Suffrage (World Key Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  Suffrage © Julian Green

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Creator: Green, Julian, author.

  Title: Suffrage / Julian Green.

  ISBN: 9781925497991 (paperback)

  9781925530056 (eBook)

  Series: Green, Julian. World Key Chronicles bk.1.

  Subjects: Time travel--Fiction.

  Science fiction.

  Published by Julian Green and InHouse Publishing

  Juliet could hear the alarms again. Although familiar, the dream was anything but comforting. It was always jarring: a recurring nightmare.

  In her dream she was small, just seven, not seventeen, and she could see their faces. Her brothers and sisters, all strikingly dissimilar in appearance but sharing the same young, cherubic, guileless eyes and open expressions. Juliet liked India’s shoulder-length blond hair much more than her short, dark pixie cut. Her own dark brown hair barely covered her surgical scar.

  She liked Alpha’s smattering of freckles across her button nose. Freckles were cute. Delta had the most amazing green eyes. It wasn’t fair that a boy had eyes like that. They had tiny flecks of gold among the pale green that shone when he smiled at her. But mindsharing meant she knew that her siblings thought she was pretty, with her elfin jaw and big eyes.

  They sat in a circle, passing the foam ball back and forth. The rule was that they couldn’t use their hands, only the Gift. They didn’t want to drop the ball. Bad things happened when they dropped the ball. The bright red ball floated towards her slowly when the first harsh sound broke her concentration and her hands involuntarily covered her ears. She fumbled the handover from Delta and her eyes widened in horror as the ball fell at her feet.

  No, not again, I don’t want to see it again. Please.

  As Juliet looked to the white-coat, she expected him to press the button, to feel pain explode in her head like thousands of tiny needles burrowing into her.

  That was what happened if she dropped the ball, or couldn’t pop the balloon, or snuff out the candle or perform one of a hundred different tasks. Pain. If they got through every task, if they answered all the questions on theory, they got something nice, like a piece of candy or a toy. But not today. She’d dropped the ball. Today she got the pain. She curled her shoulders, trying to make herself smaller.

  Instead, a harsh klaxon assaulted the air and no pain followed. The white-coat looked at the ceiling, head cocked to the sound, face uncertain.

  “Stay on the carpet,” instructed the white-coat sternly.

  All the children blinked as their neural tech registered the command. He picked up the phone that hung in the corner and pressed the handset against his ear, frowning. He muttered to himself, jiggling the button on the top when there was no dial tone.

  “Someone’s coming,” whispered Alpha, peeking out from behind a curtain of red hair at the others in the circle.

  The group turned to look at the doors, ball forgotten. So often Alpha knew things before they happened.

  “What?” demanded the white-coat. He walked across the small room towards the door, withdrawing a shinkari pistol from his pocket as he did so. His other hand stretched out for the handle when the door blew inwards. He took the brunt of the blast in the chest, knocked unconscious as the heavy metal door crashed into him. He slammed against the wall, crumpled and bleeding.

  A handsome Asian man lowered his booted foot with a smile of satisfaction on his face. “Told you I could,” he quipped to the tall, attractive black woman at his side, as if in answer to a dare. She raised her weapon and hustled into the room as the children watched, silent and motionless.

  “By the Monarchs. China, there are kids here. What is going on? ”

  “What? But—” China stepped forward with a look of dawning horror on his face. His features turned pale as the blood left his face.

  “What are you kids doing here?” The woman demanded, her voiced stressed, one hand white-knuckled on the rifle she carried.

  “We live here. What are you doing here?” Foxtrot asked, brushing his hair from his face to look at the imposing woman fearfully.

  “You live here? You’re the secret project?”

  Juliet could feel the woman’s violet eyes on her. She was looking at her scar, the only one that could be seen because of her hair cut.

  “What did that bastard Mycroft do to you?” she demanded.

  “Sarge,” China swallowed. “There’s no time.” There were unshed tears in his voice as he tugged on his partner’s arm urgently.

  The children all looked at them in confusion as she responded stubbornly. “I’m not killing kids, China. We’re getting them out. Come with us. Now,” she commanded the group.

  Juliet shook her head with the rest of her siblings. No. It’ll hurt if we leave the carpet without permission.

  “They’ll slow us down. Sarge,” the Asian man implored, holding a gentle and familiar hand against her cheek. “We won’t get away ourselves. We’ll die if we don’t go. The timers are running. I’m going to kill my father when we see him.” He swore heatedly.

  As the large dark-skinned woman looked at the small group of children, her eyes settled on Juliet. She was the smallest. Juliet knew what the woman was thinking. She could feel it. “We can’t leave the carpet,” she pleaded urgently. “We’re not allowed.”

  As the big woman strode forward and picked her up she started crying, anticipating the pain. But it’s not my fault, she thought bitterly as hot tears splashed her cheeks.

  The others started crying as well. Delta’s green eyes spilled tears freely as he watched Juliet carried away from them. They weren’t allowed to leave the carpet.

  Alpha looked at Juliet, slung over the woman’s shoulder as she turned to leave. Alpha had tears streaming down her face and Juliet heard her sibling mindspeak. ‡You have to go. Don’t be afraid, you’ll survive. Remember us, Juliet. Remember all of us.‡

  How did she do that? Alpha knew things before they happened.

