The Legend of Things Past (Beyond Pluto SciFi Futuristic Aventures Book 1) (2 page)

The General nodded and turned away. His driver opened the
skycar door for him. Just before he got in, the General turned around.

“Knight?”

“Yes, sir?”

The General wore a strange expression. It was so different
from anything Donovan had ever seen on that face that he couldn’t place the
emotion behind it.

“Take care of yourself.”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

Donovan’s skycycle came to fetch him only five minutes after
the General and other soldiers had left the scene. It came to a gentle stop
next to him, hovering six inches over the sidewalk—at the perfect height for
Donovan to mount. He straddled the sleek machine, ignoring the stares of
passerby. The blue lights emitting from its bottom flared almost white as he
put on a burst of speed that took him into the air.

He stayed close to the ground on the way home, about ten
feet up, to avoid the icy cold that came with higher altitudes. Adrenaline had
kept him warm earlier, but now he would freeze up there. He connected his skycycle’s
system to the link rail that travelled between the two cities. It was nothing
more than a fat blue strip that ran from one place to the next, about twenty
feet wide. It was like a small runway that glowed in the dark—the only human
technology you would ever find out here. The skycycle steered itself, following
the signal of the strip, leaving Donovan’s mind free to roam.

He thought about his wife, Nona, her sleeping form awaiting
him in the darkness of their room. There was a pleasant anticipation at the
thought of a hot shower and then sliding into bed next to her warmth. She would
stir from her sleep, the silky nightgown rustling under the sheets, then turn
to him, kiss his lips, and drift back off to her dream.

It always happened that way. Donovan felt comforted by that
certainty, that routine. The rest of the world was never that stable, that
predictable. His job was to throw himself into chaos and somehow bring order.
But with Nona, the order was already there.

When he neared his high-rise apartment, he elevated his
height to two hundred feet, shivering as the temperature dropped. The smooth
surface of the skyscraper opened up at the click of a button on his watch
revealing a large garage with two skycars—one, a 2256 Convertible Chevy
Corvette, the other a 2250 SUV Lexus RX. He glided inside the garage and
lowered the skycycle onto the ground between the cars. The garage door closed
behind him.

He entered the house stealthily, trying not to make too much
noise. The place seemed to echo twice as much now that the kids were gone. He
crept into the master bedroom and was startled to see his wife wide awake,
reading a book by candlelight.

Her mahogany skin shone in the glow of the small fire. Her long
black hair was pulled into a messy bun. She wore a very concentrated look that
he loved, as if the thing she read had completely entranced her intellect.

“Hey,” he said.

She looked up at him and smiled, full lips revealing small,
white teeth. “Hey. Catch the bad guys?”

Donovan smiled. “I always do. What are you doing up so
late?”

“Research for the Extinct Species Revival Project.”

Donovan went into the bathroom and started stripping off his
bloody, sweaty clothes. It was a testament to how long they had been together
that Nona didn’t flinch at the sight of blood on his shirt.

“I thought you were done with that,” he said through the
door.

“I was, but the board decided that they need a little more
information on a few of the species before we could continue.”

Donovan turned on the hot water in the shower. “Don’t stay
up too late.”

“Okay, Dad,” his wife’s voice sung out. “I’m almost done.”

Donovan spent a long time under the water, letting the heat
sink into his aching bones. By the time he was ready for bed, Nona was sound
asleep, the book sitting in her lap and her head leaning awkwardly against the
headboard. He smirked.

He was glad that he would be stationed in Santa Monica for a
while—the city had been his home for a long time. Plus, he missed his wife when
he was called away. He had used his favorable position with the General to
allow him to live in his apartment instead of the temporary headquarters. He
left his First Lieutenant in charge.

He shook Nona gently and urged her to lay down. She barely
opened her eyes as she responded. She curled up and was asleep again within
seconds. He watched her face for a moment and noticed dark circles forming
under her eyes. He would have to keep an eye on her—make sure she didn’t work
herself to sickness.

