The Girl from Outside Time: Singularity Sigil, #1

By A.J. Morrison

Ryan had a normal life, school, band, a crush on the hottest girl around—at least until Emmy showed up and brings all the problems of the future with her.

Soon he's swept up in invading robot spiders, blood sucking cheerleaders, zombie frogs and lurching like a ping-pong ball through history itself. And he can't help but keep himself as close to Emmy as he can manage, both because she's the only person who can save him and because of the new tumultuous feelings brewing in his heart.

Emmy didn't want to get involved—after all, Ryan is a barbarian from the dark age of today, but with every new adventure and challenge he proves himself more clever and intelligent than she could ever imagine. But she can't get any closer. All her friends and family back home in the Singularity—the far future techo-paradise that she calls home—they would never accept anyone from this distant dismal era of history. And worse, what would Ryan do if he learned the dark secret that drew Emmy back through time to the world of today?

Can they defend our world against the strange threats and bizarre monsters threatening to invade our history? Can Ryan keep up with a girl thousands of years more advanced than he is? And most importantly, can he melt Emmy's heart and learn the truth about the future?

Find out in The Girl From Outside Time!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Studio Tacolicious
• Release date: Apr 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781498963831

A.J. Morrison

A.J. Morrison went to school for a very long time and earned a very useless degree, so she works a very mindless job for very long hours... But every free moment she gets she's writing. Short stories. Novels. Anything. And now she's just now getting over the stage fright of letting other people see her stuff.

Book preview

One

We were really getting slaughtered, our football team. Not that I cared. My mind was occupied with more important matters.

The brass slide slipped down further. My lips vibrated against the mouthpiece. But for all the effort I put into playing even that wasn’t what my mind was occupied with.

No. I was firmly focused on Miranda Wallace. My eyes were pointed hard to the side. I could just barely separate out her silhouette against the other cheerleaders.

I felt that little twinge in my heart. You have to know what I’m talking about. That little jolt of pain—that ache.

Because I was in the school band. She was a pretty and popular cheerleader. Real original, I know, but what can you do?

The halftime show was nearly over. Soon she would disappear back into the darkness and I’d lose sight of her once again. A strange flash of light illuminated the field. It reacted beautifully with Miranda’s strawberry blonde hair and the red and black of her cheerleader uniform. Her feature were soft and round in contrast with her slim body.

My buddy Fred was positioned immediately in front of me. He tapped suggestively on the bell of his trumpet and winked at me.

The school band’s brief moment of glory was over and we lowered our instruments. The cheerleaders too marched off the field. It was time to watch our team get clobbered some more.

The cheerleaders stopped at our side. Most of them immediately forgot their routines and began chattering among themselves, fixing their hair, their socks. Shoes. Whatever.

But Miranda, she saw something. She looked up into the air. Instinctively I followed her gaze and tried to figure out what she saw.

D—does anybody know what that is? she said.

The referees whistle rang out and our opponents kicked the football across the field.

Nobody else seemed to be paying attention to what Miranda saw. For a moment I thought they were shooting stars. Five small lights twinkled in the sky. They were sliding across the sky, though, their movement obvious to the naked eye. And they moved in formation. No. These couldn’t be meteors.

One of the players on our team snatched up the pigskin and charged forward. The other team already surrounded him.

The mystery of the lights didn’t interest me too much, so my gaze returned to Miranda and her easy, soft features. Her smoldering brown eyes...

Kickoff had been just before sundown, and now more than halfway through the game the night sky was dark. Only a few stray stars and those strange meteors lit the field. For the most part, the field was illuminated by two large lighting rigs that hung high and to the sides of the field.

A flash of light swept across the field, much, much brighter than either of the rigs.

Something in the back of my mind—something unconscious—autonomic—told me to look up. I’m not sure how I was able to resist it—but I kept my gaze on Miranda. Beautiful, sweet, Miranda.

What was happening to us? The cheerleaders and other members of the band went silent—as did the players, the spectators and everybody else who was nearby. Was everybody else paralyzed with fear? Or was something else going on?

Suddenly, the band snapped to life. Fred and the other brass players hurled their instruments to the dirt. What were they doing? They slammed their feet down on the bells and crumpled the stems.

The other players—the woodwinds and percussionists—began to play a strange, impossible melody. It was otherworldly—alien—abstract. Unlike anything I had ever listened to before. And I’m a music geek—I’ve listened to Captain Beefheart and the Residents—

For a moment I felt an urge deep inside me to crush my trombone like the other brass players... but I was still focused on Miranda.

