of her jacket as she walked. A side effect of the web. Unprepared for the rapid change in
Knoxville's usual hot and humid July weather, Mary shivered inside her thin jacket. The beat up nylon material didn't do much to ward off the chill. She should've worn one of the hoodies, but walking alone into the city with a mech gang symbol on her back, along with the dragon skin tat covering her left eye and cheek, screamed trouble.

Without the hoodie, she risked being hassled, but it didn't happen much anymore. Occasionally, though, some idiot, usually a newbie in one of the other gangs, who didn't know she was Jonah's sister tried to rob her, or to corner her in an alley, and she kept a constant lookout for unwanted company. The last guy who'd made such a mistake had the biomechanical devices ripped out of his arms. The gangs instituted their own brand of justice
—swift, bloody, ugly, and nobody intervened. Even the city security forces looked the other way when the mech system of law leaked out of the shadows.

No streetlights burned in this sector of town, but she'd traveled the area enough to know the safest route. At the corner she turned left and navigated through the darkened paths. Before the discovery of the wave, and the riots, the neighborhood had been safe, quiet. Now, it stood slowly decaying into the fringes. Sticky weeds flourished, oozing a yellow fungus through the remains of crumbling sidewalks. The soles of her sneakers made a sucking sound with every step, and she tried not to imagine what other microscopic creatures grew in the muck. Some of the businesses on Broadway made an effort to control the infestation, but nothing short of napalm could kill it now.

Still, she preferred the night. The blanketing comfort. The never changing inkiness of it. The way her headaches subsided and changed from a raging monster determined to destroy her brain to a dull ache. Energy streams from Palisade's web skewed the natural order of the world. The clear, cerulean blue sky of her childhood had slowly morphed into a deep violet hosting magenta tinged clouds. And the light, or the type of energy, or a combination of the two affected some people, like her, and made their brains short circuit. After today's power boost, darker shades would dominate the day's atmosphere, and pain would darken her mind. But the night remained the same. Almost. If flecks of light from the energy web penetrated the darkness, it was easy to imagine them as stars.

Almost grudgingly she cleared the shadows, and it took a second for her eyes to adjust to the bright area around the checkpoint. Like some other sectors, downtown
Knoxville with its banks and government buildings was sealed off from the surrounding area by a wall. Per protocol, she stepped to the pedestrian entrance and placed her right palm on the scanner. The RFID chip embedded under the skin wasn't hers. Not originally. The Dragons had 'salvaged' it from some poor girl who half-blasted a few months ago and ended up in a church. The fake info, coupled with the tat, made Mary a little nervous every time she used the ident system to get into the city.

The scanner green-lighted. She turned her face away from the guards, even though they paid little attention to the fringers, and stepped into the Plexi-arch. A contained version of Palisade’s energy web covered both openings and trapped her inside while the body scan checked for weapons and contraband. The strings of energy buzzed in the night air. Made her skin tingle.

Or maybe it was the scan. The strands of light criss-crossing her midsection moved slower than normal, lingered, intensified. The guards pulled out their shock sticks and moved to stand on each side of the opening. What the hell?

The sweep finally finished with no alarms, and she took a deep breath of the cool air that rushed in as the web sizzled away.  Without so much as a glance at the guards, she continued through to the city.

She stopped in front of a sports bar, a relic with vid screens mounted on the walls for those who still cared about sports. Correction, sport. Football. And all those rules designed to protect the players? Helmet to helmet contact? Low hits? Chop blocks? Horse collars? Yeah, they didn't apply anymore. During martial law, the game mirrored the brutality of the society it entertained, and the spectators cheered the violence. Demanded more. Steroids kept the players on the field. Well, 'roids, women, and big piles of money.

In contrast to the brutality, a small screen in a back corner showed Brother Samuel's nightly devotion. Mandatory in public buildings, synced through the radio stations and the civil defense speakers on Sundays. His sermons ran more to a fiery death from sin than forgiveness. Religion wasn't her thing, but people looked up to the sky, one eye on the wave, the other on God, and repented. Started a revival, and prompted the president to appoint Brother Samuel as the country's spiritual leader Christmas day a year ago. Pissed off the
Vatican. Elated the protestants. Added to the violence.

