The Restoration of Flaws (The Phantom of the Earth Book 5) by Raeden Zen Read Free Book Online Page B

we begin with space travel.” Oriana transposed his instructions to her neurochip. “What about time travel? Must we travel at the speed of light to travel through time?” When they didn’t respond, Heywood added, “Yes! The answer is so simple, my friends. You’ve lived with a great example of forward time travel all your lives, you’ve experienced its power—”
    “With Dr. Shrader?” Pasha said.
    “Very good!” Heywood weaved his hands in elliptical motions. “Our ancestors cooled him in liquid helium, ceased the aging process, and did so to enable Dr. Shrader and his kin to travel forward through time. But did he travel faster than the speed of light?”
    “No,” Mintel said.
    “Yes! No … I mean, yes! When Supreme Scientist Antosha Zereoue awakened him from his coma, he in essence traveled hundreds of years through time. With athanasia and uficilin and our advanced regenerative capabilities, his body is congruent to his being, Before Reassortment, yet the world, After Reassortment, is like nothing he’s ever experienced. How will he react? How will he adjust? What mysteries does he hold the answers to?”
    The lowercase c disappeared, and in its place flapped a sheet of black matter, one side over the other, and a tube extended to connect the top to the bottom. “Backward time travel.” Heywood swayed and scratched at his goatee. “This is the Timescape Mission’s goal, and it requires a different set of assumptions—”
    “But backward time travel isn’t possible,” Oriana said. During development, all her physics lessons had suggested so.
    Heywood smiled. “Young neophyte,” he stared at Ruiner before he shifted his attention back to Oriana, “you will expand your mind from what you believe, and believe me when I assure you that we solved the conundrum.” Oriana scrunched her brow. “Yes! We solved the mysteries of exotic matter and superluminal matter!”
    “I don’t believe it,” she said.
    Nothing she’d learned suggested it was possible to create either. At the same time, Oriana knew that except for Reassortment, much of the RDD’s work was conducted in secret—and wasn’t always part of the official record, or historical lessons—the primary reason most candidates in the elite houses wanted to be bid for by an RDD consortium.
    “I assure you we discovered the methods to generate superluminal matter,” Heywood continued, “and when it’s combined with exotic matter at the Earth’s and sun’s Lagrange points, the result is an achievement of a lifetime! Of a lifetime, I tell you!” Heywood pulled down the side of his lab coat from his neck, revealing part of the Mark of Masimovian there and on his upper back. “Now it’s time for you to earn your Marks, all of you—”
    “Not us,” Mintel said. He jerked his head sideways, without looking at the twins. “We’re here to train them.”
    “Yes! So you are,” Heywood said, “so you will.”
    “How do you know you can apply this technology to our tangible world?” Pasha said.
    Heywood swung back to the holograms. The flaps of black matter disappeared, replaced by Area 55, its aboveground circular carbyne platforms upon cylindrical towers. The Flag of Beimeni shivered from watchtowers, manned by research bots.
    Oriana and Pasha watched, riveted, as the Voltaire emerged upon the surface of the Earth. It launched and soared toward the sun, to Lagrange point one where it moved into a stable orbit. A rocket released from the side of the shuttle and a distance displayed at one hundred kilometers, then five hundred kilometers, then one thousand kilometers, then the rocket exploded, forcing the exotic matter into a dense pellet. At the same time, a stream of light labeled SUPERLUMINAL BEAM passed from the side of the Voltaire through the middle of the dense pellet. A portal took shape. It shimmered with violet phosphorescent light, radiating away from the center, turning dark blue near the edge. To the right of this