She was so dedicated to her job she could easily stay awake
for seventy-two hours straight working on some project. Once she got started,
it was difficult to pull her away. He had much the same disposition. It was
probably how they had managed to stay together all these years—they had started
and they would finish.

Donovan stroked Nona’s hair, her forehead. He kissed her
cheek and joined her in bed. As much as he desired to be connected with the
moist warmth of her body, he was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

“Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction,
but Einstein’s general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we
could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before
you set out.”

—Stephen
Hawking

May 4, 2258

Santa Monica, CA

Donovan Knight

Donovan always rose with the sun. Even when he wanted to
sleep in, long habit forced his body into wakefulness. He left the cozy comfort
of the bed without disturbing Nona and cooked breakfast.

She emerged from the room thirty minutes later, yawning and
carrying a stack of papers. The night gown hugged her curvy shape.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“Have to work on this report. The Board wants to push it
through by Friday.”

Donovan looked at her for a moment. Her eyes were bloodshot.
Her face seemed almost shrunken. He hadn’t noticed it last night. “Well, don’t
work too hard. You look like you’re getting sick.”

“I am,” Nona said. “iMed detected a virus three days ago. I
took some immunity boosters, but they haven’t helped much. Just have to get
over it the old-fashioned way.”

His wife leaned toward him across the breakfast bar. “You
make any for me?” she said, nodding toward the omelet on his plate.

He smiled and pulled out more ingredients. “Of course.” He
slid his plate across the counter. “For you.”

She smiled that cute smile of hers—the one that was a faint
turning up of the corners of her mouth, showing only a few teeth. The smile was
mostly in her eyes.

She ate the omelet in large bites while Donovan began making
another one. Nona never pretended to be a genteel woman.

“How do you even fit all that inside you?” Donovan asked,
not for the first time. It was something he always teased her about. She was
average height and had arcs in her body, but she was thin.

“I have to keep up with my metabolism.” She patted her
stomach. “If I don’t feed the monster I get in trouble.”

“Yeah, so do I.”

Nona was notoriously grouchy when she was hungry.

She laughed and held out her empty plate. “Another one,
please.”

Donovan slid the freshly made omelet to her. She dove right
in. He started the process a third time, hoping he’d actually get to eat the
result.

After breakfast, his wife dressed and left for her
department’s lab and library suite. She spent most of her time there, doing
research and bringing the fossilized genes of extinct animals back to life. She
would be exploring the DNA of a zebra today. It was once classified as an Equus
and belonged to the Equidae family, she’d said. Donovan had seen pictures and
footage of the animals. The images were so clear that it was hard to believe
that they no longer existed.

Nona obsessed over bringing animals like the zebra back to
earth. Donovan thought that was another reason they had stayed married—they
were both driven by a desire to right the world, only Donovan wasn’t sure he
did as good a job as she.

Donovan went through his morning workout and shower and took
his skycar to the Saint John’s Providence Hospital. The twenty story building
was located at the center of town, easily accessible from all parts of the city—not
that it was ever much needed. The iMed App that came preinstalled on most Liao
Inserts these days prevented the majority of illnesses through early detection.
Donovan was a part of the dwindling group of people who refused to undergo the
minor surgery for a Liao Insert. Yes, it was convenient to have information and
connectivity literally at your fingertips, but Inserts were far too invasive
for Donovan—even with the medical benefits. He’d rather just use a watch and
make regular visits to the doctor.

Donovan entered the parking structure at the very top of the
building, parked, and descended to the fifteenth floor. Inside room 1508, a
permanent lodging, he found his grandfather staring blankly at the TV. A little
bit of drool slid down his chin as the news anchor chattered at him.

Donovan rushed to wipe the spit from his grandfather’s face
with a piece of tissue from the bathroom. Even with the best care in the world,
Donovan still felt that his grandfather wasn’t getting enough attention.

Tobias Knight was a world-renowned scientist—the inventor of
teleportation and the man who had discovered dozens of planets with his space
probes. Donovan knew, unlike most people, that he had also invented a time machine—he
just hadn’t found a substance powerful enough to sustain it. His grandfather
knew everything about everything. Physics and astronomy were his specialties,
but his grandfather was well versed in biology, chemistry, and geology, too.

