First Life (The River Saga Book One) Read online

  Contents

  First Life (The River Saga Book One)

  Copyright © 2022

  Books By Nathan Hystad

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  Second Chance (The River Saga Book One)

  First Life Audio

  Copyright © 2022 Nathan Hystad

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover art: J Caleb Design

  Edited by: Christen Hystad

  Edited by: Scarlett R Algee

  Proofed and Formatted by: BZ Hercules

  Books By Nathan Hystad

  Keep up to date with his new releases by signing up for his Newsletter at www.nathanhystad.com

  And get Lights Over Cloud Lake for FREE!

  Nathan’s books are also available on Audible!

  The Bridge Sequence

  Lost Contact

  Lost Time

  Lost Hope

  Space Race

  Space Race

  Space Battle

  Space Strike

  The Survivors Series

  The Event

  New Threat

  New World

  The Ancients

  The Theos

  Old Enemy

  New Alliance

  The Gatekeepers

  New Horizon

  The Academy

  Old World

  New Discovery

  Old Secrets

  The Deities

  New Beginning

  New Lies

  The Colony

  New Galaxy

  The Portals

  Baldwin’s Legacy

  Confrontation

  Unification

  Culmination

  Hierarchy

  Lineage

  Legacy

  The Resistance Series

  Rift

  Revenge

  Return

  The Manuscript

  Lights Over Cloud Lake

  Red Creek

  Return to Red Creek

  ONE

  “You have six months to live.”

  I faced the doctor. “Did you say months?”

  He squinted as he stared at his tablet. I didn’t blame him for the lack of eye contact, but in that moment, I could have used a brief connection. “Yes. I’m sorry, Mr. Beck.”

  I’d been a patient of his for a few years, and he still couldn’t call me by my first name. “It’s Colton,” I muttered.

  He finally met my gaze and slipped his glasses off his face. “Mr. Beck, I know this is difficult, but we’ve done everything possible.”

  “Just once could you treat me as a human being, not as a condition?” I spoke slowly, letting my anger fume.

  I’d known this day was coming. I’d known for almost twenty years. Since they’d arrived. But hearing an actual deadline carried a finality I couldn’t cope with.

  Dr. Balder lowered the tablet to the desk and rested a hand on his hip. I suddenly felt like that kid again. The one who’d set foot in a different office, wearing a disposable gown, my mother terrified that I wouldn’t make it through the night.

  “Colton. Your name is Colton. Is that what you want to hear?” Dr. Balder asked quietly.

  “I’d rather be told I have a clean bill of health. Or that the Angor found a cure. Anything but this.”

  “We’ll keep you monitored. Move you to the care facility. It’s painless, really,” Dr. Balder said.

  I went rigid. “What is?”

  “The… end.”

  “Xeno is not painless,” I murmured. But he was partially right. Some people reacted differently, but I’d been functioning at nearly one hundred percent since those early bouts with the illness.

  “Of course you’ll receive treatment. The Angor Care Facility in West Hollywood is state of the art.”

  “Palliative care. That’s what my future holds.” I ran a hand through my hair, letting it drape over my eyes. I slid off the exam table and walked past Dr. Balder, bumping him on the shoulder. It wasn’t his fault. I shouldn’t have been upset with him. The Angor were the ones who’d come to Earth and done this to me.

  “Mr. Beck… Colton. Where are you going? We have to discuss treatment options,” he called after me. “They’ll be expecting you at…”

  “What’s the point?” I kept walking, ignoring the nurse stationed near the exit. She stood up, trying to stop me, but I was already gone.

  Six months.

  I stared out the clear elevator glass, beholding the immense city spread all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

  This wasn’t my Los Angeles. I’d seen it countless times in the old movies I watched as a kid. It had a small downtown core, smog skimming the tops of the structures. We’d visited my aunt once, when I was ten, and I remembered traffic jams on the Five, and the dangerous areas my parents warned me about.

  This was the Angor’s Los Angeles. The City of Angor, who were, in some people’s eyes, Angels. Hundreds of skyscrapers encompassed a ten square-mile radius. Even from here, I spotted over a dozen giant hovering bus transports, shuttling locals around the city.

  The air was clear. The sky pristine. But at what cost?

  The elevator stopped, and a woman came in. Her heels were towering, the scent of designer perfume clinging to her skin. She glanced at the buttons, seeing I’d already pressed for the lobby.

  “You work with Divine?” she asked with the hint of a grin.

  “No.” I wasn’t much for small talk with strangers. Especially after that appointment.

  “Then…” Her smile faded.

  “I was in the Xeno Medical Facility.” I knew that would repel her.

  She shifted farther from me, as if she could catch the rare condition.

