Infinity Point

By Elijah Stephens

With a focus on hard science, Infinity Point is inclusive of several sub-genres from genetics and artificial intelligence to biomechanics and bioetherics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elijah Stephens
• Release date: Dec 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781939068194

Book preview

INFINITY POINT

By

Elijah Stephens

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Liquid Heaven Productions™

www.liquidheavenlive.com

Smashwords Edition

Infinity Point

Copyright © 2012 by Elijah Stephens

All rights reserved. No part of this work of fiction 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.

Cover by Timmetrius – DeviantArt

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INFINITY POINT

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Science does not understand its debt to imagination. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The plane drifted through the obsidian sky with its engines humming and vibrations passing in waves through the interior. Behind the crates that filled the aircraft with the smell of woodchips, a few priests sat, staring out the windows at the peaks of the Himalayas like gods of ice and stone.

The African priests in heavy wool coats waited after the long detour to avoid India’s anti-aircraft systems, finally coming to the Chinese Government’s base of operations on the outskirts of the Gobi desert. The door lowered on hissing pistons and created a ramp for them to depart.

Officers waiting for the arrival of technology from allies in the African Union let them pass through security like visible ghosts. The others were headed towards the army base that lined the airfield, a city alive with sprawling structures and interconnected warehouses that cradled China’s newest creations for the mechanized war. As they cleared the checkpoint, the priest with faded blue eyes named Porter Hatch broke from the rest and walked into the wilderness using his metal staff as a walking stick.

* * * * *

Porter avoided the boundaries of the Indian outpost and sat on a rock as the Sun came up. He ate breakfast while airships lifted above the battlefield with rounded hulls that pulsated with electromagnetic field generators. The floating fortresses were generally devoid of weaponry due to a lack of momentum inhibitors, but platforms opened and heavily armed androids shot out, all strapped to jetpacks that burned with orange-cone flames. They boarded the enemy like pirates onto opposing vessels with rail-rifles in a war of attrition used as field testing for prototypes.

As robots rained down from the slow ballet, a caravan of rangers rushed the site to take what they could before worker-droids cleared the useful scrap. Microchips were wired to upload data specs before frying their processors, so tech-hounds hurried into battle to salvage any valuable materials.

During the final moments that the memory units needed to send their performance records to the servers at their army bases, the self-destruction codes could be hacked. Because of this, the rangers came under fire from mechanoids patrolling the desert to keep scavengers away. As an invisible grid was crossed by their vehicles, underground sheds opened and mechs flew out with rockets mounted in their feet.

Porter felt the ground shake as a young man dressed in nomadic clothing leapt over a boulder before it exploded. The 30-foot-tall robot that was hunting him came into view, moving the Earth and looming over the target. While it spouted Chinese territorial laws in a digital voice mimic, its palm lit up over the teenager at a distance that would vaporize him.

Porter threw his metal staff like a javelin and it landed in the mech’s optical sensor. As it recalibrated its strategy to include the new threat, he leapt onto its outstretched hand and ran up its arm. With his weapon still protruding from its eye, he tapped a small button and blasted a hole through the back of the robot’s head. It tumbled like an eroded building and Porter was thrown clear.

I’ve never seen a gun like that, said the thankful young man, who watched him slide a chamber on his staff and discharge a shotgun shell. My name is Nikos.

Porter looked down at him without offering his hand. Are you a ranger?

Of course not. Nikos appeared to be insulted. I’m descended from a tribe who once allied with Alexander the Great. Can I be your apprentice?

You don’t owe me the life I saved, replied the monk. The dark-haired youth had a nose that continued down from his forehead and wide-set oval eyes, both Macedonian features that may very well have had their roots in Alexander’s campaign. Why are you here?

My people have always been independent of politics and we are starving in the mountains, said Nikos. When young men reach a certain age, we’re expected to go out into the world and search for a solution. I chose to come north. Why are you here?

I’m from a religious sect in Africa that is devoted to militant anti-poaching. I came to help preserve the last pockets of wildlife in Asia and to purify the range of the unnatural.

Nikos scoffed, How long do you plan to be here?

I didn’t consider it an easy task. Porter walked towards the dust left by the fleeing rangers, who gathered a load of technology from the battlefield and headed west.

Nikos followed. What religion do you follow that would teach you to throw your hope so far into the clouds?

The mystical naturalism of the old shamans, who viewed dreams as metaphysical designs. Why are you following me? he asked before a loud crack filled the sky.

They both looked up to see one of the airships shoot a beam from its bay doors with a flash. It struck again, glowing off the clouds.

Looks like the Chinese have a new weapon, said Nikos.

Porter continued on his way. If that’s where you’re headed, I will pray for your good fortune.

I want to see Beijing, but I’ve decided to join your quest. You’ll need a guide, after all, and you don’t have enough supplies to reach the City of the Sun.

You don’t have enough to get to Beijing, replied the monk without looking back.

* * * * *

Porter didn’t mind the newcomer after it became clear that he had a great deal of knowledge about the region. The rangers were easy to follow once they made it back to the caravan and collected their families. When night fell, they set up camp on the grassy steppes, circling their vehicles like a wagon train of settlers.

Porter and his new apprentice followed the canopy of stars on foot until they caught up to the wanderers. What should we do with the women and children?

They can go in peace.

Nikos looked around. Did you feel that?

It started a mile back, we’re being followed, Porter answered.

By what?

The smell of barbecue had lured something to the remote site. A yell soon overwhelmed the wind as a wall of dirt lifted in the middle of camp. Leaving a crater when it landed, the rangers scattered from a giant multi-horned beast. Porter and Nikos kept their distance, deciding to let it do most of their work.

They were surprised to hear them refer to the animal as a typhon, but when they saw it rushing towards a mother with three small children, they tried to intercept it. The creature planted its heavy fists into the ground and peered at them with strained eyes. Through dense fur, the sharp yellow dots examined Porter while it took a breath and leaned forward with its strange conglomeration of antlers. Porter lifted his staff and blasted buckshot into the typhon’s face.

It recoiled and swiped the campfire, showering him with embers. Nikos stole a rail-rifle from an empty vehicle and peppered the creature with suppressive bullets until it charged him instead. He disappeared in the wreckage as it tore though the truck. Porter ushered the mother and her kids into another transport and they left on the trail of the survivors.

With the beast charging, he popped the retractable spike that turned his staff into a spear, impaling it through the skull with its own momentum. In the silence, Porter went searching for his apprentice and found Nikos beneath a pile of scrap. The young man was happy to be alive and seemed to cherish the new scars he’d earned. He marveled at what was left of the mutation, then commented that one of the ranger vehicles might be easy transportation to Heliopolis.

Though Porter wasn’t thrilled with the idea, Nikos talked him into mounting the