Keystones: Tau Prime Read online

  Copyright © 2014 Alexander McKinney

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Day 5 CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Day 6 CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  Day 12 CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  Day 20 CHAPTER TEN

  Day 22 CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Day 24 CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Day 43 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  About the Author

  Prologue

  keystone species (kē′stōn)

  A species whose presence and role within an ecosystem has a disproportionate effect on other organisms within the system. A keystone species is often a dominant predator whose removal allows a prey population to explode and often decreases overall diversity. Other kinds of keystone species are those, such as coral or beavers, that significantly alter the habitat around them and thus affect large numbers of other organisms.

  keystone (kē′stōn)

  n.

  1. Architecture The central wedge-shaped stone of an arch that locks its parts together. Also called headstone.

  2. The central supporting element of a whole.

  3. Modern A super-powered individual.

  2159 A.D. Five days ago an event known as “The Sweep” transformed human civilization. In a single moment the count of super-powered individuals or “Keystones” jumped from one hundred to hundreds of millions. In that same moment Earth was cut off from the rest of human civilization, except for the space habitats known as the “Terra Rings.” Uncounted millions of mammals including humans were endowed with dangerous Keystone abilities, prompting a mass exodus from Earth.

  Deklan Tobin was among the first of the new Keystones to understand that Earth was no longer habitable, and he left everything behind to rush his parents to orbit and safety. With the only available option being transit via the Equator-based space elevators, Deklan guided his parents through the now-dangerous city of Boa Vista in Brazil. There Deklan faced a homicidal Keystone named Stalker, a living shadow who dragged his victims into a freezing two-dimensional shadow realm and spat out their frozen corpses.

  After defeating Stalker, Deklan was separated from his family and aided in his journey across the city by Slate, a faceless, teleporting, and strong Keystone. During his time with her, he tested the extent of his newfound ability to regenerate, surviving stabbing, gunshots, and evisceration.

  Slate abandoned Deklan to save a child, leaving him to stumble into a near-fatal encounter with Mutuari, a Keystone who could steal the powers of others. Injured from his fight with Mutuari, Deklan arrived at the elevator terminal in time to be drugged and attached to the underside of a space elevator. His frozen body was discovered and thawed, making him the first person to ever survive such an event and gaining him instant fame.

  Day 5

  CHAPTER ONE

  Reactions to the Gate

  The SmartScreen on Deklan’s wall flared to life with capital letters and an annoying klaxon.

  Spatial Anomaly Detected.

  Spatial Anomaly Detected.

  Anomaly Identified: Wormhole.

  Deklan’s eyes locked onto the screen as the rest of the room faded away. A three-dimensional representation of what was happening appeared and swept the words aside. A purple maw with pulsing edges gaped open. The wormhole was enormous, threatening, and intimidating. Purple energy swirled at its lip, an unstable distortion in space. It wavered and pulsed like a living creature but grew no more.

  He bowed his head and took a deep breath. He’d coped with waking in a morgue drawer; he’d coped with repeated close calls with death. He’d cope with this.

  When Deklan’s Uplink, a wrist-mounted model, screamed an alarm, he looked down. There he saw a miniature image of the wormhole. Was one morning of sleeping in too much to ask for?

  Text appeared beneath the image.

  Designation: Class-A Wormhole

  Stability Rating: GGG Safe for Two-Way Transportation

  Radiation Level: Acceptable

  Destination: Unknown

  Where was this information coming from and how had it been sent to both his SmartScreen and his Uplink? Deklan had worked on science-fiction sets where wormholes had featured in the plots, but until now he had assumed that they were purely theoretical phenomena. He looked again at the different items on the list—designation, stability rating, radiation level, destination. It was an incredible amount of information for a theoretical phenomenon. It brought him back to his first question: where was the information coming from, and why was it being sent to him?

  His screen beeped, indicating that he had an anonymous incoming call. Deklan pinched the ridge of his nose between his eyes. He was certain that this call heralded nothing good. When he answered, the wormhole on his wall was replaced by the interior of a spacecraft.

  He could see one side of the ship’s forward viewing room. It was small, not suitable for more than four people. The seats were non-standard-issue, comfortable bucket chairs. There sat a man and a woman, neither of whom was paying attention to Deklan. Deklan couldn’t help but focus on the man. Under ordinary circumstances his gaze would have been trained on the woman. She was gorgeous: coal-black hair, exotic-looking eyes, and a figure covered in a skintight white fabric. The man who distracted him from all of that was Cheshire, the same Cheshire who’d left him to freeze in the cold of space.

  “What else have you done to prepare for this?” the woman asked Cheshire in a British accent before looking over her shoulder. Behind her through the viewport Deklan could see the wormhole that had been on his screen. The spacecraft had been next to it when it opened.

  With a flash of insight Deklan knew that Cheshire had transmitted the data to him.

