Time is an Illusion: The Ptolemy Expedition (Carina Book 1) Read online

  Time is an Illusion

  By

  Ruairí Cinéad Ducantlin

  Books by Ruairí

  Summitate Trilogy

  Biomass

  Dominion

  Connections

  The Carina Team Series

  Time is an Illusion

  Calm of Mind – December 2018

  Max and the Dream Time Series

  The Find

  The Everwhen

  The Tontine

  The Lost Years

  The Price of Love

  Time is an Illusion

  The Ptolemy Expedition

  Book One of the Carina Series

  By

  Ruairí Cinéad Ducantlin

  Time is an Illusion

  Copyright © 2018 by Ruairí Cinéad Ducantlin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication is available to be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of fiction and provided exclusively for entertainment purposes. Which means the author made it all up with the hope of entertaining you, the reader. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  PREFACE 1

  PROLOGUE 5

  CHAPTER ONE 9

  CHAPTER TWO 24

  CHAPTER THREE 38

  CHAPTER FOUR 56

  CHAPTER FIVE 66

  CHAPTER SIX 78

  CHAPTER SEVEN 86

  CHAPTER EIGHT 103

  CHAPTER NINE 113

  CHAPTER TEN 129

  CHAPTER ELEVEN 139

  CHAPTER TWELVE 154

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN 167

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN 172

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN 183

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN 194

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 204

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 210

  CHAPTER NINETEEN 218

  CHAPTER TWENTY 225

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 233

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 242

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 250

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 258

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 269

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 282

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 295

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 307

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 316

  EXCERPT FROM CALM OF MIND 334

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR 340

  CONTACT RUAIRÍ 341

  BOOKS BY RUAIRÍ 342

  END NOTES 343

  Preface

  Are you willing to adjust your reality?

  Not so many years ago I believed my personal universe was finite. I was the center of a universe limited to a girlfriend who was way out of my league. A personal universe constrained by the omnipresent home mortgage. A personal existence mired in a career change going nowhere in a rush. Over the years, I attempted several serious, and many half-hearted, attempts to effect change in my personal universe. They were feeble attempts to change the lethargic paradigm that was my existence.

  A life predetermined as ordinary from beginning to end.

  My life.

  I thought, with considerable diligence, shifting my personal paradigm from a middling information technologies executive to a freelance journalist was a good idea. In retrospect, becoming a journalist was a good idea. It almost got me killed. You know you are alive when you are running from gunshots directed at you. Some people don’t cotton to nosy reporters.

  Go figure.

  Hired thugs, shooting at me, confirmed I had asked the correct questions. I will say, there is an odd joy in asking questions resulting in getting shot at by snub-nosed men in black: Smith and Donnelly, Esq.

  I made the right choices.

  Asking the right questions, at the right time, of the correct people, gave me a life better than I deserve. I have friends for whom I would give my life and they would do the same for me. My partner, Lucinda, is everything a man could want in a partner. Our closest friends, Corb and Michelle are beautiful souls. Corb and Michelle have been together a couple of years longer than Lucinda and me. Our other friends are, as Corb says in his soft, southern, drawl, “good people”.

  Nick and Janish have an on-again, off-again, on-again relationship which works for them. Don’t ask me to explain it. I don’t believe Nick or Janish can explain it. There are several others in the extended group, but our closest sphere of friends is rounded out with Ragnar and Cassandra.

  Neither Ragnar nor Cassandra admit to the fact they are a couple. Ragnar seldom speaks, and Cassandra only speaks about Mayan history and culture. Cassandra speaks after she remembers to push her glasses up, so she can see you. Ragnar and Cassandra are markedly closed about their personal lives. They are discreet despite the fact they have been together since Cassandra returned to Waxahachie, Texas. Cassandra returned from one of her many trips to the Xunantunich Mayan ruins. Trips to the exotic locale usually accompanied by Corb, Michelle, and Janish.

  But, I digress. This journal is not about me, or my friends. I have been recording, cataloging, and generally documenting the most essential change in the human condition.

  Ever.

  The official documents, of how the Summitate abilities were reawakened in humans, are stored on redundant servers in a secure facility in West Virginia and two other global locations.

  Backups for the backups.

  Being present for the evolutionary, revolutionary, events was simple dumb luck. Being present gave to me the ability to weave the facts of the transformation in the human condition into a collection of fictional novels. A series of reasonably good Sci-Fi stories based on the events I witnessed.

  I, therefore, encourage you to read on, let the imagery fall over you and let it approximate the personal consternation of being teleported against your will.

  Or not. It is, as always, your choice. The story continues now.

  Prologue

  “He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein

  Humanity’s lack of understanding of how to traverse interstellar distances had exceeded its sell-by date. When the laws of Newtonian physics became mutable the problem of traversing interstellar space stopped being a multigenerational problem of time and became a problem of simply continuing to breathe. Faster than light travel is an interesting concept. Consider this, the closest star system to Earth is Alpha Centauri. If you are traveling at double the speed of light it will require over two years to reach Alpha Centauri. Meaning you are moving through space at three-hundred and seventy-two thousand meters per second! For more than two years!

