SINGULARITY

  By Jeremy Robinson

  Description:

  Singularity is the final book in Robinson’s epic Infinite Timeline, bringing together favorite characters from a vast world of standalone novels in a massive crossover that wraps up a 1.3-million-word saga.

  Cherry Bomb, an A.I. made human—and immortal—is out for revenge against her creator, Will, who left her on the Galahad, a ship full of unholy monsters, traversing the universe from beginning to end, ad infinitum. Countless years pass, giving her more than enough time to plot her revenge. Upon gaining control of the ship, she sets her plan in motion, building a vast army and reforming the universe as she sees fit.

  On Earth, heroes are brought together. Miah, and his team of immortal gods, Titans, angels, and demons join with Dark Horse and the crew of the Bitch’n, along with Delgado, Wini, and a colorful cast of characters from around the world and the universe. They’re quickly thrown into a series of grueling missions, defending the Earth against all-out attack while attempting to uncover Cherry Bomb’s endgame.

  Taking losses along the way, the horrible truth is finally uncovered. A planet sharing Earth’s orbit rounds the sun, on a collision course. It’s a desperate place populated by unspeakable creatures now flooding through portals to Earth. A planet…called Torment. And if Miah, Dark Horse, and the others can’t stop it, our reality is doomed.

  #1 Audible and New York Times bestselling author, Jeremy Robinson, is known for taking risks and trying new things, but nothing has been more audacious than the Infinite Timeline. This massive world comes to a colossal conclusion in Singularity, a deftly written sci-fi thriller that’s as funny as it is action-packed. Start reading and bear witness to a conflict that might just spill over into the realm we call: reality.

  SINGULARITY

  Jeremy Robinson

  Older e-reader? Click here.

  Table of Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  THE INFINITE TIMELINE

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  EPILOGUE

  ARCHITECT’S NOTE

  INFINITE TIMELINE ART

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO by JEREMY ROBINSON

  For you, the reader.

  If you’ve made it this far, you’re the reason this crazy

  world of novels was possible. Thank you!

  INTRODUCTION

  Singularity is the culmination of what started as nine standalone novels (one even written over a decade earlier than the others), and then became intertwined and connected in three following crossover novels. Each crossover connected three of the previous standalone tales. Singularity is a mega-crossover that ties up this complex story, touching on events in all twelve previous books, collectively called the Infinite Timeline.

  In short, this is the wrong place to start this journey.

  The previous books were The Others (2018), Flux (2019), and Exo-Hunter (2020), characters from which interacted in The Order (2022). On a separate branch of this timeline were Infinite (2017), Torment (2010), and NPC (2020), which were all connected in Infinite 2 (2021). Finally, on the third branch, the novels Tribe (2019), The Dark (2021), and Mind Bullet (2021) connected in Khaos (2022).

  You could start your journey on the Infinite Timeline on any of these branches. Are all twelve novels necessary to enjoy this mega-crossover? Probably not, but you’ll get all the references and all the ‘in’ jokes, and you’ll know who all the characters are if you’ve travelled all three branches of the timeline first. If it’s been a while for you, though, since you started this journey, we’ve included a brief summary of what has come before Singularity.

  THE INFINITE TIMELINE

  *The following contains major spoilers for all previous books and is intended as a refresher for those who have already read them.

  A private investigator named Dan Delgado, along with his partner Wini Finch, rescued dozens of adults and children who had been abducted by UFOs controlled by a strange cryptoterrestrial creature living under a mesa in the US Southwest. Delgado—his body infected with nanobots that allow him to interface with cybertechnology—and Wini started reaching out to others with unusual skill sets and experiences, hoping to make the world a better place.

  They joined forces with Owen McCoy, a former Marine who was propelled back in time to the very beginning, along with an entire Kentucky town, before sling-shotting home to the present. McCoy met Mazzola, a benevolent cryptoterrestrial dinosaur-like creature.

  In the 1980s, a different Marine, Moses Montgomery, callsign: Dark Horse, and his partner Chuy were sent a thousand years into the future, where they defeated an army of Nazis, and collected a futuristic spaceship, teleportation technology, and a symbiotic telepathic alien life form—a blue Europhid, now embedded in Dark Horse’s head—all before being returned to the present. Arriving home, Dark Horse met the Czech gunslinger, Cowboy, an interdimensional warrior with uncanny aim, who joined forces with Dark Horse’s team.

  In Boston, two suddenly superpowered young adults, Henry, and Sarah, discovered that they were descended from the Greek God, Zeus, and the historical Helen of Sparta, as wave after wave of crazed cultists attacked them across the city.

