Ascendant Saga Collection: Sci-Fi Fantasy Techno Thriller by Brandon Ellis (easy to read books for adults list txt) 📕

Jaxx was in his own world, lecturing to the rapt audience he’d never had. “Basically, the Giza Pyramids, the Shen Pyramids, the Pyramid of the Sun, etcetera, punched holes through the Pacific plate, the Atlantic plate, and the Indian plate.”

“You’ve lost me.” Rivkah shook her head, looking at Jaxx. “How does a pyramid punch a hole in the Earth?

“Magma cuts a hole through the Earth’s crust and seeds a volcano on the ocean floor, exactly 180 degrees on the other side of the Earth, at the approximate same latitude. The volcano will grow overtime. Magma will spew out of said volcano, building an island above sea level.” Jaxx watched Rivkah’s eyes glaze over. “Are you listening? This is important. You need to understand how this venting system raises the land. This…” Jaxx shot to his feet. “We can do it.”

“Do what?” Rivkah rolled back on her side and closed her eyes.

He’d done his usual party trick and bored someone to sleep. Didn’t matter. He had an idea. A good idea. No, a brilliant idea.

“We can build more pyramids, switch them on, vent more magma, raise more land, and house more people. We can save mankind.”

She was already asleep.

He’d had a moment of complete brilliance and there was no one there to witness it.

Jaxx worked through the night, connecting the dots, charting magma flows, mapping where exactly the new pyramids would go and how large they’d need to be. There was no coffee, no tea, no caffeine in their cabin, so he was working on adrenalin and fumes. Rivkah slept like the dead, not even turning in her sleep. He wanted to cover her with a blanket, but he didn’t dare.

He put his head down, just for a second, to contemplate the names of the new continents he planned to raise from the ocean floor, then woke with a start, drool on his forearm, his eyes blurry.

A sound blared through the cabin.

Thrump thrump thrump thrump.

It was familiar.

A helicopter.

He stood. His chair toppled as he stepped back. He turned to see if the helicopter had woken Rivkah. The bed sheets were crumpled, but she wasn’t there. He walked into the bathroom, turning on the light. She was gone.

He went back into the bedroom. A window was open, large enough for Rivkah to escape.

He climbed onto the sill, ready to make his escape, but the cabin door burst open just as he’d gotten one leg out of the window. A rush of wind blasted him. He spun around. Someone was in the doorway, holding a searchlight so bright it almost blinded Jaxx. He dropped his head, shielding his eyes with his hand.

“God dammit, Jaxx.” It was Slade. “I would have at least liked a chase.”

Jaxx dropped his hand, sitting straighter in the window frame.

Slade’s silhouette filled the door, suffused with the light, almost like a god dropped from the heavens. Slade took several hefty steps forward and took one big swing, connecting his fist with Jaxx’s chin.

Jaxx fell to the ground, out for the count.

50

June 11thCharlotte, North Carolina

Drew had done everything in his power to derail Slade. He’d broken into high-security facilities, leaked pictures of man-made pyramids on a far-off moon to the press, been interviewed with him on TV, and to top it all off, had provided incontrovertible evidence that the asshole was planning to evacuate a fraction of the Earth’s population—only the highest-ranking officials, politicians, and scientists—and leave the rest of them to rot in the rising waters.

He was so proud of his team. They’d gotten the word out, just as he’d asked.

“Starwanderer3” had been arrested and charged with treason. Couldn’t have been his hacking. Converse-man was untraceable. He must have blabbed to someone about what he was doing; someone who had a beef with the Feds and flipped him for less time, or no time, in the slammer. Turned out, his name was Michael Anderle. He was a weapons’ specialist with NASA and had the top-level clearance. That meant the guy was a no-shit genius. All that talent, wasted. Down the tubes. For nothing. He was going to spend the rest of his life in Federal Prison, picking glass out of his Cheerios.

“Jabberwockmyass,” sent an encrypted message, which took Drew two days to unlock. One word. “Cuba.” He was taking himself off the grid. That meant he, too, had been compromised. Drew would never know his name.

Which left only “bitemymegabite.” She was the Goth-chick. She hadn’t said one word. Drew’s every hope was that she was safe, rather than in a ditch someplace with Joy Division playing on her shattered iPhone.

Drew was drained. When the news hit the wires that Slade was planning an exodus, he simply changed the launch date. Nothing was going to stop that mealy-mouthed, weasel-faced, no-good, shit-for-brains bobblehead from leaving Earth for Callisto.

Drew sighed. He suddenly wanted to see his mother again. He went for his keys when Connor Eves from WNN came on the news. Drew was so out of it, he didn’t realize his TV was blasting in the other room.

He walked into the living room, avoiding the unfolded laundry and stood, watched, and listened.

Connor Eves intertwined his fingers as he gave a news anchor-look into the screen; confident, erect, sincere. “No one has been able to pinpoint the location. But we have a feed from GSA, and all our WNN and affiliate stations will be broadcasting the launch worldwide. The view is stunning.” They switched to a shot of a large ship attached to three chemical fuel rockets about twice the size of the space shuttle. This ship was, they were told, twenty-years ahead of its time.

It was launching today. Slade was getting off planet today. This was beyond messed up.

Drew lay on his couch and curled into the fetal position. How could the world be so stupid? How could his own network continue to fall for Slade’s lie? When Slade said they were conducting an exploratory mission, so they could “ensure Callisto was habitable”