He designed a two-piece bodysuit he believed worthy of a General. Its themes were red and black, with a golden sun splash above his heart. Royal envisioned his future army wearing variations on the theme, with insignias for each rank. He intended to design them himself. The Recon tubes would process the final products.

  He also displayed a shiny bald skull dominated by a day-old tattoo. Mostly red and silver but for fiery yellow eyes, the wolf bore its teeth on the left, its tail on the right, and its deadly claws reached over Royal’s forehead close to his brows. His beard, an untamed mess on his jawline and untouched since Huryo, filled out the presentation.

  “If you say you’re a wolf, be a fucking wolf,” he told his men while standing next to Ismail’s corpse. Royal damn well intended no one would ever confuse him for anything else.

  “Amayas, Shin,” Royal said. “I present the SV for your review. These men still have work to do, but they’re ready for a battle. You need them to take out the enemy, they’ll kill everything in sight. I want to introduce my squad leaders. Mehta, step forward.”

  Mehta Jarrod, the Mauri who killed Royal thirty days earlier, proved himself above the other two dozen. He stepped forward into a leadership role early and often. He took Royal’s right flank.

  “Ali, step forward.”

  Ali Sim, a G’hladian, was a late-bloomer. He spent the first several days steaming over the way Royal murdered Ismail. Yet he opened up after several hikes on Pinochet, finding a new awareness of the soldier inside. He also responded well when Royal approached him with the idea of honoring the wolf. Ali trained as a tattooist before his life disintegrated. Now, he stood at Royal’s left flank with pride, one day after completing the masterpiece on his General’s skull.

  “Congratulations,” Amayas told the lieutenants. “We’re proud of you both. In another life, I grew up in the military. I attended many reviews before the Admiralty and accepted many promotions early in my career. A promotion for the few should serve as inspiration to all. And to all of you, both Shin and I are grateful.”

  Shin offered a gentle half-smile. Royal noticed; the man appeared to be elsewhere today.

  “At ease,” he told his men. “Amayas, I believe you have an announcement regarding the armor?”

  Amayas opened a small case and reached inside. He produced a golden ball which appeared to morph like putty in the Inventor’s palm. Royal hadn’t seen it since Shin allowed him to try on the prototype en route from Huryo to The Hold. Amayas tossed it between his hands like an amateur juggler.

  “Men, the future of combat is about to change.”

  He slapped the ball hard against his chest. It transformed with aggressive vigor, concealing his body from neck down. In less than three seconds, it formed a hard shell armor. The deck of Ferris buzzed in amazement.

  “Would you like to know more?”

  6

  T WENTY-ONE STANDARD DAYS LATER, Royal stood encased in that golden armor, prepared to leap across the universe. His destination: The Arakaat Crater Shipyards on Euphrates. He planned to meet a couple of old acquaintances, though he doubted they’d appreciate the reunion.

  In his left palm, Royal held the Splinter he first stole on Mangum Island and which transported him across the divide into Swarm hell. It helped the Talons navigate to Hokkaido. He handed this Splinter to Ya-Li Taron as a thank-you and later reclaimed it when he killed Ya-Li and everyone else on the man’s estate.

  Now, all that remained was to look inside the cube, hear its song, and project a specific future he found among the mirrors. A return trip through the Splinter had been tested and guaranteed.

  Tethered travel.

  Alone in all the universes, Royal felt like the most privileged man in human history. Oh, if only Kai Durin could see him now.

  The last stages of prep forced Royal to elevate his understanding of secrets vast and often impenetrable. He gained a perspective on the universe once inconceivable to a kid who survived on the streets of Zozo. It began with the armor.

  “I told you I had help making all this possible,” Amayas confided to Royal days ago. “It’s time you knew the truth. I never would have found The Hold without the Jewels of Eternity. Most of my ‘miracles’ I designed for the Alliance? Based on secrets learned from the Jewels. The true nature of the Splinters and the mirrors? Or tethered travel? The Jewels. And this armor? The Jewels. There’s very little I can lay claim to. Even my immortality was designed by others.”