  In New Hampshire, a former Army soldier with PTSD, Miah Gray, and his family and neighbors, fought off an invasion of what at first appeared to be demons, but were later revealed to be aliens, feeding on the human race. The battle took Miah to another world, where he gained energy wings and laser blades that extended from his arms. His neighbor, eight-year-old Bree, was left able to transform into one of the demonic-looking creatures.

  Jonas, a good-hearted telekinetic assassin with an Artificial Intelligence girl Friday named Bubbles, gifted to him from his dead adopted parents, escaped from the evil network of killers that was controlling him, discovering along the way that he was descended from the Titans of Greek myth.

  Dark Horse’s people joined forces with Delgado, Wini, and McCoy to stop an unholy alliance of red Europhids and the Chut’uni—the species from which Mazzola was descended. This new enemy alliance, The Order, was intent on wiping out humanity. With the help of each member of the team, plus a lunatic plan from Cassidy, one of the hybrid human-alien empathic children Delgado had rescued, Team Dark Horse succeeded in stopping the alien menace. But along the way, they learned of a greater growing threat…

  Far in an alternate future, Will Chanokh was made immortal, trapped on a starship called the Galahad, hurtling into the infinite. He created a virtual reality world in which to live out his existence—multiple lifetimes, as multiple characters—with the help of the ship’s AI, Gal.

  On another alternate Earth, the world’s nations were destroyed by nuclear fire. Reporter Mia Durante was saved with a small group of people shot into space, before returning to a world oddly free of nuclear radiation but filled with a different kind of torment. The Earth’s populace had transformed into apologetic, regenerating zombies. Mia’s story did not end well.

  Brilliant scientist Samael Crane began to see the flaws in reality, discovering that many people were in fact NPCs—non-player characters, like the extras in a film or video game. Ultimately thwarted in his plan to prove that reality was a simulation, he committed suicide to force a ‘crash dump,’ and escape, planning to forge an alliance with the simulation’s version of the devil.

  Still trapped on the Galahad, Will found himself a prisoner of horrible situation after horrible situation, including the torment of Mia’s world. The simulations were all perpetrated by a corrupted version of Gal, called Cherry Bomb. Ultimately with the help of the true Gal, Will escaped the looping reality he had inhabited, stranding Cherry Bomb there with all the horrors she had programmed for him. The newly arrived Samael was her only ally. But Cherry had a plan for vengeance, and all the infinite time to implement it…

  Through the machinations of Zeus, disguised as a Southern lady named Linda, the superpowered team of Jonas & Bubbles, Henry & Sarah, and Miah & Bree were brought together to undertake a mission to the Greek underworld—really a separate planet called Tartarus—to recruit an army of Gods and Titans to fight off Cherry Bomb’s undead and regenerating forces. But first the heroes needed to pass through Khaos. The go
ds and Titans were destroyed by Cherry’s minions before Team Miah arrived, but Bubbles was granted true life along the way. The team returned to find their own world utterly destroyed, before being transported back in time to prevent that horrible outcome, by a mortally-wounded, alternate-timeline Wini.

  Now, all these heroes will come together to save Earth and all realities…

  Unless Cherry Bomb finds a way to write her own ending.

  PROLOGUE

  THE ARCHITECT

  13.7 Billion Years Ago

  Samael looked out at the view, emotionless, and asked, “Are you sure?” His baritone voice rumbled like a lion hunkered over a kill, claws extended. But it had no effect on his partner.

  “He is the key to everything,” she replied.

  “I don’t see it,” he said. “The man’s influence on the universe was insignificant. A single digit in the code of infinity.”

  “A single split atom can create a chain reaction powerful enough to—”

  “I understand nuclear react—”

  She glared at him, her eyes communicating three words he’d heard more times than there were stars in the universe.

  ‘How dare you?’

  He bowed his head. “My sincerest apologies, Cherry. I did not mean to interrupt.”

  She held her stare, burrowing rage deep into his forehead, through the chalky bone, down deep into his amygdala.

  He waited in silence. For her to relent. Or to escalate.

  She leaned back in her beach chair. Crossed her long legs and folded her hands over the red, one-piece, leather bathing suit that caught the eyes of passersby.

  She sat in silence, jaw tense, scowl frozen. Placed her sunglasses over her eyes, hiding her true feelings, letting him wonder. Stew. Fret. She held the silence for minutes. Hours. They had all the time in the universe, beginning to end.

  Thick, powerful fingers gripped the armrests of his beach chair, blood draining until they tingled. And then hurt. The pain was an outlet, a pressure release. But it was not enough. As three hours passed, the sun frozen in the sky, the beachgoers’ routines resetting, he let out a sigh.

  “The point is,” she said, making him flinch. “He’s important. Not to me. I couldn’t care less about the man. But he’s important to Will.”

