Future Imperfect

By Mike Manolakes

Future Imperfect is the seventh book in The Traveler Series, the penultimate installment in the story that began in Variation Seven and continued in Strange Times, Living in the Future, Dying in the Past, Travelers' Tales, and Past and Future Tense. Travelers are the men and women who possess timebands -- cybernetic devices that allow the wearer to travel in time and change history. There are only twelve timebands and twelve Travelers, and those individuals have divided themselves into two rival factions, each with a different view of what the destiny of mankind should be. One group is attempting to steer humanity toward a bright future where it colonizes the stars, and the other is determined to work toward the extinction of the human race before it can infest the galaxy like spreading plague.

One of these Travelers is Ruthie Terwilliger, who is trying to rebuild her team after it has suffered a devastating tragedy. As she and her team struggle to resume its vital mission, they must deal with the reality that history is now following the sequence of events known as Variation Seven, a timeline that will inexorably lead humanity to its own extinction. Ruthie, her husband Miles, and the other Travelers must use the history-warping abilities of their timebands to steer the fate of the Earth away from a nightmarish destiny.

Meanwhile, Ruthie's daughter from the future, Miranda, has her own challenges to contend against. Now split into two distinct individuals, one Miranda attempts to rescue her husband William from the evil syndicate known as the Family, while the other makes a cruel bargain with an old enemy after being betrayed by someone she loves.

Unknown to Ruthie, former friends are secretly conspiring against her. In order to save her friends, family, and all of history, Ruthie must make an impossible choice, and perhaps even make the ultimate sacrifice. Future Imperfect sets the stage for the last installment in the Traveler Series, Final Variation.

Future Imperfect is the seventh book from author Mike Manolakes in the Traveler Series, the story of Ruthie, her friends and foes, and the alternate histories they create. The Traveler Series will take readers on a trip through worlds that never were, timelines where history has followed a drastically different course. For readers who enjoy exploring the various “what ifs” of history, Travelers' Tales and the Traveler Series will provide unexpected twists and turns as Ruthie discovers the unexpected potential in the power that the timeband gives her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Manolakes
• Release date: Jul 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370195244

Mike Manolakes

Mike Manolakes is an author of science fiction, alternate history, and historical fiction. He is also an American Civil War reenactor, actor, director, and retired classroom teacher. He lives in Arizona with his wife Rae and their dogs and cats.

Book preview

Future Imperfect

by Mike Manolakes

Copyright 2017 Mike Manolakes

Smashwords Edition

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

About the Author

Other books by Mike Manolakes

CHAPTER ONE

March 24, 2592. Lincolnograd, Illinois Soviet Socialist Republic.

She’d been on the run for two days now. It had been two days since men in white suits had last forcibly injected her with powerful drugs, and now Miranda felt the drugs were probably out of her system entirely. Her abilities, which the drugs had inhibited, should have returned by now. And this looked like as good as a time as any to test them.

This was the last building on the grounds, and it appeared to be the most heavily guarded. She felt certain this must be where the Family was keeping William, her husband. Miranda looked it over carefully from her hiding place, at the edge of a grove of trees about ninety yards from the squat three-story building. There were ninety yards of open ground to cross to get to the building, no cover, in plain view of guard towers, surveillance cameras, maybe even spy satellites. Miranda was armed with two hunting knives and a pistol, but they’d be of little use to her in that open field. Crossing that field would likely be the death of her.

At least she would be able to watch it happen from a front-row seat.

She suddenly had the feeling she was not alone, and she spun to her right to face the newcomer, knife in hand. She knew who it was going to be, of course, but after two days living like a hunted animal, she could not help taking the reflex action to protect herself.

Take it easy, she heard herself say. It’s just me.

Right, Miranda said, looking at an exact copy of herself. She lowered the knife, noticing that her double also carried the same knife in her right hand. When did you come from?

About fifteen seconds from now. You were just about to have the thought that it would be nice if there were two of us here, one to try to get to the building and one to try to come up with a Plan B if it failed. I jumped back to give us that chance.

Good to know the drugs have worn off. I guess I’m — we’re — back to normal now?

More or less, the Miranda from fifteen seconds in the future said. Making such a short jump back in time still took much more effort than it should, and it’s left me with a bit of a queasy stomach, but other than that, everything still seems to be working perfectly. I wouldn’t want to have to try to stop a bullet in flight without a day or two more of rest, but the worst effects from the drugs are gone.