  Cheshire’s voice in responding to the woman’s question was light. “Oh, I had about a hundred thousand gravity-capable ships built. Most of them aren’t ready on time.”

  Had he just said a hundred thousand ships? The resources implicit in a statement like that forced Deklan’s mouth shut. The woman sitting with Cheshire, however, looked surprised but undaunted. “How many are ready now?” she asked.

  The question went unanswered as Cheshire turned to face Deklan. “There you are,” he said. “You must have some questions.”

  “So this is Deklan,” interjected the woman. “It’s nice to see him.” She looked at him as though she were calculating his worth.

  “Be nice,” Cheshire admonished her.

  “So pleased to meet you,” continued the attractive woman. “I’m Elizabeth Masterson. I saw you in Boa Vista, of course, but not like this.”

  Deklan was certain that if he’d seen her in Boa Vista he would have remembered the encounter. His eyes strayed from her face to her clothes. He had not seen this woman in Boa Vista.

  “You must have questions, Deklan, about what you’ve just seen,” said Cheshire.

  Surprise bubbled up inside Deklan. “Is that why you called me? To answer my questions?”

  “No. You’d be surprised at how often I’ve tried that approach, but it never seems to work out well. I called you to make a request. I want you to explore the wormhole network.”

  Lava erupted in Deklan’s brain. “You left me to
die in space,” he almost shouted. “I’m not doing anything for you.”

  Cheshire failed to respond to his anger. “I didn’t leave you to die in space. I froze you to ensure that you knew what you had become.”

  The magma flowing in Deklan’s veins cooled. “You were certain that I was going to survive?”

  Cheshire’s mouth curled into cat-like smile. “Beyond the faintest hint of a doubt.”

  “How?”

  “I’m a Keystone as well.” He tilted his head toward Elizabeth. “As is she. And, Deklan, it’s not a good idea to underestimate what some Keystones can know.”

  Deklan still wasn’t happy about being left to freeze, but it was hard to be angry with someone who had helped him reach his goal, albeit in an unorthodox manner. “What kinds of Keystones are out there?” he asked.

  Cheshire snorted. “There are as many different abilities as there are Keystones. No two are identical.” He squinted, and Deklan could see the wheels spinning in Cheshire’s head. “That said, though, many are similar.”

  “How many Keystones are there now?”

  Elizabeth glanced at Cheshire and nodded. Deklan could tell she wanted to know the answer to that question too.

  “Well, it depends on how you look at it.”

  Elizabeth leaned forward in her seat. “Do you want to explain that?” she said.

  “Lots of new Keystones have useless powers. There’s a kid out on the Baryon mining colony, a habitat that was in orbit around Saturn. His ability is that he coughs a lot. He’s technically a Keystone.”

  That answer sparked more questions for Deklan, such as how Cheshire could know about a habitat that couldn’t be located in their solar system.

  “Okay, not counting people like him,” replied Elizabeth.

  “I don’t think there will ever be an accurate count. Some abilities are so specific that the people endowed with them may never learn that they’ve become Keystones. In fact, they may never use their abilities.”

  Elizabeth leaned further forward and smacked Cheshire. “Stop toying with me and answer my question.”

  Cheshire pretended to look abashed. “Hundreds of millions will become active.”

  Elizabeth exhaled slowly. “Are there any more like me?”

  “Exactly like you? No. Comparable? Yes.”

  “What kind of Keystone are you, Elizabeth?” asked Deklan, unable to contain his curiosity.

  “Cursed,” she replied in a tone that didn’t invite more questions.

  The conversation had been interesting and confusing, but Deklan wanted more answers. “Why did you call me?” he inquired. “Why did you help me?”

  “Sorry, Deklan, but we’re out of time.” Cheshire winked at him in an infuriating manner. “Besides, you have a call coming.”

  The screen went blank, and the wormhole returned.

  Deklan counted to five in his head while waiting for the call that was certain to come.

  His Uplink lit up. The caller was his mother. He knew that something would be his fault, but it was a reassuring return of normalcy. Whatever problem existed at the other end of this call, he knew he could handle it.

  “Deklan!” His mother’s voice was high-pitched and fast, never a good omen. “Have you seen the news reports?”

  His Uplink’s small screen showed his mother’s face, panic written large on her features. His father stood to the side looking amused, allowing his wife to direct all of her attention to their son.

  Deklan ignored his wall screen and tried to answer in an ordinary tone. He was only partially successful. “Yes, Mom.” When had he become responsible for everything that went wrong in the universe?

  “Have you seen the tree?”

  Deklan was caught off guard, feeling as though a significant cluster of neurons had misfired. Parents could have that effect. “Tree?” he asked, already fearful of the answer.

  “There’s a giant redwood that sprang out of nowhere in the parkland where we planted the seed last night.”

