Aspirations: A Near Future Sci-Fi Thriller Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Author's Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One - Changes

  Chapter Two - Another Matter

  Chapter Three - The Island

  Chapter Four - Meditation and training

  Chapter Five - More Training

  Chapter Six - Obstacles to Be Overcome

  Chapter Seven - Preparations

  Chapter Eight - The Competition

  Chapter Nine - Swimming Against the Current

  Chapter Ten - Surprises

  Chapter Eleven - Somethings Change, Some Things Never Do

  Chapter Twelve - Another Rescue

  Chapter Thirteen - A Little Space Jaunt

  Chapter Fourteen - Another Awakening

  Chapter Fifteen - More Beginnings

  Chapter Sixteen - The Stockholders Meeting

  Chapter Seventeen - Working It All Out

  Chapter Eighteen - Unusual Negotiations

  Chapter Nineteen - New Challenges

  Chapter Twenty - A Little Distraction

  Chapter Twenty-One - Finishing Some Things

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Cutting Off the Head

  Chapter Twenty-Three - The Final Countdown

  Epilogue

  Author's page

  Coming soon in “Ascendancy: A Near Future Sci-Fi Thriller Book 3”

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  ASPIRATIONS

  A Near Future Sci-Fi Thriller

  Book 2

  by Randal Sloan

  Copyright 2016 Randal Sloan

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Author's Page

  Sign up here:

  http://www.randalsloan.com/nearfuture/

  #

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to those that provided support for the development of this book, including Catherine Borden Sloan, Dean Borden, Christina McCoy Wilson and Sandra McCoy. Your comments and suggestions were greatly appreciated and helped make this a much better book.

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

  www.gobookcoverdesign.com

  Prologue

  Sometime in the near future, the space race has been won by private enterprise. A company formed by two brothers, Theodore and Samuel Randolph, was by far the largest of these, and has become dominant, so dominant that their capitalization has exceeded the economic worth of many countries.

  The company was named Space Tech, Inc. and they had been able to do as a private enterprise what none of the earth governments had managed. They had developed viable, financially stable space based technologies. First, they had developed a truly reusable launch system that, although still expensive, was magnitudes cheaper than any other system in use at the time. Then, they had built and brought online a space station dedicated to commercial ventures, producing high tech products that could only be manufactured in space. They had managed to do this at a time when the market for these materials had just become mature, and their products were in high demand.

  However, the whole key to eventual total domination by Space Tech had been due to their decision to capture a number of small asteroids and comets, pushing them into a stable orbit around the earth moon Lagrange points. Space Tech had then set up mining operations to bring in the raw materials necessary to their manufacturing process. It had taken considerable investment, but it was now paying huge dividends.

  Still, Space Tech had their share of problems. By far the worst of them was the Organization, a group of terrorists and pirates, who appeared to be in direct opposition to Space Tech. The Organization at one time was a loosely organized group that no one took seriously. Unfortunately, it appeared that the Organization had gained a sponsor that was giving them major funding and weapons, because the conflict between the Organization and Space Tech had moved to a much higher level.

  The situation with the Organization was becoming more and more serious, and it had begun to affect the brothers and their families personally. Unknown to everyone, this conflict was going to have a major effect on the entire world, so much so that the world would be vastly different depending on how it could be resolved. Whether that result was good or bad, was yet to be determined.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Changes

  Julie Randolph stared in shock at the Virtual Reality (VR) file she had in front of her. She was equally horrified by what she had read and by her reaction. Her first thought had been, How could my father have thought of such a horrible thing, but it was quickly followed by, I could do it! This is my chance to kill all of those terrible men in the Organization! She quickly closed the file, but she couldn’t make herself delete it.

  Miranda would have deleted the file. The thought came unbidden and unwelcome. Yeah, but Miranda Summerlin didn’t lose her family plus two years of her life to the Organization like Julie did. Well, she really thought her father wasn't dead, just missing, and his disappearance didn’t look like it was the Organization’s fault, but it was the Organization terrorists who had killed her mother in the violent attack that had also left Julie in that coma.

  When Julie thought of the last moments she and her mother had together, she felt her mother’s love, but she still wanted to cry. Those men who had taken her mother away from her had been part of the evil Organization. She knew she would come back to look at that file again, and she suspected she would build that weapon, too. Sooner and not later, even as terrible as it was.

  Julie had a lot on her mind, which was why she had been using her VR to distract herself. It hadn’t really done a very good job of distracting her anyway, and that last file just about finished her off. She shut her VR down, looking around to see if her Uncle Ted had seen any of it, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw he was busy looking at his own VR. Julie knew exactly how he would feel about the file she had just read.

