Trip Wire: Omega Twin Book 1

By C. A. Williams

About the Book
Peyton Riley is a normal teenage girl in the protected research city of Wester, living life with friends, family, school, and...homework. But when she finds out that she will no longer be able to communicate across the war-ravaged country and speak with her twin brother, Hunter, she makes the daring decision to leave the protection of Wester to travel to Coda and find him.
Then, it all goes wrong.
Her parents get kidnapped. One of her best friends turns out to not even be human, and worst of all, Hunter may be a complete lie.
Or is she the lie?
About the Author
C. A. Williams is a born-and-raised native of South Carolina. He is an orchestra teacher and spends his spare time writing both music and stories, like this one. His current works are geared toward middle and high school students, but he also enjoys exploring the crazy-fun world of the elementary mind. He is a fledgling author and hopes that you enjoy this story.
Dreamland is a child's bedtime story to help inspire positive emotions to sleep on, reminding us that anything is possible.
It is so important that your children are reminded regularly that you are thinking of them and that you love them.
Serena O’Brien is co-founder of the non-profit organization, Adaptive SCUBA Programs, serving Veterans and Individuals with disabilities through SCUBA Diving.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Dec 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887298481

Book preview

[:chapter_ONE]

The air on the roof is the most real. It’s the freshest, where the breeze doesn’t seem to have to compete with the sterile streets and building corners below me. There are trees here and there, not dotted around like something natural, but carefully planned, positioned just so, not one out of place. The buildings all seem to be at least five stories high, many far taller, even twelve stories, possibly more. Not this building. This building sits about ten blocks away from the tallest buildings, with small houses in between. It’s only two stories high with a basement. But I don’t go down there. Ever. I guess it’s the feeling of being underground that I don’t like, the dark dankness and the suffocating air.

And the lack of color. Of course, up here, the only real color is in the trees themselves. The buildings of this backward research town—Wester—are stark white, kept that way by adamant street sweepers and building scrubbers who spend their boring, scheduled lives keeping us just as sterile as the day we were born. But wait, there is color. Deviating from the stark white, dappled here and there—or maybe this was patterned, too—are buildings which are gray. Varying shades. Light, dark, middlish. But you have to admit, they’re just gray in everyday speech. It’s like somewhere in the past a huge nuclear bomb was dropped here, but instead of demolishing the town and blowing it back to the Stone Age, the bomb left all the ash and devastating look of nuclear fallout, but everything else remained perfectly intact.

I sigh, blowing out the air that remains after until my lungs are so empty that I start to quiver a little. Then I breathe in very deeply. When my lungs are full, I try to suck in even more.

Leave some for the rest of us.

Not a very deep voice, but definitely male. It belongs to a tall, skinny boy named Baylor. I don’t turn around, although I can hear him getting closer, not even attempting not to disturb the sanctity of silence that only the birds have the right to interrupt.

Need something, Bay? I ask as he squats beside me.

He doesn’t answer, only peers over the edge of the roof. A look of disdain floats across his face for a moment, then his ever-present smile returns. He brushes his flat brown hair out of his eyes (I’m not sure why he just doesn’t cut his bangs) and stands back up.

They sent me to find you. We’re supposed to be in class, you know.

Instead of continuing to stand, Baylor decides to sit this time. He plops his rump on the pristine rooftop right beside me.

Of course they’d send you. You always know where I am.

He nods.

But you never tell them, do you?

Nah. As long as we get back in about fifteen, twenty minutes, no harm done. They don’t really ask anyway. He pauses for a moment. Peyton, he asks me, why do we come up here?

We? I question.

Well, you. But ten minutes later, I follow, you know that. So why do we come up here? Is it because Manning droning on about research methodology in Wester as it relates to neo-primitive theory bores us to near catatonia? Or is it something else?

For you, I say, it’s the near catatonia.

He grins wider.

For me, it’s the feel of the sun on my skin.

UV addiction?

Possibly, I laugh.

Beautiful girl like you? You know it’s damaging, right?

Well, the ozone layer has been rectified about thirty years now, so I disavow the propaganda. I nudge him. And you could use a little sun.

It’s definitely true. Baylor is the palest kid I know. We’re both sixteen, but his skin is like a baby’s butt in color, probably smoothness, too. I worry about his vitamin D activation sometimes, whether he’s deficient or not. No one could ever wonder about me, though. Peyton Riley, beautiful girl, according to Baylor. With my flowing brown curls, born just this morning from the ruins of the frizz storm that is my normal state, my golden-tanned skin, and my radiant hazel eyes. Those radiant hazel eyes look at the golden-tanned skin and notice the cracks forming on my knuckles.

A little sun, Baylor goes on. A little more of an appetite, perhaps. A rocket to get the heck out of Wester. He notices my silence and looks where my eyes have fallen. I’ve got some lotion back in the classroom for that. Told you the sun’s bad for you.