  “Amayas, you don’t give yourself enough credit. These Jewels – are they the ones holding the universes together? The Creators?”

  “No. The Jewels are an intelligence designed by a race long dead. They traveled the galaxy for more than a million years searching for purpose. Their travels led them here. They studied for centuries and developed a plan. They decided to shepherd the human race from its infancy. Using the mirrors, they extrapolated the future. Using an organic matrix found in each Splinter’s singularity, they designed a program to accelerate terraforming and to construct stable wormholes. Life and time bonded. Royal, they engineered most of the Collectorate worlds. Their Fulcrum linked all forty star systems.”

  Even by the standards of a man who traveled across universes, the news stunned Royal.

  “Cud! They didn’t teach that shit in history class. Who else knows about this?”

  “More than you might imagine. Everyone on Aeterna. Thousands in the Chancellory or the Guard who led research programs after they captured many of the Jewels decades ago. My parents chief among them. There were witnesses to the Fall of Hiebimini in 5320 when the Jewels made a somewhat dramatic appearance, or so they say. Many who knew the secrets are now dead, but the legacy continues. My parents created the hybrids who led Salvation. Among them, my late brother. They used Splinter data to engineer immortals.”

  “Wait, what? If I hear you right, I have the same stuff in me that’s inside a singularity.”

  “It’s more complicated, Royal. You and I are human beings, altered at a genetic level. I believe my parents found a way to incorporate a reset algorithm into our DNA. Think of it like a time stamp. At the instant our life ends, time freezes, and a reset process begins. We are restored to what we were before we died.”

  “Regeneration.”

  “This is my theory. I have no proof. All my parents’ records were destroyed. The Jewel that lives within me is uncertain.”

  Amayas held out his right hand. His palm glowed blue.

  “It’s been there all this time?”

  “It helped me find purpose. I spent years at my brother’s side killing and tearing down. Now I have a chance to stop a far greater threat.”

  “You’re telling me all this … why?”

  “Because I have become surprisingly fond of you, despite your brutality and your many crimes. We are depraved, you and I – exactly the minds who see order within the disorder. But mostly, I want you to understand why this armor behaves as it does.”

  He handed a golden ball to Royal.

  “It’s yours. Designed from the same organic matrix the Jewels used to terraform worlds, to turn humans like my brother into monsters, and encoded with your DNA. I call it second skin. It will act as an extension of you. It will defend you. It will read your thoughts. It will sense a threat before you do. It will intercept energy weapons and projectiles and cast them aside. It will integrate with any comm network. It will allow you to see from within the shell. It will camouflage your weapons and create a true sense of invincibility. An army of a hundred soldiers in these shells may defeat tens of thousands without a single casualty.”

  Royal rolled it around in his hands. He sensed another presence, heard another song.

  “I got no words for this.”

  “It’s nice to see you humbled, Royal. I doubted it was possible.”

  “All I ever wanted to be was a hero.”

  “Heroism is an overrated aspiration, but you’ll have your chance, nonetheless. We’ll put the skin through its paces. Live-fire drills, for a start. We need to see how much it can endure.”

  “I thought you said it’s invincible.”

  “I said it provides ‘a sense of invincibility.’ Every armor has its weak spots. Enemies find ways to adapt. The Guard used to claim its soldiers wore impenetrable armor, even though we knew it wasn’t true. Clever insurgents found workarounds.”

  “How many have you manufactured?”

  “Four. It’s a slow process, Royal. I believe your first major engagement is weeks away, and many of your men will have to wear their traditional armor. You might suffer a few casualties, but it can’t be helped. The future dictates our plans.”

  “How long will it take to produce enough of these for a legit army? We can’t fight the Swarm with a few dozen assholes.”

