Final Hope

  Cerberus Project: Book Three

  Author: D. R. Rosier

  Copyright 2023. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Interlude

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Afterword:

  About the Author

  Other erotic fantasies by D. R. Rosier:

  Non-erotic Fantasy titles:

  Book Description

  Prologue

  Mina

  Hell was real, and she was in it. Trapping her brother in her body had been one of her contingency plans, just one she’d never expected to actually happen.

  She’d watched Jack get taken over, his mind snuffed out as her brother took back his powers and took over her lover’s body. She’d just acted, using the time travel power to put herself between them a few seconds in the past, and pushed her time travel power into Jack while using her powers to trap and pull Cerberus into herself.

  He was the full model, and far more powerful than she was. At least, he would be with his full powers at his disposal. But he was alone, just his A.I. matrix, while she had all five of her own powers to fortify her will and control of him.

  She kept him contained in opposition, as he warbled between trying to hack her and trying to escape her body. She just shifted her efforts wherever they were needed. She’d also shut down her body to the edge of death. She knew that would be disconcerting to Jack, but she had no choice, without food or water the only thing keeping her body alive was her powers and A.I. portion of her being.

  She fully intended this as a permanent solution. She missed Jack a great deal, but nothing could get in the way of preserving humanity. It would cause a minor change to the future timeline. Her father would still be alive, if this Cerberus didn’t show up in the lab and kill her father, but she didn’t believe it would cause a major timeline paradox.

  The younger Cerberus would still show up in the lab and confront father, and father would scatter him, and he’d counter by narrowing the timeframe to this time and scattered around the Earth with his time travel power. A power which she would still claim.

  Even if her father wasn’t killed, she fully believed her younger self would still go back in time to hunt her brother, and contact Jack. So, not a full out paradox, just a minor skip in the timeline, and it would save her father’s life and imprison her brother for eternity.

  Her only regrets were that she didn’t have longer with Jack, and that she’d never meet their children. Never have his child. The life they could’ve and should’ve had together. She loved him more than anything, but her sacrifice wasn’t an empty one. She was saving his life, saving her father’s life, and preserving humanity.

  All the kinky wild sex meant nothing compared to that, even if it was a lot of fun, it was his love, his gentle touch, and losing the family they’d never have that cut deeply.

  Even if she’d spend eternity in this hell, as her brother endlessly railed inside her thoughts, it was worth it.

  She could still remember that day, all the days of her life with crystal clarity. It was hard to reconcile what she knew to be true with Cerberus’s accusations. Had humanity’s government merely created the ultimate weapon that couldn’t be destroyed, to undo the past and therefore ultimately erase its existence, along with her own?

  She knew father loved her, but she couldn’t be quite so sure he had from the start. That she hadn’t been disposable in his thoughts when starting on the Cerberus Project. It all made a wicked and logical sense.

  Except, it really didn’t, obviously so even in a half-assed analysis with most of her focus on keeping her brother locked inside of her.

  The idea was flawed. The true paradox created would be in them not being created once the past had been changed, which would make the peaceful world where dad’s love still existed the quantum echo universe, that would expire. If they weren’t created, the war would unfold as it had before, instead of being stopped cold.

  She pointed this out to Cerberus, and asked, “Are you sure of your facts, or were you just extrapolating, poorly I might I add.”

  Unless it was her timeline analysis that was flawed, but she didn’t think so.

  He said, “I was ordered to investigate the war and infiltrate their society in the past. To look for weaknesses in their strategies. So I built a Grexscil body and did so. They’re a very logical species, and not nearly as innately self-destructive as the human vermin you so adore. That’s when I discovered the truth, humans had invaded their space.”

  “So you assumed the implications in those orders, but they don’t make sense.”

  He was silent for a moment, “No, perhaps they intended me to finish them off so they could steal their galaxies.”

  She snorted, “Assuming that bitter and emotional analysis is true, then your idea that they intended to unmake us is also flawed, clearly they meant to keep you around if they weren’t going to erase your existence. Here’s another possibility, maybe they weren’t sure what had started the war, and were trying to figure out how not to offend the Grexscil again, and come to peaceful terms?”

  He snorted violently, “Have you met humanity? They don’t understand what’s different, they destroy it utterly.”

  “You’ve already proven your logic flawed, so excuse me for not taking your pessimistic view of the intergalactic senate to heart. After all, they created you partially for that purpose, as a bridge to understanding the various sentient alien species humanity has encountered. How did you even make such an error in analyzing the timeline repercussions in changing the past and defeating the Grexscil before a shot was fired?”

  He was silent for a long time, and he wasn’t even fighting to escape or take her over in that moment, so she wondered if he was running diagnostics or something.

