Plato's Gateway

By Brian Jeffreys

Rebellious star pilot Phillip Barreda just barely scrapes out a living for himself and his handicapped brother, Jerry.
But their lives change when they accidentally
discover an interstellar gateway at the edge of colonized space where his ship is
attacked and disabled. Forced to team up with the ironfisted Space Marshall Amanda Hayes, Phillip and his passengers are soon brought face to face with the evil Dr. Cornelius
Plato, a brilliant scientist exiled from earth over four centuries ago.

Along the way, Phillip and Amanda learn that the line between sheriff and rogue isn't always well-defined. As they team up and discover how powerful Dr. Plato truly is, an unlikely hero emerges as Jerry discovers that he alone holds the
key to stopping the evil doctor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Jeffreys
• Release date: Dec 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465922069

Brian Jeffreys

Brian Jeffreys is a reader, husband, father, technologist (geek), autism advocate, and science fiction / fantasy writer.Brian Jeffreys was born and raised in Yukon, Oklahoma, the oldest of two children. He attended several universities with degree programs ranging from engineering to astrophysics, finally graduating from Dallas Baptist University with a BS in Information Science. After two decades working in high tech manufacturing, he went back to school to pursue a masters degree in mathematics.While visiting a friend who had just co-written a book, Jeffreys decided to try his hand at writing. Over the course of three years he wrote four full length novels and tried several publishing venues. But at his core, he is a storyteller who loves to read and write good science fiction and adventure fantasy. His driving motivation is to never write something he wouldn’t want to read more than once.He lives in the North Texas area with his wife, three children (one with autism), and three cats.

Book preview

You must stop them now.

Jerry, are you awake? a voice asked him. She sounded like a nice person, but he didn’t know her. People you didn’t know were strangers.

Yes, he said. He didn’t say it aloud. He said it in his head as he often did when someone asked him something. He wasn’t sure why he did this except that he didn’t want to answer sometimes.

Jerry, don’t be afraid. But you need to know what they are doing to you, she continued. They will start by reading your thoughts into a computer. After that, they will modify your thoughts so you won’t know that they are hurting you. Jerry, this is important. You have to stop them from modifying your thoughts. Can you do that?

Where am I? Jerry asked. Perhaps if he knew where he was, he could figure out how they were going to hurt him. At least, it was a place to start.

You are in a laboratory on a bed. You have been connected to a computer that will read your thoughts. They will know everything you know. They will also know we are having this talk. Jerry, you must not let them! You must stop them now.