It somehow disturbed Donovan to see Tobias’s dignity smeared
by a line of drool. It was so frustrating. He knew that his grandfather would
be able to solve the mystery of his illness. But, of course, if he could do
that, he wouldn’t be sick in the first place. His mind had slowly deteriorated with
no apparent cause. He had lost his presence of mind, becoming more and more
confused over time. He would wake up and not know his own name or his wife’s
name or Donovan’s name. He wouldn’t recognize his grandchildren. He would think
he was in a different time—in the past, in his childhood.

Those were the worst times to be around him. When he thought
he was a child again. Donovan could hardly imagine all of the horrors his
grandfather had seen. Tobias had told him stories of the gruesome events of his
youth but never in full detail. When his grandfather had screamed like that, it
sent chills down his spine, leaving his imagination to spin out of control. What
was it that he was reliving?

That had been a long time ago. Now, sitting beside this
vacant, staring figure, Donovan almost wished the screaming would happen again,
if only to show that there was actually someone
there
, inside the body. They
had thought it was Alzheimer’s, an easily cured disease. It would have taken
one shot of serum and he would have been fine.

But that wasn’t it. All of the tests came back negative. Tobias
Knight had a normal, healthy brain. They could only guess that his illness was
completely psychological.

“Grandpa,” Donovan said, holding the man’s hand tightly in
his own. He waited for some kind of response, knowing that he would get nothing.
He could just feel the Insert that the doctors had installed in Tobias’s hand—it
did nothing to help his condition.

Tobias used to be a tall man with broad shoulders. Donovan
had once thought that his grandfather looked a lot like an older version of
himself. Today, Tobias looked like a dying version of himself—the skin under
his eyes drooped down his cheeks and his soul seemed to have made an escape
through the unblinking eyes.

Donovan shook the thought from his head. His grandfather
wasn’t dying. His body was in perfect health aside from the slow deterioration
of his skin and muscles. If only Donovan could figure out what was wrong with
him, what had driven him into this state of psychosis. But he wasn’t the great
genius that Tobias was. The world didn’t know
him
as the smartest man
since Steven Hawking.

“Tobias Knight,” Donovan said. There wasn’t even a flicker
of a response in his grandfather’s eyes, but he kept going, “My father was
named after you. He wanted to name me after you, too—Tobias Knight the Third.”

Donovan let go of his grandfather’s hand and leaned back in
his chair, staring at the empty face as he spoke, watching, as always, for some
sign of recognition, knowing by now that it was highly unlikely. But he had to
keep trying.

“I thank God to this day that my mom had the sense not to
let that happen.” Donovan chuckled. “Do you remember when you first started to
teach me chemistry? I think I was six.”

Donovan couldn’t remember his age at the time, but he
recalled the lessons almost perfectly. His grandfather had already become world-renowned
and he wanted to share his knowledge with all of his children and grandchildren.

Tobias had given up on Donovan’s father long ago. Tobias Jr.
had chosen to go into the military and become a weapons expert. It was what
killed him in the end. And Donovan’s mother, too. She died of grief a year
later. Donovan had been nine years old.

After their deaths, he went to live with Tobias for good. Donovan
had lapped up his grandfather’s lessons. Once, in Tobias’s private lab, when he
was teaching Donovan about the complicated theories of teleportation, Donovan
became frustrated with what seemed impossible for his brain to absorb.

“I can’t learn this,” he’d said, throwing his pencil onto
the counter. “It’s too hard. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Of course it does, boy. I learned it and so can you.”

“I’m not like you. I’m not as smart.” The young Donovan had stared
gloomily at his notebook, refusing to look back up at the e-board. The symbols
danced in his head, taunting him—never seeming to stay in the same place or to
mean the same thing. One day, his grandfather would tell him how important
gravity was and the next he would dismiss it altogether as a “weak” force.

