Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework
Read Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework Online
Authors: Randolph Lalonde
Tags: #scifi, #space opera, #future fiction, #futuristic, #cyberpunk, #military science fiction, #space adventure, #carrier, #super future, #space carrier
THE SPINWARD FRINGE SERIES
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 1 and 2: Resurrection and
Awakening
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 3: Triton
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 4: Frontline
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 5: Fracture
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 6: Fragments
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7: Framework
For other books by Randolph Lalonde visit:
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 7
FRAMEWORK
Book 3 of the Rogue Element Trilogy
Randolph Lalonde
Smashwords Edition
Copyright (c) 2012 by Randolph Lalonde
Spinward Fringe is a Trademark of Randolph
Lalonde
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the
prior written permission of the publisher, Randolph Lalonde.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places
and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Images licensed by iStockphoto and used with
permission.
Titling and other design by Randolph Lalonde.
Print ISBN: 978-0-9865942-8-1
EBook ISBN: 978-0-9865942-9-8
TABLE OF CONTENTS
To science fiction fans around the world, especially
the few who have been waiting for this book.
I hope you find an ending. I hope you find a
beginning
Beast Of Burden
The glare of the sun streaming through the
window to Roman's left was so bright it was almost blinding. The
golden rays were a welcome sight even though they carried no warmth
with them. He and his hostess were on one side of a rectangular
room with rounded corners. He sat across from her at a small
wrought iron table. A piping hot pot of black tea, two cups, and a
plate of blueberry biscuits had been placed on the transparent
top.
His finger traced the edge of the fine
porcelain cup in front of him as he muttered, "I can't believe the
new configuration of events brought me here. Since I took
guardianship of the Victory Machine and began seeing, I’ve noticed
you from afar. But not once was there an indication that you were
anything but a secondary influence on the future. I've watched you
help the main influencers since Pandem, alter the course of lives
without realizing it, and I've seen you die five times after Ayan
the First sighed her last. None of that made a lasting difference
to humanity's collective fate."
"You've seen me die?" an older Ayan the
Second said with an upraised eyebrow. Her manner was lighter in her
current iteration, and her British accent thicker.
"Your worst fate came as you were about to
leave Pandem." He only allowed himself to glance at her, but it was
enough to take in the image of the woman she'd become. The first
dozen times he’d seen her in the future she appeared wildly
different, but that started to change. In the last few versions of
the future, he couldn’t help noticing that Ayan the Second’s
appearance and demeanour were becoming more and more
consistent.
He allowed himself to take in the image of
her as she existed in the future he was visiting. Long curly red
hair trickled down the front of a long overcoat of thin synthetic
material. It was marked with a skull on the left and a many-pointed
star on the right. Her clothing wasn't the style he'd expected,
either. Her vacsuit was layered, with loosened sleeves and a
skirted waist. "Valance saved you with framework regeneration after
you were shot in the back. He still doesn't know how, but he was
able to take direct control of the technology. I should have known
you would be his inspiration for becoming a true model two. The
future you create by surviving is the most unlikely one, but it’s
the one I’m living in.“
"I was supposed to stay dead, then," she
said.
"The likelihood of Valance discovering that
the limitations on his framework body were all in his mind were
small. He was supposed to fail and retreat into darkness until the
beginning of the Fifth Era," Roman said.
"And then?"
"Go on a rampage across the stars. His name
was to be listed with Attila, Cortez, Napoleon, and Riz-Tain in
history."
"He's not far from that now," Ayan said.
"But your existence, your actions since your
arrival on Tamber in this new timeline, have changed him. What you
have watched come to pass over the past nine years is vastly
different from the timeline I've been watching all this time."
Roman tried to pick up the teacup with a trembling hand, but gave
up as it rattled against the saucer.
"The Machine is nearly critical, your vision
is fading. What is it you're here to ask me? How can I help you
understand the situation in this future?" Ayan the Second asked
quietly. There was great sympathy in her manner.
It gave him pause and he stared at her
openly. "I've been dealing with the last rogue element, Valance,
for so long that I had forgotten these visions can be a
refuge."
"Only of the mind," she said.
"Yes, and I think that is why I've dreamed
you up using the Machine and all the history it remembers. If I
approach you in this timeline to try to stop the destruction of
Pandem, will it change everything I've seen here? Will Haven Shore
still exist? Will the darkness still stop at the gate?"
