Riley 2.0

Interludes In Time

By: Marc Neuffer

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

SPACE & TIME ADVENTURE: Book 2 of the Riley Trilogy Spoiler alert — but not much of one — Gorlack eats a tasty Federal Agent.

What would you do with a lifespan of more than ten thousand years? In this sequel, Riley's life continues, from the near to very far future, from the sub-arctic Yukon where she wants to lead a solitary and rustic life to forget, to a place that may not be in space or time.

CHAPTER 1 - Earth Year 2252 Humans are getting closer. It won’t be long before they send out more than a few unmanned probes beyond the heliosphere. It’s time to move the station. "Michael? Have you figured out how to move that heap a bit further out?" "Sorry, Riley. I can’t find a workaround for the hard-code locks. I’ve tried everything." "So, are we going to let the station sit there until it’s discovered and boarded, or are we going to have to turn it into dust? You know what would happen if they found it." "There is one solution. We’ve talked about it before." "I know. But leaving the galaxy is not what I would call a walk in the park. It scares me a bit to go so far away from home." "When was the last time you were aboard Freedom, other than to climb into the Auto-doc?" "You know very well that it’s been five years since I took him out. It was my last trip out there." "Well, you might not want to go into the cold dark, but I’m going to have to move soon, and I can’t do that without a ride. You’re going to have to come get me. Eighty years ago, I lost everything that mattered to me during the brief tit-for-tat nuclear exchange. In 2171 the Chinese launched a limited strike to warn off anyone who might choose to interfere with their invasion of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. When the strike killed my family and friends, I'd been aboard Freedom to retrieve a data-cube from the space platform. The only thing that kept me from returning to Earth as an avenging angel was Michael, my AI friend. He put Freedom in lockdown in the station flight bay, preventing me from laying waste to the Chinese. I didn’t want my pound of flesh as retribution; I wanted tons of it. My new home is near Dawson City in the Yukon Territory, about a twelve-hour drive across the border from Anchorage Alaska. The wild isolation was my solace. I thought relocating to the subarctic from a tropical island would provide some psychological distance, relocation and a river of alcohol. Other than Michael being in my head via Q-com, my dogs, Jasper and Jinks, have been my only live-in companions for almost eighty years—my only long-term friends. Normal humans die too quickly. I’m going to retrieve Michael, but I haven’t told him yet. I need another two weeks to finish my caribou hunt and pack in supplies for winter, even though it’s only early September, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.