I didn’t know what was going on but whatever it was had to be bad. I didn’t care what the lights were or what they wanted. I had to protect Miranda—

I pressed myself through the band and toward the cheerleaders.

Everyone else was still standing absolutely still and stiff as a board.

I managed to reach her. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe if I touched her she would regain her intelligence, then we could ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after. My hand brushed against her shoulder. She felt cold.

She did not react in any way.

I darted my eyes around quickly, but felt something screaming in my brain. I turned my eyes back to Miranda and my mind calmed.

Okay. So whatever all this was, my focus on Miranda was what was keeping me conscious. Cognizant. Keeping me from turning into a zombie like everybody else.

I closed my eyes and pushed myself closer to her. It took all my strength, but I jammed my shoulder into her stomach.

Again, she didn’t react.

It was pretty hard, but somehow the fear pulsing through me gave me access to a reserve of strength that I never knew I had. I balanced Miranda on my shoulder and I stumbled away, awkwardly, one step at a time.

Maybe if I got her far enough away she would regain her consciousness—that’s what I told myself. I darted between the bystanders, the other cheerleaders, the spectators and everybody else.

My muscles ached and burned, but I had to get away. And I couldn’t leave Miranda to whatever strange fate was overtaking everybody else.

I dragged her past the field and down the road. Eventually, just as my muscles were about to give out and I was about to collapse, I passed far enough that the trees blocked out the strange light formation.

Miranda began to move. Her muscles jerked and struggled. Was she finally far enough away to regain her control of herself?

Her hands reached around my shoulders and clamped down.

This didn’t seem right...

Then she slammed me down onto the ground.

She had a blank look on her face, mindless, serene and terrifying. She watched me with empty eyes. She was still under the control of the lights—or whatever it was.

I held back and watched her and she watched me. Finally, she seemed satisfied that I wouldn’t bother her further. She spun around and stepped toward the field.

Something inside me wouldn’t let her go. I charged at her. Her movements were careful and precise. She slammed her fingers into a pressure point in my wrist.

I cried out in pain.

I tried to fight through it, I really did, but I couldn’t. It wouldn’t work. She knew how to lay her hands down on me and stop me from fighting back.

Pain throbbed and echoed through my entire body. I was defeated.

With that done, she turned away from me and back toward the field.

A sense of absolute doom swelled up through me. There was nothing I could do to help. The girl I—well, I cared for her a great deal... Miranda and all my friends and classmates were doomed and there was nothing I could do about it.

Then she appeared, as if from nowhere.

Just enough light reflected off the trees to illuminate her. She was tall and thin and strangely dressed. Her features seemed somehow regal, with the exception of the explosion of freckles across her face. Her hair was a ragged storm of brown and red curls knotted together. She wore a long maroon and russet scarf draped over her neck, as well as a long brown coat and a sweater underneath it.

Overdressed for the season.

She smiled at me and pointed a small black stick at me. It hummed mechanically and instantly the pain that throbbed through my body vanished.

I grunted.

Hullo, she said. Her voice held a hint of an English accent, Nice outfit you’ve got on.

I was still wearing my doofy school band uniform.

I croaked.

Miranda seemed to hear the commotion.

That, said the strange girl sharply, I’m less impressed with. Purple and black? Honestly, who is your tailor.

Miranda stumbled toward the strange girl with a confused, mechanical gait. The strange girl held up her stick and clicked a small dial on it, then pressed a button on it’s side.

The air felt heavy for a moment. I felt sick to my stomach.

Miranda collapsed in a heap.

The strange girl walked up to me and held out her hand.

Need a lift? she said.

I reached for her hand. Our fingers touched and a strange sense of electricity passed between us.

Who are you? I said, as she helped me to my feet.

For a moment she blushed and was lost in thought. She was so strange. Beautiful. So weird and different. Finally, it seemed like a million years later, though it could only possibly be five seconds, she said, I’m just an intern. Don’t worry about it.

Two

You should probably go home and forget all this. I’ll clean everything up, the intern said.

I said, My friends...

Will be fine, the strange girl said, sharply, They’ll wake up with a headache and a hole in their memory. Starting with this one.

She motioned toward Miranda’s unconscious form.

I said, Can you at least tell me what’s going on?

