Birth of the Alliance (22 page)

Hope sniffed as Will replied to Adam. “We must continue forward with the assumption that the solutions to the ambrosia issue will be resolved in time for the children to be born.” He forced himself to keep his voice calm, but in truth he was panicking himself. It was strange to view a century as a mere blink of an eye, a race against time. Yet after living for so long, it seemed they had mere days to deal with everything. “We do ourselves no favors to consider any alternative while we’re planning. Fair enough?” He glanced at Hope. She nodded, with reluctance.

Will took a deep breath and continued. “As I said, we have three eras of time to consider. Our goal is to try to make sure that everything plays out exactly as remembered. In even that latest stitch of time, Arthur, the Hunters, and William are all alive. That means that at no point could they die, as much as they might deserve to do so, and thus we cannot kill them. I’ve refrained for nine centuries, and I don’t want to change things up now. We don’t know what the repercussions might be.”

“But what if the repercussions are positive?” Adam asked. “What if the elimination of the Hunters and the Leader actually eliminated the need to worry about this? We just find the cure, the kids are born, and we all live happily ever after?”

“I’ve asked myself that same question—many,
many
times—and the honest answer is that we have no way to know what the repercussions would be,” Will replied. “But I suspect that if we change history as I remember it, we run the risk that the children
aren’t
born, that I don’t get sent back in time to Hope, and that we don’t come across the ambrosia and the other ingredients necessary to produce all of this. Perhaps even Arthur has something good to do in the future. We just don’t know.” He took a deep breath. “As noted, I’ve avoided taking that chance for nine centuries now. I don’t know that we want to change course, but I’m open to suggestions.”

Adam frowned, thought for a moment, and shook his head. “As satisfying as it would be for me personally, I agree that we don’t have much choice. We can’t change anything until you’ve been safely sent back in time.” He smiled, and the look was chilling. “In 2219, after we send young Will back to rescue Elizabeth from Arthur, we should rally the children and the rest of the Alliance and take them all down. What does your memory say about that plan?”

“Nothing,” Will replied. “There was no discussion about moving on the Elites and attacking while I was living there. To be honest, I don’t think I would have been involved in any discussions of that type. I wasn’t even told about the Cavern; I was led to believe that the Alliance might well have been down to the few dozen people living in that camp. I think that was a strategic decision, though, since you would know I was going to be taken to Aliomenti Headquarters and it would be advisable for me to think there were so few. Even if they knew there was more than that, I wouldn’t be able to help them confirm it.”

Hope and Adam both nodded agreement, and Adam started adding to his pile of notes. “I’ll make sure I make note of that. It’s a new detail we’d not mentioned before, and it’s something I’ll need to be sure is handled in the future.”

Will nodded. “We do need to discuss a more current issue as well, namely, the ever-growing control exerted by the Aliomenti on world governments. It’s a deeply concerning issue.”

As Will had suspected, the Aliomenti had moved into North America after establishing their Headquarters on a small island located in an area referred to as the Bermuda Triangle. Will suspected that the ships and, eventually, planes that went missing in the region weren’t lost due to some strange natural phenomenon. Using the island as a base, the Aliomenti had sent their membership into North America in large numbers. Once established, they’d begun maneuvering themselves into the larger business enterprises, wresting control and income streams from the giant trusts and corporations that had exploded upon the American landscape. The largest growth had come after Aliomenti control began. The Alliance countered that effort, pushing through legislation that enabled political leaders to break up the largest and most powerful of those conglomerations, especially those with heavy levels of Aliomenti infiltration. Will, a successful businessman in every era in which he'd lived, had bristled at those laws, but recognized that those organizations weren’t naturally-occurring growths of human enterprises; they were enhanced by Aliomenti intent upon using those structures to exert their control over yet another population of humans.

“We do have quite a few of our people acting as aides and staffers for key Representatives and Senators,” Hope said. “However, they’re distracted now by the Great War. We’ll not get much done until that ends.”

