Tripple Chronicles 1: Eternity Rising
Read Tripple Chronicles 1: Eternity Rising Online
Authors: M. V. Kallai
Eternity Rising
by
M.V. Kallai
Eternity Rising is a work of
fiction.
Names, characters, places
and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by M.V. Kallai All rights Reserved. No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation
embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Kallai, M.V.
www.mvkallai.com
Eternity Rising/ M.V. Kallai
– First Edition
(The Tripple Chronicles, Book
1)
Cover design by Peter Kallai
Edited by Barbara Vogel and
Elena Coccari
ISBN-13
:978
-0615600925
ISBN-10:0615600921
For Peter and Barbara
whose
unfailing support and unfiltered guidance make me
better than I am on a daily basis.
A special thanks
to Elena Coccari for her fantastic ideas and encouraging spirit.
And to Kim Keller for always believing and for helping to keep my
head in the game.
Maeve Daire lay on her white plush
bed smoking a cigarette. She was wearing only a short, silk robe. She liked the
way it caressed her skin. Delicate. Soft. Non-assuming. She stretched one arm
over her head and sucked in the sweet smoke from her cigarette. She didn’t
usually smoke, but it was a guilty pleasure she allowed herself once in a
while. And she felt deserving of little personal pleasures when she wasn’t on a
job.
She wrapped a piece of her damp,
clean hair around her finger and let it go when she heard a familiar tone
coming from her computer.
Damn,
she
thought
, and I was having such a good
night.
She got out of bed and rubbed out the rest of her cigarette in a
dark blue ceramic dish. She glided past the computer, set up on the large desk
in her room, and went straight to the small bar by her dressing table. She
poured herself a glass of scotch and took a swallow. It burned her throat on
the way down and she smiled, enjoying the sensation. She made her way back to
the computer and hit a button that lit the screen. The familiar tri-arc
government logo appeared. She punched in her access code and within seconds, a
man’s face materialized. “Cute,” she said aloud. “What a shame.” Her tone was
bitterly sarcastic. She took another gulp of her scotch and sat down to read
the profile on her next target.
It was easy to assume that Maeve’s calling in life was to be
a spoiled super model as she was gorgeous from head to toe.
Five feet ten, long blonde hair, green
eyes and a body to make all other women jealous and every man drool. Instead,
she was plucked out of obscurity at a young age to train for the Daxian
government’s top secret ‘Special Unit’. It wasn’t too many years after her
recruitment that she became the top agent in the field. Not only did she get
results every time, she did it in style.
Maeve was smart, ruthless, and her natural athleticism made her fierce
in combat.
These traits gave her
quite the hidden arsenal behind her beauty, which she’d learned early on was
her greatest weapon. Now, at thirty-three she was probably the deadliest person
on the planet and the government she worked for showed a healthy respect for
that actuality. Not that Maeve was a bully, but she did demand an exorbitant
payment for her services. This started after she’d branched out to the private
sector. The resulting bidding wars made her aware of her monetary worth. She’d
been accepting private contracts for a few years and while she left no evidence
for the government to find, they suspected.
Especially since the disappearance of one of the Special
Unit’s higher ups a few years back. And it wasn’t just that he went missing, it
was as if he’d never existed. Bank accounts, birth record, tax information, and
government identification, all gone.
Maeve printed a page on her new
target, Naja Pinure. She stood by the glass wall of her northern seaside house
enjoying the last little bit of sunlight dancing on the water as night moved
in. Naja was a high-ranking government official suspected of espionage.
If he was a spy and had managed to get
to his current position, she would have to pull out all the stops to get anything
out of him.
She rolled her eyes
and thought about how much of herself she would have to compromise to complete
this job.
The things she hated
most about her work were pretending to be falling in love and having sex with
unworthy men.
For this job, it
looked as if she would have to do both. When the sun was completely gone, she
burned the paper in her hand, poured herself another scotch and took it to one
of her closets that was full of her sexiest clothes.
She hated the stereotype of tall, blonde seductress, and
killing people was not something she enjoyed, but she was so good at it that
she took solace in the idea that it was a higher calling.
Sleeping pills and alcohol helped at
night when the images of dying, bloody faces planted themselves in her mind
against her will.