She watched one large screen through the front window. A news segment from around the world. Riots, looting, and destruction had started up again in the major world cities. Seemed to happen about every three months or so. She tried to find some measure of sympathy for those people, but surprisingly found herself wishing she were in New York, or Chicago, or London. Living under the strictures of Hadrian's security forces wasn't any safer. Just a slower death. The scene cut away from the devastation and went to a shot of the
Atlantic Ocean with dire warnings for people to stay away from the coasts. The energy web played havoc with the tides and ravaged beaches.

Another skew.

Niko was waiting for her in an all night diner on the far end of Market Square. It made her a little nervous meeting him in such a public place, but she didn't have time to argue about the consequences. She'd swallowed the last of her supply this morning, and the pain made her take desperate chances.

With some relief, she spotted him as soon as she walked through the door. He sat in a stingy booth in the back of the restaurant nursing a glass of weak tea and barely glanced at her when she reached the table. "Lose the jacket, sweetheart. I wanna see your arms."

"C'mon Niko, you know I'm not mech."

Eyes sharp, he studied her beneath his lashes, but his posture stayed loose, and he gave her a lazy shrug. "Been a few weeks. Gotta make sure."

The windbreaker hit the cracked faux leather fabric of the seat a second before her butt landed beside it. "Satisfied?"

"Yeah. Order a sandwich and a drink. You need food with the pills. Those things will eat your stomach lining and leave you with an ulcer the size of
Texas."

He leaned across the table and took both her hands in his. Two little white tablets fell into her palm. "I know you won't wait. I see the pain in your eyes." He gave her an affectionate squeeze. "It makes what I have to tell you harder."

For the first time since she'd known Niko, he looked troubled, and it unnerved her. So much so, she didn't notice the waitress standing next to them.

The woman cleared her throat to get their attention and placed a glass of water on Mary's side of the table. "What'll you two lovebirds have?"

Embarrassed, Mary pulled her hands free, clutching the pills tight to keep them from scattering on the table, but Niko held the waitress's attention by flashing a smile and ordering for both of them. Thankful for the diversion, she pretended to stifle a yawn and palmed the pills into her mouth as the woman walked away.

After a quick sip of water, she turned her attention back to Niko. "What's the bad news?"

"Pass me your jacket under the table."

She didn't worry about anyone seeing the pass. They were pretty cramped into the small space, since the booth only boasted a tiny table and just enough room for two. But relief washed through her when the jacket was back at her side and no one sounded an alarm.

"What you got tonight is the last of my supply. Almost triple your norm."

Teeth clenched, she struggled to keep the panic out of her voice. "Niko, you know I can't afford that."

He held up a hand to stop her protest while the waitress set her drink on the table and walked back to the counter. "On the house, sweetheart. I like you." A genuine smile of affection transformed his features from the tough street dealer to almost boyishly handsome. In less than a heartbeat, though, the smile faded and his face took on the hard, edgy demeanor she was accustomed to seeing. He leaned across the table and cast a casual gaze around the restaurant, but she knew he looked for eavesdroppers. "I can't get any more. Nobody can. Line's too hot. Rumor is the government's sending in the cavalry. Anybody caught with A will go down hard. Palisade's losing too many controllers. Stim junkies are popping the things like candy. The blood thins, mixes with the biosynth fluid and messes up the hardware."

Before she could absorb the news, the waitress reappeared with their food. "Enjoy and let me know if I can get you anything else."

The bad news leeched her appetite, but under Niko's hard stare, she took a bite of the ham and cheese. "Are you sure? Aren't there other sources you can tap?"

He shook his head in response. "Every source I know is dry. Only got my hands on those 'cause I took the new gig." He took a bite of his hamburger, washed it down with the tea. "By the way, the pills? Special coated. They'll make it through the check point no problem. But keep it loose, 'cause mech security is crawling all over the place. Looking for someone."

Conscious of their surroundings, she held her fist against her thigh and dug her nails into her palm to keep from doing something stupid, like hitting the table or yelling. Anything that might draw suspicion. "Damn it, Niko. I need those pills. If your new associates can coat them, why can't they get them?"

"Dunno." His eyes narrowed. "And they aren't the kind of people who encourage questions."