THE INFINITY ENGINES SERIES
BOOKS I-III
Andrew Hastie
Contents
ANACHRONIST
1. Go Faster
2. Community Service
3. 1944
4. Returned
5. The Flat
6. No Telly Eddy
7. Caitlin
8. Hospital
9. Lenin
10. Cars
11. Friends
12. The Gig
13. Necropolis
14. The Colonel
15. Wolf's Lair
16. About My Dad
17. Training
18. The First Lesson
19. Cabinets of Curiosities
20. Fenians
21. The River
22. A Better Life
23. Second Lesson
24. The Palace
25. Lost Treasure of the Bourbons
26. Lenin's Plan
27. Another Colonel
28. Others
29. Chapter House
30. Library
31. First Millenial
32. Captain's Table
33. Dalton's Spy
34. Dracul
35. Lost
36. Consequences
37. Exile
38. At the Colonel’s House
39. The Heist
40. The Professor
41. Find the Colonel
42. The Copernicans
43. The Antiquarians
44. Lenin and the Professor
45. Antikythera
46. Fates
47. Selephin
48. Dawn
49. The Fight
50. Bedlam
51. Private Hospital
52. The Text
53. Orval
54. Contact
55. Clockmaker
56. The Plan
57. Splitting Up
58. NCP
59. Gossy
60. Bad Odds
61. Hiding Guns
62. Meeting
63. Showdown
64. Lenin Recovered
65. Awakening
66. Star Chamber
67. Initiation
68. Golden Hour
69. Retirement
70. Paradox
71. Art of War
MAELSTROM
1. Alone
2. Present
3. Similar
4. E
5. Dangerous Materials
6. Ascendancy
7. The Ministry
8. Interrogation
9. Typewriter
10. The Colonel
11. To the Palace
12. Elizabeth I
13. Colonel’s Study
14. Gunpowder
15. Founder
16. Dreadnought
17. 1066
18. Alchemist
19. The Breach
20. Alone
21. Reset
22. Mum
23. Caitlin
24. Recovery
25. Nemesis
26. The Mage
27. Skull of Daedalus
28. Chapter House
29. DDS
30. Moon Garden
31. Draconian Trials
32. Induction
33. Castillian Queen
34. Beach
35. Boat
36. The Island Of The Day Before
37. Tombwalk
38. Haast Eagles
39. Daedalans
40. Lessons
41. Vorpal Combat
42. Return of the Cat
43. Preparations
44. Derado
45. Trial II
46. Kaffa
47. Arrows
48. Da Recco
49. Diversion
50. The Maps
51. 1664
52. After
53. The Second Cut
54. Witch-hunt
55. Zenoscope
56. Skull Of Daedalus
57. Missing
58. Briefing
59. Cairo Stone
60. The Old Kingdom
61. Sacrifice
62. The Great Breach
63. Twelfth Legion
64. Singularity
65. Maelstrom
66. Josh
67. Daedalus
68. Observatory
69. Lost
70. Twenty Hours
71. Bad Experiment
72. Gods & Monsters
73. Time Loop
74. Nautilus
75. Eschaton
76. Battle
77. Grimoire
78. The Book
79. Exhibit
80. Illness
81. Founder
82. Bedlam
83. Caitlin
84. Torture
85. Da Recco
86. Dalton
87. Armageddon
88. Plan
89. 2000
90. Dad
ESCHATON
Foreword
1. Coup d'état
2. Everything Changes
3. The Colonel
4. Mother
5. Mughal Empire
6. Eddington
7. Arrival
8. Talisman
9. Lenin
10. Nautilus
11. Solomon’s temple
12. Sword
13. Avatar
14. Chapter House
15. Reaving
16. Parabolic Chamber
17. Bedlam
18. Fermi
19. Derado
20. Difference Engine
21. Leverage
22. Bentley
23. Witch Trials
24. Rescue
25. Futures
26. Founder
27. E.R.D
28. Draconian HQ
29. Xeno
30. Fermi
31. Tibet
32. The Letter
33. Justice
34. Execution
35. Colonel
36. Escape
37. Wyrrm
38. Titanic
39. Timeship
40. Brother Valient
41. Maelstrom
42. Shimmering Sea
43. Bergson
44. Citadel
45. Reverse Exorcism
46. Augurs
47. Nihil
48. Survivors
49. Virus
50. Dissonance
51. Decompression
52. Reunion
53. Ravana
54. Dark Energy
55. Capture
56. Armageddon Gallery
57. Cerebrium
58. Briefing
59. Chief MacKenzie
60. Dressing
61. Headbolt
62. Heisenberg
63. Ahnenerbe
64. El Presidente
65. Time machine
66. Snowball
67. Cave art
68. Ice age
69. Shaman
70. The Grand Seer
71. Debriefing
72. Curing the colonel
73. Lady Anne
74. Choices
75. Copper Scroll
76. Dalton-Jinn
77. Fifth door
78. Ninth Legion
79. War rooms
80. Dangerous Myths
81. Interventions
82. Viking
83. Fundamental truths
84. Conflagrato
85. Inferno
86. Under Fire
87. East India Company
88. Stories of Kings
89. Anunnaki
90
. The Bridge
91. Nemesis
92. Breached
93. Time Falls
94. Confined Spaces
95. Founder wakes up
96. Plan
97. Dark Water
98. Observatory
99. Father
100. Aetherium
101. Home-world
102. Battle
103. Leadership
104. X9009
105. XII
106. Lenin
107. The Wave
108. Father
109. Oglethorpe
110. Never Enough
111. Unabridged
112. Solomon's tomb
113. War
114. The Witness
115. Preparations
116. King's Gambit
117. Defeated
118. Decisions
119. Beginnings
Chimæra
1. Archangel
2. Memories
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright © Andrew Hastie 2017
This edition published by Here be Dragons Limited 2018
ISBN: 978-1-9164747-1-0
The right of Andrew Hastie to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the Author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchase.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
5.0
To my beautiful wife and daughters, thanks for putting up with my obsession.