  That last glimpse, she’d never forget: slung over a shoulder like a knapsack as the pain started and the woman broke into a run. Sharp pain stabbed into her head while her tears blurred her vision.

  Except the middle remained clear.

  A tear-curtained tunnel burned into her memory, with her brothers and sisters still sitting on the red carpet while alarms split the air.

  “How long?” Her kidnapper barked, at a full sprint down the corridor with Juliet curled in pain and whimpering like a wounded animal over her shoulder.

  “Three minutes,” huffed the man, trying to hold in a sob and effortlessly speeding past. “Then Mycroft’s science experiment goes up in flame.”

  Jay screamed as fresh pain exploded in her head and the nightmare finally released her. She opened her eyes and a dark rage narrowed her vision, reality mirroring the dream. She reached out with the Gift, intent on destruction.

  “Aliens? You must be joking.” Dr. Stanford Ellis sat heavily onto the lab stool, staring at his NASA colleagues Doctors Christine Brown and Bob Wright. They looked serious, Bob’s halo of gray hair around a balding head shining as he nodded. His bear-like frame was barely contained in his white lab coat and he dwarfed Dr. Brown’s slender elegance and Stanford’s own slight paunch.

  “That’s what the military are telling us,” Bob said in his southern drawl.

  Stanford looked at the contents
of the lab. Aside from the usual diagnostic equipment being tended to by military lab technicians like ants feeding a queen bee, there were five black backpacks resting on tables in the center of the room, surrounded by black clothes and five pairs of boots. They certainly didn’t look alien in origin. Those bags look like I could buy them at Walmart, he thought.

  It was the two objects resting on top of them that drew his eye. One resembled a wide electric guitar, albeit with a number of strange lights and knobs. The other vaguely resembled a rifle, yet there was no visible operating mechanism, no chamber, and no magazine. Only the fundamental shape, a stylized firearm grip, something resembling a buttstock, and what could only be some sort of scope or display on top really made it stand out from some interpretive sculpture.

  “They look like movie props, don’t they?” Christine remarked with a smile, adjusting the Alice band in her brown hair to keep her fringe clear. Stanford nodded, still shocked to the core; proof that man was not alone in the universe sitting mere feet away, according to the military. “Where did they come from?” he asked.

  Bob shrugged. “They aren’t saying much beyond a few snippets. Need-to-know I guess.”

  Stanford frowned, rubbing nervous hands on his trousers. “Right. Military mindset. Their habit of keeping secrets can really be a pain in the ass. So, I get why you two are here. Both of you are NASA, materials analysts and experts in your field, but why’d they drag me in? I’m just a consultant.”

  Bob cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck with the manner of a nervous bear. “We need a physicist and you’ve got clearance. Sorry Stan, it’s my fault. I took one look at the … space guitar and realized we’re dealing with an unknown power source. Your work with Rand Corporation in their energy think tank makes you the best person to look at this by my recommendation, so Colonel Hardaker had you brought here.”

  “We’ve held off beyond the usual tests and a gross physical examination until you arrived,” Christine remarked. “No radiation detected, the one thing the military did tell us is that the … the instrument, is how they think they got here. Techs are setting up an x-ray now to get a look inside the bags before we open them.”

  “Wait. That’s a transportation device?” He asked, taking a longer look at the strange object. Christ Almighty, that thing moved all that equipment and aliens across lightyears? What was it Arthur C. Clark said? ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ That has to be nuclear in scale, but it’s such a small device.

  “I don’t think we should bombard the objects with x-rays until we have a handle on how they work,” Stanford said. “They obviously have power sources, if they’ve been glowing like that since they got here. Did the military say anything useful or are we just meant to muddle through on our own?”

  Bob cleared his throat. “I found out from Colonel Hardaker that the visitors were badly burned when they arrived. They aren’t expected to survive.”

  “Burned? Well I’m not a xenobiologist, so I guess I get to forgo examining the little green men, but I’m guessing, not that little if those clothes and boots are any indication. Those would fit me,” Stanford pointed to the generic coveralls and boots. “And why do they look so familiar? That doesn’t make sense.” Stanford rubbed his chin, hearing the bristles of his missed morning shave against his fingernails.

  “Let’s start with samples and catalogue before we do anything drastic with high energy particles.” At nods from his colleagues, he stood. “We’ll need to move the instrument and rifle off those bags. We’ll tackle those, then the lab rats can start a physical and sample examination of the bags’ contents and start cataloguing.”

  With nervous fingers, he stepped to the movie props and picked up the instrument. As his fingers touched the device a dry, feminine voice that possessed a faint echo, like two people speaking at once, emanated from the machine.

  “Unauthorized DNA detected,” the machine stated. “Security protocols engaged. Access denied. Please return me to Pilot Adder. Thank you.”

  He stared down at the device in his hands in amazement. It spoke in English. Wait, security protocols? “Christine, no!”

  But he was too late. As the small woman touched the rifle, an electric crackle and flash of electricity arced between the grip and her hand, throwing her away and slamming her against a table before he could move.

