Complete Atopia Chronicles

Identity: Jimmy Jones

THIS BETTER WORK. Despite the preparations and simulations, dragging a live fusion reactor with a million lives aboard through the center of two converging hurricanes was enough to make anyone nervous.

Even with the pressure mounting, my mind had been extraordinarily clear this morning. All the confusion I’d suffered through earlier in life now seemed to be clearing, as my mind rang crystal clear with purpose and energy. I’d never felt better in my life.

Kesselring and Cognix had given me tactical command of the operation. My primary subjective was now floating up at the edge of space, watching overlays of the constantly updated simulations. Far below me, the two storm systems were grinding into each other. From this distance, everything seemed to be moving in calm, orderly slow motion, but I had firsthand experience of the violence at sea level from several splinters I had combing the oceans ahead of us at that same moment.

Almost equally important, I had Samson interfacing with the world media as we worked to downplay the situation. The questions and inquiries we were getting were unusually low in volume, and there were nearly no attempts at data incursion into the outer perimeters.

Either we were doing an awfully good job at containing the situation media-wise, or something else was going on, but more important things had my attention.

Since the Infinixx incident, Kesselring had taken Patricia off the media circuit. Her association and relation to Nancy was too much of a distraction. To be honest, I think they didn’t trust her, but neither did they need her anymore.

Where before the emotional media campaign had been centered around confidence and trust in our bid to gain and win regulatory approval, as Hal Granger took over, we had begun centering more on the elevational and inspirational messaging. It was devoid of any real content when looked at in detail, but nobody did anymore.

The hard work of gaining the trust of experts and governments was now complete as Atopia had passed clinical trial certifications in all major jurisdictions. What was left now was simply inspiring the dreams of the masses to desire pssi for themselves.

Hal had begun using me in the media campaigns now instead of Patricia, a poster child for Atopia and the future to come, young and handsome in my pressed military ADF Whites. I’d started to gain my own celebrity status.

As we’d neared the American coast, they’d scrambled their own defensive systems and Atopia was now being orbited by squadrons of ageing F35s and swarms of aerial drones. Naval forces had scrambled out their bases in San Diego and were hanging back at the edges of the storms. We just didn’t have the maneuvering speed of a regular ship, otherwise we wouldn’t be stuck.

Several of my splinters were overseeing the constant chatter with the American security forces and other floating platforms and seasteads, but again, these were strangely subdued. We’d just received confirmation of authorization to power up our weapons systems with barely an argument. I put it down to their trust in our program, as well as the close relations I’d built up through Rick with General McInnis.

Despite the awesome power in the slingshot batteries, to channel the energy from our fusion reactor into the atmosphere, we still only had a narrow window of opportunity to make my plan work, otherwise we would be scooped up into one or other of the storms and mercilessly thrashed against the coast.

As a precaution, we were going to power up every other weapons system we had, including the mass driver and rail guns, just in case we needed to throw more at it.

The point of no return was fast approaching. I was jacked up, quickening my mind as I reached outwards into the hyperspaces around Atopia, but I figured I could use a little more chemical help. I let my pituitary glands squeeze off some more cortisol and adrenalin into my bloodstream and immediately felt my phantoms begin to jitter ever so slightly, my blood pressure rising and cheeks flushing.

24

Identity: Bobby Baxter

OUR MIND WAS flooded with images, millions of impressions and ideas, of experiences and worlds. Slowly, an impression began to form, a hint of something that didn’t fit.

A vision of my brother Dean and I, when we were kids, floated into my mind. We’d always been pushing our own limits and testing the boundaries of our parents’ patience, and one day we’d decided that we were going to sail over a thousand miles through the open ocean to America, all by ourselves. We were barely ten at the time.