  “I have a plan for mass production. After the new year, once the Alliance is announced, certain ‘miracle’ projects will go online. The true purpose for each will be revealed in stages. I’ve made sure two facilities have the components to build these skins by the millions.”

  The man was full of surprises. Again, Royal saw a larger picture that left him awed.

  “Shit. You’re using the Alliance as a cover to prepare for war.”

  Amayas shrugged.

  “I have two hands. This plan required thousands.”

  “And huge investors like the Chancellors.”

  “It might even work if we can stay on schedule and control the future. That means we follow an unwavering plan. I need you to be not just my General but my partner in these things we have to do.”

  “I’m all in. What’s next?”

  Learning how to use the second skin might have been the most exciting thing to happen to Royal since he stood on the Taron-Syung wedding stage and introduced himself to a terrified crowd by killing the wealthiest man on Hokkaido.

  He took on his entire unit in live-fire combat drills where he was the only one whose weapons fired blanks. He designed all manner of scenarios but preferred those where his twenty-five men surrounded him and unleashed the full fury of their pistols and rifles. The second skin transformed into a living, dancing organism with molten fingers that deflected, absorbed, and dissipated flash pegs and lasers. He engaged in close combat with long blades and knives.

  Afterward, he ran diagnostics. The energy that fueled the skin often dimmed significantly, suggesting limitations to the skin’s durability. The energy recycled between traumas, unless it was fending off too many attacks at once. Amayas promised to design a battlefield protocol given these results.

  “I only see a problem in isolation,” he told Royal. “The more soldiers who wear the skin, the less chance any will take a fatal barrage. But care must be given. He who tries to play hero against overwhelming odds might bring trouble upon himself.”

  Royal approached the fortieth day of his timeline to master the mirrors. Whenever he walked into the forest of sparkling prisms and billions of continuous streams of causality, Royal felt less pressure to succeed. He knew all the songs, heard all the relevant whispers. All he had to do was allow the monster roving through his psychotic mind to lead the way. His mind’s eye discarded huge chunks of the crystalline forest before he neared them. He reached a million subsets read in a twenty-minute block, with ninety percent directly relevant to Alliance worlds. He dared to use the word easy, but not around Amayas.

  He wanted more.

  Royal had ignored distractions from across the divide, per the Inventor’s instructions. But now, with a full understanding of what lay ahead for the Alliance, what danger was there to see beyond? The future subsets would not be as precise; distance created instability in forecasting outcomes. But wasn’t it worth knowing a timetable for the Swarm? Had they made peace with the Talons? Were their plans for an invasion short-term or long?

  He said nothing to Amayas when he began taking a peek. Royal did not want to complicate matters, especially with the trials for tethered travel on the horizon.

  Amayas established heavy controls for the first trial. He read the mirrors alongside Royal until they found a fixed future less than one standard day out. An isolated town on Bolivar was about to be devastated by a nearby mine explosion and landslide. No one would detect a rising plume of gas beneath the mine until minutes before it ignited. They watched the disaster unfold. Hundreds died beneath a wall of stone and soil. A few dozen escaped. Though the explosion was a given, prior events could be altered through intervention, possibly shifting the number of victims. The discussion focused on two small children playing in a street at the mountain’s base.

  “It’s not our job to be heroes,” Amayas said. “We must follow the future. We make practical alterations to serve our cause. No more. These two children were seen in this location and assumed dead. Yet look.” He pointed farther along the subsets. “Here they are lost in the woods far from town after the disaster. When they are found, they are celebrated as a miracle. They tell a wild story of a golden beast who snatched them up and carried them to safety.”

  Royal sat limp-jawed.

  “Cud.”

  “Precisely. The future is written. You will be there. You will save those children. The only question that remains: Will the tether bring you back to us?”

  “If it doesn’t, you’ve done a shitload of work for nothing.”

  “I’m confident, but I won’t fall into a trap of complacency. We will jump Ferris into orbit over Bolivar. When the explosion occurs, it will then jump to these coordinates. You’ll meet Ferris there. At that point, you’ll either tether or you’ll board the ship.”