  Six years ago, Corb Levi Johnson made interstellar travel possible.

  Well…

  Corb agreed to make interstellar travel possible. Corb met with the Others who gave him the understanding of how to turn years of interstellar travel into days or weeks.

  You are thinking “wow”.

  You are right. Wow.

  Humanity’s desire to visit the cosmos existed long before Copernicus gazed up at the night sky. Some humans, more than a few humans, reckoned in the vastness of the universe, there must be life beyond Earth. Humans have always longed to visit the stars.

  Earthlings are fragile and require a specific set of conditions to survive. Exoplanets, planets in other star systems, circling their star in the Goldie Locks Zone, have been confirmed in recent y
ears. As close as humans can confirm anything on another planet without putting feet on the distant planet. The Goldie Locks Zone is the relative distance, from a star, where planets can support an ecosystem capable of sustaining life.

  Capable of sustaining human life.

  Earth is defined as an M-Type planet. An M-Type planet currently capable of sustaining human life. Currently capable but a rapidly diminishing capability of sustaining billions of humans.

  The Others tell us they know of thousands of M-Type planets. More than a few of the M-Type planets have indigenous, intelligent, life. Thousands of inhabited M-Type planets in Earth’s celestial neighborhood. The celestial neighborhood in the galactic disk we call the Milky Way. The good news is only a small percentage of the higher-order sentient inhabitants of the Milky Way can traverse interstellar space. Only a fraction of the higher-order, sentient inhabitants are a threat to other species. The better news is only a handful of the species capable of interstellar travel would consider humans a threat.

  The best news is, only about eight or ten of the interstellar species would look at humans as a food source.

  Part One

  Degrees of Separation

  Chapter One

  Time is an Illusion

  Lest you should think this story true

  I merely mention I

  Evolved it lately. 'Tis a most

  Unmitigated misstatement.

  Rudyard Kipling

  The introduction to: A Code of Morals

  It is not often I sit calmly and do nothing. This is one of those rare times when doing nothing feels like the right thing to enjoy. It feels good to be back in the compound. It is safe here. Plus, this time around, at the compound, we have above ground accommodations. We can see the sun rise or set. Of course, to see the sun or the trees, we look through a defensive barrier of a double row of concertina wire-topped chain-link fences. Two fences sixteen feet tall and fifteen yards apart. Don’t be fooled by the pleasant West Virginia views. There are no trees or shrubs within the compound’s perimeter of chain-link fences. There are solar powered cameras, on poles, interspersed amongst the trees, with a sward of smooth, mowed grass, covering the fifteen yards from the outer fence to the tree line.

  None of that matters.

  What matters is, fences do work two ways. What was intended as a carceral compound, to constrain the Summitate Cadre, is now a protective barrier situated in the heart of rural Appalachia. The compound is far down a shunpike. Near the little town of Clarksville, in the West Virginia mountains. The compound’s remoteness adds to the feeling of safety and security.

  Sitting here, watching the sun move between the trees, is a pleasant and warm experience. Times like this, times of calmness and serenity, are in short supply.

  Corb and Davinder keep everything, and everyone, moving at a pace precisely uncomfortable enough to evoke a mild stress. No one gripes or complains or is overwhelmed. Everyone understands their role and their place in the hierarchy and culture of the compound. Me? I am the rube who agreed to be the group’s amanuensis. Amanuensis means I am charged with writing the history of the Summitate Cadre.

  The compound was given a name: Q'eqchi'. Which is pronounced: Kek-chi. According to Cassandra, Q'eqchi' is nothing more than the name of the Mayan dialect spoken by our new Mayan friends. Corb considered the name honorific… so it stuck.

  Welcome to Q'eqchi'.

  Corb has a way of keeping everyone calm and focused. The youngest member of the group, by many years, Corb Levi Johnson is the de facto leader and the most powerful member of the team. Not too many years ago, Corb was an unenlightened eighteen-year-old cowboy from far West Texas.

  Corb had a severe cold and no money for a doctor’s visit. The offer of a free medical exam, with free cold and flu shots, was a godsend in impoverished far west Texas. Corb’s cold was cured by Morningstar Pharmaceuticals’ wonder drug: ColdStar. No human, alive or dead, could have predicted ColdStar’s side-effects. Corb was the first of the recipients to genuinely understand, the first to learn to control, and the first to expand the Summitate ability. The Summitate ability was clearly perceived and understood by Corb.

  Instinctively, Corb understood the new powers and abilities. There are others with the Summitate abilities but Corb is, by a wide measure, the most powerful. I use the word abilities out of habit. Let me retell the tail from ab ovo. From the beginning. Forgive my wordiness, I will start at the beginning and will endeavor to write with clear thought and expression. Well… Abundant clarity where possible.