Brian Jeffreys

~~~

Plato’s Gateway

Plato’s Gateway

Brian Jeffreys

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 978-1-4659-2206-9

Copyright © 2010 by Brian Jeffreys

Cover Design Copyright © 2010 Donna Casey  

Discover other titles by Brian Jeffreys

at smashwords.com:

Fall of the Terran Empire

Orion Gambit

Glory and Empire

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Preface

I struggled with whether or not to introduce a character with autism into this story. I wanted to make sure that I did so with dignity and with the greatest feelings of hope and promise that a brighter future might be possible for those struggling with this disability. That is to say, that people with autism are just as bright as you or I, they just can’t unlock the chains that are forced upon their mind by this merciless disorder. In a way, it is the cruelest of prisons, often manifesting itself from the earliest days of youth.

Autistic impairments are typically associated with cognitive, or thought-organization disabilities. These difficulties they face are lifelong, and there is currently no known cure. Fortunately, diligent training and compassionate support can bring some improvements.

The Two-thirds of those with classic autism (or Kanner syndrome) are severely to mildly handicapped in cognition and intellect. Many with Asperger’s Syndrome (a variation where the affected person tends to fixate on a specific topic or object) have average to higher IQ, and can often relate a multitude of facts about specific subjects.

Across the autistic spectrum, perhaps 10 per cent have distinctive abilities—in such fields as art, music, mathematics or memory—and are called autistic savants. (The proportion of people with such special abilities in the whole population is around one per cent).

But I continue to have hope that through awareness and bold speech, a cure can be found. My own son suffers from classic autism and the effects upon our family are profound. At the time of this writing, at least 15 in every 10,000 persons in North America have what are called pervasive developmental disorders. Throughout the world, it has been estimated that 48 million people have some form of autism.

Chapter 1

Phillip turned his head to look for Cynthia’s helmet. She was coming up behind him, holding her sidearm pointed toward the ceiling, eyes scanning for the enemy. He had already seen Rigby and Jefferson go down. Rigby had bought it scant seconds ago. Phillip knew part of the red squad was still ahead and to the right, but there was also a sniper out there. Jefferson had found that out the hard way. Unfortunately, sitting here behind the makeshift barricade was only delaying the inevitable—he had to get moving.

The office complex was a complete mess. A small fire was burning in one corner of the administrative floor, near the exit. Row after row of desks were strewn with damaged computers, and chairs were overturned along the far wall. The only working light fixture illuminated a corner of the seventh floor where the offices all had doors. One light fixture near him was flickering from a near miss where a projectile had exploded into it, taking out a significant chunk of ceiling along with it.

He sent a quick hand signal over his shoulder to Cynthia, instructing her that they would be moving to the right. He took a deep breath and dashed out from behind the overturned table that was his temporary refuge. Sprinting as hard as he could while remaining crouched over, he came to a stop where the miniature walls came together at a right angle. Something told him a gunner would be waiting for his head to check around the corner. He got down on his stomach and quickly fired three rounds around the corner. He heard a groan and a soft thud indicating that he was right. Backing away from the corner, he crawled underneath one of the table surfaces behind them and began making his way around to where his attackers would need to be in order to hem him in. He looked back and Cynthia was still with him. Good—she was smart, and knew how to keep checking behind them for surprises.

Together, they crawled into a small alcove along the wall where there were file cabinets and office bric-a-brac on a long shelf, the contents having been spilled onto the floor in the ruckus. Being careful not to step on anything that would crunch underfoot, he shuffled his hands and knees forward until the two of them were able to watch from the alcove. Remain silent, he told himself. Cynthia was watching one way; he was watching another. Patience. Wait them out. He focused on bringing his breathing back under control—nice even breaths. Cynthia tapped his shoulder and pointed. Two of them were approaching, crouched over with weapons ready. They were systematically checking every grid square of the office area. Moving silently, he fired one shot and Cynthia another, and two people slumped to the ground. A stocky man in black coveralls, wearing a red insignia on his shoulder, came by and checked their bodies, looking for clues as to where the shots came from. Another shot from Cynthia and he went down. Good. That meant only two more, and one was probably overhead looking for them. As long as they stayed in this alcove, they were reasonably safe from overhead observation.

Phillip remained crouched, but slowly worked one leg out straight in front of him, and then the other. He had learned to do this in order to keep them from becoming cramped or going to sleep on him. Finally, after several minutes, he knew the other team was waiting him out as well; two against two. It was time to send out the bait.

Quietly he signaled his intention to Cynthia and slowly crawled out of the enclosure. As carefully as he could, he slithered up to another corner and took a piece of a broken knickknack, nudging it around a corner with the end of his tracer pistol. He gently turned it until he saw a reflection. Then, with startling speed, he lunged around the corner and took his shot. The waiting attacker was also looking for him but did not know when or where the shot would be coming from—a clear advantage for Phillip. The attacker went down, a blossoming blue stain expanding on his chest armor. But now Phillip was exposed; he was also in the open. The enemy sniper took aim and then swore as a tracer shell hit her squarely in the head.