  The moment of truth. He looked into the Splinter to find the very path that sent him to Bolivar. He listened for the Splinter’s song, as he did on the bow of a submarine years ago. This time, he’d ask for the path to be reversed. Bonded to time, his own DNA likely linked to the singularities, Royal would return home in mere seconds.

  It was impossible.

  It was beautiful.

  And it worked.

  He saw the children, siblings four years old, at the end of his path and disappeared into the Splinter. He emerged several feet behind them, took quick stock of his circumstance, and snatched them up before they realized he was upon them. They kicked and screamed and might have drawn attention had the mountain not rumbled and showers of flame not burst through the mine entrance.

  He carried them a quarter mile, telling them to shut the fuck up three times. They appeared as terrified by the horror happening behind them as the golden man who whisked them away. When Royal saw Ferris come into view, he dropped the children and told them to run as far and fast as they could, or they’d die. He pointed them away from the village, assuring they’d stumble into a deep forest and lose their bearings. The future demanded it.

  Ferris moved into position. The portside egress opened. His top lieutenant, Mehta Jarrod, waited for him.

  It wasn’t necessary. Royal looked into the Splinter and reversed his course. In a blink, he stood amid the forest of mirrors.

  He reached for the helmet and slung it off like a wet towel. Amayas and Shin greeted him. Was his heartbeat ever so robust?

  Royal’s first instinct?

  “I wanna go again.”

  He did. First, solo. Then with Amayas.

  By the fourth day, he led a team twenty-three hundred light-years across the galaxy and back again.

  Everyone realized the staggering potential. Splinter in, guarantee the future, splinter out. Tethered travel offered possibilities both awe-inspiring and horrifying. For Royal, it meant one thing.

  I’m going to be a cudfrucking hero.

  Practical logistics complicated the process. Amayas did not know how to use the tether with an origin point outside The Hold, but he vowed to make breakthroughs. More study, more time, he insisted.

  Which is why his announcement days later caught Royal off-guard.

  “We begin mining operations tomorrow. The drones have been programmed.”

  “What for?”

  “Splinters. I intend to harvest two million by the new year.”

  “Why?”

  “I made a promise to the Alliance. If I’m correct, this will also solve a complicated problem.”

  “Which is?”

  “You’ll see. I need to study the mirrors to be certain it will work.”

  “Won’t removing all those Splinters blind us to the future?”

  “The impact will be marginal. It’s one in a thousand. A blade of grass. No more. An acceptable risk.”

  Amayas approached the mining with a matter-of-act tone, as if he marked it on the calendar years ago. The Splinters would be inventoried and encased for shipping aboard the three silent vessels hovering just beyond The Hold’s continuum. These were Chancellor ships, left behind on the colonies during the sudden Ark Carrier evacuations nine years ago. His Chancellor investors didn’t know he purchased these vessels with their wealth.

  Fifty days after Royal arrived, he jumped out of bed when Amayas demanded he and Shin come to his quarters. The future was unfolding as he predicted; he wanted them to be present.

  “There’s a transmission waiting on my private frequency,” Amayas told them. “I gave it to a select few who I trust but insisted they contact me only at moments of great peril. The man on the far end is Aziz Hussein, Chairman of the Arakaat Shipyards on Euphrates. This will be his second contact in four days.”

  The name evoked a rare smile from Shin.

  “The timing is perfect.”

  “I never went to bed, I was so excited.”

  Still waking up, Royal winced.

  “What’s happening?”

  “In five days, we’re going to make a major acquisition. You will lead your team on its first direct engagement. And, with skillful timing, there will be a history-making convergence. I’m going to open the line to Aziz. Both of you, stand back and listen.”

  Amayas punched through a holo and offered a polite smile.

  “Aziz. It’s only been a few days. I hope nothing is wrong.”