Miranda nodded, taking it all in. She was used to doubling herself in this way, jumping back in time to place two or more of herself in difficult situations. That was where the knives and the gun had come from, after all. A version of herself had come back in time from a few weeks from now, after she’d built up a tolerance to the ability-inhibiting drugs, and brought her the weapons so she could kill the three orderlies who had been torturing her and escape to find William. That Miranda had jumped far back into the past to try to find Mom, and left her to rescue her husband, a prisoner of the Family just as she was.

Okay, she said. Who’s crossing the field, you or me? And who gets to stay back here and watch herself die?

She saw herself shrug. Doesn’t matter. We’re the same person, after all.

Thought you’d say that. All right, I’ll go. Wish me luck.

Good luck, she heard herself say, and then she broke into a sprint across the grassy field. The sun was beginning to rise, and it looked like it was going to be a pleasant spring day. Miranda had made it more than halfway, and was beginning to think she might actually reach the building alive, when the guard with a machine gun in the nearest tower opened fire on her. Her last thought was that she had been correct, she wasn’t in any shape yet to stop a bullet in flight…

From the edge of the grove of trees, the other Miranda — the only Miranda now in this time and place — watched herself get riddled with bullets and fall in a bloody heap upon the grassy field. It wasn’t the first time she’d watched herself die. She’d used this particular stratagem before, with equally deadly results. The first time or two it gave her a sick feeling, watching herself go through the agonies of death, but eventually she reached the point where it didn’t really matter to her any more. She knew she was going to survive and live on, despite what she had just seen happen to herself, and it didn’t really matter what happened to a double that really wasn’t her any more. She knew that when she doubled herself in this manner, each Miranda was now truly separate, with her own life to lead and her own separate destiny. The dead woman in the field wasn’t really herself any more, she now found herself feeling. The body in the field was a road not taken, a life that had diverged from hers but no longer her own. This Miranda was still alive, and she intended to stay that way.

So what was Plan B? A version of herself had just died to give Miranda a chance to execute Plan B, but unfortunately she didn’t have one. It was pretty clear that the building was well-protected from all possible directions. The guard towers had a clear view of anyone approaching, and the guards inside weren’t hesitant about using lethal force to stop intruders.

Miranda knew it was possible, of course, to try to overwhelm the building’s defenses with sheer numbers. Even though she was alone, it was possible to turn herself into an army in hardly any time at all. Move back in time a few seconds, and suddenly there’s two Mirandas, and then they both step backwards, and two becomes four. Then eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two, and it wouldn’t take long before there’s a whole battalion of Mirandas, ready to storm the building. The machine gun would kill a lot of them, but probably not all of them. Some would get through.

Miranda knew that this strategy would almost certainly work, and yet she rejected it, for several reasons. First, it would mean that she would see herself die, not just once, but countless times all around her, bullets ripping through dozens of bodies that were identical to her own. And each one of the fatalities would be her — each death would really happen to her, even as she witnessed it from other bodies. While she might be brave enough to face death once, knowing she would survive in another body, could she really allow herself to be killed over and over again, just so one or more of herself could make it through and survive? She doubted she could find the courage for that particular dance of death.

But even if she could, what happened afterward? If she duplicated herself a thousand times, and suffered ninety percent casualties assaulting the stronghold, there would still be about a hundred of her that might make it through to the building safely. Assuming there were no other traps or defenses, the hundred Mirandas might rescue William. Miranda didn’t feel like sharing her husband with ninety-nine copies of herself. And each one would feel that she was the one and genuine Miranda, and none of them would wish to give up William or live without him. While the trick of creating an army of Mirandas might get her into the building safely, the consequences of such an action were too much to deal with, and Miranda dismissed the idea at once.

Long ago, Miranda had become accustomed to the idea that she didn’t exist as a unique individual. Her earliest memories had been of a teenaged Miranda caring for her, and throughout her life she had encountered many other duplicates of her. She often wondered what it would be like if only one of her existed, unique and uncopied, but even though she knew that would almost surely never happen, she did not relish the thought of unleashing dozens of copies of herself onto the world at once.