The strange girl grimaced.

Would you believe swamp gas? What about hot air balloons?

I stared at her.

Whatever, she said, Don’t worry about it. Go home. Relax. Play your X-Box or Nintendo or whatever. I’ll take care of everything.

She stepped past me and continued on the path toward the field. I watched her until she passed a curve in the path. It would probably be safe to heed her advice. But...

I pulled out my cell phone. Even though normally I had full bars here, the icon in the corner told me it had no signal. Calling 911 was out of the question. I couldn’t very well drag Miranda to the hospital, at any rate.

I stepped over to her and rolled her body over. She was breathing easily and her pulse seemed regular, though I didn’t know what it would feel like normally. She’d be fine. Probably. Or at least as fine as anybody else.

And honestly, I was suddenly more interested in this new strange girl. The intern.

I turned back toward the field. As I passed the curve in the path I saw the park once more. A figure—it seemed to be the intern, though I couldn’t be sure, stepped gingerly toward the field.

Everybody who came there for the game—the players, the cheerleaders, the band and the spectators, stepped mechanically around the grass. They arranged themselves in a strange geometric pattern.

I looked up at the light. Before when I beheld it I heard an angry animal scream stronger than I could resist. This time seeing the lights made me feel a little fuzzy, nothing more.

The intern’s steps grew slower. She examined the people who were under this strange mind control.

I charged up behind her.

What are they doing? I said.

Didn’t I tell you to go home, the intern said.

I don’t take orders well, I said and shrugged, So what are they doing?

It’s complex. Geometric. Mathematically. You wouldn’t understand, said the intern.

So what are the lights, then, at least?

She turned toward me for a moment and thought. A thousand thoughts flashed through her face—was she going to tell me the truth? A white lie? Would I be able to handle the full enormity of whatever this strange effect was?

Aliens, she said, It’s more complicated than just that, but you’ll understand aliens.

Was she being serious? But then again—could there be any other explanation? Anything else that could account for all this would be at least this insane.

Okay, I said, So how do we beat them.

You let me work, said the intern, and she stepped away from me.

She pulled the small black stick from one of her coat pockets and pointed it toward the sky. She depressed one of the buttons on it’s side.

I heard a tiny tinny buzz just on this end of human perception.

Suddenly, the color of the hovering formation of lights shifted. White, to yellow, to pink, to a furious blood red. And they spun a quarter rotation around. And began to lower.

Do try and keep out of the way, said the intern.

She smiled at me, then motioned for me to leave the field.

A few moments later the lights had descended close enough to the ground to see the structure that held them together. With the bright light so close to them it was impossible to see details, but they were held together with massive squared scaffolding with a circular core held in the center. It was some sort of flying saucer.

It lowered itself closer to the ground until it hung scarcely a dozen feet above our heads.

The strange girl pointed her stick at the center of the flying saucer and tightened her fingers around the shaft.

A sound of rushing air echoed over the field. Something on the center of the saucer moved.

And then they came.

Their cores weren’t too much larger than human size, though they were clearly covered in metal. They seemed to wear strange scavenged pieces of metal, steel, brass, anything they could get their pincher claws on, and it was bent and welded unevenly together. From one end of the core an apparatus not unlike a video camera stood out. Immediately it’s focal point turned toward the strange girl.

And from the core a set of somewhere between eight and twelve long, skinny arms extended. Each had somewhere between three and five elbows and some kind of scavenged claw, each one different and unique. I couldn’t count precisely how many it had because of how quickly each moved—caught the edge of it’s saucer, snatched at the ground.

Thought you’d never climb out of that old rust bucket, said the intern, So what do you want with this world-line?

The mechanical spider growled. The sound was backed with a strange electronic static. It almost sounded like a code, or language.

Clever, said the intern, Suppose that explains a lot. But no matter. In the name of the Singularity Alliance, code two article seventeen...

Before she could finish her sentence one of the spider’s arms swung for her.

Very naughty, she said, and dodged it with ease, Assaulting an officer of the Alliance is a very serious offense. Knock it off or you’ll get in some real trouble, boyo.

She dodged another attack.

Okay, maybe not one-hundred percent, said the intern, But close enough. I’m the closest you’re likely to see in this part of history.

The robot spider swung again. Again the intern tried to dodge, but this time the spider was faster. It caught her in the shoulder. She rolled away from it and the spider tore the sleeve off