To Steve and all the things you never got to do.
A x
1
Go Faster
[London, UK. Date: 2011]
They were racing at over a 100mph, weaving through the traffic like it was standing still. Everything was a blur except for the car in front. He focused on nothing else but overtaking it. In the passenger seat next to him, someone was shouting, ‘FASTER! GO FASTER. YOU CAN TAKE HIM!’ and he knew that he could. He cranked up the volume on the stereo.
You won’t see it coming
The power builds inside
Motion taking over
Josh felt his pulse racing to the beat as he dropped down into fourth gear and pressed the accelerator to the floor. The steering wheel juddered slightly as he veered too close to the central reservation; he fed the wheel back through his hands and knifed between a car and a lorry that were going so slowly they might as well have been parked.
Gossy was in a Porsche in front, driving like a demon. Josh watched him swerve round another slow driver and had to brake and dodge just to avoid slamming into the back of him.
‘PUSH IT! HE’S GOING TO BEAT US!’ screamed the passenger.
Moving out into the night
Taking on the world
At the speed of light
Up ahead Josh knew the road would narrow into two lanes. He had one chance to overtake his friend before the traffic became too congested to race.
Then Gossy took the next bend too wide, and Josh saw his opportunity and took it. His friend anticipated the move and pulled across to block him, but Josh wasn’t about to back off, and their bumpers connected.
Time slowed as he watched his friend’s car swerve into the central reservation. The speed of the impact caused the car to take off and spin end over end into the oncoming traffic. Glass and metal cascaded across the tarmac as it collided with other vehicles, reducing it to a battered metal shell.
‘Josh!’ screamed his passenger.
He looked back at the road ahead to see the rear end of a lorry rushing towards them. His feet pumped the brakes, but the car was moving too fast. It skidded, and Josh felt the seat belt bite into his shoulder as he lost control. The last thing he saw was the time on the dashboard — 12:24.
‘I’ve got you,’ said a voice somewhere beyond the darkness and the pain.
2
Community Service
[London, UK. Date: 2016]
Two schoolboys sat on a bench watching the brightly coloured ‘Community Payback’ team cut back the overgrown bushes on the other side of the park. The boys should have been well on their way to school by now, but had taken a detour so they could have a quick smoke and watch the local gangsters being punished.
Matt, who was the younger of the two at twelve, was fascinated by the older boys, some of whom had stripped off their jackets and T-shirts to show off their muscles and gang tattoos: each had a different collection of designs, but all of them had a black skull over their heart.
‘So are they really dangerous?’ he asked James, his older brother.
‘Yeah. They’re part of Ghost Squad — see the tattoo over the heart?’ answered James, taking a quick drag on the cigarette. He coughed as the smoke hit the back of his throat. Fighting back the urge to throw up, he passed the butt to Matt.
‘One of them’s a killer.’
‘Which one?’ whispered Matt, carefully studying each of the gang in turn as he took a drag on the cigarette.
James nodded towards a tall boy with blond hair who was working slightly apart from the others. He was hacking away at a bush with a machete as if it were his worst enemy.
‘The loner. His name’s Josh, but they call him “Crash” because he killed a kid with a car he stole.’
‘Did he go to prison?’
‘No. Lenin sorted it.’ James tried to sound as if he knew the leader of the Ghost Squad personally. ‘They’re both from the Bevin estate. They’ve known each other all their lives.’
Matt threw the cigarette on the ground and stamped it out under the sole of his shoe.
‘I don’t want to end up like that,’ he said, standing up.
‘It’s all about choices, bro.’ James stood too, picking up his school bag. ‘Just remember that next time you’re thinking of bunking off.’
The loner had got his machete stuck in the trunk of the bush. He left it there while he took a drink. Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he looked around the park.
‘I think we should go,’ said Matt nervously.