John Wyeth was a successful man. At nineteen, he graduated at the top of his class at a respected university. By the age of twenty-two, he had survived three brutal years of warfare, serving as commanding officer for a behind-the-lines reconnaissance platoon. Now at thirty-one, he was the Senior Project Leader for the super secret think tank NATech, and he was very good at what he did. Everyone knew and no one doubted that within a few years he would be the Director. And then he was killed. Sort of. When John "woke up", things were different. Instead of his excellent physical condition, he was caught in a Healer's Sleep that robbed him of all voluntary movement and all his senses except hearing. Instead of being a respected leader in an organization for good, he was the dependent refugee of an outlawed resistance, one the world government wanted to destroy. Instead of being in the early 21st Century, he was now in the late 27th Century. And instead of being a thirty-one year old man.
At the age of sixteen, Abigail Wyeth was thirty-three years old. Born in the twentieth century, she now lived in the twenty-seventh. Having died in 2026 at the age of thirty-one, her mind and soul were harvested and placed into a computer "for the good of mankind". After she'd served the purpose intended, her mind was used to oversee Earths' PlanNet defenses and end the Terran/Martian Wars. She was the housekeeper to madman. An environmental control for an apartment building. A seductress who would revel in anything done to her. A computer that performed four basic functions for over a century. Whatever the highest bidder wanted. She was saved from all that and her memories restored in 2676. Now, in 2678, Abigail was a vibrant sixteen-year old girl. She had a new name, a new identity, new friends and a bright life ahead of her. All that remained of her past were the training and experiences of her original life and the piercing shards of her false personas that were slowly destroying her mind.
Abigail Wyeth was alone. Terribly, horribly alone. Her friends lay dead. Her new life was destroyed; nothing more than a smoldering crater in the Sahara. She herself lay on the desert sands, seriously wounded and bleeding, utterly alone. Alone with her thoughts. The thoughts of a dozen false personas. Six and half centuries of despair, her mind controlled, programmed, used, by others. Thoughts no longer hers. Thoughts that were destroying her mind, racing her toward an inevitable, agonizing death. Yet there still remained in Abigail a burning hope that fueled her. An indomitable will that refused to surrender. An absolute sense of justice that screamed its defiance to the inevitable. And a certainty of faith that reassured Abigail that she was not the sum of her thoughts but rather the totality of her soul, and would not always be alone.
A sudden, rending scream from the depths of hell made even these seasoned veterans jerk and twirl toward this terrifying, unknown enemy. Aaron's high-speed slug gun had the piercing screech of a banshee as he stood there - his legs so immobile despite the wicked recoil that they seemed bolted to the stone floor. With his upper body and shoulders, he muscled the gun in sweeping motions that disintegrated cold metal and warm flesh alike, each shredding like paper from the gun's heavy slugs. They danced and lurched on invisible strings that plucked them from both sides; the ricocheting pieces of jagged metal being even worse than the slugs.