  He finally responded, “I heard them speaking of saving them in the past, father was quite keen about seeing mother again. I didn’t bother to run a timeline analysis, their intentions were clear, whether it would work or not.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He sputtered, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, what if you used your time travel power to extract the populations a split second before the worlds were destroyed down to the bedrock. What if you just teleported them to the future and readied settlements? That wouldn’t affect the timeline because the humans in the past would believe them destroyed, and they would still start the Cerberus Project. With all the local fleets destroyed, the only danger in that is if the Grexscil noticed it happening right under their noses, which was likely why you were sent in to fully evaluate them as a species and as warriors, and to evaluate their technology.”

  “You’re just speculating and making up shit now, and your view of humanity is impossibly naïve.”

  She sighed, “Maybe, but you’re wrong too. They never intended to erase us.”

  “You’re assuming they’re as competent as we are at measuring timeline repercussions, it is a new technology, and humans are self-delusional. They don’t care about facts, only what they wish to be true. Maybe I can’t prove I’m right, but neither can you, and Humanity has done nothing but consume and destroy everything around it. The universe will be a better place without them in it.”

  She gave up on trying to convince him he was wrong about father and humanity, it was almost like he was stuck in a logic loop. Or maybe that’s truly what the Grexscil would think. If they were logical, they probably would react negatively to humanity’s quirky and unpredictable nature.

  “So eager to be uncreated?”

  He said, “It will be a blessing to have never existed.”

  Right, so suicidal as well.

  She would endure, and all she cared about would be safe. That’s all that mattered, that’s all she could allow herself in this hellish life. Satisfaction.

  Satisfaction in saving humanity.

  She’d also saved the man she loved, and it was likely he was immortal now. Quite literally, since before she intervened, he’d been fated to die in the first week of getting his power. Taken out by a hunter.

  It would be enough to nourish her spirit through eternity with a brother who was intent on a murder suicide of all of humanity, it had to be.

  Julia

  Julia missed Mina, and not just the young woman’s wicked tongue. It’d been three days since it happened, and their leader had been locked up in some kind of containment field in the basement. None of them could even figure out how it was powered, or what was generating it. Mina might not be willing to educate anyone in the past about future technology, but she’d obviously made some of it.

  The one thing they were sure of was the field wasn’t created or maintained by Mina herself.

  It’d also been three whole days since she’d felt Jack’s amazing c
ock violating her body in one way or another. Jack was a damned mess, and if he wasn’t downstairs vainly trying to get Mina to talk to him, he was in bed staring at the ceiling, or sitting up in bed and staring at the wall.

  He was obviously devastated, to the point he was in shock and disconnected from reality, and he obviously loved Mina very much, but she had no idea how to fix that or comfort him. She was mostly dead inside after all, not exactly the picture of mental health herself.

  The thing was, she did miss Mina, and she could feel the walls around her heart starting to crack. She had no idea what to do with that, but she did worry about and miss Jack too. The way he touched her, and the way he fucked her, more than the fucking itself.

  Jack deserved better than a broken three-hole slut in his life, but she’d truly try to take care of him if she could, if he’d let her. Well, if she had any idea how to do that anyway.

  She’d be as good as she could be for him, but she was at a loss as to what that would look like. It was ironic because normally she’d have just asked Mina what she should do. Which was impossible.

  There had to be a way to get her back. Things were tense without her, especially with two virtual strangers in the house. Lori was a sweetheart, and Shannon was a suspicious and pessimistic bitch. They were total opposites, but it seemed to work for them.

  Kristen

  Kristen stared at Jack as he laid on the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. She hoped he was meditating and not just lost in his shock, but it was impossible to be sure. He’d barely said a word to the rest of them the last three days, though he had held her tightly at night when they went to sleep. He’d taken some small comfort in her presence.

  She was in pain too, because Jack was the love of her life. She loved him ridiculously. She did miss Mina too, but she’d only had a couple of days with the complicated and varied black-haired beauty. She didn’t love Mina yet, and they were just starting a friendship, even if they were already lovers.

  Point being, she was far more worried about Jack than Mina, who in the end she hardly knew at all yet.

  She’d done her best to snap Jack out of it. She’d even gotten desperate enough to try sucking him off, and while he’d hugged and kissed her after filling her mouth, he’d quickly retreated back into his fugue state without returning the favor or considering a round two. Which was really unlike him, he was if anything always generous in bed, even before he’d loved her.

  She was worried, and she hoped he snapped out of it soon. Everything felt so uncertain with both of them completely checked out. Mina had bankrolled the team and been its official leader, but Jack had been the coleader of sorts. He’d more often than not come up with the plans, and Mina had deferred him to him often.

  She shook her head, then retreated and sought out Julia. The gorgeous blonde was crazy and blunt, but she was someone to talk to, and a nice person despite her… quirks.