His voice isn’t critical or mocking or even superior. It’s concerned. We both know about the cracks at my knuckles. And we both know what last night was. It happened again. My fit, my nightmare taking over. Every now and then, more frequently than I would like, I fade. I fade away and get another headache. And I wake up back in my room, in bed with my parents just outside the door discussing something I can never quite hear. And they tell me it’s going to be okay. Remember? Just like last time, it’s going to be okay.

Only, I don’t remember.

C’mon, I say. Let’s get back to neo-primitive theory.

I stand first, then grab Baylor’s bony hand and pull him to his feet. He doesn’t really need my help, seeing as he can spring straight up like a rabbit if he wants to, but he accepts my hand anyway. Once we’re both standing, we head for the roof access door to return to tedium.

You never answered my question, Baylor says as we descend the short set of stairs to the second floor.

I say we go up there to get out of Wester.

Okay, he says in a noncommittal voice.

I really like Baylor. He is, after all, my best friend in the world. He seems to enjoy my defiance of authority, my rebel attitude. And I do enjoy his soothing lotion.

Back in the classroom I make up some excuse about a wobbly stomach and take my seat at my table with the three others assigned to it: Baylor, who sits beside me, Maggie beside him, and Rhea, who is on my left side. Rhea deftly taps several times on the flat-level screen in front of me bringing up a moving hologram picture of whatever it is Manning is lecturing about at the moment.

Thanks, I whisper.

She just smiles at me and turns back to her portion of the table.

The rest of the class, which lasts forever, although some would say only two hours on this side of it, moves us from hologram to hologram, history to present, present to future, all ending with research—the only logical outcome. When Manning releases us from our current hell, we move to our next: physical activity. Today’s assignment is rappelling. I’ve never been one to enjoy this activity. Climbing something high and menacing just so you can do a controlled fall off of it is not my idea of entertainment. Baylor, however, takes to it like it’s nothing.

You’re my belayer, so you should probably be paying attention, he calls down to me from a dizzying height.

Looking up at him makes my neck hurt and my head spin. I nod, thankful that lunch is after this and breakfast was far enough back so there’s nothing fighting to resurge. Less than thirty seconds later, he’s on the ground and it’s my turn to go up the menace. Rhea and Maggie, our constant companions in school for classes and group assignments, unhook Baylor and come at me with the requisite clamps to rig my harness. I just stand like a scolded puppy as they hook me up and push me to the wall.

Stupid wall, I mutter.

Baylor slaps me on the back and laughs. He’s always laughing at me. I’m glad I can be his personal jester. And that is exactly what I feel like right now. A clown, a girl with absolutely no coordination headed for social disaster so that my jestership can be extended to the entire class.

Pretend you’re going to the roof, he whispers in my ear.

Normally, I would mind a guy being that close to my head without permission, but when has Baylor ever asked for permission? He’d do it anyway, just to make me mad. But he knows it doesn’t.

The roof requires about six steps, I hiss at him. This is a monstrous wall of evil.

Again, he laughs. Then, just as I would expect him to, he shoves me onto the wall and pushes me up by my lower back.

Move it, Riley, he shouts as our instructor wanders by to check on our progress.

I groan and start my ascent into oblivion. If I survive, the descent into oblivion is what awaits me. I climb rather swiftly. It’s not difficult. I’m not a heavy person, not particularly weak. I have fair agility and the mental acuity to conquer the wall. The act of climbing really doesn’t bother me. It’s the acrophobia that’s the problem, knowing I’m deliberately putting precious feet between me and the ground. Periodically, I close my eyes and talk to myself. You got it. Keep going, Peyton. Your reward will be landing on Bay on the way down.

You got it, Peyton. Keep going.

Suddenly I realize the voice in my head is also ringing in my ears. Baylor’s cheering me on. So I smile and keep climbing. Maybe I won’t land on him after all. At the top, I climb over the ledge and pause to catch my breath. I don’t dare look down. Heights dizzy me. So I wonder why I go to the roof. I know I said some poetic crap to Baylor earlier, but now I truly wonder. Heights make me queasy. They make him queasy, too, but he can overcome just about anything when he’s challenged. That’s why he can climb this wall like a squirrel climbs a tree. But all of that aside, why the roof? Why go somewhere higher than this wall? I don’t look over the side. That would cause me fits. But I go up there, knowing that over those sides could be my death, adding just a splat of color to the dull streets of Wester. Why, why, why?

You can come down now, Peyton.

He’s calling me Peyton. That means our instructor has lost interest in our group and has moved on to torture someone else’s group. I call down the required on rappel and hear Maggie’s voice reply with On belay. I close my eyes with my belly to the face of the wall. And I jump. And I fall. Controlled fall my—

Peyton! Maggie! You guys all right? Rhea yells.