  “That’s right. I just learned I have six months before Xeno chokes the life from my heart and lungs.” I stepped forward. I needed off this elevator, and into open air.

  The bell sounded, and I rushed from the spreading metal doors, heading past the lobby half full of working people. Two Angor occupied the other side of the room, chatting pleasantly, and I fought the urge to confront them.

  The problem with Xeno was that no one was culpable. The Angor had appeared with the best of intentions. Our world had been given a second chance, and their timing couldn’t have been better. Water wars. Fires. The situation had been dire.

  But with their gracious assistance came the defect.

  “Watch where you’re going.” I felt the impact and stared up at a man in a three-piece suit. I’d nearly spilled his coffee, and he regarded me with disdain.

  The Angor had helped some of our planet’s issues, but they sure didn’t make us better people. I chose not to react as I sped up, anxious to be out of this stuffy building.

  The second I was outside, I inhaled deeply. The air was intoxicating, even though it was the reason I was going to die. Irony was a jerk.

  It was midday, and my fellow humans were attending lunch meetings, or ending an early shift at their assigned jobs. I identified the transport ship lowering at the end of the block and jogged for it. The Angor supervisor at my work understood I was sick, but it wasn’t the kind of illness that kept me from performing my job. That made it more difficult to gain any sympathy with the boss. But I didn’t mind Rolosh, even if he was a bit stiff.

  I maneuvered between a throng of people exiting the giant ship, and entered, enjoying the cool AC brushing against my forehead. I took a seat near the front, by the window, and behind the uniformed alien. The Angor pilot glanced in his dash screen, checking the cameras, and when the doors were clear, he lifted off the ground.

  I watched him. Not so different than us. Holes for ears, bald with ridged foreheads. They had six fingers. Opposable thumbs. Two legs. Two feet. It was easier to accept their help when they were somewhat familiar. I suspected if eight-legged spiders had dropped in on us twenty years ago, things would have ended another way.

  This one was overweight, with sagging skin and a ruddy complexion. I was sure I’d seen him before.

  “How long you been doing this?” I asked him through the clear partition.

  He seemed surprised to be addressed. “The route… five years. Been on the transports since we started.”

  His voice was flat, almost lifeless. But most of the Angor spoke in that manner. Their own language was much more musical,
but I rarely heard them using it in public.

  “You like it?” The cityscape was strikingly beautiful from here, and I gawked at the ocean. The sun was high, reflecting off the blue water.

  “Flying transports? It’s okay.”

  “What did you do before?” Some Angor weren’t great at conversing, but a few were willing to open up.

  He glanced over his shoulder, staring me in the eye. “Nothing. I was a child when we left for Earth. Took a decade without the River.”

  The River. My spine tingled at the sound of the two simple words. We’d heard about it from time to time, but they remained cryptic on the subject. From what I gathered, it was a network of passageways, allowing spaceships to maneuver between solar systems. It wasn’t public knowledge.

  The pilot seemed to realize he’d said too much, and his posture changed. “We’ll be at your destination soon.” He clammed up after that, and I didn’t press him.

  When he landed near Santa Monica Pier, I thanked the pilot and departed, along with fifty others. We all went our separate ways, and I approached the waiting ferries. My destination was ten miles from the beach, and no matter how much I wanted to stay and soak up some rays with a street taco in hand, I had more urgent matters to attend to.

  Working for the Angor wasn’t so bad. They treated us with respect, paid a fair wage, and housed and fed whoever chose the option. I was one of those select few. Before my parents finally gave up their protest, closed the store, and moved to Florida, I’d gone to the opposite coast, hoping for more opportunity. The Angor preferred coastal cities, and everything in the interior States had dried up after their arrival. It had been almost a decade since I packed my things and left Arkansas, heading to the big city. Thinking about the timeline made me even more depressed. I was thirty-five and wasn’t going to live to see thirty-six. What had I accomplished?

  The old Angor man at the ferry turnstile waved me on, and we waited for another couple of passengers to board before the engines thrummed to life, sending us from the pier toward the construction site.

  “Colton?” a voice called, and I turned to see Amy Horowitz approaching me. Her dark hair bounced behind her as she jogged over, her heels clipping loudly.

  “Amy…” I motioned to the seat opposite mine, but she took the one directly beside me, staying close.

  “Colton Beck. Can you believe it?” She laughed and crossed her legs.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I’d worked with Amy on a San Diego job when I’d relocated to the area, and hadn’t seen or heard from her since. Even a hundred miles or so, with hovering transports, became a long distance when you were in the working class.

  “The announcement is coming, and I wanted to be on-site when it did.” She smiled wide. Amy still had a powerful presence. There had been that blurry night when we nearly threw caution to the wind, but I was trying to get a footing in San Diego, and she’d been… married. Unhappily, but still official. I’d been reassigned to another job soon after, and I always assumed she’d been behind the transfer.

