The Revenge Plan: A Time Travel Thriller: The REM Machine Series, #2

By Lena Raye Scott

She's about to face a killer with a grudge... 

New Jersey, 2071. 

Kara Danilenko is looking forward to freedom after atoning for her past crimes, but when members of her old gang are targeted, ATF agent Max Field fears Kara may be next. 

Suddenly Kara is caught in the cross-hairs of an enemy she never knew existed, and when her daughter is kidnapped, she faces a race against time to save not only herself but also her child. Her only hope rests once again on using the REM machine…

Can Kara survive long enough to prevent her daughter from becoming the killer's next victim? 

 

The Revenge Plan is a fast-paced sci-fi thriller that must be read after Book 1.5 in the series  - available for a download after The REM Machine.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lena Raye Scott
• Release date: Jul 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393500452

Book preview

Prologue

Mia checked the caller display screen on her phone.

Guys, my mom’s video calling me. Mia tried and failed to keep the panic from her voice. I’ll be right back.

Her mom would freak if she knew her fifteen-year-old daughter spent her Wednesday and Friday evenings in a chat group, discussing how to expose America’s corrupt government.

Tell her we said hi, Hashtag Superstar said, her husky voice teasing. Her MyLife icon of a dancing hamster spun in the middle of the screen as she spoke. It was pretty cool the way the MyLife platform distinguished the voice of a user in a group chat by having their icon show on screen as they talked.

Yeah, right. Mia’s own MyLife icon of a single Ghost Rose spun as she spoke. She’d created the icon because it was her favorite flower and had been since she’d researched it for her junior high botany class, learning that after being brought back from near-extinction, the Ghost Rose now flourished in the wilds of Europe, and because it was pollinated solely by the pepper moth at night, it used a ghostly luminous glow and sweet scent to attract them.

Mia ripped the headset off her head, powered down her HoloPad and stretched out across her bed. When she answered the video call, she was flipping through last semester’s textbook and pretending to jot down notes.

Hi, Mom. She lowered her tone to casually bored as if she’d been studying for hours.

Hey, sweetie. You busy?

Mia looked up at her mom’s holographic image hovering above her phone. She rarely enabled the privacy feature, so all her video calls were usually broadcasted to whoever was around. She understood the constant reminders about security but didn’t think they were relevant to her. After all, she figured she was nobody worth caring about.

Just studying for an advanced coding exam we’ve got next week.

It was true. She did have an upcoming coding exam, but Mia had already studied for it and was fairly confident she’d pass without breaking a sweat. Their conversation didn’t last long. Just her mom checking in with how she was getting on at Bradford Academy now the new year had started and adding to their plans on what they would do together when Mia came home for winter break.

Hanging up, Mia turned on her HoloPad, grabbed her headset and logged back into her MyLife account.

Okay, I’m back, she announced once inside. I swear my mom is going stir-crazy alone in that house.

Doesn’t she live with her friend? The dancing hamster spun across the screen.

Yeah, but Aunt Erin is running a business full-time. Plus, she’s always traveling for all sorts of business meetings to network and expand the bakery. Business meetings my mom should be going to as well, by the way.

Mia shook her head, anger igniting within her. My mom getting rejected for an account at First One Bank was just a glimpse of what’ll happen once she’s off house arrest. She’ll be discriminated against everywhere.

Yeah, that’s messed up what they did to her.

A palm tree icon spun on the screen. Ronaldo Rob. From Florida. He was a senior in high school and the newest member of their group. One day he’d stumbled upon their chat room sort of by accident, but because he was a strong believer in their cause and had fit right in, they’d let him stay.

The Core has to go, pronto, Ronaldo said, referring to the New York skyscraper in the financial district that held data on every American citizen. It was supposed to be a secure system, but Mia had found a glitch in The Core’s infrastructure allowing companies and institutions to peek at a person’s digital data to determine their level of risk to their business. A practice that was against the law without a court-issued warrant. When she’d first become aware of it, Mia had written to the mayor of New York to inform him, but months later, the glitch was still there, and she began to wonder if in fact it was there by design?

I’ll be applying for colleges next year, man. I don’t want them looking into my past.

Ronaldo had a juvenile record that was supposed to be sealed but had taken Mia just a few hacks, using the glitch within The Core, to expose his gang-related grand theft auto charges from when he was twelve.

They shouldn’t be looking into anyone’s past. It’s an abuse of power. The last group member, Holly, was the youngest at thirteen. Her MyLife icon was an unimaginative holly leaf, and her profile said she wanted to be a vet.

And that’s why we’re gonna do something about it, right, Em?

Right, Mia agreed. She’d chosen the name Em as a phonetic spelling of the first letter of her name. The group assumed it was short for Emily, and she hadn’t corrected them. We need a plan. And it has to be strong enough so nobody will ever be discriminated against because of their past ever again.