Adam nodded. “It’s working; the Aliomenti know it’s happening but they’re unable to figure out
who
is doing the influencing. They know it’s the Alliance; they just can’t target the correct people. The Assassin wants to take out the entire Congress, but cooler heads have prevailed.”

Will winced. “Okay. I guess there’s not much else we can do here. Are we having the same effect in Europe?”

“Yes,” Adam agreed. “The Great War was something the Aliomenti… didn’t discourage, and of course they’re profiting off of all the destruction. But the Alliance is doing an excellent job fighting back. I hope this War ends soon, and the humans don’t get maneuvered into anything like it ever again. The weapons they’ve built…” He shook his head.

“There will always be war,” Will said, his voice somber. “And the weaponry will become even more powerful.”

There was brief bit of silence as Hope and Adam absorbed those words. Will glanced around. “Should we get back to more local concerns, then? A quick review of what my feeble memory has helped document?” He smiled.

“I'll give it a shot," Hope said, as she shook herself of the thought of ongoing decades or centuries of human warfare. “What we know is this: Young Will and I will meet in the year 2020, when I will be eighteen years old.” Both men stifled laughs, and Hope shot them both a withering glare that didn’t travel to her face. “We will marry, and after some difficulty Josh will arrive in the year 2024. I will become pregnant with Angel in late December 2029 or early January 2030. On Will’s birthday, he will leave our home as he usually does, and when he returns, he will find evidence that something has gone terribly wrong and suspect someone has broken into our neighborhood and is on his way to kill me and Josh. He will make it to our home in time to see an explosion that sets our house on fire. While he is searching for a way inside to see if Josh or I have survived, the Hunters emerge, beat him, and eventually learn he has a son. By the Aliomenti Oaths, the latter is a death sentence for Will. But Adam and the children arrive in the basement in the time machine. They can’t teleport him away because Porthos would detect their presence and flash to the basement, spying the time machine. Adam, you and the children will develop a tunnel and will pull Will through, without using Energy, into the time machine, which will return the four of you and the Assassin to the year 2219. Over the course of two months, the children will mask their identities as Will’s adult children, while the three of you teach Young Will the basics of Energy use. He’ll draw the attention of the Hunters with his growing Energy, eventually give himself up to protect all of you from attack, and from the Hunters and Arthur will learn
when
he is. He’ll be offered the chance to use the time machine to return to the time of the fire to save me and Josh, and will be given cryptic warnings that are actually guiding messages for this entire thousand year journey.”

Will applauded quietly. “That’s an excellent summary.”

“Since I’ve summarized it so well, there’s no chance of anything going wrong, correct?”

Adam laughed. “Well, we could always have a few members of the Alliance hide in the trees and shoot them if needed.”

“Actually, we can’t,” Will replied, though he did offer a faint smile. “Porthos at one point made it clear that there was nobody else around. Well, besides Arthur.”

“You mean nobody he could
detect
, right? He never noticed me or Josh or Angel… or Hope. For all we know, there
were
other people around, ready to act if something unexpected happened.”

Will sighed, but he looked thoughtful. “I suppose that’s true. I wasn’t around long enough to see what happened to the Hunters after I was removed from the scene.”

“I think it would be wise to ensure we have backup support in place from some of our team,” Adam said, excited at the prospect. “We can plant them inside the forest and hide them before the events unfold. They’ll be there, ready to step in if needed. That means they can’t stop you from being injured, or stop the Assassin from lighting the house on fire. If the Hunters work too quickly, though, and we don’t have you pulled to safety, then they can act to protect you from death.”

Will nodded his consent to the plan. He didn’t like putting others at risk, but the stakes were too high not to take the risk. “I admit it does seem strange to talk about my injuries as a good thing.”