  “Announcement?” What was she talking about?

  “Sorry. Aren’t you the site supervisor?” she asked.

  “I am. For the foundation work.”

  “Oh.” Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” She started to rise, but I grabbed her wrist. Gently.

  “Amy. You can’t drop in, say that, and leave. We haven’t seen one another in a decade.”

  “You look great, Colton,” she whispered. Her dark eyes squinted as if she was really trying to see me for the first time.

  “You too.” I needed information. “How’s… I want to say, John?”

  “Justin is fine. He remarried and started a family in Dallas.” Her smile returned.

  “And you?”

  “I’ve been doing well. The Angor are enthusiastic about our next steps.” Amy didn’t say any more, but her comment spurred an old memory.

  When the Angor came, they had the world’s leaders agree to terms the public wasn’t privy to. This was likely related to the Unity Accord. It was the document that sealed our partnership, though most of us didn’t think humans ever had a choice in the matter. “We’ve crossed the threshold, haven’t we? What are they planning?”

  Amy glanced around the nearly vacant ferry. We were situated outside, the sun and ocean breeze enjoyable, despite the dire news Dr. Balder had unloaded an hour ago.

  “You didn’t hear this from me, Colton.” She leaned in, her lips an inch from my ear. “We had to meet some criteria. Two decades. If we obliged with our side of the terms, the Angor offered us another advantage.”

  “Like what?” I queried.

  “I’ve already said too much. The announcement will be made tomorrow. From New York,” she told me.

  What was another day? I supposed it was a lot, considering I was quickly running out of time.

  The barge floated a short distance away, and the ferry slowed for the docking port. Amy was already on her feet, smoothing out her dress. Her long black hair blew in her face. “Don’t say anything, Colton.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Do you want to meet for a drink later?” Her eyes held a bit of mischief. Maybe that was what I required. A distraction.

  “I can’t today. Tomorrow?” I doubted I’d make very good company at the moment.

  “I’m gone after the news breaks. To New York,” she said.

  I almost told her that I was dying. That I had Xeno. Most people had no idea I was one of the tiny percentage of humans afflicted with the disease, and I wasn’t about to tell Amy about it. Instead, I waved as she disembarked and was greeted by two Angor women. They wore matching gray pant suits and passed Amy a tablet, ushering her to the main offices.

  The barge was built on the water, taking up nearly forty square miles. It was gigantic. I’d been here since day one and had spent countless hours repairing the foundation of the small ocean city. It wasn’t much of a life, but it was mine, and I was proud of the work I’d accomplished.

  “Beck!” I glanced at the sheds and saw my second-in-command, Barney, rushing me. He almost tripped as he approached, leaving a trail of water behind him.

  “What is it?”

  “We have a leak in quadrant nine. The pumps are broken, and we’re up to our necks in water.” Barney’s pants were soaked.

  “Let’s go.” I chased after him, running past the sheds and then the residences. They ran along the edge of quadrant eight, standing six stories high, with capacity for five hundred workers. Most of the crew chose to live on land, so it was usually only ten percent full. I was okay with that. It meant my nights were quieter.

  People were gathered near the latest extension platform, and I saw what Barney was referring to. We’d built the subfloor ten meters deep, leaving room for water to leak in if something breached the exterior of our foundation. Water would drift inside, and the pumps would ensure it escaped back into the ocean while we repaired the damaged section. The water level in this quadrant was nearing eight meters.

  “How long has this been filling?” I asked Barney.

  “The alerts didn’t warn us until it was at seventy percent.” Barney looked scared, and I knew why. Rolosh, the Angor supervisor for the entire project, was striding toward us, concern etched deeply on his ribbed brow.

  The alarms were intended to give an instant warning. My own tablet was linked to the network, and I would often receive a gentle chime in the middle of the night, advising me a drop of rain had reached one of the hundreds of sensors. I checked my tablet now, finding no notification of a problem. “Someone messed with this.”

  Barney shook his head. “Can’t be. Nobody would purposely do this.”

  I glanced at the incoming Angor and swallowed a lump in my throat. “You want to bet?” There was a percentage of our population still confident the Angor weren’t here for our best interest, despite the fact that they’d never done anything to prove otherwise. At times, our cultural differences put us at odds, but they always accommodated our needs. As much as I selfishly wished they hadn’t dropped into our atmosphere, I did think they were a blessing to our people. My own parents would be the first to argue my point.

  “What is the issue?” Rolosh stopped near the opening in the floor and gasped. “This… what has happened?”

  “I’ll fix it,” I promised him.