I’ve been thinking of an idea, Holly piped up. Her voice was soft, and she sounded far younger than Mia did when she was thirteen. What if we wiped out the digital data held inside The Core? If there’s nothing for anyone to base their prejudiced decisions on, then everyone becomes equal.

That’s not a bad idea, Hashtag Superstar said. If it weren’t for the, you know, felony part.

Well, we’d obviously hide the fact we did it. We could even publish a manifesto so that it exposes the data breach, and everyone in the country will know why we did it. Em, you’re smart. You could hack into The Core and wipe their data.

Mia bit her lip. Her hesitation wasn’t due to the felony implications because Mia knew how to cover her tracks well, but it was the moral implications. Was wiping everyone’s data in The Core really the right thing to do?

Maybe we should think of something else that isn’t going to get us all arrested, Hashtag Superstar warned.

Yeah, I second that. I’m not looking to go back on the wrong side of juvie again.

I thought you guys wanted to make a change, Holly challenged. Otherwise, what’s the point of us all meeting together?

We do want to make a change. But maybe this isn’t the right way to go about it, Hashtag Superstar said.

Em, what do you think? Holly asked her, the holly leaf spinning to the forefront of their voice chat.

I think … it’s a good idea. And, you guys, I know how to hack in so we won’t get caught.

Holly gave a whoop of glee, and Mia laughed. From the moment Holly had connected with her through the MyLife chat, she could tell she was the younger teen’s hero.

Can you write Serbian too? Holly asked.

Mia and her group had been talking for a few months now, and she’d told them all about her mom being Serbian and how she’d been learning the language over the years so that she was almost fluent in it. Um, yeah. Why?

Well, I was thinking you could write the manifesto for us in Serbian.

Why? Mia asked again.

Well, I was thinking that if we use a Serbian persona, it will help disguise the fact we’re American and, at the same time, prove we’re distancing ourselves from the American government. And if we make that persona sound suicidal, the cops won’t try looking for them after The Core is destroyed because they’ll think they’re dead. It couldn’t hurt, right?

I guess so. Mia shrugged, though none of her friends could see her. It was actually a pretty good idea and obviously proved Holly had been giving it a great deal of thought. Let’s come up with some ideas to put in the manifesto, and once it’s done, I’ll translate it. You guys in?

There was a moment of silence before Hashtag Superstar’s dancing hamster and Ronaldo Rob’s palm tree icon spun on the screen as they voiced their support of the plan.

Cool. Mia heard the grin in Holly’s voice. This will be perfect.

Yes, it will. America won’t know what hit it.

Mia smiled. Making friends in the real world had never been easy for her, but with these people, she’d finally found her tribe.

And they were going to make history.

Chapter One

Six Months Later

Max parked his car behind the deli, his appetite already on a downward spiral. He sighed as Jamie’s phone switched over to voicemail yet again.

Max had been calling him all morning to see if Jamie wanted to meet up for a beer this evening, but so far, he hadn’t answered, and Max couldn’t help thinking Jamie was screening his calls. It was a hard truth to swallow, and he tried not to feel hurt, instead reminding himself that his best friend was going through a rough time right now. Maybe populating their cop bar hangout was something Jamie just didn’t want to do after he’d handed in his badge two years ago.

Since his rehab in 2061 at The Haven, Jamie had relapsed twice and gone back in for eighteen months apiece. That last time, he’d not even told Max when he was released a couple weeks early. Max had only found out when Jamie had updated his MyLife status.

Max’s main concern was how much this was costing Jamie financially. An eighteen-month residential program inside The Haven wasn’t cheap. Max would’ve been more than willing to assist Jamie with another stint in rehab, except he couldn’t get Jamie to answer any of his calls.

Max pocketed his phone and rubbed the deep lines on his forehead. He could already see his evening playing out like it had every night for the last two years: another night drinking solo because his new partner, Cole, didn’t drink.

Max glanced across at the Body Protection Android sitting stoic in the passenger seat with his usual somber expression. It was of the male gender, solid build, average height, with close-cropped dark hair, a permanent five o’clock shadow and the only trademark oddity identifying it as non-human: a green left eye and blue right eye. His voice, though he spoke rarely, was gravelly and clipped. He was completely devoid of personality, but that suited Max just fine. Nobody wanted a comedy show for a partner. Maybe designing the androids with minimal social skills was what had helped keep BPAs around for so long.

Living in such a technologically advanced world, Max had witnessed his fair share of companies bursting boundaries with their ground-breaking inventions. But many failed to meet the strict guidelines of the Technological Advancement for Inventors Committee and were never heard of again.

Max had thought the same would happen with BPAs when federal agents started to be assigned them two years ago. But BPAs were a cast-off idea from what was already in place in the military, so they were already efficient and perfectly suited to field work.

Underneath his synthetic skin, Cole had layers and layers of Kevlar and was engineered as a bodyguard, ready and willing to take a bullet for his human partner. Thankfully, it hadn’t come to that, but even if it had, Cole was virtually indestructible. The only thing that could destroy him was himself.

