Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3) by Jay J. Falconer Read Free Book Online Page A

general’s unit just sent us an encrypted communique and samples.”
    “Of what?”
    “I’m not exactly sure,” Bruno replied, putting his hand inside the envelope. He pulled out a swatch of black fabric covered with gold etchings that resembled the underside of a computer’s motherboard. He gave it to Kleezebee. “Some type of fabric with gold circuity built into it.”
    The professor pulled at the material, inspecting its elastic properties. He opened the desk drawer and found a four-inch magnifying glass tucked behind a couple of rulers and a tray full of pencils with teeth marks along their shafts. He held the magnifier close to the cloth and turned on his desk lamp, showering the fabric in light.
    “Impressive nano-circuitry. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “Military issue?”
    “Not sure. However, assuming these pathways are made from gold, there’s something we can test,” the professor said, pulling another item from the drawer—a powerful, rare-Earth magnet. He put the fabric on the desk and was able to pick it up with the magnet.
    “Gold is not magnetic, so this test proves the base material is. It looks to be made out of a densely layered metallic substance, possibly graphene, but without better equipment I can’t tell you its composition. Where did Hector get this?”
    “The general’s men found pieces of it on a remote hilltop near an undeveloped section of the Catalina Mountains. Apparently, there was a failed incursion. His troops gunned down an entire company of men wearing uniforms made out of this stuff. Alvarez sent the material off to be analyzed. Hector managed to reroute a sample to us.”
    “When was this?”
    “Yesterday, just after Homeland Security received credible intel about an imminent attack on NASA’s underground lab on campus. The general and his men were patrolling the airspace when they spotted the insurgents wearing this stuff. When they refused to surrender, the trigger-happy general took them out.”
    “How many?”
    “Hector’s encrypted note said one hundred ninety verified kills. He sent a video, too.” Bruno pulled a flash drive from the envelope.
    “What’s on it?” the professor asked.
    “Unknown, sir. It’s marked DLK Only .”
    Kleezebee took the USB drive from Bruno and plugged it into the port on the front of his desktop computer. The video file auto-started, displaying on his LCD monitor. The professor angled the screen to allow Bruno to watch the recording, too.
    Various text-only instrument displays, including speed, direction, pitch, roll, yaw, altitude, and GPS coordinates were superimposed across the screen. The bottom of the recording contained the date and time of the event, serialized in real time, down to a hundredth of a second.
    “Looks like this was taken from one of the belly-cams,” the professor said, watching the images on the video bank sharply to fly toward the mountain. When the aircraft circled around, it caused a change in sun direction, casting three surface shadows on the landscape below. Then the pilot dipped the nose gear, flying closer to the surface. The shadows grew in size and clarity, revealing more detail.
    “Three choppers. Heavily armed,” he told Bruno.
    “Apaches,” Bruno said. “This is going to get ugly.”
    The screen showed dozens of uniformed men gathered on a hilltop in a V formation, walking toward a lone man near the edge of a cliff. The video showed all the insurgents being highlighted with red tracer outlines, one after another in rapid fashion as the onboard targeting system catalogued its targets. The helicopters slowed their approach, then hovered just beyond the edge of the mountaintop’s clearing.
    The intruders turned in unison to look at the helos, putting their arms up to protect their faces from the downdraft wash. Seconds later, all but one of the uniformed targets took off running. The aircraft opened fire, sending a shower of bullets into the scrambling men, ripping them apart