Eve of Ascension: The Fall of The Ascendancy, #1

By Daniel McMillan

A heart-pounding dystopian page-turner in the tradition of The Hunger Games, Alita: Battle Angel, Logan's Run, and George Orwell's 1984, Eve of Ascension is an action-packed thrill ride through a future world gone mad.

 

Baxter Clarke grew up in a highly ascended family enjoying the loftiest comforts of the 12 cities, but a startling new connection disrupts the balance of his sheltered life and puts him in a position he never dreamed possible.

 

With the fate of the Ascended attached to a device stolen from a government agency - and the help of an alluring young woman from a fringe society he has been programmed to fear - Baxter will run for his life to save his people from themselves and the very institution that promised to protect them.

 

From exciting author Daniel McMillan comes "a great voice in Science Fiction" sharing "a hidden gem in the treasure chest of reading!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vector11Studio
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386228974

Daniel McMillan

Daniel McMillan is the author of several Science Fiction novels and collaborative titles in other genres, many of which have become Amazon Bestsellers. He is a prolific writer and avid self-motivator.  Daniel doesn’t do things in small measure: he speaks multiple languages, plays several instruments and expresses his creativity through drawing, painting, sculpture and music. He started studying science - focusing on physics - and spirituality at age 11 and was curious about the overlap in these disparate areas of study. Sci-Fi is his go-to, but he isn’t one to limit himself and enjoys exploring writing in multiple genres. Dan is married to Tahera Yeasmin, inarguably one of his greatest accomplishments to date. Visit https://books2read.com/rl/danielmcmillan/  to learn more.

Book preview

Prologue

THE RUINED CITY SHAWAN Forander found himself in had been in that state for generations, deserted after the Great Cataclysm had blighted it along with the rest of the Earth.

Nature was doing a thorough job of reclaiming the spaces between the decrepit buildings and heaved pavement. Vines and plants slowly tugged at the railings and ancient structures that leaned precariously out of the ground while trees and grass split and pitched the walkways between them.

Shawan came to this abandoned place that lay between the villages of Sylva and the cities of the Ascended to upset a balance of power that had consistently been Ascendancy-heavy.

Pre-Cataclysm cities were no longer safe places and had been passed over as too unstable for homes. The Sylvans began anew rather than working to revive them, preferring to establish more suitable towns from scratch in convenient spaces of the wilderness.

Within the former metropolis, animals inhabited impromptu caves formed by the rubble of the now-decayed habitats of humanity. The birds that roosted in the remaining balconies had no fear of being shooed away by angry broom wielders or having things flung at them by children.

There had been no children here for a long while, nor women or men.

Right now, the only remaining human in the jungle-city showed no interest in the animals or plants here, except those that got in his way as he ran for his life.

Only minutes before, Shawan had met his contact in the disorder of the neglected city, and the transaction between them had gone smoothly. The merchandise he obtained was smaller than he guessed it would be, but it was intact and in proper order, and the courier had deemed his payment adequate. They reached out to one another to shake hands, and the man he was dealing with stiffened briefly and his eyes widened, still catching Shawan’s squarely. Then the fellow’s gaze fell, along with the rest of his body, as he died.

Shawan watched his contact’s limp form descend ungracefully into a heap at his feet, and he saw the black-edged hole in the man’s back where an ion stream from an Ascendancy-issued rifle had burned out his existence. Looking up quickly he discovered the fatal beam’s origin: a Guardian—a robotic Ascendancy officer in the form of a shiny, athletic woman—was recovering its balance after the first shot, working to retrain its rifle on him.

Halt, the officer called out in a firm, alto voice. Shawan dodged and bobbed as he scrambled to the nearest cover while shots impacted around him.

The female form of the officer was designed to make people feel at ease around it, but all he could see when he looked at it was a killing machine produced by an unscrupulous regime, created to keep people in line without humans having to do anything distasteful. It was a ‘non-threatening’ construct that would end his life with zero reluctance or remorse.

So he ran.

He made it away from the initial assault because the officer robot—or O-bot as they were called—had fired from a precarious position and briefly lost its footing, but that would not happen again. His survival had been a gift of Providence, and from now on he would have to earn the right to go on breathing. The bots were not super intelligent and could be outwitted, but they were strong, fast, and implacable.

Shawan could not fail. He needed to keep moving, had to finish this for the good of everybody—Sylvan and Ascended alike. The package must get to Shadaar; he would know what to do with it.

He proceeded through the city rubble and forced aside any notion of failing, becoming intent on achieving the objective. The things he had learned during a lifetime of training came surging into his mind. He had to prioritize. He must make it to a Gate at the bottom of a small pit outside the city which would transport him some distance away to his village of Nylen.

Shadaar had designed the pit as an escape hatch after Shawan had a close call and was almost followed back to the village. It was merely a hole in the ground with smoothly sloping sides to allow critters to climb out, with a Transport Portal Gate at the bottom. The Gate transported anyone who crossed through it to a place on the peripheries of Nylen and then would seal itself off to preclude any pursuers from following. All that mattered now was getting there—preferably in one piece.

As he ran, he called for his backpack to come to his chest and the millions of nanobots it was composed of shifted their positions, moving around him under one arm as they kept all the objects inside in their proper places. He reached into a compartment on the pack and removed a device. He triggered the small instrument and dropped it onto the roadway as he continued to run.

Hopefully, it would buy him a brief rest before he carried on. He had to make it out of the city and reach the pit. It would be hard to manage a balance between pushing forward at breakneck speed and preserving enough strength to get all the way there.

He sidestepped into a narrow alcove alongside one of the last streets of the city. The buildings were modest here and farther apart, so he needed to take advantage of shelter when the opportunity presented itself. He peered back around a corner to get a peek at his mechanical pursuers.

Damn. Four O-bots were tracking him; more than he had prepared for. They slowed as they neared, and electronic eyes set in each of their faces scanned for any hints of movement.

As the Guardian on point came a little closer, Shawan thought the officer looked at him. It stopped searching in his direction