All BPAs were capable of activating their own self-destruct sequence if they deemed it necessary. It was a last-ditch sacrifice and the only action that could be initiated even if they were without the support of The Hub, a network that basically kept them alive. And although that still concerned Max, he had assurances from his department head and a representative from Bradford Academy, where these things were coded, that a BPA would never initiate their own self-destruct sequence in the presence of innocent civilians. After two straight years of smooth sailing, Max had come to trust Cole with his life.

Max’s earpiece beeped, and he pressed the tiny button on it to receive. It was a new design by the department that allowed a direct connection to INDA—the ATF intelligence database helmed by four super-smart technical operators nicknamed the quadruplets.

Go ahead.

Hey, Max, the female tech said. Lucy or Laurie or … something like that. Max was so used to referring to them as the quadruplets that he couldn’t even distinguish them apart by name. We just got a hit on Moses Ejzifo.

Max pressed the earpiece deeper in his ear, well aware that didn’t affect the quality of sound, but it was a reaction borne of instinct.

He’d been searching for the last remaining Sovereign member since the gang’s takedown ten years ago. Jamie had mentioned Moses’s girlfriend had gone into labor the same night he’d arrested Tully, but upon assembling a task force to her apartment in the city, neither Moses nor his family had been found. So the quadruplets had set up a system in INDA to flag an alert on future references to Moses Ejzifo’s name, prints or facial recognition. But up until now, he’d remained a ghost. Max couldn’t believe it had taken ten years but as the old saying went: better late than never.

Where is he? Max could have a task force assembled in under an hour depending on Moses’s location and—

New York City Morgue.

Max did a double take, pressing the earpiece deep. What?

NYPD just uploaded the medical examiner’s report into their system. That’s what flagged our parameters. We called them to confirm, and it’s official. Moses Ejzifo is dead.

Max leaned his head against the headrest, an odd feeling churning within him. It wasn’t quite the feeling of loss but maybe disappointment? He’d wanted to lock Moses up and allow justice to take its course. But it was like he’d had the rug pulled out from under him.

How’d he die? Max sighed. He definitely knew he wouldn’t be eating now with the nosedive his appetite was taking.

According to the report, it looks like he was beaten to death.

This surprised Max because Moses was a big guy. Six-foot-five and over three hundred pounds, he wouldn't be a man to easily overpower.

The female tech continued reading the NYPD report: he was found in an abandoned apartment block in SoHo by a patrol team after an anonymous call about a possible intruder; no ligature marks to indicate restraint; fatal blow consistent with a crushed hyoid bone; medical examiner estimated he’d been dead for three days.

Any cameras in the area? Even as he asked, Max could bet what the answer would be. If the techs had found footage of Moses or possibly his attacker on any local cameras, he’d already have the feed on his phone.

None that worked.

Max thanked her and pressed the button on his earpiece to disconnect before delving back into silence. His whole operation ten years ago to capture the Supplier ended with the successful imprisonment of Gabriel Tully, Roman Danilenko, Keith O’Shea and Oliver Dutton. But it bothered him that Moses would never get to serve his time also.

Max tried to shake that empty feeling away, but he already knew it would be sticking around for a while. He couldn’t help it. It was in his nature for thoughts and feelings to take up residence under his skin. He’d considered therapy a few times before deciding that trait was what made him such a good criminal investigator.

But clearly not good enough. If Max had located Moses years ago, he would be alive and doing time right now with his buddies in Northcote Prison. Catching whoever had killed him would never be high priority for NYPD, so that meant Moses’s killer would stay free, likely forever.

Max reached under his seat and pulled out his HoloPad. He scrolled through his archived file of videos, ensuring the privacy setting was on and the footage would be confined to the screen and not hover above it as a hologram for all to see. Finding the file, he lowered the volume and pressed play.

The room was cloaked in shadow, but he could see enough of Kara Danilenko when she sat before the camera. Her long black hair and translucent skin paled in comparison to her bright green eyes, and it was her eyes Max watched as she spoke.

The windows to her soul.

Her confession had shown her in an entirely new light. A more intriguing light. Coupled with how she’d conducted herself in court, Max had found himself thinking about her personality change more often than he probably should.

He knew she was currently on house arrest with just over a month left on her sentence. Her location was officially unknown, but unofficially, he’d utilized the quadruplets’ skills to locate and hack her GPS tracking data to discover she was staying in the quaint town of Haroldsville, New Jersey.

Two years ago, he’d driven past the brownstone she was confined to and glimpsed her sitting in the front garden, absorbing sun rays like a solitary flower. He’d considered talking to her, asking her whatever he needed to ask to sate his curiosity. But after a moment of debating, he’d turned around and driven home. He had no official jurisdiction in New Jersey and turning up out of nowhere would probably just weird her out. And that’s if she even remembered him.

Max shut off his HoloPad and stowed it back under his seat.