“You have my genes,” Tobias said, straightening his spine.
Donovan could feel his grandfather’s intelligent eyes drilling into him. Out of
the corner of his eye, he saw Tobias turn back to the e-board. “Of course
you’re just as smart. You’re just not trying hard enough.”

“But I
am
trying.” Donovan watched his grandfather
hold the e-pen parallel to the e-board, about three inches away, and move it in
broad strokes, erasing the equations and Greek letters.

His grandfather sighed and sat down on one of the stools in
the lab. The place never seemed to be empty of stools. They were everywhere.
Sleek, silver, and very uncomfortable.

“Donovan,” Tobias said.

The tone of his voice forced Donovan to look at him.

“I know it’s difficult,” he said. It was the gentlest he had
ever seen his grandfather look. “You’re young. But you are smart. You
can
understand this. Just give it time.”

Donovan nodded, feeling a little less glum.

“Why is it so important to you that I learn all this stuff?”

His grandfather shifted back on his stool, leaning against
the wall. “Well,” he said, “to me, science is…” He searched for the right
words, then shrugged. “Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
from magic.’ Do you know who said that?”

Donovan shook his head.

“Arthur C. Clark.” His grandfather smiled. “He wasn’t a
scientist, but he got it just right. Science is like magic. If you push hard
enough, explore deep enough, you can produce amazing things. I want to share
that joy with you. The joy of giving birth to something new and beautiful.”

Donovan tried his hardest at science from that point
forward. He never complained again. He became the perfect student, learning in
leaps and bounds. He saw the magic that his grandfather had described, but he
couldn’t feel it. Donovan had really enjoyed the sciences, especially physics,
but they didn’t invoke the same passion in him as in his grandfather.

Donovan was a mover not a thinker. Sure, he was smart—really
smart—but his joy came from action, from
doing
something.

“That’s why I joined the military, like my dad,” Donovan
said, coming back from the reminiscence. “I didn’t want to disappoint you—it’s
just what I was made for. Like you were made for science.”

Donovan stared at the immobile figure before him, wondering
where all that intelligence had gone, all that passion. Tobias Knight had to be
in there somewhere. He just wished there were a way for him to find out where.

Donovan rose from the hospital chair. He didn’t want to go
down that line of thought again. It would drive him crazy. He kissed his
grandfather on the forehead and left the room.

He stopped by the nurse’s station before he left, reminding
them that his grandfather needed the greatest attention and care. The oldest
nurse, a short, stout woman, assured him that Tobias was being given the
highest quality help. She said it in that way that some doctors and nurses
tended to—like you weren’t intelligent enough to understand the intricacies of
the medical world. “We’re all very busy,” her look seemed to say. “Your
grandfather isn’t the only patient in this hospital—isn’t the only one
deserving of help.”

As soon as Donovan stepped into the parking garage, two
uniformed men approached him. He identified them as being with the military—the
Army and Space Force. He could tell by the four vertical gold stripes across
the right shoulder of their navy blue uniforms. One of the men was black and
bald with a round face. The other, of Hispanic descent, had short cropped,
black hair.

Instantly, Donovan was worried. They never just showed up
unless something extreme had happened. Was it Nona? Was it one of the kids?

“Mr. Knight,” the black man said, “your presence is needed
immediately at Fort Belvoir, at the command of General Hesekiel McGregor.”

“What’s going on?”

“That information is classified until you reach the base,
sir,” his partner said. “We have a skycar here to take you to the base.”

“Is my family safe?”

“Sir, your family is fine. We need you to come with us.”

Donovan nodded and followed them to an all-black skycar with
a small American flag attached to the top. He was surprised that they would
send a Magna 15—it was the fastest skycar in the army’s fleet, not available to
civilians. It could reach speeds of six hundred miles per hour. Civilian
skycars were limited to two hundred miles per hour. Donovan’s trepidation grew.

He gave a command to his watch. “Call Nona.”

The bald man opened the door for him and both soldiers
followed him into the back of the car. It was a lot more spacious on the inside
than it looked from the outside. All three of them fit quite comfortably.