Later, after she’d had dinner
alone in her oversized house, she pulled Naja’s picture up again. She studied
the lines in his face, trying to read his expression. There was something about
his eyes. Sincerity? No. Passion? Maybe. Whatever it was, it intrigued Maeve
and the more she read about him, the more interested she became.
It seemed that most of his projects
centered on the well being of others. Things like allocating more funds to
medical research and creating better jobs for the impoverished. He’d been
married once and had a daughter, Madelyn. Maeve searched for information on the
girl. She was nineteen now, but had gone missing three years ago. She was
suspected of aiding her father in leaking military information to the
neighboring state, Tyrine. Maeve couldn’t help but smile when she ran across a
picture of the girl, tall, blond, and obviously ambitious if she was guilty of
her alleged crimes. It was like seeing a picture of
herself
at that age, almost. This girl looked happy, the kind of happy that shows in
faces of people who are loved. She wondered how her own life might have been
different if she’d had a father as powerful and kind as Naja Pinure to guide
her, instead of tossing her aside like a piece of trash when she’d started to
fight back. Of course, she was only guessing that Naja was different than her
father. Maybe he assaulted and starved his daughter, Madelyn, too. The girl was
missing. Maeve realized she was getting excited about this job, at least
unraveling the mystery of it. She sort of hoped she wouldn’t have to kill the
girl, too. What a protégé she might make.
One
Outside,
the lights shone bright from the transports passing overhead. Although it was
the midnight hour, the sky was as bright as dawn.
The light of three full moons illuminated the cloudless sky.
Colonel Samuel Ganesh momentarily glared at the second moon, Myris, before he
slipped quietly into the Daxian Government’s Technology Research Unit Building,
known as TRU. Once inside, he crept, undetected, to the atrium lab. He was
dressed in black and his face was covered. He rode the moving walkway to the
storeroom level and pulled a badge out of his pocket. The picture on this
little access card was not his. He’d lifted it from one of the scientists in
the cafeteria that afternoon. Picking a door at random, he swiped the card and
entered a room lined with cylindrical canisters. He grabbed one from the back,
tucked it into a dark cool pouch and left undetected.
Twenty five
miles away, Dr. Lee Tripple was in his lab dropping liquid from a small glass
dropper into test tubes with various labels and checking his many data outputs.
They displayed gene structures, breakdowns of proteins in cells and lists of
chemical compounds and their reactions with the different samples.
His lab was very sterile under pale
fluorescent light and though the work done here involved creating life, there
was little sign of it.
Even Lee’s
office lacked personality. There were no wall decorations, no personalized
coffee mugs or photographs, just a metal chair behind a large, somewhat paper
cluttered desk in a square room with pale white walls.
Lee, however, was always too busy
thinking to notice the absence of anything that might be considered personal or
that displayed his artistic taste, if he had any.
He was mumbling something under his breath and his
forehead wrinkled, unwrinkled, and wrinkled again.
He adjusted his glasses and studied the content of the test
tubes. He didn’t need to wear glasses, thanks to the genetic vision correction
therapy he had cultivated several years ago right here in his lab.
But, he just didn’t feel right without
them, so on his face they stayed.
He removed his rubber gloves and pulled an inkless pen out of the side
pocket of his lab coat along with a computerized notepad and began scribbling
notes across the small screen.
This small piece of technology held Lee Tripple’s deepest thoughts,
unpublished theories, and private notes about his research.
Anyone in the world’s scientific
community would have killed to have just an hour alone with this small
contraption.
Earlier that
night, Lee attended the Global Science Society’s awards ceremony and watched
his only friend, Camden Riles, smoothly deliver his acceptance speech.
In contrast to the sharp dresser at the
podium, Lee was wearing an old, brown plaid, out of date coat with pants that
did not match and hair was unkempt.
He clapped loudly when Camden finished his speech and then sneaked out
the back door before reporters spotted him.
He had a transport waiting on the street and he got in
quickly and motioned for the driver to go.
In another
hour, he was to meet Camden in a private penthouse lounge that the two of them
frequented. The general public was not granted access to this small, dimly lit
lounge with oversized, stuffed leather chairs and solid oak tables. Lee and
Camden were wealthy enough to buy access to this gem of a place where the
finest liquors and tobaccos could be ordered as well as a really good meal,
which was what Lee found most important.