As he turned to congratulate Cynthia on locating the sniper, the lights all came on and the makeshift training arena flooded with examiners and medical personnel. The fires were promptly extinguished, and the chief began working his way down the line, calling for all trainees to stand and be accounted for. Jefferson and Rigby walked up to him, each sporting a splash of color on his black jumpsuit indicating how he had been killed. They had blue insignias on their arm bands to indicate their side in the exercise. Rigby had a slight limp where he had careened into a desk a little harder than he intended. From Phillip’s perspective, it had looked like a base runner sliding into third. He knew that McFlannery was the other team’s sniper, and began to wonder how she had managed to pack herself into a ceiling duct on the other side of the room. After the all clear sounded, they filed out to the staging locker room before heading off to briefing room one for the post-combat analysis. Work crews hustled in to prepare the office area for the next evaluation team.

I can’t believe you fell for the moving chair, Frank said, grinning and pounding Jefferson on the back as they entered the briefing room. Rigby was frowning at the area on McFlannery’s tunic where he expected a splash of color to be—the blank patch indicating he had missed with his tracer. Taking chairs around the large conference table, they waited until Chief Nicholas Brown took a seat. Video footage began playing on the monitors at one end of the table. The combat training exercises were designed to complement the classroom learning for the peace force units that would be assigned to various garrisons along the outer rim worlds. This particular exercise had been designed to simulate an urban office complex.

As the briefing got underway, a signal chimed from the doorway, where a young lieutenant was waiting to deliver a message.

I need Cadet Phillip Barreda to report to the commandant’s office immediately.

Chief? Phillip looked up, getting the signal from the chief that he was to be excused from the briefing.

When Phillip arrived at the commandant’s office, he was greeted by a man with small dark circles under his eyes. He was a heavy man, but not overweight, in his late fifties. His finely shaved hair affirmed his military precision. The man moved with a practiced ease, but showed slight signs of slowing down due to age.

Sit down, son, he said in the official tone he used with everyone. His voice was gruff, but not necessarily antagonistic. Taking the indicated seat, Phillip sat down with his back board-straight, his training hat in his lap.

We just received a message from Williamsport, the commandant said, handing over an electronic reader to Phillip. While Phillip scanned the displayed page, the commandant went on with a hint of sympathy in his voice. Some kind of accident involving… Well you can read it there. Anyway, they apparently had some trouble finding you. You have a whole list of messages that have been tied up in the dispatch queue from Earth for weeks, according to the original transmission dates. I take it you and your parents weren’t particularly close, but I understand if you need to take some leave to see to the arrangements.

Phillip’s mind did not register most of the conversation. He read the message again, but it didn’t make any more sense to him the second time. It said his parents were dead, something about a small inheritance, and him being named him the executor of a special needs trust fund. It also had an attachment indicating some late payments for this or that. He numbly pressed his thumb against the lower right corner of the screen to register his receipt of the message. Following were some legal instructions and more text that his mind just didn’t seem to be able to register.

The commandant rose and showed Phillip out of his office. Phillip took a chair in the waiting area until his mind had time to catch up. He had his team exams and an infiltration jump to prepare for, and he still needed to write his bio-toxins term paper. Suddenly, it hit him that his parents were gone. He would need to make some phone calls and get things in motion. Then he could get back to his life here in the academy.

He opted to take his dinner early and found a communications terminal. He queried the indicated legal firm and found that they had been looking for him. Apparently his father had not bothered to let his attorney know where Phillip was; there was a stack of legal mail that needed to be read and sorted. This was going to be more involved than he thought. He sat back in the chair and scratched the back of his head in frustration. He would need to arrange some transportation and go back to see what the rest of the family had done about funeral arrangements. His only aunt had passed away three years ago, and his cousins were on some colony world somewhere—he couldn’t really remember where. And then his mind clicked into high gear. Jerry! His older brother was disabled and living in a network home back on Earth. Phillip couldn’t remember the name of it exactly. He would need to call and make sure Jerry was alright. That must be what the special needs fund was for—to take care of his brother.

It was raining the next morning as Phillip went to the operations office and arranged for his leave. He would be leaving his class and would need to rejoin the next set of recruits when he returned, but that was okay. He didn’t really have much else planned after graduation. He was hoping for a peace keeper job with one of the big colonization firms. He really didn’t want to stay in the heart worlds much longer—too much crime and humanity all crammed together in teeming pools of overpopulation. Phillip really didn’t mind going out into the unknown. At least now he could pay his last respects to his father before he left. The man had never given him a break.