Apparently, I’ve landed on Maggie, let myself fall too fast, and she didn’t react in time to stop me. Once Baylor and Rhea are done dividing up whose limbs are whose, I stand up, rather sore. Maggie drags herself to her feet, probably sorer than I am. I replay the ahh! and the crunch-thud-crumple over again in my head. A crowd has started to form and the Kingdom of the Jester has officially conquered the room.

Okay, guys, Baylor says, suppressing a snicker, nothing to see. Back to your walls. They’re okay.

***

Lunch, Nuclear Fission Theory and Research Lab, then the day is over. Rhea offers to walk me home. I’m sure Maggie would probably dispose of me along the way, attempting to add that splat of color to the streets personally. I find myself glad to be walking with Rhea. She’s a nice girl. All of my friends are nice, but Rhea’s nice because she’s like me. We both flaunt authority somewhat, even though we still tend to obey most of the rules. She also knows I go to the roof during school, generally during Manning’s class because it will take him about ten or fifteen minutes to realize I’m not there. In looks, we’re nothing alike. She’s a raven-haired goddess, medium-brown and flawless skin, strong, bold and more beautiful than I could ever hope to be.

He likes you, you know, she says.

Yeah, I know, I say. I expect more, but nothing else comes. He’s cute. In an ‘I don’t want to grow up’ kind of way, I continue.

Rhea smiles and nods.

Of course, it’s Maggie I should be wondering about.

Maggie’s fine. A little dinged up, but fine, Rhea says honestly. But back to Bay. Ever thought about him in a…romantic way?

Why? Are you interested?

Maybe, she admits.

But I know Rhea would never go for Baylor. She’s too adventurous and he’s…Baylor. He has courage, of course, but he is not one to go out and look for danger. None of us would truly look for danger, but we would welcome it from time to time in this purely platonic town of dull gray and stark white. But Baylor? He doesn’t have the desire to rock the boat.

Liar, I say.

Rhea smirks and shakes her head. Yeah, I know. He’s too much like a brother to me. Speaking of brothers. Have you heard from Hunter lately?

I will tonight. He calls almost every day.

I think about Hunter all the time. My twin brother in this life. My lifeline in another world. He is gone from us, given to another family a long time ago in a situation I still do not understand to this day. His parents are researchers, too, but he doesn’t live in Wester. He lives in Coda, according to my parents. I ask myself every day why they would give up one of us. And then I recall the population cap laws in Wester. One child per family until population 2,675, then no more. If you happen to be one of the unlucky couples to marry near the population cap, it becomes a race to childbirth. The last couple? Well, if they moved away from Wester, that would free up two more couples to have a child. We are near the cap, but not quite there yet. But laws are laws and the choice had to be made between me and Hunter. I want to ask what spurred my parents’ decision, but I know it would be too painful to speak of. Choice is not really choice in Wester.

Tell him I said hello, Rhea whispers as she hugs me in front of my building.

I nod and turn to go inside.

I don’t live in one of the houses between the huge stoic buildings and the school. Since we are researchers for Wester, and even bigger, for the government, we live in the downstairs portion of a five-story walk-up. You’d think that in this day and age, there would be an elevator. That doesn’t matter much to us, though, since we occupy the entire first floor and the basement. It is a narrow building, each floor just enough for a single family—suiting four to five members comfortably—and having its own outside entrance via a set of rustic-looking wrought-iron stairs. Sometimes at night I step out onto the stairs and climb the remaining four flights to the fifth floor. You have to enter the hallway, which makes the flat slightly shorter than the lower four, in order to ascend to the roof. From here, I can see the stars on a clear night. But presently, I descend to the basement laboratory, where I know my parents are hard at work.

I’m home, I announce through the sounds of beeping and whirring and bubbling.

My mother taps violently at a keyboard while simultaneously swiping at a screen in front of her. Something must be wrong.

Grab a screen. Tether to mine. I need more hands, she shoots at me in rapid-fire greeting.

I do so quickly, taking one of the smaller lighter-than-air screens from a table near the center of her portion of the lab floor. This is the data analysis room, where the recorded results of my parents’ research is compiled and stored. The screen hooks to a place on the wall and I punch in a few commands once it’s humming gently with mechanical life like the rest of its kin in the room. It tethers effortlessly to the other screen.

Blasted data surges, my mother mumbles.

So that’s the problem.

What am I rerouting to where? I ask, already knowing my function.

Three-thirteen to Compartment D. Four-oh-seven is surging, so I’m trying to contain it. The system is more concerned with streaming the data than containing the experiment. It’s going to have to flow to Compartment E6 instead. Of course, if it implodes, that won’t matter.

I take it D is empty?