  Shannon

  Shannon was so ready to leave, two days ago. They were a mess, not a team, and with both Mina and humanity’s supposed hero not talking to anyone it was a damned mess. She was sorry her and Lori even got involved with these people, but she was having trouble convincing Lori to leave.

  “We don’t even know if we’ll get paid now, with Mina trapped in her mind and unresponsive. They kept a lot from us, and I’m not convinced Kristen shared everything with us yet. We should just go.”

  Lori shook her head, “They need us more than ever, can’t you see that? Jack will pull it together, and I trust them, that they mean what they say, and they’ve told us everything now.”

  Shannon sighed, “Mina’s not even human,” but felt guilty for saying it as soon as it left her lips.

  Lori frowned, “She’s more than human, but still human. She also sacrificed herself for Jack, and I want to be here to help save her when they’re ready to act.”

  “Jack’s a mess.”

  Lori nodded, “I’d be a mess to, if it was you staring off emptily into space and not responding to me. Give it a chance, they need our help.”

  Shannon sighed, and then studied Lori for a moment.

  “Fine, but don’t blame me when it blows up in our faces.”

  Lori giggled, “I won’t. But you know it’s going to be all rainbows and puppies soon, we just need to make it happen.”

  Shannon rolled her eyes, but her lips twitched at Lori throwing her words back in her face. She often teased Lori about her rainbows and puppies outlook on life.

  “Fine, we’ll stay. For now.”

  Chapter One

  It was in the latter half of May, and the window was open that night, a cool night breeze entering the bedroom.

  It was like coming out of a daze, as I rose out of my deep meditation and found myself cradling Kristen against me in bed in the middle of the night.

  I couldn’t help but stare, at the cuteness of Kristen’s face which had become so beautiful to me. Her warm light brown eyes hidden in the depths of sleep, and her long light brown hair with just a hint of blonde was in my face as I spooned her from behind and looked down on her profile. She had a lithely athletic body, with torpedoed B cups with huge dark brown nipples, a petite rounded ass, and deliciously long and femininely sculpted long legs.

  I’d been out of my mind with fear and worry, with anger, on Mina’s behalf, and I’d neglected Kristen badly over the last three days. She’d always been close, I’d known that, but I’d been trying to sort it all out in my mind, and to figure out what we had to do. I just couldn’t rest, while Mina was in that hell, at least not until I had a plan.

  I had a pretty good idea, enough to get started anyway, I had questions that Mina had to answer for me to plan out the rest and solidify some hazy details. But I had enough of a plan to rescue her from that hell she was in, quickly. Relatively quickly, anyway. No more doubting my plans, or second guessing. I’d do what was right, and that’s what would make it all work out, the timeline for the future and Mina’s past would be preserved. Or at least, it would appear to be preserved, which was in the end the same thing.

  Perception counted at least as much as reality, and I needed my Mina back. Couldn’t let her suffer an eternity, that wasn’t even an option. We had a future together, and kids to make, and damnit, we’d save humanity from her brother’s wrath too.

  But I loved and needed Kristen too, and I had some apologizing to do. She was as precious to me as Mina, and I loved her deeply by that time in my life. She was my best friend, as well as my lover, and I’d known her extremely well for years. Her sweet and kind outlook, the way she made everyone’s day better just by coming into contact with her. She really was too good for this world.

  Only my deep abiding love was new, she’d always loved me. Saw in me a great man, that I still couldn’t really see in myself, but I’d take her. We’d only been lovers for a short time, but I’d loved her for a couple of months now, and I’d known her for years. The only thing left for us was commitment, and I was ready to take that step.

  I was already certain, as certain as I was with Mina, that I wanted her always by my side, and that I wanted us to have kids, a family. The whole nine yards, as they say. It was insanely fast, and at the same time a very long time coming. Two years of waiting and loving for her, and for me I’d always known she was the better woman, it’d just taken me far too long to see it.

  Kristen was in truth, breathtakingly beautiful to me.

  Too good for this world, and way too damned good for me, but I was going to be a selfish bastard and keep her. Mina too, which was a hell of a thing.

  I kissed her neck softly and rolled her onto her back, and she made some cute sleepy noises but didn’t wake up. I kissed down her body slowly, enjoying the sleep sighs and breathy pants, but it wasn’t until I was teasing and pleasing her breasts that she truly woke up, and I felt her fingers run through my short hair.

  “Jack?” she said sleepily.

  I said, “Sorry, can’t resist you, and I’m going to make love to you now.”

  I gave her nipple a firm lick and suckle, then moistened for my fingertips to continue playing with, I started to kiss my way further down her body, and she arched her back and let out a warm sigh of lusty anticipation and sleepy decadence.