Ayan the Second paused a moment, staring at
him with kind blue eyes.
Roman knew the pause was a result of the
Victory Machine calculating. It was considering the actions of
billions of individuals over the nine years that were yet to pass.
A violent tremor seized him and he wrapped his arms around himself
tightly to try and suppress it.
As the calculations completed, Ayan the
Second smiled. “The likelihood of anyone saving the new populace of
Pandem is minimal, in the thousandths of a percent. The key to
causing a brighter future is in another place. You came here, to
this time, to this version of Ayan because showing her what she can
become early in the Fifth Era will only affect positive change. As
far as the darkness you used to whisper to Hampon about, well, your
efforts to set him on a path to save what’s important have borne
too much fruit. His course, and that of Pandem, are irreversible –
but that could be for the best."
"What about Valance? What if I approach him
instead of Ayan the Second? If I approach him on his ship to warn
him about the days ahead, will he still kill Hampon and Eve then
save Pandem?"
"That was always a precarious future, Roman.
Unlikely. Besides, you could ruin everyone surrounding him if you
force him in an unnatural direction. He was made for desperate
times, you’ll see."
"But it was more certain when he was the
rogue element, when Hampon, Meunez, and Wheeler were watching him
from afar."
"I am the primary rogue element now. The
path on which you see Valance is as certain as any part of the
shifting future can be. Consider carefully which prescient instant
you show Ayan the Second. She is at a crossroads. One set of
choices will ensure the destruction of everything around her. It
would be the kind of wildfire that could make way for a period of
growth. Another will lead to a war that could last a century, but
there would be recovery in some areas while it rages on. The third
and riskiest path will cut the Fifth Era War short. Few lives lost,
much higher risks taken, and great sacrifices that will leave
jagged scars on the future."
"What information will she need the most?
How can I assure she takes the right path?" Roman asked.
Ayan the Second fixed him with a knowing
smile. “You already know the answer. Every version of Ayan has a
need to improve her environment and protect the people she cares
for. You only have to convince her to continue to apply those
instincts on a large scale. The burden you place on her is not only
something she is capable of carrying, but it’s the only way she’ll
have a truly fulfilling life. It’s what she’s waiting for and what
she resists at the same time.”
It was difficult for Roman to collect his
thoughts through his increasing tremors and the pressure building
in his chest. The Victory Machine's wormhole originating from the
future generated temporal radiation, and it could only store so
much as energy before it had to be released. It was almost at
capacity. “Then it’s as simple as providing her with the right
purpose.”
Roman looked directly into the golden
sunlight, still marveling at the simplicity and elegance of his
realization. For the first time, the light warmed him and he had a
moment of peace as he watched the new future reconfigure itself
towards a more positive balance. A tremor shook him hard enough to
rattle the tea set on the table, reminding him that what he was
only a directed dream informed by his companion, the Victory
Machine.
"It was good meeting you," Ayan said with a
wink.
It was the last thing he saw before abruptly
waking in the wasted alley he'd taken refuge in the night before.
No one bothered to so much as glance at a man in a filthy old
hazard suit, especially when he was lying in a pile of garbage. The
readings from the Victory Machine indicated that it couldn't
contain any more of the byproduct energy from the microscopic high
compression wormhole at its centre. The cables attaching him to it
were getting warm, the temperature in his suit was rising, there
wasn't much time left.
He struggled to his feet and shambled down
the alley into the busy walkway of Caine, a Regent Galactic
sponsored city just outside the edge of their conquered space. The
people going about their daily lives gave him plenty of room. To
them, he was an emaciated man in a dirty old hazard suit carrying a
battered case. A group of people dressed in business attire -
colourful blouses, pressed square-cut suits and clean casual wear -
stared at him from across the street.
Roman stared back as he pictured the
interior of the Triton, concentrating on it as his only desired
destination. There was more than enough power collected for the
Victory Machine to open a secondary wormhole that would take him
there in one-one-hundredth the time it would for the most highly
powered generator. He only had to direct it properly.
He felt the Victory Machine confirm his
destination through the neural link and the case opened. Roman
closed his eyes and raised the device up in front of him.
"What’s that? Some kinda old camping
lantern?" he heard one passerby ask.
"Someone should tell him to turn it down,"
another winced.