  Julie and her uncle were both on the Space Tech X-plane, en route to Hong Kong to meet with Uncle Ted’s friend who just happened to be the head of a group of monks. Originally based in the mountains of Tibet, they now owned their own island off the coast of China. The group was Julie’s best hope to learn the physical control she desperately needed. Control that could be gained by learning their meditation and techniques involving their version of the martial arts.

  Everything had started when Julie awakened from a coma after being treated with tiny machines called nanites that had been programmed to repair her brain injury. They had succeeded beyond the dreams of even her father, who had created the nanites in order to treat her. Those nanites allowed Julie to exceed in mental and physical activities far beyond what she should have been able to do. She had put those abilities to use more than once over the last few weeks.

  But the reason Julie was on the X-plane headed to Hong Kong was due to a more recent event. Julie had been caught in the explosion of a device that manipulated the subspace interface to generate power. Her nanites had somehow been affected by that explosion, giving her enhanced senses that were almost overwhelming at times. But she actually thought she could learn to deal with that. What she was really struggling with was how to control her movements. When she tried to move her hand, unless she concentrated on moving it in absolutely slow motion, it flew by in a blur. The same for any other movements, all enhanced by her nanites. She really had no idea what her limits were going to be, but right now the challenge was to be able to do normal physical tasks. The monk order was her best hope and her uncle was convinced they could help her. If they will accept me!

  That was why they were flying to Hong Kong. The negotiations by her uncle had f
ailed so far, because they insisted they could only take men in their training. They were going to appeal to the man who was Master over all the monks, who hopefully would agree to her training there. Uncle Ted was convinced he would be able to work it out with the Master, who had been his friend for many years. He just needed to explain her situation to him.

  Ted had laughed when he told her about calling his friend to arrange the meeting. His friend had answered the call audio only, obviously one of the few people in the world who still owned a cell phone instead of a VR. The Master monk refused to move to modern technology, hence the cell phone. That was one of the reasons they had to meet him in person. Cell phones weren’t in any way secure, unlike the secure VR systems they used at Space Tech. A secure VR couldn’t be broken by even the world’s most powerful AI without a number of years to work on it.

  To Julie, that meant she was going to an interview with a lot at stake. If the Master wouldn’t accept her, she had no idea what she was going to do. That would have been enough to make Julie nervous, but her stress was fed to near flames by all the other emotions she was struggling with. A lot had happened to her over the last several months, but even more had changed in the last couple of days.

  Before the events of those two days, she had been living under the false identity Miranda Summerlin in the witness protection program, no clue as to her real identity. All because when she had awakened from the two year coma with no memory, they didn’t even try to see how she was, to see if she could “handle it” — they just lied to her and told her that was her name. To protect her. They should have trusted me. I would have been able to handle it, even use the identity as they had intended to hide me from the Organization. But I would have known who I was.

  Instead, I spent all those months believing I was Miranda, having to create a new identity with no help from my family. She was still a little angry about that — well, a lot angry about it. Because the man she had known only as a librarian at her school had really been her father, and she had not known it. Now he was missing. I could have had all that time with him. I have to believe he is alive, and I will find him. But, it’s really, really hard.

  She had learned her real identity from an agent of the evil Organization. He had intended to kidnap her to study her nanites and had almost succeeded. Only quick action by her boyfriend Zeke Caldwell had prevented that, but Zeke had paid a tremendous price. Julie had really thought she was going to lose him because of how badly he was injured trying to protect her.

  Zeke was now in a coma of his own, being treated by an extract of Julie’s nanites that she had given him in a desperate attempt to save his life. Julie had been told that the coma would last six weeks while the nanites went through their basic programming. Julie was having to deal with the fear that the nanites wouldn’t work on him, although her uncle insisted everything was ok. I really didn’t know what Zeke and I had until I thought I was going to lose him. But I can’t help it. I’m still worried that something will go wrong.

  She was still trying to deal with the shock of finding out her true identity. Julie Randolph was probably every American girl’s dream — the All American girl. Looks, personality, and privilege. So it certainly had its upside. But, even though she had known it, after she had first learned the truth, she had really felt like she was still that other girl, Miranda, at least in her thoughts. Once, when she had dozed off, she had awakened certain that it was all just a dream.

  For Miranda, the responsibility was terrifying. Julie was expected to take the place of her father as CEO of Space Tech, at least temporarily. Space Tech was the largest company in the world and the only real company in space. While she was still struggling with all of that, her uncle had given her some of her things, including her treasured violin. When she saw the violin, she knew instantly it was her — well Julie’s — treasured violin.