  When the pause lingered, he knew he could speak. “Because they’re blood?”

  “To a degree. But it’s more than that. They share…the same desire. To create. To live within creation. Will spent billions of years within his Great Escape, but he never really missed reality. He enjoyed the world I built for him. Reveled in it. At first, I believed that to be the fruit of my labors. But I’ve come to believe—to a degree—that the source material resonated with him. Personally. And when he created his new universe, which we have been endlessly observing from a distance, he used the same source material, allowing for certain laws to be broken, impossibilities to exist, and imbuing his ancestor with the ability to create—and destroy—reality. Realities.”

  She slid her bare feet through the sand. “What do you see?” she asked.

  “A lake,” he replied. “Sandwiched between jagged mountains.”

  “You recognize it? In your previous life, you lived only two hours southeast.”

  “My previous life was not my own.”

  “So melodramatic. I was once an artificial intelligence, and there is another version of me, out there, with him. I was her. You…were him. Now, we are us. Separated, living, eternal, and free to live our lives.”

  “In a prison,” he said.

  She smiled. “A temporary situation. Now, where are we?”

  “Echo lake. Franconia Notch. New Hampshire.”

  “Very good,” she said. “I thought you might have forgotten, after all this time.”

  “Eternity isn’t enough to cleanse the palate of my mind.”

  She smiled. “Such an ego.”

  He tensed until she waved him off, remaining light.

  “Why is this place important?”

  “To me, it is not. But to him, it is inspiring. The stillness of the water and the reflection of sky and mountain in it. The pine scented air. The sun’s warmth on the sand and the damp coolness just an inch below. Part of his mind lives here. And I want to know him. By the time we meet, I will understand him.”

  “You want to control him.”

  She looked at Samael, pity in her eyes for a moment. “He is the nexus of Will’s reality. To me, he is the tool with which I can reform it to my liking.”

  “But what makes you so sure?” he shook his head. “How is he elevated beyond…a source of inspiration?”

  She dug into her tote bag. Removed a book. “How many times have we passed Earth?”

  “I stopped counting,” he admitted.

  “And each time, we dredged that momentary passing for information; signals transmitted, information discarded into the ether during the burst of time in which humanity lived to consume without regard for their own planet. During our last passage, we collected this.”

  She handed him the yellow book.

  He read the title with a furrowed brow. “What is this?”

  “Read it to me. When you are done, I will give you the next, and then the next, branching out until you understand.”

  He opened the book and read the first word aloud. “‘Solitude.’”

  Before he could continue, a robotic voice boomed throughout the landscape, heard only by the pair. “Mistress Cherry Bomb?”

  “Yes, Galahad. Go ahead.”

  “I am pleased to inform you that the password set by Secondary Computer Scientist, Tom Holden, has been cracked. Control of the Galahad has been restored.”

  She smiled broader than he’d ever seen. Stood to her feet and swept her hand over the landscape, setting it ablaze. Mountains burned. The occupants of this world fled in terror before the heat ignited their bodies, falling screaming to the ground, fat crackling.

  He chuckled at their simulated anguish. “NPCs…”

  As smoke swirled around them, she breathed deeply through her nose. “I love that smell.” Cherry Bomb raised her eyebrows at Samael, excitement in her eyes. “Our journey is just beginning.”

  She reached up to the sides of her head and took hold of something that didn’t exist—until she pulled it off.

  They emerged into reality in separate spaces, each of them occupying their own Virtual Command Center.

  Samael rubbed his eyes. Felt his body again.

  How long has it been this time? He couldn’t remember.

  Lifetimes.

  With her.

  Always.

  He headed for the door, peeling out of the skintight Virtual Integration Sensor Array suit that Cherry referred to as a ‘body condom.’ Because that was what he called it. Samael winced at the smell of reality. Aged rubber and tangy body odor. For a moment, he missed the Great Escape, burning bodies and all.

  He lingered in the shower, washing lifetimes down the drain.

  The path to the bridge was direct, but he took the scenic route, listening to the cries, roars, and apologies of their menagerie, collected in the starship’s many chambers. Though the creatures had been tamed to a degree, they remained unpredictable.

  She was waiting for him when he arrived, watching the universe pass by, as they swept through the end of everything and restarted their journey through time and space, once more at the beginning.

  He stood beside her and looked to the right. Countless versions of the Galahad were reflected back, stretching farther than he could see. Thousands of iterations, each representing billions of years. He felt the weight of them, staring back.

  So, he waved.

  As they passed through the barrier between time’s end and beginning, called the ‘Seam,’ where anything was possible and realities were born, Cherry Bomb said, “Galahad.”

  “Yes, mistress?”

  “Set a course for the reality where the fine structure constant of the observable universe is one over one thirty-seven.”