Miranda knew that even now there were other versions of herself out there, older versions that sometimes came back to help out their younger self. An entire squad of older Mirandas had shown up in Miranda’s recent past, when Miranda was foolish enough to insinuate herself into a twisted version of Pickett’s Charge in 1863, and nearly lost her life in the process. Somehow these Mirandas had found a way to bring helicopters back to the Battle of Gettysburg, swooping over Seminary Ridge in the nick of time to pull a wounded Miranda off the battlefield. But they had vanished as soon as they were no longer needed, but not before depositing their younger self in a hospital in twenty-sixth century Illinois, in the clutches of her enemy, the Family.

Miranda had come to hate the Family and all it stood for. If what the Family claimed was correct, it was comprised entirely of descendants of Ruthie and Miles Terwilliger, Miranda’s parents. All the members of the Family claimed to possess the free Travel gene, the inherited ability to travel freely through time, without any cybernetic aid. Through force of will alone, they were able to control the flow of time, jump from one moment to any other, and interact freely with their past and future selves. Miranda also possessed this same ability, but she didn’t know if it was because of any such gene. Some people whose expertise in the subject far exceeded hers had assured Miranda that no free Travel gene existed, that anyone might be able to unlock the abilities that both Miranda and William had been able to manifest from an early age.

But for some reason that she couldn’t fathom, the Mirandas who had rescued her from the battlefield at Gettysburg had brought her to the twenty-sixth century to be treated, a time period when the Family was firmly in control. They had left her there, in the custody of her enemies, and even brought William there, too, so the Family could make him its prisoner as well. Miranda could not imagine why older versions of herself would have done that to her and William, for the Family would do just about anything to keep Miranda under its control. Its entire existence depended on it, for much of the Family members claimed descent from Miranda. But Miranda did not have any children, and she had long ago resolved never to have any, thus denying the Family its ability to exist. Her resolve had made the Family itself very improbable, and as long as she did not change her mind, or allow herself to have progeny through some unnatural means, the Family would eventually cease to exist and fade from reality. Miranda thought the Family should already be too improbable to exist, and yet here it was, keeping her husband a captive. Worse, one of the Family elders had shown Miranda a video feed of a woman he claimed was a Family prisoner. Emaciated and near death, the woman was almost unrecognizable, but the elder claimed the woman was her mother, Ruthie Terwilliger. Miranda was sure that this must have been a trick to make her comply with the Family’s wishes — the Family revered Ruthie, its original ancestor. It couldn’t treat the woman they call Grandmother this way, could it? It must be a trick, and this fact made Miranda hate the Family even more, and fed her determination to wipe it from existence.

She looked again at the prison building that held her husband. She had rejected assaulting by force, but there were other means at her disposal to gain entry. As a natural time traveler, she could stop the flow of time around her, and move from place to place in a frozen moment of time. In less than an eyeblink, she could be at the front door before the guards with the machine guns could even react. So why didn’t she try it?

Miranda thought it over. The problem, she concluded, was that she was up against people who shared the same abilities as her. They knew that she would try to enter the building this way, so certainly they must have set up special defenses for just that eventuality. But how? When Miranda stopped time, even a bullet would be frozen in mid-flight, and she would be in no danger from it. Yet a Family operative could enter that same moment that Miranda existed in and move just as freely as her in it, as long as that operative knew which moment Miranda inhabited. But could it know? The Family couldn’t defend all possible moments, could it?

Yes, Miranda concluded glumly, it probably could. In fact, the Family could sit back and wait for Miranda to make the attempt, even allow it to succeed, then send someone back in time to the very moment of Miranda’s success to unmake the event and make sure it failed. That was the underlying problem with these abilities that Miranda and the Family shared. No event was permanent, nothing could ever be done that could not be undone. Anything that Miranda ever did, anything that ever happened to her, could always be changed and replaced by a different version of events. She wouldn’t even be aware the changes had been made. When she thought too hard about it, it made everything seem unreal and inconsequential. Nothing mattered really, not even her death. Why should it, when you can watch it happen and feel nothing afterward?

Miranda looked across the field at the prison building and wondered why she should even bother trying to enter. What did it matter, in the long run?

No, she concluded, it did matter. Even if it was going to be a futile effort in the end, she had to make the attempt. She loved William, her dearest friend since childhood, and she couldn’t bear to be separated from him. She’d gladly suffer death over and over again if there was even the slightest possibility that they could be reunited in the end. And she owed it also to her mother and father, and the other Travelers who had raised her, not to give up. They had sacrificed much to stop evil men