  As Miranda she had been drawn to the story surrounding Julie, not knowing why she had felt that way. That was when she found the music, the song that Julie had played on her violin at the New York concert just before the attack that left her in a coma. The song had gone viral on the VR video sites, and listening to it had struck a deep chord within her as Miranda. It was one of the things that had helped to her to cope with the almost debilitating headaches she experienced after she awakened from her coma. Headaches that she still was terrified would come back.

  But last night, when she saw her violin, the music had immediately begun playing in her head. When she picked up the violin, her fingers automatically moved to tune it. Without thought, she lifted the bow to the violin and began to play softly that song, the one that had helped her so many times, and the tears streamed down her face as the memories came, all of them, of her family, of her friends, of who she had been. All of those things that she had lost.

  So she now had all of her past memories as Julie. But also, a few very intense months of memories as Miranda, and that time had changed her significantly. As a result, she was trying to somehow combine the partial memories of two different people, with two very different personalities. As Miranda she had not been very confident and had been very tentative, almost shy, in her actions with others. Before as Julie, she had been almost the opposite. Very privileged due to her family and their money, and if anything, too sure of herself when dealing with others. She was gradually merging it all together, but it was not easy. She was definitely a very different person from the Julie she used to be. Hopefully she would be a better person for all of it. If I don’t go crazy!

  Worst of all, Julie was struggling with anger. Anger at her uncle and father for deceiving her, but more so, a burning anger at the Organization. As a result of having her memories back as Julie, she now had to deal with the loss of her real mother, a loss that seemed to her like it had happened only yesterday. The anger she felt for the terrorists that had taken her mother away was almost overwhelming, crying out for revenge. I didn’t even get to go to the funeral!

  Julie knew she had already reached a decision.Yeah, I’ll come back to look at that file later. It’s my chance to wipe them out, and I’m not going to pass it up. No mercy. They didn’t give my mother any mercy or Zeke either. Her flight was getting close to their destination, so she could at least give herself an excuse to put it off for a little while.

  #

  Julie’s thoughts were interrupted as their pilots announced they would be landing in Hong Kong in the next few minutes. That made her think again about what was coming. Julie was grateful that her uncle had spent some time the day before talking about the monks. It had been quite an interesting discussion.

  Uncle Ted had told her with a gleam in his eye, “They are not traditional monks at all. Not a religious order but a group who call themselves ‘The Order of the Dark Star’. Although they teach meditation and the physical defense skills, their primary recruitment tool, their group has a deeper purpose that unfortunately I can’t reveal to you.” She had given him a questioning look, but he had refused to tell her more.

  “I really can’t reveal it,” he told her. “Only members can know, and only the higher-ups can learn all of it. I promise that they are nothing evil and you would approve of them. Depending on how far you progress, you will learn more while there.”

  Julie tried to pin her uncle down on his exact position within the group. He had to be high up, even if it was an honorary position. Again, he wouldn’t give her a straight answer. He swore that he couldn’t tell her that, either. Finally in exasperation, she asked him, “Well, what can you tell me?”

  He laughed, telling her, “Lots of things. They resist technology, but it’s not for religious reasons. They say they don’t want to become dependent upon it, but I think partly it’s just that they’re being stubborn about it. That has improved over the last few years, but not by much. I also think it has a little to do with living on an island paradise, so they really don’t need that much technology.”

  He paused a moment, thinking about what he should tell her. “Yo
u will be glad to know they have adopted English as their standard language. Since they have moved to the island, they have worked hard to improve that standard, so you should encounter very few who don’t speak English well enough for you to understand.”

  The next pause was shorter. He hadn’t thought about this stuff in years, but it was all coming back. “My dear friend, Master Kash, whom I consider my brother, is now the high Master monk for the island, but he is still governed by a council. The council is supposed to make all the overriding policy decisions and the Master is supposed to run the day-to-day stuff, but it is a lot more complicated than that. The council tends to have factions with differing agendas and the Master must balance those. It is an art and Master Kash is one of the best at managing the council, often playing one faction against the other. If we get you there, he will be a big help, but you will still have to be careful.

  “Punctuality was extremely important. I was five minutes late the first time I met with the man who is now Master Kash, and he told me I had to pay five hundred dollars.” He smiled as he thought of that meeting. It was something he would never forget. “All I had to pay them with was the one gold coin I had received from your mother. I was still waiting to receive my back pay from the Air Force, so I was nearly broke. She had given it to me before I left, not telling me why, just that I would need it. Even then it was worth a lot more than five hundred dollars. Who knows what it would be worth in today’s money.” Julie sadly knew it was her mother and her visions, without a doubt.

  “I thought the young Master Kash was going to faint when I handed it to him. You would have to have been there to see the look on his face. Something about that coin changed everything.” He smiled a moment, thinking of that long ago meeting.