  Heart in his throat, Stanford dropped the instrument back onto the bags and moved to check her as several other lab technicians did the same. There was blood on her face and a gash on her right temple that bled freely as her hazel eyes fluttered open.

  “Ow.”

  After making sure that Bob had her in hand, Stanford stomped to the lab doors and ripped one open to come face-to-face with an armed airman set to guard the underground laboratory. “Take me to Colonel Hardaker. Now!”

  In this small, gray, military office smelling of paper and the colonel’s unlit cigar, Stanford faced the CO of the base. He took a deep breath as a plain manila file emblazoned with ‘Top Secret’ in red ink across the cover slid across the desk towards him. He looked back across toward Colonel James Hardaker in surprise. He’d been afraid he’d be frog-marched off the base or locked up for losing his temper at the officer. He hadn’t expected to just be handed a top-secret file.

  “I could be court-martialed for showing you this. But I’ve lost men under my command because of poor military intelligence. I appreciate your concern for Dr. Brown, and I agree, you don’t know enough. None of the airmen that moved the devices suffered a shock. I don’t want any of you scientists risking your lives. You haven’t seen this, but what happened to her wasn’t funny.”

  Stanford had to agree; the colonel certainly didn’t appear amused. He looked like a man who had never made a joke. Steel gray, regulation-cut hair topped piercing blue eyes while an unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth oscillated on its own wavelength, bouncing and jiggling as he spoke. He’s seriously stressed, going by that cigar.

  Stanford opened the woefully thin Top Secret file and found a sizable stack of photographs atop a few pages of dense writing. The photos were still warm from printing. He scanned the file first, reading quickly.

  “They look human,” Stanford said as he put the file down and examined the photos with a scientist’s eye. “What evidence have you got that they aren’t? This report sounds more like your Sergeant Stillson has been spending too much free time reading blogs about Area 51 and cow mutilations.”

  The colonel gave a blustering harumph and turned, picking up a remote as he flicked on a monitor. “The president asked the same question about their humanity. This was her and COCOM a few hours ago. You haven’t seen this footage. Am I clear?”

  Clear, for the 34th time. Never understood why the military has to keep repeating not to talk about things. Stanford suppressed a groan of annoyance and nodded.

  A four-star general stood in the image, speaking at a table with some very important people. Behind him, large screens showed five individuals of various size and gender, and Stanford guessed he was looking at the White House situation room.

  “—it may just be a façade, Madame President. There’s a lot of confusing information, ma’am. Here is what we know. Almost three hours ago, using an unknown method of transport, the individuals you can see onscreen appeared out of thin air at Patrick Air Force Base. Their arrival was witnessed by an airman on patrol. He described it as an ‘angry ball of sound and lightning’. In their possession was technology of an advanced and currently unknown function, including what certainly looks like a weapon.”

  Hardaker pointed the remote at the screen. “You’ve seen the items,” the colonel said wryly. He pressed a button and the figures onscreen jerked and twitched as the footage sped forward. “I’m going to skip this part. They just talk about the objects you’re examining.”

  “—what makes you think they are aliens?” Stanford couldn’t see who was speaking, but he saw the flicker of annoyance on the g
eneral’s face at the interruption.

  “A major reason we think these might be aliens, is the beings themselves. As mentioned, all five were severely injured on arrival. Air force personnel gave medical assistance and took them to the base hospital. Dr. Gillette, if you please?”

  Stanford knew Gillette by reputation. The man was an M.D. with two Ph.D.’s relating to theoretical biology and who worked for the military. It was highly unusual for Gillette to take lead on any project, but if anyone was qualified to treat injured aliens, it was Gillette. When the doctor spoke and the camera panned to the screen showing what looked like a hospital ward, jittery excitement colored his tone.

  “Subject One. Late teens, possibly Hispanic. Presented with third-degree electrical burns to over eighty percent of her body, consistent with the other patients. She should be dead. That amount of damage … it’s unbelievable she survived. At the time of arrival, sections of the dermis were black and charred, notably the feet and hands. As you can plainly see, the subject displays an extraordinary degree of healing, also consistent with her companions. This pink skin here,” Gillette motioned emphatically with his hands, “is new dermis. In just two hours.”

  Gillette took a step. The woman’s upper arm bore a barely visible tattoo. The letter J, a few inches in size. “There’s also thi—”

  Once again, the recording moved forward at Hardaker’s push of a button. “They just talk about accelerated healing for a while,” he conveyed in a bored tone, indicating he’d watched this several times already. “Ah, here.”

  Gillette’s excited manner resumed. This time an ultrasound appeared onscreen behind him. “—connected directly into his nervous system, but we aren’t sure of the purpose. The metal in his feet blurred on an x-ray. We’ll try and take a sample shortly. When we saw this, we examined the rest using ultrasound. Subject Three was a surprise.”

  Doctor Gillette moved to the next bed, which held an Amazonian dark-skinned woman. She was of sufficient stature that her feet touched the end of the bed. She has to be well over six feet tall, Stanford thought. Attractive too. The doctor stood next to her right arm, which didn’t appear to have suffered as much damage as the rest of her.