  Deklan struggled with the idea that this interruption was unrelated to the wormhole report that had come in that morning. “So you don’t want to talk about the wormhole?”

  Tricia’s voice went an octave higher. “Deklan, that tree is over a hundred meters tall!”

  Trying to catch up with his mother, Deklan asked a pertinent question. “How high is the ceiling in the parkland?”

  “A hundred meters.”

  “So it’s pushed against the ceiling?”

  Tricia managed to speak even faster than before. “No. It grew through it and died!”

  Deklan mulled over this concept. His words, when they came, were calm. This was a problem he could wrap his mind around. “Well,” he answered, “that doesn’t really sound like a problem per se.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a problem? I could go to jail!”

  Deklan held up his hands in what he hoped was a soothing manner. “Mom, calm down. So long as the containment field doesn’t fail, and the Ring doesn’t stop spinning, the height of the walls and the centrifugal force of the Ring should prevent any problems even if the ceiling in there breaks.”

  “You never told me that those were fast-growing seeds when you gave them to me!” Still flustered, Tricia sounded calmer. “Why did you give me fast-growing seeds to plant in space?”

  Deklan could sense that he was on the home stretch. “Mom, it’s a giant redwood. Those are hardwood trees. There are no fast-growing seeds for them.”

  Tricia’s voice dropped to a normal tone and pace. “There aren’t?”

  Behind her Brice gave Deklan a covert thumbs-up.

  Deklan shook his head confidently before answering. “No.”

  “So that tree isn’t my fault?”

  Deklan’s mouth twisted into a smile. He was about to ruin his father’s day. “Oh, it’s your fault alright. Congratulations.”

  “Congratulations?” His mother’s voice jumped four octaves. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

  “You were complaining in Boa Vista that you weren’t a Keystone. I think that tree just proved you wrong.”

  Tricia’s mouth worked overtime, but no sounds came out. “You think that I made that tree grow that quickly?”

  “Well, it’s possible that there’s another Keystone who was responsible for it, but given the timeline since you planted it, I think we can establish you as the primary culprit.”

  Tricia’s eyes grew wide, and her mouth formed a perfect circle. “Primary culprit?”

  Word choice was everything. Deklan savored the temporary panic he had induced. “Relax,” he replied. “It’s unlikely that there are laws or even covenants in place against Keystones’ growing massive trees that are a danger to station integrity. In addition to that, it was an accident. You had no intention of growing a massive tree, nor any reason to believe that an event like that would take place. I would like to know what the roots did, though.”

  Tricia’s voice again climbed to the roof. Brice gifted his son with a stare that promised a dearth of free chocolate in the near future. “Unlikely? Unlikely? You want me to relax over an unlikely?”

  “In a perfect world, yes, especially with the wormhole. Somehow it strikes me as more important.”

  “Why? That doesn’t affect us directly. That’s a governmental issue.”

  Deklan felt his eyebrows rise high. “You don’t think a wormhole opening up nearby affects us directly?”

  “Not compared to this.”

  Deklan turned to look back at the screen image on his wall. “Mom, I know this seems very important right now, and it is, but first you should try planting something smaller to make sure that you really did do it. Second, I’m pretty sure that a dead tree blocking the hole it created isn’t a problem. Third, I guarantee that pretty much everyone else, with the possible exception of the parkland’s groundskeeper, if there is one, is more interested in the wormhole.”

  Tricia’s voice took on a dreamy tone. “You’re right,” she s
aid. “I should plant something else. Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful? My tomatoes never did well before. Come, Brice, we need to go shopping. I wonder where they sell seeds up here.”

  Shaking his head in amazement, Deklan watched his now diverted mother dash out with his father in tow.

  Less than a minute passed before his Uplink vibrated again. What had they forgotten now? Flicking the controls, he took the call on the wall screen to hide the image of the wormhole.

  It was Laurel Meeks, the mother of his friend Tommy. Deklan was shocked by her tear-stained eyes. She glared at him, her face twisted with hate. “Tommy’s dead,” she blurted, “and it’s your fault.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  A New Focus

  Deklan sat on his bed, stunned by the call. Tommy was dead, and it was his fault. He could have called him when he’d fled New York, or when he’d overnighted after the drive to Afton, but he’d waited until the last possible minute to warn his friend, and now he was dead because of Deklan’s selfishness. And what had it gained him? Nothing.

  He had planned on spending the week relaxing at the all-expense-paid resort where he was at the moment, but Laurel’s call had brought him crashing back to reality. He might have escaped Earth, but that didn’t mean that he could ignore what was happening around him.

  He couldn’t ignore The Sweep.

  Deklan used the wall screen to search for employment and found precious little that he could do except for one particular posting. Facilitating firms across the Terra Rings were looking for hundreds of thousands of support personnel to go back to Earth. It was such a big posting looking for people on short notice that they just might hire an ex-lawyer stuntman and refugee from Earth.