Not empty, but not full. Three-thirteen data has a marker on it, so it won’t get confused there. Now stop talking and start swiping.

I know what she means. I glide my fingers across the screen, catching data that should be going one place and funneling it to another. Now, the system should be doing this on its own via a manual override, but the data just keeps streaming in like a lost colony of ants. That must be what’s occupying my father.

Dad trying to fix the system?

Override is ignoring me, she mutters, her hands more free to beat the keyboard now that I’m swiping like mad.

I think we need more hands, I say.

You’re doing fine, she breathes, swiping at something on her screen I missed on mine. Well, she continues, do better.

I smile to myself. This is my afternoons. I come home to help my parents deal with some data crisis stemming from equipment that, oddly enough, is slightly outdated. The scene is equivalent to the old-timey comic tableaus of an ornery middle-aged man fighting a furnace downstairs while his wife juggles the children and the night’s dinner on the stove, all while her hair is in a pristine twist and her clothes neatly pressed and sparkling. I glance over at my mother’s pristine twist. It’s flailing as much as her hands are. I laugh.

Glad you’re enjoying yourself, dear.

The door opens and my father rumbles into the room.

All good? my mother asks, banging the keys one more time.

All good, he replies.

I notice the data on the screen beginning to move parts of itself along the reroute paths. My mother’s banging turns back into typing as she inputs the override commands again. This time, they take full effect.

Flux drives need replacing. I’ll talk to the Commissary tomorrow. This is ridiculous.

Didn’t you say that last week? I comment.

This garners a none-too-pleasant look from him.

Sorry, I mumble and I see his shoulders relax.

The Commissary’s been rather busy lately, refurbishing Konidor Labs a few blocks down. Those nanotechs get everything.

Nanotechnology is a bustling industry in Wester. The research grants for those projects seem endless. The government of most of Wester is actually steeped in it. We don’t have an active police force that monitors our streets and alleyways. Instead, a single nanochip implanted somewhere in our brains interacts with the neural pathways to monitor and correct criminal behavior. Of course, I wonder how much of this is simple policing and how much of it is borderline brainwashing, but I haven’t noticed my thoughts being invaded or being led to make decisions contrary to my convictions. Obviously, that could be planned out, too, by the diabolical chip, but somehow I doubt it. The chips are updated every few months to input whatever new laws or regulations we come up with. All in all, Wester is a peaceful place. We do have a police building where criminals are dealt with—no doubt rehabilitated through further nanotechnological means.

All of our information—health, financial, even school records and past decisions—are included on the nanochip. Again, this worries me, but I haven’t noticed any ill effects on our populace. In fact, it’s saved lives. I know of two students in my class who were immediately rushed to treatment for serious allergic reactions based on chip information. Also, it’s hard to rob people in a society that doesn’t use actual currency. All transactions are scanned and accounts charged via nanochip. Paper is near useless now. Which means our tall paintbrushes called trees are safe.

My father is mumbling on to my mother. I’m no longer concerned with the conversation. He can go on for hours ranting about the unfairness of grant distributions and frankly I don’t have the patience. I quietly make my way to the door and am almost through when my father addresses me again.

Hey, don’t forget about your brother. He’s supposed to call after dinner.

That makes me pause for a second. I can’t help but smile. Hunter always tells me the wondrous happenings of Coda, never mind the fact it has the same dull prospects as Wester. The population cap is a bit higher, though. I always dream of one day traveling to visit him. We often talk about running off together and living on the land. Not that either of us knows what that means. And there isn’t much land left to live off of.

After dinner—a wholly unimpressive roast chicken in need of rehydration and boiled broccoli—I head up to my room to do a little studying before the call. We have an important review session coming up before exams and it would help if I viewed the material before reviewing it. The subject is history and military/urbane tactics. Basically, what happened to us and how did the military respond, and how did we set up afterward, and how can we keep anything like it from happening again. I grab my screen from my pack and turn it on.

HoloView on. Third-year curriculum loaded. Voice-recognition software active.

It always feels the need to announce that it’s on, remind me that I’m a junior, and that it wants me to say something.

Peyton Riley.

Welcome, Peyton Riley, it chirps at me in that annoying feminine robot voice. I’ve toyed with trying to change the voice, but I’ve only succeeded in destroying two HoloViews in the last year, and these things aren’t cheap. Input voice command.

Subject: history, chapter twelve, I drone in a voice just as mechanical as the HoloView. I can’t help it. It’s automatic.

Locating….

A few low-level hums and the chapter appears on the screen.

Three-D view.

The image on the screen, along with the text, jumps into the air, hovering above the screen itself. From this setting I can manipulate the image to see anything I want to see, zooming in or out as necessary. Right now the image is of the desolate blackened wastes of the Beyond, the areas outside of