Returning to the communications bank, he placed more calls and got some instructions from an attorney for settling the estate. He also got the number of the network home Jerry was living in. Making the call, he spoke to a woman who seemed either overworked or apathetic—he couldn’t tell which—who looked up Jerry’s status and housing assignment. After a few minutes, she was back on the monitor telling him that Jerry’s housing fund had not been kept up and that his brother had been turned out.

Turned out!? What does that mean, exactly? he said, trying very hard not to shout.

It means, Mr. Barreda, that Jerry Barreda’s account had run out of funds. We have more people than beds, and he had to be sent somewhere else. We sent word to your parents to make the necessary arrangements. Perhaps you should speak with them.

Phillip closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe he was actually awake; clearly this was something out of a nightmare. These kinds of things just didn’t happen. Or apparently they did—they had just never happened to him before.

Frustrated, he contacted the local authorities and asked that they help locate his missing brother. He did his best to give them a description, but he had not been home in several years. He had worked several part-time jobs to pay for terraforming school, and then had transferred to the academy after his grades had not been good enough to get any of the good jobs that he had wanted. After he had made all of the calls he could think to make, he arranged for transportation back to Earth and boarded the next shuttle to the spaceport.

He had no idea where to begin his search. He checked in with the network home in old Philly, but they could only tell him what he already knew. Jerry did not interact with other people, he did the same things every day, and they didn’t know where he might have gone. Perhaps if he checked with this agency or that agency they might be more helpful. It was like trying to find a haystack in a galaxy, only to find out there was no needle in it.

He checked transit stations and gave descriptions to the missing persons departments at several local precincts. He tried to think of every place where there might be a clue to Jerry’s whereabouts, but he was coming up with nothing. All of the logical searches were not providing any results.

Finally, he took a shuttle to Philadelphia and located the last worker that had seen Jerry leave his network home. The man had given Jerry a duffle bag, a video transceiver, and enough money to get to the transit station. The worker had obviously not bothered to check to see if he made it, nor given him a means of selecting a destination. But at least Phillip now had a general direction in which to begin a search.

His first stop was an old building with cinder block walls painted an off-yellow color. A tattered flag gently blew in the breeze and the smell of freshly cooked stew wafted out into the busy street in central Philadelphia. A line of men waited patiently to get inside and enjoy a portion of the nourishing food that had been donated to the shelter. Active duty Coast Guard personnel wore aprons and served the line as people politely took plates and found seats.

Phillip talked to one of the enlisted workers and told him he was looking for Jerry, holding out a not-so-recent photo. The man shook his head and waved him into the building. Phillip went down the rows of tables, calling out and looking at the worn faces. He followed the line outside into the bitter cold and around the block from where people crowded into the shelter for the lunch meal.

He talked to a few homeless men, some of which would tell him anything but the truth in exchange for a better meal or a bottle of cheap whiskey.

Phillip continued down the street, seeing a small, grizzled woman sitting just outside of a municipal building and asking passersby for pocket change.

Any change, mister? she asked quietly.

Phillip dug out the coins in his pocket and pressed them into her gloved hands. Her gloves were worn and two of her fingers were poking out. Beside her on the steps were two plastic bags with clothes and other belongings—probably all she owned.

I’m looking for my brother; have you seen him? Phillip asked for what seemed like the millionth time. But the old woman didn’t look at the photo; she just stared up at him. Irritated with how fruitless this day had been, he started to turn away, but something about her look made him turn back. Phillip could tell from her fixed stare that she thought she recognized him somehow. She quickly lowered her eyes.

Have you seen me before? Have you seen someone like me before? he asked excitedly.

Look mister, I don’t want any trouble, she said quietly.

Phillip sat down beside her on the steps. A few people passed them by without a glance.

When is the last time you ate? Phillip asked softly, looking more closely at the frail woman beside him. Her clothes were humbly mismatched and covered by a threadbare coat. Her socks were two different colors, and one was visible through the bottom of very uncomfortable looking shoes. Her skin was rough and leathery from day after day exposure to the sun. Her hair was matted — what little he could see poking out from under a dirty, cloth newsboy hat — but nothing a good comb couldn’t fix. And she stank.

Phillip made up his mind and stood up. She looked up at him as he bent over and lifted one of her bags.

There’s a sandwich shop on the next street, he said. Come on, I’m going to buy you something to eat.

And with that, he hefted her other bag and began crossing the street. The old woman started to protest, but her hunger got the upper hand over her fear. She got up and slowly followed Phillip across the street and into the small shop.

An old red brick facade with a large glass window would have made the store front blend in with the older buildings, except for the brightly colored paint embellishing the otherwise drab window. The inside was quaint, with dark wood furniture and wood floors that creaked with every footfall.

Phillip slid into a small booth and ordered sandwiches and coffee for them both. He also ordered two bowls of tomato soup with croutons. A few patrons wrinkled their noses and stared but said nothing