  We originally surmised ColdStar presented the Summitate abilities in three forms. The Rationalis ability: The gift of significantly expanded mental abilities. The Potentia ability: The wonderment of the telekinetic ability to move objects without physical contact. Finally, Medicina-Aspicios which have an unusual combination of two abilities. Aspicios is the ability to perform a form of remote viewing. Medicina is the ability heal the human body through touch. We have learned over the past several years, as our understanding of the abilities has matured, there is only one Summitate ability. How an individual can manifest the Summitate ability is derived from a mental process of self-examination. The original members of the Summitate Cadre learned of their abilities in a spontaneous manner. The abilities simply appeared after ingesting the ColdStar formula.

  I should passingly mention, almost everyone in Q'eqchi' has some level of Summitate ability. Everyone except Davinder Khatter and the kitchen staff. For reasons a little vague to everyone else, Davinder has chosen to not receive the Summitate abilities.

  Mister Davinder Khatter is a former Gurkha soldier, turned MI6[1] employed, counter-terrorism strike-team leader. Originally, the NATO backed strike-force was comprised of six strike-teams spread globally. Davinder was the leader of the Alpha Team and was based in the United States. Colonel Khatter led the strike-team sent to stop the planned genocide at its source: The Morningstar Pharmaceutical warehouse facility in Waxahachie Texas.

  Fast forward a few years, Mister Khatter is still employed by MI6 and is now assigned to the role: Director of the West Virginia compound, Q'eqchi'. Davinder’s ability to shape disparate people and ideas into a unified whole creates a oneness within the compound. His nature of necessary truth and absolute certainty of personal bearing ensures everything runs with precision and unqualified honesty. Combined, Corb and Davinder are worthy paladins. Leaders capable of ensuring our team remains true to our cause and purpose.

  I should back-up this narrative to a recent morning meeting of the leadership team. There is a leadership team meeting, every morning, commencing precisely at oh-eight-hundred hours. For the civilians reading this, the meeting starts at 8 a.m. I am referring to a specific leadership meeting which was not the usual humdrum of repetitive status reporting.

  Everyone in the compound calls me NT, but you will know more about me later. This story starts with the unusual morning leadership meeting. I intend to wend this narrative through the other members of this quixotic group. Quixotic is an intentional barb at the heart of the group. There is nothing quixotic about the Summitate leadership team. The other leaders of the Summitate are a diverse group of individuals and many are natural born leaders. Not a maudlin slacker amongst the leadership team. Also, the entire leadership team possesses an immutable collective resolve.

  Originally called “The Cadre” by Vivian Lizza Treacher née Pazzo, the leadership team has undergone several name changes. The current title, and apparently permanent moniker, for the Summitate leadership team, is: The Peregrination Coterie. Originally, the Peregrination Coterie title was suggested by Janish, at the daily leadership meeting. While Corb smiled and watched, during the daily causerie, Cassandra patiently explained the meaning of the words.

  “Peregrinate means to journey or trek, usually on foot. A coterie is a collective group of people who possess a singular purpose.”

  When Cassandra finished the explanation, the group looked across the room before landing on Michelle
.

  “Don’t look at me, they haven’t told me anything. I am hearing this for the first time. Besides, he dresses better than me, what do I bring to the relationship?”

  Michelle Raye Wilbon is educated, with a master’s degree in Evangelical studies and an undergraduate degree in business. Do not be fooled by Michelle’s perfect skin and posture of a model. Highly intelligent, beyond beautiful, and deeply in love with Corb. Initially, Michelle, who is several years older than Corb, was assigned to ensure the then eighteen-year-old Corb stayed out of trouble. Michelle became Corb’s paramour and muse. When Corb wrested control of the Cadre from Vivian Treacher, his relationship with Michelle became common knowledge. The group has developed a habit of looking to Michelle for answers when Corb is silent and Janish is cryptic.

  Silent and cryptic are becoming the new norm.

  Also, the Coterie has recently taken on the challenge of trying to stump or irritate the other members with obscure movie quotes. Depending on the person issuing the quote, stump and irritate are usually in equal measure but are often skewed toward irritating.

  “Would you consider us Clueless if we do not know the movie quote? Well, darling, would you, or the mystic, care to explain before I chunder?”

  Nicholas (Nick) Davies’ retort was to ask his partner Janish, in a classic English tone of derision, if she, Janish, or the mystic, Corb, would explain the group’s new title before he vomited.

  A former member of the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF), Nick is highly skilled in computer hacking, internet forensics, and small firearms. Nick is quick with a joke or verbal barb. Being a classic wag is a mask for the real Nick. Nick is a typical nerd who enjoys a good laugh. Six-foot tall, a lithe physique, an acerbic wit, and a closet full of rumpled clothes all belie a trained warrior ready to fight when called upon.