“It will take a huge amount of self-control for me not to destroy the Assassin when he’s in my house threatening me and my son,” Hope said, her voice approaching a snarl. “There’s quite a bit that will happen in the course of those few hours that will be difficult.” Her face tightened as she glanced at the two men. “Is he truly as awful as the reports suggest?”

Adam nodded, his face grim. “I’m afraid so. More and more of the Aliomenti are tiring of the lifestyle, and even Arthur’s embedded controls haven’t slowed down the exodus.” He paused and smiled. “They
may
have a bit of help in overcoming those controls, of course.” His face turned thoughtful. “They aren't coming here, unfortunately. Most of the Aliomenti haven't heard that the infamous Will Stark, a founder of the Aliomenti and the inventor of many of the core inventions that propelled the group to power and wealth, has an alternative group. These are people who are simply going on assignments for the various Aliomenti business interests… and simply disappearing. It’s not that difficult to track them down, but the sheer numbers mean that Arthur and the Hunters have to prioritize. They’ve started using computer chips to help.”

Will glanced up, startled, and blinked rapidly. “Computer chips?”

Adam nodded. “Arthur has started a process whereby every Aliomenti must come before him to retake their Oaths, something they need to do every three or four years. The process includes a visit with Aramis. Every one of them is drained as a means to remind them of the importance of obedience, of following the Oaths. While they’re unconscious from the Energy drain, doctors implant a computer chip coded to the individual that tracks them without using Energy; it’s not been lost on Arthur and the Hunters that they’ve struggled to find Alliance members.” He winced. “The chip can also do some nasty things to them from afar.”

“So the Aliomenti have invented GPS,” Will muttered. He’d built the forerunner of the system centuries earlier to enable the navigation and autopilot systems for the
Nautilus
; it seemed the Aliomenti were now catching up.

“Right” Adam agreed, though he looked a bit perplexed by the term. “If someone defects, especially someone powerful, and Porthos can't find them, they can use those chips to find them. They’ve implanted powerful drugs within the chips that can be triggered into the bloodstream remotely. One of those drugs knocks the person out for about twelve hours. That’s for people they want to retrieve. If they think you’re too far gone, if they think you’ve gone over to the dark side of Will Stark…” He let the implication hang in the air.

Will nodded, his face grim. “That’s not good. It’s not a surprise, though. Arthur’s not going to sit back and wait for people to leave; he’s going to do something with more permanence than the mental reprogramming. We need to make sure that information gets out to everyone so we don’t put our location at risk of exposure. Recruitment cannot involve bringing anyone back here until we’re sure those chips are removed. We’ll need to get our best surgeons to figure out how to determine where the chips are located, and then identify the best means to safely remove them.” He looked thoughtful. “They’ll need time to heal before we move them to the Cavern; traveling might cause a lot of discomfort.”

Adam nodded. “Agreed. I wrote some notes explaining my understanding about the chips in a bit more detail before my lengthy nap during the trip here.” As had become their custom, Adam was given a deep sleeping potion at an Alliance safe house only he used prior to boarding a submarine for transport to the cabin. He’d written his notes at the house before receiving his injection. “It’s by no means complete, but it should be a solid start to a process for detecting and removing the chips.” He rifled through the papers in his stack of notes before removing two pages filled with his tiny scrawl. Adam handed the pages to Will.

Will glanced at the notes and nodded. “That should work.” He handed the papers to Hope, who reviewed the writing and diagrams in more depth as Will continued speaking. “They’re getting more desperate to retain control of their own, but at the same time they’ve been far too successful at manipulating human events. You inferred earlier that the Great War was instigated through the Aliomenti. They were the ones who drove the assassination of the archduke, weren’t they?”

“Of course,” Adam replied. “They’re deeply entrenched in the companies that make materials of war. They’re also in control of the human public banks that loan money needed to buy everything. War is profitable on every level the Aliomenti desire; I dare say they’ll ensure that wars get bloodier, more expensive, and more frequent… just as you indicated they will.”