Reporters were also not allowed there and the owner, Enira, and her
staff practiced the utmost discretion on their guests’ behalf. Some of the
greatest ideas known to man were hatched here from the long hours of discussion
between Camden and Lee. Tonight, without a doubt, would be no different.
One hour and
thirty-five minutes later, Camden walked into the club.
It was 10:15 and Lee had already
finished eating.
When he saw
Camden, he stood, letting his napkin fall from his lap to the floor. Although
it was their usual table, he waved his right hand to signal where he was
seated.
Lee, perhaps never noticed
this minor detail.
Camden nodded
to Lee and started toward the table, stopping a waitress along the way and
ordering a very fine scotch and cigar.
Before Camden sat down, Lee began speaking.
“Fine
speech, Cam, fine speech. I was just giving some thought to internal pressure
regulations for humans in varying atmospheres and I think I have figured a way
to make the next generation of space inhabitants more equipped biologically to
handle fluctuating pressure changes.” Camden settled in and chuckled, unnoticed
by Lee.
So typical,
he thought.
Why waste time on small talk
?
Camden took a deep sigh and then
focused on what Lee was saying.
“So with a
few minor alterations to the chemical infrastructure of the bones and vascular
system…”
Just then
Camden’s scotch and cigar arrived at the table.
Finally
. Camden thought and pulled a cigar cutter and lighter out
of his coat pocket.
Nights in the
limelight weren’t a bother to Camden, but he always felt a strong sense of
relief when they were over.
Then,
he could do what made him most happy. Relax in his cozy hideaway and enjoy
stimulating conversation hours into the night.
“I’ve worked
up a few samples in the lab and should have some preliminary results in four
days…approximately,” Lee continued.
Two hours
and three scotches later, their conversation covered a myriad of mutual
interests, from the physics of space travel and wormholes, to immortality.
Camden was always torn about the last
of these topics.
He wasn’t sure he
wanted to live forever and he questioned whether anyone should.
These questions had plagued him for the
last five years, ever since he’d helped Lee discover it might be possible.
He sometimes shared his opinions, but
Lee had one view when it came to the morality of scientific innovation that
was; “In the realm of science, if it can be done, it should be done.
Morality is relative to human feelings
and therefore not truth.”
For Lee,
progress was more than a commitment or obligation; it was the natural order of
life.
Camden yawned and it prompted Lee
to look at his watch. He stood up abruptly and said,
“I have to go back to the lab now.
I need to monitor the cell samples tonight.
If this works, it’s on to step
two...altered gene insertion.”
He
offered his hand for Camden to shake and then strode away purposefully, head
down, and mumbling. “A productive meeting,” was all Camden caught.
When his
cigar was smoked down to a nub, Camden stood up, stretched, and winked at the
club owner, Enira. Numbed by the scotch, he made his way to the rooftop lift
where his private transport awaited to take him home.
Camden woke his driver, Ari, who had nodded off while
waiting, and sat in the back with his hands folded behind his head.
Since Lee’s
lab was only two city blocks from the club, he walked there easily.
He put his access key into a slot on
the door that automatically triggered the lights to come on in his lab and the
corridors he would walk to get there. Tripple Laboratories occupied the main
floor and basement of a four-story building that Lee owned. He sometimes rented
its excess space to medical researchers and scientists at Camden’s urging. It
generated extra money for Lee to work on his own private research and freed him
of commitment to any singular project. It was Lee’s choice to work in the
basement.
There was an
impenetrable silence down there, which Lee needed to maintain complete focus.
It also made him feel like his experiments could be kept more private if he
could not hear people walking through the corridors.
No one would have reason to come to the basement lab unless
they were working directly for Lee, and even then, his staff only went to the
basement at his infrequent request.
The exception to this, of course, was Camden Riles, who had his own
office in Lee’s lab. There was a high level of security associated with this
building and even more to access Lee’s lab. DNA matching and body scans were
required for workers to enter the basement.
However, Lee and Camden had their own private entrance that
required voice matching, access codes, and fingerprinting, so they could bypass
the invasive procedures set up for everyone else. Lee trusted no one else with
access codes and wanted to keep track of everyone who came in and out of his
private world.